Burmese Days

Why did I go to Myanmar?

The obvious reason was for tourism.  Without exception, every traveler I had met who had been to Burma said that it was one of the peak travel adventures of their life.  Many talked of the amicable people, the rough transit and the traditional dress, describing an "authentic" (read: most closely conforming to idealized imaginations) travel experience.

A second reason I went to Myanmar, or so I told myself, was to bear witness.  In 1962 the military took control of the Burmese government, initially to establish peace in a country descending into civil war.  Since then the military leaders have ignored and/or rigged election results, refusing the Burmese people's wish to self-govern, and have instituted a rather repressive regime, restricting the citizen's freedoms, jailing political opponents for inhumane periods of time, utilizing forced labor, etc.

In 1996 the leaders of the Burmese democratic movement, along with certain human rights NGOs and western governments instituted a tourism boycott on Burma in an attempt to isolate the country and hope that regime change would come from the inside.  Though not all tourists respected the boycott, for fifteen years Burma received few visitors when compared with its South East Asian neighbors.  I myself was torn over whether or not to respect the tourism boycott, as there has long been considerable disagreement as to whether it had been an effective means of instituting regime change.  In contrast, it had most certainly contributed to the suffering of the Burmese people.  But this past November the National League for Democracy, with the support of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, lifted the boycott for "independent" travelers, hoping to inform the world of the conditions in Burma.  For me, the ethical dilemma had suddenly and unexpectedly been removed and I was at the Myanmar Embassy in Kathmandu within days.

A final reason to go to Burma was to study and practice meditation.  Burma has a reputation for teaching meditation as practiced by the Buddha, a kind of "pure" technique.  Obviously there's a lot of dispute about this, but no one argues that the Burmese method has produced some amazing masters and teachers.

Throughout my time in Myanmar these three aims - tourism, a kind of psuedo-humanitarian interest, and meditation - were at play and often in conflict.  Would I spend my days in Sagaing visiting the various monasteries or meditating?  Should I stay and relax amongst the inspiring plain of pagodas in Bagan or go out to a more remote village to meet the people and spend some money?  How much time out of my twenty-eight day visa should I put aside for a serious meditation retreat?  It was a constant and difficult balancing act.

That said, I'll spend just a couple sentences on the tourism aspect, to say that the two major tourist destinations in Myanmar - Bagan and Inle Lake - are absolutely spectacular and it's pretty remarkable how relatively little known they are.  Also, I cannot overstate the incredible friendliness of the people of Myanmar.  I wish I had more time to relate just a few examples of times when someone went far out of their way to make sure I was okay, taken care of and happy, without any hope or expectation of being repaid for their kindness.

I'll spend more time on the second point, fulfilling my responsibility to relate what I could see of the everyday impact the repressive military regime has on the Burmese people.  I was amazed how eager many of the Burmese were to voice their unhappiness with the political situation, considering the danger they put themselves in to do so, with nearly every taxi driver or bus companion mentioning the great difficulty their family and country must deal with on a daily basis.  Since I'm not a journalist and certainly wasn't doing any investigation and am not equipped to deliver analysis, below I pass on just a few stories of the people I met and things I saw along the way.  Obviously these are only the most superficial observations and the sufferings of the Burmese people goes much deeper than I would know.

1. On top of Shwedagon Paya, the spiritual epicenter of Burmese Buddhism, I met a former university history professor.  At the age of sixty-four, after an entire life of in the classroom and one year away from receiving his pension, the professor was fired from his job and was replaced with someone who would teach a revisionist version of Burmese history.  Now the highly educated man, without any source of income or manual skill set, had been forced to sell his Yangoon apartment and was looking to become a monk, relying on alms for sustenance.
2. In the Yangoon bus park a man was kind enough to lead me to the proper bus which would take me to Mandalay.  The Burmese was a journalist and when I asked whether he worked for a good newspaper he responded with an unequivocal "no."  It seems all newspapers in Burma are censored by the government, the people unable to read any news of the world that has not previously been reviewed and approved by the military.  This seemed confirmed when just a few days ago I found a newspaper in the English language that spent two entire pages on various casualties taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan (highlighting the evil of democratic governments), but not one mention of the protests and regime change that have been disrupting the Arab world.
3. In a three-day trek across the northern mountains, my guide was an extremely intelligent man in his early twenties who would undoubtedly have a job using his exceptional mind in nearly any other country in the world.  When he saw my copy of Thant Myint-U's The River of Lost Footsteps, a fabulous book on the history of Burma that had been banned by the government, he was incredibly eager for me to give it to him when I had finished reading it.  It seems that at the risk of perhaps decade-long imprisonment, him and his friends share a small library of material censored by the government, including not only books with a real history of their country, but also titles such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984.

