Maintaining Perfect Equanimity...

Vipassana is a Buddhist meditation technique. Supposedly, it was invented by Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha himself, and was preserved throughout the years in Burmese monasteries until it was introduced to the rest of the world by Goenkaji and his Dhamma Organization a few decades ago.
The first third of the course is dedicated to "Ana Pana Meditation"- observing the natural flow of respiration. This is quite difficult because 1) at first it's quite difficult to concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds and 2) whenever you concentrate on your respiration it immediately becomes controlled and therefore unnatural (try it yourself and see!). After 3 days of practice and "Noble Silence" the mind relaxes and you gain some ability to separate the observing part of the mind from the controlling one.
The last two thirds of the course are the actual Vipassana, or "Internal Insight" practice. The attention is gradually shifted from respiration to sensations by scanning each and every part of the body. With practice the mind's sensitivity to these sensations becomes enhanced, and by the end of the course one feels all kinds of until-then unfamiliar sensations. Is it pleasant? Not necessarily. I did feel my blood pumping in my arteries and sometimes even gentle vibrations throughout my skin surface (a sensation called "Free Flow" in the courses terminology). Yet some sensations were all but pleasant, especially the pain caused due to the long hours of motionlessness.

Get to the point...
So why are all these sensations important? The idea is to experience first-hand the impermanence of all sensations and thus to change our life-long habits of pursuing good sensations and avoiding bad ones. Hence practicing the technique is supposed to help one develop the famous Buddhist Equanimity.

* * *

On the morning of the eleventh day I stood at the gates of the Dhamma Bodhi center blinking at the world that awaited me outside. I felt extremely calm and in control. It was weird to start talking again, my voice sounded strange and unfamiliar. Of course, I returned to "normality" a few days later, but I'd definitely say the course did me good, and I even try to practice now and then.
That doesn't mean I forgot to collect my skepticism and cynicism from the center's reception.

You are bound to be successful...

The first step in the course is vowing to keep 5 precepts: to refrain from lying, using any kind of intoxicants, all sexual activity, stealing and killing. The latter turned out to be the most difficult to follow due to the five-lane ant highway passing right through my bedroom. The next commitment, for which this course is so notorious, is “Nobel Silence”. During the first 9 days of the course any kind of communication with other meditators is prohibited, as well as reading, writing, music and physical exercise.

All the teachings in the course are actually in remote control. “The Teacher”, S.N. Goenka-ji, is 81 years old and can hardly teach anymore. Instead, all his instructions and discourses were audio and video taped and the residing Assistant Teacher’s job is reduced to merely pressing the Play and Stop buttons at the appropriate time. Ours didn’t even speak English.
A generic meditation session begins with each meditator taking his or her designated place in the “Dhamma Hall”. I sat in the front row, usually on my knees, rarely in the Semi-Lotus posture. On my left hand side, on an elevated wooden bench, sat the course’s mascot: a shaved-head, life-sized, orange and crimson clad Buddhist monk. After we all got comfy the Assistant Teacher pressed Play and the hall was filled with Goenka-ji’s deep, vibrating voice:

Start agaaaaain….Staaaaart agaaaain….
Staaart with a caaaaalm and quite miiiind…..
Balanced and equanimous mind, equanimous mind….
Focus your entire attention on the small triangular area, with the base of the upper lip.
Whatever sensation crops up on this part of the body- just observe, just obseeeerve….
Maintaining peeerfect equanimity….
Work diligently, diligently….
Work paaaatiently and persistently, patiently and persistently….
You are bound to be successful… bound to be successful…
(Stop)

After an hour or so of meditating, Play is pressed again for five minutes of chanting, followed by a blessing in Pali: “Bavata Sava Mangelam” (may all beings be happy) and the crowd (cynical skeptics included) answers: “Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu” (well said, well said, well said).

Mangal Ho! ("Be Happy!")

I entered the “Dhamma Bodhi Meditation Centre” compound in Bodhgaya a day before the Vipassana course began. It had the look of an ex-army camp, surrounded by a high wall scattered with glass shreds (to keep us in or to keep everybody else out?). The pre-monsoon weather was hot and dry, and the compound was almost completely barren, save for a small patch of sunflowers with a sign next to it:

The vegetation is essential for the relaxing atmosphere in the Dhamma centre. Do not pluck any leaves or fruits within the centre compound. Be Happy!

