A morning puja for Japan and winding down

At 6.30 am yesterday  a puja was held in the Maya Devi temple area next to the Ashoka pillar in support of the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. It was initiated by a Vietnamese monk and facilitated by the monks from the Japanese temple. The day before a young Japanese meditator wrote a sign here at Panditarama asking for donations and raised $500, which she took down to the puja to give to the monks.

Very unusually the yogis here were permitted to leave the centre and attend the ceremony if they chose to do so. A number of them came and so a small straggly procession of silent slow walkers headed out the gate to attend and show their support. There were a few short speeches and some chanting from the various traditions, of which the Japanese was particularly poignant and moving. A bit of competition came from the other side of the pillar in the form of an  Thai pilgrimage group that was doing their own chanting. But at least they weren't using an amplified megaphone or microphone, which is quite a common practice and one of my pet hates. As well there was the usual collection of early morning visitors wandering around the paths enjoying the early morning cool. A local Nepali man had made a cardboard donation box and was planning to take it around the local villages and ask people to offer what they could, even one rupee – as there is a lot of poverty around here. After the ceremony tea and biscuits were produced and some informal sharing of news was exchanged – it seems that there is always more stories of devastation to hear about.

The decision to return to Australia has been building for some time and many discussions with family, friends and departing yogis has given me many options and opinions to consider.

In some ways I feel like I am only just settling in here – I know it normally takes a while to establish oneself in a new place and I now do find I get recognised around the area and have many friendly interactions, practising my appallingly poor and ali ali (little little) Nepali, which is fun. And now that people are finding out I am a soon to leave they want to know when I will return. Kamala the women who runs the small tea shop near the Maya Devi temple with her husband and two young daughters was a bit weepy when I told her  - and she then gave me a coke on the house as well as a gift of a small bracelet of amethyst coloured beads.   

Sayadaw headed off yesterday for his international teaching tour and I accompanied him to the airport with another meditator. We ran into the Nepali Cultural Secretary who I had met at a UNESCO seminar and was travelling with the Minister of Culture. He clasped my hands and said I should come back soon! Maybe smooth bureaucrat-speak but it did feel good to be acknowledged in this way – yes, I was a little seduced by his diplomacy!

So much has happened over these past months that in other ways I feel like I have been here for a very long time. Not sure where I will fit in and how I will re-establish myself back in Oz. It may be that I will sort a few things out then return here. I really have no agenda, which gives me lots of choices but at times makes me feel like I am in freefall.

With Sayadaw heading off a number of meditators are finishing off their retreats and also leaving.  So there has been more than the usual amount of activity and conversation going on around me - quite a change from the usual silence that envelops everyone  - and has been a pleasant diversion. I spent a few days with one young Australian woman who had been on retreat for three months, practising diligently. She had been walking very slowly for all that time and so when we heading off for a few walks together into the ‘wilds’ of Lumbini it took quite a bit longer that normal to get from a to b! It was particularly lovely to have a person from ‘home’ to hang out with for a while – having some very easy banter. It’s interesting to see how easily I fall back into my cultural comfort zone. It does have its challenges at times living at the centre, which feels like a little Burma (albeit very watered down compared with some of the Burmese meditation centres) with a German flavour and now a bit of an Aussie edge, if only temporary. Then there are various other differences like gender, educational background etc etc to contend with all contained in the pressure cooker of meditation centre life. My release valves have mostly taken the form of walks and rides around the Lumbini area and chats with locals.

Yesterday evening after coming back for the airport and a quick shopping trip to Bhairahawa I jumped on my bike and rode around the dirt track surrounding the Sacred Garden area. It was a beautiful evening with the sun  - a huge red orb low in the sky - was reflected and shimmering in the pools that enclose the garden area, and flocks of water birds were serenely floating on the water . I rode up to pass a woman pushing a hand cart, accompanied b her two daughters. The elder one about 12 hopped on the luggage rack on the back of my bike – the first time I had given a ‘dink’ (a word that just then came to mind that I only just remembered) since primary school years! I didn’t fall off and took her a few hundred meters along the road to the intersection for her village, she heading home and me continuing my ride in the other direction.

