The Students of Sarangkot

These past two weeks I have spent every day except Saturdays volunteering at the Quality of Life School on top of Sarangkot Mountain and I loved every minute of it. It was through a friend of my Dad’s, Imana, that I got involved there. Two years ago she sought out sponsors to help fund a school for kids, aged three to six, from the mountain area. The unique part of the school is that it has a program for disabled kids. In Nepal, and most of Asia, there is a belief that people are disabled because of their bad Karma and deserve the life they have been dealt. Although this social norm is slowly starting to be reformed, there is still an incredible lack of opportunities for the disabled. Also, the illiteracy rate is around half the percent of the country and illiterate simply means unable to sign their own name. This school works to help village families, 90% of whom are living under the poverty line, have a future and open doors to them that were previously unknown. They also have a free medical post for injuries, sickness, etc.

At the Quality of Life School, there are six disabled children, ages 6 to 13. Sangita, Bikram, Bijaya, Shoba, Kumar and Biswas. Each student is incredible in his or her own way. Sangita is the oldest and is incredibly loving, every day I came she would hug me and lay with her head in my lap. Bikram is a sweet and curious boy who loves to dance and stare with his enormous Nepali eyes. Bijaya has a beautiful smile and can finish a puzzle in record time.  Shoba is very bright and loves being the loudest while singing the ABC’s. Kumar is curious about everything and always showing off his cartwheels. Lastly, Biswas is amazingly intelligent and remembered my name a month after we first met for a few short minutes.  Even though I was only volunteering for two weeks and couldn’t speak the same language as them, I feel like I really got to know them, mainly because their personalities are so vibrant and distinguishable.

Every day I would wake up around 7:45 and start the journey up the mountain. I had three choices; one, hike for a couple hours up hundreds of stairs; two, pay a paragliding jeep to bring me up (if they had space); and three, take the local bus up a fairly terrifying drive. Most days I ended up choosing the bus because it was cheaper than the paragliding jeeps but I got to sleep in a little later than if I hiked. This meant I got to eat breakfast but it also meant I nearly regurgitated it an hour later as we winded over the ridges at an alarming speed. After I finally got to the school, most kids were already there and playing in the dirt playground that had one swing, a slide, and a few toys. At 10:30 the teachers would call out “golo!” meaning “around” and every student would grasp hands, forming a circle. We’d all sing songs for the next ten minutes or so, some were Nepali and others were English like “If You’re Happy and You Know It…” and “the Hokey ‘Cokey’” as they called it. It was absolutely adorable. Every kid was screaming the words as loud as they could, making it impossible to know what song we were even singing sometimes. After a few songs, everyone would head to their class, leaving their shoes at the door. For the rest of the day I would repeat the ABC’s and count to fifteen so many times it would get stuck in my head. After a short snack of Ramen-like, packaged noodles, we would resume class and I would take the first of second paragliding truck back down the mountain. The truck was a lot cheaper going down than up because they weren’t cramped for space after dropping everyone off. One day, my dad hiked up and flew me down back to Pokhara, not a bad comute if you ask me.

Nepali teaching is very different from what I am used to in America, even with my already unusual schooling background. One major problem is that it is normal for a teacher to hit their students as punishment or to get them to pay attention. There is little progress being made on this issue, but there are a few programs working on stopping violence in the school systems. My sister is helping the Children Nepal group write a grant asking for money to build the Fulbari center. They plan to have workshops that teach other ways, nonviolent methods of teaching, in the homes and schools. Another academic issue is that everything is memory based. Students copy lines after lines of letters, words and numbers.  It becomes engrained in their minds, but is rarely understood. Also, iIt was incredibly difficult sometimes because I can’t speak Nepali and the only English words they know are “hello” and “good”. I resorted to a lot of pointing and saying “esto”, meaning “this”. Luckily, I was never alone with my own class, there was always a teacher that could translate for me or give me instructions.

