In The Woods

I had a dream about dizzily riding the winding, narrow roads of Dharamsala. While in this reality riding in a taxi this morning, on the way to the old church, we had an interesting conversation. Mimi (who is in her seventies but unlike certain relatives I could mention is a real woman rather than a deranged power-tripping white male trapped in a woman’s body), Inge, and Manny were all in the car with me. We had an interesting conversation about Buddhist cosmology.

“There is no soul, so what reincarnates is a stream of consciousness—this is what each of us has, according to Buddhist cosmology,” Inge said. That is her interpretation—this topic has been looming up during the retreat, at least since Nicky Breeland’s talk.

There is no separate solid existence—no soul—only the mindstream is reborn. It is one thing that doesn’t have interconnectedness, as Manny put it. Inge noted that it seems a bit inconsistent. Mimi asked whether there’s an over mindstream connected to all. “Soul isn’t in the vocabulary,” Manny said. Yes, I know that Buddhists, unlike Hindus, don’t generally believe in a soul, despite the belief in reincarnation. “Mindstream is a constantly evolving process affected by cause and conditions.” Manny also said, “The teachings are about interdependence.”
I don’t typically ponder these things but rather focus on my meditation practice; given my experience, metta (loving kindness) is a really important thing to be focusing on, although since the start of this trip I have only been mentally sending metta to myself while I’m lying in bed, before I fall asleep, and sometimes in the morning while still in bed; hopefully I’ll do more of it after I leave Dharamsala and travel on my own. I don’t know—maybe I should occasionally ponder Buddhist cosmology, not just Buddhist psychology, although my Buddhist practice is more psychological than religious. I have the impression that cosmology issues were not terribly important to the historic Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.

We rode to the main square but continued down a long narrow tree road through what I’m tempted to call the woods, to the oldest church (or second oldest church) in India, appropriately called St. John in the Woods. At the church, the taxi stopped in front of a white iron gate with white plaster posts. The gate was only slightly open, and a chain lay on the ground, but I stepped through anyway, having already seen James walking up the path. It was a long stone path leading to a light brown building that looked like something you’d see in the United States or England, like a Catholic church, which it is. To the left of the path, amid the trees, were several old graves with moss-covered crosses.

As I walked up the path and saw in the distance Shantum standing with the other people from Kashmir Cottage, I felt a glowing burst of happiness, just like when I saw the Dalai Lama, and I lit up with a smile.

We met up with Shantum et al. Someone asked Shantum how the wedding was, and he said it was intense and there were a lot of people. It was “different, not relaxing.” Enid smilingly suggested that he take breaks more often, and some of the sangha members laughed knowingly. “Devious minds,” Shantum said.

I moved up the path and approached the church toward the right and saw a very tall monument to a military officer who died in the 1870s. “Dhurmsala” is how the Brits spelled “Dharamsala” in the 1800s, I noticed as I looked at a tombstone from the 1860s. After I got to India and found out that Dharamsala means “sight of the dharma,” I thought it must have been named after the Dalai Lama moved here, but it turns out otherwise. I’ve also learned that it’s pronounced “Dharma Shala.”

The reason the church got its name is because it is indeed in the woods. There are paths winding around, and more old graves lie amid the shady trees. As I wandered away from the tomb down the path, Marsha asked me if I want a copy of Leila Seth’s autobiography, and I said that I got it on the pilgrimage last year. She also asked if I want Vikram Seth’s book A Suitable Boy, and I said with a smile, “I got autographed copies of both books on the pilgrimage last year.”
Marsha said, “I’m not sure I like you after all,” and I laughed.

The sangha gathered together, and Shantum said, “I did miss you yesterday. It must be hard to believe, but I did.” He told us that an important lama named Mindrollhing died, so the Karmapa is at the ceremony and we can’t meet him. That is why we went to this old church instead. We are surrounded by tombs in the churchyard, and the topic of Tibetan cremation entered the conversation. Human ashes form crystals—our bodies crystallize when cremated. (I remember reading a magazine article about the weird phenomena of Tibetan lama’s cremated bodies producing little circular gems, which are considered relics in their culture.) Shantum said that Tibetans probably cremate here in Dharamsala, rather than cut up bodies and feed them to vultures.