Tansen and wedding photos

 The arrival of the bride and groom

 The wedding feast

 My roof top room

 Wedding guests with bride's uncle and cook

 A walk in the hills to the south of town

 A visit to a weaving workshop  - making Dhakka - traditional Nepali cloth - I had two shirts made from this while in town

 The bride and groom receiving my good wishes

Old gateway in Tansen

A wedding feast and back to Lumbini

I met up with Philip an Egyptian American who had been to the meditation centre and is now living in Tansen doing some volunteer teaching. He rents a room with a Dalit family just above where I was staying; I caught sight of him from the rooftop and went to say hello.. The Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables” live in a cluster of houses above the house where I was staying The people in this community comprise an extended family group some of who are politically and socially active for Dalit’s rights and are providing their children with higher education  - I found them to be vey friendly and hospitable people. While visiting Philip I was invited to a wedding celebration to be held that evening. The actual ceremony had taken place a month previously and this was to be the first visit by the couple to the bride’s family since then. The guests – all family, apart from Philip, another foreign volunteer from Indonesia and myself– waited outside the house for the bride and groom’s arrival. As an invited foreign guest I got offered a prime seat. The older women – grandmothers and aunties – sat together on a wooden bed by the door, while the men and younger family members took it in turns to stand and sit on the remaining chairs. The new couple entered the family compound and made their way to the front door of the house – first touching their heads to the feet of the older women. They then stood outside the door while the woman’s father placed a tika (red powder and rice grains) on their foreheads and performed some other rituals. With these completed the bride and groom were welcomed to enter the house sitting on a low platform for the guests to come in at various times to wish them well – myself included

Then it was time to eat. I was invited to enter another room and to sit on a rug covered floor with the other two foreigners and the older men of the family. We were given plates and spoons then some of the young men came in with huge containers of various curries to fill our plates as many times as desired. The food had been cooked earlier in the day by one of the bride’s uncles. The family were very kind and attentive and I stayed after the meal for a while longer to have a chat  before being escorted by torchlight back to my room.

The next morning I was due to have a long walk with Paula, a young women from Germany here as a volunteer teacher, and Kiran a local Tansenian but all the rich food from last night gave me a bit of an upset belly so felt it would be a bit unpleasant walking for 8 hours in this state - so unfortunately cancelled. But instead went for a lovely although shorter couple of walks one in the morning to get the best views of the Himalayas with Man and Carol a women from France who is hoping to rent a room out of town to do some writing for a book she is currently working on. We ended the walk in town at a small tea shop and had breakfast together - fresh puris and vegetable curry followed by tea and jalebis (a sugar sweet fried in ghee).  I discovered Carol has been working as a trainer and healer in a Chinese tradition for many years and she kindly offered to give me a treatment in the arvo.

The session was subtle, using a hands-off energy healing, followed by some discussion. She suggested I needed time alone to take some walks and relax, to stop giving out to others - I could only agree. And I do hope to take some more breaks, but for the moment felt obligated to head back to Lumbini and the centre. Later in the afternoon we again went for a walk, this time on the south side of Tansen through a pine forest to look out amongst the surrounding hills down towards the direction of India. By the time we go back it was dusk, being delayed slightly by the discovery in Man’s pocket of some aberrant “mystery” keys, which he had picked up inadvertently, and as it turned out belonged to someone he had met earlier in the day – but not before we had  backtracked to find their owner. After a final Tansen dinner, courtesy of  and shared with Man and his wife, and a fourth and final night in my little rooftop room I headed back, a little reluctantly, to Lumbini.   

Rather than the luxury of a taxi trip all the way as on the trip up I began on the local buses. The first leg from Tansen to Butwal was very pleasant - a downhill run with a couple of short stops, plenty of seats and wonderful views. The second bus ran along a highway from Butwal to Bhairahawa in the heat of the plains and was packed. But everyone was in a good humour and very patient with being squashed like sardines right up to the front doorsteps. I managed to get one of the seats next to the driver so had a bit more space than some. After that trip I decided to lash out paying 800 rupees (about $11.50) to take a taxi from Bhairahawa to Lumbini, a bit more expensive than the bus trips which had only cost 75 and 35 rupees.

So now I’m back in Lumbini and missing the hilly country with the cool mornings and evenings and milder days. It’s starting to warm up quite a bit here now – a small taste of the mid summer heat. It is a possibility I will escape back to oz over that time – as far as Melbourne at least  - maybe to get my house buying done or at least touch base with family. It seems that I now have been granted an official one year visa for Nepal, although still without passport, so can come and go as much or little as I like over that time. Will see what happens.

Hilly photos

On the road to Tansen

Birjesh outside Hotel S with Himalyan backdrop

The rooftop view across Tansen from my homestay 

A typical Tansen streetscape in the older part of town

My Nepali class

Heading for the hills

After three plus months at a meditation centre I have been feeling the need for a bit of an escape. Iit can get quite intense and sometimes oppressive being there as a helper – what with all the yogis going through their inner turmoils and the staff upholding a certain demeanour that sometimes begins to show the cracks when interacting with each other – no doubt myself included. However, I do have the aussie cultural tendency to and the luxury of being able to speak my mind more openly - so in this case I did and said I needed a break. I have been worrying and thinking too much about what to do when back in oz re houses and dogs and supporting myself etc – which has contributed to the desire for time out.

