Seeing so much suffering in India has given me a strong suspicion that Siddhartha Gautama had plenty of opportunity to see people suffering in much the same way, during his walks around northern India. Perhaps he even saw ragged figures pulling polio victims in small wagons when he crossed the river to Varanasi. Clearly, the Buddha was deeply moved by the suffering of others, and that was the main motivation and inspiration for his spiritual journey. Having been a social reject and an underdog from a very early age, I have connected with underdogs and far from kissing up to the evil status quo, I have sought to overthrow it and to live outside of it, thus to alleviate the world of suffering in addition to my own suffering. I have often done a poor job of this, but at least my heart is in the right place, and my actions are becoming better in recent years, despite all accusations to the contrary.
The pilgrimage has brought home to me the historic fact that the Buddha was a real person. Such awareness makes it more believable that anyone, any mortal, with effort, can also attain enlightenment. This pilgrimage inspires me to be all the more serious about my path, perhaps even, dare I say it, confident that I can become more equanimous and not take insults personally, and more confident about my meditation practice.
During my first night in my own bed, I had a dream that took place at the tail end of the pilgrimage, and everyone got out of the bus and our legs were in pain as we walked. It was like having a bad cramp in each leg, and we were trying to overcome this pain and walk anyway, onto grass at the side of the road. As we walked, Jagdish explained that it’s a pain you experience when you know it’s about time to leave and you don’t want to part. I woke up with a horrible cramp in my right leg.
In hindsight, I’ve noticed that along with my poor ability to trust or rely on others comes a sort of fear of abandonment. At the beginning of the trip, I kept experiencing this fear, no doubt because I’m so accustomed to relying entirely on myself. When I waited on my front porch for the airport shuttle, I seriously wondered if it would actually show up and imagined my having to quickly get into my car and drive on ice for approximately an hour and a half to the Kansas City airport. Before the plane landed in Delhi, I wondered if my suitcase would be lost and was seriously afraid that the hotel representative had given up on me, since the flight was an hour and a half late. When I climbed down from the wall at Bimbisara’s jail, I preferred to help myself than to let Rick help me. Continually, I did not trust others to be reliable.
But later I became comfortable with being part of a group and sometimes thought, “Oh, Shantum will take care of it.” I simply relaxed and experienced interconnectedness firsthand, in practice and up close rather than only in theory or at a distance. When I arrived at the house in Kansas after the pilgrimage, I felt some dismay that instead of having others taking care of everything, I’d have to do my own grocery shopping and cooking and sweep the floor and scoop kitty litter. The house is such a mess, like it always is, and I’m the only one to clean it. But that’s the American way: if you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done.
Siddhartha Gautama gave up three palaces, a wife and kid, silk and jewelry, and future kingship to seek truth. I can give up a two-story house, at least one cat, the furniture and most of the material items in the house, and a full-time job, in order to move to the west coast and seek truth.
I’ve never been anything remotely like a minimalist, but ever since returning from the pilgrimage I’ve been eager to get rid of material things at a drastic rate and have to some extent acted accordingly, although I have so much more to do. I’ve donated many boxes full of books to the public library. I keep taking carloads of junk to recycling bins and am currently filling a box with old files to be recycled. Over and over again I continue taking carloads of paraphernalia to thrift stores and donating them. I plan to sell more online, and I have taken boxes filled with CDs and DVDs to a store that buys and sells them.
In a related vein, ever since I returned, I haven’t felt like eating as much. I drink vast quantities of water, but I’m eating breakfast and lunch and no evening meals. I feel like I could live entirely on Indian food, although in the States it’s a challenge to turn my back on other foods, especially when people bring snacks to work or when I see something appealing on sale. With the Mindfulness Trainings as a guide, it has been much easier to refrain from buying extra food. A couple times, when I was highly tempted to buy chocolate muffins, I remembered skinny beggars in India, and I lost my interest in the muffins. Between my urge to get rid of vast quantities of material things, and my waning inclination to overeat, I think I can safely say I’m on the path of mindful consuming.
Perhaps I am so eager to get rid of many things because in India people with few possessions surrounded me, and here I am with no human roommates in a big house that contains a great deal of paraphernalia, much of it mine rather than possessions dead relatives left behind. Also, one of the Mindfulness Trainings mentions not owning things that should belong to others; old clothing and board games, for example, which have been in closets for decades qualify as items that should belong to someone else, someone who would use them. While selecting things with which to part, whether to sell or donate or take to recycling, I am thinking in realistic terms about how chances are I’ll never use this or that. I am experiencing genuine detachment with so many material things, although I have my limits, since at this stage I am unwilling to part with many of my books and pieces of artwork.
A major theme of the pilgrimage had been renunciation, despite the way I shopped. The monks and nuns set an example of renunciation, owning very little and having a communal lifestyle, sharing closely with others rather than being possessive. The poor people and the squalor do not demonstrate voluntary renunciation, but they do contribute to my awareness that I, like most Americans, have a great many more material possessions than I should have. It is a senseless waste for one person to hoard so much, when the world holds so many people and so many of them own very little.
