Why Matthiessen’s Snow Leopard is a mountain of a book

…and why you must scale it, at least once in your life.

The Snow Leopard was lying on my bookshelf for more than five years before I picked it up. In those five years, it beckoned me often. But somehow, the silent pull wasn’t strong enough for me to make a physical move.

Until now. Beset by a strong desire to go visit the mountains, especially the Himalayas, but unable to do so for multiple reasons, I possibly did the next best thing: Picked up the book and traveled with its author, Peter Matthiessen, on a mystical journey of self-discovery to the Crystal Mountain on the Tibetan Plateau, near the border with Nepal.

When I was almost finished reading, a combined sense of fulfillment, dread, sadness, and joy took hold of me. Sadness at the knowledge that a wondrous journey was coming to an end; joy at the treasure chest of beauty and wisdom Matthiessen opened up, scattering its pearls all along the way, for countless readers like me.

The author undertook this journey along with the field biologist George Schaller in the 1970s, walking hundreds of mountainous miles for a little over two months. They wanted to study bharal, the wild blue sheep-goat of the region, with a faint chance at being among the lucky few to spot the amazing, revered cat, the snow leopard.

The book, The Snow Leopard, at first appears to be a diary-like account of that journey (date-wise entries of varying lengths double as chapters within sections). It is that but, thankfully, much more.

I’m in agreement with this blurb taken from a review by Jim Harrison for The Nation: “A magical book: a kind of lunar paradigm and map of the sacred…The book has transcended the usual limits of language.”

The Snow Leopard is indeed transcendental, and not just on account of language. It is a timeless travel classic that can very well serve as a spiritual refuge in times of distress and doubt.

Besides Schaller, Matthiessen is accompanied by a curious mix of porters (Sherpas and Tamangs) to help with their load, cooking, and other routine tasks. Throughout the journey, he portrays these characters in witty detail and draws your attention to the rich variety of life ever-present in nature in a way that makes you feel as if you are right there, witnessing all this firsthand. His writing is not grandiose or lavish but simple, natural, endearing.

The most important bits, if you ask me, are his inner detours in which he talks about the workings of Buddhism’s various streams, the revered figures like Milarepa and Avalokiteshwara, what it means to seek one’s place in the universe, and what truly gives us peace and happiness. Profound as these things are supposed to be, Matthiessen makes them come alive and within easy reach as he melds his noble thoughts effortlessly with the daily ‘step and stave’ of walking on snowy, alpine paths, and surviving with barebone necessities in the company of strangers that seem to be living in another century yet whose simple acceptance of life and its harsh ways are so disarming, so uplifting at times.

Among the most charming, intriguing parts I found are the ones where Matthiessen describes Tukten, the enigmatic sherpa, and his equally enigmatic relationship with him throughout the journey (and possibly beyond it in another life).

Take this early passage, for instance: “Tukten has elf's ears and a thin neck, a yellow face, and the wild wise eyes of a naljorpa, or Tibetan yogi. He radiates that inner quiet which is often associated with spiritual attainment, but perhaps his attainment is a dark one. The other Sherpas are uneasy with him; they mutter that he drinks too much, uses foul language, is not to be trusted…This disreputable fellow is somehow known to me, like a dim figure from another life.”

Despite his “reputation,” Tukten exerts an extraordinary influence on Matthiessen—without actually doing any exertion. For he is an effortless, easygoing being who seems unperturbed in the most trying of circumstances.

Toward the end, when Matthiessen is parting ways with Tukten, shaking his hand and watching him go in the cab, he draws parallels between the sherpa and himself: “Without ever attempting to speak about it, we perceive life in the same way, or rather, I perceive it in the way that Tukten lives it. In his life in the moment, in his freedom from attachments, in the simplicity of his everyday example, Tukten has taught me over and over, he is the teacher that I hoped to find…”

There appears to be a fine, mystic example at one place in the book of how some Tibetans “live” what most ordinary folk merely “perceive.” It occurs when the traveling party needs to pass a narrow stretch of cliff about a hundred feet above rocks at the edge of a lake. Matthiessen, who has been walking ahead, pauses at this point, leaning into the cliff to let the nine porters in his entourage pass by. What he witnesses next is nothing short of surreal:

“At that dangerous point of cliff, an extraordinary thing happens. Not yet in view, the nine fall silent [the porters were chattering before that] in the sudden way that birds are stilled by the shadow of a hawk, or tree frogs cease their shrilling, leaving a ringing silence in the silence. Then, one by one, the nine figures round the point of rock in silhouette, unreal beneath big bulky loads that threaten each second to bump the cliff and nudge them over the precipice. On they come, staring straight ahead, as steadily and certainly as ants, yet seeming to glide with an easy, ethereal lightness, as if some sort of inner concentration was lifting them just off the surface of the ground. Bent far forward against the tump lines around their foreheads, fingers wide spread by way of balance, they touch the cliff face lightly to the left side, stroke the north wind to the right. Light finger-tips touch my upper leg, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine hands, but the intensity is such that they seem not to distinguish between cold rock face and warm blue jeans. Mute unknowing, dull eyes glazed, the figures brush past one by one in their wool boots and sashed tunics, leaving behind in the clear air the smell of grease and fires. When the bad stretch is past, the hooting instantly resumes, perhaps at the point where they left off, as if all had awakened from a trance.”

