In the day’s small hours, the stillness is pierced by the clang of temple bells tolled by worshipers as they make their clockwise circumambulations.
Flickering butter lamps cast shadows against the white walls of a stupa.
Colorful fresh fruit and vegetables are laid out in orderly rows like a box of crayons.
Craftsmen congregate at the pagodas in Durbar Square—reduced to piles of rubble following the 2016 earthquake—to resume the painstaking process of placing stone on stone.
Women dressed in vivid Salwar Kameez (a knee-length tunic over billowing pants) begin the noble but futile effort to sweep clear the sidewalk of dust.
Doorsteps and busy intersections accommodate feral dogs and wandering livestock who hold the entitled attitude of deities, which in this country they are.
Garlands of marigolds and intricate wood carvings adorn ancient temples where elders perform their morning puja (ritual offering and prayer). Some do their puja on a small metal plate on their doorstep.
The far pavilions of Manaslu and the Langtang Himal stand watch, their bleached summits gleam in the sun’s first rays.
Waking up
The paradox about waking up-the ordinary kind of waking up like you and I did this morning—is that, even while it is inevitable, you can’t make it happen. The same holds true for spiritual awakening. You can’t force yourself awake. It’s hard enough just to realize that you’re asleep.
On the flight into Kathmandu, I sat next to a well-traveled young businessman from New York City who was making his first trip to Nepal. He recently completed the Inca Trail and had Mt Kilimanjaro on his to-do list. He was with a tour group that would take him to all the important sites in the Kathmandu Valley. My first time in Nepal was in 2000 and Caroline and I have returned many times since then. As I listened to him, I recalled seeing it all for the first time.
He said he had always wanted to come to Nepal because he thought it would be a spiritual experience. You hear that. Many people come here to see the mountains, and just as many come expecting to encounter something spiritual. Some locations in the world have that going for them: Jerusalem, Sedona, Bali, Mecca, and Rome. Not Missouri, where I am from. No one ever comes here to search for their soul, but people have always come to Kathmandu looking for an awakening of some sort.
It’s easy to see why. There is a temple, sadhu (Hindu holy man), or yoga instructor on every street corner; you can’t throw a singing bowl without hitting a guru—everybody has one. And the Buddha? He is like Waldo or Forrest Gump, popping up wherever you look.
It’s hard not to be intrigued by Hinduism’s bewilderingly large pantheon or be seduced by the exoticism of it all. Hindu philosophy is endlessly fascinating and defies a thorough explanation. Trying to understand it is like shoveling mist.
And yet, when it comes to spiritual awakening, I know it is not about location. I suspect that the guy I met on the plane will learn that there are no shortcuts and that no single place, including this one, holds the key to enlightenment.
Did you ever have the same dream twice?
If a call from the hospital wakes me up out of a dream, and if the dream is a good one, I try to remember and reenter it as a way to help me drift off again. When I am dropped back into the streets of Kathmandu, I think, “I have had this dream before.“
I first came to Kathmandu more than twenty years ago and have returned enough times to have lost count. Return is a pervasive theme here—it is what most Nepalis consider life to be all about. Hindus and Buddhists believe that our lives are a cycle that goes on and on and what you come back as is determined by how you lived the previous life. The ultimate goal is to escape the cycle (samsara) and attain liberation (Moksha).
While there isn’t quite that much riding on it for me, I recognize a return when I am having one. For me it’s like a return to an alternative, but familiar, state of consciousness—something like lucid dreaming.
This time the Kathmandu streets and sidewalks are cleaner (a new mayor has seen to that), and the traffic seems just a bit less frantic. However, things aren’t really much different than they were when I left the last time. There still is not a Starbucks or McDonalds in sight, and you have to wonder if there ever will be.
Nothing has changed very much, and yet change has occurred. What is different is me. I’m the one who is not the same.
Hinduism describes four stages of the ideal life (Shakespeare said there are seven):
1. Student—dedicated to learning.
2. Householder—get married, get a job, raise children.
3. Forest dweller—withdraw from the life of working and begin to divest possessions; move into a forest hut.
4. Renunciate/Wandering Aesthetic—leave it all behind and devote yourself to meditation and spiritual pursuits.
I’m not sure how I would categorize my life stages, but I would say there are more than four of them and I like the image of “forest dweller” rather than retired person. While I am not in the forest yet, I can see it from here.
Each stage offers a different vantage and our task is to change and evolve. I am not the person who came here the last time, even less that person who came the first time. In that earlier stage, I wasn’t seeking in Nepal the meaning of life, and I wouldn’t have recognized it had it greeted me on the steps of Swyambunath, the Monkey Temple. Now I’m not looking for it because I know it’s not here. The wake up calls in my life have not come from any place in Kathmandu, dripping as it is in the wisdom of the ancients.
