...means "are you well?" in Ladakhi. More travelers are arriving in Leh now that the weather is getting nice. It's good that we can see that happen and enjoy the good weather for a good while and then get out before it gets really crowded. We're looking forward to one last camping trek for four or five days, which will lead us right back to Secmol on the final day. Then we can chill on campus for a couple days before being swallowed by the Delhi Monster.
In light of my upcoming travels, I am changing the name of this blog from "James in Ladakh" to "James in Asia."
Peace.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Emptiness
Impermanence, interconnectedness, emptiness. Difficult concepts to explain, but let's see... For example, there is nothing we can call “I”. We don’t call our eyes and legs “me” but instead we say “my eyes” and “my legs”. Everything, in fact, is made of smaller parts and so the word that defines the whole is actually empty of any physical reality. The small parts are interconnected, but everything in its illusory “whole form” is impermanent. It is the understanding of these ideas that can deliver us from suffering, according to Buddhism (or help us get our priorities straight, to put it another way). Ask a lama “what is emptiness?” and your answer is likely to be preceded by a disclosure regarding the difficulty of that question, and maybe a smile with the head tilted back in thought. As I’ve come to understand, the concepts of emptiness, interconnectedness, and impermanence are interrelated.
Interconnectedness, the parts that make up the whole: body parts, species within an ecosystem, the particles of the universe. The acorn from which the oak has risen does not still exist somewhere underground. No, the acorn splits apart and resides in every small piece of the oak. The oak and the acorn are always one and the same, interconnected.
Impermanence: the oak will die and decompose, and eventually break down into parts so small that they will each inevitably become a part of everything else in the universe. (Once again interconnected.)
Emptiness: in and of itself, the thing we call the oak has no form. Again, it is only a product of its parts, so as a whole it is empty.
Our bodies are the same. When we say the word “I”, we can only describe that “I” as the sum of all our parts. That we are but a small part of something greater is also true.
Devoid of the form we attribute to ourselves, to this “I” that does not actually exist, our worries become absolutely meaningless and laughable. What is it that we are doing with that cash? Paying off an invisible debt, which came from where? A home and a car, which we return to after performing the work that lets us pay for them. We can’t enjoy our comfortable couch if we are working somewhere else to pay for it. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable not to work and pick up the free couch advertised on the community Internet space? Oh, but where do we put this couch, you ask? Where does the rent come from? But those of us from privileged backgrounds, have we not thought up a hundred ways to make some small amount of money without actually working? "But what about the bills?!" The car, that takes us away to the job we keep to pay for the comforts that await us at the home we drive away from. The car that removes us from the neighborhood that could be a community if we spent any real time as a part of it, instead of hidden somewhere in it. The community our compassion could be used on instead of wasted, leaving us in wonder about our lack of satisfaction. Do we not have a single neighbor who smiles at us, open to conversation? Maybe it’s the neighbor we talk about and suspect to be a little crazy, because he always seems to be home working on a silly project, instead of at a respectable job, suffering with the rest of us.
The cycle of suffering we create for ourselves can cease to exist the second we understand it’s utter lack of relevance to the thing we really care about. We can’t even spend a day with our loved ones unless we use a precious “day off” from the cycle we ourselves create. We--and expecially those of privileged backgrounds--don’t have a master. We begin with absolute freedom until we follow everyone else into self-sentenced slavery. We forget that happiness exists in every breath of air, every step we take. There is so much enjoyment to be had in every moment if we start taking control of our lives instead of passing up every last opportunity, like the connection we are bound to find in engaging our silly neighbor. For us, happiness always exists at the end of the day or week, after something else. We have to work up to it. In this sense we are always considering the sum of all our actions during the day that eventually lead us back home to happiness. But if we think about the emptiness that constitutes even abstract things like days and weeks, we are always left with smaller parts, and these are the moments that make up life. We can take control of these little moments, make each of them an active choice to do something. The moments too, are comprised of many parts: a step, a breath, a blink, a smile, a thought, and the pleasure only increases as we take the time to recognize, to be mindful of these smaller events.