I read the above passage a couple of times, as if in a trance myself.

Later on, Matthiessen wonders about the incredible incident, thinking it to be a form of lung-gom, a Tantric discipline that permits the adept to glide along with uncanny swiftness and certainty, even at night. He also compares it to the yogic concept of prana: lung-gom literally means wind-concentration and prana is the vital energy or breath that permeates everything.

There are several passages in the book where Matthiessen shines a light on meditation—both by dwelling on Tibetan-Buddhist teachings and by his own sincere attempts at its practice.

What I really liked is the author’s openness in not restricting his writing to any one particular sect but embracing multiple streams and cultures. So, even as he is talking about Tibetan yogi Milarepa’s teachings, he doesn’t shy away from dwelling on meditative experiences as varied as those of bushmen and dervishes. Consider the following excerpts:

“Meditation has nothing to do with contemplation of eternal questions, or of one's own folly, or even of one's navel, although a clearer view on all of these enigmas may result. It has nothing to do with thought of any kind—with anything at all, in fact, but intuiting the true nature of existence, which is why it has appeared, in one form or another, in almost every   culture known to man. The entranced Bushman staring into fire, Eskimo using a sharp rock to draw an ever-deepening circle into the flat surface of a stone achieves the same obliteration of the ego (and the same power) as the dervish or the Pueblo sacred dancer. Among Hindus and Buddhists, realization is attained through inner stillness, usually achieved through the samadhi state of sitting yoga. In Tantric practice, the student may displace the ego by filling his whole being with the real or imagined object of his concentration; in Zen, one seeks to empty out the mind, to return it to the clear, pure stillness of a seashell or a flower petal…

“Like the round-bottomed Bodhidharma doll, returning to its centre, meditation represents the foundation of the universe to which all returns, as in the stillness of the dead of night, the stillness between tides and winds, the stillness of the instant before Creation. In this "void", this dynamic state of rest, without impediments, lies ultimate reality, and here one's own true nature is reborn, in a return from what Buddhists speak of as "great death". This is the Truth of which Milarepa speaks.”

In November 1971, before Matthiessen started his Crystal Mountain journey, he and his wife (her name is Deborah but he affectionately refers to her as D), who was suffering from cancer, attended a Zen meditation retreat in New York. In one of the meditative sessions, they both happened to sit opposite each other. Just the night before, Matthiessen had quietly perceived his wife to be dying and on that morning when they both meditated, his heart was full of compassion. He chanted the Kannon Sutra, which is dedicated to the Bodhisattva of Compassion who is known by several names, including Kanzeon, Guanyin, Avalokiteshwara and, of course, Kannon (an aside: the popular Japanese company Cannon derives its name from it.)

Matthiessen recalls, with incredible grace, what happened in that deeply-moving session during his Himalayan journey:

“Before dawn on Sunday, during morning service, D chanced upon to sit directly opposite my own place in the two long facing lines of Buddha figures—an unlikely event that I now see as no coincidence. Upset by what I had perceived the night before, by pity and concern that this day might be too much for her, I chanted the Kannon Sutra with such fury that I “lost” myself, forgot the self—a purpose of the sutra, which is chanted in Japanese, over and over, with mounting intensity. At the end, the Sangha gives a mighty shout that corresponds to OM!—this followed instantly by sudden silence, as if the universe had stopped to listen. And on that morning, in the near darkness—the altar candle was the only light in the long room—in the dead hush, like the hush in these snow mountains, the silence swelled with the intake of my breath into a Presence of vast benevolence of which I was a part: in my journal for that day, seeking in vain to find words for what had happened, I called it the “Smile”. The Smile seemed to grow out of me, filling all space above and behind like a huge shadow of my own Buddha form, which was minuscule now without weight, borne up on the upraised palm of this Buddha-Being, this eternal amplification of myself. For it was I who had smiled; the Smile was Me. I did not breathe, I did not need to look; for It was Everywhere. Nor was there terror in my awe: I felt “good”, like a “good child”, entirely safe. Wounds, ragged edges, hollow places were all gone, all had been healed; my heart lay at the heart of Creation. Then I let my breath go, and gave myself up to delighted immersion in this Presence, to a peaceful belonging so overwhelming that tears of relief poured from my eyes, so overwhelming that even now, struggling to find a better term than “Smile” or “Presence”, the memory affects me as I write. For the first time since unremembered childhood, I was not alone; there was no separate “I”.”

