Departing from Taibei on an evening flight March 19th, I had the entire day to pack, prepare the tangible and intangible. Torrential rain and heavy winds had characterized the previous days, and only late morning did the skies clear inspiring a final hike in the National Park. For the last time I walked along the broad stone path entering the park, up through the azaleas and cherry trees stripped, by the rain, of their blossoms. Having ascended the steep path along side the waterfall I arrived at the lookout and stood in bemused awe of the vibrant pink floral carpet atop rough cement and surrounded by moss & verdant foliage.

* * *

As if I needed a final gesture reinforcing my sense of being carried all these months, friends Ruth & Serena drove me to the airport. Such actions can seem elementary to the offerer. And yet can be so much more than a logistical gift. Serena, age 7, seized my invitation and filled that final drive with imaginative storytelling as we glided through the evening along Taiwan’s smooth and orderly roads.

With seating assignment and boarding pass in hand, I approached the immigration gate. I paused. Tears welled up in my eyes. My mind flooded with images. Initially the images were of those friends on Yangmingshan. However they expanded to encompass all of those who have accommodated me along the way, some for only momentary interactions others for days or weeks. People have extended such tremendous kindness to me, folded me into their lives with such generosity. As I fumbled to present my travel documents to Taibei immigration, tears streamed down my face, tears of humility and gratitude and awe…dumbfounded awe.

* * *

I was greeted at US immigration by an extremely tall, broad, African American man with deep, watery eyes. After a 5 second glance at my customs card, evidently lingering on the places visited on this trip he asked,

“So what’s the reason for the whirl wind tour?”

“Completion of a master’s degree,” I offered.

“You done now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I smiled broadly.

“Well, welcome home!” he offered with a brilliant smile.

* * *

Several days after my return to the US, as I lay with my head on a pillow I heard a soft rhythmic rustling in my left ear. It was only some days later, after encountering it multiple times in different circumstances, that I checked my pulse to confirm that the subtle rhythmic whisper was indeed my own heartbeat. The sound has diminished since, although is still occasionally present. In those initial days, it acted as the gentlest of touchstones; its slow steadfast cadence provided both a window into my own interior as well as a reminder to return to that stillness and listen. I have tried to do so during the process of reentry.

5 months might feel like a long stretch for some. However I have remained so intimately connected to this place during my travels, particularly through Ewan. Consequently it doesn’t feel as if it’s been so terribly long at all since I left. I have been moving and adapting rather continuously since moving out of my rental home the end of August. In one sense, my new home in Seattle is simply the next stop. My malleability is well honed.

* * *

It is interesting to reflect on changes in myself since my last lengthy travels concluded in July 1999. That chapter was pervaded with that unique, effusive and exploratory 20 something energy; an age that seems almost intrinsically narcissistic and simultaneously a time of phenomenal openness to the world. Humans explore that territory in so many different ways through companionship, travel, books, study, creating a family, development of one’s skills and career. For me it was an extraordinary time of exploring the world and my place in it. Over recent years, I have observed a gradual transformation of that force in myself and those around me. By necessity, our attention pivots from discovering and initiating, to sustaining, cultivating, and deepening. Some people sustain verve and vitality in that transition and continue to learn, grow and explore. I find those who manage to do so some of the most inspirational people in the world.

I was only able to recognize and articulate long after the fact how that period had been one extended passive anthropological study. Into every country, home and situation I entered with the unconscious question, as enduring as the whisper of my own heartbeat, how do they do it? How do others grow and buy food, raise children, care for their elders, love lovers, share meals, revere and honor the spiritual, tend gardens, relate to the earth, travel by foot or bicycle or car or bus, resolve conflict, celebrate holidays, engage in leisure, adorn homes, find and love companions, grieve loss, honor the dead.

In this recent chapter I believe I have invoked a similar curiosity in the lives of my hosts throughout the world. It has been interesting to do so at this stage in life; a time when I am more familiar, self aware, assured than almost a decade ago. Again and again and again I have been blessed, indeed felt as if carried. My baggage has never once been lost or delayed. Never has any particular travel delay had delitirious effects. I have not encountered violence or even severe malevolence. Rather through hundreds of gestures, small & large, I have been carried, fostered and woven into the lives of many. The experiences of these months have only reinforced my enduring sense that human beings, at core, are truly good. Each one is doing the very best they can with their tool bag. Beneath interactions marked by selfishness, malicious intent, greed, and violence I almost invariably perceive pain or fear. And when we are able to support each other in ways which allay the pain or fear, the goodness arises.

***

It is now one month since my return to the US. I have been composing, editing and deleting this writing since several days after my return. While I have had the desire to provide a bookend to this travel narrative, the words have not been easily forthcoming. It’s been interesting to muse on why that might be the case. In one sense, I am perhaps reluctant to conclude the journey. In another respect, I believe I have placed expectations on myself regarding this final entry, as if after it all I should have some substantial insight. Instead, I find myself recycling rather elemental, intuitive thoughts.

In recent excavation of a file box of important papers, including mundane documents like taxes and warranties, I discovered a stack of writing including a few college papers written while studying in Glasgow as well as some old poetry. One piece, entitled the Horse Latitudes, I must have written upon return to the US following lengthy travel in ’95 or ’99. I have no recollection of who introduced me to the phenomena, but it was poignant both then and now. As an explanation at the foot of the poem I wrote,

The Horse latitudes are an area of the Atlantic, subtropic latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south. In the era of colonial crossing, it was so named as it is an area where the trade winds die. More detail from wiki: it is a belt of calm weather where winds tend to lift off the water instead of blowing across it and additionally there is little current. The confused sea, muggy heat, and rolling and pitching of waves (variably stilled and aerated by winds) often slowed colonial ships for days to weeks due to lack of propulsion. Purportedly colonial crews would go to great lengths, including dumping their horses overboard in order to reduce the weight of the boat and consequently increase speed.

And so, after months of movement, I find myself in the lull of my own existential horse latitude. In my transition back into Seattle there are an inordinate number of tasks to attend to, mostly in the arena of establishing a Chinese medical practice, but also in easing back into my social community. While there are flurries of activity, there is also a surreal quality of stillness in the absence of structure. And I sit in the middle of it, as if on the edge of the boat I sailed in as a child, waiting for the wind to come whispering across the water in dark, textured patches. In this stillness I have contemplated the quiet murmur of my own heartbeat and have returned to words imparted years ago by my root teacher Zoketu Norman Fisher teacher. There is only ever one thing, whatever is at hand. There might be hundreds of things which need to be organized, followed up on, attended to, accomplished, but the reality is at any one moment, there is only that one thing immediately at hand.

* * *

Nowadays, to denote a short prose piece in Japanese, you frequently encounter the English loanword ‘essei’, but the more traditional term for short writings on miscellaneous topics is zuihitsu – literally, ‘following {the dictate of} the brush…”

The word “essay” comes from the French essayer, “to attempt.” The writer’s attitudes and sensibilities flex and stretch as they grapple with some subject or concept. They play with it, wrestle with it, try to pin it down…The ‘zuihitsu’ is a more passive affair. The conceit is that the “brush” (that is, the writing implement, of whatever kind – including a word processor) has a mind of its own. Writers are supposed to let go of their conscious urge to control the direction of the piece and instead follow a meandering path suggested by the brush itself. Japanese literature finds this format congenial. Of course, even if you let the brush go where it will, the brush is not an automaton – it is still drawing from your own knowledge and experience. But rather than plotting out the path in advance, you let yourself be open to following a meander in which one subject calls to mind another, and that in turn may lead to something unexpected…

East Wind Melts the Ice

Liza Dalby

In crafting this travel narrative my primary intention has been to provide a window into this journey for those back home; that home inclusive of my extended global family strewn across the globe. While I have used the activities and encounters of my days as the spine for these writings, I have taken reasonable liberty to muse on a variety of subjects, my own following the brush. I’ve had a lovely time doing it. Having spent more time with this little Thinkpad than any other object or person since October, I’m not quite sure what will happen now in relationship to writing. If I do any revision or new writing about these adventures, those may appear on this site someday. However, I am clear that the story to be told on this blog is complete. I have tried to tread sensitively, sharing honestly about my experiences while attempting to be moderately discrete in writing about the lives of my hosts and friends along the way. I offer humble, awe filled gratitude to all those who have provided me with refuge, of so many types, along this journey.

amy catherine darling

Morning Cadence

The routine flow of morning has been one of the many delights of this recent chapter in my life. One regular element of my mornings has been reading the Taipei Times over breakfast. Having turned in recent years to national public radio or the internet for news, it has been a long while since I have routinely incorporated newspaper reading in my days. The Taipei Times makes it extremely easy and pleasant to do. This English newspaper ranges between about 10 and 14 pages. There is no advertising. Perhaps 1/3 of the paper is devoted to Taiwan news, the remainder provides a stupendously broad international scope, particularly considering the size of the paper. And it’s not just Asian-centric. There is coverage of the South American (far in excess of what I’m accustomed to) and African continents, with Europe being perhaps the most neglected region of the world. I have found it beneficial to mentally move outward into the world on a daily basis, consider the myriad situations humans are encountering outside of my small corner of the globe.
And this week has been and continues to be a time of great upheaval. Measures not taken since the Great Depression have been employed to prop up the US economy. The ripples of the deteriorating dollar are being felt in markets throughout the glob. Elections, or the fallout resulting from elections, seem to be occurring all over the world in recent and coming weeks (France, Kenya, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Spain, Zimbabwe, Russia, Armenia). Presidential elections are occurring this coming Saturday in Taiwan. This has provided a platform for rather heated debate regarding the country’s and the candidates’ relationship to China, with Taiwanese paying particular attention to the global response to events in Kosovo & Tibet. Perhaps of little consequence to most of the world, but of note to me, there is a pending referendum in Nepal which is forecast to dismantle the monarchy.
It has been with an increasingly heavy heart that I have followed the pro-Tibetan independence demonstrations unfolding throughout the world. The Chinese government has thrown the media out of Lhasa. While I would love to embrace the possibility of international pressure and the pending Olympics influencing the Chinese Communist leadership the rising death toll, media blackout and increase in military force seem to contradict such a possibility. Some days back the Chinese police/military were purportedly driving through Lhasa’s streets with arrested demonstrators handcuffed in open bed trucks. The message seems unfortunately similar to the historic phenomena of public execution by hanging or guillotine. My heart seizes to imagine their fate. I am not a big supporter of internet petitions, but if you are interested, Avaaz.org is circulating one regarding the current situation (posted March 18^th).

http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/97.php/?cl_tf_sign=1

At this moment I turn back to the words of Michael Lerner I included in the posting Gestures of Peace, Oct 22. He spoke of cultivating hope in this tremendously conflicted time in human history. As a part of that public talk he quoted Czech playwright Vaclav Havel

“Optimism is the belief that everything is going to go right. Hope, by contrast, is a deep orientation of the soul that can be held in the darkest of times.”

