I'm back

Elluring...

It's back in there
deep repetition
there's nothing like a new beginning to tell you
how many times you've repeated this over and over.

Balmy hot as the fan and vacuum next door whine
and fried rice is finished.
But I am not and neither is she nor he
unseeping out of the wall
commiserate with bat piss that
lines these walls.

There's nothing like a cave to show you the light.

c) 2006

Ghee glee

6/24/05

From Majnu Katilla, 2;30 pm Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad. Groggy, sticky eyes, the moist skin, the whirl of the swamp cooler behind the screen. There really is water there. There is fried and there's fried. I made it to India. Endless knot window grills, a single 'deluxe' room (don't get too excited - not sure what deluxe really means). The shock of india the first time - the sheer mechanical dirt, diesel, cows and dogs, the pit of Majnu Katilla, adjusting to sticky hotel furniture and marble floors lightly dusty. Occasional sight of toilet paper, but the bucket is nearby. Back again. I've been slowly downgrading to prepare for perhaps the night bus? Last time I was in Majnu Katilla after being in Bodhgaya for almost 3 weeks, this pit seemed like a luxury hotel. It's peculiar how we adjust our shock of privledge and downsize it. I had been three weeks in the same clothes. Today I have a fresh load, machine washed. It's these small things, that add up to an incredible transition. It sends some over the edge, actually.

Things have been smooth, bordering on middle class even. After arriving in Bangkok, I exchanged my hotel voucher for a 4 star stay. I was driven to the hotel in a limo/van and met along the way, Jotkaur from New Mexico, also traveling to India, to join a pilgrimage to Ladakh and stay on for 6 months. She will help set up a nunnery there. When we arrived at the hotel, we were upgraded and ended up spending the next day together touring Bangkok. This hotel pause was so welcomed. Cherishing the bathtub and high bed, (never mind the unflushed roach floating in the toilet water), I didn't peak at Bangkok til late morning. And couldn't figure out what day it was for that matter which led to a panicked phone call to Delhi to change and then change again my reservations and because those in India didn't hang up the line, I was looking at a $100 phone bill...a glorious debacle. The error was Thai redemption - the manager with a smile, dropped the charges.

In Thai traffic, we went to see the Golden Buddha, lying on his side, extreme in length and regality. Beautiful view. Then onto the hut behind the monument for a thai massage. I was at first wary of the communal place, which looked like a war hospital tent, a fenced in cabana of multiple beds, side by side with strangers - worrying about the cleanliness of the sheets. The masseuses wore yellow shirts and looked so unlike the new age board certified Western stock of 'healers' I was accustomed to. But Jotkaur insisted we go inside and the smell of lime and herbs swept me away. The strong knuckled thai man pushed hard into my knotted body; I gasped as he stuck his heel into my inner groin and pulled my ankle towards his shoulder, all for only $10. the lingering smell of lime I wanted to guard closely.

And off we went to Bangkok airport again amidst dark web like clouds, because it's monsoon time and it's back to Thai Airways, this time the plane was full of Indians. I was SO cranky. My seat cushion slipping to expose metal and the Rolls Royce air engine making a fabulous squeaking noise and the film sound system incapacitated and the food intolerably spicey reduced me to a travel grumble. Craving sleep again, I was upright with that head bobble drool. I remarked that Indians join Americans on the 'demanding' list, for they were as insistent as I've seen Americans on more bread, more drinks, more pillows, more blankets...unlike those polite reticent Thai.

We arrived late in the night in Delhi and I got to meet Khandro, a 40 year old Tibetan woman who would be guiding Jotkaur up in Ladakh. (for those in the know, she's a niece of Namkha Drimed Rabjam Rinpoche) Leaving the Delhi airport in a non A/C van, I sat shotgun because the back seat was drenched in the sweat of the driver's friend's head. Kooky, diesel inhaled, 'blow horn' circus like ramshackle bettle juice spit laden roads pimple laced greasy face penetrating eyes of the driver. No English only Hindi. Wanting to fall asleep even as we arrived in the Tibetan concrete slum. Cows and dogs, we were there.