Peter Matthiessen died in November 2014, a little over a year after I started my own meditation practice. My only “interaction with him” has been through reading The Snow Leopard—and yet, I can see some of my own experiences reflected in the crystalline waters of many of its passages. How gladly I would have treated him “as my own Tukten” were we to meet somehow!

When Matthiessen describes nature and the birds and the streams and his own presence in their midst, he does so with an effortless mastery over words, stringing them together in a beautiful, fragrant garland:

“The ground whirls with its own energy, not in an alarming way but in slow spiral, and at these altitudes, in this vast space and silence, that energy pours through me, joining my body with the sun until small silver breaths of cold, clear air, no longer mine, are lost in the mineral breathing of the mountain. A white down feather, sun-filled, dances before me on the wind: alighting nowhere, it balances on a shining thorn, goes spinning on. Between this white feather, sheep dung, light, and the fleeting aggregate of atoms that is "I," there is no particle of difference. There is a mountain opposite, but this "I" is opposite nothing, opposed to nothing.

I grow into these mountains like a moss. I am bewitched. The blinding snow peaks and the clarion air, the sound of earth and heaven in the silence, the requiem birds, the mythic beasts, the flags, great horns, and old carved stones, the rough-hewn Tartars in their braids and homespun boots, the silver ice in the black river, the Kang, the Crystal Mountain. Also, I love the common miracles—the murmur of my friends at evening, the clay fires of smudgy juniper, the coarse dull food, the hardship and simplicity, the contentment of doing one thing at a time: when I take my blue tin cup into my hand, that is all I do. We have had no news of modern times since late September and will have none until December, and gradually my mind has cleared itself, and wind and sun pour through my head, as through a bell. Though we talk little here, I am never lonely: I am returned into myself.”

Matthiessen’s is one of the few books I’m sure to return to more than once—one of the few, too, I cannot recommend highly enough. There’s so much more I wanted to excerpt from the book, but I must pause now and content myself with what follows (and no, there’s no conclusion to this; only continuity):

“Near my lookout, I find a place to meditate, out of the wind, a hollow on the ridge where snow has melted. My brain soon clears in the cold mountain air, and I feel better. Wind, blowing grasses, sun: the dying grass, the notes of southbound birds in the mountain sky are no more fleeting than the rock itself, no more so and no less—all is the same. The mountain withdraws into its stillness, my body dissolves into the sunlight, tears fall that have nothing to do with “I”. What it is that brings them on, I do not know.

In other days, I understood mountains differently, seeing in them something that abides. Even when approached respectfully (to challenge peaks as mountaineers do is another matter) they appalled me with their "permanence", with that awful and irrefutable rock-ness that seemed to intensify my sense of my own transience. Perhaps this dread of transience explains our greed for the few gobbets of raw experience in modern life, why violence is libidinous, why lust devours us, why soldiers choose not to forget their days of horror: we cling to such extreme moments, in which we seem to die, yet are reborn. In sexual abandon as in danger we are impelled, however briefly, into that vital present in which we do not stand apart from life, we are life, our being fills us; in ecstasy with another being, loneliness falls away into eternity. But in other days, such union was attainable through simple awe.

My foot slips on a narrow ledge: in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which, finding themselves at the centre of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us, what one lama refers to as "the precision and openness and intelligence of the present.'' The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. To be anywhere else is "to paint eyeballs on chaos". When I watch blue sheep, I must watch blue sheep, not be thinking about sex, danger, or the present, for this present—even while I think of it—is gone.”

Before I bid adieu, just one more thing, which rings like a divine chant throughout the book: Om Mani Padme Hum (Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus.)

Namaskar! Thank you for reading :)

There is something special about chai

There’s something about chai that no other beverage offers by way of sukoon—just as there’s no word, other than sukoon, that describes the supreme feeling of contentment it induces in those who take a deep, soulful sip.

Chai (called tea in English with not exactly the same flavor) is like a divine gift for its hundreds of millions of lovers around the world.

Global it may be, but chai has a special connection with four countries: India, China, Japan, and England.

Legend has it that Bodhidharma, the renowned 5th century monk who taught at the Shaolin monastery in China, once took it upon himself to meditate for a long time. But he fell asleep before his avowed period of meditation could end. When he woke up, he was so enraged that he cut off his eyelids in repentance and threw them to the ground.

Tea leaves grew for the first time at the very spot where the monk’s eyelids fell.

And from then on, tea is said to have become the favorite drink of monks who wanted to stay awake in their meditation practice.

Another Chinese legend attributes the origin of tea drinking to the mythical emperor Shen-Nung (also called Shennong or the Divine Farmer)—several centuries before the Christian era. It says that he discovered the medicinal properties of tea when some leaves from a wild plant accidentally fell into his pot of boiling water.