I sometimes feel paralyzed by the magnitude of suffering in our world. At this moment I reflect rather humbly on my own inadequacies and the intention of doing more, differently, better. I am currently holding a more prayerful mental state for the stamina of those who are struggling to obtain the liberties I enjoy on a daily basis.

Just last week, I had a unique and humbling encounter of another’s pain. I was on the subway headed into the city when a teenage couple boarded and sat in the seats diagonal to me. The young woman’s clothing was notable; a casual hoody sweat shirt with a pair of silken shorts and black lace stocking suspended mid thigh with a garter belt. The couple originally sat with the boy at the window. After a few moments there was a shuffling and they swapped seats at which point the young woman lifted her stockinged legs up to rest upon his.
I wasn’t consciously aware of them the whole ride, just registered when the dynamic shifted, something would draw my attention back to them. At some point there was an exchange of slightly raised voices. She became evidently angry, retracting her legs to sit more upright. She then began pulling things from her purse and shoving them into his lap, this all done in a reasonably discrete Asian sort of way. My attention was again elsewhere until we came to a subway stop. She got up attempting to leave, to get off the subway and he grabbed her arm, perhaps only abruptly perhaps violently, I’m not sure. She landed on the ground and began to sobb. I was dumbstruck. Every human face in the subway car was looking at the couple with wide eyes, and yet no one moved. No one intervened. No one asked her if she needed help, if she was okay. I made eye contact with a middle aged woman across the aisle, my eyes trying to ask ‘what do we do?’ The boy sat beside her on the ground, trying to put her shoe back on which she resisted. He became aware the entire car was starring at them and said something aloud. I sat there with mouth gapping wondering what to do. What was appropriate? Thinking to hell with appropriate, what needs to happen? What does this young girl need? Dumbstruck and paralyzed I did nothing. I said nothing. In a matter of moments my stop arrived and I rather reluctantly got off. Even at that moment I wondered about kneeling down and shepherding the girl with me off the train. But I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I walked around a bit dazed, actually walked in the opposite direction from where I was headed once above ground. In the relatively anonymous urban environment of this foreign culture I didn’t respond to another human being’s suffering. I can still see her face.

***

After one previous failed attempt, this week I finally found my way to the clinic of Dr Le Cheng Yu who taught Chinese medicine to my own teacher Daniel. Daniel lived in Taiwan for 14 years, initially training as an apprentice and then practicing within Dr. Le’s clinic. I dropped by one afternoon unannounced and had a short, halting (due to my language skills) but warm conversation with Dr Le. I communicated I was Daniel’s student, here for only a short while. I brought some tea as a small gesture to which he responded profusely I shouldn’t have, even suggested I take it back as we don’t have good oolong tea in the US. Eventually he opened a cabinet, full of tea, and produced a tin for me in return which was later supplemented by a second larger tin. In this interchange he also invited me to dinner. Franc, a French man, was beckoned at some point in this dialogue. He has been there for 9 years, done all of his training apprentice style as Daniel did. Dr Le invited Franc, and Paola, who has begun filling herbal formulas there several days a week. Interesting to have an Italian, a Frenchman and an American all united by our common practice of this medicine in a place so distant from all of our homes.
When we met on Wednesday for dinner, Dr Le explained he had been invited to an evening meal by a friend of his and so he essentially brought us as appendages. Paola, Franc & I ended up clustered together at a round table with 7 Taiwanese people speaking rapidly in Mandarin sometimes in Taiwanese, not seemingly interested in including us in their dialogue other than occasional calls for ‘gan bei’ essentially bottoms up with thimble sized glasses of painfully strong hard alcohol. Earlier in life, I might have been far more inclined to incure personal injury in the name of cultural appropriateness on such an occasion. Over the course of a 3 hour meal, I emptied the thimble once in baby sip increments, and wasn’t particularly apologetic about my poor performance.
One of the men at the table was a fellow doctor, another a patient and her husband, and yet we were never quite clear who all the other people were or how they were connected. I sat beside Dr Le and while I felt genuine warmth from him, in the absence of my initiation there was no dialogue. It’s one thing to haltingly string together phrases to an individual at this stage in speaking Mandarin. It’s a whole different story to begin doing so to one individual at such a table, have everything go dead silent as 7 Taiwanese stop and listen, starring. Perhaps if I had lubricated my tongue with a few more thimbles full I might have been more brazen, but as it was I spent most of the evening sporadically talking with Paola & Franc, pacing myself taking a bit of each of the dozens of dishes that were delivered to the table’s lazy susan.

***

One day this week I traveled by subway north up to Danshui with Ruth, Melanie’s sister. A boardwalk of sorts lined with food stalls and small stores weaves along the Danshui river bank. We walked for several hours eventually catching a boat back down river. After quite a string of beautiful clear sunny days, the skies were markedly hazy, white and glare filled, most of the surrounding mountains and buildings on the other side of the river obscured.
Ruth has been working for a Chinese company traveling extensively to and from the Mainland for several years. Over two years ago her husband, also an American, died suddenly, they believe from an asthma attack. Having remained on the Mainland for work, Ruth and her daughter Serena moved back just a few months ago. While staying with Nic & Melanie, I developed a particular connection with Serena who was staying there with her mom away on business. On several occasions we shared time reading books, her teaching me the bopomofo pronunciation system used widely in Taiwan, chatting about whatever came up, on occasion as I sat at this keyboard she came and sat reading or singing or otherwise entertaining herself seemingly interested just to share the same space.
Having just quit her job, Ruth has a couple weeks off before beginning new part time work here in Taiwan. Her return to Taiwan was primarily to access the support of the extended family and in the interest of being a more involved and stable presence for her daughter. While we were still on the subway on our way to Danshui rather candid conversation opened up about Serena, grief, parenting, companionship. I was struck by her candor and openness to me being a relative stranger. We returned to those subjects throughout the day but additionally spoke of family and her own questions about whether she will be able to remarry. Evidently remarriage for single moms is even less evident here than in many western countries. The dialogue meandered through meditation, exercise, and Chinese medicine. While most of our conversation was in English, we did share a long stretch in Mandarin thanks to her patience & willingness.

***

Hot springs have been a delightful ingredient in this past week on several occasions. Taiwan’s mountains are gushing with them. I made several forays into the National Park to a small hot spring spot Snow let me know about. The place consisted of 6 small rooms, each with a deep Japanese style soaking tub. They pipe water from the hot springs directly into each room, another pipe for cold spring water so that an individual can adjust the temperature to their liking. Snow explained that in some neighborhoods here on Yangmingshan they have such arrangements in each individual house. What a luxury that would be.

On another occasion, Ruth, Snow & I ventured down to Wulai, which means hot springs in the aboriginal language of that region of the island. While it’s a reasonably long journey, one can travel entirely by public transport to the beautiful area made up of steep verdant slopes tumbling toward a central river. I would have loved to have a longer stretch to hike through the forest, but that was not to be. We wandered through the small one street town lined with dozens of stores selling the evident specialties of this area; mochi in a variety of forms, dried fruits, alcohols, one store strictly devoted to shitake mushrooms, and a variety of things I couldn’t identify. We continued across the river and walked down to join many other enjoying the public hot springs. A series of cement and rock pools line the river and are maintained entirely by the local community! It was lovely soaking with many other enjoying the view, even through the myriad electric wires crossing the river, up to the lush forest.

***

One afternoon Snow invited several friends over for tea in the interest of giving me an additional opportunity to chat. The experience turned out akin to that at the dinner with Dr. Le in that the women were all utterly disinterested in either speaking to me directly or in slowing their speech so I had some semblance of a chance at grasping even the broad subject matter of the conversation. By contrast, the following day I returned home to find Snow sharing the evening with two other women friends who welcomed me to sit at the table with them and were very interested to include me in the dialogue. My pre-meal moment of silence catalyzed a whole discussion as Snow explained that I was Buddhist. We shared delightful discussion about Buddhism in Taiwan and outside of Asia, later about bell’s palsy and Chinese medicine, later still about some different places around Taibei where I haven’t been. It was a very precious, delightful, affirming evening to feel included as I haven’t really felt in such a discussion during my time here, outside of regular conversation with Snow. I found a sense of ease, patience, and genuine interest on their part. As all of them speak English they could fill in my blanks, but were also seemingly happy to allow me to search around in my own mind for the Mandarin. There was additionally both a warmth and sophistication to these two women which were particularly wonderful.

On my last Sunday evening here, Snow and I joined the Nic & Melanie’s extended family for dinner. The table was set for 9 adults, 5 kids, 3 generations. Ester, the mother of the three sisters (Melanie, Ann & Ruth) had cooked at least dozen different dishes (chicken legs cooked in wine and Chinese herbs, salmon on a bed of cabbage, beef stew with potato & carrot, goose, beef liver, ground beef with tofu, several different kinds of chicken, turnip and ? beef, greens, eggs & tomatoes…I lost count and I didn’t manage or choose to try everything.
With everyone thoroughly stuffed tea was served along with my contribution of a pear, pistachio, chocolate cake and Ester’s soup of 3 medicinal herbs. Such soups are quite traditional desert here, not extremely sweet, often made with what is now sold in health food stores as ‘goji berries’, lotus seeds and ‘baimuer’ a form of seaweed maybe…clear and rather strange in texture.. This Sunday evening was my ‘last supper’ with the Gould family who welcomed me into their home the first week I arrived in Taiwan. Broader reflections on this long journey and my pending return home will have to wait for a final posting written from the US.

***

Charlie is in the States on business this week. In addition to our daily tutoring, Snow and I have found a reasonable balance of sharing day to day interchanges in Mandarin, while also moving comfortably into longer discussions in English, and sometimes even a bizarre hop~scotching between the two.
I realized this week what a fundamental shift I am attempting to make in my learning of Mandarin. For three years in school, my approach to the language was largely one of deconstruction. For anywhere between 5 and 15 hours a week, we translated medical texts; essentially a dissection of articles into shorter passages, phrases into smaller more comprehensible constituents. In contrast, I am now attempting construction of this language. I am trying, and struggling, to figure out how the components of phrases fit together in spoken language. Where does the noun go in relationship to the verb? How about the location of an action? It’s interesting that in Mandarin, as often is the case in Nepali, the pronoun is dropped from the phrase. An action occurs, the doer of that action is understood. In Nepali verbs are conjugated, but in Mandarin there is no conjugation. So one can encounter a perfectly acceptable phrase such as ‘hui lai’ = come back, or literally return come, which can be said to someone or of someone else, adding a ‘le’ at the end of the phrase to indicate it has occurred. Someone, unidentified, has returned.
And this is all occurring within a language which is stunningly contextual. While there are different tones in spoken Nepali (which I studied first in a language immersion program and later in the context of daily life during my work and travels there), it is limited to subtleties of a number of consonants k,g,t,d. In Mandarin there are four tones, however there are also different characters with the same pronunciation and same tone ~ ex.