6/26/05

In Hotel Tibet, McLeod Ganj, surviving hell. Adjusting to the jolts of filth, excrement, cows, beggars, sweat. I watied to board the bus to Dharamsala as the guy throwing the luggage on the roof top wanted extra rupees for his manpower and threatened to throw it back down if he remained unpaid...a serious ploy but I didn't buy it. Sexy Tibetan girls wearing tight jeans in this swelter, they don't look splotchy like me. I feel faint. Loose cotton from India sags. As it is time to leave, I see this half-crazed guy, who looks Israeli, who looks as if he's about to implode or explode or have a breakdown. He's pacing, pushing rupees into a guy's face demanding Agua Vita instead of Bisleri. Then he's on the bus telling the driver to go, that it's past 6:30 and we should be gone by now. Turns out he's going to be my bus companion the entire next 12 hours and he's not from Israel, he's from Northern CA. His eyes are bulging and he mutters 'God hates me, he really does...I should've gone to Australia. Why oh why did I make such a mistake. This is shit.' He's in severe culture shock. Never been to India. "God forgot this country, these people, really". It's so hot. That's why he's on the bus. He thinks it'll be cooler in the mountains. But the forecast calls for continued heat. It might not be cooler up there. I try to be accomodating with a peaceful facade...smiling at the chaos and steam of India. I can take it. Sure...For all his ranting, his sound bites are accurate...the poverty is devastating, the chaos overwhelming. But if you just let go into it...

7/10/05

Looking back - A day in Majnu Katilla...then onto McLeod Ganj. I didn't sleep much. You get to know yourself as a shell, a container or evaporator of fluids container really. Something walks out of the bus and into the tea stall - it's you. But it doesn't feel like you. The skin and clothes are one. Hardly a sign of relief or comfort. The tail bone drops further into the hardness of the bus chair. I stay up worrying about where my shoes are sliding off to. When you pack up your life for a couple of months into a couple of bags, you start to fixate on the objects. Where did I put my wallet, my chapstick, my toilet paper?

We arrived into lower Dharamsala a bit later than scheduled...the rains had started. A german gal, Liana, tall studious but with a generous smile helped me to her friend Susanna's taxi. Susanna had come months before to teach English to Tibetan nuns. I wanted to unload my things at the nunnery I was due to go to but the my friend Sangmo was not there..she was already long gone to the teachings. As we drove in the taxi back down the curved road, I noticed and gasped at a decapitated bus, just pulled up and out of the river bed. A bus like the one I had just taken up the hill. This bus had gone down only 2 days prior, plunging into the river bed in the dark, killing half the passengers. A bus bound for Manali with Punjabi pilgrims. The driver was Punjab, not a local, who was unfamiliar with these roads...unharmed, he had apparently fled the scene and police were still looking for him. This was the first accident as such in years here. The front end of the bus was caved in and black, the headless topless trap with some seats still upright, a reminder of the shortness of a day of a night, this life.

I stayed my first day in Dromaling nunnery, asleep. All the nuns had gone to the teachings. So with a fan whizzing overhead, torrents of rain and more sweat, I laid down and fell into a very sticky sleep sans coffee. Later I arranged to go over to where I was to stay, at Thosamling, the Western nunnery and Institute for Buddhist women. No road, where's the road? Computers in my bag, an enormous hideous bag...how? Over cobblestones, across a river bed and a narrow path between rice paddies...I followed the men who I asked to carry this hideously large bag...bones and sweat waddling along. Thosamling sits in the middle of all this, with the backdrop of peaks higher than Mt. Whitney. The Tibetan transit school in the distance. It's nice finally to unpack.

That first night, lightening greeted me. 3:30 am, all electricity down so as not to encourage a 'charge'. Sangmo stood on the balcony looking out hoping the lightening wouldn't suck up into the buildings. Only recently, a corner of her office got a charge that burnt down the HP Laser Printer, curtains and caused a large crack in the window. Two years ago on Dakini day, I had sat in the grass near the tool shed looking out into the meadow with Sangmo, monks from Gyumed Tantric College and Amy Krantz and her adopted Tibetan daughter. There were no buildings nor pathways. A remarkable feat now, sprung from a vision, a need to fill - nuns now come from all over...a Korean whose teacher is the Karmapa, a Theravadan nun from Amarvarti in England. Presence is light right now as classes don't resume til next fall - nuns are now traveling.