It was not until the Tang dynasty (618-907), however, that tea consumption became widespread in China. It was also during the Tang dynasty that Lu Yu wrote one of the first authoritative books on this subject, The Classic of Tea.

Japan, too, saw the introduction and spread of tea drinking through monks. In the Heian period (794-1185), Saicho and Kukai were among the first to bring tea seeds to be planted in Nippon—though it is the Zen monk Eisai who is credited with popularizing the drink in the late 12th century. Eisai also wrote a book, Record of Drinking Tea on Health, whose Japanese title, if you ask me, has a cute Hindi ring to it: Kissa Yojoki.

By the 15th century, the tea ceremony in Japan had evolved into a highly refined art form, reaching its pinnacle under tea master Rikyu a little later. Chanyou, the Japanese “Way of Tea”, has four key principles to the whole regimen of serving and drinking tea: Wa (harmony), Kei (respect), Sei (purity), and Jaku (tranquility). Applied together, they guide you to a more balanced and mindful way of celebrating tea.

The term “Teaism” was coined by the Japanese scholar and art critic Okakura Kakuzo to describe the unique worldview associated with the Japanese way of tea, going beyond the presentation aspects that Westerners usually focus on.

In his celebrated classic, The Book of Tea, first published in 1906, Kakuzo writes:

“The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup. Mankind has done worse. In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely; and we have even transfigured the gory image of Mars. Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Lao-tse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.”

Beautiful words that evoke the serene, profound imagery that nothing but tea can encompass in its majestic sweep of history.

There are not-so-elegant aspects of history associated with tea as well, to put it mildly. In Europe, tea consumption remained confined to the elite after Dutch and Portuguese traders first brought it to the continent in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Soon after, the British East India Company established a monopoly on the tea trade from China. When taxes were reduced to make tea more accessible, its popularity exploded, requiring huge imports from China to satisfy demand.

But massive imports of tea [besides porcelain and silk] from China caused a silver deficit, prompting Britain to smuggle opium from India to China (When the Chinese tried to stop it, this led to the Opium Wars.)

To reduce over-reliance on China for their tea, the British went about setting up tea plantations in the Indian states of Assam and Darjeeling (the first one was set up in 1837 at Chabua in Upper Assam). The first few chests of Assam tea arrived in London from India in 1839; by 1888, the British imported more tea from India than from China. By the turn of the century, Chinese tea imports were just a pale shadow.

As for its consumption in India, tea was initially shunned by the people. This was partly because of the crushing, sub-human conditions under which the indentured laborers used by the British colonists worked, and partly because of tea’s high price. Besides, the majority of Indians had never tasted the beverage. After the Great Depression brought down the prices and created a surplus of tea waiting to be exported from India, however, the British rulers turned their attention to the market within India. They undertook what’s arguably the largest marketing campaign in Indian history, using hundreds of “tea propagandists” and “tea vans” that dispensed millions of free cups of tea to anyone who was interested in tasting it.

The marketing tactics used in the campaign were later duplicated and built upon by private companies, including Brooke Bond and Lipton. But it would take several decades of concerted, persistent effort to make the foreign tea into local chai, the unofficial national drink of India.

As of today, the sound of “chai-chai-chai” forms the ubiquitous buzz at thousands of bus and train stations across India. The banter and gossip of the milling workers, laborers, and good-for-nothings over chai at countless tapris and tea joints mingles effortlessly with the silent march of a nation perpetually suspended in motion.

I think that’s more history than our brains can handle at a given time!

So let’s get back to chai and sukoon.

The Japanese ceremony is marked by elaborate rituals, the art of arranging flowers, attention to details regarding the utensils, and the performative steps for serving, drinking, and washing up.

But for me and, I suspect, millions of Indian chai-lovers like me, it’s fairly simple and straightforward.

Boil some tea leaves in water. Add milk and sugar to taste. (A hint of ginger for ginger tea aficionados would be great!) Serve with an ear-to-ear grin and unmistakable warmth.

Within minutes, the server and the served are co-travelers to a land where worries dissolve in the vapor-mist wafting from the cups. Where stories are shared with loving memories or unrestrained laughter. Where you can nod your head with understanding or shake it in disbelief with equal ease.

Be it the scorching summer of mid-year, the freezing cold of December-January, or the redeeming drizzle in between, if you have chai at hand and someone to share it with, there’s nothing much else to ask for.

Bun-maska or biscuits, perhaps. But that’s about it.

To borrow a line from Chaayos, “Wo sukoon se jeete hain jo chai peete hain.”

Yes, there's nothing quite like chai.

The many joys of doing ‘walking meditation’

 

The image of Buddha sitting in meditation is etched in our hearts. But there’s another way the Enlightened One practiced meditation, and he enjoyed it greatly: Walking meditation.

