Into the woods...I mean my unconscious

Oops, I forgot to post my entry saying that I was leaving for 2 weeks to go "up north." On May 20th I drove up to Dallas, picking up 3 girls in Austin along the way, for a 10 day Vipassana meditation course. Participants arrive on day 0 and leave on day 11, so it's really 12 days. There was no talking during the 10 days of meditation, except for minimal communication with the facilitators and teacher, and other than that: pure breath.

Each day we awoke to a bell/gong at 4am and then started meditating at 4:30. Breakfast was at 6:30. We took several breaks throughout the day, but 11 full hours were spent in seated meditation. I usually passed out around 9:30pm. Mind you, I was not able to focus the entire time, and probably spent hours trying to refocus my mind back to the breath after it wandered into the hills of Peru, to the chocolate I'd eaten before arriving, to that one thing my ex-boyfriend said to me one time, to something I'd been meaning to tell one of my friends, what I wanted to do next in my life's journey, etc etc etc. It was amazing some of the stuff I dug up from the depths of my relatively short human experience. It was amazing too how often I came back to the same thoughts over and over, and how much of our daily mind dribble is just the same record of habitual thoughts repeating relentlessly, whether we realize it or not.

It was very interesting to see how all the internal junk manifested externally. All of the yucky stuff we store deep down inside ourselves, not even anything so terrible necessarily, but maybe some aversion to a specific thing, say green olives, that you've reacted to hundreds or thousands of times with a negative knee-jerk reaction (that "Ick!" face or a shudder even), and then bury it over and over again. There wasn't one person who didn't become ill during the program as a result of all this dis-ease bubbling to the surface. The first day I thought I was going to throw up, and I wanted to leave. The second day I got a rash. Good thing I did ride-share, or I might have fled. My ego said No No No, this isn't for you, you're fine, you don't need to do this...RUN!!! Get away from this discomfort! But I just kept on sitting and breathing. It's so funny to think of all those people (there were about 90), who were by appearances calmly sitting cross-legged on their blue cushions, while inside their minds were going haywire and their bodies were screaming to be let out.

By day 2, for me at least, it was much better. The experience manifested differently for everyone though. I could hear people getting sick in the bathroom throughout the week. And it wasn't the food, which was the one bright and shiny part of the day: the food was incredible. Mmm, I got to be a little spoiled in fact in that respect. When day 5 passed I was relieved that I was half way done, but also felt terrified a little that I still had half the program yet to go. I'm going to die, I thought only 1/2 jokingly. And again how funny and dramatic is that? When all I'm doing is sitting there, in a wonderfully safe and loving and peace-filled environment...and when I've done so much seemingly more challenging things? Ahh but the physical feats are so much easier than the internal ones. Give me a volcano to climb, a mountain to scale, a foreign country and language to penetrate: lovely, but take away my journal, my communication to the outside world (as well as interpersonally), and make me sit cross-legged for 11 hours a day with myself, ah!! It's oddly terrifying. Though actually by the 7th day, I thought, oh no! It's almost over, and I still have so much work I could do. I want to stay meditating forever! It's so beautiful once you find peace in the flow of it all and uncover a sufficient amount of crap. Truly, it's blissful.

All in all, it was incredible and I recommend it to everyone. Above all I feel internally strengthened by the experience. I feel much less hurried and more at peace with myself and others. More patient. More aware. And better equip to handle anything that comes my way. I may have spent 10 days away from work and relationships, but I feel like doing that deep internal work has made me 10x more efficient and appreciative. And like I said anyway, though you might feel like you're missing out on a lot, all that's really going on in your brain for the vast majority of the time is a record of habitual thoughts. Sure there are the day to day variances and events and interchanges that arise, but mostly it's all the same. So better to fill that space with breath and be a happier and more peaceful person because of it :)

One thing I want to share that I was reminded of during the course, is that in each moment we are literally remade TRILLIONS of times. This is because all of our anatomical parts are made up of cells, which are made up of atoms, which spin around trillions and trillions of times every moment, which means that by appearances we are a solid mass, but in reality we are not held together by anything solid at any point in time.

We are just like candles: the flame appears to be continually burning, but in reality the flame is rising and then passing away and rising and passing away. It's also similar to our TVs, which appear to have a constant picture, but if you look in the window at someone watching TV in a dark room, you know that the image is just a bunch of flickers over and over again, and not a constant form. SO, what that means to me is that in every millisecond (indeed more often) you have the opportunity to change it all around. To change your mood, to change your day, to smile, to be something else, to not feel pain. Cool! So go on, smile! And then do it again! And just be! Be happy! :)

Happy June to everyone. I hope all are doing exceptionally.
Love, Rachel

To learn more about the meditation course I did or to find a center, see: www.dhamma.org
Courses are free and are offered all over the world. And they very purposefully have no religious ties, so they are for everyone!

ding ding ding, ugliest city in the world!