It’s like in the story about a Buddhist monk who says to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.”
Then the vendor gives the monk a hot dog and the monk hands him a twenty. The vendor stuffs the bill in his pocket and they stand in silence until the monk finally asks, “What about my change?” The vendor replies, “Change comes from within.”
Kathmandu wakes me up, and not always gently like my mom used to do. The drive from the airport alone is a splash of cold water on my face. There’s so much going on outside the car window that the streets back home seem soporific by comparison. The traffic jams are monumental, with a cast of characters that could rival anything Barnum and Bailey would put on. Prismatic trucks the size of log cabins lumber by, painted in so many colors it’s like being inside a kaleidoscope. On the smaller end of the scale are the dogs, chickens, and even monkeys that wander aimlessly through intersections, stopping traffic as effectively as any police officer. Mileage is beside the point because even a small journey can seem epic and is best measured in time spent in your vehicle rather than distance traveled. I feel the jet lag but couldn’t fall back to sleep if I tried. I would sooner be bored at a bullfight than a drive though Kathmandu.
On an earlier visit I saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said “Unlock Yourself.” That sounds like another way to say “wake up.” It’s easy to sleepwalk through life, to get locked into patterns of thought or petrified opinion. Our beliefs and thought patterns should be more than what we habituate to, acquired and reinforced by our culture and the company we keep. Sometimes, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” so our opinions don’t always track with objective reality, more often they are designed to make us feel comfortable. Let go of that and even the opposite of what seems obvious will still deserve full consideration.
“Truth is one and the people call it by different names.” It’s a Hindu aphorism describing how a single truth can intersect across different frames of reference. What we believe need not separate us from others, and it won’t if we accept that the outlines of reality are inherently blurry and we embrace a hint of uncertainty. Even the religion most people follow is determined primarily by the family and culture they are born into. That doesn’t mean that their tradition isn’t true, but it suggests that it is not the only truth.
If we look with curiosity at people who do not share our opinions or values, they become interesting rather than threatening. Cultivating a questioning mind and engaging in conversation with someone I may disagree with enriches me. I can tire of my own nonsense and figure my presumptions can use a periodic reshaping. I need to occasionally unlearn who I think I am. That is what happens when I am thrown into a strange land with an unfamiliar people and language and am confronted with uncertainty and confusion. I am forced out of myself and feel my edges softening.
Travel dismantles our worldview by turning everything around and, as Mark Twain said, “…is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.” That is because it is hard to think of people as “the other” when we go to them and get to know them on their own terms. A part of my waking up in Kathmandu is that it helps me realize that, sometimes, the other is me.
Kharma
It seems to me that Western and Eastern belief systems are in more agreement than they appear on the surface. When I am in Nepal, I try to take in what sounds new to me and understand how it fits in with what I already hold to be true.
Kharma is one of those words that has become so overused in the West that it has been exhausted of its essential meaning. We assume that karma is an Eastern concept, and it is, but it is not a foreign one. We live it every day as a part of practical wisdom that we all know innately
The point is not that the universe is doling out reward and retribution—a carrot and stick guide to how we should live. Karma is simply the inexorable law of cause and effect. Karma is about actions and consequences, not unlike basic physics or mathematics, and it functions day to day and moment to moment.
Sometimes it is straightforward and immediate; if I smile, likely I’ll experience a warmer reception than if I scowl. Sometimes, cause and effect is less obvious or not what it seems; when the gas gauge in my car is on E, it’s not the meter itself that caused the car to stop.
It requires some discernment, but the essential insight is that some actions lead to suffering for ourselves and others and some lead to relief of suffering. We are charged with figuring out which is which and, with kharma, even intension and motivation count.
If we entertain the possibility that consciousness continues beyond this life, then karma also functions in the long run. Every action we take plants a seed that will come to fruition in this life or in a future one. The poor choices we make are visited on succeeding generations, and so are our good ones. At the very least, kharma makes us take responsibility for what we do rather than point our finger at someone else. The good news on karma is that we humans have the capacity to understand our predicament and choose something different.
Kharma, as practical wisdom, is a statement of the obvious fact that who we are today is determined by our previous actions, and our current actions will shape who we are in the future. We know this. Even non-Hindus would have to agree with that statement.
Dharma
Hinduism also affirms a cosmic order to things and each being must find its place within it. The idea of doing one’s duty and finding one’s place within the cosmic and social order is the fundamentals task of living. This cosmic order, and the duty, or obligation, that results from it, is called dharma.