作 [zuò] do; make
做 [zuò] do; make
坐 [zuò] sit
胙 [zuò] sacrificial meat
祚 [zuò] blessing

Not to mention characters such as 一 yi, the number one, for which the tone actually changes depending on what it accompanies in a phrase! So even, in the unlikely event that, my pronunciation was accurate and even after whoever I was speaking to got over their mental block that this foreigner might be able to speak a bit of Mandarin, there is still a vast amount of room for confusion. Amidst all of this I am now less hesitant to enter into conversation, not that I’ll necessarily understand what is being said to me, or be understood. But I’m a bit more brazen in my efforts. I enter into market interactions comfortably. I have even tried to strike up conversation with others waiting for the bus. I have chatted several times to Mr Lee, the man who works several nights a week at the little guard post entry to Snow & Charlie’s village. As in my previous language learning experiences I find some people greet my efforts with good will and curiosity while others look at me as if I have something growing from between my eyes or they outright ignore me. I learn something in each interaction, and by and large have found folks reasonably generous in indulging my attempts.

Snow and I are having quite a lovely time developing our rapport one day, one tutoring session, one spontaneous conversation at a time. We have spoken a great deal about differences between the US and Taiwan in the realms of education, family relationships and interpersonal communication. She and Charlie are considering retiring in the US in 5-10 years and so there has been some conversation about how that might look and feel. I am repeatedly grateful to have landed in this precious spot. I feel even this brief period of time is allowing me to develop different aspects of my understanding of this language. Along with the ocean of Chinese medical literature, I get to chip away at this for the rest of my life. I find it quite exciting to look out to such a vast horizon of possible mental stimulation and exploration.

One evening this week Nic & Melanie’s friend Yuantai and I traveled down to the Shilin night market. She offered to go with me so I could practice speaking as she speaks very little English. Even with the greatest of goodwill, such experiences are tiring endeavors for both parties. It’s exhausting for me to string together thought after thought out of tiny Mandarin building blocks. Yuantai was repeatedly quick to fill in the blanks of my speech rather than let me flounder and her blank filling was rarely accurate. Regardless for several hours we both made a good go of it, wandering through a reasonably sedate night market and chatting as we went.

***

I shared additional interesting dialogue this week with people I’ve met through other friends. Ansan and I met once perhaps 7 or 8 years ago through the Tahoma One Drop sangha. We have likely sat meditation retreats at the same time since then, but no verbal exchange. I was encouraged by several members of the sangha to contact him upon my arrival. Having spent his adult life between Taiwan and Japan, he returned to Taiwan in the past couple years to pursue martial arts and is now working on a master’s in translation at Shida University in Taibei.
We met for a leisurely few hours in the city. Our conversation wound its way through terrain regarding meditation practice and the sangha familiar to both of us, monastics’ role in the modern world, the learning and challenges that arise from living abroad, the phenomena of Caucasian men marrying Taiwanese women, his experiences of Taiwan over these years and thoughts about a return to the US in the future.

On another day I met Paola again for lunch and a lengthy walk along the Xindian River. Paola began practicing Chinese medicine in 2004. Since that time she spent one three month period on the mainland in Chengdu and thereafter decided to come to Taiwan to study Mandarin. She arrived in Taibei in November and finds herself at a juncture I would have encountered had I decided to stay for a longer period of time. It is a juncture I have encountered before during lengthy chapters abroad. It is characterized by questioning and uncertainty, a sense of deep instability when one feels quite existentially lost, anchorless, and probes questions about one’s place in the world in the context of one’s own life.
It takes a phenomenal amount of energy to live in a place with roots so culturally divergent from one’s home. The effort of which I speak does not necessarily register consciously, nor is it inherently negative. It’s simply a part of the contract one enters into when living abroad, particularly in the early stages of learning a language. There is effort required every time you look at a street sign and have to invest energy in figuring out what it says or just give up and muddle along somehow. Every time you speak and have to repeat yourself because the person you’re speaking to didn’t understand. Every time you are spoken to and you resourcefully knit together the words you did understand and act based on whatever it is you understood. Every time there is a loud speaker announcement in the subway or bus spoken in a language so distant from your own. Each time you stand in the grocery store deliberating about something not immediately identifiable as carrot or animal product trying to scan the ingredients for either English or for characters you recognize (or would prefer not to…for example sugar which seems to be added to almost everything here). Every time there is a human exchange, the nuances of which you are likely ignorant. And within that dynamic a rather ephemeral tension arises regarding the process of learning the rules, of which there are hundreds, even thousands within every culture, miniscule and unspoken and assumed.

The effort expended in these minute increments tends to occur in tandem with the absence of deep nourishing human interactions. The very words to engage on deeper levels of exchange are learned slowly and the development of trusting friendships is often even more protracted. The sense of isolation can be penetrating. It was this very dynamic which I recognized I didn’t have the stamina to face upon my arrival here in Taiwan. Perhaps I will again at a different juncture in my life. Just not right now. And so I continue to delight in this mountain interlude; quietly working away at my grasp of this language; going for a run most days; gaping at the tree ferns in their majestic unfurling; reflecting on the learning of these past months; preparing for the journey home.

Early mornings I sit and study in the endearing little enclosed sun room (3-4 feet deep and three times as wide) on the northeast side of Snow & Charlie’s home. This morning I looked out onto a clear view of Qixingshan, the mountain which I climbed yesterday completely enveloped in fog. It was my second foray into Yangmingshan National Park which, after the 20 minute walk down to the bus stop, is only a 10 minute ride away making an afternoon jaunt delightfully possible.

Snow and I took an afternoon stroll there last Sunday. In contrast to any previous national park experience, there the entry is lined with food booths selling roasted corn on the cobb, stinky tofu, deep fried Hawthorne berry and a wide variety of other unidentifiable deep fried delicacies. On that leisurely Sunday afternoon I had my first experience of the Taiwanese public stuffing their faces. Elders and families, large groups of young folks, all were out enjoying the day walking winding stone paths through the verdant forest .

I returned five days later on a weekday afternoon to take advantage of thinner crowds on the mountain trails. Stone steps make up the trail ascending Qixingshan, the peak only about an hour hike from the main visitor’s center. I hiked up through fog, the moisture collecting on the outside of my clothes as I passed above tree line. I was struck by the utter absence of bird calls, or other animals for that matter. The fog’s insulation of the forest cut the sound of the road below rather quickly leaving only the sound of my footsteps on stone and little else. Spring has only just begun to express itself in new shoots and budding trees here on the mountain. And many aspects of the forest are still cocooned in winter. I am not a botanist and aside from the bamboo and extraordinary ferns I can only site a few tree and plant species thanks to the visitor’s center info. The forest is largely deciduous with Foromosa sweet gum, Taiwanese Cherry, introduced Japanese maple, Acacia, silver bamboo, azalea and rhododendron and some hundreds of other species.

After a certain juncture, the steps take on a more organic spirit, doubling in height they lose most semblance of regularity. I encountered perhaps 20 people along the way and arrived with the peak all to myself. The last fifteen minutes or so, the trail moves above tree line to steep open slopes covered with a short bamboo or other shrub I found reminiscent of the beach grass of southwestern Washington. On a clear day from Qixingshan’s peak one can apparently see the north tip of the island. I peered out into a thick white soup of a sky. While not bitterly cold in any respect, I lingered only long enough to eat an apple and then began the descent before becoming chilled by the moisture of the environment and my own sweat. It is one of the few trails I have climbed in which the descent took as long as the ascent. I picked my way patiently and joyfully down the slippery stone marveling at a sense of the history in those rocks, wondering how many feet have tread their contours.

***

While the bones of this house remain cold the weather has stayed above 50 this past week, and commonly midday it rises into the low and mid 60s. The outside temperature is often 5-10 degrees warmer than inside the house. And yet between the warmer days, some borrowed layers and the presence of a clothes dryer I have taken bold steps like washing the single long sleeved turtleneck sweater which I have worn many days since leaving Australia and every day the first two weeks after my arrival in Taiwan. Tonight they have forecast a cold front coming across from continent’s deserts carrying with it sandstorms and pollution.

The rapport with Charlie and particularly Snow has continued to develop with great ease and warmth. I feel comfortable to engage in as much or little interchange as I am drawn to on any particular day or evening. This week Snow and I have crossed over a language threshold to actually have conversation in Mandarin, albeit halting with a lot of gestures and fill in the blank with English. This week she coaxed me into talking one day about my excursion into Taipei city and on another occasion we had a rich and humorous conversation about parent and child relationships, the gifts and challenges therein.

It has been a delight to feel movement and progress regarding language not only in our dialogue but when I am out on the street in market interactions or the occasional brief chat with a stranger. While my language skills would improve more quickly if I pushed myself to engage in more such encounters I am embracing this period without much pushing in any direction. I pushed myself consistently hard throughout the course of school I am finding a rather gleeful delight in engaging in this succinct chapter of study with only my own expectations and measuring stick.

***

My one adventure into the city this week involved a visit to Longshan 龍山寺 Dragon Mountain Temple. It is decadently ornate with the most exquisite dragons everywhere. In the wake of Lantern festival the temple was still fully decorated and there was a large throng of devotees making offerings throughout. Additionally I witnessed people performing an interesting practice which I have since learned more about. Zhijiao, or buabui in Taiwanese, is a practice with Taoist roots. Devotees stand with two red stained half moon shaped pieces of wood, symbolizing the aspects of yin and yang, cupped in their palms. They hold the intention of a prayer, a question and then cast the half moons to the ground. If both land with their concave aspects facing up it indicates the question was not specific enough. If they both land facing down it indicates no. If they fall with one up and one down, it indicates yes. I stood transfixed by the practice for sometime, sensing that there was prayer or intention involved, but not a clue beyond that. It would have been a good conversation point, although I didn’t feel bold enough in the moment.

After a bit of a wander I left the temple to find a small open air market with samples of different dried fruits, nuts, a variety of unidentifiable things apparently on offer to eat…a few of which I took a gamble on…a few identifiable Chinese herbs. The market was set up above the subway and beneath a partly covered pedestrian area. In the same area several groups of men were gathered around observing some game occurring in the center of the cluster not visible to the casual passerby.

I began walking east along Heping lu, a reasonably large arterial lined with standard atrocious Taiwanese architecture, truly some of the most gawd awful, dingy concrete masses I have seen. The road was lined with an interesting array of shops…some automotive stores catering to the millions of motor scooters which move the people of this city. Further along there were several blocks filled with pet/mostly bird stores. I strolled through a veritable cacophony of parrots and parakeets, and passed one cage of the most exquisite pheasants I’ve ever seen. One had astounding yellow & black feathers rising as if in a fan cloaking its eyes.
I continued along eventually finding the Botanical Gardens. I had a wander through initially in a slightly warm misting rain which abated while I was there. I found portions of the gardens a bit sterile, but beautiful organized and a wide array of gardens including medicinals, succulents, ferns and perhaps my favorite the idiom garden…which has little plaques with an array of the single line phrases (they estimate there are some 800) which appear in classic texts regarding particular plants (old man willow…). Further along as I approached the university area I encountered more clothes, tea, calligraphy supplies and works etc.
With a bit of open time prior to meeting Paola for dinner, the friend of a friend English woman acupuncturist I met some weeks back, I chose to stop and indulge in a Starbucks latte. It’s interesting as Starbucks is not a place I would be drawn to go in the US. And yet I have observed that far from home on occasion it is indeed okay even necessary to indulge in the familiar. I sat and worked on my flash cards before meeting Paola for soup and dumplings and then made the reasonably long journey up the mountain.