19.08.08: I´ve been nearly on house arrest in Lima due to the facts that I don't really understand the language nor the city. Lima is enormous, dirty, LOUD, cold, and unfriendly, not to mention inexplicably hideous--its like Paris without all the beautiful archetecture, on crack--it´s grayer, much much much much much dirtier, unfriendlier, and with an incomprehensible public transportation system...there are no subways, only crazy mini-buses with mysterious pay rates and esoteric routes. Oh yeah, and to top it off, the city is surrounded by ugly, brown, outer-space looking mountains that trap in air pollution, and seem to seep the dark fog that clouds the city.

Today though, I took to the streets...I have discovered that I am actually in an area called La Molina, which is quite a distance from Central Lima, Miraflores, San Isidro, and Barranco, which is where most of the action is. I´m not sure how to get to any of the afore listed places, besides taking a taxi...if they feel like taking you the little jaunt, which in my experience in trying to hail a couple taxis, they don´t want to. So, I walked around for a couple hours in my immediate area and stopped for a cafè, papa rellena (a potato based pastry thing stuffed with olives, meat, and onions), and an alfajor (two thin butter cookies stuffed with manjar blanco, a sort of caramel). These kinds of days I really enjoy being a sola traveler. There´s no worry in getting lost, no obligation to find anything or do anything specific, because my whole purpose is simply to take in the life around me. My style as a traveler is not so much a sight-seer, but as a life-observer. When I went to Paris, I think the only ¨sight¨ I saw was the Lourve and the Eifel Tower as I strolled by, not bothering to stop into them. I feel like those things are seen and forgotten, but to experience the life of the people in a different place, is something you can carry with you always. There I spent extended periods of time sitting in parks and cafès, tasting the local food and observing the people, the animals, and the diurnal life as it unfolded.
So here too, I´ve enjoyed just walking--seeing the day slowly unfold--stopping for several minutes to observe a bird I´ve never seen before, watching women in green jumpsuits and masks sweep the streets with brooms, men in their workshops--welding and building things out of wood (how often do you see that on the streets in the US? Building for us is picking something up from IKEA and assembling it with wood colored tape and color-coded screws), seeing people drop off laundry, peddle candy and cigarettes on the streets, and seeing people going to and from there and here (maybe if I watch for long enough I´ll figure it out), etc.

If you´re wondering why I´m not in Cajamarca (at the clinic) yet, I´m with you. As I´ve noted before, everything takes longer here. Best to let go of any sort of schedule (believe me, it´s not easy, but I see it as an exercise), and instead hold on to the absolutes...I do hope to do a trek to Machu Picchu, and I do hope to volunteer at the clinic in Cajamarca for some amount of time, oh and learn Spanish...all the other things, which I would like to do too, might fall to spontaneity and necessity--allowing for 3 hour lunches, getting unfathomably lost, doing tasks like getting my laundry done and treating illness and bugbites, and extended conversations with strangers. C`est la vie.

20.08.08: Traveling, especially alone, is weird because it strips away your suppossed reality and day to day ¨obligations,¨ and makes you face yourself without the facade of a routine. Your skeleton appears and you are given a glimpse of your tendencies and points of weakness--your cravings, your thought patterns, etc--and if you look hard enough and allow there to be enough space between thoughts, you start to see the little things in your life that create happiness and unhappiness. You really see how in actuality, the things that are making your life what it is: unhappy or difficult or whatever it may be, are entirely created within you. And the good, but sometimes hard news is: they are under your control. When you have the entire day, or days at a time, to do exactly as you wish (which is surprisingly harder than it may seem), you see that you can do whatever you want to do, always...and your choices and reactions are what shape your life.
Hopefully that makes some sense outside my own head...

I haven´t found a word in Spanish for ¨hang out.¨ (Spanish speakers if you know one...please enlighten me! You don´t realize how much you use a word until you try to use it in another language and there doesn´t seem to be an equivalent). I think the reason there is no word for it, is because ¨hanging out¨ seems to be synonymous with existing here. Literally in the past 2 days, all I have done is hang out...Yesterday Mayte (my cs host)´s friend came over around noon. We went to lunch (for a few hours), and then went back to her house and literally hung out on the couch until almost 10pm. I gather (at least with this group of friends--obviously I can´t make judgements on a whole culture based on them) that many hours are spent chatting on the phone, chatting on MSN messenger, watching telenovellas, and lounging on the couch chatting about relationships...oh the drama that thrives here around a thing called love....