Dharma has multiple meanings depending on the frame of reference. In the broadest context, it is the foundation for the entire universe, yet dharma is not the same for everyone. There is also a personal, individual aspect to it. Dharma is both the cosmic order into which we must all find our place, and our individual dharma, or duty, is what tells us what is that place.
The concept of dharma factors into the Hindu caste system. Our western sensibilities object to the idea of social status being determined by caste, but we in the West tend to determine social class by wealth, so it amounts to much the same in practice and neither seem like the best way to appraise a person. It is worthwhile rethinking some of our own cultural assumptions. For example, the idea that “all men are created equal” is, with a moment of sincere reflection, an obvious fiction. They are not. Fairly or unfairly, some people are smarter, or stronger, or better looking than others. Some are born into more advantageous situations than others.
This is another thing we know from direct experience. Hinduism provides some explanation to those differences that satisfies our innate sense of justice. Does it not make sense to have different expectations for different abilities? Hindus would say it does. Maybe there shouldn’t be a a single standard of achievement by which we can measure a person’s success or failure. Every human life has value, but in different ways, measured differently.
In the west we don’t call it dharma, but we know what they are talking about. Within each of us there is a longing. We want not just to live, but to live for something. We want to know that our lives have meaning. Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s Quest For Meaning, states that while we might ponder the meaning of life generally, what we really want to know is the meaning of our particular life. Each person must ask the questions in their own way and time. Arriving at a final answer is lifelong project and a deeply personal journey.
Bill Plotkin, eco-depth psychologist, author, and wilderness guide, writes that we must each ask ourselves, “What is my particular way of belonging to the world? What place within the earth community am I meant to occupy?” We are born subconsciously knowing what that place is, and it is waiting for us, alone, to fill it. The world cannot fully express itself without each part of it, in turn, fully expressing itself. A jigsaw puzzle might appear fine even if a piece is missing, but without that one piece, it is not complete. In the same way, the world is not whole if a part of it, even the small part that is you or me, is not fully expressed.
The principle of dharma is that we are to live as if our place in the world matters. To discover what is our genuine and unique gift is our greatest opportunity and challenge. Offering that gift to our community is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it.
In a nutshell, dharma is what we should do, and kharma is what we do.
Here is a story that is not really about karma but does have an underlying theme of return.
I first went to Shahid Gangalal Heart Hospital in Kathmandu in 2009. Dr Rabi Malla and the few other cardiologists on staff at that time had less experience than I with new interventional techniques and equipment, so they were eager to learn anything I had to teach them. I scrubbed in on procedures and they laughed when I struggled to fit into their too small surgical gowns. The Cath lab “slippers” that we wore extended little more than half way down my feet. Fortunately, I brought with me scrubs from home or I would have looked like Ichabod Crane wearing clothes on loan from Danny Devito.
I have returned to Gangalal on subsequent visits to Nepal, including this year. The Cath lab has changed with each succeeding visit and it is great to see how far they have come from those earlier days. I told them that I have nothing more to teach. I learn from them now.
These days at Gangalal there are four Cath labs and 37 cardiologists. They do 40-50 procedures a day. Watching them in action was fascinating, like watching the North Pole on Christmas Eve. They still reuse wires and balloons. The equipment is collected after each case is over, repaired as best it can me, resterilized, and reused until the angioplasty ballon breaks or the wire cannot be made straight again. It made me think of how spoiled I am in my own Cath lab.
Rabi introduced Radial Artery access to Gangalal and I reminded them that he was the one who taught me. It changed my practice and has helped my patients ever since. Rabi now holds the position of Senior Consultant. The junior doctors and nurses can’t say enough good things about him and they told me his real title should be “Godfather.” They said he is a “pioneer” and I agree with them. Binay Rauniyar was a “junior” cardiologist when I first met him years ago. He was the one who spent the most time with me, trying to coax me into learning Radial access. He is now Cath Lab Director (Rabi’s old position) and we watched some cases and chatted. Last year, he visited Mount Kailash in western Tibet, like Caroline and I did the year before, so we talked about that, too. He was a bachelor back then, but now has two children. I talked to another junior cardiologist whom I had never met before, and he said that “Dr Malla talks to us about you.” I told him that I talk to my friends and colleagues about Rabi Malla.
Rabi asked me if I wanted to scrub in on some cases like I used to do. I told him “no thanks;” I was fine just watching and I knew their scrubs don’t fit me. He said, “But I have your scrubs right here in my locker.”
He did. The same scrubs that I took with me in 2009, waiting all that time for my return.
That is the kind of friend I want to be.
Journeys and Journals 