Living like a recluse

I have returned after a 45 day meditation retreat and as I try to get back to the outer world that is comparatively noisy & chaotic, I reflect on what I have gained the past one and a half months.

This is the first time I meditated in a Pagoda cell almost continuously except for the 6pm group sitting in the hall, followed by Goenkaji's discourse. In the earlier courses I was uncomfortable in the cell in the Pagoda. It was in the last 30day course in May 2019 that I made an attempt to confront the discomfort that I experienced in the cell and started sitting there during the meditation period. This is precisely what I like about the course: you confront your discomforts rather than avoid them. Sitting in the pagoda cell in the 30 day course gave me the opportunity to do that and gradually overcome my fears. 

A lot of Goenkaji's instructions are in the discourses that he gives, in which he explains the theory behind the practice. It is interesting that it is the practice that is constantly emphasized and one understands the theory only through the practice. 

What impressed me much was the story he narrated about a monk who used to walk past a beautiful lake everyday. Children and adults would visit the park near the lake and they would mess around quite a bit, plucking flowers and running and jumping around. There were beautiful lotuses that bloomed and they were a very pretty sight in the blue lake. The monk one day was drawn towards a lotus, and admiring its beauty he plucked one. Immediately a celestial being appeared in front of him and admonished him for plucking the flower. This was not expected of a monk of his stature, she said. The monk apologised and thanked the celestial being for keeping him in check , but wanted to know why she admonished only him when clearly the children and the other people in the lake were behaving even worse than him, and yet she did not say anything to them. To this she replied : If one spills a drop of ink on a white piece of cloth, it becomes so conspicuous, but when it is spilled on an already dirty cloth, it is hardly visible. A monk is like the white piece of cloth, while the people messing the park are not as pure.

The monk thanked the celestial guardian angel of the lake for opening his eyes to his mistake and said, do let me know of any transgressions I might make in future as well. To this she replied : Out of my compassion, I reminded you today, but it is not my responsibility to go chasing you everywhere to check your conduct. You need to be responsible for yourself, nobody can keep reminding you what you should and should not do.

I have heard this story a number of times in the previous courses but it had a more significant impact on me this time. As a practitioner of Vipassana doing long courses and additionally as a facilitator of 10day Vipassana courses, I need to be careful about how I conduct myself. Nobody really keeps you under their watch, you keep yourself under your watch and behave in a way that is befitting of a practitioner of Vipassana meditation. 

True enough, as participants of the 45 day retreat, we are pretty much left on our own to meditate where ever we choose: the Pagoda cell, or the Dhamma Hall or at our residence, follow the timetable and are not "supervised".  A facilitator is available if we run into difficulties,but by and large we are alone on a solitary journey.

Why do we do it? To know and live the experience of the unsatisfactoriness  of life. To understand and live the experience of the four noble truths

1. There is suffering (dukkha) 

2. There is cause for suffering

3. This suffering can end or cease 

4  The way out of suffering is to follow the  eight fold noble path 

What is the eight fold noble path? 

First you do not harm yourself or others through speech or by action, you engage in earning an honest livelihood that does not harm others and you put  an  effort to accomplish these desirable ways of living. 

Second, you begin the practice of focusing your mind on an object of meditation, such as the breath, to improve your concentration and awareness. These are essential for the development of wisdom which includes right understanding  and developing good positive thoughts.

The first step is taken as a vow or precept and the environment at the center pretty much takes care that one does not cause harm to oneself or others through speech or action.

Therefore we begin with the second step of focusing the mind on the natural respiration for the first ten days. After this, the practice of Vipassana- observing sensations on the body and remaining equanimous to their changing nature.

I will be writing more on my experiences in the next blog.

The complaining mind: Deep acceptance of what is.

"Complaining is the result of attachment to the thinking process...to ideas, ideals, words, views and opinions. "  Ajahn Sumedho 

Impressed by this quote, I listened to the author's talk on the Complaining Mind. He speaks of how we think there is a certain ideal we think we should live by. Or our way of doing things is the best and we become unhappy when people don't meet those ideals.  He offered a simple solution. Observe your mind, listen to what it says. Note that it is complaining because what is happening is not what it wants. But things do not always happen the way we want it to. Notice it. Just notice it, do nothing else.

