Arrival
Diesel and fried foods
mixed with forest cricket’s hum
busy pulse of life
India, then, now
We’re tired. Saturday, our first day arriving at Sherabling, we got settled into our room….the same room we’ve had on past visits, talk about familiar….and after some chai in the Stupa Guest House restaurant, where our local friend Sonu is still cooking lovely meals and snacks, we decided to lie down for a bit at around 4pm. We got up for real at a normal morning hour on Sunday. Well, I was up at around 230am for an hour, and went out on our balcony to watch a Jai Uttal video on the ramdass.org website.
So now the process of adaptation has begun, which for me seems to require a couple of weeks to complete, and hopefully without the necessity of getting sick as part of that process of realigning every bodily system, biological clock, and time/space orientation.
Stupas welcome us
sacred heart mandala here
back at Sherabling
It’s great to be here, but the paradox is that we’re not yet really here, altogether. That takes a while. I figure wisdom dictates a gradual and accommodating surrender to the process, not pushing anything physically (like….oh….it would be nice to walk the hour or so over to Bir, the Tibetan settlement which also now happens to be a world destination paragliding location, for some needed supplies and an Indian sim card, but no…not yet). There’s time enough for all that.
There aren’t any other Westerners staying here, and our driver from the airport at Dharamsala, Aman, supposed that we’re the first engees (foreigners) to arrive for what might likely be some version of a significant crowd for Rinpoche’s first public teachings since 2019, in early November. It’s not clear if there will be Chinese students coming too, given some lingering covid travel restrictions. Right now at the guest house there is only us. Tsering and Nima, the Tibetan owners, shared with us their woes about the year and a half strict covid lock down they lived through, with no one allowed to come or leave from Sherabling (mostly, I guess; there must have been some movement?)
In fact, Tsering was “stuck” in the USA for 9 months during that time, unable to return to India. Of course their businesses, along with those of many many others, suffered greatly, and she herself was required to quarantine alone back at home for 20 days after her return.
It’s very quiet here now, not much activity, except for the noisy little construction project of rebuilding an outside covered patio that was starting to sink, or slide, or break apart — I’m not clear about what Tsering was telling me — due to heavy rains. It’s supposed to take “3 days” we’re told. We’ll see. The narrow little and only road through here is also quiet, with very little traffic now, compared to what I remember. There were, 3 years ago on our last visit, and on previous visits before that, at least half a dozen taxis waiting along this road to take (mostly) Westerners to Bir or to Baijnath, or to wherever they might wish to go. Now there don’t seem to be any in regular wait.
Nothing is different, everything has changed
storm of human minds
non stop shrill of “do”
Our previous driver and local friend and curd maker, Bihari Lal, left 2 or 3 years ago (after our last visit) to work in Dubai, where he is still, with a visit home once a year for a month or two. We were able to spend an evening with his wife and 2 children then, eating her subji (mixed veggies) and hot off the fire made on the spot chapatis, drinking a little whiskey, looking at family photos. We’ve spoken with Bihari a few times over these years via WhatsApp video calls, and he drove Nancy to the Dharamsala airport when she broke her arm here in 2018. I was in Thailand at that time.
So we’re resting, re-orienting, lying around, doing kora (circumambulations) around the eight stupas virtually outside our door, enjoying Sonu’s cooking. Nancy already went to check in on her Tibetan “parents”, whom she adopted as such in 1979, Ama and Akka, now both(?) in their 90’s, Ama blind and deaf, having apparently been very sick and near death recently but now recovered. Without fail, when you go visit, Akka will feed you fresh chapati and omlette, and of course chai, and even though we had just finished breakfast, Nancy was required to eat again, “please, no” not being any kind of option at all. I will visit with them also, but only before having eaten!
My Ama still here
our heads and hands touch with love
Impermanence! Bow!