Ji Long Night Market

Backdrop: Over recent years, when I have gone places where I know there will be throngs of people, I have chosen to do so either alone allowing myself to move like a tumbleweed or at most with one other person. Fade into Taipei: Nic and his family invited me to join them on an excursion to the Jilong Night market, Jilong being on the northern tip of the island, about 40 minutes away. I arrive to meet them at Jiantan station to find Yuantai, a friend of the family, standing where Nic and I arranged for them to pick me up. Shortly thereafter the sage green minivan arrived to collect us, we piled in with the kids. It was 5pm, 1-1 ½ hours of sunlight remaining. Originally there was discussion of whether I would prefer to take the scenic mountain road (1-2 hours) or the fast way. I’m easy, the mountain way sounded lovely, but whatever worked. So it was decided the mountain road.

Moments later, cell phone rang…over several subsequent moments and cell phone rings the plan changes. We drove, in Taipei, to what was originally the residence of Chang Kai Shek, which was converted into a massive park and gardens. It was determined that Ann (Melanie’s sister #1) was coming down from the mountain to meet us. Her husband Wuming was driving separately from Taipei to meet us as well. So we headed into the park and milled around. Lovely gardens; rose, fern, ornate, organic, a gorgeous sunset, plenty of space for the kids to run around. There were additional cell phone calls through which it was determined that Ruth, Melanie’s sister #2, was flying in from a business trip, had arrived on the ground, and was taking a taxi directly from the airport to the gardens to meet us and join us in the trip to Jilong. At some point in our strolling Nic commented that they had left their home at 4:30, it was 6pm and they had traveled a total of 7km. I told him we were traveling India pace to which he could laugh having recently traveled there.

By about 6:30, the group had finally coalesced, 7 adults, 5 children, off we went. 40+ minutes later having traveled in a two car caravan we arrived, parked, moved en mass and entered the THRONGS of the Jilong night market. I have been to many markets in a variety of countries. I have never seen so many blocks of pedestrian dominated, food oriented market. The entire affair is an extended food orgy. Hundreds and hundreds of small permanent and temporary vendors selling seafood, sushi, gelatinous white rice cake, deep fried hawthorne berry, frogs with pale bellies facing outward and legs dangling below packed together inside a glass cylinder of liquid, oyster omelets, freshly squeezed fruit juices, noodle soup with many variations, thinly sliced into a spiral deep fried potato skewers, ‘Glutinous Oil Rice/Pork Thick Soup’, ‘Pork Large Intestine/Salted Vegetable & Pigs Blood Soup,’ large piles of pig trotters (feet), a massive array of dumplings filled with pork, beef, seafood, sweet bean paste, ground sesame; skewers of fruit coated in thick clear gelatin likely some thickened form of cornstarch, fresh wrapped spring rolls, ice mixed with a variety of flavors ranging from mango to peanut, a wide array of intestinal delicacies…the intestine of another creature being the delicacy.

Nic told me after a small serving of some unidentifiable deep fried seafood something and a bowl of soup that this was only the beginning. It may have been for them, but after a fresh wrapped Spring roll I was complete and helped myself only to a bite here or there from others’ plates. Consequently I did not feel ill at the end of the evening. The entire serial food marathon was choreographed with cell phones, the group repeatedly separating into 3-4 sub groups and later recoalescing. Yuantai and I stuck together chatting in halting Mandarin. She was in possession of the requisite cell phone. It was a vibrant and delightful experience and I again thanked them for so warmly tucking me into the folds of their family.

***

As a complete non sequitur, I’m including the link I recently received to a short video about the Arava Institute. This is where I traveled with my friend Maha in Israel to help facilitate the Compassionate Listening workshop (blog posting November 10th, the Arava & the Negev). This institute’s efforts to open dialogue, cooperation and understanding cross culturally with the environment as the common meeting ground seems poignant considering the current tension and violence in Gaza.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2007/12/09/church.intv.hawa.arava.cnn

As a somewhat obscure but perhaps entertaining aside related to weather, I’m going to include a recent delightful email interchange with staff at Wunderground (or Weather Underground), a website I consult regularly for forecasting. Glean from the exchange what you will about humanity’s persistence in this world and the power of articulating what you want.

RE: Wunderground’s lost personality?!‏

Hi there – I have been a faithful Wunderground visitor for years…am on an extended stretch of global travel and use your site to stay in touch with the skies back home and other places. Having just concluded a month of travel in India, I’ve surfaced to find the faces disappeared from your site…now it’s just like any other weather website…what about the puffy cheeked clouds and the smiling sun? What a disappointment.
amy

Dear Amy
Thank you for your loyal patronage – and I’m sorry we have disappointed you with the icon switch – I spoke with our development team and very soon we are introducing an option where you can choose your icon set – so you can have your puffy cheeked clouds and smiling sun back. I’ll let you know when that is up and running…….
Thank you for your feedback – we aim to please everyone and rely on such feedback.
Kind regards.
Toby
www.wunderground.com

Toby – thanks so much for your response to my inquiry. Keep up the good work. I would like to think we live in a world multi faceted and technologically advanced enough to create room both for neutral and puffy cheeked cloud icons! I’ll look forward to the option if/when it comes.
amy

Dear Amy

Just to let you know that you can have your puffy cheeked icons back – if you are a paid member you can select your icon set by clicking on ‘members settings’ on the left hand bar – if you’re not a member then you just need to click ‘preferences’ on the left hand bar – and then select the ‘icons conditions’ option.
I hope the smiley faces brighten up your day again!

Best regards
Toby

Toby -

Thank you so much for restoring the personality of my Wunderground experience. Please share with the Wunderground staff that the puffy cheeked clouds and grinning sun have brought a renewed smile to my own face, regardless of the predictions.
be well and thanks so much for your response
amy

Miscellaneous Odds & Ends

During my stay with Nic’s family I was given the eldest Isaac’s room. The two boys slept in one room, Nic, Melanie & the girls in another. They told me several times that it was no imposition to have me and Isaac didn’t make a single disgruntled sound or gesture. I may be falsely interpreting, but even with this being a half American family, their relationship to space and privacy seems indicative of the more porous sense of private space I have found in Asia.

On two occasions since arriving in Taipei after being introduced as a Zhongyi, Chinese doctor, the Taiwanese friend to whom I’ve been introduced has promptly held out their forearm, with the expectation I take their pulse, and begun telling me about the, in both cases, protracted respiratory problems they’ve been having. For those unfamiliar with Chinese medicine, the pulse is one of our diagnostic tools, thus the presentation of the wrist. The second of these two encounters was a woman who had never even been to a Chinese doctor in her native Taiwan. There seemed some allure to the anomaly of this white skinned Chinese doctor. She explained she had been taking western cold/cough medicine for 2 months, antibiotics for the last 4 week. I suggested that Chinese herbal medicine would be very beneficial and as I didn’t have access to a full pharmacy here that I could find the name of a good local doctor. She parroted the words I associate with Republic of China (ROC) propaganda I heard on a variety of occasions during the three week mainland visit I made with our school for clinical observation in 2006, ‘Chinese medicine is slow, Western medicine is fast, ‘ to which I responded, ‘you’ve been taking western medicine for 2 months and you’re still sick?!’ Ann, Nic’s sister in law, was able to provide the name of a local doctor which I passed along. Ann and I mused about the seeming backwardness of my promoting Chinese medicine in Taiwan.

On one of my final days with Nic and his family, several of us walked a well traveled trail of alternating dirt and shallow stone steps from their small town Shanzhihou down through the verdant forested hills to Tianmu. Nic has seen monkeys on an early morning walk along the trail. I imagine during spring and summer the cicadas must be deafening. As it was the first glimpse of sun and mild temperature in weeks, the path was filled with people, particularly elders out taking advantage of the day. Perhaps three quarters of the way down we encountered a little resting place, some benches, a vendor selling oranges, another with some sweets, and an elderly man with a display of free books about Buddhism.

My last few days in that household were characterized by emotional warmth and vibrancy of the familial revolving door with Melanie’s parents back from 3 weeks in the US, and the 3^rd sister Ruth returned from a business trip. There were large shared meals in and out of the home, toasts for the New Year, kind words extended to me as a new member of the family and an open invitation to visit breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the remainder of my stay in this country.

***

Snow & Charlie’s home is in the opposite direction of the small commercial area of Shanzhihou from Nic & Melanie’s, about a 20 minutes walk. The bus stop, grocery store and cluster of restaurants advertising stir fried lamb meat and noodles additionally includes a 7-eleven & McDonalds to lend some texture to whatever image you might have of this forested mountain. Snow & Charlie’s home is delightfully situated at the end of a small lane of houses with only trees beyond. The room where I sleep, that of their daughter Alice currently in her first year at Carleton College, is on the back side of the house, nestled closely against another house. While the winds persist into the night, there is no other sound. There is no street noise. I have slept deeper and more restfully since my arrival here than I recall in months.

Their front of their home faces north looking out to Xinan, or New Peace Valley, where homes are not too densely nestled amongst a sea of green forest. Although I’ve seen it only once, on a clear day Qixingshan is visible, it being the tallest or second tallest peak in the Yangmingshan area. While situated in a small ‘village’ of 30 or so homes, a minute’s walk down the hill and around the corner leads to a one lane-ish paved road which weaves up the hill, forest on either side. I can identify only bamboo, elephant grass, and some extraordinary tree sized prehistoric looking ferns similar to those I’ve seen in Australia’s subtropics. I have gone out for a run or walk most days.

Higher up the hill some of the forest has been cleared for housing developments, massive retaining walls line the street. In this area as well as during my few sojourns into the city I have been extremely unimpressed by the architectural texture. While there are rather opulent and more creatively designed homes in the Tianmu area, most homes here on the mountain are one and two story flat roofed box like structures. Apartment buildings are only garish enlargements of the same theme. While some structures are constructed of more traditional brick, dull and pragmatic raw cement constitute the lion’s share. Snow explained that most homes were built of brick with tiled roofs prior to cement’s introduction to Taiwan perhaps 30 years ago. However, with the forces of wind and rain here, tile roofs simply can’t compete with the functionality of cement and in some cases corrugated iron. I imagine the roofs must have extraordinary drainage systems considering the rainfall. A typhoon some years ago dumped close to a meter of rain here within three days.

***

Lantern Festival

The 15th day of the 1st lunar month is the Chinese Lantern Festival. According to the Chinese tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate.

