Dharamsala and on to Nepal

Sorry for the delay in posting - I've been up in Nepal for a few weeks and the power situation has been a challenge (when I first arrived, the power was *off* for 16 hours a day). Just got back from trekking too, which as you can imagine is not an oasis of internet connectivity. With that...



(Feb. 28th) After Amritsar, Jordi and I made our way to Dharamsala to attend a Buddhist meditation retreat. Normally you take a train to this town called Pathankot, and then a 4 hour bus ride through the mountains. But we had made friends with this nice guy from Austin, Quentin, who was also attending the retreat and had his heart set on the taking the toy train (a small-gauge train that goes most of the way up the mountain). The ride was beautiful, but packed with people and long. Jordi and I had unwittingly created a barrier with our packs so people couldn't crowd us, and sat there playing with a cute baby that the woman next to us had. But poor Quentin was squished in a corner - I think at some point he had a man sitting on his lap.



After some hassle getting a taxi for the rest of the way, involving a very drunk Indian intent on telling us the true secret of meditation, we arrived in Dharamsala the night before our course began. We had signed up for the "Introduction to Buddhism" course at the Tushita Meditation Center. The class turned out to be a great overview of Tibetan Buddhism, and best of all, prepared us for a public teaching by the His Holiness the Dalai Lama to be given the day after the course was over.

Going to the teaching and being in the presence of the Dalai Lama was a big highlight of my trip (much better than seeing him pass in a jeep like I did the last time I was in Dharamsala!). The ceremony around the DL's entrance was incredible. Two enormous 10 foot-long horns were blown, a procession of elder monks filed in, and then the Dalai Lama arrived with an enormous yellow plumed helmet on. Next the chant master started singing, remarkably close to the noise of the horns - a very low chord-like sound like a human didgeridoo. Then we all tuned in our little handheld radios to hear the English translation of the Dalai Lama speaking. The teaching was a fairly technical explanation of the Buddhist understanding of emptiness, which would have been completely mystifying before the class. The inherent emptiness of existence was my favorite part of the Buddhist teachings (really!) so both Jordi and I went in for a second course focused on that topic. Altogether we spent about 3 weeks up at Tushita - with excellent teachers both times. I don't think Tibetan Buddhism is exactly my path, but there is a lot about it that I admire and can see the truth in.



We were also in Dharamsala at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against China in Tibet. Candlelit vigils up to the Dalai Lama's temple were held every night, which were moving and sad to watch. Though at the vigil I saw, they had these guys from an autonomous region in Italy offering to give China some advice on how to have a peaceful and successful autonomous region (note to Italy: don't wait up for that call from China). After the violent protests in Tibet during last year's anniversary, things were very subdued this year.



After Tushita, Jordi, myself, and this other Dutch guy Mart that we had met at the courses traveled to the India/Nepal border. Taxied down the windy mountain roads to Jalandhar (sorry Jordi!), and then took an overnight train to the border town of Gorakhpur. It was fun traveling with Mart because he was new to India and everything was fresh, exciting and photo-worthy to him.




First stop in Nepal, right across the border, was the weird, relatively newly created destination of Lumbini. The historical birthplace of the Buddha, there wasn't much there except a small village until some years ago when planning began on a series of stupas and gompas in the area. Now there are many monuments from Buddhist countries around the world (China, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, etc). Interestingly, the most beautiful building was from that powerhouse of Buddhism, Germany (though Myanmar's golden stupa is a close second). My favorite moment was going to see the exact location where Buddha was born, and having this guy in front of me not even get off his cell phone while he was looking at it.