In a brick and white metal structure sits a large metal bell that came down during a huge earthquake in 1905. The church itself wasn’t harmed; it just lost the bell, which is now in what looks like a cage on the lawn.

We crossed a brook or gutter and approached some terraced landscaping that included stone ledges instead of just terraced earth. While we had a fifteen-minute meditation sitting on stone ledges at the church, Tibetan monks began chanting in the distance. They still are chanting, now that we’ve stopped meditating. After we meditated, Shantum looked over at the trees surrounding us and said that he believes they’re cedar trees. The medium green branches stuck straight out, and the small bristles on the branches remind me of pine.

Shantum then gave us the schedule for the rest of the day. He said that at 10:30 we’ll meet up and go to the Tibet Children’s Village. After that we’ll have lunch, and the Dalai Lama’s teachings start at one, and after that we can attend his translator’s teachings at four. We will meet up again at Kashmir Cottage for dinner, or in town at 6, then have a gathering. At 5:30 we’ll have a question and answer session, and Strucks after dinner. He added that tomorrow we’ll go to the local Tibetan nunnery and the Norbulingka Institute.

“I won’t be here on Sunday,” Etiel said. “What’s happening on Sunday?”

“Nothing, it doesn’t exist,” Shantum said.

Shantum said Dharamsala is a refugee settlement, and there are thirty-nine Tibetan refugee settlements total in India. “This is refugee land; we’re in the middle of it.” Tibetans in India have refugee status and ID, not citizenship. The Dalai Lama has been offered Indian citizenship, but he doesn’t want it even though he’s been here since 1959.

As we headed up the path to leave, I found myself walking alongside Shantum, who put his right arm around me for a moment, giving me a smile. We walked in silence and I looked down at the cobblestones and wondered if this would be a good time to bring up the question I’ve wanted to ask him. He asked me, “Did you enjoy the trek?”

I grinned and said, “Yes, it was beautiful! There were a couple of places where the path was only this wide.” I showed the distance with my hands; it was approximately a foot. “And we had a snowball fight.”

“A snowball fight?” Shantum said with amusement in his voice. I didn’t mention the little detail that I didn’t enjoy the snowball fight at all, as I never have enjoyed such things. They always seem malicious to me. But I wasn’t thinking about that during the conversation.

“Jagdish started it,” I said cheerfully. “Before I left for this trip, people asked me if I’m going to climb Mount Everest, and I said I’m a wimpy mountain climber. But now I think I’ve graduated to intermediate mountain climber.” Shantum smiled at this.

After a very brief pause, I hesitated no more and said, “I have a huge favor to ask you.”
“Yes, what is it?”

“I want to try getting my travel memoir, from last year’s pilgrimage, published. Could you possibly give me a typed and signed letter, giving me permission to include the notes that I took during your talks?”

“I think I can do that. We’ll see.” By now, we had reached the end of the path and stood in front of a taxi. Shantum’s smile seemed a bit forced and dubious. I hoped he didn’t assume my writing was amateurish.

“That would be wonderful!” I now had a big smile and was more than anything just relieved that I had gotten this dreaded question out in the open. I hadn’t been looking forward to broaching the subject.

“I’ll need to see a copy first,” he said. He didn’t seem enthusiastic, but maybe I was imagining it. I looked forward to Shantum reading the enormous tome I’d written; typically, my stories are about thirty pages long, but my pilgrimage memoir was about five hundred pages.

“Oh, that’s fine with me! I may have misspelled a few names. I can e-mail it to you.”

“That would be fine,” Shantum said. I hoped he would enjoy my book; I had no idea whether he’d appreciate my humor, though at least four people who read the excerpts appreciated my humor, even though it seems like most people don’t, at least in conversation. Most people seem to think I’m serious when I joke around.

This was another one of those situations that have come up on this trip, when I’d thought about something—worried about something too much ahead of time, yet when I finally did it, I wasn’t a bit nervous and felt relieved afterward. Months after the pilgrimage, I didn’t think I had so much courage after all, but now it seems like perhaps I do. And I rather think Shantum helped me along, what with that elephant incident, even though I didn’t enjoy riding the elephant last year.