It’s Wednesday in India, and how. I just wrote the following on a blue aerogram, originally a letter to Joe and Lisa and their new baby back in Sequim, but suddenly transformed into the Closest Paper At Hand this afternoon. As I’m trying to explain why, ever since arriving in India 13 days ago, I’ve only been here, meditating, exclusively, I think this points there.

At this point, of course, I am simultaneously ready to go. I have arrived. Something about processing the speed and beauty of the past 3 months, the past 14 plane flights since January 15th. I had a theory that the time it takes to adjust to a new place is how long it would have taken you to bike there. If that’s true I’m still back in Europe sometime in the summer of 1997, I’m sure, but maybe meditation or presence of any sort can act as a reset button from the cosmic tripper. Anyhow.

I can be called. The number is +91 9879 529 549. I’ll have another number soon, perhaps, but this is good for now. On Friday we leave for Ahmedabad, on the 15th for Udaipur, and on the 20th from Jaipur to Haridwar, from where we will commence our walk 300 km to the source of the Ganges, past Gangotri into the glaciers and mountains. Looks like it will be the three of us — Denali and Malaviki and myself — and Butter will join us around Uttar Kashi (a little more than halfway home) in May.

That’s the plan at least, which Gods and elves love to laugh at so.

* * *

Friends. The Delta is wide and radiant. Crossing each river a joy. Knowledge they all flow, together, to that vast ocean we call unity, our own telos, also a joy. Every time I sit up in awakening, every time I stretch my leg after meditation, every step on hot flagstone mosaics and every tumbler of water dripping off my body, a joy! So many rushing rivers. I roll along.

Thich Nhat Hanhonce wrote to me, from his scriptures, published and entitled “Cultivating the Mind of Love”, that all concepts, ideas, and notions are obstacles in our path — especially Buddhist ones.

I sit and stare at Mukeshbhai, perhaps 35, bald, a child clothed only in white robes, a teacher, a friend, a future, a past. Selfless, petulant, sometimes so very Indian (read: overbearing, demanding, generous beyond belief) and sometimes so very relaxed. I see him all melt away and there’s only his chair left and his eyes. 10 days done here and every Divine experience I’ve had or read about has mentioned — in foucs or in passing — the nonreality of Time. Even Kant!

He disappears (Mukeshbhai, not Kant) and there is no heat, no fan, no notions, no persons between us. He has just told me that I am just beginning — all the feelings I’ve had, expereinces over the last 10 days (and 3 years) were just grunt work, and now my heart is finally beginning to open. I hear none of it and there’s nothing no-thing no existence and no time no hint between my gaze and his eyes (and chair.

I unlearn. Inlearn concepts nouns relations. Attachment drops to the ground like a dress: there is no body no longer. I cannot say I have to a new peace or place with mind or emotion, with the occassional battering abd neatings, scratching and jumpings of the storms from my head, heart, chest, and stomach. I cannot say that because there I see all nouns and notions and in some way, in this moment of late afternoon sunlight filtered through waving neem leaves mosquito netting and a dull comprehension of bliss, they, these nouns and notions, are no longer relevant, they are no longer anything to me, they no longer are.

I apprehend. I apprehend tru sight and the illimitable depth of essence. I apprehend motion and fading, without bitterness. The light must change. Every step, knowing no space nor time to step through, brings me closer to that soft Now which awaits us all.

april 8th. 2009
santaram mandir