First day in Chanaute

I arrived in Chanaute after a long, bumpy, and dusty taxi ride from Kathmandu. The first hour was spent getting through Kathmandu and the outskirts of town and during this time the air was filled with black exhaust spewing from most of the busses and trucks. After that, the ride got a little better as the traffic thinned out and the air cleared up some and we made our way through the smaller towns and into the mountains. The last two hours were along a narrow road that alternated between dry and dusty or wet and muddy. The road ran along the Melamchi river and the view is nice and scenic. However, most of the time we had to follow behind several large dump trucks or busses and waited for those rare opportunities to pass.
When we finally arrived in Chanaute after about four hours, we found our way to the clinic and I met the two midwives working there, Mina and Bina. Neither spoke much English and so I asked about the translator, Bhoudimann and they informed me he will come later. Mina then phoned the clinic director, Hasta, and he informed me that they were not expecting me until the 24th (10 days later). He told me he will be back from Kathmandu tomorrow and so I spent a couple of hours going through the acupuncture and herbal supplies that were salvaged from the old clinic that was destroyed in the earthquake. Bhoudimann arrived three hours later and I gave him the gifts from the previous volunteers, Ari and Bonnie. Bhoudimann then told me he is planning on leaving the country for better work and so I will probably have a new translator.



That night Bina made me a delicious dinner of dal bhat, spicy potatoes and rice. Afterwards it poured down rain and my roof had a few leaks, so I moved the bed and my stuff to the dry sections of the room and placed a pot down to collect the water from the area with the biggest leak. My first day had come to an end.


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Off to Chanaute

This morning I leave for the village of Chanaute. I'm told it will take about 4 hours from Thamel, which is the part of Kathmandu I stayed in last night. I'm not sure when my next post will be but I'll be sure to provide an update as soon as possible.

Below is a picture of Kathmandu valley I took from Kopan.


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Location:Kathmandu,Nepal

Kopan Monastery 10 Day Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism

Post 1 of 2 regarding my time at Kopan.

Earlier today I completed my meditation retreat along with ~40 other students from all around the world. Each day for the first seven days we would awake at 5:45 am, wash up and then gather for morning tea. We would then begin our first hour long meditation (which were actually two 30 min meditations with a short break in between).



After morning meditation we would have breakfast, then have a break, followed by two hours of teachings by our instructor, Ani Karin. There was no talking allowed by the students throughout the morning until after lunch each day (except to ask questions at the end of the lectures).

The afternoon began with group discussions to talk about the morning teachings. After a break we had another 90 minutes of teachings, followed by afternoon tea. The evening began with a 45 minute meditation session, then dinner and then a Q&A session followed by a 15 minute chanting meditation. Then it was lights out until the next morning.


After seven days of following this schedule we then had two full days of silence with seven meditation sessions each day (avg. of 45 mins per session). Before a couple of the sessions we do 15 minutes of walking meditation in the gardens if the weather permits. It was quite surreal to observe a dozen people all walking around very slowly and methodically like they were in a trance. I felt like I was in a dream although it was a bit funny as well. That night we had a light ceremony for our last evening meditation.


The final day we had one last morning meditation followed by our last teaching and then I departed back to Kathmandu after lunch.

The purpose of the retreat was to learn about Tibetan philosophy and world views as well as to learn or expand one's meditation skills. For me, it was also my final preparation before beginning my volunteer service. It certainly has been a very worthwhile experience. It's impossible to summarize everything we learned during the past week, but I've outlined a few key points:

Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. It encourages you to test out the teachings and determine which ones have truth and value in your own life. For example, you may find the teachings on how to treat all living things with loving kindness and compassion resonate with you while not believing in reincarnation.

Buddhism believes that all sentient beings experience suffering. The cause of our suffering is mostly due to internal causes. These causes stem from either our strong attachment or aversion to outside objects (people, places or things. e.g. we get hurt because we like someone and they don't like us back, or we get jealous of someone who has something we can't afford, or we get angry when someone bumps into us or doesn't treat us nicely, etc.).

The primary focus of Buddhist meditation is to develop one's own mind, so they are better able to treat all living things with loving kindness, compassion and wisdom (and ultimately become fully enlightened). For example, rather then becoming angry when someone bumps into us, we understand that the person is hurting in some way and that pain or suffering is the cause for why they were either distracted or intentionally bumped into us. We thus choose to feel compassion rather than anger towards that person. Needless to say, this takes practice!

Most of us have some level of compassion toward others. Small compassion is when we feel compassion toward family or friends. Large compassion is when we expand our compassion toward our community. Great compassion is when we are compassionate toward all living things, including the planet we live on.

I'll end by including some helpful quotes by the 14th Dalai Lama and other great Buddhist teachers:

The True Meaning of Life:
We are visitors on this planet. We are here for 90-100 years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.

Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later in our life when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since at the beginning and ending of our lives we are so dependent on others kindness, how can it be in the middle we neglect kindness toward others.

See a few other quotes in the images below.









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Location:Kathmandu,Nepal

Interesting facts and tidbits from my time at Kopan

Post 2 of 2 on my time at Kopan.

The group of people who came to Kopan traveled from all over the world to learn about Tibetan Buddhism and deepen their meditation skills. There were people from the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, China, India, Ukraine, Sweden, Czech Republic, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, Hungary, Spain, Ireland, Nepal, and others. The group was about evenly split between men and women. The age range of the participants was from early 20's to around 60, however, the majority of people were in their 20's and 30's.