________________________________________________________________________
The concept of emptiness is difficult to explain, even in one’s native tongue. Down at Songtsen our Buddhist teacher, Konchok Temphel, gave us examples in his second language better than I could now attempt in my first. His cousin Dorjee is rekindling those ideas in our regular meetings. I meet with Dorjee from the monastery school up the road for English grammar/Buddhist philosophy lessons. I go over a few points of grammar. Then I press the record button and ask him a question about Buddhism, which requires him to answer in the present continuous or past tense for example, and then he answers slowly. We break and I address a recurring grammatical problem, sometimes rewinding the tape or having him record another version of a sentence for comparative purposes. I hope that through these sessions we will both be able to use the English language to effectively explain the notions of emptiness, interconnectness, and impermanence.
Interconnectedness, the parts that make up the whole: body parts, species within an ecosystem, the particles of the universe. The acorn from which the oak has risen does not still exist somewhere underground. No, the acorn splits apart and resides in every small piece of the oak. The oak and the acorn are always one and the same, interconnected.
Impermanence: the oak will die and decompose, and eventually break down into parts so small that they will each inevitably become a part of everything else in the universe. (Once again interconnected.)
Emptiness: in and of itself, the thing we call the oak has no form. Again, it is only a product of its parts, so as a whole it is empty.
Our bodies are the same. When we say the word “I”, we can only describe that “I” as the sum of all our parts. That we are but a small part of something greater is also true.
Devoid of the form we attribute to ourselves, to this “I” that does not actually exist, our worries become absolutely meaningless and laughable. What is it that we are doing with that cash? Paying off an invisible debt, which came from where? A home and a car, which we return to after performing the work that lets us pay for them. We can’t enjoy our comfortable couch if we are working somewhere else to pay for it. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable not to work and pick up the free couch advertised on the community Internet space? Oh, but where do we put this couch, you ask? Where does the rent come from? But those of us from privileged backgrounds, have we not thought up a hundred ways to make some small amount of money without actually working? "But what about the bills?!" The car, that takes us away to the job we keep to pay for the comforts that await us at the home we drive away from. The car that removes us from the neighborhood that could be a community if we spent any real time as a part of it, instead of hidden somewhere in it. The community our compassion could be used on instead of wasted, leaving us in wonder about our lack of satisfaction. Do we not have a single neighbor who smiles at us, open to conversation? Maybe it’s the neighbor we talk about and suspect to be a little crazy, because he always seems to be home working on a silly project, instead of at a respectable job, suffering with the rest of us.
The cycle of suffering we create for ourselves can cease to exist the second we understand it’s utter lack of relevance to the thing we really care about. We can’t even spend a day with our loved ones unless we use a precious “day off” from the cycle we ourselves create. We--and expecially those of privileged backgrounds--don’t have a master. We begin with absolute freedom until we follow everyone else into self-sentenced slavery. We forget that happiness exists in every breath of air, every step we take. There is so much enjoyment to be had in every moment if we start taking control of our lives instead of passing up every last opportunity, like the connection we are bound to find in engaging our silly neighbor. For us, happiness always exists at the end of the day or week, after something else. We have to work up to it. In this sense we are always considering the sum of all our actions during the day that eventually lead us back home to happiness. But if we think about the emptiness that constitutes even abstract things like days and weeks, we are always left with smaller parts, and these are the moments that make up life. We can take control of these little moments, make each of them an active choice to do something. The moments too, are comprised of many parts: a step, a breath, a blink, a smile, a thought, and the pleasure only increases as we take the time to recognize, to be mindful of these smaller events.
________________________________________________________________________
The concept of emptiness is difficult to explain, even in one’s native tongue. Down at Songtsen our Buddhist teacher, Konchok Temphel, gave us examples in his second language better than I could now attempt in my first. His cousin Dorjee is rekindling those ideas in our regular meetings. I meet with Dorjee from the monastery school up the road for English grammar/Buddhist philosophy lessons. I go over a few points of grammar. Then I press the record button and ask him a question about Buddhism, which requires him to answer in the present continuous or past tense for example, and then he answers slowly. We break and I address a recurring grammatical problem, sometimes rewinding the tape or having him record another version of a sentence for comparative purposes. I hope that through these sessions we will both be able to use the English language to effectively explain the notions of emptiness, interconnectness, and impermanence.
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