Sunday was my first day at the teachings with the Dalai Lama. I was still in low grad irritability blur. Muddling through with a low grade discomfort. Too crowded in the 'Ingi' section to find a place so I squeeze in with the Tibetan locals downstairs on the temple grounds, watching close circuit TV of the Dalai Lama. It feels cozy, Tibetan women passing cookies, rice and smiles. His Holiness is giving a 'lung', an oral transmission of about 1200 pages of a text by Je Tsongkhapa. This day the reading was on refuge. My ears battle between the boom of His Holiness' voice through the loud speakers in Tibetan and the soft spoken quality of audio english in my headphones. Carolyn found me in the afternoon - she had been more pragmatic, having taken the train to Patankot and slept. I guided her over the rice paddies and back to Thosamling. Looking back (sorry for the wierd chronology), this beginning was a blur, an overwhelm, a busy invade, a permeating of memory by sweat. It felt like dharma duty to pass out gifts, Julie Klaus coming to town with English books, CDs, sunglasses, yoga props, computers. It was fun! Since I had left LA, I hadn't stopped running around. I saw my 'son' monk Tenzin; I had a quick bite with Pasang and her son, another Tenzin, also a monk, and her partner/collaborator (name forgot). I bumped into Jane from England who had come for a week. I met with the personal secretary for His Holiness. I should've had a cell phone - then it would've been very official. Also, on my way to lunch one day, I was solitarily traversing stones up a garbage strewn path, out of the grey fog descending was someone else I knew...from my last trip to India. His face got more recognizable the closer he got to me...Choeling! Looking a bit more filled out, with a sleek smooth dark face, not a hair on his head, Choeling my friend, Choeling the Rinpoche who had removed himself from life in a South Indian monastery to meditate in caves in Nepal. A recognized Geluk tulku who now studied with the former Tsa Ding Rinpoche, a Kagyu lama recently passed. Focusing on Tsa Lung practice. Later that day, I met him with Za Rinpoche, who lives in Phoenix and speaks perfect English, a robust big lama and friend of Choeling's. I found myself trying to articulate my current queries about practice, life, and interest in yoga. We have in depth descriptions of yogic practices, what it can perpetuate in the body and mind but how to relate it directly to the Buddhadharma? Choeling feels like a bridge. If only I could speak Tibetan! He's not ready for students, he said. I'm not ready or grounded enough in the elemental studis to warrant such advanced help, I feel. 'You need three years', they said...and laughed. Pray for me that I realize this.

And to what of being in the presence of His Holiness again? Familiar, in the lair, squeezed into seats, alongside the inner temple walls, finally upstairs with the other Ingis, trying to focus on the words of the Lam Rim Chenmo. Hearing impromptu comments on the proper conduct for the monasteries...after all, over 3,000 monks were in attendance. HHDL was scolding monasteries for spending too much on elaborately built temple prayer halls when needs still exist for better health and sanitation. He encouraged stricter discipline in the monks' studies and he again addressed the topic of fully ordaining nuns. The time is coming for nuns to get full ordination in the Tibetan tradition and for them to go on to become Geshes as well. As for those already Geshes, there should be a clear labelling of who is who, from high to low Geshe degree. And there are so many tulkus being born now. Instead of them being treated like princes, they should be adept in ordinary guise and lives so as to have more accessibility to the common people. Each day, HHDL would walk by us on his way out of the temple, either for lunch or for the very end of the teachings that day. I always noticed the four marks on his upper right arm, his height, his casual walk, his smile. Behind him were more Rinpoches. As he passed the Indian Policemen, they thrust their rifles into a salute that made a big clack and then the crowd of dedicated sore knee students slowly arose to file out of the temple grounds.

Not everyone attends the teachings that is visiting Dharamsala but every two minutes a large Indian family would stroll by where we were sitting to gawk at His Holiness; pilgrims peering into the window and being mildly shocked at who was speaking...unexpected. Being here at the right time. Hippies from Europe, Israel with clanky jewelry, tatoos, rasta hair. Taking a break from the industrial discipline and military stints. Rock star Tibetans, men with dark sunglasses and sleek long hair and motor bikes. Sometimes you just have to trust that despite the onslaught of activities and rapidity of events, something good is ripening. Quietude forestalled, I just felt plain uncomfortable and longed for some peace. It all went too fast in Dharamsala and i just had to let that be okay. the most peaceful moments were walking behind the temple compound, throwing my dead cats' ashes onto mani stones, whispering prayers and praying for their rebirth in better migrations. Dust settling onto the colorful carvings, remnants of Tibet.

The teachings got denser and by the time we were on the refutation of the Svatantrika by the Madhamika Prasangikans, my eyes were popping with reminders of the intelligence required to establish reason. And alertness. One slippery thought about what to eat or who was wearing what and the logic concerning the schools of emptiness was lost on me.

Carolyn and I left for Patankot in a very nice Jeep. That day I was weepy (pre-menstrual, actually). Our Pune accomodations appeared in jeapordy. Then I thought the local taxi guuys were being greedy. You know you're really in India when you start haggling over 5 cents worth of rupees. I decided at one point to walk 2 km rather than pay a greedy taxi guy. But it is also India when the driver turns around and comes by and picks you up for free with a huge grin on his face. So I got to see the 17th Karmapa afterall. Sitting on his small throne at the Gyuto Tantric Monastery, wrapped up in a thick robe, he seemed serene and simple, quiet, and serious. Of course it's projection to see him trapped by circumstance, not able to return to his proper monastery in Nepal. But I kept having this feeling he'd rather be somewhere else right now? Maybe in a cave studying? Humble and still not ready to assume his role in the world as a 'Holiness'?