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I know this is not new. We train our minds in this way during meditation. This is what I think, now what is happening in my body? What is the sensation I feel that is accompanying this thought?  Ajahn Sumedho was reminding me to do that. Note that you have this thought, note the sensation accompanying it. 

We become so attached to our thoughts, our way of doing things. We wish others would  understand us, know our ideals and behave according to our ideals.

I realised  that when I observe my thoughts without reacting to it, there is greater acceptance of what is happening. The thought is complaining about something, and just notice it "here is the complaining thought" "this person did this and that is not the way it should be done" and rhetorically asking: " How could he/she do this?" Observing it makes me realise that I am helpless about it. I cannot control myself thinking this way.  And I begin to accept that I cannot do anything. This acceptance of me having these thoughts, loosens the grip of these thoughts till gradually  I am no longer in their grip. They come, stay for some time, I give them my attention but not get upset by them or react to them. Accepting myself is an extraordinary feeling. I am not fighting anything, I am just letting myself be. I am letting my thoughts be and I am observing the sensations that come up, intense sensations and then observe them recede , just as my thoughts recede as well.

This is exactly what I felt while swimming this morning. The mind was complaining, feelings of helplessness came up. Tears were beginning  to come up. When I put my head in water, I felt calmer, and a greater sense of acceptance, of being held, of being supported. Gradually, the complaining thoughts began to recede. The acceptance I experienced was deep as I could accept myself with all of my ambivalent thoughts. They had found a temporary place to stay and play themselves out and recede when their time was over. I reached the other end. 

My thoughts on the troubled times we live in

 Nothing rankles in the human heart as much as injustice. The epitome of this is war. Innocent valuable lives are lost because their leaders believe they have to wage this war. 

It is only recently that I  read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, famous historian, where he says that wars are a thing of the past and will not happen again  not after the two World Wars that almost wiped out Europe. But here it is happening. Russia has entered Ukraine and bombing it. Is it a territorial expansion? Why? 

I went out to swim that day wondering, maybe somebody should teach Putin to meditate. My teacher would say that  whenever one sees injustice---an oppressor and an oppressed, we automatically sympathize and send metta  (loving kindness) to the oppressed, but actually we must be sending a lot of metta toward the oppressor as well. To create suffering for others one must be suffering too, and he is in need of much loving kindness himself. May he understand what he is doing, may he come out of his suffering, may the people on whom this crazy war has suddenly descended be free from suffering. These were my sentiments as I was swimming that day.

I know a person who is from Ukraine who lives in Singapore and when I read her posts on the conflict, war, whatever it is called, I was more concerned. She and many others from that country live here and have families and friends back there in Ukraine who must be suffering. Now it is not just a war happening in a distant place but with migration & interconnections in recent years, we all face the impact very close. 

As I tried to make sense of it, I started reading more history of the strife. I remember the days when the USSR suddenly disappeared in 1991. Things rapidly changed after that. In the years before that two Russian words had become very popular: Prestroika and Glasnost.

Appeals to support Ukraine started in earnest on social media. Putin was and is being criticized a lot for attacking the sovereignty of a country. The President of Ukraine is hailed as an inspiring leader when he stay put and told the US : I need ammunition not a ride. 

But what was still puzzling for me was why did Putin attack Ukraine. This was the information I gathered:

It wasn't as if he woke up one morning and decided to go to war. Obviously a lot has been brewing over the years. Roughly there are 3 major issues involved.

1. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to transport energy from Russia to Germany directly. It started in 2011, but was fraught with controversies as the US was not for it. Understandably as that would make EU more dependent on Russia which was going to send almost 30% of energy requirements. Trump had shut down the project and then Biden opened it. Only to shut it down again when Russia attacked Ukraine. The  timing seems quite significant

2. The NATO : This organization was set up after the World wars to protect the interests of European countries & US against USSR. After USSR collapsed, it ought to have disbanded but it wasn't. Instead it started to expand it operations bringing in more countries. For a country to become a member of the NATO, it should have a certain number of arms which of course has to be bought from the US so that they have a flourishing business in arms trade. 