Origin

There are many different beliefs about the origin of the Lantern Festival…all related to religious worship.
One legend tells us that it was a time to worship Taiyi, the God of Heaven in ancient times. The belief was that the God of Heaven controlled the destiny of the human world. He had sixteen dragons at his beck and call and he decided when to inflict drought, storms, famine or pestilence upon human beings. Beginning with Qinshihuang, the first emperor to unite the country, all subsequent emperors ordered splendid ceremonies each year. The emperor would ask Taiyi to bring favorable weather and good health to him and his people. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty directed special attention to this event. In 104 BC, he proclaimed it one of the most important celebrations and the ceremony would last throughout the night.

Another legend associates the Lantern Festival with Taoism. Tianguan is the Taoist god responsible for good fortune. His birthday falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. It is said that Tianguan likes all types of entertainment. So followers prepare various kinds of activities during which they pray for good fortune.

The third story, Buddhism first entered China during the reign of Emperor Mingdi of the Eastern Han Dynasty. That was in the first century. However, it did not exert any great influence among the Chinese people. One day, Emperor Mingdi had a dream about a gold man in his palace. At the very moment when he was about to ask the mysterious figure who he was, the gold man suddenly rose to the sky and disappeared in the west. The next day, Emperor Mingdi sent a scholar to India on a pilgrimage to locate Buddhist scriptures. After joumeying thousands of miles, the scholar finally returned with the scriptures. Emperor Mingdi ordered that a temple be built to house a statue of Buddha and serve as a repository for the scriptures. Followers believe that the power of Buddha can dispel darkness. So Emperor Mingdi ordered his subjects to display lighted lanterns during what was to become the Lantern Festival.

http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/lantern.htm

My one foray into the city this week was to view the Lantern festival exhibition. I took the bus and subway into the Chang Kai Shek memorial where Snow explained there would be hundreds of lanterns. I emerged from the subway to find Taipei’s equivalent of a Tiananmen Square utterly vacant but for a few people purposefully walking across the space in the waning light. It was beautifully clear night. I wandered around the perimeter, then approached the memorial structure itself where I found two security guards,

“Ni hui shuo yin wen ma?” Do you speak English?
“Bu hui.” no. ‘
“hmm”…PDA dictionary consult, “deng long you mei you? zai na li?” lanterns, there aren’t any? where are they?
“Ahhh! deng long, deng long, mei you.”

This was followed by a long stream of Mandarin out of which I plucked enough to grasp that the lanterns were not there but rather at the Sun Yat Sen memorial where I could travel by subway. So back I went and a smooth transfer and two subway lines later I emerged to see a big sign in Mandarin & English TAIPEI LANTERN FESTIVAL.

Suspended orange lanterns lined the street leading to one of the open air exhibition’s multiple entries. It was a bit like walking into the Disney Land light parade, although that memory is of a good 25 year vintage and questionably accurate. I arrived to find the sides of a broad pedestrian area lined with illuminated float like scenes appropriately honoring the zodiac animal of the year, the mouse. I didn’t pay close enough attention to determine the material with which the ‘lanterns’ were made, although it must be something other than paper-maché considering they have to stand up to the elements. I simply ogled and reveled in being surrounded by illuminated larger than life sized inanimate mice singing, dancing, sailing in boats, playing instruments, my personal favorite a line of mice doing the dragon dance. Suspended above the walk way surrounding the main memorial building, a large imposing Chinese pagoda type structure, were individually hand painted lanterns, probably several hundred (round, square and tube shaped). They were decorated with river & mountain scenes, birds, flowers, fish, fruits, trees, sea animals, people. While the sophistication of painting varied rather widely, the collective effect was positively stunning and each was a precious work of art and intention in its own right.

One of the most striking elements of the experience was this very calm civility pervading the crowd, and it was a lot of people. There was some baseline sanctity. While a few individual vendors were selling little electric glow wands or toys that was it. No big marketing schtick, no grotesque food booths…just light…just hundreds of hand crafted illuminated figments of the imagination being witnessed and enjoyed by the people of this city. I wandered and wandered amongst them and finally wound my way to an alternate subway stop to make the trek home. 2 subways and a bus later I arrived at the Shanzhihou. I walked the 20 minutes or so along a road lined with bamboo rustling in the wind, the wind which I left behind when I descended from the mountain into the city. An almost the full moon lit my walk more elegantly than the street lamps, but the lights had their own function illuminating the twisting pattern of a misty rain whirling in the wind.

Come evening of the official Lantern festival, the day after I saw the exhibition, with a full and clear moon illuminating the sky, Nic and his children came over to join Snow, Charlie and me on their second floor balcony which faces out to the valley. For the 12 years they have lived here, there has been a Lantern Festival fireworks display put on by a number of families in the valley. A few plumes, not sure about terminology for fireworks, went up beginning just after 7pm. Fireworks were then sent up first from a location, assumedly a house, furthest up the valley. After 15-20 minutes there was a pause, during which we chatted and shared tea and Snow’s pumpkin pie after which time there was a clatter of low to the ground fireworks at the next house in line and it progressed like this serially for some 2 hours. Charlie and I mused about the cost and logistics considering the mammoth barges used often in large urban areas for such displays. My favorite element of the evening occurred after the conclusion of the third house’s show A dozen red lanterns emerged one by one. Lit down on the valley floor, each sailed up first to the east and then the winds carried them gracefully up the valley to the west until they disappeared out of site into the night sky. There was a grace to that visual gesture of sending light forth into the sky I found extremely beautiful.

***

Much of this week has been about settling on a rather profound level. Arriving here, the rest and peace of this place and the rhythm of study has helped me register my own level of fatigue, my hunger for constancy, and the complexity of emotions present as I look to a return to Seattle. I spoke to my folks today via Skype. They have a couple surrogate grand children spending the weekend with them who are soon moving to Ohio. I asked the one who was listening in how she felt about the move and she said clearly, “I’m excited and I’m scared.” And I told I feel the same way.

Since my arrival in Taiwan, I have been struck repeatedly by this quiet, humbled question…what did I do to merit all this? How can the fountain of generosity and good fortune continue to flow in my direction? I am grateful for the myriad karmic forces and the wisdom which directed me here. Is this quiet refuge the most optimal environment for complete language immersion? Not quite. However it will be enough, it will be valuable and there is a constellation of factors which make this an ideal and precious sanctuary for me at this moment as I mentally prepare to take off my traveling shoes and enter a very new chapter of life.

In addition to the mantra this too is the pilgrimage, I’m going to add a subtitle; it’s all about contrast as this period of travel has been and continues to be characterized by profound dichotomy. My flights across SE Asia and the South China Sea were smooth & seamless. As I flew into Taipei, the orderliness of the world below was evident from the aerial view; the street lay out and lighting periodicity distinguished by a regular, linear quality in contrast to India’s pandemonium. On my way to the Calcutta airport I peered through dust coated windows, sitting upon bottomed out seats watching the world go by as detailed in the previous post. I exited Taipei customs to be greeted by my name on a hand written sign held by a driver prearranged by my host Nic, who I had never met. The driver motioned for me to put on something warmer before we left the terminal and then indicated for me to wait at the curb. Shortly thereafter he arrived in an unblemished, shiny, leather upholstered Mercedes. We sailed along pristine, organized, almost silken roads for close to an hour, long after dark, shortly before midnight, the highway exceedingly quiet, not a single horn. Eventually we wound our way up Yang Ming Shan, a forested mountain on the northern edge of Taipei.

Nic, along with his daughter Rachel (6) and niece Serena (8) were waiting up to greet me even at that late hour. He extended Sunday invitations to join their family at a New Year’s brunch followed by viewing the big New Year’s blockbuster CJ7. And so once again I have been graciously folded into the life of another family.

***

It is cold here, really quite cold low 50s down into the 30s. I was warned about this by a friend who, having lived here a number of years, implored me to go hang out on the Thai beaches rather than arrive in Taiwan in February. The mountains see even more severe weather with thick misty fog, blustery winds and colder temperatures. They have not seen the sun here in several weeks. Sounds like home. However, here few buildings have central heating and homes are warmed sparingly by space heaters which leaves a lot of space unheated. Having sent most of my winter clothes home, some after leaving Europe, some from Australia with Ewan, I am on the border of not having enough to stay warm…just on the border. And in the midst of it being cold, the mountains here are lush, verdant and stunningly beautiful.

My first morning here I found my way to the kitchen and met Janine, a Philippino woman who is the family’s live-in help. In chatting over several days I have since learned Janine has two daughters at home, ages 5 & 7 who live with her parents and husband, and whom she speaks with every day. She explained it is extremely difficult to find work which pays a living salary back home. Recently many professionals have reverted to this form of domestic or other work abroad in order to earn a reasonable income. She has been here about a year. Janine prepares all meals here and tends to most domestic tasks in the house. I have felt disoriented not able to engage and interact with my hosts as they prepared food, and further at a loss when I wasn’t allowed to assist in the preparation or the washing up.
Breakfast and that first morning were spent just being, absorbing, observing the movement here in this family. The Goulds live in a cluster of homes which were originally built for American military personnel. The extended family of Nic’s wife Melanie, parents, sister and brother in law, kids, all live in a house within this same compound of about 30 homes. Melanie’s parents are away for New Year’s, but even without them there is a regular revolving door of adults and kids which bring a vibrant warmth and vitality to the home. Serena & Rachel who greeted me that first evening are not only bright and articulate little human beings, but have a tender and beautiful sisterly rapport between them. Ann, Melanie’s sister, both of them Taiwanese, completed her Chinese medical training, intriguingly at a Californian school, after which she remained in the US practicing for several years. She is now in the process of preparing to take exams for the Taiwan certification. This entails epic levels of classic medical text & western medical memorization. One of my American teachers did all of his training in apprenticeship here in Taiwan and spoke of the grueling exam preparation.

Noonish my first day here we headed to Charlie & Snow’s for brunch (Charlie also American & Snow Taiwanese). They are lovely people. Their two grown children are now at college in the US. Snow learned about acupressure/channels etc, in the process of translating for a foreigner here studying acupuncture years ago. While she has some knowledge and an acute interest, her livelihood has been teaching English. After lunch we walked along the roads of this mountain, down a lengthy run of aged stone steps, slippery from the cold damp, some two solid weeks without reprieve. Further along the road we followed a small paved path leading up amongst the houses to one recently converted into a tea house by the artists who live there. It was stunningly adorned, a beautiful aesthetic throughout the small wooden house, evidently solid wood homes are rare. While not by western standards, there was a spacious feeling to the interior, natural lengths of wood left with their organic contours making up bar and one long table, a rather high ceiling, several metal sculptures elegantly poised throughout the place. It was utterly exquisite in location and feel and spirit. While open since July, they only discovered the tea house, maybe 20 minutes walk from their home, in this past month. We did not have time to stay but simply to have Charlie and Snow share their recent discovery with us.
They invited me back to their home for the Lantern Festival 10 days from now. Evidently there are three families which live in the valley below. Each family devotes an est. $30,000 on fireworks for which there is prime viewing from Snow & Charlie’s deck. They celebrate the festival by gathering friends at their home every year. I felt warmly welcomed and look forward to returning to their home.
We left their place and drove down off the mountain to an affluent ‘burrough’ of Taipei called Tianmu where a lot of ex-pats live. We entered a rather posh mall, movie theatre included where we saw the film CJ7, lighthearted & entertaining which while in Chinese had English subtitles, an unexpected pleasure. As we arrived rather early and the movie theatre lobby is a barrage of video games and other sensory stimulus, Melanie and I took the kids to the lower levels to let them tear through retails store aisles. My goodness by the looks of the retail establishments there appears to be a lot of expendable income here.