Although chances are I’ll always surround myself with plenty of artwork and many books, I am definitely lessening the quantities of material things I have and doing so with enthusiasm, so this is renunciation on a small scale. I am also working toward shopping less. No amount of material things will ever make up for psychological and emotional starvation.
I am also, thanks to the pilgrimage, all the more serious about my meditation practice, and although creating art, especially writing, is as important for me as breathing, I have been making a point of meditating twenty minutes every morning, even on workdays, and at least half an hour in the evening, no matter how busy I am or how tight my schedule. On weekends I’ve been meditating longer, both morning and evening, and doing some basic yoga beforehand.
The Buddha became enlightened when he was a year younger than I am now, so surely I can at least reach a point in this lifetime at which I’ve cultivated enough detachment that I no longer care what vicious and ignorant people think of me and no longer take things personally. That is certainly a lot of baggage with which to part. Given where I started in this lifetime, that would be significant progress. Knowing the Buddha as a human being has brought home to me the possibilities.
2
Approximately two weeks after my return to the United States, I made some new observations. I ended the pilgrimage thinking I have had a transformative and healing experience, and I’m sure I have had one, although relatives have proven that they can still creep me out and trigger my depression and brooding. I often feel guilty and inadequate because after spending three weeks in India on a Buddhist pilgrimage and undergoing some change, I sense that I haven’t changed as much as I should have. I have a theory that it should have been a more dramatic transformation, so that I no longer have fear and loathing toward people. This continued ability to let relatives upset me doesn’t strike me as a good thing, but maybe by expecting not to have such reactions, I am expecting too much and being unreasonable with myself. I didn’t seriously think I became a buddha during the pilgrimage. I find that I make an annoyed comment and realize that I said it out of habit and don’t feel particularly angry after all. I shall continue meditating at least once a day and reading up on meditation, and I shall make a point of observing my progress and my reactions.
During the first couple weeks back in the United States, I noticed that, despite the two instances in which relatives got under my skin, overall I felt significantly more equanimous than before the pilgrimage. I did not feel grumpy at work as I did before, and I did not become angry so easily. I didn’t brood as much as before the pilgrimage. I came to the conclusion that verbally abusive relatives are the biggest “elephant” for me and the most horrendous thing to deal with on a personal level.
3
A skeptical voice in my head questions whether I’ve truly conquered fear and will continue to act fearless, or whether riding the elephant was one lone incident.
One local relative in particular continues to harass me and fill me with aversion. She is petty and immature, and by getting offended by her attacks, I am acting petty and immature. Angry and negative thoughts are a habit and I need to work harder at eliminating them. The voice in my head that’s telling me that this relative’s opinions and delusions are her problem, and that it doesn’t matter what she thinks of me, has gotten louder, dare I say even louder than the angry voice in my head.
I am often aware of the conflict between my buddha-nature and the inner demons that verbally abusive relatives and other vicious people have planted in my psyche. I need to refrain from brooding, refrain from mentally repeating bad memories and my negative and hostile thoughts. If not only things like making masala chai and looking at photos from the trip bring me back to a happy and peaceful mental state such as I experienced in India, but if also meditation, self-reflection, and journal writing do this, then I shall know that I have truly made significant progress along the path.
My relatives would convince me that I am the most horrible and worthless human being in the world; in my more depressed moments, they did have me convinced. Before I visited India, I knew that everyone in the world is entitled to acceptance, respect, and love…everyone, that is, except me. Now I have reason to suspect that my relatives have exaggerated how inadequate I am.
It seems to me that at this stage, I shouldn’t be so disturbed by verbal abuse, especially since I know full well that my relatives’ attacks are all because of their delusions. Part of me has internalized my enemies’ contempt, accusations, and abuse. On a thinking level, I know that their delusions are their problem, not mine, and that relatives lash out at me because they are willfully ignorant and in denial, and because they are terrified of truth. People who abuse others do so because they don’t feel good about themselves.
Yet verbal abuse from relatives is the primary reason I needed to become serious about meditation in the first place; still they continue to be a gigantic hindrance. It’s ironic that I have yet to fully confront these particular demons. I don’t like being around people who consider me beneath their contempt and who act as if everything I say or do is wrong just because I’m the one saying or doing it. It is furthermore very depressing to be aware that people who should be supportive and loving in fact wish me harm.
My aversion toward relatives is much vaster than my acrophobia. On the other hand, I have genuinely conquered my fear of heights. I went from assuming I should avoid heights as much as possible and not question this choice, to facing my fears and climbing on the elephant. Perhaps that is a step toward conquering my fear of abusive relatives.
In late May I learned that particularly vicious and verbally abusive relatives would invade Topeka in about a month, and my gut reaction was panic. The prospect of in-town vicious relatives joining with out-of-town vicious relatives was more than I thought I could stand. However, I got enough of a grip on myself that I devoted an entire month to reading dharma books and to intensely practicing metta, or loving-kindness, meditation.