Obviously there are plenty of other examples.  In addition, the results of years of international sanctions and government corruption have led to a  poverty and daily struggle amongst the Burmese which is obvious and pervasive.

Being fairly uneducated about the situation I hesitate to give an opinion, but can't resist saying that it seems pretty obvious to me that calling off the tourism boycott for independent travelers can only help the plight of the Burmese who, without exception, were desperate and thrilled to see both me and my dollars.  Also, it's pretty clear that the international sanctions have not worked and have only served to deepen the suffering of the common Burmese, a position that both Obama and Clinton seemed to be taking during their respective campaigns, but which I don't think has yet materialized into a change in policy.  Finally, while the international political and media treatment of Myanmar tends to focus on Aung Sang Suu Kyi and a call for democracy, there is a lot more going on here including long-running armed conflict in border regions, and I for one am not convinced that a sudden transition to democracy can work in a country with a long history of geo-ethnic based divisions and violence and virtually no educated middle class (sound familiar?).  But what do I know.

I spent the last seven days in Myanmar at Mahasi Meditation Center, the country's most famous setting for the study of Vipassana, the Theravadan meditation method.  The retreat was drastically different than the western-student-oriented course in which I participated in Nepal.  Here it was just two Koreans and me being the only foreign male layman yogis attempting to follow the monk's daily schedule of eighteen hours of meditation a day as best we could (obviously I was not quite able to do it).  While the meditation was extremely rigorous and difficult, it was ultimately very rewarding.  Although I echo my buddy Pete who stated that after his Vipassana experience his body felt as if he had been beaten with hockey sticks (yep, he's Canadian).

So that was Myanmar. I realize that some of the last few posts have taken a kind of heavy turn, I didn't intend it and my trip really hasn't been dark at all, actually quite the opposite, but it's been the most interesting stuff to write about.  I had written a fun post about my stay in Sagaing, but the internet connection in Myanmar cut out before I saved it.  Maybe I will try and recreate, but if not, I promise to lighten it up a bit in the near future.  In any case, I promise not to depress you with today's visit to the Cambodian killing fields.

Here's what some of Myanmar looks like:

Layla

On a stopover in Bangkok to connect flights on my journey from Myanmar to Cambodia I was able to call my parents for the first time in about a month only to learn that they had put my dog Layla to sleep the night before.  There were no signs that Layla was sick when I left the states four months ago, so I can't remember specifically saying goodbye to her, though I'm sure I did.

We don't really do many things with our pets.  We sit with them and pet them.  Occasionally we walk with them.  But we can't really share a meal with them.  We can't have meaningful conversations with them. We can't celebrate or laugh or cry with them.  We must simply Be with them.  For me the deep sadness one feels when losing a pet underscores the truth that what matters most in our interactions with others is not what you do with them, but simply that you Are with them.  Even when you're far away.

Layla, may you have happiness and the ultimate causes of happiness, wherever you are.

YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE??

You're in the jungle, baby!  Chitwan National Park to be more precise.  The concept of a "jungle walk" sounds okay in theory, but then you're actually out on even footing with the tigers and bears and leopards and elephants and rhinos and you realize the guide's stick isn't going to offer much protection when one of these mother sentient beings comes charging for you.  Nor are you calmed by the guide's advice on how to "defend" against an attack:

Rhino:  Climb a tree (analyzing every single tree I passed along the way for its potential as an escape route, I can tell you this is not a realistic plan of action).