Putin had asked to become a member of NATO but was refused. Old enmity hadn't ended. Every attempt of his to engage in diplomacy and talks was spurned or not met with reciprocation.

(Ref: 1.The Jimmy Dore show :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffCvWZujWA&t=1363s 

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ Vladimir Pozner: How the West created Putin)

3. The more serious one is the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine which is more pro-Russia. In year 2014 a democratically elected pro-Russian government was taken over by a coup. The support to dislodge that government was said to be provided by the US. This led to frequent fighting between the pro- Western group which is now in power in Ukraine and the stronghold of the pro-Russian group in Donbas. So some people question why the killings in Donbas since past 8 years went unnoticed, while now the attack on Ukraine is getting center stage attention.

So obviously there is more to this war than what the pro-Western media would like us to believe.

It is good to know different perceptions. It is also important that we realize that these our perceptions and may not be the complete truth. What is sad  is that common people suffer.

As the Buddha said: Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred (love) alone is hatred appeased. This is law Eternal.

It is probably too idealistic to wish for such sentiments to be shared by world leaders.

Greed seems to still drive people: greed for power, wealth, predatory conquest over other countries. China is looking for water and wants to capture the Indian Ocean. And it is endless. We have gained immeasurable knowledge and technologically advanced as a society. Wisdom is what we still need to develop in ourselves. Only that would make the world a better place.

One play two roles: "Oxygen 95"

One play, two roles.  "Oxygen 95" staged as part of Pathey Nimidam at the Esplanade this 28th, 29th and 30th January 2022,  was more than just a 10 minute play. On the face of it, it was a true life story of a lady trying to come to terms with her mother's death due to covid, unable to visit or be with her. However, for a discerning viewer, it had quite a number of layers when it finally went on stage. 

I played two roles, one was a counsellor (Dr. Badri) who the lady (Meena) visits to make sense of her life that has turned upside down with this sudden loss. Death of a parent at any age shakes you up for sure, and death in such strange conditions of covid, where visits are impossible, can be traumatic.

The other role I played was a mother. A mother who loved her daughter, independent, yet nurturing strong ties with her children; forceful, yet helpless at times as hospitalization makes her feel increasingly depersonalized and out of control.

The director's idea of the swivelling chair to show the change of characters was brilliant. To me it lent a new interpretation to the story. Meena is distraught and is expressing a complex set of emotions to her counsellor who at times is able to mirror her mother. In her eyes she sees her mother in the persona of the counsellor. On the face of it, Meena is speaking to her counsellor but at another level she is speaking to her mother trying to revisit and unpack the sequence of events that transpired before her demise in the hope of making sense of it, if ever there was one. Did she do her best? Could she have done more? And as many of us feel in a similar situation, can she turn the clock back? 

For many of us, our mother is our first counsellor, we would run to whenever we faced a problem. Even as grown ups, sometimes overburdened with the cares of the world one might just want to place their head on their mother's lap to find comfort and solace. So was it with Meena. 

So was it for me enacting the two roles. For I found a merging, blurring yet distinct characters being played out. 

I must also mention the poignant end when the mother rises up to come to the distressed daughter, to accept with serenity the inevitability of death and that the grand master above knows best and takes us into his fold; we may cast aside our physical bodies, but our soul lives on. 

This was the symbolic casting off the gown after giving her final message. "We do our best and leave the rest"

This is why theatre fascinates me. The depth of the roles and the persona that one gets to portray. It teaches you about life and the choices people make. Teaches you to look below the surface of characters in the play. It also helps us understand peoples' behaviour in general. Each of us going through some issue, fighting our silent battles and yet being able to show up and play our role.

Yes, all the world is just a stage, as the famous bard said. 

Start again! - the story of my macrame curtain

This macrame doorway curtain was an ambitious project as it is the biggest I've ever attempted till now. It took me two weeks to complete it and I loved the way it turned out. However the rod, which is adjustable, and which was supposed to be fixed on to the wall, did not stay for long and after two weeks of display it came down.