The weather was much better than I expected at least for the first week. I was expecting hot, humid, rainy weather most days. The first seven days were mostly pleasant, ranging from sunny with a light cool breeze, to a little hazy and humid. On the last three days we finally got a fair amount of rain, ranging from a heavy downpour that lasted a couple of hours to a light mist. We also had some afternoon thunderstorms. The biggest weather challenge during my time was not being able to check the forecast so you just had to guesstimate by looking at the sky each day and adjust accordingly.



The food was delicious and plentiful (self serve, so you can take as much as you want or go back for more). All the meals were vegetarian (Buddhist don't believe in killing any sentient being, which includes animals). I honestly did not miss having meat at all. We will see how I feel about that after nine weeks in Chanaute. Each morning for breakfast we mixed up a bowl with dry cereal grains, nuts, and raisins with a rice and/or oatmeal congee. A congee is a soupy rice or oat dish that has enough moisture to soften up the dry cereal. I always added a big spoonful of peanut butter to mine. One day we also got a hard boiled egg. See picture below of my typical breakfast.


For lunch and dinner we had rice or noodle dishes or stews with lots of in season vegetables. Sometimes there was monos, which are small stuffed pastries. The dishes always had flavorful Indian or Asian spices. Most dishes included flatbread or regular breads (although the one day I took a photo of my lunch we had pizza). Everything was made fresh here at Kopan. The milk and butter came from the cows raised here. It would have been challenging to eat completely gluten free here, so I just tried to minimize how much.



We also had a selection of tea with all meals, including jasmine, black, mint, and a delicious milk tea.

The Kopan grounds include the monastery, a nunnery, a school, bookstore, library, general store, a garden, stupas, gompas, and some cows. One day I walked within 10 feet of a bull eating some grass along the pathway to my room. However, the cows normally are further from the lodges that house the retreat visitors.



The sounds of Kopan: monks chanting, bells ringing, birds singing, crickets chirping, children playing, people working, music playing, people talking, roosters crowing, dogs barking (the last two unfortunately are during the night and early morning). Earplugs are necessary at night.

The cost of Kopan: so how much does a ten day all inclusive retreat cost you ask. If you stay in a private room with private bath, it will set you back about $210 for the entire stay or about $21 per day. If that's too pricey, you can save some if you are willing to take a private room with shared bath, and if you want to commune with others, you can stay for $140 ($14/day) in a dorm room. Yes, that includes all your meals also.

There is one downside to staying in Kopan and Nepal in general. Air quality was not that great at times. Nepali's apparently don't have trash collection so they must burn their trash. This means that one will sometimes smell the not so pleasant or healthy smell of burning plastic and other garbage, which is definitely a concern if anyone has asthma or other breathing issues.

In addition to the 10 day course, Kopan also offers a 7 day intro course that doesn't include the 2 days of silent retreat, and anyone can also come and look into setting up their own private retreat. For more information about Kopan, go to www.kopanmonastery.com



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Location:Jyatha,Kathmandu,Nepal

Greetings from Kopan Monastery

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I have arrived at Kopan and have begun my meditation retreat. In order to maximize my retreat, I've been instructed to remain offline for the next 9 1/2 days until the end of the retreat. I'll post my next update on the 13th.


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Arrived Safely in Kathmandu, Nepal

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I have arrived safely in Kathmandu tonight. The flight was on time and uneventful, just as I like them. I was able to quickly secure my visa for 90 days, claim my baggage and connect with my arranged ride to the Hotel Osho Home.



The only minor exception to this smooth travel day was when a local guy on a motorcycle hit a bump in the road and slide his bike down and across the pavement just as he was trying to pass us. Fortunately he got right up and after a short stop to make sure he was alright we continued on our way.

Tomorrow I start my meditation retreat so I don't know if I will have the opportunity to post any updates during the next ten days but will provide an update once I am able.



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Location:Jyatha,Kathmandu,Nepal

Stopover in Doha, Qatar

Today I arrived safely in Doha, Qatar via Qatar Airlines on a direct flight from Chicago. The flight was just over 13 hours long. I was very fortunate in that the flight was not completely full so I was able to have the center row of three seats all to myself. This helped me get more rest than I would've otherwise as unfortunately I cannot sleep sitting up. This still presented challenges for my 6' 1" frame as the armrest did not fully retract upwards on the Boeing 777 and the bucket seats created an uneven sleeping surface that pressed into my rib cage and my hip. But I'm still very grateful for the extra space all the same. Upon deplaning I got the opportunity to feel the oppressive Qatar heat. The temperature was 103°F today as we exited onto the tarmac to board the shuttle bus. The low will be 91 tonight.

Brief observations from the Hamad international airport: The airport is almost brand-new as it was just completed in 2014. The center of the airport is like a mall. There are lots of shops, restaurants, a food court, hotel and spa, as well as play areas for children. For some reason at the duty-free shop it seems like they have more than enough staff to help the customers, so much so that many of the staff are gathered in small groups of 2 to 4 employees and are standing around chatting like they were just hanging out as opposed to at work.




One other thing that I observed at the duty-free shop is that all the cigarette cartons have bold blunt messages that take up half of the carton and warn customers of the hazards of smoking (see some of the attached pictures for example). I wish all countries would require similar messages on their cigarette cartons.









Fast facts about Doha; first established in 1825, the population currently is about 900,000. Doha means "the big tree" and it is located on the Persian golf. It's Qatar's fastest growing city and had been the capital since 1971.

Fast facts about Qatar: richest country in the world per capita. Has the third largest natural gas and oil reserves. Area comprises just under 5000 square miles and sits between Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Total population is about 2.2 million currently.





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Location:Doha,Qatar