Namaste my fellow Americans.
Evangeline here (I’m the New Yorker that lacks the fun accent and has a confusing other identity known as “Eva”), this week I get the honor of sharing our latest adventures with you! Every week the Carpe students rotate specific roles and this week I’m the blogger! Other roles include “hot wheels”(responsible for our transportation), “cribs”(our housing), “gratitude”(expressing thanks to all our contacts along the journey), “Librarian” (carries our extra learning tools), and “wiki/blogger”(internet guru). But you’ll hear all about that when we are home.
I’m currently writing from an internet cafe in the beautifully tucked away village of Bir. We arrived here on October 7th after a leisurely 4 hour taxi ride from our previous home in McLeod Ganj. And by “leisurely” taxi ride, I mean a bumpy, curvy, nauseating, and frequently interrupted (by slowly passing or just sitting cows in the road) taxi ride. It really was a flawlessly beautiful ride though, full of breathtaking scenery right up till the doorstep of our new home, the perfectly picturesque, Deer Park Institute. Deer park was originally a monastery campus solely used for Buddhist monks to study and live, it now functions as a retreat center for different workshops, student groups and individual Buddhist practices.
Most of our days were scheduled as follows:
7-8:00 A.M Guided Meditation at Buddha Hall with Ajeer Ji
8-9:00 A.M Delicious Breakfast ( all our food was vegetarian and very health conscious, I’m sure the moms reading this are delighted so were we!)
9-10:00 Discussion and teaching with Ajeer Ji
10-10:30 tea break (essential)
10:30-12 Dharma talk with Khenpo
12-1:00 Delicious Lunch
2:30-4 Carpe group meeting and activities
4- 4:30 tea break (once again, very essential)
4:30-6 Discussion on Buddhist traditions
6-7:00 Delicious Dinner
7:30-8:00 PM Meditation with Ajeer Ji
As strenuous as our schedule was this week it was truly life changing. I personally gained many new insights on the value of traditional Tibetan Buddhism and how to insert the crucial common practices such as meditation and key virtues of “emptiness” and “detachment” into my own christian life. I can speak for the group when I say Deer Park really opened our eyes into a whole new realm of genuine spirituality. We all fell hopelessly in love with our Buddhist monk teacher, Khenpo. He graced us with many laughs and ridiculous western examples to get his lessons across such as “For example in America if there are no cows, then there are no cowboys. am i right?” No khenpo, no you are not.
What our good friend lacked in extensive English vocabulary he made up for in charisma. He certainly proved this when he took us on a field trip to a “monk college”. After ooohing and ahhing all over the landscape of this heavenly monastery we had a full court basketball game with the young monks who were casually hanging out on the court (And no they do not wear their maroon robes when they play…or when they sleep, we made sure we asked. They do however put them immediately back on when the last whistle blows). Embarrassingly enough they beat us. Obviously with complete grace, sportsmanship and love. I must admit that this was the quietest street-ball game I have ever played. They all had a great laugh or should I say “gentle monkish giggle” from the sidelines when our American trash talk naturally arose to the surface.
One more important highlight from our unforgettable week here at Deer park was our intimate interview with Tenzin Palmo. A world famous Buddhist nun who quickly inspired all of us to be present and mindful in all we do and to, as she puts it,
” Value your education. You can read what you want, understand it, question it, and you have the choice to accept it or not. Believe it or not you can not get that anywhere”
This truth is continuously coming alive for us as we fall in love with learning on the road. Thanks for supporting us in all our endeavors abroad we will be thinking of you as we head to a farm tonight and begin a week of learning about sustainable living!