Almost all the students were Indians, a good sign indicating this wasn’t an “export-spiritualism” course. I deposited my guitar, all my books and money and also my cynicism and skepticism at the reception. I’ve made up my mind to be as silent as the abbot of Latroune and as devoted as the Dalai Lama, at least for the coming ten days.

Barbershop Decoration

Bengali Tola is the main tourist street in Varanasi. “Main” doesn’t imply “big”, in fact it is so narrow it can be easily blocked by a single cow, and indeed it often is.
I walked the other day into a barbershop in Bengali Tola for a shave. For 15 Rs You can get an excellent, clean cut shave plus a complimentary face massage in any barbershop in India. Trusting my face with stranger’s hands always makes me nervous, and for a good reason too: I ended up with some nasty cuts a few times in the past.
I sat down and the guy started applying shaving cream, foaming it with a brush. As I was trying to relax, I noticed a colorful poster right in front of me, above the mirror.
At the bottom of the picture, in a pool of blood, lay a cow, tears running down from it’s closed eyes and it’s tongue sticking out to make the point clear: it had been slain. Above it stood a pale-skinned, mustached man wearing a strange armor (Greek? Mughal?), holding a blood stained crooked sword. From behind the cow corps, mounted on a roaring lion, charged Durga, the terrible form of the goddess Devi. In her many arms she held an assortment of bloody weapons: a sword, an axe, a spear, a live cobra etc. Not loosing her calm, benevolent smile, she jabbed a trident (symbol of the Trimurti, the Indian divine trinity) in the left abdomen of the terrified cow killer (more blood gushing out).
The barber put away the brush, fixed a new blade to the razor and started practicing his art.

In the Bowels of the Monster

After a hectic day of wondering around the ancient temples of Kujarhao, I arrived back in Satna at 21:30, content for having two hours and half before my train. Enough time, I thought, to retrieve my luggage from the Cloak Room (the British name for baggage custody), have a quick shower and eat dinner, when I discovered my baggage receipt is missing- I must have mistakenly thrown it away during the day. Not a big problem, I hoped, wrongly assessing the determination of the monster of Indian Bureaucracy.
"I can not help you sir", shouted the cloak room clerk, "Come back tomorrow with a court bond and I'll give you your luggage back."
"But my train is due in two hours...Look", I tried appealing to his common sense, "My name is written on the bag, and inside it there's a copy of my passport..."
The clerk sensibly claimed that while my passport can be easily forged in any half-descent laboratory, the receipt (needless to say, a plain piece of paper) is a formal document of the Republic of India and therefore irreplaceable.
Determined not to give up, I went to the station manager, who listened to my story sympathetically and instructed me to report to the GRP (Railway Police office). The constable made me write a formal complaint (in two copies), then passed it to the Sergeant, who passed it to the GRP commander. At this stage (90 minutes to my train's departure) I cautiously tried the old Baksheesh:
"In my country it is possible to pay an immediate fine, couldn't I just..."
"No, I'm sorry but we have very strict rules here in India", said the commander, and sent me, along with his Sergeant, with a rickshaw to the Satna Police Department.
Thirty minute later I found myself in a police jeep with five local policemen, wondering the dark streets of Satna in search of a civil court notary who could issue the necessary bond. 50 minutes to T time, I started to enjoy the situation, realizing the with all due respect to the elaborate erotic sculptures of Kujarhao, this cruise in the police jeep will be the thing I remember the most of this day. The first attempt was rather unsuccessful: the clerk's wife came out yelling something in Hindi- I imagine he was asleep or simply couldn't be bothered with stupid foreigners loosing their receipts. The second one, however, was quite cooperative, and after filling yet another form and paying the sum of ten Rupees (1 shekel!) I got the priceless court bond.
The adventure climaxed with me running on the platform, all my possessions restored, just in time to board the train to Varanasi.
If you learn nothing else about India, learn this: Never appeal to a bureaucrat's common sense, and never, ever, lose your Cloak Room receipt.