I took this upcoming situation as an opportunity to shed a great deal of bad karma, if I could handle the situation with equanimity rather than reacting and taking the malice personally. For a month I concentrated on my metta meditation, and one Sunday I sat meditating for four hours. I’ve been not only sending metta while sitting on the cushion, but I’ve also been sending it to myself when I’m in the car driving to work, when I’m at work and feel grumpy, when I go to bed, and whenever else I think of it. The phrases that run through my head, and that Liz taught me, are: “May I be happy and peaceful. May I be healthy and strong. May I be safe and protected. May I live with ease of well-being.”
For at least a week I had sent metta only to myself, which may seem selfish except I got the idea from the teacher Sharon Salzberg and her book Lovingkindness. After that initial week, I proceeded to also send metta to many others. I knew the metta was helping when at work someone with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old harassed me, and yet I felt absolutely no anger or fear. I was genuinely equanimous in the face of such bizarre behavior.
When the time came, sure enough, I could sit in a room full of relatives, including my most vicious relatives, and yet remain equanimous. I felt no anger or fear and was simply there, breathing and attempting to be civil. I even walked away feeling not depressed but cheerful, knowing that I had made significant progress and had shed some bad karma.
I had prepared myself for relatives over the age of sixty-five to harass me and even gang up on me. I felt calm up to a point, even during their malicious jibes. I was ready for old people who have the emotional maturity of five-year-olds to harass me, but I was not prepared for an actual five-year-old picking on me. My five-year-old nephew did so, and it was like returning to my miserable childhood, what I least wish to relive. It was as though I was nothing but a burning flame of rage. I yelled before making any attempt to figure out why I was so enraged or what was truly behind all that intense emotion; I had no thoughts, nothing but rage, and it was all consuming and it was everything at that moment.
However, minutes after this happened, I found myself having a guilt complex because I so easily became enraged and stopped being equanimous. I felt like a total failure at metta, because I had completely lost my cool and yelled at a five-year-old. For the remainder of the time with in-town and out-of-town relatives, my metta was completely gone and I was full of not only guilt but also hostility, particularly when a local relative insulted me in front of my mother, who as usual didn’t defend me.
I thought dealing with verbally abusive relatives over the age of sixty-five was my biggest “elephant,” but it seems a part of my brain is still carrying around the extreme verbal abuse and rejection I experienced during my childhood and adolescence, and either that’s a bigger hurdle than being equanimous around those “adult” relatives, or it’s simply a hurdle for which I haven’t prepared and didn’t take into account. Instead of jumping over it, I’ve bashed into it and sprained both ankles, so to speak. I have a long way to go before I can recover from my childhood, and I didn’t realize it till now.
I have discovered that practicing metta meditation continuously shows results, but that I have to keep it up, no matter what my schedule is like. Under the circumstances, I started all over again with metta meditation, spending at least a week sending metta primarily to myself. Meditation is one step forward, but associating with relatives is ten steps back; the more contact I have with them, the more devoid of confidence I become. Even when I’m angry toward relatives—and the mere thought of them triggers anger—I realize that their behavior is so petty and trivial, especially after I have seen vast numbers of people living in poverty and squalor. I must somehow confront my childhood in order to recover from it, but I don’t presently know how to do that, or whether meditating more is all it will take.
4
Before I visited India, I had never thought of the Buddha as a walker. I assumed he sat for long hours and emphasized sitting meditation, and my primary image of him was his sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Buddha statues most often portray him seated. The Buddha traveled by foot to all the places our sangha visited, and he walked to all those places during a span of forty years. Based on my own experience with walking, I think it is no wonder that the Buddha came up with the idea of meditating while walking, and no doubt he enjoyed such peaceful exercise.
Lately I have been taking one-hour walks just about every day and have discovered a trail running parallel to a river near my house. I make especially good use of time by not only walking and looking at the river, but by also mentally repeating metta phrases while I walk. During one of these walks, it dawned on me that taking walks has always had a therapeutic effect on me.
I recall how, beginning when I was about eight years old, my walks were a way I could get some peace of mind and stay more or less sane. I had my own bedroom, but sometimes closing myself in my room was not sufficient. With or without a dog, I took walks from the house, up the road through what we called “the woods” even though there weren’t nearly enough trees for it to be a forest, and through several cornfields. Whenever I attended an alienating family reunion, I slipped away and took a walk.
After my brother acquired a driver’s license, we frequently took the family dog to the Indiana Dunes State Park and hiked there for several miles, through a forest with sandy trails that often led to the beach. Standing at the top of the dunes, we could see Chicago across Lake Michigan on a clear day. I continued to walk near my parents’ house and in the dunes until I graduated from high school and left Indiana.
Especially while I walked alone, my walks were quite therapeutic, even though I knew nothing about the Buddha and walking meditation. No matter what direction my thoughts wandered while my feet also wandered, I felt much more relaxed than I was with kids at school or with my family. Hiking in the woods and dunes, I simply admired the scenery. Fortunately, now I am taking regular walks while simultaneously meditating. Even those childhood walks were connected to the Buddha’s walking meditation.
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