It is interesting to note things which initially seem familiar, but upon closer inspection have a distinct Taiwanese flare. For example cross walks. Here the crosswalk man leans forward as if into the wind, striding almost a hop to his fluid, kinesthetic body. The device counts down the time for you, and when it hits 10 remaining seconds, not only does the light flash, but the lithe little crosswalk man speeds up, like an animated cartoon character.

It has been such a delight to be back in a world in which Chinese medicine is such a part of the common parlance. Ann and I have had several lengthy discussions. She provides regular treatment to family members. My education and soon to be profession are a known entity here which require no introduction, explanation or justification as is often necessary when you speak of acupuncture or herbal medicine in the US. On one occasion here the evening meal was followed by a simple herbal soup ~ a lovely Lian Zi, Gou Qi Zi & Hong Zao tang. It’s just part of how things are done here.

On a completely separate note, but also in the realm of commonality, Melanie, Nic’s wife, began practicing Tibetan Buddhism several years ago and it seems to be an important part of her/their lives. They traveled with the children to visit her Rimpoche in India this winter. They have an elaborate shrine room here in the house where I meditate in the morning and are quite interested in the journey Cris and I just completed. While our practices may be very different in flavor and nature, there is a sense of resonant sensibility which I appreciate.

I don’t have many observations otherwise. I feel some of my time since arrival has been spent decompressing from India. And the majority of it has been spent here on the mountain, simply taking in the ins and outs of family life which are conducted, at times simultaneously, in English and Mandarin.

***

These recent days have been spent investigating the variety of language institutes in Taipei, initially via the internet and yesterday with visits to the three major schools in town. Additionally I have waded through websites with information about tutoring English and housing possibilities. It is an energy intensive process, even with the generous help of Nic and his family. I learned rather quickly about the limitations created by my March 19^th flight home. It happens to awkwardly sever the school term for all the programs I have looked into. I could have figured that one out if I had given it half a critical thought and some investigation before arrival. However, when scheduling that flight, it felt and continues to feel like a desirable and necessary opportunity for Ewan and I to share some time. There were also forces other than critical thought at work. Individual tutoring from one of these schools is the primary alternative way to study Chinese with my time here, although a costly one. Considering the information I now have, I could choose to either alter my flight or alter the undetermined nature of my horizon in Taiwan. At this threshold, I am leaning toward the latter. I know the internal resources I would need to muster in order to truly take advantage of all that is available here in terms of language and medical study. In being honest with myself, I don’t have the internal stamina, interest, or desire.

I am currently pursuing creative ways to maximize this focused period of time to include disciplined independent study, a home stay and some form of tutoring arrangement. I may be asking too much. I have been so graciously tended, even carried along this lengthy journey. We’ll see what the winds have in store for me.

***

This week has moved rather slowly. It has been exceedingly cold, even the Taiwanese have been queueing up to buy supplemental space heaters and there has been frost here in the mountains. Enhanced by sporadically driving wind and rain the cold seeps through window panes and cracks in the wall. My fingernails have been bluish grey much of the week.

Cris passed through Taipei for several days en route home and Nic and I went into the city to meet him. It was a positive delight to see a smile on Cris’ face, a spring in his step, and hear his positive reflections on our journey considering all the ups and downs. Nic took us to a couple different museums including one which memorializes the 228 Incident/Massacre (wiki has a reasonable synopsis), and a history museum which had the most beautiful and whimsical display of Czech puppets. What a contrast to my recent museum visits in Calcutta. The curation manifested a great deal of care, attention, and resources which are simply not present in the Indian subcontinent.

On another day I ventured down into the city to purchase a Chinese textbook and meet some folks for lunch. At this moment, I can articulate questions in Chinese like, “where is the bus for Jiantan?” However I am utterly clueless in deciphering the stream of Mandarin which flows in my direction in response. Combining my pinball technique of question reiteration and the rather universal gesture for that way I make my way.
Holy cows & mountains this is an ordered culture. I made my way down from Yangming shan by bus and subway, about a 40-45 minute journey. The subway is immaculate; cleaner than many of the surfaces upon which I have eaten in the past month. There are explicit and beautifully illustrated diagrams within the subway marking exits, landmarks, and where one will emerge on the street level. I was particularly enamored with the waste-less subway token system. One is issued a plastic coin for the value of the journey, swipes the coin (which emits I don’t want to know what electronic radiation) allowing entry, and upon exiting at the other end depositing the coin allows one to exit the subway. Hands down the most modern and innovative public transport ticketing I have encountered.

One of my colleagues back in the US, Michael who warned me not to come here in February, gave me the name of several foreign contacts here in the city. I made arrangements to meet Paola for lunch and arrived to find her accompanied by another of the contacts I had emailed before arrival, another Michael and his mother visiting from the Bay area. The four of us shared a lovely and relaxed lunch. Paola, British & Italian, practiced Chinese Medicine in England and spent several months in mainland China last year. Having left her practice she moved to Taiwan in November to study Chinese, beginning from scratch. Michael arrived in Taiwan 4 years ago, has studied Chinese medicine in the US and China, and is now married with a 2 month old baby. I felt very warmly welcomed, both of them eager to offer the insight they have into the process of settling.

***

I have continued contributing to this narrative since my arrival, and yet been reluctant to post this writing still unclear about how this next month will look. I like being able to wrap things up in tidy packages. It’s not always possible in life, in fact often isn’t, but my proclivity to do so remains.

In the process of investigating language schools I also looked at sign boards for language exchange and housing. Nic commented that we need to get me a cell phone pronto; a purchase I have avoided thus far in this life for a variety of reasons. Facing the suggestion of a cell phone and the prospect of a more in depth housing search actually elicited a mild nausea. I found myself rather deeply reflecting on how I really want to spend this time. While I am interested to explore the wonders of Taipei, I realized that I am more drawn to have this be a quiet and internal period…time for daily sitting, focused study, conversation getting my brain into Mandarin, simple life. Limiting it to those variables feels quite critical as I have decided my return to the NW March 19th will be a definitive one, for now. I’m tired of moving. I can say that plainly.

Having approached them with a proposal earlier in the week, Snow and Charlie, the folks in whose home I ate New Year’s lunch that first day after my arrival, have agreed to have me board in their home for the remainder of my stay in Taiwan. Snow will provide formal tutoring 5 days a week with informal conversation as presents itself in a way comfortable for us both. Snow and Charlie live in another village a bit further up the road, about 20-30 minute walk. I imagine making a journey off the mountain into the city once or even twice a week. And so the last month of this journey will be here amongst the wind, trees and people of Yang Ming Shan. After this interval, my toes slightly wet with this language & culture, I will return to the US to start the next chapter of my life.

We made our way slowly east from Bihar into the state of West Bengal, descending into a more sultry climate. After 10 hours in transit, we arrived via the Poorba Express train to Howrah station. The shunting crawl at which we traversed the suburbs of Calcutta illustrated how words like express are entirely contingent upon one’s geographic location. The increased comfort of the 2^nd class coach, relative to 3^rd, was further enchanced by the train being largely empty for the latter half of the journey.

After bargaining for the fare, we followed our taxi driver pausing as a traffic police guard halted the oncoming cars for pedestrian passing. One large TATA truck careened through the gesture. The police guard hollered and swiftly wielded a wooden baton shattering the passenger window. Rather wide eyed I instantaneously recalled my final morning rounds, only hours before, at the Mahabodhi temple.

We arrived in Calcutta without hotel reservations which made the entry more cumbersome than either of us anticipated. Our taxi inched its way from the train station to the Chowringhee area through ‘very traffic jam’ as our driver commented. We stopped at hotel after hotel to find them all fully booked. After a half dozen attempts, Cris elected a very upscale hotel where they could accommodate us for two nights after which we moved to a less opulent hotel geared toward Indian business men. And so after a broad range of lodging from humble temple rooms, to the dark, damp, cold night in Sonauli to the lovely garden courtyard in Varanasi we checked into the finest hotel I have ever stayed in. I felt like a bedraggled ruffian walking with my backpack through the lobby. While this threshold in my journey seems almost intrisically surreal, I believe the nature of our lodging those first days contributed to this quality.

***

I spent last autumn and early winter deliberating about my plans after graduating from school. February last year, day four of a week long meditation retreat, the itinerary for this quasi epic journey arose. There’s simply no other way to phrase it. It was like watching a map draw itself. After the retreat’s conclusion I tested the waters by sending emails to Belgium, Israel and Australia, knocking at the door of friends and family to see if there would be proverbial room at the inn. Each came back with a resounding YES! While the details evolved over the months, even more than anticipated with Ewan’s entry into my life, the nature, the marrow of the journey has not changed. Today, I board a plane for Taipei. Today, six countries and one essential leg of this voyage conclude. Since boarding the train in Bodh Gaya, those hours watching mile after mile of the Indian countryside slip by I have felt both a tremendous amount of internal movement along with a feeling of being suspended in time and space. As if in free fall, the world has been moving at an astonishing rate with a concurrent quality of complete stillness.

Over these recent days I have experienced a broad range of emotions of excitement and joy to fear and overwhelm. By blessed introduction from writer and translator Bill Porter (Red Pine), I have a place to arrive, an old friend of his who has lived in Taiwan a long while, and knows everybody. Originally I questioned the wisdom of accepting this offer as Nic and his wife live outside of Taipei some distance, up a mountain. At this moment, I am doing mental prostrations in both Bill and Nic’s direction for a safe haven to land while I find my sea legs in a very new place still in the process of digesting the many facets of my travels in India.

***

Calcutta

I will summarize my final days in India in a rather limited manner. A trip to the Indian museum stands out most vividly amongst the few sites visited. The museum houses an extensive collection of Buddhist sculpture, mostly dating from the 5^th to the 10^th century CE, and excavated from the places in which we had just traveled. For the first time I was introduced to Gandharan sculpture, a blend of Grecian and Indian influences. It was the first time I have seen a Buddha with Roman features. Additionally and what most stirred me amongst the collection was the Bharhut Stupa Gate. An entire room is dedicated to the railings and gate of a stupa dating from the 1^st and 2^nd century BCE. From the museum description, “Profusely carved in red sandstone depicting scenes from the Buddha’s pre-birth stories, floral and animal motifs; besides yakshas, yakshinis, and devatas, the Bharhut remains constitute visual store-house for the reconstruction of the political, social, economic and cultural history of India during the 2^nd-1^st centuries BCE.” Beautiful round symmetrical carvings, maybe 18” in diameter, constitute a large amount of the railing, from winding leaves to peacocks, elephants to flowers.