After tens of thousands of mindful steps, I realize why it’s such a lovely thing. You are doing two of the best things a human being can possibly do: walking as well as meditating.

How can it be? Aren’t you supposed to sit still while doing meditation?

True, that’s the usual way meditation is practiced. But walking meditation is a bit different. Let me share a few observations from my own experience.

There are different ways and purposes of walking. You could be walking because your car broke down and you didn’t get a ride. You might be walking to school, which is not far away. Or maybe you are just hurrying to the market to pick up groceries.

In such routine acts of walking, our focus is mainly on the task at hand: to reach our destination, to get something from a place, to fulfill an objective.

There are some other reasons to walk as well, like when you are hiking. That’s like a sporting or outdoor activity you enjoy.

So, what does it mean to walk and meditate?

It means infusing your walk with the ease, simplicity, and bliss of meditation. It means to practice mindfulness while walking.

How you do that is by taking quiet, slow steps and observing your breath.

By not being in a hurry to reach anywhere but enjoying the very act of walking.

By looking around you in peace, even if you happen to be in an otherwise chaotic city.

By keeping this in your mind even as you take the next step: we are all connected to each other and to objects and phenomena in the universe. By seeing some of these connections happen or transform into another connection.

By being full of gratitude for the life you have been given, for your ability to walk, for the wonder of observing things that are nothing short of miracles: a bird singing, a flower in bloom, a tree swaying in the wind, a star-spangled sky, a horizon full of possibilities.

By simply walking at a pace that’s in harmony with your soul’s yearning.

By observing the joy rising inside you as you keep walking, not keeping track of time.

By smiling at the thought of having the better sense to have left your smartwatch back at home.

By wishing all sentient beings the same peace and happiness you are feeling right now.

That, my dear, is how you do walking meditation, IMHO.

Happy walking.

Happy meditating.

Happy doing walking meditation.

How to visit Maha Kumbh without actually going there

Representative image created with Meta AI

The world’s largest gathering of people, this year at the once-in-12-years Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a cauldron of faith, holy folk, spiritual journeys—and unfortunately, tragedy.

The joy people felt when an awe-inspiring illuminated picture of the religious megafest was tweeted by NASA Astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station transformed into harrowing images of bodies and belongings strewn around the bathing ghats after a stampede.

Nevertheless, devotees, tourists, and curious folks continue to throng the site for a holy dip in the confluence of two of India’s holiest rivers, Ganga and Yamuna. There’s a third river, too, but that is said to be hidden or invisible (French author Michel Danino has written a book that unpacks the mystery, titled The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati).

This year’s event is nothing short of a gargantuan drama featuring loudmouth politicians, selfie-seeking celebrities, and pseudo-spiritual wannabes. (Notables include India’s home minister, Amit Shah; Laurene Powell Jobs, Late Steve Jobs’s wife; actor Anupam Kher; and industrialist Gautam Adani.)

As the tales of tragedy follow those of IITian babas, the fierce-but-revered naga sadhus, and beautiful sadhvis, you might be wondering—Should I go, too, after all?—swinging between the twin prospects of (instant?!) nirvana through a holy dip and the mortal fear of getting crushed in the crowds.

Here’s another proposition: Maybe you can try visiting Maha Kumbh without even stepping out of your house. 

I can almost hear you say: “What? Are you crazy? How’s that possible!”

Let me tell you how (to the extent possible in this short post).

Ready for the pilgrimage?

Just be where you are and sit down comfortably. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Sit still, relaxing like this for a while.

Now, if you need to make some adjustments to your posture or surroundings, do it quietly. Then return to sitting down and breathing.

Start to deepen your breaths, bringing your attention to the process of inhaling, holding for a few seconds, exhaling, and again holding for another few seconds before taking the next deep breath, and so on.

You will soon discover that your breathing is rhythmic and calm. The thought-avalanche has subsided to a trickle. And your minor body aches and discomforts have gone. 

The stray thoughts that do come to your mind will dissipate once you bring your attention back to breathing.

Practice like this for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Maybe a little longer if that works (and if you are not in a hurry to go somewhere else before visiting Maha Kumbh!)

Do you know that the rivers Ganga and Yamuna are part of your own being in a way?

The breath flowing through the left nostril is said to pass through what is called the Ida nadi and the one through the right nostril, through Pingala nadi. And Ida and Pingala correspond to Ganga and Yamuna respectively. 

What about Saraswati, you say? 

That would be the Sushumna nadi, which flows—hidden like the mystical river—along the core of the spine.

Nadis are subtle energy channels in the human body that carry prana or the vital breath—72,000 in all, with Ida, Pingala, and Sushmna being the most important or primary nadis.

But why is this relevant?

That’s because the meeting point of Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna is behind the forehead, between the eyebrows (called Trikuti or Triveni point).

