Prisoner of Shangri-la

Finally! Too long have I huddled in freezing spaces, blankets heaped upon blankets, a dinky electric heater sputtering along in the corner. Spring means freedom from the elements! Though, it also means showering more often…which, I guess I can get used to. My bathing method at present consists of going to the local public bathhouse once a week - definitely a cultural experience (don’t worry, I won’t post any pictures…).

But in honor of spring Ricky, Yidi, and I headed off for a day in the sun at Bei Hai Park (北海公园). You can see the Tibetan influence in the white stupa towering over the park, a relic of Beijing’s historical ties with Tibetan religion.

The cherry blossoms were also blooming!

Me in doorway.

Girl practicing characters.

Ricky and Yidi…posing.

Behold my inspiration for the site redesign: an attempted recreation of a Beijing hutong (or alley way).

很像吗？

This past weekend was Yidi’s birthday (Ricky’s girlfriend), and we celebrated with a feast at a Hang Zhou resturant (i.e. sour fish and funny tasting greens…). Afterwards we had a relaxed time at No Name Bar with a few mixed drinks. Funnily enough, Yidi’s best friend in Beijing has been helping my former boss in Qinghai to do small scale development projects. A small world indeed! Here’s a pic of the birthday girl (25):

Yidi (right) and Kate (chinese canadian)

*Note: Debated on whether or not to post this…but here it is.

As the self collapsed, there was still a moment of intense fear—after all, it was the death of “me.” I felt like being sucked into a hole. But a voice from within said, “Resist nothing.” So I let go. It was almost like I was being sucked into a void, not an external void, but a void within. And then fear disappeared and there was nothing that I remember after that except waking up in the morning in a state of total and complete “newness.”

- Eckart Tolle on his “sudden awakening” experience

Friday afternoon. I’d been snoozing back at Ricky’s 胡同 (hutong) on and off for a hour or so somewhere between waking and dreaming. Suddenly I am very aware of something. My eyes are closed, all I see is a purple-blackness, and yet it is spinning somehow. Then there is a kind of dim light emerging in the center, also spinning. My breathe quickens and the light fills my “vision.” Most thought has stopped now, but one floats through, “is this the light of mind*?” My focus deepens, another spinning light forms and engrosses me. I’m scared, my heart is racing. Then again it happens, the fear is overwhelming, as if my life were at stake. It is hard to keep my focus on the spinning light and not the fear. I try to give into that fear, though my being wants nothing to do with it. Finally it stops, no more lights, my heart beat levels, I open my eyes. There’s no bliss, only a lingering pain in my chest and a wonder: Was it some kind of strange lucid dream? Was the fear the fear of ego annihilation or just of the unknown? Is the whole thing just more delicious food stuff for spiritual materialism?

*the light of mind here doesn’t refer to the “clear light of mind” which the Tibetan tradition takes as the underlying awakened consciousness. I use it as perhaps Theravadan traditions would, as a concentrated mind that becomes a tool for illumination during meditation.

No, a true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something. Be he who had found, could give his approval to every path, every goal; nothing separated him from all the other thousands who lived in eternity, who breathed the Divine.

When I read Siddhartha for the first time, I couldn’t understand what this passage meant. Or rather, I didn’t want to understand it. At the time (maybe 2-3 years go) I thought of myself as a budding Buddhist, seeing Buddhism as really the end all be all of spiritual paths. Indeed, that Siddhartha had met the Buddha himself (in the story) and yet had rejected him as a teacher I found to be personally a little insulting. This is how much I had identified myself as a Buddhist.

Fast forward 3 years later and a second reading has proved to be much richer (perhaps that is how these kinds of books are meant to be read, after long intervals throughout a lifetime). Siddhartha’s disillusionment with teachers I now share as well, to an extent. Perhaps this is also what Herman Hesse found prior to writing his novel, that he could find no suitable teachers and thus concluded that “wisdom is not communicable,” that to awaken one had to find is own way independently. I sense there is much of Herman Hesse in Siddhartha and yet as a Westerner, I can understand where he is coming from.

However, I think the Tibetan tradition advocates the opposite approach. That not only is awakening communicable (through different lifetimes even), it is bestowed upon you through empowerments and teachings, through total surrender to a guru who leads you to the final goal. There are even meditations where the teacher will “point out the mind,” which I’m told are moments where he will somehow alert you to your essential nature as clear luminous consciousness. Of course, these kinds of things they may not have had in the Buddha’s day, and Herman Hesse probably never heard of them because Tibet was closed to world when the book was written (pre-1950).

Boldly going where no yak has gone before, may I introduce “超毛牛“ or “Super Yak”! I spotted this furry cow on its way to the grazing pastures in Tagong, Sichuan while visiting Zach, behold:

Baby yak.

Baby yak transforms into Super Yak.

Super Yak is alpha cow.

Two days ago I stirred from Ricky’s couch to discover a soft snow covering the hutong (hutong means “alley” in bejing and refers to the traditional alley way living spaces still found in parts of Beijing today). Too bad the only heating we have are small underpowered electric radiators only half switched on for fear of over loading the fuse box (which happens often). Still though, have been spending my time twittling my thumbs, reading some (siddhartha and economics textbooks, a strange pairing).

Now I’m focusing however on just studying Chinese. Meaning: looking for homestay and study institute ASAP. Because when you properly learn the language, its like a whole world opening up, inviting you to explore its wonders. Wonderous wonders untold (cue magic dust).

What does it mean to start a new life? Does it mean changing the outer conditions or the inner conditions? Or both.

Tonight I fly to Beijing, ostensibly to create a life there. And yet, every step of my journey thus far has been one more step into life’s great uncertainty. Though I love traveling to unknown places, it can feel so empty if you don’t have that inner compass to make sense of it all, to put it in a “framework of meaning” (or so my religious studies professors might say). And then long discussions about graduate school (in the humanities anyways) have left a lingering feeling of revulsion at the thought of big headed professors pushing their weight around. It was never the discipline itself that interested me so much as the the truth embedded somewhere deep inside. And already discussed somewhere in this blog was development work in poor communities which again suffers from the same deficiency as traveling for me. If it can be said that I have been “looking” for something in my journeys, than it can equally be said that what I’ve found are empty concepts of hopeful endeavors.

So recently I’ve seriously tried not thinking. Have you ever awoken one morning, eyes wide open, taking in all the sensory information, acutely aware, and yet, without any thought recognition? Though it only lasts a second or two, its wonderfully peaceful and full - like you’ve put down the burden of all existence in that singular moment. Those moments continue to be my inspiration on this journey and perhaps they themselves are the start of a new kind of life.