community life

so much to tell... i'll try to write as much as i can since i will soon stop writing for some time. i am beginning to feel good here, after ups and downs in the first couple of days here. i am getting used to the place and to the state of travelling, and forming my little habits that make me feel home. i also have more inspiration and succeed more in getting into practice. today's fruit is 2.5 hours of meditation, a yoga session, and some studying of nagarjuna's "the fundamental wisdom of the middle way", possibly the most important philosophical buddhit text.

however, the most important thing probably is getting connected to the people here. after feeling lonely sometimes at the beginning, and craving for some intimacy, i began to enjoy the small community of travellers her, which is marked by the sign of impermanence since people join and leave from time to time. not many of them came from pure "buddhist" reasons; rather each has his own story that brought him here...

lovely hamsa is an australian druze of a lebenese/syrian origin. her father is a respected sheikh in the druze community in melbourne, and her mother, who is a cousine of the singer farid el atrash, had to give up her musical side since for the druze music is part of samsara... nevertheless, hamsa - which means "whisper" in arabic - was named after farid's song "a whisper of love". carrying such aromantic name, she came here to contemplate on a harsh conflict - whether to marry her non-druze boyfriend, which her parents would never accept. she've been here for a month now, and she still havn't got the answer, nor does she know how long she is going to stay..

shachar left yesterday (leaving me his yoga matress) after 2 weeks, of which 10 days of personal vipassana retreat. he has a shaved head, big black beard and a lap-top, to work on his ma thesis in education & philosophy, dealing with vipassana meditation. in his retreat he could feel jesus, or whatever name you would call the perfect manifestation of love and compassion. he's continuing to dharamsalla, where inbal, his 5 years on/off mythological ex (whom i know by a way), will join him, and once and fol all they are going to give it a fair chance.

the list goes on with with spanish ali (alexandra - x pronouced like a CHEIT in the spanish way), a 20 y old student rom london. she doesn't care much for buddhism, and usually is more into clubbing, sleeping late, laughing a lot and hanging around with friends. she lives here quiet laid-back life, goes to the gate a couple of times a day to have a cigarette, and promises every day to start a mango-only diet tomorrow. she stated a one month of volunteering in india, but then felt she needed to think about her life and came to kopan.

essen (it's a girl name) in half turkish - half dutch, who can live neither in holland (too flat, too individualistic) nor in turkey (too closed minded and traditional), so at the meantime, nepal looks fine.

and there are also some buddhist visitors - canadian lisa, who is feefty something, and a serious practitioner who comes here almost every year. she has made a journy and walk almost the whole nepal on foot, raising money to a development project. australian eva is completing soon 4 months of volunteering here in teaching english to monks. mui from singapoor is quiet shy, especially with men, so i didn't talk to her much, but she says that in chinese tal means 'path'.

hakan is a turkush guy, an inteligent stock analyst with broad interests in history, sociology and politics. he was my companion to a wonderful walk to bodhanat - a big and important buddhist site a few kilometers from here. we started in the vilagges near the monastery, and i had a chance to see real nepali life, not the urban touristic version of kathmandu. we went alond the small huts, and the corn and rice fields. it is the season of planting the rice, which requires the fields to be flooded with water. it was raining the whole night before, and the water are gathered in the terraces which devide the valley into small pools where the villagers (mostly women) work in the mud up to their knees. we continued into the town (a small town landscape) and then the impressive buddha stupa - which is a hugh shrine built around some ancient relics. we ate a dinner of tasty momos (the local KREPALACH) on sunset on a roof top resturant facing the stupa, and hakan told me stories about the history of the jewish community in turky (including the shabtai zvi movement) and the view of turkish people on the islamic-western conflict. we climbed back at night just before the rain started again.

so it's quiet diverse as u see, and always fun to see how PETRUZILIA is called in six different languages during lunch (quite smnilar - from german to arabic). the animal community is even more diverse, and there are the sheep and the goat my neiboughrs, all the birds with their strange sounds, the big homeless slugs with the patterns on their backs, the cute frogs, and the unquestionably most dominant - the moskitos, t he greatest challenge to one's compassion and patience.

it is also an opprotunity to see monastic life here. there are about 200 monks from the age of about 6 (cute fun-loving kids - u can c 2 in the picture) who are used to the visitors and keep their routine going, with their ceremonies, studying and practicing, and also their playing (the big ones like a lot of chess) and chatting. i think the common feature to most people here is that they are easy to smile.