Entering the Living Room

The Last Supper - a fine Gujarati Thali @Samrat, Mumbai

Another of the catalysts that primed me to make this gigantic leveller of a trip was the shiver that shook me as one evening I almost skipped back to my house from next door with a big Boden delivery in my arms.  I suddenly remembered being a student and having to wear the same old clothes all the time.  I then remembered when I first had a house and used to save up to buy occasional clothes, and then I realised that in amongst all of the complexities I had going on at the time I was trying to buy my happiness in the form of very lovely but somewhat over-priced clothes …something was deeply out of balance.  By the time I reached the house, the box represented shame more than happiness making me feel worse not better.

This rare gift of time and solitude has helped me to correct that imbalance, to differentiate what really matters from what needs to be done and what is a total waste of life.  It’s so easy to get swept away by misguided self-importance and to become consumed by nurturing an ego ahead of nurturing the things that matter.  I am not suggesting for a minute that I am going to stop wearing the clothes I Iike or allow my hair to grow down to my waist, maintaining yourself needs to be done …but it isn’t what really matters when it comes to happiness.  For me, what really matters now is a healthy balance of these few things…

Nurturing my relationships with my family and friends

Being fit and healthy

Working hard in the right kind of organisation

Contributing positively to society

Enjoying my hobbies and interests

On Wednesday I will step into the Living Room that this Thinking Space has created for me to live in.  As rooms go it is pretty similar to what was there before only now it is perfectly furnished, the curtains are open and the fire is on.

Thanks for reading

Over and out x

Bye Shadow

Final Map Update ...follow the link

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

And the awards go to...

Favourite Town – Junagadh, Gujarat

Best Camp – Camp Zainabad, Gujarat

Best People – The Gujaratis

Biggest surprise – The Simplicity of Forgiveness

Best Holiday – Goa with Dick 

Favourite Hotel – Hotel Kumbha Palace, Udaipur

Favourite Cuisine – South Indian

Best Laughs – Danny Catt

Favourite Thing – Indian Food

 

Best Thing – The Journey

Favourite Moment – Hugging My Sister in Kerala

Most Awe-Inspiring Place – Taj Mahal

Funniest Moment – 5 girls crying with hysterical laughter …in silence

Most Moving Experience –That Tiger Sighting

Favourite Landscape –Kodagu, Karnataka  

 Best Shopping - Mumbai

Best Meal – the lunch to celebrate BVM Ashram’s 53^rd Birthday

 Best Train Journey – Bhopal to Junagadh

Best Fort – Golconda Fort, Hyderabad

 

Best Temple – Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Best Buddhist Site - Bodhgaya

Best Restaurant Food –Millets of Mewar, Udaipur

Best Room – The Church Roof, Sao Tome Retiro, Diu

Worst Moment – Leaving Steve

 Worst Thing – Indian Men making smutty comments

Most Interesting Region – Bastar Region, Chattissgarh

Best Service - Camp Zainabad, Gujarat

Favourite City – Trichy, Tamil Nadu

Favourite Historical Sight – Udaipur City Palace

Best Thali - Gujarati in Junagadh

Best Eating Experience – Yellow Chilli, Managalam Hotel, Bhuj



Greatest Spiritual Experience – Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram

Best Quote - “In this country it’s your soul that’s important,

not what you look like”

…from a lady eating a huge Gujarati Thali opposite me, as I devoured one too!

Most Incredible thing - India!

Last Lumps

Lumps in my throat

washing last pants in the sink,

remembering the friends,

sipping last mango drink.

Lumps in my throat

booking last room in Bombay,

remembering the views

using last rupees to pay.

Lumps in my throat

Writing last posts for the blog

remembering the towns

breathing last exhaust smog

Lumps in my throat

Buying last bits and bobs

remembering the journeys

doing home-going jobs

Lumps in my throat

Eating last street samosa

Remembering the food

Scoffing just one last dosa

Lumps in my throat

Feeling oddly alone,

remembering Britain,

and thinking of home…

What does INDIA stand for?

Auto drivers with the exception of a welcome few like Ashok and Shakeer can come over as plain sleazy or try your patience trying to get inflated rates or commissions out of you, however, today my driver really made me smile when he said,

“So you’re at the end of your trip to our Incredible India, then you must know what India stands for?”

“No, I don’t know, what does India stand for?” I replied

“I’ll Never Do It Again!!!”

Oh how I laughed as I dragged my bags back up the steep alley way through the monkey poo to Hotel Kumbha Palace where I immediately opened all of the windows in my old room, switched on the fan and poured out that trippy Vipassana mnemonic poem, inspired by the punch line of the first joke I have heard in months.

(Incidentally, I thought I would have more to say about that course, I wanted to share: how wonderful it was to be living in the forest with Langur, chipmonks, peacocks and a mongoose who were barely afraid of the meditators’ presence, how in our silent breaks we observed these animals and what a unique thrill it was to be so directly entwined with them whilst in such a perceptive mental state.  The thing is, it was all so deep that I just came out with that very serious piece for which I feel almost apologetic, but as that is what came out and as some things are probably best kept within, I am going to leave it at that.)

