Acupuncture & Adventure @ Shechen

Tomorrow I leave for the two-week Annapurna sanctuary & foothills trek. I'm looking forward to getting out of the city for a while and wandering through the more natural world; seeing a different part of Nepal, which in actuality is the majority of the country.

The last few days have been busy. On Wednesday the three of us (myself, Tais, and Caitlin, who's studying Tibetan medicine) visited the Fatimah clinic, which is here around Boudha, only a 15-20 minute walk. It's run by a Chinese woman and her daughter (both doctors); besides Chinese, they speak Tibetan, Nepali, English, and probably a few other languages fluently. We spent about half an hour waiting for a consultation, which I spent gazing at the incredibly detailed anatomical charts of acupuncture meridians and pressure points, and watching the elder doctor treat about ten people (she prescribed medicines like she could do it in her sleep). Then she did pulse analysis, and told me about current problems and a specific chronic imbalance that I need to correct. It was interesting to be the patient and feel how she used her four fingertips in different ways. After that she directed me to a bed (for acupuncture--face, arm, hand, legs, feet) and put two electrical current pads on my back. None of it was painful, but it wasn't entirely comfortable. The whole treatment lasted about 40 minutes, after which she gave me oil for muscle massage and three kinds of pills to take, which look like M&Ms.

Being the daughter of a medical malpractice lawyer, the strangest part of all this for me was being subject to treatment that I had no idea about. The doctor didn't explain what was going to happen, she simply proceeded. And I don't know what the pills are, because the labels are in Chinese! They're herbal, so I'm not worried about effects, but it's certainly a new experience to be so uninformed. It's counterintuitive to accept that, particularly because I'm studying medicine! Scholarly curiosity had to take a backseat.

When we left the clinic, my body felt so much better. The acupuncture had very specific effects; I was lighter, the tension in my back eased, the pain in my head from hitting it during yoga evaporated, the congestion in my throat and nose disappeared (pollution is likely to blame, though she cited flu for all of us). Several hours later, towards the end of my lesson with Kopila, I started feeling terrible, and so did Tais. We moaned our way through the evening. The funny thing was that while I was really miserable, my body still felt much better--the lightness and lack of tension endured, even during the waves of cramps and gas in my abdomen. By the time the misery subsided (already nighttime), my body was feeling much improved. I'm intrigued.

Before going home and after the treatment, we stopped at Shechen so Tais could pick up a book. What good fortune that we happened to go at the exact time we did! While we waited for someone to come unlock the shop, a monk came out to meet a Taiwanese couple standing nearby...he had incredibly bright blue eyes, and made a great impact. It was Mattieu Ricard! He was quite busy, of course, but he had a laugh with us and stopped to talk for just a moment. Later, Tais said she'd been trying to meet him since she got here, but it was always impossible. I had no idea; he runs Shechen, and I believe one other gompa here in Nepal, and has lived here for something like 30 years. I wish my mom was here; I'm sure she would so have loved to meet him.

I lost my cell phone in a taxi, so yesterday I got another at New Road with Yanik. I also renewed my visa (very important), another task that is taking more cash than I anticipated. Everything is money! We saw a totally crazy petrol line on the way to the immigration office, so on the way back we stopped and walked from the end of the line to the petrol pump and filmed it. The people on line--mostly guys, all with bikes (there's a separate line for cars, and for public vehicles, and for trucks)--had varying reactions...one gave the camera the finger, one said "our embarrassment is their pleasure," many waved and shouted things about the condition of things in Kathmandu.

In yoga we've been doing more pranayama, translated inaccurately but acceptably into English as breathing practices. Rupesh spent a while explaining the real meaning of prana to me the other morning, which was helpful, because knowing what the potential of the exercise really is makes the effect entirely different. The practice itself changes when my understanding changes. I had a ton of energy yesterday as a result (helpful when running around), but it was almost in excess...at the end of the day I was still full of energy, but I was exhausted as well. It was weird.

Today I have to go to the clinic to arrange classes with Dr. Koirala and schedule a three-day treatment course. Busy day, like every day...

Swoyambhunath

Three demonstrations were going on simultaneously in the city today. A bus driver accidentally killed a child, so there was unrest; a student got into a violent altercation with another bus driver and smashed the bus windows, so the bus drivers' union was demonstrating; and of course, the petrol situation demanded a strike. As a result the roads were blocked in at least ten places in the city--probably many more--and I had to walk most of the way back from the clinic (near Basundhara) to Boudha. It took me an hour, and that was because I was lucky enough to find a van running around Chabehl...otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten home until 8PM. It was a trip, literally and figuratively; masses of people walking down the streets, buses barricading the roads so vehicles were pulled off the side in front of buildings. What a mess! At least the weather is beautiful.

I've been reading an Osho book called "A new vision of women's liberation." At first some of his ideas seemed intriguing, if not exactly radical in today's world, but I also have some skepticism. His ideas about women don't ring entirely true. All in the name of education, I guess. It can't hurt to know what one of the most famous "gurus" of the age has to say about the question.

Most of the coming week will be spent outlining my study projects for this semester. I'm thinking the first will be on sex work and human trafficking, and the second will have something to do with the history of Pakistan, particularly Ghandara (specifically, modern day Peshawar and Swat). As it turns out, the scholar and professor who toured Swoyambhunath with us is a friend and colleague of Alfred Foucher's, and will be publishing with him soon. What a funny coincidence...for the past six months at least, the Indo-Greek kingdom has been a continuous presence; first it came up while I was working at RMA, then I did research on it for an art history course, and now I'm stumbling into treasures of travel writing and some more serious investigations. Just a few days ago I was scouring Vajra for more information (for some reason books on Pakistan are impossible to come by here), and came across a map drawn by Foucher of the ancient geography of Ghandara. And now I've met Hubert! Happily, one of the professors overseeing an independent study is an expert on Pakistan; it's his area of anthropological study, and I think focuses on archaeology. My assumption is that going further into this Hellenistic Buddhist art will lead to deep waters.

I admit that I'm already watering at the mouth to travel, but that pesky survival instinct (and rational thought) will keep me away for at least another year or two. Still, since first discovering the history of this incredible vertex of civilizations, I've had a gut feeling that I must go there someday. Now I have no doubt--even if it's just intellectual capriciousness...but I don't think it is!

Speaking of Swoyambhunath, it was a spectacular place. The stupa itself was impressive. More than that, though, is the insane history that is what makes it a spot equal in meditative power to Bodghaya to the Buddhists...all of the scholars and yogis who had a hand in making it the sacred site it is. We spent the most time in a smallish temple, not very fantastic looking on the outside (and even inside really, compared to others), called Shantipur. Under it in a locked chamber is supposedly buried a three-dimensional Chakrasambhara mandala, in which resides the spirit of the first Newari Buddhist, the Indian yogi Shantikar Acharya (8th century). Only five people--all of the vajra master caste--are allowed to enter this locked part of the temple. The place overall has a powerful atmosphere, but this temple was particularly peculiar.

Atop Swoyambhu is also a small, rectangular building, the inner perimeter of which is lined with white shelves, protected from the visiting public by black iron gates. On the shelves are statues and carvings dug up from beneath the stupa and around it. All of them are breathtaking, but one work caught my attention--and it turned out to be the single piece not from the local area. It was a gift from a museum in Pakistan dating from Ghandara; a seated Hellenistic Buddha. My heart leapt! What a joy to see it...the only one in Nepal, from what Hubert said. And I would never have known! There are too many incredible things about these places to mention, and that's only of what I know, which barely qualifies as a fraction of a fraction of the history.

Enough for now, brain boiling over.

Cancer and Ayurveda

Has it really been four days since I wrote? Life gets very busy. Caitlin arrived here a day or two ago, so now it's really a full house, and a lot of women for one home! It's amazing how three really is a crowd, because each day feels significantly busier and someone is always coming or going, whether it's one of us or a teacher.

Yesterday I visited the Ayurveda Health Home for the first time after the morning lesson with Kopila, and got a whole body treatment. The place itself is beautiful and far cleaner than most places in the city--they even maintain the road leading up to the buildings--but I noticed that expansion and construction is changing the atmosphere of the area, which Kopila confirmed. The center has been in existence for more than ten years already, but it's only been in its current location since 2001; already the constant development in Kathmandu is forcing them to consider moving again so their patients can be closer to nature, out of the urban environment.