So took a taxi – with Birjesh at the wheel  - and we headed up into the hills above Lumbini – a 2 and a half hour drive with a quick stop in Butwal, a large town, for a brief snack of local bananas and muesli bars before winding our way up a narrow and sometimes rocky road looking down into a river gorge to Tansen.  The views were wonderful – with terraced fields laid out along the hill sides running down to the river and small settlements of mud walled thatched roofed houses dotted on the slopes.

We got to Tansen at lunch time and Birjesh and I sat on the hotel terrace and ate a traditional Nepali lunch of dhal bhat tarkari – dhal, rice and curried vegetables with piickle and pappadams on the side. The view from the terrace was quite something – looking down over the town of mutli coloured houses and into the valley below then across to the far of hills. As I had to move from this hotel, the Sreenagr, the next day I spent a quiet arvo walking down into to town for a quick look and to sort out a room for the next night. The hotel sits on a ridge 2 kilometers above town and has views south down to Tansen and the hills beyond and to the north is the giant Himalayan range – amazing views.

 I met up with a lively local Man Mohan who runs a tourist info office from his home. He has a small homestay so I booked a room situated on the roof for the next nights and after my one night at the Sreenagar walked down the hill with my pack to my new home. The room is little

(and pink) but the bed backs onto the window, which looks out over the roof tops of Tansen and beyond. Out the door is the roof top terrace where I have spent some pleasant times chatting with the irrepressible Mana Moha. And just this moment his son brought me my cup of morning chiya – so I am typing on the bed with tea on the window sill with the noises of birds and people waking getting ready for the day ahead drifting through.

Tansen is a charming town set out up the hillside with many steep streets and houses of bright aqua and green and pink as well as the more traditional earthy reds and browns. This is a town with a large Newari population  - who havea distinctive architectural style – featuring timber roof struts and carved posts and window frames.  So I have explored the town and yesterday had a 3 hour walk into the countryside through villages of earth houses with tidy vegetable plots and terraced fieds of wheat. Accompanied by Man, we firstly went to the college where he teaches business and tourism. I became the lesson for the day and in front of a small class of 5 students talked about my perceptions and experiences of Nepal as well as asking them about their lives. The two young female students  - 15  - were very shy but started to open up as the time passed. At the end of the class I took a group photo then Man and I headed off. It was a beautiful clear sunny day and the scenery was gorgeous. The walk was made even more pleasant with the addition of several stops along the way for refreshments – freshly made samosas and tea, a pepsi further on and an invite to a past students home for another chiya. We finally reached the valley floor and caught a very packed local bus back up into town. I became a interesting diversion for the passengers  - at least for the first few kilometres when it became apparent I wasn’t that exciting. Arriving back into Tansen we finished the outing with some buff momos and ginger soup.

Although I walk everyday, I realised that the plains of Lumbini haven’t given my calf muscles much of a work out and they are now experiencing the effects of walking in the hills again – a good feeling.  

So have been having a lovely time but seem no closer to any answers to my questions of what to do back in oz, which I have been asking here every morning when I wake but so far no great clarity arises in my mind- oh well – Ke Garne – (Nepali – What can I do? Sort of equivalent to the Aussie “whatever) Maybe I’ll be back in oz before long to try to deal with things from there or stay and suffer the apparently unbearable heat of a Lumbini summer and agonise over it from here! In the meantime I will try my best to enjoy the simple pleasures of Tansen before heading back to Lumbini and life at the meditation centre – where some retreat time might be in store.

Photos from the last Blog blurb

 Two friendly tigers in the Vietnamese temple - not mentioned in the blog but too cute to leave out

 The VIP room at Bhairahawa airport

 Sayadaw U Pandita with devotees

Cutting Tin Tin Win's hair in the garden

 A band of musicians in the birthday procession

 Nuns in the procession

 A friendly god

 3 little peacocks

The banner and band members at the Ashokan pillar

Some time alone after a busy week

The visit of Saydaw U Pandita from Burma has come and gone – it was a time of great activity and intensity – with extra monks and nuns in attendance, a group of meditators  from Kathmandu and many visitors coming and going.  On the day of his departure all the people here on retreat came out from the meditation hall  and stood in silence outside Sayadaw’s room to pay their last respects as he walked from the door to his awaiting taxi going to the airport. It was a strange sight - all these silent still people standing around the building (could have looked a bit like the invasion of the zombies!) waiting for a glimpse of the teacher.

