Recently Nadia said to me in an email that she did not think Alan and I would ever stop returning to India. Just like her and Sam would always return to their Italy – we would be doing our Indian pilgrimages until we were old and grey. My best friend is right as usual – the woman knows me through and through. Did I really even for a moment entertain the idea that after the big silver wedding anniversary trip we would bring the “Must go to India” chapter to a close? Well, Alan did – for a while at least. And he is right as well, as there are so many other countries on our to-do list.
The to-do list of travels … when Alan and I were newly married we would often laze around after dinner and dream about all the places we would someday have enough cash to explore, and of course, all the food we were going to have to try. We were 22 and the first among most of our classmates from our year group to be married and (soon after) fall pregnant. While many of our friends were perhaps perusing Contiki brochures and picking up tickets for their traveling around Europe or the US; we were with equal excitement scrutinising ICI paint charts and collecting pre-loved sofas and baby furniture that families had so kindly donated to ‘the young couple’ setting up a new home. We mostly went with the flow, as we never really had a plan about where our lives would lead. All that mattered was that against all the odds – Alan and I were married and deliriously in love. We had persevered through all the hurt of being rejected by Alan’s parents and had held our love beyond the taint of all the scandalous talk that circulated the Eurasian community. The only plan we really had was that whatever happened … we would be in it together, we would dream as one and we would work to succeed as one.
We had always done everything together, Alan and I - but after our first trip to India, when I began my study of Buddhism in 2004, it dawned on me like a ton of bricks … that finally after all the years of dreaming - just when we had begun our traveling overseas together, I would also have to embark on a very lonely Buddhist trail without him. You see, the first thing I learnt was that Buddhism is not evangelical, it is personal - a life-style based purely on self-discovery, self-testing, self-doing. I was petrified for this wonderful man had been my sounding board for 20 years, our minds always working as one. It would be easier for me to stop believing in God than it would be for me to walk this path without Alan.
I knew he would continue to be with me and support me in a physical sense but he and I were at different places for the first time in our married lives. I was ready to invest everything into this commitment to retrain my Christian mind into an Eastern one – and I did not know if we would ever think with the same oneness again. I had been tinkering with Buddhism for many years whenever I felt helpless and backed into a corner, but the idea of living a Buddhist life-style fully never occurred to me until after India.
Christianity is based completely on faith. As my study began I realised that one of the most difficult things for me personally - as a Catholic who had always been devout - to learn to do was the letting go of my God fearing guilt. Going to the convent school I attended, we girls were daily reminded of our faith. I felt it forever imprinted in my soul that occurances which did not have human explanation are called mysteries and it was through our faith that we believed and would be saved. Buddhism on the other hand threw the entire order of things in my head and heart into disarray as the Buddha told his disciples not to believe him. He said:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
My whole belief system was in turmoil. There were moments that first year when my courage would wane and I would pine desperately to have the support of a community, anyone who understood the dharma who could explain the teachings in everyday terms. I had many issues with re-birth and the lack of a God to pray to and to ask for intercessions. The Buddha was only an Indian man, albeit a former prince, albeit enlightened. Indian and a man. My dear grandmother Winnie, my own mother and everyone else in Singapore who had called him the Chinese God were wrong. What did the resultant path mean, how would I ever see myself as a divine being experiencing a human life? I had as a Catholic been able to seek some form of refuge and companionship from other parishioners at church – now I had no place of worship and I had no community, or to use the Buddhist term
- I had no sangha. Added to this deficiency, I also had to open the door of my heart to many of my ex-community discussing my failing faith; I believe speculators were even soliciting prayers for my return to the fold. Instead of gentle understanding, many judged and tried to reclaim me with the one tool so often used and that always worked on me in the past … guilt.
Alan held me up physically as did those closest and dearest to me, many of you read my blogs and I want to thank you for being there for me, I love you all so very much. But emotionally I was on my own as I radically emptied my life of all the past doctrines and mindfully held my new discoveries beyond the condemning looks and the taint of all the scandalous talk that circulated the Catholic community. I did not realise this then, but these very people from the community soon became my great teachers, and I will forever be grateful to them for the lessons they will never realise they taught me through their lack of understanding. I discovered the joy of patience and knowing I could find new understandings for the ideas I had out-grown by being open to the ideas of other schools of thought. This sort of learning had no end and I had been gifted with an opportunity to become the person I was always supposed to be for this new way appealed to my intelligence and not just my willingness to believe. Out of interest, I also began to include Hinduism and Taoism into my daily lessons. Suddenly - I began to feel bliss. It astounded me. Family and friends who saw me on a regular basis began to realise the change in me. Soon strangers would smile at me on the streets and even stop to talk with me.
One day … obviously it had been happening gradually but because by then I had become so self aware of my practice, I had abandoned all craving and expectations of Alan committing to the same path … I suddenly realised he had been yearning and that he was ready to abandon the comfort of just being a good person and doing no harm. He wanted more and he was ready. We were in this – together. I felt our already peaceful and beautiful home awash with a new light of connected harmony.