On the train to Delhi, in a 2nd class sleeper, we were in berths next to the toilets...reminding me of a sorry night in China years back, also near the toilets. I held a scarf to my nose the entire night, drenched in Kuo Loong oil. I was suffering from a tummy ache, sore throat and heat exhaustion so I actually slept well...we arrived in hot irritating Delhi and went to Anoop hotel where Carolyn's luggage had been parked. A flea bag stop...rife with construction, very stained sheets and power outages. Of course, Carolyn and I then had a five minute spat over a breakfast order. Nerves on edge, it was resolved and she went upstairs, locked me in the room and then the power went out. All unintentional. I panicked about being locked in the room like this but the remedy was fast in coming. Then we flew to Pune, uneventfully and quite enjoyably. Having had lunch with Vijay, a journalist, and his family on the way, playing with newborn Gun Gun in his 'baby Einstein' environment I had hand carried over to India for my friends Ronny and Rebecca.

So we had arranged for a 2 bedroom apartment way ahead of time in Pune but by the time arrived, all that had evaporated and we were met by a Swiss Croatian guy with severe ear-itis who had also been promised the same flat. A misunderstanding had resulted in us being offered a 'share' which was unacceptable to all parties. But I had in the back of my mind the feeling it would all work out wonderfully. And it did. The very next day, we met with Mataji, a renunciate and sister of another local landlord who just so happened to have two bedrooms available in another flat. So we then began sharing it with another woman, a 28 year old sanskrit scholar from Berkeley. So here I am at the desk in a large bedroom, at peace.

We've just finished our first week of classes at the Institute. My first three days were spent in the menstrual sequence, with heavy duty asana not really kicking into gear until last Friday. So I'm sore sitting up straight. Regaining inner freedom, but thick in the head. Reluctant to be socially active and thirsting for more contemplation. While others gorge at the Meridien hotel Sunday buffet brunch, I'm here in this bedroom resting. I'm sure this will change as the weeks carry on. Cells waking up, dorsal spine connecting to the mind, my vulnerability - strong conditions to sink. Determination is a full bodied endeavor. Interviewing Guruji tomorrow...

Armpits smell so spicy again...no deodorant works. Pune is familiar ground, Geetaji in fine form, thinner. July is crowded. Pleasant weather, Prashant displaying sound wisdom, quickly. Picking up where I left off, almost.


7/17/05

It's hard to be locational about these past 2 weeks. A series of internal upheavals. Rest seems eternal. The minute I lie down, I'm like glue, bones and muscles sinking down into the moldy smelling mattress. The mind can't catch the oscillations. Food seems both refuge and tyrant. Boiled vegetables come drenched in ghee and the crunch is foresaken for this thick film that will soon grease my gut. The ghee turns into fat rolls on many a plump indian's physique, but that also shows class and abundance. The poore the people, the thinner...and barefoot.

One could get caught up in roaming Pune- that is what I did the first trip. I must have gone to the shops so many times because one of the shop owners this trip remarked that I was already half way into this trip and I hadn't even been there. She assumed I'd have been there sooner. But after cleaning out my closet in LA and finding my Indian clothes pushed to the back rungs, I figured the Indian clothing spree was a passing fancy. Money spent this time would be on rescuing a donkey and lots of gifts.

Time is into practice pieces, slight meditation pieces, eating pieces (lots of those) and reading dharma pieces. I like where I'm staying, it's shady and cool. The marble floors soothe, the black tile bathroom surprisingly helpful. Again the sharpness and newness is replaced by compliance. Rather than it all being 'delicious', now there's discernment. Rather than all the classes being amazing, I can see the ups and downs, moods shifting. This trip I've spent many days down in the Institute library pouring over and transcribing the hour plus interview I did with BKS Iyengar on Stephanie Quirk's laptop. There are the regulars down there - serious young students and old timers who sit near Guruji while he reads the mail and does correspondance.

I promise to...

I have to apologize. I promised to write more, I promised to try and post photos. I've done neither. Suffice it to say, I view writing extensively as a special ritual - I have to have a desk and a cup of caffeinated something and quiet time. My quiet time up til now has been spent horizontal recovering from an intense morning of yoga practice and a delicious thali (indian lunch). I want to write, I want to share, I walk to class with a head full of thoughts and even some paragraphs but then I find a moment and my arms are needing to lay flat against a moldy smelling bed that I've grown used to. I let the breeze in and hear the cackles of outrageous birds and hear the flutter of pigeon wings whack my window screens and then I'm off, drifting into a nap. If you're reading this and craving the same, I highly recommend it.

I have yet to write about my initial week in Dharamsala, in the foothills of the Himalayas in the region of Himachal Pradesh. I spent the entire time on the run (not with the runs, thank goodness!). We were up and out of the nunnery where my friend Carolyn and I were staying by 6: 45 am and into a taxi drive up the hill for teachings with the Dalai Lama that started at 8:40 am every day. Time for lunch, time for a short stroll, time to meet friends and give gifts but no time to digest it all before heading back to Delhi and then onto Pune where I write from now.