21.08.08: Today I did it...I rode the bus....I´ve ridden the little buses like this in South Africa and perhaps elsewhere, I can´t remember...but it´s a whole different world when there´s a language barrier. And the problem with the buses is that you have to know where you´re going and where the bus is going. Today was moderately successful. I went in the direction I wanted, but at one point (thank god I was paying attention), the bus turned down a different road and I had to get off. But that´s the good thing--you can get on and off wherever you want, as opposed to traditional bus systems with actual stops. I have to say, it´s exhausting always having to be on guard--trying not to get robbed, trying not to get lost, trying not to get swindled into something, making sure your $ isn´t fake, and trying to communicate...so much we take for granted in our neat little daily lives.
And of course a trip to South America is not complete until you have a little car trouble. Yesterday when I was returning from Miraflores, my cab had to pull over because the hood started smoking....a lot. The driver jumped out and told me not to worry, the car simply needed some water. He pulled a big jug of water out of the back and dumped it in and/or on the engine, then pronounced it better and jumped back in. We chugged off at about 25 mph on the highway, and I searched for my seatbelt, lest we stall and get hit. My search turned up nothing however. The car was basically a skeleton with no sort of logical anatomy. I have to say though, I had a good time--I love the spirit of the old taxi drivers. I exclusively choose them (for saftey reasons too). We spent the ride rocking out and dancing to what he called ¨American rock,¨ but what I call ¨disco,¨ haha. I can´t tell you how much crappy music from the 70s-early 90s they just looove to play at loud volumes here.

22.08.08: Today I did manage to get out and see a museum. It was a fantastic exhibit on the last 3 decades in Peru, which if you don´t know much about Peru´s history during the late 70s through the 90s, was incredibly turbulent (to day the least). Governement corruption, kidnapping, mass terrorism, at least 70,000 civilians slaughtered (mostly in the countrysides), and general absolute chaos. My friend who took me, who is only 2 years older than me, talked to me about growing up with power outages, riots, and bombings very near to his home. It´s crazy to me that this happend in my lifetime when I was having the normal childhood--being a girlscout, playing kickball out in the streets until after dark, and walking to and from school safely. Of course, the same madness is still happening elsewhere in the world right now--in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, etc, etc, etc--as we sleep safetly under egyptian cotton sheets and our little ones enjoy waking up for a guaranteed 3 meals a day. We talked too about how the worst part of war isn´t necessarily over when the truces are called... the terror continues for generations, as children grow up parentless and traumatized by what they experienced. He talked to me about how in Ayacucho, where most of the slauterings occured, the children who were affected (seeing their families being killed before them and their houses burned) are now having children of their own and they don´t take care of them, because they don´t know how, as they were abandoned themselves. And another generation is broken.

It gives you another perspective on the people and their behaviors and habits. It´s easy to use your gut reaction based on your own experiences and background to slap a label on a culture--saying it´s dramatic or flamboyant, untrusting, macho, close-minded, or even something as simple as family-centered, but it totally underscores their experience, and lacks the understanding of how it came to be this way. Understanding some more of the backround, it´s easier to dismantle initial reactions and see the life through a different (less American) lense. People aren´t ¨dependent¨ because they live at home until they get married...they have a close and very strong connection with their (entire) families, perhaps because after having so many families ripped apart by external violence, they don´t feel the need to claim the independence we value so much. And maybe the men aren´t overbearing and dominant (as I´ll admit, it feels to me because of our high importance in individualism and gender equality), perhaps they are legitimally concerned about women´s safety--and rightfully so here! Oh, I could go on. And we´re only talking recent history, let´s not even get started with colonialism and external wars and slavery and ETC..

On a lighter note, right now I am having the thoroughly hilarious experience of sitting in an internet cafe with a bunch of school boys playing some sort of computer game. I am the only computer in fact not playing it. They are screaming at each other, clapping, jumping up, and generally being a kind of rowdy that would not be permitted in an American business. haha, oh geeeze.

Other thoughts on Lima:

My diet here is terrible. The meal schedule is much different and involves much more refined foods than I am used to eating. For the last four days, my diet has been about like this: cebada (a tea made from barley) and crackers for breakfast. Lunch around 2pm, which is likely to be potatoes of some kind and/or noodles and chicken, or a meat stuffed buttery empenada (I have given in, and am now consuming whatever sort of protein I can get), and some kind of pop, usually Inka Cola (a bubble gum tasting electric yellow soda). Dinner is around 8pm and is eggs or chicken and cookies, and some other kind of sweet drink. People do not generally drink water here, it`s pop or coffee or a juice likely to be made from a powder. If you are lucky, you get a refresco, made of super watered down fruit juice. And there are all sorts of starchy sweet things to be snacking on in between meals. Ick, sugar headache.

Another thing I have had to get over (still working on it), is being cold (a big change from Iquitos). As Americans we are generally used to having our body temperatures regulated for us, with heat and airconditioning, enclosed homes, and hot water...but here homes are open to the elements, hot water is more like `not absolutely freezing` water, and it`s all about layering. This morning I woke up at 7 and was so cold I found myself tensed into a little ball for over an hour before I coaxed myself out of bed in a foul mood. I braved a shower since yesterday I went without, too afraid of the cold water and the hour or more following of freezing with wet hair. But like many things here, it`s something you just have to let go of. In Iquitos and the jungle it was all about letting go of feeling dirty. Here it`s about letting go of being cold...trying not to hold on to the discomfort, and letting it just pass through you. It`s hard to get your mind outside of your body and ignore its demands to maintain its accostumed level of equilibrium, but again, it just takes some focus, and understanding that other people seem to be doing it just fine...And so the theme of this trip continues: just breathe, and go...