DAY 84: That's quite a lot!

Blääh, I blame my youth! "Not nerdy, but definitely not hip", it says... The truth is painful, but I'll take it as a man! Or actually I should take it as a woman, since I think they are better at coping with bad news. Maybe I go and by some chocolate and call my best friend and analyze my current relationship, which I'm a bit concerned about; "What did she mean with THAT few weeks back?!?!?"

No, I don't think so. Rather I play some sports with my buddies, which takes me neatly to today's agenda; sporting event, exchange students against crazy Indians. We're screwed on cricket already... I hope the Indian guys take it less seriously than before. (The traditional sporting event with another business school in October when the other party left after first days after a huge fight, breaking a 25 years old tradition...just too much temper on both sides.)

Oh yeah, I'm back on campus, by the way! Nepal was cool. Petri, Kaisa, Nannajussi, Isä, koska mennään isolle vuorelle?

Back to Shamsara

Namaste friends!

Finished with the mediation course today - a great and very useful experience. In fact, more questions arose than actually were answered, but that's exactly how it's should be. The course was held by American lama Yeshi, giving it a neatly applicable western context. We're not Tibetans, after all, and most likely will never become either.

The course program was not too intesive, not too loose either. A day might look like this:

6:30 Morning meditation
7:00 Morning tea
7:30 Yoga
9:00 Breakfast

10:00 Teaching
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Teaching
17:00 Yoga and meditation

19:00 Dinner
20:30 Evening meditation (after which silence until the morning meditation)
20:15 Silence = reading, getting to sleep.

Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Center, where the course took place, was a small friendly bunch of huts on the outskirts of Pokhara. Meaning that we were away of the tourist hassle and people trying to sell us something until we drop dead. Nature was quite close and the views to the lake (not to the Annapurna-range) though was picturesque. And again, as so many times on my travels before, I met some great people and we had good discussions about almost everything.

Most of the people taking a course like this never become practicing Buddhists, but the great thing is, that the philosophy behind is so universal, that it's beneficial to everybody to understand and research. For a long time, it's about learning about yourself and developing one's (whatever it means to different people) mental abilities; most importantly in the beginning - concentration. The surprising (maybe?) thing is also that Buddhist thoughts go to great extent hand in hand with the modern (western) science and psychology. In fact, another funny thing is that whereas the western psychology, as a science, was born in 19th century, in the East it's always been engaged with philosophy.

Ok, that was our daily insight to eastern thinking. Tomorrow I'll take the bus to Kathmandu again, and on Wednesday the Indian Airlines flies me safely back home. To Kolkata, that is :-)

Heippa!