I'm safe, it's not hotter than a match head - in fact it's cool and breezy and incredibly pleasant. I haven't seen one mosquito down here and Pune is a civil place...as I will explain in that well anticipated entry I plan to write...if I have to resort to instant coffee to get it all to you, I will. I am staying in a really nice apartment, marble floors, my own private bathroom with western toilet. I'm sharing it with my friend Carolyn from New York and another woman from Berkeley who is here studying sanskrit (on a summer study program). We walk to the yoga institute and I've now attended a full week of classes. Tomorrow we have the day off. Some are going off to Sunday brunch at the Meridien Hotel. I've vowed to stay behind and write, okay? We'll see - I might just be tempted by the scrumptious array of nourishment my body might desire...

Since this is the second time around in India, insights are of course different. Diffused, rather. There is a familiarity and the sharpness of experiencing something new is worn. There is not the need to see every sight and buy all the goodies. I sit and read more about this yoga practice. Questions arise about the purpose of the practice, how it can turn the mind. The intricacies.

but alas, I must sign off for now and get in an auto rickshaw, travel to other side of town to the 'german bakery' where one can find strudel, cappucino and salad.

again, I promise to write so please don't give up checking in...

Arrived safely following the full moon

Sweltering in the swamp cooling computer room - computers go way slow, another of the slight jolts in being welcomed back to India. I'll start this post but might not get so far as the bus is leaving in a bit and I did want my third shower in less than 24 hours before leaving Delhi.

6/21/05
Summer solstice at 16:45 PM LA time. Increasing clouds. Getting sleepy. I arrived at LAX bumper to bumper. With Andrew in the back of the car raging about the absence of lockers at LAX and Ronny on the phone to Bex about baby bottles not on board. "Ignorance like a fox" he chuckled. Good this way. Snarling traffic, do you really have to be there 3 hours ahead of time? What happened to that 70's hour window? Curses, I am totally weighed down thistime - 2 big bags are stuffed with lap tops, and gifts (flinchingly seeing my bags thrown about). My one prideful moment of packing extremely lightly 2 years ago is way over now. These are the adrenaline times. When practice crumbles and sleep is no where in sight, the heart flutters and you are walking bones to the checkin counter, wondering if anyone else feels like you? The guy next to me runs off to buy his family of four chicken mc nuggets. Daddy, chicken mc nuggets, yes please! I flash to the stats from Super Size Me. Oh my it is packed today. The first of many lines to get onto the plane. First the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) weaving between poles. Large boxy suitcases on wheels. My carry-on is pre-wheels. Big guys, latino women in supportive back braces swing the luggage behind a wall for inspection. Can't touch it after that, can't even lock it up or wheel it to the counter yourself. post 911. What a moniker. Post 911. Post emergency? We have changed.

So many people in the world now. So many styles. So many wheeled on carry on luggage. So many lives. Air travel is common place. 500 people share hours together. Getting served. Some yell they haven't been served properly. One family is told their suitcase is too heavy - so there they are re-packing in the middle of the hall, the husband and wife yelling over the din...trying to place the blame on one another. The chicken mc nugget quotient intervenes...pacify the kids, stuff em with this substance and shut everyone up.

I feel great fortune to be going back to India yet I am cranky. You wouldn't know it - I'm a good faker...It's just that I haven't had a proper practice regime in weeks. My head has been a big list - I've become a creature of structured insularity. To thrust me into budging mode is against constructions or concepts of aging and some type of sedentary grasping.

The cabin lights have gone on. Couldn't understand the pilots' garble but we're close. Flying with the full moon the entire way. Rush to Pilgrimage, flashes of yoga poses in Pune, crammed in seating at HHDL's teachings, seeing old robed friends. Resurfacing gratitude for all the friends I said goodbye to yesterday...never alone.

Even Mom called. "No, I wouldn't say you're tenacious. Jill is tenacious. You're just reckless." Never fish for a compliment with her. Yet she knows what the weather is like in India, and how I should prepare to leave early for LAX. Hasn't told Dad but will avidly read this blog. Getting my head examined by Lord Buddha.

Speaking of, India is now being touted in Thai Airways magazine as the place to 'Walk with Buddha." a large picture of a Buddha statue from Ladakh falls under the caption, "in a world full of questions, where do you go for an answer? On a journey into yourself - visit the land of the Buddha - Incredible India."

