January 10, 2008

--Delhi--
Sitting in my hotel room in Majnukatila, the Tibetan refuge colony of Delhi, watching the Guns N Roses’ classic Welcome to the Jungle on VH1. This is India, land of contrasts and this is urban contemporary pop culture on the planet Earth; a big beautiful mess and it really doesn’t matter where on the planet you are. That is not to say Indian contemporary pop doesn’t embody its own vastly complex traditional identity, because like every other striving-to-be-modern society on the planet, there is no escaping the past. I read today in the Times of India newspaper that one language of the world becomes extinct every 14 days. This to say that tradition is being devoured, being driven to oblivion by an ever encroaching modern consumer. The Consumer of consumers, with its pervasive dream quest is perhaps nothing more than the ancient desire itself, that which gave life to growth, that which animated the human spirit to go beyond itself and to give birth to the ego. Now it is that this primordial child had grown up and is eating its parents alive. But this is a good thing in the paradoxical world of human development; we must constantly destroy that which feeds us and kill the Buddha when we see him on the road. So here in India, the Buddha is slain every day, and tradition is feeding innovation and the planet is welcoming everyone. There is no shortage. The dogs are getting fat in the streets. The cows are gods and the elephants roam freely. On the news, people are promoting automobile ownership as a basic human right.
But: sexuality is so conflicted in the swamped version of modern India, that men are compelled to desperately grope (and worse) unsuspecting women on a crowded street. “Eve teasing” they call it. Some how that name provides legitimacy and also serves to isolate the act from the broader environment that spawns such behavior. And depraved sexuality is only the beginning. How about last week’s fun story of a Tamil Nadu village mob that had gauged the eyeballs out of one its teenage sons for attempting to elope with an upper caste girl. Or the two inch box in yesterday’s Times of India that casually mentioned a wedding party’s tour bus that had plummeted into a ravine killing all 38 members aboard. A billion people all living and dying together in close quarters; add cultural fundamentalism and a uniquely vicious form of populist democracy and there you’ve got the not so cheery side of 21st century India.

But then: Economists report a three fold increase in the size of the middle class in the past 15 years, from 4% of the population to 14. Some say it’ll be 50% by 2030 but that may be a lusty projection of the mood, or perhaps not. Nobody really knows what the beast has in store. In fact nobody really cares, because like everywhere, it’s everybody for itself. Women support selfish men, even if India and now the US can have one as a president. Top dog is the goal, but for men it’s easier to hold the illusion as reality. In Buddhism the illusion is the proof of reality. But this must be recognized in order to move forward in development. And who really believes in spiritual development anyways? How do you measure someone’s commitment to the path? How genuine is the desire? How present is the path? Religion is convenient, devotion occasional when needed… Suffering, the first noble truth. When do you move on to the second, identification of the cause, let alone the third identification of the solution and finally an impulse to act, the fourth and final noble truth. The temperature has increased over the last few days in Delhi – from the dog days of 2 Celsius - and now it smells like the sewer in my hotel, instead of just on the street.

Now, in the mountains of Kashmir: I’ve found a little cabin where I can settle – for a week. Life is very comfortable. It has just snowed four feet and I am getting ready to ride 14,000 foot Himalayan powder tomorrow. But right now, I seem to have been caught watching the boob tube – ain't no running water or heating but there’s satellite TV with 1300 channels. And what do I find but the worst best horror flick ever created, The Grudge 2. How long will I sit through it and its rapid fire commercials. I should really turn it off but my TV karma is very strong indeed.
Yes I know what it is now. “Reliance Mobile Blog, I share the my diary with the whole world, because in my world there are no strangers. What’s your world?” Commercial interrupted my thought stream. Literally, it coincided with my exact thought. The blog. The diary. In my world there are also no strangers only gadgets. Things that make me closer to everybody and farther from myself. Myself. The first noble truth indicates that suffering is the result of ignorance. Ignorance means believing that the self exists; that the self can be indulged by the satisfying of its cravings and desires. The self that craves is the ego. The ego is the purveyor of this ignorance. The fear of being alone. The fear of being all one. The Buddhist way of seeing requires me to make a major leap. Perhaps this is why I’ve come here to Ladakh and Kashmir, not to sit in this cabin and watch TV.

Later, everything is resolved. The mountains take care of everything. After five days of continuous activity skiing eating and sleeping, I'm headed down to Srinagar, the Kashmir Valley, Clinton dubbed most dangerous place on earth for writing, relaxation, and meeting people. That also turned out well.

Off I go, no longer getting there, but arriving and in a matter of a few hours, BEING there!

Happy Happy and Hopeful New Year to all!!

Stay tuned and perhaps I might someday soon write something of substance once again. Until then, may all beings be happy and free, especially when they go back to work from the long holiday.

Namaste from Beirut...