At the moment it feels like my blog posts are going to take a serious cut in length. The only Internet we have found seems to be fairly fragile and not so convenient to get to. I have felt lucky to stay connected for longer than five minutes without something going wrong and I guess that is just one of the many changes we are all getting used to here. My guess is that we will become more familiar with the surroundings and find something that works out for us a little better, or learn to adapt to exactly what we have found and how we have found it.
Apart from trying to email my family, finish my blog posts and find teaching resources online I feel rather happy about my disconnectedness from the being "connected" world. Our lifestyle here in Bylakuppe has been simple and peaceful for the most part; with opportunities to travel to to some busy and happening Indian cities that more than make up for our peaceful times with all their clamor. A myriad of smells and sights are all around but I haven't found it shocking, overwhelming or "in your face" like many warned me it would be. I always felt that my time in the Philippines might have prepared me at least a little for what I would experience here, and it more than did. Although the culture is quite different, clothing styles, language etc. everything I see around me, the climate, the smells, vegetable and fruit stands all over the streets and along the highways, green and more green is all very familiar and so far even less intense, I would say, than things I've experienced before. In many ways I feel like I have come home and it's very happy.
Another happy thing is that today my English teaching classes got started. This is exciting news and has also made me a little nervous about my preparation. I hadn't planned on being able to hold full classes so I mostly planned for tutoring sessions and the possibility of joining a school where classes and curriculum for classes were already set up. Where I am staying has a staff that wants to learn or improve their English and they have a room and everything for me. There is an advanced class and a beginning class but within each are many, many different levels. Three classes and the many levels in each are two big obstacles I hadn't fully prepared for that have already come up. The people are all very kind and I hope to share with them what I know and help them to improve, but I hope they will be also patient and accepting of what I have to offer since I am also still learning.
I realized this post didn't get published when I first tried to do it - this really is fragile internet - and what did save was not all I had written. I no longer remember what I wrote to finish my post. So, before posting it and hopefully having it work today I will share a small account from a conversation I had with one of the Monks who lives where I am staying.
I told him that one of my sisters is married but does not yet have children. He looked a little surprised and concerned and then told me that children are important, in his words. His English is good but you can tell he struggles to express just what he might like to say, I liked the way he expressed it anyway. That is something wonderful about language, it is inadequate in so many ways - in expressing actual experience and feelings but the very sincere and attempted use of it between people to communicate truth can often be so enlightening. I remember feeling that way when I would hear the way people talked about certain things in Tagalog. I would suddenly realize I understood what they said, but also feel deeply that I had understood something very new about what they were talking about because of what these new words to express it with were teaching me.
This dear Buddhist Monk then said to me, "memories, children are memories," and it made so much sense. I don't think that's what he meant to say but the idea of it sounded lovely and enlightening as it came out of his mouth. He then said, "Two people must have one child as a memory, then two is another memory and the love grows and grows." In Buddhism the meaning of life or existence is in relationships and he demonstrated this understanding to me here. I understood the idea of a marital relationship and what building that can mean and the ways it happens and what love is more just because of his very simple expressions to me of very important truths. I think it was more powerful to me to hear after the conversation we had just been having about his own family.
He mistook my question to him about a young girl from the home there going on holiday and thought I was asking if he ever went on holiday. He looked at me somber faced and said that was a very difficult question for him. I could feel the sadness somewhere in his words. He explained to me that he is an only child and when he was still quite young his mother became ill. After looking after her for many months she passed, his father has also since passed. What he said was, "they have both left." Then he shook his head and made a motion with his hands going up and down to express how life can be, unpredictable and at times so hard. We both agreed that the great trials can make us stronger and more prepared later in life to better serve. He has such strong feelings about families and love being a part of life and yet he is alone and has no family now, but not. He's not alone because the Karuna home is his home. It is a home for the disabled that he helped to start. Karuna is compassion in sanskrit and it is truly a home of compassion.
Because it had been a holiday some of the children were returning or being visited by relations. During my conversation a man came and talked with a beautiful young Tibetan girl in a small pink wheelchair. He looked at her lovingly, took her picture and handed her a choice of candy from a bag and a gelatin treat of her choice. She chose pink and then sat there and slurped it out of the cup while my friend the monk went and talked with the man before he left. He then sat and talked with and smiled at the children who had been crowding around trying to get into the pictures or peeking at the candy in the bags.
I stared ahead of me at the beautiful green trees and big flowers, not really seeing them but rather seeing the whole vision of what was in my periphery, the children, the smiles, the humanity. what my friend had said at the start of our conversation came to mind, "This home is good. No matter who you are, Buddhist, Christian, anything as long as you are human this is good." I was surprised by the tears that started to form in my eyes, I felt overwhelmed by the entire experience but no tears ever fell. The formation of them simply reminded me that I was feeling and to recognize it and remember the moment. I think I always will.