It seemed that my role at the school was half assistant teacher, half playground toy. During recess, kids would fight over holding my hand or cutting in line to be picked up and twirled around. I quickly discovered that the easiest way to avoid getting sore arms, but still playing with the kids, was to tickle them or chase them. All tickling required was just the motion of going towards their stomachs to tickle and they would run away screaming and all chasing required was a few steps and a scary face. Kids are so easily entertained and I became envious of that. There have been a few moments on this trip when I had nothing to do and would’ve loved to be a kid just to be content with a pile of rocks or a string.

My last day of teaching and playing was during a day of the ceremonies where the sponsors came to visit the school and play with the kids for an hour or so. As I watched them dance to the beat of a single drum, giggling and having the time of their lives, I realized how much I would miss those chubby cheeks and huge eyes, the screaming and singing, the tickling and chasing, the teachers and students, the busses and jeeps, even the ABC’s and 123’s. At the end of the day, the teachers had a couple students put Tikha on my forehead (they missed a few times so I had a few red dots on my cheek and nose), another to give me a necklace made of flowers, and another to give me a white blessing scarf. I promised them I would return in a couple weeks after another trek (this time solo while the rest of the crew is in a ten day silent meditation retreat), even just to visit. Even though I came back to our room exhausted every day, I was always satisfied with the work I had done. It was a bittersweet farewell to leave for the last time but I am nonetheless grateful for the time I spent with these students and teachers, it gave me a small taste of service I have been craving since we arrived here seven weeks ago that will hopefully continue on for the rest of this trip and my life.

Next up on my list is to attend a three day Heart Chakra Course, guided by the creator of the QOLN school, Imana. There will be meditations, bowl singing, and yoga. After that, I plan on doing a solo trek for about a week, possibly the Ghorepani trek, while the rest of the crew is doing Vipasina (a ten day silent meditation course). Right now I'm working on the donation project and have several ideas on how to help here and there will be a blog post on that very soon so keep checking in!

Namaste,

Emily

October 7th to 13th

October 7^th-9^th (Chitwan)

For three days, my sister and I volunteered in Chitwan National Park with a mahoot (elephant owner/trainer) and his elephant that worked for a hotel giving rides through the safari and jungle. On the first day, we arrived after a five or six hour bus ride from Pokhara and explored the village until the elephant returned back to her stable after working for the day. Around 6pm we walked to the mahoot’s home where he and the elephant lived together. We soon found out that the elephant was not the only one who couldn’t speak English. We discovered this after the manager left and the mahoot attempted to teach us how to make elephant “candy”, which is folded up hay with rice inside. Very difficult to make but probably would have only taken a few more days for us to get down because the elephant needed more than 400 of them a day. After a few hours of getting laughed at by the mahoot and his family, we gave up and went to bed in the mud hut next to the stable. Most volunteers stay at the hotel where the cheapest room was about ten dollars a night (extremely expensive for Nepal) but my sister and I decided we might as well experience real mahoot life…plus it was free. After an uneasy sleep on a wooden bed, we awoke to find the mahoot had already left with the elephant to start their day giving rides to tourists through the national park. We’re thinking he either didn’t understand our sign language version of “when you wake up, knock on the door so we can help” or that we were so bad at making the bundles of hay and rice that he figured he could do it faster himself. We eventually found out that the elephant and mahoot work from 6 in the morning to at least 6 at night so we decided we might as well explore Chitwan and see what things we can do for a cheap price. We talked to the mahoot’s nephew and he offered to take us on the jungle walk and canoe ride for minimum charge and we accepted. For the next four sweaty hours, we paddled down a river in a somewhat rudimentary canoe looking at alligators twice its size and walking through the jungle as quietly as possible to not get killed by surprised rhinos. We learned a lot about Nepali life from our guide. He told us about arranged marriages and how he got married when he was 16 and his wife, 13. At first we were both pretty shocked but he told us how happy their life had been together, even though they didn’t marry for love or at what we deem as an appropriate age. While we talked and walked, we saw deer, monkeys, enormous bugs, a rhino and a wild elephant. By the end of the day we were thoroughly exhausted and started to talk about leaving the next day. Through our two days there, we could see that we weren’t really needed there so we decided to pack up and leave. The next day, the mahoot gave us a ride to the bus station on his elephant and we took a bus back to Kathmandu to meet up with the other girls and our dad.