23:50 Flying to Bangkok
12 hours to Osaka, a pause to disembark, get back in line and re-ascend the plane, like cattle. This pilot likes to ride the turbulents and I'm so tired I finally succumb to the minor jolts. The prior flight had my stomach in intermitten knots and deep fears of plunging into the Pacific - had me really studying the life jacket demo - who has time to snap that belt around one's waist? And in recent air flying past, have planes split in half because of turbulents? What's it like to plunge 32000 feet? I should ask David J, my skydiving friend who threatens to give me a jump for my next birthday present. Am I ready? All kinds of disturbing thoughts to keep me from resting...I'm cranky cuz this plane doesn't have those cool screens on the back of every seat. And the movies are quite unenticing...(Be Cool...yikes!)... So this secont portion gave me the opportunity to let go, fill in the air seat and sleep. Interesting how my mind feel fresher now even as the teeth and mouth feel worse.

Body is stiff never mind the yoga. I wrap my head, Iyengar style, pulling the wrap over my eyes. Post 911, wondering if the cabin crew will think I'm putting on my crazy lady gear before I start shrieking? No one cares. What an invention! Then I think of Guruji (BKS Iyengar) sitting in an air chair - would he wrap his head? Would he get up to stretch? How stiff would his body be? And where does His Holiness sit on the plane? And rich people, do they have a yoga room upstairs in the front? On and on it goes...

Tea in the Samovar

10/02

A couple of years ago, a friend was emailing me spiritual quotes by ‘Osho’. I had no idea who or what this was (a brand of tarot cards?) and somehow it seemed too creamy dictatorial and contradictory for me to ingest so I asked her to kindly stop sending me these little ‘diatribes’. Now, I am here in Pune, India, and it only clicked yesterday that the Osho in quotes and the Osho who established the Osho Multiversity and the Osho Commune International are the same being. Oh…

I came to India to study at the Ramamani Memorial Iyengar Yoga Institute. Word gets out about where to eat, where to drink coffee and most importantly where to relax poolside on the weekends or in the afternoons. Apparently there is this fabulous pool at Osho, in Koreagon Park, a lush oasis on the other side of town. Just 20 minutes away in a rickshaw and 30 rupees (equivalent to 75 cents). The only things you have to do to get in and get a pass to the pool are wear maroon robes, maroon swim suits, take an AIDS test and pay $20 to attend a 6 hour mandatory orientation.

If one goes to the German Bakery here and has chai and apple strudel or that ‘safe’ washed salad, you can see the Europeans smoking, sipping something in their maroon smocks. You know Osho is nearby. It sets the stage for what is inside the ‘compound’, now called a resort. And so last Sunday, while my friend Carolyn was back up at the mountain spa receiving ayurvedic treatments, I coughed the rupees for ‘participation day’ at Osho. I wasn’t sure I wanted to even go through all this, taking myself away from yoga practice, dharma practice, just for a few hours at the pool, but I can say it was worth every rupee, not because I am now over at Osho and have given up everything else (which is not the case, don’t worry), but because it is so splendidly an art piece in the making for my somewhat skeptical eyes (please pardon me in advance if you are into Osho the Bhagavan...I don’t mean any harm). When I entered Osho last Sunday morn, I felt like I was entering ‘Logan’s Run’, the movie (from 1973)where everyone has these diamond shaped implants in their palms and when they start blinking red, at the age of 30, you must expire.

I approached the Osho resort gates, tall dark black granite, encapsulating 40 acres of cultivated beautiful foliage and flora. Waterfalls. A large line of Indian men already waiting for the 9 a.m. visitor’s tour. I proceeded past them to the Welcome Center for my AIDS test. The technician saw my Buddha necklace and we expressed mutual admiration for the Dalai Lama ("he’s my teacher too," the technician whispered.) Smiling...oy. What am I doing here, really? I borrowed a maroon dress from one of the employees and then quickly had to catch up with the induction group, already at the ‘plaza’, next to Buddha hall and the bookshop, which all looks like a cross between the entrance at Busch Gardens (for those of us who remember them in LA - SF Valley) and some pyramidic landing deck. We gathered in front of a computer to look at the website. Our leaders were a red-head smoker voiced British woman in her fifties and a skinny bearded and tattooed French Canadian guy, who winked at each other frequently and seemed a bit jaded with the whole schtick of leading introductory tours of Osho, or so I assumed. Participants for that day included a very tall elder Sikh who looked like a gray lion, hair down, beard uncovered, an Indian man with his father, a female Gujrati devotee, and 3 Italians. The Sikh and Italians had individual translators so we had 3 people constantly talking over each other, again all in maroon.