The treatment was of course relaxing, but also an interesting experience. I faced the continuous difficulty of intentionally relaxing my body, which is surprisingly hard, as anyone who's tried will attest to. It also reminded me of all the overlooked places in the body where stress accumulates--the fingertips, eyelids, hips, clavicle. Mentally, I found myself thinking about remembering everything in order to practice it and learn to do it on other people...but eventually I focused enough to just experience the treatment, which was certainly more informative about the human body in general and my own in particular. Before and after the treatment they gave me tulasi (holy basil--not the powder spice) tea. Tulasi is worshipped as the Vishnu plant (legend claims that he was cursed to exist as grass, herb, stone, and river--tulasi is his herb) and has many beneficial effects, including boosting immunity and helping to purify the blood.

Our classes for the past few days have focused on menstruation and menopause, but now we are moving into specific diseases. Today we reviewed general management of cancer cases. We discussed a lot of things, but I found one passage from a book called The Wisdom of Healing, by David Simon, particularly shareable. First, I will mention that Ayurveda holds the view that we must know ourselves physically on a micro level. As a part of the Ayurvedic/yogic life, a person should get to know and sense every cell of their body, and be able to sense the change and flux of energy in each one, particularly if something is unbalanced.

Simon claims that cancer cells are the cells in the body that have lost their memory of wholeness. They no longer recognize their place and capacity in the whole of the body, and their ability to sense other cells is diminished. In their quest to expand their sphere of influence, i.e. cellular egotism, they feel no compassion for other cells and destroy them and themselves. Thus cancer results from a breakdown in self-referral. Having lost their connection and forgotten their purpose for existence, they mutate into cancer cells. This emphasizes the importance of knowing every cell of our own bodies--only with such sensitivity can we then seek to expand our awareness of the world around us.

Because of this, we wound up talking about yogic life for a while, and particularly the four stages of life according to yoga, which I was recently reading about in Kundalini Yoga for the West (by Swami Sivananda Radha). This was expounded when men typically lived to 100 years in India. The first 25 years of life are called the Brahmacharya stage, and are focused on education. A man (and now woman I suppose) is responsible only for himself and his learning. At this point, he has nothing. The second 25 years of his life are called Grinsthasrama, and it is the period in which he works, marries, and raises a family. He becomes responsible for these people, and focuses on collecting the resources and so forth that he needs. The third stage of life, also 25 years, is the Samyasrama, and it is called the period of "effortless job". The book said it is when a man is free of his family, which is grown, and goes to devote himself to a teacher. At this time he focuses on no longer collecting--he does not give, but he is no longer seeking to receive. In the final quarter of his life, the Vanaprasthasana, he "goes to the jungle". The book says it is when the man becomes a teacher himself. At this point he is able to discern to whom he should give away what he has learned and acquired in his life, in order that it may be used properly.

There are also eight ways of the yogi, which we talked about. The first two go together--understanding what we should DO, and understanding what we should NOT DO. The third is posture, or yoga asanas, fourth is breathing practices, fifth is the ability to sense the rhythm and vibration of every cell in the body, sixth is to extend this sensitivity to the mind, seventh is meditation, and eighth is Nirvana. It's a bit funny to note that learning to DO and NOT DO is a mighty challenge that can easily humble someone who has achieved a great deal as far as postures or breathing. Besides, mastery is a whole different level from practice, and as we are reminded many times, many try, but few attain.

Today I went back to the clinic in the afternoon and had another lesson, this time with Dr. Koirala, who runs the clinic and is Kopila's senior doctor. The lesson was short and sweet, and I found myself in a profoundly calm state of mind throughout the time I was with him, no doubt partly because he is a man with a very strong ability to concentrate and a deeply intuitive connection to what he does. I got the feeling that academic study of medicine was more like finishing school for him--a refinement of manner and technique, while his practice was the source of most true understanding. We reviewed basics about Ayurveda, which he explained clearly and with care--he told me that after giving a lecture at a Western medical school, one student asked him to sum up in a sentence the difference between "his" medical system and "theirs". He said, "You believe in death--we believe in transformation." All of life is not static, it is a dynamic process.

He said that life is not only always moving, but is also uniting; that there is always movement towards cohesiveness in time and space. If we can learn to modify the elements of a process, we can change what is happening, i.e. illnesses. But how many people, including medical professionals Western or Eastern, can claim to have such an intimate knowledge of the elements? Knowing chemical properties doesn't give anyone the power to heal themselves. If something is wrong in the body, the flow of all things in the body is interrupted and naturally gravitates toward the disturbance in an effort to restore balance. This is part of why it is considered so important to introduce remedies that are taken wholly and not in part (active elements)--so the body can assimilate them naturally, without reacting to the healing agent.

The dynamism of life and health is the principle that emerged as most important to understand from this lesson. As in Tibetan medicine, the three doshas (representative of the five elements) are the basis of all wellness and illness. Vata is all movement and activity, pitta is all transformation, and kapha is cohesion. These three, in the nature of the elements--space and air, fire, and water and earth respectively--are mostly always in subjective process. Occasionally they manifest in an objective entity, and this is where we go wrong, in perceiving always an objective entity instead of a subjective process.

Dr. Koirala also spoke about vibration and the effects it can have on health. For example, he said that living in a place where there is excessive vibration from traffic--where the vibrations are incoherent and of different densities--can cause great neurological distress to the body. And most of all, he emphasized what sounds like a giant cliche to most Westerners--that love is the most powerful healing agent. His own observation of this came from working with rats, animal subjects, when he did work with brain modalities during his 12 years of medical education.

I'm looking forward to studying more with him. He and Kopila both have such (very different) lovely demeanors, so pleasant to study with, and such positive inclinations to help people. And I can't get tired of saying how impressed I am with the extent and depth of their knowledge. I aspire to develop that level of professionalism one day.

In other news, the petrol situation here is deadly. The lines have gotten staggeringly long and Rupesh and Kopila both had to cancel classes this week because they weren't able to travel due to the shortage. Taxi prices have shot up from Rs150 to Rs500, so I've finally check out public transportation--the teeny white vans with twenty people crammed inside (maximum capacity supposedly fifteen) and men hanging out the doors. They're not so bad and much cheaper (Rs15), but they don't run regularly and are often too crowded to fit. Tais said some litres just came into the country, so hopefully it will get better soon.

On a more positive note, we took a walk ("hike" is more accurate) up to Kopan Gompa. It was an unexpectedly long and steep climb--up a mountain--but the view of the city was so beautiful, and the monastery itself was too, that it hardly mattered. The best part was seeing the relics of Geshe-la, who must have led the monastery at one time. It was incredible to see these pearls, gold, and crystal-like pebbles from the remains of his cremation.

Today was exhausting, so it's bedtime. Goodnight.

Woman=Lower Rebirth?

This morning I had a 4.5 hour lesson with Tenzin. We worked on reading for a while, which was good--about Losar, in fact. As she gave details of the cultural explanation, we became so engrossed in conversation that reading took a backseat. We talked a lot about her family, and about the situation with Tibet in general, and rinpoches and reincarnation. I wondered about how rinpoches (reincarnations) are recognized, and apparently in the Nyingma sect of Buddhism (one of the four, others being Sakya, Gelukpa, and Kagyu), in which the lamas can get married, rinpoches often reincarnate as later generations within their bloodline. For example, in her family, her grandfather's grandfather reincarnated as her great-uncle; her great-uncle has been reborn as one of her uncles. They can tell by the behavior of the person as a child...her uncle would call her grandmother over to sit by him, and call her "sister"; he also would point out belongings of her great-uncle and claim them as his own and remember their uses. In other sects, high rinpoches will have dreams that give information about the reincarnation, or they might leave behind clues leading to their discovery (as in the case of the Karmapa or the Dalai Lama).