October 9^th-11^th (Kathmandu)

            For the next three days, we reconnected with our group and explored a section of Kathmandu called Thamel. Thamel is a fairly touristed part of the city, but it hasn’t been taken over yet and is still authentic, just cleaner which was a nice change from our mud hut and dusty heat in Chitwan. After a mix up with the rooming situation, Dorothy and I ended up with a storage closet for a room. A lot of people we had met in Pokhara were in Thamel for the weekend so we got to hang out with them. It was through one of them that we ended up buying tickets for the Shanti Jatra Organic music festival from. We decided it was worth checking out and if we didn’t want to, we didn’t have to stay all three nights. The main reason for the festival happening was the full moon on the 12^th. It was supposed to be the strongest of the year and what better way to celebrate it than to dance with some hippies on top of a mountain and get healed by some shamans? A couple days after arriving in Kathmandu, we headed out on a bus headed to a beautiful resort in the mountains for some well deserved dancing.

October 11^th-13^th (Shanti Music Festival)

            After a terrifying drive through the mountains, we reached an incredible mountain top resort that looked like it was built out of old ruins and paintings. We had a view of the Himalayan range right in front of us the entire time. We quickly found a place for our tents and began the long struggle of piecing together broken and mismatching pieces of two rented tents from Kathmandu. Finally, we figured out some shelter and the music began. We soon discovered that one stage was incredible and the other, terrifying. The good stage had more earthly, ambient-like music that was soothing and was a great combination with the beautiful scenery and location. The scary stage was this very fast psychedelic trance music that rarely changed and had a very dark sound. The music from that stage didn’t turn off until noon the next day…didn’t exactly help us appreciate it any more. Needless to say, we spent almost the entire night by the better stage. The next day, we met the producers of the festival and got a tour of the VIP area, which was a big room, built into the hillside, with a few lofts with beds and a really nice fireplace. It was probably the nicest room we have seen since in Nepal. The second night (the night of the full moon) the place was crawling with police. Turns out they had tried to extort the producers, telling them that if they didn’t pay them they would shut the place down. The producers, being Indian, weren’t used to handling Nepali police so that’s exactly what happened. I’m not sure what the difference is between the two countries process of extortion but I guess something went wrong and there was no more music for the rest of the night. The next morning, we were all awoken by people telling us to pack our bags and leave as soon as possible because the night before a producer had passed away and everyone needed to leave before the police arrived. Thankfully, my dad and I had already planned on leaving and had most of our stuff ready to go. We left on the motorcycle my dad had ridden there and got all the way back to Pokhara in a long eight hour trip. About two hours before our arrival in Pokhara, a bus stopped suddenly in front of us and without enough time to stop, we crashed into it. The entire back end of the bike bounced a foot into the air and if I had not grabbed for my dads waist in time, I would have been launched off. Thankfully, only the front of the bike was damaged and minus a burn on my leg from the exhaust pipe, my dad and I were totally fine. We went on our way and finally got to Pokhara with sore butts and dusty faces. The labor cost to fix the bike as $9.

For the next two weeks I plan on volunteering at a school near Pokhara, on Sarangkot Mountain, with three other women from Europe. I had my first day today and was able to help teach English letters to a group of four year olds who were unbelievably adorable. One girl named Susmita took a liking to me and jumped on me whenever she got the chance. It was totally sweet but I can already tell my arms are going to be sore tomorrow from swinging her around.

Until next time!