Dorky is a word that comes to mind for me. But what was to come would even feel dorkier. After being presented with a multitude of multi-versity trainings, and meditations on the bulletin boards we could attend with titles like ‘Awakening to Love’, ‘Born Again’, ‘Beyond Family’, ‘Co-dependency and the Art of Relating’, ‘Diving into the Center’, ‘Humaniversity’, to ‘Primal painting’, for extra fees, we followed our leaders past the Gibberish room, the Osho packing dept., the Cyber Center, the Cappucino Cafe to the residential area, where over 200 people live and work, those who have come like our leaders, to spend months or years helping run things. The French Canadian (FC) guy had given up his job in Montreal 2 years ago to play bass for the evening gatherings here; the British woman (B) has been coming back for the past 15 years, for many months at a time. We passed ‘Naropa’ and ‘Tilopa’ named buildings, black granite facades with black triangular placards, why black? Mystery, the void, darkness.

So you must be wondering who Osho is...I still don’t completely know. Perhaps you know more. I do know he is no longer. Now the resort is run by 3 lawyers from the West. Not much was told to us about Osho the Bhagavan. But those of us who recall the happenings in Oregon in the 70s with Rajneesh and the eventual dismantling of the compound there...yep, same guy. He changed his name, they changed the color of the robes (from orange), he started advocating brahmacharya (correct sexual conduct), and got into Buddhism. That’s all I know except that I also am now familiar with his voice, and I see a man smiling from the OSHO bookstore, wearing a sparkling knitted skull cap, white long beard, a vest/costume from the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, looking like the Liberace of spirituality.

Oh yeah, back to dorky. So it’s 9:30 am and we’re led up stairs in the residential area to a practice room where Madonna is booming, ‘Ray of Light’ steaming up the walls, and we’re asked to start dancing. Let it all be free, no a/c, some stinky b.o., wafting through the room. Ah well. I started giggling, looking down at my maroon fabric, and then reluctantly became a whirling der-jew-vish. My anti-social mind went ‘ew’ but I felt like I had a mission, to get to the pool, and to tell a funny story, if nothing else. Sweat broke, we stopped and then we sat down in a semi-circle and were introduced to various meditation techniques, all trademarked by the way. We started partnering..."you are now the papaya and she is the guava". For ‘Chaotic breathing’, you shake your head, exhale without structures, rhythm, control. Eyes are closed. The ‘Guava’ watches. Then she gets to imitate you. Then you explode, scream, hold nothing back while jumping around. Eyes closed. I peeked. Was the Sikh screaming too? He was actually smiling and being hardly audible. FC looked like he was at a soccer match and B looked blissful. Then came ‘hoo-ing’. You raise your hands to the ceiling, keep arms overhead and jump up and down, shouting ‘hoo, hoo’...landing on your heels so that the "sound hammers deeply into your sex center". Then comes the freeze portion, noticing, witnessing what is happening (to your sex center?). Then more Madonna. This whole thing is called ‘Osho Dynamic Meditation’ and it happens daily at like 6am at the resort. Rules were given. B told us where the smoking areas were, repeatedly. You could be in silence by wearing a ‘silence tag’. And hugging was not mandatory anymore. You make a sign with your arms of ‘no thanks’ if you see someone coming towards you with widespread wingspan arms ready to plunge at you. It’s perfectly okay to bow, dip, or run the other direction, they said.

Then came the mask exercise. To see how we wear our personality, culture, conditions. Also trademarked. So out came the wigs and Halloween masks. FC decided we should all take on the mannerisms of the British and so we were to meet and greet each other reservedly, with the utmost fake politeness. I looked like Porky the Pig with gray hair, saying ‘hello’ guardedly to ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’, and other ‘cats’. Then as if in the finale of ‘Chorus Line’, we gathered at the full length mirror and on a count of 3, unveiled our true selves in silence, taking off our masks to stare, gaze and gawk at our wondrous own countenances. Oh gosh, getting old, I look like my mother, lift the cheeks, there ‘me’ again, now can we break into song?

For lunch, we disbanded and I ran into another Iyengar yoga student from Australia who’s been lulled by the loosey goosey ness of Osho. We ate together in the gardens, off black plastic trays with triangular and diamond shaped plates. I wolfed down the organic spread and tried to talk with James but his eyes wandered constantly, to pleasant female beings strolling around, "it’s been a long time", he said and laughed. "Me too..." uh...Oh there’s the pool; gotta finish my food. We were to be in the ‘practice room’ right after lunch. Music thumping again. Oh no. I was ready for supine digestive yoga poses, not dancing. "You’re always stretching" said FC to me, referring to my inclination to get into twists and Uttanasana at any free moment. I just wanted a bolster and strap. The thought of flailing my arms again at full stomach made me a bit cranky. But again...it’s all about the pool. So now it was time for ‘kundalini’ meditation ™. Wearing a maroon eye mask, we were told to shake, shake, shake. Then dance, then lie down, then sit in meditation. We then did Gibberish, where you speak in another made up language, and get your ‘garbage’ out, but you must be so loud as to hear anyone else’s garbage. Wait, am I not at some experimental voice class at Cal Arts right now??? (JOKE!!!).