Over our final days, Cris and I shared reflections on the journey, our learning about each other, ourselves. Interestingly, folding in all the hiccups and challenges, particularly of the first week on the road, both Cris and I felt satisfied and fulfilled with the nature and flow of the trip. Neither of us was inclined to change much of anything, even the tough pieces. Were someone to inquire about doing a similar trip I would simply modify suggestions based on their interests, needs, threshold for discomfort and uncertainty.

It was all a part of the pilgrimage…every step. I believe it’s safe to say neither Cris nor I could have done this trip without the other. I am extremely grateful for his having created an opportunity for me which I may not have encountered or pursued otherwise in this lifetime. Through both our interactions and other aspects of the journey I have learned more about human communication, my own misconceived and potentially injurious expectations and critical nature. On this journey I experienced a very intimate discomfort with my own affluence and privilege. And particularly in Varanasi, I felt a strong aversion to being a voyeuristic tourist, or perceiving myself as one.

Ewan just sent me what feels like an extremely poignant passage from the end of Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels with Herodotus, a book which played a pivotal role in catalyzing our relationship.

Herodotus learns about his worlds with the rapturous enthusiasm of a child. His most important discovery? That there are many worlds. And that each is different. Each is important. And that one must learn about them, because these other worlds, these other cultures, are mirrors in which we can see ourselves, thanks to which we understand ourselves better—for we cannot define our own identity until having confronted that of others, as comparison.

And that is why Herodotus, having made this discovery—that the cultures of others are a mirror in which we can examine ourselves in order to understand ourselves better—every morning, tirelessly, again and again, sets out on his journey.

It’s all part of the pilgrimage and it will continue to be so, every breath, every step of every day until the end of this life.

 Calcutta did not pause for breath
as I sat that last morning on the narrow
tawny window seat of a hotel designed
for businessmen, the breakfast menu
a short list of paratha, puri & vegetables.
Outside the streets have been hosed down.
Trucks must pass every morning
as the day before I looked out 
upon darkened asphalt and wondered
about rain, but there was no rain. 
Kerosene stoves ardently burn
producing the morning’s tea, strainers
already wet and heavy with leaf,
clinging milk skin, the scent of cardamom,
filling the gutter a growing pile of discarded
palm size terracotta cups, whole and broken.
Calcutta is awake and moving, moving
broad banana filled baskets and easy chairs
atop human heads, moving rebar and cement
in carts pushed by hand or pedaled by foot,
moving woman on motorcycles, side saddle,
vibrant saree silk flowing cape-like
mystically evading ensnarement
in the rear wheel spokes. 
And crows, as they do everywhere, are
perched upon telephone wires, heckling
the human world from their lofty post.

And it was through a taxi window en route to the airport that I registered my final visual blur of India* vibrant and decrepit TATA trucks {Cris informed me along the way, noting our TATA bagged tea in multiple locations, that the company has recently bought Jaguar and maybe Lamborgini?} * Saturday morning fish market lining the hosed down streets * carts piled with fresh cut sugar cane being pressed for its milky juice * a wide array of items being carried atop human heads ~ broad banana filled baskets, enormous non-descript white plastic bags, several plush easy chairs * bicycle rickshaws arranged as if spooning each other for a night’s rest, not yet awakened for a day’s work * as indication throughout this country of construction happening somewhere nearby piles and piles of brick * the otherwise relatively drab streets vibrantly accented with colorful flowing sarees and shiny foil packets of the herb/tobacco mixes which it seems every single taxi/tuk tuk/bicycle rickshaw driver chews * empty chicken cages {vacant due to recent avian flu scares} * marigold malas (lays) threaded and hung for ritual offering * legions of sunshine yellow taxi cabs * men in wrapped in short sarongs or underwear engaged in morning bathing at common tap stands along the street * a stretch of tarps rigged up at 90 degrees along a building wall, sheltering homeless families * more piles of brick * glass cases stacked with pyramids of milky Indian sweets * piles of garbage being shoveled one soggy shovelful at a time into an open bed truck * open pharmacies * signs for the Calcutta Homeopathic College of Medicine, the Smile Zone Dental Clinic, The Pollution Under Control Certification program* more piles of brick * one extraordinary stretch of sweeping trees which temporarily changed the entire texture and quality of the air * just outside the airport rode a young man on a bicycle with large metal milk containers for saddle bags, grass wedged around the lid of each to create a tighter seal, the milk likely headed for one of the myriad tea stalls which, on a daily basis, with their pale brown sweet chai nourish and awaken the population of this country * Farewell mother India.

pilgrims feet glide
across smooth grey stone
polished by centuries
turning the wheel

Dhammika Stupa, Sarnath, India
 

*** 

During an earlier chapter
of life when these hands
regularly wielded charcoal
and paint, sculpting tool & chisel,
my heart was often moved
in galley or museum corridor.
By contrast in recent years,
I have seldom been stirred
by another’s creative expression,
much to my own curiosity,
curiosity as to the loss of sensibility. 

And there I found myself in a sleepy corner
of Uttar Pradesh, the Middle Land
where thousands of years before a man traveled
from Bodh Gaya to Sarnath to teach
the eight fold path to those who would listen.
Rounding a corner into the museum’s north wing,
a museum where Kusana & Gupta sculptures
perched upon rudimentary pedestals,
signage slightly askew,
temperature entirely uncontrolled,
I came upon a sandy pale teaching Buddha
gracefully illuminated,
radiant at the end of the hall. 

Rising from below my sternum a warmth swelled
into my chest, flowing up my neck to fill
the cavities of my head, gently throbbing.  
I stood, in plain view of suspect museum docent,
rumpled and reverent Ladakhi pilgrims,
I stood unspeakably moved and I wept.

Archaelogical Museum, Sarnath, India
 

***

Standing in Lumbini, behind a line
of Thai pilgrims I awaited the opportunity
to approach a crumbling monument
of brick hung with hand painted sign
Birthplace of the Buddha. 

While the facial expressions
were wrapped in brown skin, Asian eyes,
prayer beads and gold leaf, the hushed reverence
recalled for me the shadowed basilica
of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcre. 
Specifically the parallel poise
as each pilgrim was perfectly captured
in contemplative solemn
by the camera.   

Here, this place
this stone mass is sacred,
worthy of reverence,
pilgrimage, photograph,
proof that given pilgrim
traversed sea and mountain
to lay her forehead
on this spot, eyes closed,
closed until the film advances.  

Maya Devi Temple, Lumbini

 
***

 “Never again!”  she professed
vehemence and laughter in her radiant face.
“No marriage!  No children!,
they are like the cord which binds
the lotus to the murky bottom,
Not the next life!”  she laughed
slapping my shoulder, warmly
remarking on the twinkle
of contentment and freedom
in my eyes.

Thai Temple, Lumbini, Nepal 
 

*** 

October 1998, I traveled 17 hours
by bus to this dusty place
and he was here in grey robes,
building this temple walking distance
from the Buddha’s birthplace
but thousands of miles from his Korean home.
When I arrived this time I recognized
his shining eyes and I asked.
Yes, he has been here
all the time, from the beginning
13 years.  Yes, yes he will stay. 
Maybe this lifetime,
maybe this whole lifetime
will be here
given to his lineage,
that merit woven into the Dharma’s
global tapestry.

Korean Temple, Lumbini, Nepal

***

undulating layers
of rusty moss covered brick
form an earthen rooted mountain,
consecrated the earthen
and the ethereal
event of burning the Buddha. 
Fire rendered ash
from bone and hair,
but he left his eyes
to all who followed,
left them imploring  
when you take a deep breath
be aware you are taking a deep breath
when you take a shallow breath
be aware you are you are taking a shallow breath.
Intense in its earth bound quality,
it was this form, this place
which stirred movement
in my sternum and deeper still
in my belly, like resonance with
the most primal of tuning forks. 

cremation Stupa, Kushinagar, India  

***

a slow reverent line
filed before glass
encased relics, smaller
than half a rice grain,
adorned in pageantry
but this is not
where I find the Buddha.  

Mahabodhi Society, annual relics display
Bodh Gaya, India
 

***

 
To Cris’ inquiry, I responded yes,  
I could return here, find a place
on the north side, beneath the treed canopy
and merge with the quiet cadence of arms
sweeping into prayer, bodies elongating,
hands sliding to lay forehead to wood. 
Yes.  I could return
to the same untrafficed corner
of the Mahabodhi temple,
nestle up against a low wall, prostrating
monk on my right, feet in front of me
an elder monk wearing grace
as pragmatically as his thick glasses. 
The second day I showed up we exchanged
warm smiles which I sense would broaden,
deepen were I to return tomorrow
and the day after, and even after that.

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, India
 

***

Having traveled the Middle Land’s
flat, dusty and chaotic roads for several weeks,
I welcomed the sanctuary of Vulture Peak’s
raw terrain; magnificent white veined charcoal crags
tumbling down into a motionless treed valley
dissected by a single winding road.  
I arrived to find the summit ruins filled,
3 saffron robed monks encircled
by a dozen Thai pilgrims swathed in white,
all seated on the ground in the late morning sun,
their eyes gently closed.  I climbed
up a face of porous rock, faced south
out to the calm valley’s expanse.  Their chanting ceased. 
We sat in silent communion.  Only wind
whispered amongst the hills, stirring my hair,
warmly caressing every inch of my face. 
A wind which seemed to carry with it voices,
pilgrims’ spirits, centuries of prayer and intention,
hope and gratitude for this life, and the next,
for oneself, for the world.   

Gujjikhuta, Vulture Peak, Rajgir, India

***

The temple grounds
were bustling when I arrived late
afternoon throngs, monastic and lay folk,
elders and children, Sri Lankan,
Tibetan, Caucasian, and Thai.

I settled on a tranquil corner
tucked up close
to a low wall, close
to several monks sitting
out of the fray. 

Initially, human noise prevailed;
chatter, chanting, footsteps.
Light waned.  Adhan cried out
from the mosque beyond
the temple gates.

Dusk rose, as did dampness
from the earth and the bird calls
swelled, filling trees and sky
drowning out human sound.

Pausing to unfold and recross my legs,
I opened my eyes to take in more
than sound.  The monks close by, previously
crimson wrapped pyramids,
had packed up to head home.
Two of the young ones, maybe in their 20s,
returned, crouched feet before me
to carefully appraise two handfuls
of fallen Bodhi leaves laying one
atop the other.  Even the dry crinkled ones,
not so amenable to stacking,
were delicately laid in the precious pile.  
I smiled thinking of the scavenged leaves
nestled between journal pages within my bag.   

Later still, the birds fell quiet,
the remaining human voices softened. 
A small rodent came furtively scritching.
The crickets began their rhythmic song
and the mute Bihari mosquitoes
danced upon my eyelids. 

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, India

There is a simple & surprisingly logical distinction between 2^nd and 3^rd class train travel in India. Goat and other livestock are not amongst the passengers in 3^rd class, nor are there baskets of cauliflower and cabbage. In a 2^nd class cabin there are 2 bunk type berths top and bottom on each side, in 3^rd class there are three. If traveling at night when all the berths are folded down, this would mean about 2 feet of vertical space per person. Thankfully, our 3 ½ hour 3^rd class ride from Varanasi to Gaya, 2^nd class being sold out, was during the day time. While the uppermost bunks are fixed, the middle fold up and all passengers sit casually sharing the horizontal surface of the lowermost bunk.