In the reading there was a picture of a shrine of auspicious offerings, and since it's within the 15 days of Losar still (though only 3 are really celebrated here), we went into her popo-la's room and she explained their shrine to me part by part, and showed me photographs of the various rinpoches and members of their family (and there was a butter lamp that has been burning for a year straight in honor of her younger sister, who passed away last year). There are seven offering bowls, which incidentally I was just looking at this morning, among other things--water for drinking, water for washing, incense or a flower, wheat, tsampa, perfume, food (rice with fruits and spices).

I asked her about the Tibetan word for "woman"; it's a combination of the words for "birth" and "low". This "woman question" has been a topic of great interest to me for some time now and has been the focus of recent study with Kopila...it is always both a provocation and a relief to bring new facets to light. Tenzin told me about what a rinpoche had told her when she asked about it. Because Buddhism sees life in terms of suffering, and it is a simple fact that women suffer more than men, being born as a woman is seen as a lower rebirth. While the psychological tendency of women to suffer more than men is arguable (for the people who wish to argue), the physical burdens that women bear are indisputably greater. It is both a blessing and curse; a punishment and an opportunity for growth, that women feel more pain. The possibilities it opens up for growth are proportionately greater. Nonetheless, the fact remains that growth through suffering is one particular way, and considered--at the risk of using a controversial word--inferior.

The word "inferior" means something different in this context, at least so it seems. It no longer carries the same stigma, which has always seemed unjust to me, however biological the basis for the prejudice might be. The reason for this is that it is seen through the lens of compassion--which, it should be noted, is not at all the same as pity. If we acknowledge this simple difference between women and men, the compassion we feel for one another increases, as its nature changes to accommodate the individual and their place in samsara. The condescension, condemnation, and disenfranchisement that have always accompanied the view of women as "inferior" becomes instead a kind of deep respect for the work and potential of a being in a female body. In fact, regardless of the degree of consciousness a woman might have of her position, compassion is demanded for the suffering she endures. This compassion is what is lacking everywhere; it is the source of sexism.

Now that I have a better grasp of what this whole inferiority thing really stems from, I have to think about it a lot, to see what my own reactions to it are.

As an additional note, something Kopila told me yesterday relates to this. The classical Ayurvedic texts say that when a woman is in her eighth month of labor, a new house should be built for her. The house should be made of wood, instead of the usual materials (at the time) of sand and mud, in order to be clean and not dusty. She should be provided with food, and surrounded by four or five midwives at all times, to give her encouragement and support. This was a primitive conception, Kopila says, of a hospital environment. Through the years and with the addition of commentary, this precept became something entirely different. Villagers now believe that a woman should not be permitted in her home when she is going to give birth, and in fact should be sent away for labor and delivery. Women are often sent to places alone--not only in conditions vastly different than any kind of clean or new house, but usually far inferior to her home. The places can be very unhygienic, especially because before and after delivery, women are not supposed to be exposed to sunlight, because the sun is considered a god, and birth is not suitable to be seen "by the light of day".

Leaving aside the sun being a god, which I know not nearly enough about to comment on, it is remarkable that a dictate which was written out of pure compassion became a weapon used to persecute women and make their lives more painful. This is not unusual--the road to hell is paved with good intentions--but it is rather mortifying.

This woman question has been such a torture to me because I have no doubt that the subjugation of women is due entirely to sociopolitical/cultural factors--which are crystallized attitudes and habits, developed out of egotism and ignorance. But I was equally certain that because these attitudes and habits are so universal, the roots of this bias had to be somewhere connected to the truth. I feel that finally I have found the tip of the iceberg that is this truth. Now I need to really to learn how the truth became the source of prejudice--when the tides began to shift, and where, and with whom.

This afternoon I spent a few hours wandering around with Tais by the stupa, doing kora. We spent some time in a singing bowl shop, where I finally succeeded in getting a bowl to emit a sound. The man who owns the shop is definitely experienced with the bowls, and includes a three-page packet on the history and so on with any purchase. Eventually I might buy one. Not only are they beautiful and wonderful tools for meditation and relaxation, but they also have a unique healing power--the bigger, deeper-toned ones in particular. The vibration works through the entire body. I would love to get singing bowl therapy and see what it is really like to have a whole treatment with sound.

Lights are off now. I guess I'll study until the sun goes fully down.

Maoist Effect

It's late already, but today was packed with impressions, so I'll write a quick entry anyway. I had strange dreams last night and very restless sleep, so I wasn't enthusiastic about waking up (on my one day without yoga) for class with Kopila at 8--but it wound up being a great two hours. We finished going over the major kitchen spices, but even more interestingly, we had a long conversation about various subjects related to medicine in general, Ayurveda, and Kopila's own work. She intends to become a gynecologist, and eventually work back in the village where her family is from and start a clinic there. The district is called Lamjung and is rich with medicinal herbs, and home to a somewhat famous river, the Marshyangdi. There's a hydropower project in progress there; it was supposed to completed in 2005, but due to the political unrest it's now due to be finished in 2010.

The Maoist insurgency has caused problems directly related to medical care, of course. Kopila pointed out that women have a lack of mobility in the villages, which becomes more severe the more remote they are from Kathmandu. While all villagers have this challenge, the men often leave for work, and for all the expected reasons women are basically rooted to their homes. When Kopila was part of a traveling health campaign that moved to a village spot, over a thousand people came in only two days; she said 90% were women. The Maoists stopped doctors (and anyone, really) from traveling freely in the districts, so places where access to professional health care is already a rarity were deprived of even those opportunities.

We also talked about surgery and the removal of "unnecessary" organs. Putting aside transplants and vital organs, it was curious to note that treatments for problems like tonsillitis or appendicitis are not being researched currently; such simple surgical procedures to remove these features of our anatomy have been developed that it seems futile and redundant. However, think of the fact that this is really an extreme trauma to the body, no matter how smoothly it can be glossed over now; when these operations are done in childhood, what happens to the mechanism of these organs? Where does the normal flow of energy in the body get redirected or stunted in a way we don't understand?

Kopila also said that as a new doctor or a resident, it can be easy for a medical professional to almost enjoy a disease; it becomes exciting to make a correct diagnosis and understand what illness is being dealt with. Sometimes a medically-minded person can forget that they are dealing with a human being who is suffering. This is why Ayurveda always treats the patient as a person; primarily the individual and secondarily the disease. This, I'm sure, is what Dr. Badmaev was talking about when he said that the Western world does not sufficiently see man as a psychic phenomenon. We talked about the allocation of resources; how doing a surgical procedure on a man of 40 might extend his life significantly, while for a man of 70 it might merely be torturing the body fruitlessly. Is the medicine or the procedure increasing the potency of the person's life? Kopila said that medicine is usually focused more on the quantity of life than the quality of life. I find that a shocking insight.

It is a principle of her practice, then, to "be patient with the patient", which I'm sure is an axiom repeated in medical schools all over the world. There are diseases that are curable and patients who prove incurable; conversely there are diseases that are incurable and patients whose life potency manages to increase miraculously. It is hard for newcomers to feel intuitively how to practice medicine; she said that what we see in other people, really, is what we have inside ourselves (particularly our minds). This applies even more significantly to a person in a healing profession than it does to the average person, though it's true of everyone. Kopila said that when Western doctors find in practice that they are unable to diagnose as needed, or that they feel their practice is not really helping their patients, that they turn to alternative therapies and Ayurveda for a deeper understanding of the holistic approach--a way to open the door to a better practice. No medicine is perfect, she said. Everything has to be a combination; everything depends on the person, the place, and the time. Funny...I'd heard that exact statement before--in a book by Idries Shah on Sufism.

So aside from learning a great deal about the inner workings of my spice rack, the lesson was very enjoyable. Later in the morning I went with Tais, Ama-la, and Diki (her 12 year old daughter) to Diki's school "fete" or fair, at the Himalaya International Model School. It wound up being quite a psychological experiment, bringing up all kinds of associative memories of such events from when I was in elementary school. I sensed a profound discomfort in Diki's presence, and recalled vividly the same feeling. Despite being 20 years old and immensely different from the painfully self-conscious preteen I used to be, it was at some moments really hard to bear the environment. My sensitivity was transported back in time, to some extent. I find it fascinating, though not exactly pleasant. We all had a good time though; eating momos and watching Ama-la win (she had a Midas touch with the booth games).