Tiger:  Maintain eye contact and don't run (ooookkk!).

Sloth Bear:  Stay in a group and make as much noise as possible, and if necessary, fight.  (My guides seemed legitimately concerned that I would abandon them in the event of an attack, asking twice that I help out if we encounter an angry sloth bear.  I got you Prakash and Sunina, no worries.)

Elephant:  Pray.

So the entire walk is fairly unnerving.  When I asked one of the guides whether she had ever been attacked by an animal her response was "sometimes".  Actually, I learned that it is not so unusual, so I was somewhat glad to have encountered only deer, monkeys and a peaceful rhino during my walk.

Oh yea, upon arriving in Chitwan I caught the final day of the 2010 International Elephant Festival, which included elephant soccer and elephant races.  That was weird.

That's about a wrap on Nepal.  Hard to believe that I just about took my ninety day visa to its limit.  Although in the last couple days I have noticed myself unconsciously doing the Indian/Nepali head waggle which can be used to express just about anything - acquiescence, gratitude, directives, apologies - depending on the situation.  (At least that's when I've noticed myself doing it - perhaps the Nepalis think it's weird I keep signaling "yes" to them in all kinds of inappropriate situations).

From here I take my waggling head to Myanmar/Burma for twenty-eight days.  I'm pretty sure I won't be blogging from Burma, so it could be as late as February before there's another post, but you never know.

As Simon put it, happy extremely merely labeled new year!

A Very Kathmandu Christmas

My ancestors would be happy to know that despite all this Buddhist practice, I kept the sacred traditions of Judaism alive this holiday season, making sure to enjoy a fine Chinese meal on Christmas Eve.  Actually, it felt like a pretty authentic experience as the food was amazing, and the place was filled with Chinamen (in this case, I believe it is the preferred nomenclature) shouting and smoking cigarettes through the meal.  After dinner we tried to complete the Jewish Christmas by going to see a movie, but alas, there was no showing on this most holy of nights.

I'm again spending some time in Kathmandu proper, as I wait for the Burmese embassy to work out my visa.  So today my buddy Simon and I went over to Pashuputinath, a Hindu holy temple complex outside of Kathmandu.  Pashuputinath is very Indian.  Dodging a gauntlet of beggars with horrific disfigurements, we entered the complex running along the Bagmati, which looks more like a stream of sludge running through a garbage dump than any river I've seen.  Wandering sadhus use Pashuputinath as a kind of home base, so around each corner of the complex Simon and I would bump into another half-naked, face-painted, dreadlocked, holy man.  Most of the sadhus just hunker down with a blanket in whatever corner of the complex they can find, though higher up the river there are some caves in which some of these most revered Hindus set up tiny temporary meditation/sleeping coves.

While young and filthy street kids played in the slime and gangs of monkeys climbed and fought their way around the temple walls, Simon and I sat and watched a few of the human cremations in progress.  It's a sight I witnessed last time around in India, but today we stood on an overlook more or less right on top of the funeral pyre, watching as the weeping family laid the body on the wood pile and lit the fire that would consume their loved one's form.   As in Varanasi, there is a kind of hospice situation (i.e., a row of beds) no more than one hundred meters away from the burning ghats where the dying can smell their oncoming fate, inhaling a mix of air and ash with their final breaths.

Not sure what else to say about this one. You might think that after spending six weeks thinking a lot about death that I'd be able to internalize the experience a little better, but the ego still refuses to really UNDERSTAND that no, that is not a fake body, yes, just days or possibly hours ago it was a real living person like me and everyone else, yes, someday my body also will be put on a funeral pyre or buried or fed to vultures or whatever.  So we just sat, watching and failing to get it, until we felt we had inhaled enough dead people for the day.

Wow, that one got intense kind of quickly, eh?  Happy Holidays everybody!!!!

Oh, since the last post a few people have mentioned to me that they went out and bought Awakening the Buddha Within.  Please keep in mind I'm not getting kickbacks here people.  Awakening is fantastic, inspiring and entertaining, but its quite long and towards the end becomes very meat and potatoes practice talk, so if anyone is actually interested in this stuff, you might drop me a line privately, as I may have a Dharma book suggestion that is more suited for your own unique and wonderful personality.

