I went on a three hour walk yesterday to the northeast of McCleod Ganj to get a better view of the mountains. On the way back, three teenage girls asked to each have their picture taken with me. "Yi, ar, san," one of them said as she snapped the shutter, so I asked if they were Chinese. "No! We are Tibetan!"They told me that they had just arrived here from Tibet only three months ago. They are 16, 18 and 19 years old. They told me they snuck across the border with 20 other Tibetans, and their parents are still in Tibet. "We can speak Chinese, but we don't like the Chinese," one of the girls said. Then the other one corrected her. "The Chinese are okay. We don't like the Chinese government." When I asked how they like it here, one replied, "It's okay, but our leader is here." "Your leader?" I asked. "The Dalai Lama," she replied. "He is here so we are happy."
While sitting at a cafe yesterday afternoon, a watched a Tibetan man on a motorcycle approach two young Tibetan men and a Tibetan monk sitting at the table next to me. They started to argue. The monk tried to calm them down, but the argument continued across the street. The monk crossed the street to try and calm the young men again. One of the men who was sitting with the monk gently walked him back to his seat at the coffee shop, and the argument continued. Then another monk came. He and the first monk finally got the young men settled down. The Tibetan woman who runs the coffee shop was standing next to my table listening. The argument had drawn quite a crowd. I tried to get her to explain to me what was going on, but she either could not or would not. "I don't see this here very often," I said. "No. Not common," she replied.
I found a spot I like to sit at to watch what is going on. It is at the top of McCleod Ganj, where 4 roads intersect. I bought some peanuts and chai, and was sitting there for about an hour, when a woman sat down next to me, so we started to talk. She is from Israel, and was waiting for the night bus to head back to Delhi and home. She is a healer. She looks at me and says, "I can see in your mind that you are a deep thinker, with all the good and bad that come with it." We talk some more, and as she leaves, she says to me, "You don't have to look too much. Everything is coming to you." "It is a good spot," I replied, thinking she was referring to where I am sitting. "No, in general," she says. "A good philosophy," I reply, but I still don't understand. And she says to me, "It is not a philosophy. I am saying this to you." Then she walks away, and finally I get it. She is a healer. She is seeing in me the searching and the struggle.
I have been rereading my favorite book on spirituality slowly this trip - Adyashanti's Emptiness Dancing. There seems to be such synchronicity with my life, as if his teachings are directed to me right when I need them. This morning I read: "World views are self views - literally. The world of perceptual overlay is not actually happening except in the mind. . . . If you want to be free, you've got to be prepared to lose your world - your whole world. . . . The Zen Master Huang Po encouraged people to throw away the Buddha - to throw away all views, all the worldviews, even the spiritual worldview - so that you are not imposing it on what is. That's where the phrase, 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him' comes from. If you have an image of what the Truth is, slay it immediately (Or in Jewish tradition, there is only one God, and the name of God cannot be written). . . . Releasing this overlay of ideas and images is very much like awakening from a dream. Waking up is the only way to realize it is a dream. . . When you sit in meditation, you begin to recognize the various points of view you have carried, and you can let them go. But as fast as you let them go, you'll replace them. . . . But to question the one who is holding the beliefs is much more efficient than questioning each little belief along the way, . . . so uprooting the one who is holding the beliefs is what it is all about. Who is the one who is holding the belief? Who is the one who is struggling? Once you uproot the one who is holding the structure together, then the whole structure collapses."
Photos below are from my walk to the northeast of McCleod Ganj.
View of McCleod Ganj from the north.
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