Shir-Khan or Tony the Tiger?

On my way to Varanasi, I diverged to visit Kanah National Park, the original setting of Kipling's "Jungle Book" and one of the best places to see tigers in India. I was convinced this to be my last chance to see tigers in the wild, knowing how badly conservation efforts are carried out. Just three days earlier I read in the paper of yet another park in which all tigers mysteriously "disappeared".
"We are currently making necessary investigations to see if the tigers have gone elsewhere"
was the official statement by the head park official. Indeed, I believe they are on their way, in bits and pieces, eastward to the black markets of China.
Upon arriving in Kanah, I was explained of the effective "system" for watching tigers in the park. First, the park rangers set off before dawn to track them down, following their marks and paying attention to distinctive alarm sounds made by potential prey. Once found, the tigers are surrounded by trained elephants, of which they are terrified, thus keeping them at bay. Next come the tourists, having paid 600 Rupees each, mounted on other trained, broken-spirited elephants, to watch the tigers up-close and take some photos.
Disturbed as I was by this method, I decided to go through with it, having gone this far already. When we approached the catch of the day, a magnificent big male, I expected to find it afraid and alert, as I assume a cornered down wild animal should be. Instead, the tiger lay quietly on its side, waving its massive yellow paw now and then to drive away the flies. Its eyes revealed a mixture of patience and boredom. It just seemed used to it all.
Hmm, I thought, I have seen this look before somewhere: in the safari zoo in Ramat-Gan.
"Actually, this is a good day. Usually Indian tourists shout at the tiger to make it look at them, for taking photos" said the ranger.

Prolog

After writing a couple of things and mailing them to some of you, I decided to follow my brother’s advice and start a blog. That way the initiative stays on the readers’ side: you know the address, of you’re interested, read it, if you aren’t, don’t. I don’t expect to post more often than once a week, but who knows. One more thing: I do not carry a dictionary with me, so please disregard any spelling, grammar or vocabulary mistakes.

A blog by any other name…
A Sadhu is a wondering, ash smeared and mostly naked Hindu ascetic. Not exactly the crowd I feel kinship to here in India. Sadhu also means something like “well said” in Pali, language of the ancient Buddhist scriptures. Electric may refer to my former profession. The name was actually inspired by The Electric Monk, a character in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency:

"The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe."

I changed Monk into Sadhu to give it an Indian aroma, but also because the name Electric Monk was already taken by another blog.

Playing the Electric Monk
One of the things I knew I’d have to put up with here is the New Age. Spirituality is the bread and butter (or daal and roti) of western tourists in India, and anything goes: Hinduism and Buddhism, naturally, but also Ayurvedic medicine, Reiki, Palmistry, Astrology and much more. The silliest thing I encountered was The Mayan Calendar. A nice Israeli guy who spoke of little else introduced it to me.

It’s more exact, you see, because every year has 13 months of 20 days each.
So?
So the astrology is more scientific, you understand.

The Mayan Calendar is supposedly based on archeological findings in Yukatan, but in order to make it “cooler” and more “21st century” it contains many pseudo-scientific words such as “magnetic” and “galactic”, along side the collection of wizards, warriors and beasts you usually find in this kind of things. The calendar also prophesizes the world as we know it will end on December 21, 2012. To give you a gist of it, here’s my own Mayan horoscope, supplied by a keen devotee. Draw your own conclusions.

June 15, 1976: Crystal moon day 17, year of the White Solar Wizard
I am a White Galactic Mirror
I harmonize in order to Reflect, modeling Order.
I seal the Matrix of Endlessness with the Galactic tone of Integrity.
I am guided by the power of Spirit.

New Age people consider themselves open-minded and tolerant. Anything goes, anything but skepticism. To doubt anything, preposterous as it may be, to say “that doesn’t make any sense to me” or more honestly “I think that’s utter nonsense” is to be considered narrow minded and even rude. I was once declared “spiritually challenged” by someone. Atheism, of course, is regarded as blindness at best, outright madness at worst.
So, many times I prefer playing the Electric Monk, saying “I believe you”, hoping this will bring the discussion to an end.