I also loved the mottos painted above the doors to the school halls: "The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet", read one. Another solemnly proclaimed that "Obedience is the mother of happiness." Others included quotes from His Holiness. (Side note--Pa-la told us the other night that "Dalai" is actually a Mongolian word pronounced "dalee", not "da-lye", meaning "ocean"...it's not a Tibetan title.)

Tais and I left the fete a bit early and headed into town. We had planned to see a film on Emperor Akhbar, but it was sold out. Before going on an epic quest to find the Kumari movie theater (a hike away from the Jai Nepal theater), we stopped to get coffee and check out a little shop that was going out of business within a week or two by the Hotel l'Annapurna. We wound up spending probably two hours there! It was full of quirky little things, jewelry, and so on. I think each of us got some precious junk as well as some lucky finds...a very nice spot. On our way down the street, we stopped into an expensive jewelry store and became engrossed in conversation with one of the more interesting people I've met since getting here.

Akbar Khan clearly knows his business--we began chatting by discussing the various kinds of jade. I know something about it because of visiting the jade factory in Beijing; he knows much more. Somehow (as usually happens, especially with Tais around) the subject came around to Buddhism, and he started talking to us about his own ideas regarding faith and religion. He's Muslim, but his philosophy was purely from experience...and the simple fact that, as he said, every person is going to his own destiny; all our different paths--religions, businesses, etc.--are just the medium.

When we talked about fanaticism and dogma, Akbar said that "people can be dogmatic, or people can be human-matic, it doesn't matter", because nonetheless we go to our own grave. And this led him to say something I think is of great value. He said that the worst thing in the world a person can be is criticizing; critical. In that case they are focused on the opposite of making themselves better. This makes perfect sense, and it was a beautiful reminder of a strong principle; not to condemn other people because of their inevitable immoralities, but to constantly strive to become better in ourselves.

When Akbar mentioned that nobody but us goes into our grave, I had a flash of recognition. Something Rupesh mentioned in our first yoga lesson was that we always try to stay within the space of the mat, and to be aware of the boundaries of that space--to extend awareness according to the body, and the mat, and then moving outward etc. Immediately following my memory of him telling me that, I remembered a short workshop in pantomime I took part in last summer. The classical pantomime that everyone knows has a few famous "acts", one of which is being trapped in an invisible box. The invisible box, the limitations of the yoga mat, they are like representations of the space of our own grave--we carry it with our physical body, dead or alive, and wherever we are. In this way it can be a metaphor for a prison or a gymnasium, but either way it is a reality of the physical body and how it relates to space.

Interestingly, this most certainly would have implications in the cultural anthropologist's exploration of proxemics, or social space. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of relation, most likely unintentional, between social space and the way that a culture deals with corpses, coffins, tombs, cemeteries and graveyards, and so on. Maybe someday I will do a study on it...or maybe it's already been done, and I just don't know!

Eventually we left and made our journey to Kumari, where we proceeded to watch a three-hour movie in Hindi called Super Star. I think the star of it was Kumal Khena or something like that. I thought it was fantastic! There were no subtitles, and according to Tais all Hindi movies are similar, but I loved it anyway. It was tragic and melodramatic to the extreme, there were the expected dance sequences (I love that every Bollywood actor is basically a more talented frontman of a boy band, with backup dancers), and of course, no kissing--although there was plenty of showing off the main star's body; refreshingly, a man and not a woman being overexposed. Generally, I thought that the movie was over the top but at its core had (from what I know) traditional Hindu values and was really sweet. When the protagonist proposes to "the girl" at the end of the movie, he says she must be his "in this life, and for all others to come"...I can't think of anything more romantic!

I've rearranged my program for the rest of the time I'll be here in Nepal; I am going to continue studying Ayurveda instead of going back to Tibetan medicine, and study Nepali instead of Tibetan. For the next two weeks, while Sushila is in Darjeeling, I'll have class with Tenzin (as she texted the other day, "10zin"--cute), but probably focusing on reading. That will be most useful if I keep working at RMA when I get back to NYC. I really enjoyed studying with Amchi-la, but it's easier to learn with Kopila, and the combination of Ayurveda with yoga is working in a more effective way for me both personally and intellectually.

It seems that my dad will be visiting me here in a month or two, which is really exciting! I can't wait...his knowledge of medicine and his ideas about practicing and health are so much more developed and informed than mine, and I think if he can come to lessons with me I'll get a ton more out of them. Besides, it will just be awesome to be abroad together and spend some quality time.

Designer

Freezing weather again today; it was really hard to get out of bed. Even an hour of yoga didn't really warm me up. Nonetheless, I am very close to reaching a goal...maybe an inch away from touching my nose to my knees! So it was worth bearing the cold. After my Nepali class with Sushila (which has totally hit a barrier, now that we're into verb conjugation and I have about a 100-word vocabulary to remember), Tais and I decided to check out the design workshop of a woman we met at the Losar festival last week. Incidentally, her line of clothing (Khandoma) sells at the Rubin Museum shop. Her name is Pema Khando Terab, and she gets most of her fabrics locally and from India during trips to Delhi twice a year; her aesthetic is really classy and contemporary--totally marketable in New York, which is where she's looking to sell to wholesale buyers right now.

Anyway, we got to see her workshop and showroom (which is under construction) and then spent two hours browsing the current collection in her office. Her clothes are really beautiful, and since she's just getting started, the prices are remarkably low (pieces that would sell for an average of $400 in NYC are priced around $60-80)...it was a fun afternoon. She also has a line of modern chupas that are fantastic. The shape and silhouette isn't changed at all (since the traditional cut of a chupa is actually very modern), but she's made two- to six-piece chupas instead of the traditional single piece of fabric. They look like Matisse would have made them; hot pinks and oranges in these fantastic shapes fit into a traditional chupa pattern cut. I think they'll sell outrageously well at RMA.

Back at home I'm having the pleasure of washing my laundry by hand, bending and using buckets, something I'm definitely not accustomed to doing. I've made a great mess of water on the roof and probably haven't gotten my jeans nearly as clean as they should be, but it's a skill quite worth having, and I feel very spoiled and abashed about not having done it before. I know they're laughing at me! But no matter, as long as by the end of today the clothes are dry and I won't have to wear the same pants for the fourth day in a row.

Ama-la made fried eggplant for lunch and it was amazing. I really have to spend more time in the kitchen with her...I'm so excited to learn how to cook. I'll feel validated as a woman if I can prepare good meals! For Nepalese and Tibetan women, though, it's not nearly so frivolous. A woman's prospective in-laws come to visit and expect to see exactly how diligent and skilled she is at housework--if she can't cook well, prepare a nice tea, and clean quickly she's not a suitable candidate for a wife. Of course, this is nothing new, but it's interesting that this way of choosing a spouse has endured and remains totally intact even for the generation of girls growing up now. I see Diki in the kitchen with Ama-la learning to cook almost every evening if I'm downstairs. And as a result of these expectations, mothers know how to care better for their children, not just tend to their husbands...when visiting students get sick, Ama-la knows what kind of foods to give them to ease digestive trouble.

Ahile ma kunai Nepali shabda lekhchu. Bastabmaa, malai kehipani thaahaa chainna. Mero Nepali bhashaa na raamro. Ke garne? Maanche Nepal maa ghyaani cha; wahaile ke ma bhannchu bujhnu bhayo. Mero Nepali saathi chaahinchha. Thik cha, mero kuraa sidhiyo!

I think part of the middle of that is grammatically incorrect. Oh well...I'm getting there, and in speaking it's much easier. Sushila really doesn't give me a break...two straight hours of conversation at a completely normal pace...my head swims by the end of it! It's almost 5 now and Dr. Kopila still isn't here. It's too cold to stay at home. Maybe I'll head over to the Hyatt for some warmth and energy, instead of drinking ten cups of tea an hour to maintain a reasonable body temperature.

Cultishness?