Emily

Buddhist Philosophy

This weekend, I did a retreat at the meditation center with twelve other people. Our schedule was wake up, meditate, do yoga, eat, have a “class” with Yeshe (the monk here), eat, have another class, do yoga, eat, meditate and then be silent until after the next mornings meditation. It was an incredible experience and I learned so much. My favorite part was the class. We mostly talked about Buddhist philosophy. The way Yeshi explained everything was amazing and so eye opening. It was almost as if oh of course that’s the way things are! That’s not to say I didn’t struggle, or am not still going down to his room and pestering him with questions. I wrote an essay on what I learned and am learning. I apologize for the length, kinda hard to keep philosophy short but don’t give up! There’s some valuable stuff in there I promise. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I may be able to answer, or I may just have to go down and ask Yeshi myself. Namaste!

Buddhism can be determined as many things. Buddhism is a religion because enlightenment is a way of salvation. Buddhism is a philosophy because there is no God or creator. Buddhism is a science because its theories have been tested by meditation practitioners and proven to be true. It may be all these things, but the simple answer is it is the study of self and path to happiness.

            2,500 years ago, a young boy was born a prince and named Siddhartha. A prophecy was made that if Siddhartha saw the suffering of world he would become a great teacher, but if he did not, he would become a great ruler. His father, being the king of a small land (it is now what makes up part of Nepal), wanted his son to achieve greatness and kept him locked inside the palace. Siddhartha lived an incredibly sheltered life and had never been outside the palace walls until one day. He and his driver rode through the city and for the first time the prince saw suffering. He saw a sick man and asked his driver, Chandaka: “Channa, what is this?” The driver responded, “This is a sick man.” He again questioned the Channa, “What is a sick man?” To which Channa responded, “A man that is dying.” Once again, he questioned, “Does this happen to everyone?” “Yes.” Again, “Will this happen to me?” “Yes.” These things may seem obvious to us, but Siddhartha was in shock. The next time he went out, he saw an old man. Again, he asked Channa the same four questions. “What is this?” “This is an old man.” “What is an old man?” “A man that is aging.” “Does this happen to everyone?” “Yes.” “Will this happen to me?” “Yes.” The next time, he saw a corpse. “What is that?” “That is a dead man.” “What is a dead man?” “A man with only a body left.” “Does this happen to everyone?” “Yes.” “Will this happen to me?” “Yes.” The fourth time he went into the city, he saw a holy man. “What is this?” “A renunciated man.” “What is that?” “A man who has given up everything.” “Does this happen to everyone?” This time, Chandaka says, “No.” “Will this happen to me?” “No, you are a prince.” This was the first time the prince had ever seen or thought of an alternative life. After that day he decided to find the meaning of these things and fix them. He spent many years in meditation and rid himself of all attachments. After he discovered what is now referred to as Buddhism. He was never again called Siddhartha but gained the title of Buddha, meaning the awakened one, and he began to teach, fulfilling the first prophecy.

            One of the concepts the Buddha came to realize was that we all suffer. Through his meditation, he found that the root of suffering is ignorance. Ignorance can be defined as a false impression of something that cannot be. There are infinite ways we suffer, but the way that seems to be most common and pervasive is the suffering of change. This does not mean that change creates suffering, but that we are either in a constant search of it, or terrified of it. In the first case, we are never satisfied, whether we should be or not. This is because we always want what we believe will relieve our suffering from the absence of this thing, and it could at first but it never lasts. For example, you have just been hiking for hours and hours in the unbearable heat, what do you want? Water. You take out your bottle and take a sip and it’s delicious. Completely thirst quenching. You finish half the bottle and start to realize the chlorine taste from the chemicals, or that it’s lukewarm from the sun. You finish it anyways and reach for a second. After draining the second bottle, you feel sick and bloated with water. The water was always the same, but you no longer want the water because you’ve had more than enough and it actually ended up causing you to suffer.

