By the time I arrived back in Leh, Nick and Donovan had left. I hadn't reserved any room anywhere, instead I was hoping to find an inexpensive one that had internet Wi-Fi so that I could upload my short videos for Mum & Dad and for Kris. After traipsing around with my pack, I finally found one.
My other task in Leh was to return my walking pole. This was harder than it seemed. I was pretty sure I knew which road the shop was on, but the store hadn't asked me to pay or make a deposit so I didn't have a receipt with the address or name. I send to remember what the inside of the store looked like, and that they didn't rent much equipment - they only had a couple of poles available - but for the life of me, I couldn't find it. After 5 passes on the street over 2 days, and exhausting each of the shopkeepers, I finally sold the pole to the largest outfitting store. I felt badly, but what could I do?
Next on my agenda was the 3-day Vipassana retreat I had signed up for before the trek. It began the following evening when they picked you up and brought you to the Mahabodhi Centre 10 minutes outside of town so that you could wake up early the following day at 5AM. Therefore I had 2 days to spend in Leh.
I found the place which showed Ancient Futures, a film on the culture and development of Ladakh society is seen a poster for when I had first arrived in town. It was fascinating. Not only did it provide a history of the people, it also presented a left-leaning view of the sociological and environmental challenges brought on by increased exposure to packaged products and increased tourism. Afterwards, there was an active Q & A with two members of the International Society for Ecology and Culture who had made the film. I found out that tomorrow they were heading out of town to SECMOL, an alternative, sustainable and cooperative school established by someone mentioned in the film to help displaced youth develop applicable work skills. Unfortunately, the bus heading there would only return in the evening - too late for me to catch my ride to the retreat.
At my guest house, I met Carol, a 50ish woman from Vancouver, and her Leh friend, Christina, a 60ish German woman who has lived in Rishikesh I think for a decade. The two of them plus Christina's adopted son were splitting the cost of a taxi to SECMOL but just to go for the morning. I asked if I could join them and split the fare further. They were happy for me to come with them - perfect!
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| SECMOL Centre |
SECMOL - Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh
SECMOL was very interesting. The teenage students, who are all drop-outs from the conventional school system, largely operated the place themselves under the guidance of an administrator and the founder, Sonam Wangchuk. This included cultivation, food preparation, solar panel maintenance and operations, livestock keeping, composting, etc. Besides classes and studies, each student has a primary responsibility for one of these and which rotates on a periodic basis. A girl whose primary responsibility was centre orientation, have us a 20-minute tour. The students all seemed very jovial, and this was partly because SECMOL gives them a second-chance to train themselves for useful employment.
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| Mahabodhi Centre campus, with home for aged alone, home for blind, home for orphans, and Buddhist schools for boys and girls. |
Vipassana Meditation Retreat
The evening of the second day, I got on a bus to go to the Mahabodhi Centre with 5 others. As usual, I didn't know too much what to expect, but I did know it was a silent retreat. I thought this could likely be the last time the 6 of us would be able to talk freely. So we introduced ourselves - a young couple from Mallorca, a tall Belgian guy, a woman from Hungary, and a young Israeli man - and as usual, shared a few words about where we had come from and how long we were in India for, where we'd been, etc. When we got there, we were joined by a French woman who had already been practicing a silent retreat of her own.
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| View of the Indes River area south of Leh from Mahabodhi mountain stupa. |
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| Some of my silent meditation friends enjoying a less-than-silent lunch hike. |
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| The local Dharma Bell at the Mahabodhi Centre. Anyone can make a wish and ring this gigantic bell and send positive energy outwards for many (thousands of?) kilometres. The low reverberation lasts for over 5 minutes. |
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| The glass room on the right is where our small (late season) meditation sessions originally took place. Later we moved to a larger building which provided more room for yoga. |
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| This was the daily agenda for our Vipassana retreat. |
I won't provide a day-by-day account of the retreat; for a much better description than I could provide, you might really enjoy my Moustache friend Cori's Vipassana account. But I will share some general impressions.
- All compounded things are impermanent. [your house, your body, a mountain, the World Trade Center, that pain in your knee while meditating absolutely still for over an hour, the supremacy of USA / England / Rome, a tattoo, her love, his anger, and especially your happiness. Because everything is interdependent, everything is subject to change - I love the Buddhist expression "you never enter the same river twice" because with flow it changes constantly]
- All emotions are pain. [for more detail on suffering, read about The Four Noble Truths]
- All things have no inherent existence.
- Nirvana is beyond concepts. [it has no duality; it is the one thing that is not relative and interdependent]
From these, all of the Buddhist doctrine is derived, such as 'don't kill (and eat) animals', 'be generous onto others or bad things will happen to you (karma)', and 'practice meditation to become more aware of our attachment to emotions and other impermanent things'. But you needn't get obsessed with the doctrine as a set of edicts, like religions do.
What I find particularly interesting about the Four Seals is that, together and unlike any other 'system' I know of, they encapsulate in one all of the following: philosophy; science (impermanence is like the theories of relativity and chaos put together!); psychology; creativity (what other action is more 'in the moment' than creating?); and spirituality. So succinct, so comprehensive, so timeless (but identified over 2,500 years ago), so culturally agnostic, and so practical (you will never be disappointed if you don't expect things - how cool is that??).
The retreat helped me in several ways. It helped me understand more of the doctrine of Buddhism, like the Eight-fold Path. It taught me finally about how to meditate, not that I've figured it all out, but now I understand the intention and how to practice. And it helped give me an alternative travel experience than places, people and events. All in all, it was great learning for me, and an important addition to my perspective.
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| After the retreat, we met with the venerable Bhikkhu Sanghasena, founder of the Centre. Perhaps not surprisingly for those who know me, I spoke the most, congratulating him on behalf of the group on the amazing humanitarian work he has done through the Centre, and also telling him how much I had enjoyed my experiences in Ladakh. Bhikkhu Sanghasena asked if I would stay an extra day and speak at a cultural ceremony they were having that night for Ladakh. I was honoured he would ask, and accepted. I nervously came up with a 5-minute speech that hopefully connected to the Buddhist Rinpoches and other honourable guests attending, as well as hundreds of locals and schoolchildren. |
Things I haven't missed since starting my trip
- Meat (although in homestays I have sometimes eaten a common meal which included meat)
- Alcohol (a couple of occasions out with friends)
- Being alarmed early to go to work
- Wearing a suit; shaving every day
- Reading the news every day
- Having no "why's" to answer for (i.e. being purposeful, accountable)
- Accommodating what, where, when and how someone else wants to do something
- Putting off til tomorrow what I want to do today
Things I've missed since starting my trip ("bad Buddhist, John, bad Buddhist")
- My family and friends
- Sharing with someone I love what, where, when and how we should do something
- Being hugged; being touched; laying next to you
If you made it this far, I'm impressed. This entry was less a travelogue and more of a personal diary. Thank you for caring. Maybe I should just stick to nice pictures.
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