There's a large group of people staying in the Hyatt who all are wearing flowy white clothes and large gold-and-crystal necklaces etc. with various shapes from sacred geometry. I've met two of them--the first, a woman in the spa who was rushing busily to her massage and seemed very impatient. She also asked me where she could buy things related to Ayurveda here in KTM. The second is a man who came up to me and started chatting a little earlier this morning. He told me that they're all students of a Western-born teacher who is allegedly an incarnation of the Buddha. We talked about school (he went to Stanford) and anthropology, and when we hit upon spiritual traditions, he seemed highly critical of all authority or hierarchy in a spiritual tradition, including figures like the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa. He said that if H.H. asks Tibetans to put photographs of him up in their houses knowing that they will be killed, it's a kind of conceit, and a futile effort. Mostly he objected to the "partisanship' of rinpoches and lamas who disagree with each other's views. In a way this is true, not just of Buddhist teachers and scholars but of any tradition, spiritual or otherwise; the politics always interferes. Still, I found his ideas a bit presumptuous, especially because judging from outside a tradition nearly always leads to either further blindness or worse. Anyway, his seven-spoked crystal wheel amulet (about the size of the palm of an average hand) was interesting and amusing. But who am I to be amused? Maybe it (and his teacher) have power beyond what I can imagine. All I know is that seeing a banner with a white guy's face and rainbow in the background saying "Welcome to the Land of the Buddha" makes me think "cult" and chuckle.

I'm off to read.

Rhythm

I've gotten into the most enjoyable rhythm of life I've ever experienced. Everything I do here is either to make me happy or to make me strong, and mostly both. Maybe I'm just a homebody (haha) but staying in Boudha all day, doing my classes and reading and resting, is like heaven. Whatever happens when Amchi comes back, I want to wholly take in this most lovely schedule. Yoga is getting more challenging, and Rupesh did warn me that we were going to take it up a notch. It's not about flexibility as much as it is about concentration, endurance, finding minute tensions in the body and eradicating them. It's blissful.

As he points out, it's simple logic that the longer you hold a position the deeper the effect will go--according to both Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine, that means penetrating through all the bodily constituents; from the various muscle tissues to the fat tissues, to the bone, to the bone marrow, to the essence of the body's composition. I like that the word "organ" is used to describe the target of yoga's effects--it is to stretch the organs, both the skin and the internal ones, and sometimes "ancient" or forgotten organs. As a sidenote, the spleen is considered an organ of great importance in Tibetan medicine and is related to digestive functions. As far as I know, this is not the case in Western medicine.

Signs of health according to Ayurveda include waking up early, having light exercise in the morning (like yoga, and meditation also), regular bowel movement, and wanting to eat in the morning (breakfast is important). In general it's a good idea to eat a warm, light breakfast to regenerate energy and rebalance the doshas (kapha predominates during sleep). Lunch should be the major meal of the day, and we can eat heavier foods (pitta predominates during the day), preferably with a range of densities--i.e. solid, liquid, and in-between foods. It's generally better to have a light dinner, because otherwise when we sleep our energy is devoted to digestion rather than regenerating itself and resting ourselves. It's also good for dinner to be warm and softer food (vata predominates in the evening).

Food is the focus of the next week or so of classes--what kinds there are, the tastes, how to eat according to one's constitution, and how to treat imbalances with food and diet adjustment. For the sake of an example, let's say I'm a vata-pitta dual type (which I am). The nature of vata, like air, is cold, dry, light, hard, mobile...pitta is oily, hot, sharp, light, etc. That means that dry and spicy foods are are aggravating to my body, because they exaggerate the characteristics that are already dominant. Since the point of a correct diet is to bring the three doshas into balance within the body, it is important for me to drink lots of liquid and eat warm, moist foods.

The 6 tastes are the same (sweet, sour, salty, hot, bitter, astringent). In general, sweet taste increases body weight and tissues, but can be hard to digest, so intake should be limited. It is nourishing to both body and mind, a "loving" taste--hence "comfort food" often being sweet (of course, this doesn't apply only to candy sweetness; rice, meat, etc. are also). It is good for vata and pitta people, but not good for kapha. Sour and salty are both stimulants of the digestive fire; sour particularly is good for the heart, and helps to wake people up and make them feel happier. Sour and salty tastes are good for vata. Hot or spicy foods open the channels; it is sharp and pungent, beneficial for people with low digestive fire or bad circulation. It is good for kapha constitution. Bitter food gives the body and mind a feeling of lightness after eating, and is good for pitta and kapha consitutions. Astringent taste reduces secretions in the body and is good for closing channels (i.e. good for diarrhea, bleeding, etc.) and is good for the pitta and kapha constitutions.

As everything, the tastes relate back to the elements. This is what I learned in Tibetan medicine, and Dr. Kopila said it is (naturally) the same in Ayurveda. Each taste is a combination of two elements:

Sweet (earth and water)
Sour (fire and earth)
Salty (water and fire)
Bitter (water and air)
Hot (fire and air)
Astringent (earth and air)

It is best to balance all six tastes in a meal, or at least throughout the day. In preparation, this is taken into account by simplifying a meal as much as possible and cooking as little as possible. Simplifying a meal means matching tastes and not combining too many different natures of food in one dish--for example, potatoes are sweet and astringent. If you cook them with peas, which are also sweet and astringent, you add to the dish without complicating it. To balance it with the other tastes, consider that if you cook it with a little salt and little oil, already two more tastes have been added. Of course, take into account the constitution--dishes cooked in oil are fine for vata, but bad for pitta. Spices are definitely the easiest way to balance tastes. It's also better not to cut vegetables etc. too fine, or minced; the energy leaks out of them. Besides, they are (or were) living things. An imaginative person might think that in their own way, they feel a kind of pain, like anything with living energy does if it is cut up or divided.

The real nutritive value of the food we eat depends on three things: the amount, the quality, and the processing. It's easier to enjoy food in it's natural form, and it's also easier to digest! Our experience with food begins with grocery shopping--selection. We have to sense the color, the shape, the weight, etc. of the food as we choose it, and we should be aware of our mood and energy level, which heavily influences what food we choose. Naturally, the value of food we prepare at home is higher than food we buy already processed, or frozen, microwaveable, etc. Ayurvedic teachers tells chefs that they have the same job as a mother; when food is prepared with attention and care, it has more nutritive value for the people eating it. This can manifest in much simpler ways, that people sense without realizing it. For example, if the head of the household cooks dinner in a foul mood, the food might be prepared perfectly but somehow just not taste as good as it should.

As an example of how the same problem can be treated differently (with diet) according to constitution, let's take low digestive fire (called agni in Ayurveda). For kapha people, very plain rice is good. For pitta people, it is good to add some ghee (clarified butter) to the rice. For vata, it is good to mix it with a little fruit or vegetables. The way it is prepared works with the constitution to ensure that the function of the food itself--the rice--works in the body of the person having the problem.

Later we'll be studying more about the ama toxin, and about specific diseases and treatments. There were three days at the end of the month when I wasn't going to have class, because of a tour at the clinic (which is across town; our classes having been happening at home). However, the tour was canceled, and I'm absolutely so happy--I am going to go and stay at the clinic, maybe get a treatment or two to experience it myself (it's all for the sake of research of course), and most importantly have the opportunity to have some sessions with Dr. Koirala, the senior doctor who Dr. Kopila clearly respects and possibly reveres. Every day, from the beginning to the end of class, I feel happy.

The learning aspect of my yoga instruction is also increasing. Rupesh spent about 15 minutes at the end of class today telling me about what we'll be working on for the rest of our time working together. There are five aspects of Hatha yoga--asanas (positions), pranayama (breathing [prana=breath, ayama=lengthening]), mudras (hand gestures), bandhas (specific contraction in the body), and shatkarma (purification practices, some of which sound a little frightening). We will work on all of them except the last, though we might do some at the end. They include neti (nasal wash with purified water and non-iodized salt), among others.

As far as the physical work is going, my practice has improved dramatically, and I feel so much healthier (and even, dare I say it at age 20, younger). Even when I'm just standing around the house, or walking somewhere, my balance and sense of presence is much more grounded. We never realize how much effort we put into movements that really don't require conscious energy. Our bodies have physical momentum that can carry us, but instead we are always pressing down, pushing forward, and so on. Such unnecessary strain. Now that I've learned how to relax that sometimes, I can actually feel the energy circulating that's freed from all the muscle tension. It's liberating.