…but that joke has got me thinking …would I do it again?

There is so much more to see, I am a mountain lover who has not set foot in the Himalaya, there are those fascinating but time-draining North East states, and due to an unconfirmed train ticket I never even made the Punjab, in fact India for me India stands for I’ll Never Discover It All.

Cheshire Girl sporting £4000 shawl and obligatory sweat

I have learned so much about myself, about humanity and I have at the same time become a lover of this country and of my own.  I think I have always faced a strange barrier in terms of accepting who I am and where I am from but that barrier has been breached and I entirely appreciate the fact that I am a Cheshire girl with the good fortune of having spent the last 6 years living in beautiful Shropshire/Powys. 

I dislike using “never” but I doubt that I would do it again, the itch I always had to do this big trip has been scratched and I am excited about returning to the UK on Wednesday, about discovering where life will take me next and about focussing on what matters now that this Thinking Space has helped me make Living Room.

Experiencing Dhamma Thali Vipassana

Violent inner rage

Infiltrates and shakes

Peacock tail displays

Acid laced three-sixty ways

Seen by rarely opened eyes

Silently charged with new perception

Aversions dispelled, Cravings quelled

Nightly dhamma doses

And happlily ever afters

The Realization of Vipassana

(Note: this post may make more sense if you’ve read the two January Vipassana posts)

Anicca, Anicca, Anicca …the law of impermanence …everything is constantly changing.  Even this trip which slowly became my refuge and which has felt so solid and permanent is now just dissolving away like the pain in my knees and hips did during all those hours of meticulous meditation.

Following the most profound experience of my life to date, I am absolutely clear now that one creates one’s own happiness simply by not creating one’s own misery.  One has the choice to react, or not to react.  One can use the mind to observe the physical sensations manifested by a strong craving or aversion (emotion), or let the emotion take over the mind …the theory is that simple.  The practise of remaining equanamous is the tough bit.  I don’t know this because someone told me to believe it; I know this because I have experienced it first hand at the level of sensation within the body.  I observed the pain in my hips, I watched it for the rising and falling collection of sensations that it really was.  Labelling it pain and reacting to it by changing position is what I have trained my mind to do throughout life but I have taught it a new skill now …to observe those sensations …and ultimately I watched them dissolve.

The objective of these courses is to teach Dhamma¹ through the same experiential technique that the Buddha himself taught 2500 years ago.  Goenka teaches this technique to “purify the mind” in an environment where you can put it to the test sufficiently to be able to take it away and use it in your daily life.  “Purification” of the mind is about uprooting cravings and aversions that have deeply planted themselves within your mind².  On-going practise is about continuing that work and most importantly about remaining equanamous and therefore not generating more cravings and aversions going forward.

The technique itself is very stark and very simple.  It does not use any chanting or staring at and imagining objects, it just teaches you to silently observe your own breath, not to control it but to observe it, from the breath you eventually move to being able to observe sensation all over the body and from there to observing individual sensations at the cellular and molecular level.  It is a scientific and universal path towards real happiness that involves no religious blind faith, rite or ritual.

Clearly there is a bunch of accompanying theory which Mr Goenka delivers in his gentle, learnedly entertaining way through the evening DVD discourses.  I have sat through these discourses before and I have a book summarising them which I have read and delved into several times since my course in Chennai and yet when you take on that information in the midst of personally experiencing what he is talking about you can take so much more away from his stories, analogies and explanations.  For this reason alone my second experience was far deeper and more impactful than my first but I also gave it everything for the sake of my future and all of the interactions I will have in life from now on.

¹ (The Buddha’s Noble 8 Fold Path)

² Since my last course I have been able to eat almost everything that I thought I didn’t like previously …like nuts as a sweet rather than a savoury food and big sloppy raw tomatoes.  I’m still to conquer melon and papaya though!

Hopefully Speaking

Over the last couple of weeks, Blogspot has been publishing almost a poem a day whilst I was away on another Vipassana meditation intensive.  I found early May in India just too hot to sight see so I stopped feeling bad about not doing it and sat under various fans and even by a pool, thoroughly enjoying writing my final splurge of Thinking Space poetry, which I hope you've enjoyed.

If I have survived Vipassana, then today (24th May) I will be in possession of a fully cleansed mind and engaged in noble chatting.  I will leave the Dhamma Thali centre tomorrow, Udaipur bound from where I hope to be back in touch to completely wrap up this Thinking Space.

Metta

Vee Double You Zed (Brilliant things about Blighty 5)

Our letter zed

is their letter jed

your letter zee

they teach as jee

Our sound wuh

They say as vuh

and our letter vee

is always said wee.

I have Jeero verk left

To put on this blog

so I'll be back with you

post weepassana slog...

Frankness (Brilliant things about Blighty 4)

Aids is a killer

A serious truth

So steady your tiller

And deal with the proof

Its sex that does spread it

Not holding a hand

This is not the place

for your prudence to stand

You need to be open

About things like these

or be over-run by

This SEXUAL disease

 

 

 

Photos coutesey of the lovely Zimbabwe Frances my Gujarati SMS pal - thank you!