As with many elements of this part of the world, space was still at a premium. Cris pioneered the climb to the upper bunk. His enthusiasm in executing this acrobatic maneuver was hands down the clearest expression of his health and spirits being well on the mend. After a rather scrunched nap for him, we traded off. Even sitting on the bottom most bunk, one must duck or slouch in order to look out the low scratched and weathered window. As the cabins are not enclosed, one is continually serenaded by vendors passing along the narrow corridor, bucket or box in hand, each with their individual sing-songy pitch, ‘OhhhHHH, Sprite, Pepsi, Phanta, Phruiti, Padam MiiilK.’ ‘Paani, Paani, Paani…Paani ~WaateRR’ ‘Soup…Tomato Soup…Soup!’ ‘Chai…chhaaAAI, Coffee,’ ‘Gulab…Gulab Jamuum,’ not to mention the array of offerings for which I won’t even take a phonetic stab. Outside of taking in the many details of my first experience on Indian rail it was an uneventful journey. It’s amazing, in these circumstances, how much joy can be generated by the uneventful.

Bodh Gaya ~ Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment

Then being a quester for the good, searching for the incomparable, matchless path of peace, while walking on tour through Magadha I arrived at Uruvela, {now Bodh Gaya}, the army township. There I saw a beautiful stretch of ground, a lovely woodland grove, a clear flowing river with a beautiful ford with a village nearby for support. And I thought; “Indeed, this is a good place for a young man set on striving.”

the Buddha as quoted in Middle Land, Middle Way

There is something deeply and quietly perfect about Bodh Gaya being our last major destination on this pilgrimage. Without realizing it, I recognized with our arrival here that Bodh Gaya fulfills some image I have unconsciously held as to how a sacred Buddhist place might look. Having traveled through flat, dusty terrain since our arrival in Delhi, the air quality was noticeably different with our arrival at the train station in Gaya. We wove through hills, hills with trees! on our taxi ride from the station 12km or so into Bodh Gaya.

Like with many Buddhist monasteries and places of worship, the main Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya was largely destroyed with the Muslim invasion of India in the 12 & 13^th century. Thereafter, the remains fell into a state of further neglect and ruin. Apparently the devotion and support the Burmese Buddhist community were largely responsible for maintaining the temple for the some 600 years after the invasion. In the late 1800s, an effort to reconstruct and restore the temple’s splendor was initiated by the Burmese King and more fully manifested with the help of British pilgrim Alexander Cunningham, JD Beglar and the Indian government.

The temple grounds are delineated by a surrounding gate. One main and four smaller spires rise up amongst the trees from the rectangular foundation of the temple. It is the main spire which is initially visible from the road and the pedestrian market area leading up to the entry. A smooth stone path encircles the perimeter of the temple. Upon this path flows a rather constant stream of people circumambulating, some making the way one full body prostration at a time. From this path one looks down into the temple grounds. The main sanctuary is surrounded by myriad smaller stupas, the western side flanked by a magnificent bodhi tree, considered a distant relative of the original beneath which the Buddha purportedly sat. The south side is more open lawn and garden. On the north side, several large trees provide shade to those both meditating and doing purification through prostration practice, for hours, days, months.

Since arriving I have spent many hours walking the temple path and some time sitting down in the inner temple grounds. There is a beauty permeating this place which extends far beyond the visual. Two nights ago, I continued to circumambulate beyond dusk as the stars began appearing. Into a deep blue sky the main temple spire rose encircled by Orion and other constellations. There was a delicious crisp edge creeping into the air, cold on the fingers of my right hand and my cheeks, my left hand kept warm as I rotated prayer beads. Into the night there were still monks and nuns prostrating and meditating amongst the trees below. I was moved by a sense of how hard so many people are working, working to see clearly, to live in a good way, to contribute positively to the world.

This is indeed a global sanctuary. While the place is most vividly colored by the Tibetan monastic community’s crimson robes, there is monastic and lay presence here from Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Japan, Caucasians from Australian, Eastern & Western European, the US …not to mention a large mosque and several Hindu temples. We have encountered far and away more lay pilgrims from Sri Lanka and Thailand than any place else and that has been the case at every site we have visited.

Upon leaving the serenity of the interior grounds one encounters a rather intense barrage of energies outside the temple gates. The pedestrian area surrounding the temple is filled with vendors selling postcards, statues & memorabilia, mallas (prayer beads), prayer wheels, necklaces, medical masks, and a wide array of things for offering within the temple ~ flowers, incense and candles. In addition there is a veritable army of mostly children who beg for money, books or sponsorship in school.

These childrens’ presence, in conjunction with our accommodations here in Bodh Gaya and a variety of other luxuries along this journey have cumulatively stirred a lot of my own discomfort related to affluence, specifically having it when surrounded by those who do not. Cris’ means and predilection for certain amenities has afforded a level of comfort on this trip above what I would choose or be in a position to afford were I traveling here on my own. It is everything from a cab rather than the public bus, the choice later in the trip of hotels in lieu of temples, hotels with hot water and costs ranging from $20-50/night rather than $5. His choices are perhaps part of what has spared us from more relentless haggling, begging and harassment. However, even if we were strictly using public transportation, as with the train, the situation has simply not measured up to how intense I anticipated India would be in this regard. I believe my years in Nepal provided a certain level of inoculation.

It is indeed a poignant paradox; to walk the temple grounds filled by a sense of joy, peace and hope for the world, and upon exiting to be confronted by the horrendous disparities present in the world and my own humbling ineptitude to influence them. I find no tidy bow to wrap around this particular mental thread. It is simply one arena of contemplation for me in this place.

Rajgir & Nalanda

Back in the US, in research & preparation for this trip Cris corresponded with a monk named Ven S. Dhammika. Dhammika wrote several books which have guided our journey, Middle Land, Middle Way, and the Navel of the Earth: The History and Signficance of Bodh Gaya. He maintains a helpful website for those interested in this type of pilgrimage

http://www.buddhanet.net

In addition to itinerary suggestions, Dhammika offered Cris suggestions about which temples are most accommodating in Sarnath and Lumbini. In Bodh Gaya he suggested stopping in at the Mahabodhi Society to see if any pilgrim buses were making day trips to Rajgir and Nalanda (total of about 200km roundtrip). While they didn’t have any scheduled trips, they placed us in contact with a driver for the day. Krishna, the driver, presented himself at 7am in a gleaming brand new Toyota micro SUV. I could have cared less, however Cris (all 6’2” of him) was positively head over heels with the vehicle. It was the first really comfortable transportation experience since his arrival in this country. Astonishingly capable of maintaining the car’s pristine condition, Krishna fell toward the more agro end of the Indian driving spectrum, careening along the roads with occasional lurching stops to avoid other vehicles, potholes or livestock.

We arrived first at Rajgir where Krishna directed us to the dodgy chair lift arrangement which carried us up the rocky terrain to the top of Chhatha Hill which is crowned with the Shanti Stupa. Constructed by a Japanese monk back in the late 60s, the buildings nestle in the trees, and the spirit of the place, is truly quite graceful and beautifully done. Prayer flags were streaming off one side, fluttering in a light wind. I even found a rather unostentatious elegance to the gold Buddha images adorning the stupa. Our wanderings occurred to the tone of a single drum beat, deep and soft, which reverberated out like a slow heartbeat from the Nichiren temple there on the summit. This is the sect which roots its practice in the chanting of na myo ho ren ge kyo.

We descended by foot along a path which leads down and then up again to Gijjhakuta, the famous Vulture Peak, purportedly the Buddha’s favorite spot in Rajgir and where he delivered a variety of important discourse. Having been on the flat for the duration of our time in India, it was extraordinary to be in hills, rocky mountains with cleaner air and better visibility than I have seen anywhere. On the ascent of Vulture Peak, one passes two caves now adorned with pilgrims’ offerings of gold leaf, candles, katas (white silk scarves so critical in Tibetan culture/Buddhist practice), money and incense. We encountered pilgrim groups from Thailand and Sri Lanka, maybe 20 or so people in each, one group seated chanting at one of the caves, another further up.

Cris and I approached the lower of the two caves, empty but for us, and Cris turned around with bright shining eyes, “this is REAL!” And it was indeed. There was something so authentic and clear. Perhaps it was just being ‘outdoors’ in a way I haven’t been on this journey. A very sacred and serene quality pervaded the place. I continued on up to the summit. Seated in the main open area of ruins sat a group of Thai pilgrims, 3 saffron robed monks, the remainder of the group dressed in white. I climbed up on a bit of porous rock and sat facing south out on the valley. Initially the Thai group chanted…after a time they too fell silent. I sat in the silence of that valley. I could feel the sun’s warmth and the gentlest of breezes across every millimeter of skin on my face. I sat steeping in the beauty and intimacy of the moment, breathing in the silence and the wind and the energy of all the pilgrims who have come to that spot with reverence and intention and hope, hope for themselves perhaps, but I also would like to think hope for our world and what is possible in this life.

Later we continued onto the ruins of Nalanda. Beginning in the 6^th century and flourishing for some 700 years, Nalanda was a monumental Buddhist university, at its peak educating & housing 10-12,000 monks. Its halls, monasteries, and library met the same fate as other Buddhist institutions in India in the early 12^th century. Cris read somewhere that the library took 3 months to burn. If I recall correctly the ruins have only been excavated in the recent decades and work, evident during our visit, is still being done to preserve Nalanda’s remains. While the scale was undeniably extraordinary and thought provoking, my eyes and heart remained full all day from the precious morning visit at Gijjhakuta, Rajgir.

***

The temple grounds

were bustling when I arrived late

afternoon throngs, monastic and lay folk,

elders and children, Sri Lankan,

Tibetan, Caucasian, and Thai.

I settled on a tranquil corner

tucked up close

to a low wall, close

to several monks sitting

out of the fray.

Initially, human noise prevailed;

chatter, chanting, footsteps.

Light waned. Adhan cried out

from the mosque beyond

the temple gates.

Dusk rose, as did dampness

from the earth and the bird calls

swelled, filling trees and sky

drowning out human sound.

Pausing to unfold and recross my legs,

I opened my eyes to take in more

than sound. The monks close by, previously

wrapped crimson pyramids,

had packed up to head home.

Two of the young ones, maybe in their 20s,

returned, crouched feet before me

and carefully appraised two handfuls

of fallen Bodhi leaves, laying one

atop the other, even the dry crinkled ones,

not so amenable to stacking,

were delicately laid in the precious pile.

I smiled thinking of the scavenged leaves

nestled between journal pages within my bag.

Later still, the birds fell quiet,

the remaining human voices softened.

A small rodent came scritching

amongst the leaves.

The crickets began their rhythmic song

and the mute Bihari mosquitoes

danced upon my eyelids.

Mahabodhi Temple, BodhGaya, India