Ayurveda

On Monday there were cham dances at Sechen monastery. They were a lot longer and more intense than the glimpse we had the other day, and many more dancers were involved, from men in their late twenties to boys who were probably twelve or so. One of the interesting things about going to the dances was seeing who the audience was--foreigners, students, and a lot of local residents, and even some Nepalis. I took some pictures, but I took many more, and about 40 minutes of video, at the lama dancing yesterday at the Shedra (another monastery and the only accredited school here for Buddhism study, where Tais takes classes). The dancers at Shedra were really impressive. The atmosphere around each of them was completely different from the other dances. Their faces were concentrated, and their movements were more subtle and graceful. All of them were really impressive.

Last night we ate thukpa, which is a kind of soup/noodle stew that all Tibetans eat for dinner on the second to last day of the year. It traditionally has nine ingredients that are supposed to say something about the person whose stew has a predominance of one or another, including meat, but since there's bird flu around and Popo-la doesn't eat meat and neither do I, Ama-la used mushrooms instead. Black beans are supposed to mean a cold heart, and chili is a habit to nag, but I don't know the rest. I hope they're not all bad!

I doubt it was the thukpa, but something made me violently sick for almost all of last night, and I hardly slept. Today I'm really out of it. It's the weirdest kind of sickness--fever, gas in the stomach that won't move, nausea, everything imaginable. It really stinks, I can't do much of anything but sit around and fight the blech.

On a much more positive note, Ayurveda lessons started on Monday, and they're awesome. I'm studying with Dr. Kopila...she's 31 and works at the clinic of the doctor Passage usually works with (Dr. Koirala). I've learned so much from her in the few lessons we've had already! It's much easier to understand Ayurveda with some background in Tibetan medicine, but to be honest, it's also just a much clearer system, at least in translation. Maybe it's because Dr. Kopila's English is better than Amchi-la's, though he's very good at explaining things, but she has clarified quite a few things that are essentially the same in Tibetan medicine that I didn't really understand before. Mentioning the most obvious little things, like fire's nature of always moving upward and water's nature of always flowing downward, makes a whole wealth of information make more sense. I guess it's my own obliviousness, or just not knowing what to look at, because I probably wouldn't have noticed that on my own without already being in a practical setting. Still, I'm slowly learning to see things differently and to consider the elements from a new perspective. I suppose Western medicine has the same effect--really any field, if there's a professional level of knowledge. It's basically choosing and then building a worldview, a framework through which it's possible to assimilate information and make sense of it. What I find so appealing about alternative medicine is that while it's equally rigorous and serious, it is less of a "secular dogma".

I also appreciate the relationship of medicine to philosophy and practice here. By taking into account the natural necessity for man to take personal responsibility for his health, Ayurveda (or Tibetan medicine) removes much of the onus put on external solutions--"MY DOCTOR will fix this for me," or worse, "THIS PILL will fix this for me." Medicine is bound up with education, since the primary goal of it is to increase the patient's awareness of how he or she can better his or own health. It is not to impose any restriction on people, because a forced restriction only fosters craving, which is harmful for the body and the mind.

In Ayurveda, there are four kinds of life, and there are four aspects of health. The four kinds of life are a happy life, sad life, good life, and bad life. A happy life is one in which a person is individually fulfilled and has balanced all of their personal needs, internal and external, but is for the most part unconcerned with the well being of the rest of humanity, and the suffering of other people is not something they are deeply bothered by. A sad life is one in which a person is ill and/or depressed, and despondent. Still, they are concerned only with their own negativity, and don't generally impose their misery on the world around them; they are content to remain with their unhappiness. A good life, then, is one in which the person is not only concerned with their own fulfillment, but with that of others; and their main happiness comes from giving health, awareness, and happiness to other people. A bad life, as one can guess by now, is one in which a person feeds their own state--whether it's "happy" or "sad"--with the reactions and suffering of other people. Feelings of possession, vengefulness, hate, contempt, resentment, etc. and all their behavioral manifestations are characteristic of such a life.

The four aspects of health are physical, sensorial, mental, and spiritual. What we've been studying primarily for the last day or so is the sensorial aspect. This is the proper use of the five sense organs and their powers, and each is related to one of the five elements. Space corresponds to sound, auditory knowledge, and the ear. Air corresponds to touch, tactile knowledge, and the skin. Fire corresponds to sight, visionary knowledge, and the eye. Water corresponds to taste, gustatory knowledge, and the tongue. Earth corresponds to smell, olfactory knowledge, and the nose. The misuse, overuse, or underuse of our senses leads to disease. As the second frontier of our health as human beings, this makes perfect sense--our physical bodies in general grow to a certain size and remain fairly stable for our adult lives; fluctuations in weight and so forth aside, we will not grow to be the size of a house. The next step is then to perfect the development of our sense capacities. Our sense organs are the only medium we have for receiving information from the outside world, so they are the connection between our mental health and our physical health.

The intimate relationship of the senses to our mental and spiritual health is inherent in their role as a bridge between the inner subjective experience we have and the outer material reality of the world. The easiest way to illustrate this is relating it to the good/bad happy/sad life...if a person has perfect 20/20 vision, they should be able to to walk the streets with full visual awareness of the road and their surroundings. Naturally, the sight of a beautiful thing should cause pleasure and ugly things should cause disturbance (using "beautiful" and "ugly" not superficially). If they see flowers blooming, this should inspire a pleasant feeling of peace; if they see people dying of starvation and poverty, this should inspire a feeling of compassion and grief. We live in a world of extremes; we have this problem, closing our senses unconsciously as a defense against the confusion of being caught between the joy of natural beauty and pain of human suffering. So for most us, who have managed to grow up undeformed, our task is to open our senses (without becoming overly sentimental). Many of our diseases come from the repression of the spontaneous feelings we have.

As Dr. Kopila says, most patients only come to the clinic once a physical symptom has manifested. They come with a pounding headache, but they don't come prepared to connect it with the mental and physical stress of their life circumstances. And unfortunately, most doctors aren't prepared to relate to the patient in a way that will address the problem fully. This is why I think the doctors I've met here have a sort of bafflement at the trend of specialization in Western medicine. How can a doctor be prepared to really explore a patient's state if they've forgotten half of what they learned, and are ready to hand the person off to another specialist if they can't find the problem? Maybe it's because the original problem is somewhere that can't be seen on an MRI.

But specialists are incredible. I wouldn't underestimates the value of knowing the parts and functions of the body down to the tiniest measure. In fact, it's clear that such detailed knowledge allows the professionals to develop technologies and treatments that are more immediately and specifically effective than ever before. The problem is when this material "wisdom" comes at the expense of a holistic attitude. Part of medicine's power should be to revive that awareness in people, but there's a sweeping cynicism that has permeated the scientific and medical worlds even more than society in general. The intangible aspects of ourselves are wasting away from negligence. Too bad the justice system doesn't allow for symbolic lawsuits, haha. That would be funny.

I remember when I was in a bus accident in seventh grade and had to spend a few weeks out of school, going from one doctor to another and doing physical therapy. The doctors were all very smart and skilled, from what I recall, but the general memory I have is one of being shuttled from office to office. It was all about treatment and not about healing, to use semantics. The only really distinct positive memory I have of the whole process is the massage therapy, which was just as physically uncomfortable as the other exercises but had a completely different element to it. There was the presence of relationship--between myself and the therapist, between my body and mind, between the different parts of my body. All the connectedness was what made it memorable. Being treated in fragments might be effective, but it's also exhausting.

Honestly, when I begin to consider all the pros and cons and pressures that doctors must be under, it becomes really overwhelming. The whole Western hemisphere is a different world. Individual views are subject to the influence of capitalism as much as the industries are. All I know is that essentially everything is about striking a balance...I think this point in history is opening up the possibility of really bringing together, as a favorite writer of mine said, "the knowledge of the West and the wisdom of the East." The fluency that Dr. Kopila has in both Western and Ayurvedic knowledge is so inspiring.