FC and B spoke to us about the need to free ourselves of conditions, that Osho is a place to come to and let go of your ‘stuff’, stuff that inhibits, that makes you suffer. So you can deeply experience the energies of your life, so you can touch silence, find ‘eternity, the deathlessness’. Even Vipassana (meditation from the Theravadan Buddhist tradition) is taught here. James had signed up for a 3 week Vipassana course but it’s not anything like what I’ve done. The first week, they laugh, the second they cry and then the third, they sit in concentration. Then I heard Osho’s voice, smooth, slippery, calculated. FC & B were introducing ‘white robe’, a nightly gathering where you change into white robe, freshly scrubbed, and go with everyone else into this large tent for closed eyes dancing, 3 shouts of ‘OSHO, OSHO, OSHO’, gibberish, falling down ‘like a bag of rice’, drumbeats, then a video of Osho is shown.

"My speaking is one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way before...I speak not to give you a message but to stop your mind functioning." So when I heard Osho talk of tea coming out of the SSSSssssss-aaaaaaaa-mmmm - ovar, my mind didn’t stop functioning, it started rolling its internal eyes. Hanging onto the ‘s’, I moved back to my torso and spine. Breath. I just couldn’t claim that this was ‘excellent’. It’s okay, I thought, good for some but not for me. Osho’s efforts weren’t resonating with me. I only hoped it was helping others, to be free of suffering in some way, even if temporary and happier. I cannot judge. I just wondered where it all leads here, what about the ethics, mutual responsibility, what happens after we dump the garbage...landfills? Gestalt is important...I’m just hoping kindness and patience and generosity also arise...otherwise, as Geshe Gyeltsen laughs, ‘we are flying on airplanes with holes in them, no good, not safe...can’t get to the other shore’. Birds need two wings to fly.

FC caught me several times when he asked for feedback about the meditations. "How was it?", he stared at me. Fine. "Always fine, eh?", he seemed irritated with me. I can’t qualify it. I hear Ruth, one of my teachers, talking about ‘My’ meditation. We want it to be so precious that we try to shut out what we ‘think’ disturbs us. Impossible. But many try. It comes, it goes. Fine. Still see the effort, still keep sitting. Not just for you but for all living beings.

Finally, the afternoon portion was ending. FC asked if we had any questions. An Italian gal asked what is meant by ‘energy’. FC replied that it’s just felt, like when you’re sexually aroused, it’s very apparent what energy is and where it is coming from. I noticed his slumped groin, wide open sitting posture. Hmm. There’s that and the energy that fluctuates in the morning and evening. Is it the mind? No, he says. Why is there an AIDS test? To insure all guests are healthy and free of disease at the resort. Apparently Osho was said to have seen into the future and predicted AIDS. And, he wanted to protect his community from it.

I went to the pool in a borrowed maroon suit, a bit too small. I met another fellow Iyengar yogi there. We swam in the dark granite kidney shaped lagoon. Nice. Refreshing. I was very close to staying for ‘white robe’, after melting into the water. Sounds were coming from Buddha Hall. FC was now rehearsing on his bass. Maybe they need a singer? I could do long melodious tones??? Cells tingling, skin clean. It’s in my skin now. There.

Days later, I have yet to go back. I have purchased the maroon dress but no suit yet. I preferred to go home today after lunch with Carolyn instead of to the pool. To study the Diamond Cutter sutra, think about emptiness. Tomorrow I have a 7 a.m. yoga class with Prashant. It’s always an incredible effort it takes to get this tamasic body out of bed and move out of the dullness. Whether it’s ‘hoo-ing’ or doing downward facing dog, I suppose we need to hoo the dullness out. But the Iyengar yogashala is where I belong, grounding, seriously. More demanding, less whispy for my limbs, awakening shakti with awareness, through every single limb, bone, joint, nerve, nadi...I’m inside alot these days, within my shins, knees, groins, torso, feeling the strands of my abdominal walls. I see the unevenness of my shoulders and how if I turn my head to the right, left, shoulders are affected in different ways. I see my laziness, when I don’t want to adjust myself, but I do it anyway. I feel the walls of the rib cage when air presses against them, how this affects the jaw, throat, frontal brain. I catch a visual of Joshua Tree, Dhamma Dena zendo. I hear "stay close to the ground, don’t go far away from your heart. It’s the simple things that tell the reason we are here, it’s the simple things keeping us whole." The Iyengars are working hard, Ruth Denison is working hard, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is working hard, Geshe Gyeltsen, even Osho...They just want us to get it. Mind is a tough cookie. It wants happy hour(s) but there’s work in paying for those ‘drinks’.