It was really very lovely to see this elderly highly venerated monk and meditation master giving some final words of support and encouragement to these people who had come from many parts of the world (including Australia, America, Canada, UK, Israel, Mexico, India, Singapore, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Belgium etc etc) to practice meditation. I was invited to come to the airport with some of the monks and nuns to give Sayadaw and his entourage a final farewell. Courtesy of one of his Kathmandu supporters- an ex Nepali politician – we were given the use of the VIP room at the airport, a much more comfortable and salubrious environment than the main waiting area. This may sound impressive – and in relative Nepali terms it was  - but it was not that flash by western standards. Either way, I think it will be my one and only time to get VIP treatment here in Nepal or anywhere else for that matter.

Over the last few days of this retreat there was a lot also going on outside the walls of the centre to celebrate the auspicious 77^th birthday of a famous Nepali nun – Dhammawati. She had come from Kathmandu with hundreds of her supporters. I managed to escape the centre and attend some of the activities that were part of the 4 days of celebrations.  The most notable was a procession that began at the Gotami Vihara (local Nepali nun’s monastery)– which is located on a side road a few hundred metres from Panditarama  - and made it’s way to the Maya Devi temple garden. The procession was lead by a man carrying and juggling a tall banner decorated with pennants and what looked like the fluffy plumes at the end of yak tails. He was followed by a band of Newari (a Nepali ethnic group) musicians playing drums, cymbals and flutes then followed people dressed as Hindu gods and goddesses, a long line of nuns in their pink and orange robes, lay women in red holding Buddha statues on their heads, three little girls dressed as peacocks  and two other musical groups. Somewhere in the midst of all these people was Dhammawati herself being pushed in a wheel chair under a gold umbrella preceded by a group of little girls in white dresses and veils (very bride like) paving her way with flowers. When I recounted this to Sayadaw U Vivekananda  he thought it sounded  bit much! But it was very interesting and lively – everybody seemed to be having a good time and this nun is certainly much loved in Nepal.

That evening the Newari musicians performed outside in the courtyard of the Nun’s temple under a huge and beautiful red full moon. There were also some Newari dancers who would leap into the space in front of the band as the mood took them. It was great music and a wonderful night with a large appreciative Nepali audience. I was one of  - or maybe the one and only Westerner in the mix and stood with some Nepali friends from Kathmandu who had just finished their retreat.  I received several invitations to visit people in Kathmandu  at the end of the retreat – both from lay people and nuns and I would like to visit them as well as a very quirky and lovely Burmese monk, Sayadaw U Nyanajotta, who has been recently appointed to reside at a large centre in Kathmandu - IBMC.  He came here to Panditarama with Sayadaw U Pandita for the 10 days of the special retreat and was teaching the meditators over that time. I spent a bit of time with him and he had a very light hearted and easy going manner – quite an unusual personality for a Burmese Sayadaw – at least in my experience.  He liked to go for walks and check out what was going on  with video camera in hand. On one walk a young new nun and I were with him and he led us into a Tibetan temple while there were in the middle of a  puja – with video camera rolling he proceeded to take close ups of the monks doing their thing. They were very obliging and In the end we all received bags of biscuits, fruit and assorted other goodies that had been part of their ceremony,

 The nun’s ordination also took place over this time – although in contrast to the events it was a very low-key affair. Unlike the ceremony for monk, a nun’s ordination usually passes with  little acknowledgement. This time was no different and the change from lay woman to nun took place first in a corner of the garden with two nuns removing Tin Tin Win’s hair – first cutting most of it off then shaving the rest - and then in her room where, after a little chanting, clothes were swapped for robes and that was it – from Tin Tin Win to Dhammadeepa.  I went out with her later in the day to the Maya Devi garden to take some photos, adding to some I took earlier, so she had something to show her family back in Burma.

Today after little sleep and some late night/early morning meditation I felt somewhat edgy and had no desire to sit in the dining room with yogis at breakfast. I felt  a bit over it all - been supporting meditators for too long and didn’t want to be around anybody for the while. So I sat outside by myself in the cool morning air and had a peaceful breakfast of mohinga (Burmese fish/noodle soup – an occasional treat reserved for staff only) and black tea while watching the birds  enjoying the  garden. There was a small group of babblers, regulars at the centre, that are very perky and amusing birds.   Still feeling out of sorts and really wishing to be anywhere but the centre I took off for an extended walk. It was a beautiful morning with a pale blue sky streaked with light pink glowing through a fine mist. I walked to where a group of impressive and ornate Mahayana temples are located. They surround a artificial lake and their reflections shone back from the surface of the water while a vivid blue kingfisher skimmed the surface. There was also a group of white egrets keeping an eye on things from the grassy bank and a local dog and her pup, both very mangy, were sitting in the sun.