The Dharma Project

My first real introduction to the teachings of the Buddha (the "Dharma") came in the form of a book I read when I was in college: Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das.  Lama Das - originally Jeffrey Miller, a Jewish guy from Long Island - had given up a possible future as a New York City attorney to move to the east, study Buddhism, and become a highly regarded teacher in the Tibetan tradition.  For many years Awakening sat unopened in a prominent place on my bookshelf, and I consequently forgot the specifics of Lama Das' story, such as where he had gone to study the Dharma. Nonetheless, the book had inspired me and set off a chain of events such that nine years after I originally opened the book, I found myself sitting in a newly-constructed library at the top of Kopan Hill, surrounded by gleaming snow-covered Himalayan mountaintops, re-reading the first sentences of Awakening:

 I am in a small, clay, mud-floored hut at the top of Kopan Hill, surrounded by gleaming snow-covered Himalayan mountaintops.

GOOONNNNnnnNNnGGggggggggggggggggggg............

  
Being that one of the days at the monastery coincided with my ten year high school reunion, I couldn't help but imagine how the Noah that graduated Holmdel High School (go Hornets!) in 2000 would react to this news if the Noah of today could let him know.


29 year old Noah:  Hey buddy.

18 year old Noah:  Ugh, what do you want?

29:  Wow, you really are a dick.  Just thought you might be interested in the reason why you were unable to attend your ten year high school reunion.

18:  Was listening to some sick beats at club Exit, I have to assume. 

29:  Actually, you were spending 6 weeks in a monastery in Nepal.

18:  WHAT?!?  A monastery?  But I just finished a Bertrand Russell book while listening to my favorite Bad Religion album.  You were in a MONASTERY?

29:  Yea, well actually a Buddhist monastery.

18:  Buddhism, huh?  Can you light yourself on fire like the guy on the cover of the Rage Against the Machine Album??  Cause that would be SWEET!

29:  That WOULD be sweet, but unfortunately I'm not confident that after six weeks of study my meditative absorbtion is at a point to allow self-immolation.

18:  Six weeks?!  I hope you brought your discman.

29:  Actually these days we listen to music on i-po....  Nope, no discman.  No music.

18:  No music?  You have your guitar at least?

29:  No guitar.

18:  No guitar?!

29:  No guitar.  No TV, no movies, no internet, no non-dharma books, no magazines.  You get the point. 

18:  Jeez, weirdo.  Well, how was it?

29:  Yea, the experience doesn't lend itself to being described really.

18:  Ok, well thanks for bringing it up then.

29:  From a cultural point of view, it was an amazing and unique opportunity to make a Tibetan monastery home for a period of time and be a part of its daily routine.  Listening to the monks chanting each morning and night, taking part in their rituals, dodging their flying arms while walking through their debates, watching the flow of daily tourists come and go.

18:  Sounds boring.  Can we get down to business now?  WHERE is the sports almanac from the future so I can become rich by gambling?

29:  Stop watching so many movies.  Also, take the few coins you have and invest in Apple and Google.  Stay away from gin and girls named Doris, hide out on the docks when the cops come to Craig's, and bet on the Giants to win Superbowl XLII.

18:  Doris?  You mean you're not married to Amanda??

29:  Oh, buddy.  And shave that ridiculous strip of hair off your chin.

18:  Look who's talking.


The most perceptive of you may have noticed that the subtitle of the blog has been modified.  One of the great and profound revelations I had at the monastery was that the name of the blog, "No-Blog", could be misinterpreted to be a play on my name.  This was not my intention, as that would be terribly, unbearably corny.  Instead, the intent was to make a play on the Buddhist concept of emptiness (e.g., no-self), which is terribly, unbearably corny AND terribly, unbearably geeky.  As for what the new words really mean, well I've spent the past few years and the greater part of the past six weeks trying to figure that out, so if anyone knows, let me in on it!

