"Through many births I sought in vain
The builder of this house of pain.
NOw, builder, thee I plainly see!
This is the last abode for me.
Thy gable's yoke and rafters broke,
My heart has peace. All lust will cease."
After a cold month in Bhagsu, the hippie/Punjabi tourist romantic get away village next to Dahramssala, we take the road back to Nepal. Patenkhot to Gorakpur to Saunali to Kathmandu, a 3 day travel by land in buses and train. Hours of flat landscape going along the border area passes outside the bars of the train. Hours of mountain roads behind the crowded bus window.
Kathmandu, the city of carved wood, welcomes us with one of Nepal's many strikes or other form of general anarchy.
Buses have been lining up on the mountain road, unable to move since 6 in the morning. It is now about 6 in the evening. A local village kid got killed by a bus accident. The local villagers discuss the cost of this life with the bus company. They won't let go off traffic until an agreement is settled. The law specifies a price for road accidents. The law also says that if the victim is alive, the guilty part has to pay hospital costs. It is then cheaper to drive back and finish the victim off. Watch out for cows, a cow accident cost more than a human being accident. By 22 the line of buses starts moving again. Nobody complains, everyone sitting patiently, making time pass with the music playing on cell phones, small talks, a make shift noodle shop, and infinite patience. Everyday is a good day when life is hard. That's just the way it is.
Welcome to the top of the world, where they "take care of sacred things", ney =holy place, pal= care taker. Nepal and its himalayas, a small country stuck between 2 giants: India and China.
"There is self and there is truth. Where self is, truth is not. Where truth is, self is not."
"You ask big questions about life and everything. We just ask for thali 2 times a day." I hear one day as I am getting lost in some philosophical mumble jumble labyrinth.
"Yeah, but if you give a man thali 2 times a day, after a point the man might start asking questions about this and that." I think to myself.
Nepal just celebrated its new year, for the Bikram calendar we are in 2066. To celebrate, we drink the local Tibetaine beer, tumgpa. A pint like container filled with warm millet grains, onto which we pour hot water. A bit like a japanese sake taste, with alcohol content depending on the maker.
Nepal is a young country of just 300 years since the unification of various kingdoms into a nation. A country busy in trying to form a New Nepal, a new democracy. The new president just fired the prime minister, head maoist. Something about the constant struggle between the conservative Royal Army and the once terrorist now politician maoist powers. Something about the football teams. The explanations always seem a bit fuzzy, as for any political discourse in general. The fact is that Nepal has not yet known any long period of stability. A king kills another king, the army takes over for a little while, a new king is put in power, everybody wants to be the king for a day. Or at least eat thali 2 times a day (the national dish of rice and lentils and veggies)... as for any social system or so it seems...
"Self is the fleeting error of samsara; it is individual seperatness and that egotism which begets envy and hatred. Self is the yearning for pleasure and the lust after vanity."
I remember the first time I came to Kathmandu. I left after 4 days and went back to Pokhara. No way I was staying in such a muddy, noisy, busy place. More than a year later, The City Of Carved Wood has become a home for a while. I have my habits, the type of habits we make when we stay anywhere for a few months. The places for a good pot of tea, the one for the late night sandwitch, the best chowmein, good thalis. The spot for a favorite breakfast. Some streets become favorites, for taking walks around when a walk is needed.
They become favorites for minute details. For a tree in a corner, a juice spot with a friendly smile, a graphiti, the soda place across the bridge to take a break after Swanbunath aka Monkey temple, the chai in the city square filled with local hipsters by the little stupa. The best streets to get bathed in a crowd of multicolor saris and shiny beads, metal balls and market dwellers. The favorite shortcuts, the garden spots to get out of the busy streets for a bit of quietness and a juicy trout barbecue.
"Everything comes and goes" says the Buddha born in what is now Nepal about 2500 years ago. A few days ago, the city was celebrating his birthday, a special Purnima for the buddhists of the city.
"BUddha wasn't enlightened" says Saunil, one of the Nepale boys working in the tattoo shop. "He was just a really smart guy for the time. If the same guy came around today, he would not be anything special."
We make a few jokes about the Buddha, wandering if he smoked chillums in the forest or not. Saunil is more interested in pondering how to ask out a girl in school that he likes him, that what Buddha might have said.
"Truth is the correct comprehension of things; it is the permanent and everlasting, the real in all existence, the bliss of righteousness."
Everything is transient.
"My house in the hill, I have no fear to have" says an old Nepale man on a mountain trail as he's picking up a water jug from the river.
Like the tourist in Nepal, coming and going. People come to the top of the world to do treks in the Himalayas, to renew their visa or to come pick up products for export. Most tourists dont spend more than a week or 2 in the city. The long term foreigners staying in Nepal are for the most part French and Japanese. Many do various volunteer jobs, building schools, bio mass devices, teaching english. As in any developping countries, Nepal has plenty of NGO's offering opportunities at various prices to any interested in such jobs. Nepal's main revenue is foreign help, of which one has to wander where does all that help hide besides the nice NGO's cars driving around and unfinished projects around the mountains. Others set up businesses, making goat cheese, organic lapsi jellies or setting up business, guest houses or coconut art. For a couple weeks stay to many years, to any nature or adventure lovers, Nepal offers all that you could dream of.
"Cheap and best" with all the pros and cons of what cheap and best can be.
"The existence of self is an illusion, and there is no wrong in this world, no vice, no evil, except what flows from the assertion of self."
Back in the city after 6 months in the country, I readjust to my new urban setting.
Floating between the tattoo shop, looking the streets pass by with the shop keepers, the UPF office, chai, my room in the garden, thali, Om Mani Padme Om in the morning and 80's rock bands at night, the white bed sheets drying in the sun under the dust particles and a stupa filled with pigeons. We go 8 days in the mountains, to Gosaikunda, 108 lakes at 4700 meters high.
We walk around the city with passing visitors. We dream with UPF about all the things we can do for Nepal, and we do a few. Smoke chillum with baba stories and rock music playing outside the window. Sit outside my room, in the little garden, watching Nepals very special polen smoke becoming the clouds in the sky passing on top of the building. The clouds up there seem to be playing flute as well.
"Can you paint a big Buddha on the wall on the garden wall?" Ram asks.
"Sure. Which Buddha would you like? Fat Buddha, hungry buddha, Medecine Buddha, a vajra Buddha or?" I ask feeling a bit like a moccha seller.
"Oh, your choice. Make this one" as Ram points to the poster of Buddha on a wall of the guest house. It's a classic Benares Buddha, at Deer park, where he gave his first sermont, glowing with plants and animals behind him.
"You got paints?" I ask.
"Ok, we get the paints you want. And free thali for you."
Cool. I get a few thalis for painting a big buddha. Keeping going with my Sacred Heart series of paintings that I started in Goa, this medecine buddha will be holding a sacred heart instead of a container. I figure that the heart is a good metaphore for any container.
"The attainment of truth is possible only when self is recognized as an illusion. Perfect peace can dwell only when all vanity has disappeared." Buddha mumbles sitting on a passing cloud, a chillum in his hand.
Or is it a flute?
See you soon with pictures from Gosaikunda lakes at 4700 meters up.
Quotes from The Gospel Of Buddha by Paul Carus, a highly recommended compilation of ancient text depicting the life of Buddha.