Anyway, we've also moved on to constitution, which is based on the three doshas of Ayurveda (much the same as Tibetan); vata (air/space, like lung), pitta (fire, like tiba), and kapha (water/earth, like peken). I've already determined my constitution, and as a result I have a much better idea of how to eat, and an increased understanding of how to manage certain aspects of my personality. The interplay of the elements and the way we actually see our mental constitution is much clearer in Ayurveda. There are many telling signs about each dosha, but I will only list a few of the more obvious and more emotional characteristics:

Vata people are jumpy and don't stick with things for very long, changing jobs for example. They make many friends, and while they don't end friendships, they also don't do much to maintain them. Their principal characteristic is instability, and reactiveness. They are usually detached after a relationship ends. Vata people spend money on whatever is in front of them, they are impetuous. They are talkative and speak erratically. They learn things quickly, but forget quickly also. When under stress, they are anxious. Their digestion and sleep is interrupted and variable. Their dreams are usually fearful or involve flying and jumping. Their sexuality is cold and variable.

Pitta people are orderly and quick. They are very clever and form relationships based on mental affinity; if that fades, they detach easily. They are are self-involved and confident, sometimes arrogant, and usually are leaders in their profession, preferring positions of control. They have difficulty controlling their own urges. They can eat anything and digest it well, and sleep soundly. Pitta people learn quickly and remember well, and are considered intelligent. They are decisive and speak articulately and forcefully. They spend on luxuries. Their dreams are usually violent or fiery, intense, and when under stress Pitta people are irritable. Their sexuality is hot and intense.

Kapha people are steady and stable, and go with the flow. They make commitments and are attached to them, and find it difficult to leave jobs or extricate themselves from relationships, even if they are unhappy. They are calm and stubborn, and sometimes greedy. They tend to save money rather than spend it. Kapha people learn slowly, but they remember very well. When they speak it is slow and cautious but resonant. Their digestion is steady. Their dreams tend to be nature-oriented or have water, or sensual imagery, and they dream in long sequences. Their sexuality is warm and enduring.


So, now everyone can debate about their nature. It's easier to figure out with all the information, including the physical and cycles and all the rest, but I think these characteristics give a pretty clear picture. What's really interesting is putting the "personality typing" system to a medical use, because from the examples and explanations Dr. Kopila gave me, using constitution can make treatments astonishingly safer and more comprehensive and individual. It's really impressive. The personality is just a manifestation of the proportion of the elements in the body, and the relative state of balance or imbalance of the doshas. It's the same as Tibetan medicine, but now makes much more sense.

On an unrelated note, I intended to do laundry today at the Hyatt. It turns out their laundry service charges per piece, and socks are 85Rs. That's about $1.50...for which I could do an entire load of laundry at home. Isn't that insane?! I would definitely rather spend two hours doing it by hand tomorrow.

Unwinding

Though today was Sunday, it was more like a weekend day than a class day, since I only had yoga. It was the best lesson I've had yet. Lately Rupesh has been pushing me more with certain stretches (I'm not sure if they're even asanas), and for the first time today I found myself completely stretched to the floor without any energy trying to force it. I wasn't making a concerted effort to reach a certain point, but I found myself there anyway, simply by virtue of paying attention and relaxing into whatever position I found myself having to stay in. The point of Hatha yoga (physically) is to hold the asanas, which is really hard not just because I have the usual urges to adjust or fidget but also because stretching is one of the most annoying kinds of discomfort ever. Still, to slowly come out of a position with muscles shaking feels really great. I'm sure someday when they're not shaking uncontrollably it will feel even greater.

Browsing YouTube the other day in Java, I found a silent black and white film of Krisnamacharya, the founder of Ashtanga yoga. He was the teacher of B.K.S Iyengar, among others. This film is fantastic, it shows him demonstrating certain asanas and the pranayama exercises. The intensity of his practice and the complete control he has over his physical organism is startling just to watch. My mom, who is a longtime practitioner and sometime yoga teacher, told me a few specifics of what he's doing in the film--like when he sticks his tongue out, it's because in the crazy high temperatures of India they had certain ways of breathing that balanced the body temperature. Here's a link:

A little later Tais and I went over to one of the gompas (monasteries) near where we live, which happens to hold the stupa of a high rinpoche who is actually here in Nepal for Losar. All of the gompas have been doing puja for days already in preparation for the new year, to clear away obstacles and minor bad karma accumulated in the past year, etc. It's basically like a Tibetan version of Yom Kippur, from what I can tell of the idea; however, it's not nearly as somber, though it is as serious. We sat for an hour or two while they did a visualization and service for Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), which Tais actually had transliterated (and translated, but into Portugese) text to. It was quite an experience. The horns are just as earsplitting as shofars (ram's horns used at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, ten days after Yom Kippur), and much more constant; they also make the kind of sound that sends chills up your spine and gives you goosebumps.

Because the ceremony was an elaborate one, we got to see the cham dancers, five boys who must have been between the ages of eleven and fifteen. They were wearing extremely impressive costumes that included heavy boots, layers upon layers of fabric, tassels and ornaments, and crowns. The dances consisted of turns, some on one foot (I hesitate to make this analogy for fear of being disrespectful, but it's like a slow, symbolic, beautiful "hokey-pokey"). When they leaned into the center or stopped after turning (because they eventually made a round of the whole hall), they shook a vajra bell in the left hand and a clapping drum made of human skull in the right hand. Yes, human skull. It was a fearful and tremendously impacting noise and the whole affair was memorable...though for them it didn't seem particularly fascinating, as they do sit in the hall and chant for who knows how many hours every day.

They gave out gifts as well, to all the monks and to the nuns and few guests who sat in the back, including myself and Tais. The gifts included practical items like a pink towel, toilet paper, pen and pencil, notepad, toothpaste, baby powder, soap, butter tea, bread that tasted exactly like the challah we used to make at Hillel nursery school, and a Kit Kat. We especially appreciated the toilet paper! (No, really...we ran out, so it was a perfect gift.)

The remainder of today was total leisure time. I went back to the Hyatt and read to my heart's content in the lounge, and then we went and took care of business in Thamel. It's been a very pleasant weekend, so I wonder what challenges this week is bound to bring...hopefully, since it's Losar, not too many high hurdles to jump.

In regional news for those who haven't heard, there's a crazy chill going on in China, and it's definitely extended to Nepal's general area. It's still ludicrously cold and I've actually become accustomed to seeing my breath inside my bedroom, especially when I grudgingly pull the blankets off to get up. In addition, gas prices have gone up and people are mad. In further addition, four women in Indonesia recently died of bird flu, which apparently is going around in Eastern Nepal as well. As a precaution, Tais and I have temporarily become full-on vegetarians--the momo feast was our last meal as meat-eaters, at least for a while.

Tomorrow Losar week begins (the first day is Thursday). Wednesday is officially reserved for cleaning (it's the traditional day to do so in Tibet from what Ama-la said), but tomorrow and Tuesday will be full of lama dancing at various gompas around Boudha. Besides the celebrations, I start lessons with the Ayurvedic doctor tomorrow afternoon--they'll go on for the next month, until Amchi Namgyal returns from India with his wife and their new baby!

Motormouth

This afternoon was MOMO MANIA 2008! Momos are dumplings/wontons. Twenty kinds were represented at the event, including the usual range of meats (from mutton to chicken), fish, paneer, tofu, veggie, cheese, potato, spinach, even fruit. They weren't all spectacular, but we got a kick out of seeing countless plates piled high with momos. Even better was the concert, which was an apparently famous band (according to Yanik, the best Newari group in KTM) called Kutumba playing with a Japanese singer who's been living in Nepal and singing Nepali music for ten years, Sundari Mica. It was nifty. We left before the momo-eating and -making contests because of the cold and watched football at Yanik's for a while instead--Yanik, Tais, Taka, and Ghorov. It was a game between Man city and Arsenal, and the commentators are hilarious--"That was an absolutely exquisite score!" "What a sumptuous attempt at a goal!"...gotta love the Brits.

Tomorrow is a transit strike because of petrol prices, which I guess must be increasing again. Not only no buses, but no taxis either, which rules out any travel outside of Boudha. While the circumstances here don't make me homesick, I do think I'm getting to appreciate more and more how very privileged my life in New York is. It's not that I wasn't aware of it before, but living in another city for this long brings up trivial daily things that wouldn't really be considered travel challenges (especially since tourist spots have generators), like utilities and transit and prices. A mental picture of my bathroom at home crossed my mind today and I realized how overwhelmingly comfortable it is--no drafts, no lack of toilet paper, a bathtub, hot (clean) water round the clock, a medicine cabinet. I'm spoiled here too, where I can walk 5 minutes and have access to the Hyatt's health club, and on mornings as cold as these I can't help but think about the countless people who have nothing remotely of the sort and are out on the streets. It's a hard thing to live in a place where the divide between the richest and the poorest is so extremely apparent...the world becomes a truly absurd mirage of order.