This is the inner Maha Kumbh I’m talking about. (The one that hundreds of yoga and tantra adepts have spoken about over the past several centuries in Bharat before it became India.)

With ample practice of meditation and pranayama—what I just described very briefly above—Sushumna, Ida, and Pingala tend to have their own confluence in the human body. 

And when that confluence happens, you realize the futility of going to any physical Maha Kumbh. Forget a hard-fought dip in the melee of Prayagraj, the inner Maha Kumbh makes it possible for you to be drenched in true and abiding bliss—Sat-chit-ananda.

Yes, this may also take 12 years or even more. But it’s worth every breath you take.

At least you won’t get crushed in the madness.

Happy inner journey!

NOTE: If you are interested in knowing more about meditation and pranayama, watch this space for my upcoming book, River of Love: Meditation beyond the App.

The Girl Who Ran with Amazing Grace

 

I saw her about three years back, a few months before the pandemic became a thing. It was on two occasions, spaced within a week, at my neighborhood park. After that, I never got to catch even a fleeting glimpse of her supple, graceful persona.

She is no Flo-Jo or PT Usha, but to me she remains one of the most inspiring ‘track-and-field’ athletes ever.

And come to think of it: I was reminded of her most recently while working on my third book, which is about meditation. 

“What has achieving excellence in running got to do with attaining stillness in meditation,” you ask?

Contrary to that flawed first impression, a lot. Let me describe her and what makes the memory of her movement an abiding instance of inspiration, and you’ll probably know.

It happened when I was struggling with my own awkward attempt to run a few hundred feet after many, many years. While I had been keeping a healthy regimen of walking and meditation for quite some time, somehow I stayed away from running. And the reason I was attempting to run again was to further strengthen my knees that had become weaker ever since diabetes discovered me.

So, just as I was kind of giving up on the run (for the time being, I told myself), this girl in her late teens flows past me—prompting me to turn my head and take a second look.

Flow, mind you, not run, is the appropriate word here even though she was obviously running. And the same word—flow—comes up whenever my mind tries to retrieve the moving image of her smooth nimbleness from the Hippocampus.

The human brain is such an astonishing piece of equipment and works in (often) pleasantly surprising ways, isn’t it? The very mention of “flow” brings up Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book of the same name. Do you know how Mihaly has described flow? 

“A state of concentration so focused that it amounts to complete absorption in an activity and results in the achievement of a perfect state of happiness.”

Serendipity, we love you.

I know I don’t need to write another word of explanation after this, but I will—just a few :)

When I took the second, and third, and fourth look at the girl running along the boundary of the park, I was stopped in my tracks by what I saw and felt.

She was running with such graceful movements, her hands and legs swaying in perfect rhythm, that Mihaly could’ve been looking at her when describing flow.

The girl was probably preparing for some running competition but her serene face was completely absorbed in the here-and-now moment. The expression on her face was beyond happiness.

I could barely run for one side of the boundary and here she was, doing five full rounds of the park with an ease and joy that instantly made her an icon of motivation for me.

If I may dare say, she was in some sort of divine flow.

Not much different from the flow you feel when absorbed in meditation.

I am grateful for having had the opportunity to feel inspired by her amazing grace. And happy that the inspiration is a continuing, ongoing phenomenon.

Cover Image: Pixabay

Remembering the Buddha via three simple numbers—3, 4, 8

 

Around five centuries before the birth of Christ, a Hindu prince of the Sakya clan began questioning everything and set out to explore a path to end human suffering. Yes, it was the Buddha, the Enlightened One, indisputably among the greatest teachers who ever walked on Earth.

The Buddha’s message was incredibly simple yet powerful. However, as his words got passed down the generations and as the followers of different streams of Buddhism (Mahayana, Hinayana, Theravada come to mind) multiplied in numbers and their own interpretations of his teachings, things became, well, a wee bit complicated.

So, in the tradition of going back to the source, first-principle thinking, or sticking to the fundamentals, here’s remembering Buddha through three simple numbers.

Three. Becoming a Buddhist is literally as simple as one-two-three—or taking the three ‘refuges’ (devotional pledges). “Buddham sharanam gachhami. Dharmam sharnam gachhami. Sangham sharanam gachhami.”  (I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha.)

Four. That’s right, the Four Noble Truths that the Buddha espoused. There is suffering in the world. The cause of suffering is craving. The suffering can be ended. The way to end it is the Eightfold Path.

Which brings us to the number Eight. The Eightfold Path suggested by the Buddha as a way to end suffering is, again, simple and intuitive: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi. 

Of course, the crux of being a Buddhist lies in truly practicing the above path. It’s heartening to note that hundreds of millions across the world have been inspired by Buddha’s words of wisdom and compassion, and a great many have been trying to follow in his footsteps. Countless souls have benefited from adopting and adapting at least some of the precepts into their everyday lives.

