“When a letting go occurred, everything was light, the self-importance of despair was humorous, and you wondered how you could have forgotten that [...] “The whole trap was set around “I am”: the need to get life under control by figuring it out or attaining something.
This is deathlessness: the freedom of the heart through nonclinging,” said the Buddha.”
Excerpt From: Ajahn Sucitto & Nick Scott. “Rude Awakenings.”
I walked down the long jetway toward the waiting plane, the eighth within a span of three weeks. Pure white her fuselage was, a kind of pureness and whiteness rarely found in the dry, dust-covered and barren-looking lands I have traversed in recent days. The plane glistened even in the morning haze, and the shape the windows were formed looked like she was smiling at me, welcoming me aboard. Back to Europe, away from the Indian subcontinent...
It was past nine in the morning, yet still dull and grey outside. Was this the final impression India wanted to leave me? This journey has been far from the mood of the morning. It has been wild, free, unexpected, incredible. It has been deeply personal.
My mind tried to make sense of things, tried to formulate some kind of grand conclusion with the jumble of events, people, places, emotions I have encountered over the course of my self-proclaimed pilgrimage. All I know is at first, even before I began this journey, I was hesitant to call myself a "pilgrim". In this world which places so much emphasis on being successful and material wellbeing, going on a pilgrimage is an invitation to be mocked as a chanting religious zealot or a weed-smoking hippie. I am neither. But the more I traveled, the more I saw and the more people I met, I less I was concerned with sanitation, opinions, words and labels. It was a personal pilgrimage, and perhaps not healthy in my attempt to tame the ego, I am proud for having come so far, traveled so extensively, and come out relatively unscathed but much affected.
So what came out of all this? This is a question I have been trying to answer at moments throughout my trip, and this desire to answer it grew and grew as the days counted down to my departure. I thought standing at the gate, I would know or at least have some kind of a clue. But having slept poorly at some cheap transit hotel which seemed to lie in the flightpath of planes taking off throughout the night, my thoughts were blurred. The crazy last-minute attempt to squeeze in a couple hours of cycling in and around Kathmandu the day before did not help my coughing and added to my fatigue. And my mind was still somewhat agitated by the rudeness of the taxi driver who, even before arriving at the airport, demanded I tip him.
There are annoyances that get on your nerves traveling through these parts of the world. The barrage of beggars, the preying touts and vendors, the traffic, the pollution, the never ending din, the lack of a bin and over-abundance of litter everywhere, the intense smells and need to hold your breath using public washrooms... But the only way to deal with it all is with a sense of humor and acceptance. Things are the way they are. Things are not going to change anytime soon. But you can change your perception of things.
The rat running down the platform and cockroaches playing on the table, people jumping the queue (if there is a queue...), the broken streets and lack of pavements, the (un)expected power outages, the constant feeling you get from locals that you are a walking ATM... Observe it all, let it all register, smile and let it all go. Isn't this how we should approach all things in life (and death)?
“I realised that I loved India. I hadn’t been able to see that because I’d always assumed that you couldn’t love something you were so irritated by. The thinking mind works in such exclusive patterns and then denies that reality doesn’t fit them. But when your head gets turned around, you have to accept consciousness dancing like a stream, flowing [...] in contradictory directions according to hidden forces, its surface prickling and wrinkling with every breeze, dimpled by creatures surfacing within it or descending upon it. When the controlling patterns of the will loosen, consciousness is never the same from one moment to the next. It is not even a “thing” at all, just sensitivity trembling according to habits and circumstances.”
Excerpt From: Ajahn Sucitto & Nick Scott. “Rude Awakenings.”
I went to India and Nepal searching for something, and hoping to experience some kind of mini-enlightenment. I found a lot, perhaps too much to make sense of, but I don't think I'm any closer to nirvana. I'm still so prone to judging, still so susceptible to daydream and "inner chatter", still have habits of replaying and reliving unpleasant memories of the past and feeling sorry and guilty about things said and done before. I still have hair on my head, despite some initial fears I'd return (if I even do return...) a shaved monk. The creature comforts that shaped me and mental and physical desires are far too strong. Still.
Perhaps I searched too hard, looked too deeply, and wanted, even expected, to see and experience things how my mind imagined things would be. And am I not then creating my own "suffering", setting myself up for disappointments and imposing my "wei" on the ways of the world?
On the rugged hills of Rajgir, the very place where the Buddha went several times to be by himself, I sat and meditated briefly. Everything looked so small and even insignificant, everything so distant, everything in perspective. Momentarily, I was alone, but gone was the lingering pain, void and loneliness since my mother's passing. I looked at her picture, at the three animals that have tirelessly accompanied me on this personal pilgrimage, and smiled. We made it. I made it.
There was such tranquility, contentment and peace of being with the rocks, the trees, the vultures that circled above, the rhythmic drumming coming from the Japanese Peace Stupa a dozen metres away. I thought to myself, what wonderful place the world would be if every moment, every being, could be like this...
But every moment can be like this. Whether walking in the chaos of Kathmandu's traffic, whether driving through the rough countryside with the risk of encountering dacoits (bandits), or sitting under the very bodhi tree where two thousand five hundred years ago a normal man became a greet teacher and inspiration to billions throughout the ages, every moment can be met with calm and acceptance, equanimity and letting go. At least that is the idea.
Besides a bag full of memorabilia and a memory card full of pictures,
But I am not home yet.
“I was expecting India to live up to my projections of a “spiritual place.” What that seemed to mean was that it would allow me to stand back from it and feel balanced. And that was a demand that India refused to comply with. The way out, surely, was in letting go: let go of getting a clear picture, let go of wanting things to be my way, especially as I didn’t even know what “my way” was. Letting go: although it feels like dying, it gives you the freedom to live without self-importance.”
Excerpt From: Ajahn Sucitto & Nick Scott. “Rude Awakenings.” Amaravati Publications, 2012-06-05. iBooks.
What is the purpose of a pilgrimage? Is it not to test your abilities to cope by putting yourself in a foreign environment and in foreign situations in which you have no say or control over what happens next? Is it not to expose yourself, your whole mind, body and life, to the unknowns of circumstance, and to the kindness, or at times wickedness, of strangers? Is it not to learn and realise how very little you really need in life, and that all else you can leave behind? The further you journey, the deeper into unchartered territory, it seems even the unfamiliar becomes familiar, strangers soon become friends. All the while, like the practice of meditation, you must deal with each rising thought, each encounter, each passing judgment with equanimity and non-clinging. For how else can you travel and live surrounded by conditions beyond your control, beyond the wildest excesses of your imagination?