The more I see of the world, the more my interest in it deepens, as I am increasingly perplexed by all of it. People like Anil are so inspiring, but I have little faith that the solution to our problems lies in politics and economics per se. That's probably because I don't buy that our problems are essentially political or economic. The systems don't seem to be what's behind the achievements of men like Anil--it's a fundamental compassion that's lacking in most members of bureaucracy. His ability to know the rules, to bend them, to be part of a system that has its own momentum and personality without losing his own, is remarkable--and exceptional. It is a rare strength of character.

There are more people with that strength than I would have guessed, but I don't count myself among them. It's not because I'm incapable, but rather because I know it's not the kind of life that would make me happy. I used to firmly believe that the only way to change a bad government was from inside it. Now, though I still think there's some truth to that, working in a hierarchical entity is (to me) a living analogy for a simultaneous struggle against more immediate internal tyranny. Like digging for gold in an empty mine, when there's a nugget in your pocket!

Such efforts can be astoundingly noble and often brilliant. But yet it seems like this kind of work is the externalization of a transformation that has to happen internally, before anything can last outwardly and be more than just a change in the current. It would take Anil to the "nth" exponent to change the system itself, and not just to be "one of the good ones".

Of course, that's a sweeping assertion, but not a conclusion. I don't mean to discredit the value of institutions in the least, or the good intentions of people within them. On the contrary, I admire and sometimes fear them. Deciding not to be one of the warriors for good in the system is based on my own conviction, not an objective improbability of making improvements. The constant struggle of life in public service is like being trapped in a vice, for a sensitive person. In a way, I'm jealous of people who have the kind of iron will it takes to forge a meaningful career in what I could call "functional compassion". There are a few people I've met in the flesh whose presence convinced me that it's possible to do it and still have a deep inner life, like Jacqueline Novogratz. But I don't know their intimate circumstances, and I have to live according to my own.

At the same time, against my will, I feel a certain cynicism rising in me that I thought I had come to terms with. I know it's possible for people to change, for education and kindness to open up new worlds. But I also see so many people trying, everywhere, to no avail. And many of these people have the best intentions that they can. That doesn't mean they're pure or selfless, they're just the best they can be; and it seems like that just is not enough to get back a good result most of the time. People are struggling everywhere and getting nothing materially back for it.

Inner and outer resources operate at different tempos, it seems, when it comes to getting what you give and vice versa. The functioning of the law of cause and effect isn't always so obvious. I suppose "karma" is what people would label a "religious" explanation of this disparity, which operates seemingly regardless of scale--it's true for individuals, and it's true for organizations, and it's true for countries. That's why I feel like there are other forces at work here, and systems need to be understood as having their own power--i.e., the whole actually is separate and maybe more than the sum of its parts.

And then, what's beyond all the systems? What's happening behind the scenes? Not the scenes of closed doors and handshakes, but on an essentially global scale. People talk about the global village as this giant aggregate of corporate, national, and personal components, and nothing more, like the world is no more than us. But while human beings might be manipulating all sorts of power, we aren't the power itself, and we need to find a way to understand and address the root cause of why we are subject to all these accidents and coincidental mishaps and successes. How does power go wrong? Power doesn't corrupt. It seems that we as a species are just not developed enough to handle power without, in a sense, "self-destructing". Something is wrong with our mental machinery, maybe because that's all we're running on, without understanding the fuel. I guess our abuse of resources extends to the metaphysical, because I'm not talking about neurotransmitters.

It seems more than probable that the root cause of such catastrophic dysfunction is the same as the root cause of illness and, in fact, all suffering according to Tibetan medicine and Buddhism: ignorance. Last night I was listening to a recording of H.H. the Dalai Lama XIV at Stanford University, and there were introductory remarks made by someone in a high position in the department of neuroscience. I found it both funny and tragic that at an event clearly meant to bridge gaps in cultural and intellectual understanding--with quite seriously good intentions on the part of the academic world--there was still an astounding degree of close-mindedness in the desire to control the dialogue.

Of course boundaries must be set for a speech event, but why? Not because "there are certain concepts [karma, enlightenment, etc.] that we don't examine in neuroscience, and so wouldn't be profitable topics for our discussion today". It's because vast numbers of people, even very smart people, are incapable of hearing what is behind terms, which are just the form of speech and not the act of communication itself. The blacklisted topic of "karma", for example; one of the first things H.H. mentions is the "law of cause and effect"--the two are essentially the same thing, if you reduce the meaning of karma to an English translation that doesn't require any adjustment to a new idea. This need to rephrase things in a way that's comfortable for others to hear causes so much time to be wasted, and meaningless conflict. Regardless, a conversation between Buddhism and neuroscience opens up myriad mental cans of worms besides problems of phrasing.

His Holiness, who is supposed to be an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, may have infinite patience for such limitation. I don't, including in myself--mental laziness is frustrating and destructive. Of course, so is impatience, so I suppose I've come to an impasse there.

My sister had a friend who would constantly say during arguments, "I don't understand", or "that doesn't make sense". Her take on it was that miscommunication is the only way to crawl back into ignorance with any dignity. I quite agree, and this tendency of people exposes itself shamefully in cross-cultural dialogue. Not that unintentional misunderstanding is impossible, it must be; but in many cases of what are supposed to be "open forums", it's simply ridiculous that people with such highly developed minds are unable to understand a new idea. Rather, they are openly unwilling. In my opinion, that close-mindedness is far more offensive and undermining to ourselves than admitting a lack of knowledge.

Anyhow, before this becomes more tangential and uninteresting, I will end my entry for tonight. This issue of phrasing and what misunderstanding (cultural particularly) really consists of is intensely interesting. I definitely think it is an extension of whatever the root cause of violence and greed is. Which is funny...if the issue of willful misunderstanding can be called "delusion", and violence or war "aggression", and greed "attachment", then corruption is just an exact, dynamic manifestation of the three poisons, the root cause of which is ignorance.

I think the only suitable career is as a teacher, since education fights ignorance, if I ever learn enough to be able to teach. Now, enough of this; to bed.

Fire Rabbit

As of today the load-setting schedule has changed to 46 hours a week, and the times are different as well. If it increases any more we will basically have no power for most of every day. Still, today was a good one. Scheduling options for the month that Amchi Namgyal is away are being explored--I'm thinking of doing a crash course on Ayurvedic medicine at another clinic near Swayambunath, about half an hour away from Boudha, with Dr. Koirala. From everything I've heard, it would be a very enriching experience to do some work with that system as well as Tibetan medicine, and I hope it works out.

The evening was fun. Lhosar begins on the 7th, but the monastery dances and celebrations begin on Monday. Ama-la took out all the chupas (traditional Tibetan clothing) and we had a sort of impromptu fitting after dinner. Everyone dresses up traditionally, including foreigners, so Tais and I tried on the clothes we would be wearing too, gorgeous heavy satiny/silk fabric and beautiful folds. I remember dressing up once before like this when I went to the Tibetan new year celebration in New York with my friend Kunchok, but this is a different style of chupa and seems more like party garb. We also got to see the boots Wang-la got Ama-la for their wedding, and the old knife and chupa that used to be Popo-la's and now Nawang will wear. Family heirlooms and cultural heritage are lovely to witness anywhere, and it feels so nice to be a part of it here.

Tomorrow Patricia leaves for India. I hope we will meet again someday. Her warm presence was nice to encounter. Though this is probably irrelevant to everything, she and Vidhea are both Libras, which is fun; I haven't really gotten to know any Libra women before. My suspicion that astrology has some merit underneath all the nonsense is confirmed every time I look a little deeper. Speaking of which, I've learned a tiny bit about Tibetan astrology. According to their calendar I'm 22 years old, and I am a fire rabbit (birth year assigns both an element and an animal). I looked up a few friends, but my favorite (and accurate) mental picture was a water pig!