So let’s try and keep the Buddha in our hearts and memories as much as we can. The world needs him today more than ever.

Meet Contemplation, Meditation’s Cool Companion

 

Image: Frank Winkler / Pixabay

I began this piece by contemplating on why I want to write about contemplation and also thinking about what to write. My Twitter handle is Wordant (for the love of words, of course) but of late, I have realized that while words are useful tools when writing or conveying something, it is the underlying meaning that is far more important. After all, you can convey a lot with a smile, a spark in the eye, a touch...without using a single word.

Nevertheless, given that here I’m not allowed to touch you and must use my linguistic repertoire, let’s look at a few words or combinations of words and then we’ll move on.

A quiet life of prayer and contemplation. Sitting idle. Doing nothing. Thinking. Thinking about thinking. Meditating. She considered the proposal. He was trying to concentrate hard on the problem. Focus, focus, focus. Be here now.

All these words about the mind and what it does—think, consider, concentrate, focus, etc.—often get mixed up in terms of what we exactly mean when we use them. But sometimes, when we give proper context and arrangement to words—and pronounce or write them with an inner urge—we are better able to communicate. At least that’s my hope and belief.

So I wouldn’t give you any academic, hair-splitting definition of contemplation but perhaps share glimpses of my own experience—as I have often done for meditation. 

In the noisy, chaotic modern life of cities, I’m fortunate to have had some moments of quiet reflection. And, often, when those moments passed, I was like, “Whoa, that felt great!” (I’m sure a lot of folks are similarly blessed but may either not have noticed such moments or just smiled them away.)

For instance, before all this work-from-home thingy happened, I would sometimes take a short evening break from the office and go to the nearby park, sit down on a bench and just watch the sun go down. It amazed me how quickly the yellow bright disk became a soothing orange ball plunging ever so steadily behind the clouds, the concrete buildings or the nondescript horizon of cities within cities. The background would change depending on where I chose to sit or sometimes stand, but the sun behaved in the same spellbinding fashion.

During those times, a few breezes of thoughts swept gently over my mind.

And when I came back to my desk, a warm cup of tea in my hand before I resumed the day’s work, I could feel the powerful touch of contemplation all over me. Those quiet moments spent in the company of my own wondrous mind seemed to have filled my erstwhile-tired body with added vitality and peace.

The thought that led me to writing this post was this: if only more and more human beings spared some time for quiet, reflective thinking or even calm, ‘not-doing time’ (I don’t want to call it idle time), if only peace prevailed for a while in our daily sea of turmoil—perhaps we would have fewer suicides and much fewer mental health issues reported so widely nowadays. 

To share another contemplative experience, I’m reminded of walking. While I love to walk and wouldn’t mind walking almost anywhere, two particular walks come running to me. One was in high school when I attended a 10-day jungle camp in the Garhwal region of the Himalayas, and the other was early in my working life somewhere in the hills of Maharashtra. On both occasions, it was a wide mud trail on which we were walking in random groups. Few words were exchanged between the walkers but I think we all enjoyed being in the midst of idyllic surroundings, having ample time on our hands, and not much to do besides joyously moving from point A to point B.

Peace-giving images from those long-lost trips still surface in my memory from time to time.

Where have I been, really? Contemplation-land, I think.

Closer to our current, pandemic-confined lives, my fifth-floor rooftop has on occasions served as the place where the cosmic rays of contemplation have enveloped my being. Kites, crows and pigeons often seemed to signal their concurrence. For as little as five or ten minutes, feeling elemental even in the midst of a dense urban settlement has been truly rewarding.

Other times, when I meditate, I usually allow some brief periods of contemplation prior to meditation or after it. For example, instead of hurrying off to the daily chores immediately after opening my eyes, I keep sitting still and relaxed for a while. Contemplation, I believe, can be a useful aid to and a great companion of your meditation practice.

Now, let me tell you that there’s no method or technique to practicing contemplation. The only tips I can perhaps offer you is to be yourself (you can be you when alone, right?) and not to try too hard to relax your mind.

Let the smoothness of the universe rub off on you like a balm. Let the intricate web of consciousness work its magic. Rejoice and rest in the becalming ocean of gentle thought-waves.

So that’s my simple idea of some quality me-time. Say hello to Contemplation!

How to be One with Nature—Really

Each day as I drive to work or roam around the streets of Delhi I come across tens of thousands of enlightened beings. Humans have given them a simple, elegant name: trees.

No matter how crazy the traffic or hopeless the mess in the city, trees bring not only a breath of fresh air but a sense of calm and serenity.

Wasn’t it the poet Joyce Kilmer who wrote “But only God can make a tree”?

Well, this post is not about God but about nature—though for many, perhaps for me as well, the two ideas are inseparable. And the most immediate, intimate symbol I think of, whenever I think of nature, is the tree.