Disappointed but still determined to hoist it up again, I took some additional measures of using a double sided tape which would help the ends stick to the wall. And so it went up  again. It held promise for a few more weeks till one night it came down again. 

This time, I decided to consult my friend who  has a "curtain" business. I wanted to know if I had made a mistake in getting the adjustable, no-nails rod. He suggested that I buy inexpensive wall fasteners online and take care to clean the wall before I fix them. That was exactly what I did. I bought the wall  fasteners and fixed them with great care, cleaning the wall first with alcohol and waiting for 24 hours for the adhesive to work effectively before placing the macrame curtain again. This time, it lasted a greater number of weeks until once again I saw it on the floor when I woke up one morning. 

I thought it was really curtains down, and felt very very disappointed. I thought of the moment I proudly took pictures of it and posted it on my social media and got so many appreciative comments about it. Little do people know the frustrations associated  with it. Apart from not having a display  anymore, I worried that I now had this massive amount of rope on my hands. 

Then I examined the damage. The plastic outer fastener that held the rod had got detached from the plastic on the wall, but it wasn't broken so it could be fixed back with a strong adhesive. In fact the packet that the fasteners came in had an extra tube of glue. This I used to help stick back the outer plastic piece. Now it is up again much to my delight and satisfaction.

I couldn't help singing the Hindi song : 

Yeh jo chilman hai, dushman hai hamari.

(This curtain, is such an enemy of mine)

It also reminded me of the story of the Scottish King Robert Bruce who after being defeated in war with the English, went into hiding in some caves. There he drew inspiration from a spider spinning its web. He watched the number of times the spider tried and failed, till it finally succeeded in spinning its web. There is a lesson in it for all of us as well as Robert Bruce, who went back to war with renewed energy and spirit and was victorious. 

And of course Goenkaji's sonorous voice asking us to "Start again" at the meditation retreats was a great reminder to leave the past unsuccessful attempts and press forward with renewed vigour. I hope I am successful this time and the curtain doesn't come crashing again. 

But then even if it does, I will start again. Down maybe but never out. 

When the sun set

 Memories fade with time. Especially of people who depart early in your life. Year 1980, the month of August, the month of celebrations. Our family had 2 birthdays coming up. One was my father's, a fiery man, given to quick temper, and my sister Jaishri, who inherited some of his characteristics. We didn't really celebrate our father's birthday. My mother probably would have made payasam (sweet) but my parents never celebrated their birthdays. August 15th came before my sister's birthday and I clearly remember her dressing up to go out, telling me casually that the speech she wrote for a student came really from her heart. (She wrote for students who were asked to give speeches for India's Independence Day.)

August 18th was her birthday and so on the morning of 17th , a Sunday, she was busy stitching a fall for her sari that she was going to wear to work the next day. The music strains of Kamakshi suprabhatam & other songs of MS Subbalakshmi still ring fresh in my ears. We had the LP record at home which she had bought from her salary. These were unusual things those days. We lived frugally, my parents saving every rupee for our future, that is, our marriages. Spending them on entertainment was not normally done. Spending on entertainment was a waste of money. But Jaishri insisted. Marriage can wait, she would say, let's live our life in the meantime.

How very characteristic of her! Strong-willed, with revolutionary ideas, her thinking and reasoning was far ahead of her time, something that my parents couldn't quite handle. What would invariably ensue was a war of words, of which I was a silent spectator. I admired her. She was strong and fearless, determined and brave. In fact my friends would say that she totally dominated me, that I hardly had a voice of my own. 

I digress, it was the 17th of August; sari fall stitching done, lunch eaten, her classmate from German class came over to study with her for the upcoming test they had. Jaishri was a lecturer in a Junior College and attended German classes once or twice a week. We lived in a two-room kitchen those days. Everything happened in those 2 rooms: Jaishri studying with her friend, and my mother cooking furiously a whole lot of curry pastes and chutneys to last us the next week as she would be busy at work. In addition we had an aunt dropping by with her friend. Sundays were always abuzz with activity. 

I was dressed in a nylon "half sari" and Jaishri teased me that the colour was so bright that I could easily be mistaken for the religious procession of "Mahankali" celebrated with gusto in those days.