Anything could be pleasurable at first but at some point we will no longer want it. There is nothing we could do over and over again without suffering besides breathing and things we do out of complete love and compassion (example, a mother changing a babies diaper). This is why the Buddha believed that the ultimate suffering is life itself. This does not mean that life has to be painful, but we make it so. In the other way we suffer from change is denial of suffering. This creates a false sense of happiness. The first step to fixing this is to diagnose our suffering, to be honest with ourselves and say, “I am in pain”. It is a lot harder than many think but once we have achieved this we can change. Through this process, we have stepped onto the path of wisdom. It is the only advantage of suffering, but how many wise people do we know? This is because people are so attached to this false sense of happiness that they deny themselves the ability to realize suffering and therefore change.

Wisdom is the insight into the way you and things exist in the world and is attained through a realization or a understanding deep enough to change the way you act in the world. It is the antidote to ignorance and suffering. When wisdom is combined with compassion, it is the antidote to others suffering. The relief of this suffering is called peace. Another part of finding peace is to separate yourself from negative thoughts. Negative thoughts are addictive, toxic and contagious and will make you suffer no matter what you’re doing. You could be doing your most favorite thing in the world and be completely miserable because of how you are thinking. Your thoughts change your mind. If this were easy, we would be completely content with only our most basic needs, but since our sense of happiness is so deformed by our attachments to possessions, other people, ourselves, the world, etc. it is near impossible. We are also enslaved to our perspective. If you live a wealthy life and have a lot of possessions, it is a lot harder to be happy with less. If you live a life surrounded by others, it is a lot harder to be happy alone. It goes back to this warped idea that change is bad. So is lasting happiness even possible? Yes, by filling yourself with positive thoughts and energy. Your thoughts change your mind.

            Because Buddhists believe in impermanence, they believe that there is no fixed essence or self. All Buddhists teachings lead to emptiness. Emptiness does not mean nothingness, but the “emptiness of inherent, concrete existence”. The goal of emptiness is the total eradication of this false way of seeing things from our mind. This is what leads to enlightenment. To Buddhists, the soul is like an erroneous reading of the subtle consciousness that has been created over time to answer the question, who am I? Again we have to remember that emptiness does not mean nothingness. The Buddhists version of the soul can be called the subtle consciousness. The only differences are that a God did not create it and it is not permanent. A God could not have created it because there was no ultimate beginning and it cannot be permanent because we are always changing as people. This does not mean we do not exist. As Decares once said, “I think, therefore I am.” We function because we exist.

Here is the hard part. Where is the chair? It seems ridiculous to ask but try pointing to a chair. You might have pointed to the top or one of the legs, but that’s not a chair. Just the leg does not function as a chair. We have given the chair an essence, a being. We must realize that nothing is what it seems to be. Everything is made up of and dependent on an infinite number other things and is still constantly changing. We define and define, saying “this is a chair”, “this is a leg” and “this is a tree”, these labels we have attached deny the inevitable and constant change that is happening everywhere.

Here is the scary part. The ego is a mental construct created by our minds to create security for our egos. We have to remember that even though it was created by our minds, it isn’t permanent either, but do exist. We sub-consciously created the soul because we want to believe there is something permanent for us to cling to, to define our existence. It is created out of ignorance and changes the way we act in the world. Everything we do is to satisfy this ego or uphold our self-image. Even things we think we are doing out of love are for ourselves. If someone says, “I love you”, how would they feel if the person they were speaking to didn’t say anything back? We will forever live to serve ourselves until we can transform our minds and get rid of these false definitions. All of this does not mean there is no “I” in the question “who am I?” but it is not this false and permanent sense of self we have created. We must realize that everything is always changing and the way we have perceived or defined things is not the way they have been, are or will be. After we understand this, we understand the truth of life. When we are empty of all false notions and attachments, there is nothing left but what must be true. This is when you can do things because they are right and not because they serve your egotistical sense of self. This is where true compassion is created and is one of the ultimate quality someone can achieve. This is when we realize that we are not all one but all connected. This is when we can end ignorance and therefore end suffering.