Recently I came across the phrase “to be one with nature” for the umpteenth time. And lo and behold, the image of a magnificent, lush, life-giving tree sprang to my mind.

But what does it really mean to be one with nature? And how do you do it, especially in a world where, increasingly, people live in concrete rather than green jungles?

First off, I thought I would say something about the origin of the phrase “to be one with nature” and sought Google’s help. Several combinations of keywords later, however, I realized that the search giant was as clueless as I—although I must thank it for the rich harvest of articles mentioning the phrase my search turned up.

Never mind the origin. Let's talk about its prevalence and effect.

I suspect most of us intuitively know what we mean when we want to be one with nature or hear someone express this wish. But have we tried describing it? And do we all experience it in the same way? What happens in that moment, really?

The most obvious, and perhaps most awesome, way to be one with nature is to go on a nature trail in a pristine forest. Where the greenery is thick and the scent of dew permeates the atmosphere. Where the sun's rays play hide and seek with the leaves. And where the sound of water gurgling in the brook next to you lulls you into a peace you never knew existed.

In such a serene backdrop, being one with nature possibly means the feeling of freshness and quiet and connectedness to everything alive around us.

Yes, I've felt it, this right-in-the-lap-of-nature kind of being one with nature.

But there have been other occasions as well, when I think I have been touched by that oneness without the luxury of being wrapped in nature’s majesty. 

I recently spent a year in Mumbai, working for a media company. There was a nice terrace, overlooking the railway lines, on the ninth floor of the office building. In my tea breaks, I would often stand there and watch black kites circling nearby. Once in a while, they would spot some prey on the ground and swoop down to catch it in their talons. But mostly, they would just swim around in the air, making spirals from high up to down below and then up again. Their motion was graceful and their outspread wings magnificent. I sometimes stood motionless, admiring their skill and poise.

A similar feeling of oneness fills me when I watch children play. Children are at their natural best when they laugh—and nothing brings me more joy than a bubbling bunch of kids laughing together. When I was in school, I often got punished for making other students sitting around me laugh. Needless to say, I never minded the scoldings.

I remember there was rain and hailstorm a few years back in Delhi when I, along with a few other office goers, caught myself scampering for cover. I took refuge in the colonnade of Connaught Place’s inner circle. There, I saw four or five boys in their preteens making merry in the downpour—completely in the buff. But they had no awareness of their naked bodies, drenched as they were in their natural tendency to extract happiness from whatever life brought them. Impulsively, the most adventurous of them slid down the ramp around a lift built for Metro passengers. The others soon followed suit, sliding down the smooth, granite-paved surface with an abandon only children know. My heart skipped a beat and a smile appeared on my previously somber face.

Sometime in high school, when I took to the more serious pastime of reading, being one with nature had an echo in me through the beauty of the written word. It still does—when the words of an author resonate in my mind long after I’ve finished a passage or a book. Sometimes, I wonder who wouldn’t be moved to ‘oneness’ reading or hearing such beautiful prose or poetry. Sample below some of my favorites:

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

 - John Keats

Siddhartha listened. He was now listening intently, completely absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening. He'd often heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but today they sounded different. He could no longer distinguish the different voices—the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying. They're all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.

- Hermann Hesse

To say “I love you” one must know first how to say the “I.”

- Ayn Rand

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

- Ernest Hemingway

And then, there are several tiny little things that can lift my spirits into that wholeness, that unity. 

Listening to a piece of soulful music is one such. When I listened to Blue Story by Deep Forest for the first time for instance, and I mean really listened and not just play it casually on my playlist, I felt a tributary of calm flow inside me that went meandering alongside its soothing notes. I felt fulfilled. Rejuvenated. Eased. The song has stayed with me ever since as a constant companion of quiet happiness.

Another is sipping tea or coffee, either in the quietude of your personal space or even amidst the white noise in a cafeteria. You sit down in comfort, holding the warm cup snugly. Then you put your face to it, smelling the aroma and letting the little clouds engulf you and mingle with your mood. And then you take the first slow, deliberate, lasting sip. The sweet warmth fills you with sheer joy. What more can one want in life?

A lot, apparently :)

That’s why most of us spend the major part of our life running after and acquiring things we may want but not necessarily need.

And sometimes, smack-dab in the middle of all that stuff, we overhear ourselves say, “What would I not give to be one with nature?”

As for me, I sit down every single day and explore what I think is possibly the best way to be one with nature—and oneself. It’s a ritual that’s been done and refined over thousands of years as practiced by novices, experts, Buddhist monks, and (true) spiritual gurus: meditation. Not only does it allow me to enter a unique realm of peace and quiet, it often uplifts my spirits high enough to feel drunk on the nectar of life.

Meditation, I feel, is a walk in the garden of spiritual delights. Call it my daily dose of being one with nature if you will. 

May the force of nature be with you.