06/04/11. I’ve had quite the experience since the last time I wrote! In Bir, I started spending a lot of time at Deer Park, a center for classical Indian wisdom that specializes in Buddhist philosophy. They also have an ecology program and are very serious about being a zero-waste campus, so they’ve been very interesting for my research. I was fortunate enough to be in Bir at the same time as a 4-day teaching by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, an extremely renowned lama. People from literally all around the world flew in just for this teaching, so I figured I might as well go along, since I happened to be living just a three minute walk away.
I’ve been fascinated by Buddhism for some time now, but I did not come to India with much of an agenda to learn about it. However, it seems like this is the time in my life to actually spend some time delving into it. The teaching was on The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva, a central text in Mahayana Buddhism. For a teeny bit of background, a bodhisattva is a person who dedicates their life to developing compassionate and serving all sentient beings. The teaching also happened to be really relevant to my research project on how sustainability work can be more effective when approached as karma yoga, since the philosophies of karma yoga and the way of the bodhisattva are quite similar.
I would have you reading for hours if I were to describe all that I learned and considered at the teaching. It was incredibly thought-provoking and gave me something of a new framework for the kind of person I want to be. It also really helped me clarify many of my beliefs and rediscover several things I appreciate about Judaism. Mostly it just made me realize how much more I need and want to learn about Buddhism. Whenever I thought I understood something, a conversation would usually reveal that its much more complicated than I thought.
After the teaching, I spent a few more days up the mountain on the building project. I got a little better at throwing mud at walls, sifting rocks, and even Hindi! The highlight was always the incredible lunches the women made. They all brought dishes from home to share and usually forced me to eat way too much delicious food!
On my last day in Bir, I fulfilled my dream of FLYING! Bir is a world-famous site for paragliding, so I figured it was too good of a chance to pass up! It was really quite surreal.
I decided to spend my last week in India in the Dharamsala area to learn more about karma yoga from the many yoga centers there. I found a yoga course in Bhagsu that covers a lot of the theory and philosophy of yoga, in addition to the physical yoga asana practice. I’ve been practicing yoga for about four years now, but none of my yoga classes have really gone into the theory behind the poses, so this has been an incredible opportunity to learn about what exactly it is that I’ve been doing for the past few years. I’ve really been enjoying the chance to make yoga the focus of my life for a few days. I’ve been doing lots of really interesting reading, particularly on karma yoga, which is giving me so much, even beyond my research project.
Bhagsu is one of the weirdest/coolest places I’ve ever been. It’s basically an Israeli colony way up in the Himalayas. I see and hear more Hebrew than Hindi or even English. It seems like every other building is a yoga or meditation center, and the rest are hippied-out cafes filled with colorful tapestries, cushions, and lanterns. Most of the cafes have a menu that features Indian, American, Italian, Greek, Israeli, Chinese and Tibetan food. There is a huge culture of people just sitting in cafes all day and all night. One of my friends said it reminds her summer camp, which I think is pretty fitting. And its GORGEOUS!