We returned to India for the 3rd time last October, the visits have now become a sentimental journey for The Travelling Children. The explorations, the people, the food have all become a part of our everyday conversations. Most of our family and friends have an idea of what India means to Alan and I as they laugh lovingly at our obsession with it. But I acknowledge India as my salvation and to an extent, it has been Alan’s as well. Yes Nadia … I believe you are right … we shall be doing our Indian pilgrimages until we are old and grey. We will go elsewhere in between; for of course there is still that to-do list of travels.
These days we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha that we belong to. We bring our bolsters and in the winter even a blanket on the long drive to Nollamara to sit on a carpet in quiet meditation with our Sangha and to be; in Buddhist fashion educated, entertained and enlightened. We are disciples of Ajahn Brahm.
I send an inner smile through my body.
We had always done everything together, Alan and I - but after our first trip to India, when I began my study of Buddhism in 2004, it dawned on me like a ton of bricks … that finally after all the years of dreaming - just when we had begun our traveling overseas together, I would also have to embark on a very lonely Buddhist trail without him. You see, the first thing I learnt was that Buddhism is not evangelical, it is personal - a life-style based purely on self-discovery, self-testing, self-doing. I was petrified for this wonderful man had been my sounding board for 20 years, our minds always working as one. It would be easier for me to stop believing in God than it would be for me to walk this path without Alan.
I knew he would continue to be with me and support me in a physical sense but he and I were at different places for the first time in our married lives. I was ready to invest everything into this commitment to retrain my Christian mind into an Eastern one – and I did not know if we would ever think with the same oneness again. I had been tinkering with Buddhism for many years whenever I felt helpless and backed into a corner, but the idea of living a Buddhist life-style fully never occurred to me until after India.Christianity is based completely on faith. As my study began I realised that one of the most difficult things for me personally - as a Catholic who had always been devout - to learn to do was the letting go of my God fearing guilt. Going to the convent school I attended, we girls were daily reminded of our faith. I felt it forever imprinted in my soul that occurances which did not have human explanation are called mysteries and it was through our faith that we believed and would be saved. Buddhism on the other hand threw the entire order of things in my head and heart into disarray as the Buddha told his disciples not to believe him. He said:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
My whole belief system was in turmoil. There were moments that first year when my courage would wane and I would pine desperately to have the support of a community, anyone who understood the dharma who could explain the teachings in everyday terms. I had many issues with re-birth and the lack of a God to pray to and to ask for intercessions. The Buddha was only an Indian man, albeit a former prince, albeit enlightened. Indian and a man. My dear grandmother Winnie, my own mother and everyone else in Singapore who had called him the Chinese God were wrong. What did the resultant path mean, how would I ever see myself as a divine being experiencing a human life? I had as a Catholic been able to seek some form of refuge and companionship from other parishioners at church – now I had no place of worship and I had no community, or to use the Buddhist term
- I had no sangha. Added to this deficiency, I also had to open the door of my heart to many of my ex-community discussing my failing faith; I believe speculators were even soliciting prayers for my return to the fold. Instead of gentle understanding, many judged and tried to reclaim me with the one tool so often used and that always worked on me in the past … guilt.Alan held me up physically as did those closest and dearest to me, many of you read my blogs and I want to thank you for being there for me, I love you all so very much. But emotionally I was on my own as I radically emptied my life of all the past doctrines and mindfully held my new discoveries beyond the condemning looks and the taint of all the scandalous talk that circulated the Catholic community. I did not realise this then, but these very people from the community soon became my great teachers, and I will forever be grateful to them for the lessons they will never realise they taught me through their lack of understanding. I discovered the joy of patience and knowing I could find new understandings for the ideas I had out-grown by being open to the ideas of other schools of thought. This sort of learning had no end and I had been gifted with an opportunity to become the person I was always supposed to be for this new way appealed to my intelligence and not just my willingness to believe. Out of interest, I also began to include Hinduism and Taoism into my daily lessons. Suddenly - I began to feel bliss. It astounded me. Family and friends who saw me on a regular basis began to realise the change in me. Soon strangers would smile at me on the streets and even stop to talk with me.
One day … obviously it had been happening gradually but because by then I had become so self aware of my practice, I had abandoned all craving and expectations of Alan committing to the same path … I suddenly realised he had been yearning and that he was ready to abandon the comfort of just being a good person and doing no harm. He wanted more and he was ready. We were in this – together. I felt our already peaceful and beautiful home awash with a new light of connected harmony.We returned to India for the 3rd time last October, the visits have now become a sentimental journey for The Travelling Children. The explorations, the people, the food have all become a part of our everyday conversations. Most of our family and friends have an idea of what India means to Alan and I as they laugh lovingly at our obsession with it. But I acknowledge India as my salvation and to an extent, it has been Alan’s as well. Yes Nadia … I believe you are right … we shall be doing our Indian pilgrimages until we are old and grey. We will go elsewhere in between; for of course there is still that to-do list of travels.
These days we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha that we belong to. We bring our bolsters and in the winter even a blanket on the long drive to Nollamara to sit on a carpet in quiet meditation with our Sangha and to be; in Buddhist fashion educated, entertained and enlightened. We are disciples of Ajahn Brahm.
I send an inner smile through my body.
No comments:
Post a Comment