3 Short Items

To Precede a Much Longer Entry, Long in the Works

1. I don't know if anyone has tried to call us, but the Vihar has new phone numbers:

011-91-997-399-4286 or 011-91-631-320-2037

2. Would you like anything from India that I can bring you? I wanted to put it out there--don't hestiate to ask.

3. Can I ask something of all of you friends and family out there? Could you send me mail? And pictures of yourselves with your mail? I think I speak for all the WesKids when I say that getting mail here is like waking up on Christmas morning, or rather, waking up from the delusion of samsara to unsurpassable, true, complete enlightenment. Or something more wonderful than is imaginable. Our friend Claire sent the four of us a package with fall leaves and the Wesleyan Argus and it made our collective day. Speaking for myself, nothing is more comforting than seeing your handwriting, your return addresses, knowing I'm receiving something that has passed from your hands to mine. Many things are wonderful here, but few are comfortable. My request is for comfort sent through snail mail! Mail sent anytime before December 7 should reach us. Thank you!

I got this letter

Dear kid,

Was it so long ago that we used to play? You prancing in my meadows and battling my ogres, and I a glass bauble-world that would shake to stir the winds of change if ever you grew bored--

Through carelessness or trust I let you see me to my edge.

Let you glimpse your reflection on those deepest walls
the concave secrets of my root

____sky____and perimeter.

But it did not deepen our intimacy
Instead of understanding the depth of my caress,

The first thing you saw was your own mask, magnified in the curve of my accidental looking glass.

Entranced, you stood fixed
Gaping at my womb, and yet seeing only your shadow outstretched

First you worshipped that great shining man-image, offering to him whichever of your brothers and sisters were close at hand until

One day you saw that man to be yourself; and you rejoiced in your hugeness.

Still you stand, still you stare, dreaming that you are him on the other side of the looking glass; that you have outgrown me; that I sit as a globe on your mantel.

Quit this silly thinking, child!
You will never fall back through my sex.

Your actual body is wasting away by the pond!

Come play.

We also can make love in the meadows, and fighting ogres.

Love,
Your original true face

palimpsest

Mark me, scar me, burn me as you will
When I turn back inside out
The throbbing inner walls of my holiest of holies
Will be covered in fresh poetry
and stinking of life.

stream

Like finding a stream, in the pitch dark.
Don't listen just to the word, but to which direction it comes from.
"God"

blood-cousin

Pneumatic heart bodies
crackling lights

All your latest corpses
Are made of my corpses

Just try to wash your hands

----

(I was thinking, if washing soul is like scrubbing a tile to make it a mirror, then washing hands is like scrubbing a mirror to clean it of your face)

for the bugs

From dusk until dawn
thousands of grasshopper bugs
converged by deepest consensus of migratory instinct
to worship in the cold light of that electric sun
above the sink near my bedroom

In that sterile glow, some revelers launch themselves aimlessly
and with great force
raging in silence with their tiny power

while others dive headlong at the machine
again and again
Maybe trying to meet god, if I could aim my body just right this time
But only as iron filings are drawn to total and mindless attention
again and again
when compelled by the greater charisma of an equally mindless magnetic rock

Anyway, down the hall, another god. Across the street
yet more. In this town, billions of moments swarm around each indifferent idol

In the morning, spent
they carpet the floor, walls
and ceiling above the sink near my bedroom
all dead.

quotes

"The warrior knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars" (Paulo Coelho)

"A teacher should bow close to the ground like a fruit tree" (Gautam, our Hindi teacher)

"We wear out the shoe of samsara by walking on it through meditation" (Chogyam Trungpa)

"For penetrating to the depths of our true nature... nothing can surpass the practice of Zen in the midst of activity... the power or wisdom obtained by practicing zen in the world of action is like a rose that rises from the fire. The rose that rises from the midst of flames becomes all the more beautiful and fragrant the nearer the fire rages." (Hakuin)

the bottom of the ocean

What is powerful and alive, warrior?

A pain wraps me around her finger.
___Splash into the liquid ground beneath us
___fall backwards
___sweeping gadgets papers money off a cluttered office desk
___into the ocean
___tip the desk and office in after

An enemy appears: tension, release, embrace

Threads like bubbles in a hose
try to pull me toward the surface
but their stickiness is gone
my stickiness is gone
they slide through me, and I sink on like a rock

The colors are clearer here, at the bottom of the ocean
Now that I'm blind
I have to feel them with my own two hands

Crossing the Ganges

Crossing the Ganges on the train out of Varanasi, sunrise. Windy open windows train. One of the most glorious moments:

-------

Sky shining
mist made of light

Ganga shining
masks thrown to the sea

A rowboat glides silent
through borderless intimate

Silhouettes bathe
at the shores of God

Hey there.

Hi. So I made it to India.

I have all sorts of notes for you from the last two months but it doesn't feel alive to write the earlier ones, I tried. Here's some poetry instead.

To Varanasi and Back

We're sorry it's been nearly a month since any of us have posted. We're being kept very busy here at the vihar. The past month or so has been so amazing and full in so many ways...it feels funny to try to blog it. But here are some of the things we've been up to.

We spent the first three weeks studying Theravada Buddhism and Vipassana meditation with U Hla Myint and two Burmese nuns. They were wonderful. U Hla Myint is one of the nicest, sweetest people...he was always cracking himself up...and the nuns were amazing. Meditating for 2+ hours a day has also been really amazing. Around the second week or so, the four of us ordained as monks/nuns for nine days. We were given robes to wear, shaved our heads, and upheld an extra five precepts. It actually turned out to be a rather uncomfortable experience for me. We were supposed to get our food before the rest of the community, and to eat separately; people called me "bhante" instead of Alex; and we weren't allowed to do any work, so people would clean up after us. It definitely felt like a hierarchy and made us all pretty uncomfortable...but a worthwhile experience none the less.

It's also been great to get to know Bodh Gaya better. We've been making lots of friends and trying not to stay too "sheltered" at the monastary, although some days we're just so busy that it can be hard. But we've recently started eating dinner outside of the vihar, which has been really nice. It's been exciting to see the different festivals and celebrations and to be making lots of friends.

Around the second weekend we had a meditation retreat, and the following weekend was our long weekend (no class on Friday or meditation all weekend). We spent our long weekend in Varanasi, or Benares, which is one of the oldest cities in the world. Aside from just exploring the city, we took a boat down the Ganges River, which was really beautiful, although a bit shocking, since many people are cremated along this part of the river. There were dead bodies and ashes along the shores. I also decided to buy a sitar - SUCH a beautiful instrument, I had no idea. We happened upon a concert of classical Indian music, and I got a lesson with the sitar player, which was quite exciting for me...

Now we're back at the vihar and we've just begun our study of Mahayana Buddhism and Zen meditation with our new Sensei, Ekai Korematsu, here on the right. We sit at the vihar in the mornings and take a rickshaw over to a Japanese temple for the evening meditation. Zen is totally different than Vipassana...it's really cool to get to practice these different techniques. Starting this week we're taking turns taking Sensei out to dinner in small groups. This weekend, we'll have another short Zen retreat.

We're also finally organizing our independent study projects. I'll be going to the Dharamsala Region, which is where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government live in exile, to study compassion as a healing force in Tibetan Buddhism. I'm gonna sit a retreat practicing Tibetan meditation, and I'm hoping to get to talk to rinpoches and other Tibetan practitioners.

We have so much more to tell you about, so many great stories, but now for evening meditation...