Here are some pictures.

Pictures and links, I'm getting this blog thing down!

I Am Not Dead! (yet)

Lest anyone think that Asian traveling is just mountains and jump-kicks, I am inclined to tell you that I spent the last few days wearing a path in the carpet between my bed and the toilet as my body did battle with some  nasty bacteria I must have consumed along the way.  I'll spare you the gory details, but let's just say that I believe this was the first time I've passed out from the sheer physical exertion required by the motions of being ill.  The mass exodus of everything I've ever eaten from my body left me crumpled on the floor of my guesthouse bathroom. 

Anyway, now that I seem to be recovered, I am ready to begin tomorrow a five week meditation course/retreat at Kopan Monastery in Boudhanath.  During this time I'll be completely unplugged from the matrix - no phone, no internet, no telegrams.  But rest assured, though I am out of contact and perhaps engaging in the "this body is a corpse" contemplation (my personal favorite), I am (hopefully) still alive.  Until then, happy Thanksgiving, Chanukah, birthday* and ten year high school reunion!

(By the way, the blog is now averaging a vomit reference once every 5.5 posts.  Go No-Blog, you highbrow web-log, you!)

*if applicable

Himalayan Trekking Part 2: The Annapurna Circuit

During the first two days of the Annapurna Circuit you begin your climb by following the trail from one small Nepali village to the next, ascending through lush hills that have been carved into terraced rice paddies.  You climb on, and in the following couple of days you find yourself passing through deep green gorges.  The valley emanates a tremendous power, the white river rushing along its base and incredible waterfalls greeting you around every corner, waterfalls bragging a vertical drop of 200, 300, 400, 500 meters. It is a world of wondrous cliffs and hills that would surely be famous anywhere else on earth, anywhere where it wasn't eclipsed by the dizzying mountains that were to come.  But you walk on, and as your feet carry you higher and higher, the scenery is constantly evolving, the mountain air forcing the landscape to react.  Higher you go, until day five when you get your first awe-inspiring glimpse of the Annapurna mountains towering above your head.

Your legs become sore and your clothing dirty, but you continue to climb.  You pass one, then ten, then hundreds of sets of prayer flags and chortens as you continue up into the mountains.  You eat another meal of Dal Bhat and your bowels finally give in to the reality of squat toilets, as you continue your ascent.  You meet other trekkers - this time from the UK, Germany, Israel, China, Denmark, Norway, Brazil, Canada - and as you continually pass each other over the coming days you slowly become acquaintances and friends, eating your meals together, laughing at each others' jokes, learning each others' card games, solving each others' riddles, sharing together in the awesome power of God and nature that is on display.  You climb on, hiking higher and higher until you have walked straight into the sky, and still the Annapurna mountains tower above you, teasing you with smiling rays of sun reflecting off their snowy peaks.

The final push to the the mountain pass of Thorung La involves a morning ascent of one thousand meters, which you must endure moving in baby-steps, as you will your legs through the molasses of the oxygen-deprived air.  There is nothing but dirt and rock at this altitude, and the sweeping expanse gives the illusion that you have walked so far and so high that you've journeyed to the moon. On this final day of climbing, four hours after your early morning start, you finally, finally, reach the 5416 meter (17,769 foot) pass that has been your goal for eight days of hiking.  From this height the distance between you and the mountain peaks tricks the eye into believing that you have met the mountains' challenge, though of course they still exist thousands of meters over your head.

There is still more to come.  A very long, treacherous and dehydrated descent, the disbanding of the little band of independent trekkers that had formed, the formation of a new crew of companions, another steep ascent, a beautiful sunrise across a panoroma of Himalayas, a hike through a rain forest.  You say goodbye to your company who head off for another eight days of trekking up to Annapurna Base Camp and you begin your final day of hiking, an exhausting sx hour descent back to civilization.

After all this and fourteen days (thanks, in part, to a few jeeps that allowed us to cut off a portion of trail that is now marred by a recently-constructed dirt road) I made my triumphant return to Pokhara.

So yea, it was a good time.  Don't believe it?  PICTURES!!