Apart from trying to email my family, finish my blog posts and find teaching resources online I feel rather happy about my disconnectedness from the being "connected" world. Our lifestyle here in Bylakuppe has been simple and peaceful for the most part; with opportunities to travel to to some busy and happening Indian cities that more than make up for our peaceful times with all their clamor. A myriad of smells and sights are all around but I haven't found it shocking, overwhelming or "in your face" like many warned me it would be. I always felt that my time in the Philippines might have prepared me at least a little for what I would experience here, and it more than did. Although the culture is quite different, clothing styles, language etc. everything I see around me, the climate, the smells, vegetable and fruit stands all over the streets and along the highways, green and more green is all very familiar and so far even less intense, I would say, than things I've experienced before. In many ways I feel like I have come home and it's very happy.
Another happy thing is that today my English teaching classes got started. This is exciting news and has also made me a little nervous about my preparation. I hadn't planned on being able to hold full classes so I mostly planned for tutoring sessions and the possibility of joining a school where classes and curriculum for classes were already set up. Where I am staying has a staff that wants to learn or improve their English and they have a room and everything for me. There is an advanced class and a beginning class but within each are many, many different levels. Three classes and the many levels in each are two big obstacles I hadn't fully prepared for that have already come up. The people are all very kind and I hope to share with them what I know and help them to improve, but I hope they will be also patient and accepting of what I have to offer since I am also still learning.
I realized this post didn't get published when I first tried to do it - this really is fragile internet - and what did save was not all I had written. I no longer remember what I wrote to finish my post. So, before posting it and hopefully having it work today I will share a small account from a conversation I had with one of the Monks who lives where I am staying.
I told him that one of my sisters is married but does not yet have children. He looked a little surprised and concerned and then told me that children are important, in his words. His English is good but you can tell he struggles to express just what he might like to say, I liked the way he expressed it anyway. That is something wonderful about language, it is inadequate in so many ways - in expressing actual experience and feelings but the very sincere and attempted use of it between people to communicate truth can often be so enlightening. I remember feeling that way when I would hear the way people talked about certain things in Tagalog. I would suddenly realize I understood what they said, but also feel deeply that I had understood something very new about what they were talking about because of what these new words to express it with were teaching me.
This dear Buddhist Monk then said to me, "memories, children are memories," and it made so much sense. I don't think that's what he meant to say but the idea of it sounded lovely and enlightening as it came out of his mouth. He then said, "Two people must have one child as a memory, then two is another memory and the love grows and grows." In Buddhism the meaning of life or existence is in relationships and he demonstrated this understanding to me here. I understood the idea of a marital relationship and what building that can mean and the ways it happens and what love is more just because of his very simple expressions to me of very important truths. I think it was more powerful to me to hear after the conversation we had just been having about his own family.
He mistook my question to him about a young girl from the home there going on holiday and thought I was asking if he ever went on holiday. He looked at me somber faced and said that was a very difficult question for him. I could feel the sadness somewhere in his words. He explained to me that he is an only child and when he was still quite young his mother became ill. After looking after her for many months she passed, his father has also since passed. What he said was, "they have both left." Then he shook his head and made a motion with his hands going up and down to express how life can be, unpredictable and at times so hard. We both agreed that the great trials can make us stronger and more prepared later in life to better serve. He has such strong feelings about families and love being a part of life and yet he is alone and has no family now, but not. He's not alone because the Karuna home is his home. It is a home for the disabled that he helped to start. Karuna is compassion in sanskrit and it is truly a home of compassion.
Because it had been a holiday some of the children were returning or being visited by relations. During my conversation a man came and talked with a beautiful young Tibetan girl in a small pink wheelchair. He looked at her lovingly, took her picture and handed her a choice of candy from a bag and a gelatin treat of her choice. She chose pink and then sat there and slurped it out of the cup while my friend the monk went and talked with the man before he left. He then sat and talked with and smiled at the children who had been crowding around trying to get into the pictures or peeking at the candy in the bags.
I stared ahead of me at the beautiful green trees and big flowers, not really seeing them but rather seeing the whole vision of what was in my periphery, the children, the smiles, the humanity. what my friend had said at the start of our conversation came to mind, "This home is good. No matter who you are, Buddhist, Christian, anything as long as you are human this is good." I was surprised by the tears that started to form in my eyes, I felt overwhelmed by the entire experience but no tears ever fell. The formation of them simply reminded me that I was feeling and to recognize it and remember the moment. I think I always will.
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