Cauliflower figured in every meal we ate that day. My mother planned to finish cooking the night's dinner too and by 6 pm we went to the terrace to relax. Before that, Jaishri changed into a nylon sari that she rarely wore, just to walk her friend to the bus stop, after their studies were done for the day. Unable to bear her teasing, I changed into cotton trousers and shirt in the evening.

Standing on veranda of our house, I remember watching her return home after seeing her friend off at the bus stop. Some memories just don't go away. I wanted to talk to her. I always loved talking to her.  I felt inspired, something to ponder about always. We went up to the terrace first and she spotted a neighbour on her terrace and went over to chit chat with her, while I waited for her patiently. But it so happened that the neighbour had to leave soon, much to my delight and we sat together and talked. 

"Wait a minute," she said, peering at my face. "The sun looks beautiful reflected on your glasses." The sun was setting, unknown to us, in so many ways that day.

My parents had come up to the terrace by then. And suddenly my mother called out to me to go down and check if she had switched the stove off after cooking. I went down and checked. Yes, there was a small lamp burning at the altar in the kitchen. The gas stove switched off. Nothing amiss, I returned to the terrace. Jaishri sniffed again and said .. I smell gas, and we went down, she ahead of me. She opened the kitchen door and we were surprised to find the rubber tube of the stove had slipped and fallen on the ground and there was smell of gas everywhere.

She ran in, bent down and closed the cylinder, one hand covering her nose with pallu of her sari. "Quick", she said, "Open the window." It was one command that I wish I hadn't obeyed. I usually listened to everything she asked me to do. I wish I didn't on that day. But no, I did, I opened the window. The strong gush of air, deflected the gas to the corner where the lamp was burning at the altar and Boom! a loud noise and fire.

We didn't know what hit us at that moment. She did the correct things didn't she? Closed the cylinder, asked me to open the windows, but we didn't think there would be that much gas collected in the room. I turned around and found the room on fire, in clouds formed by the gas. I was scared as now I would have to cross the fire to get to the other side, to the  door. Jaishri was at the door waiting for me, unmindful of the fact that her sari had caught fire and it was a nylon sari. I wish she had removed the sari, instead she rolled on the ground, with the sari sticking to her as she rolled.

People say accidents are caused they don't happen. I am still baffled at the way things unfolded on that fateful day. I wish I could turn the clock back as I have wished so many times in the years that followed. I wish I hadn't opened the window, I wish I had put out the flame before I did. It was as if a strong wind of death blew into our house to take her away.

She was rushed to the hospital where she battled bravely for two days and gave up. When she was conscious she asked for me and was surprised that I wasn't injured much. I did have a few burns on my arm and feet but nothing serious.

And so she left us exactly 25 years after her birth in this world. I knew her for 17 years and the last six years of her life was the time I was really close to her. I avoid talking of this accident as not everyone understands what we went through on that day. How unexpected things were, how at every turn we were taken by surprise. As with most unnatural deaths, people would speculate so many theories. All those were and are still painful to listen to, especially as I was there with her and know what happened.

She was special. I wished she had lived longer to realize her dreams, for she had dreams. Dreams of going to the US doing research in cellular biology. Earning a name for herself in scientific discipline.

She would tell me a life lived well, matters. For this I need to have clarity in my goals, and an ambition, a striving towards perfection. To be intensely interested in every little piece of work that I undertake and do my best and excel in  it. She shaped my thoughts & aspirations in many ways. 

Very often, I mentally inform her of my small achievements, and hope I have made her proud.

"In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!"

This was one of her favourite lines from "The Psalm of Life" by H.W Longfellow 

That was how she lived and urged me to do as well.

What's in a name?

 My name is Radhi. Just two syllables. Easy to pronounce. Or so I think. A lot of people do not have a problem with it. But some do. And I am quite intrigued at their questions and unwillingness to call me by that name. Some even choose to rename me because of their non-acceptance of it.

Yes, my mother named me Radhika, she told me. However, my sister who is 12 years older than me was impressed with a name Radhi Sittampalam, a Sinhalese ex-student of the school she went to (and later I) and so I got the name Radhi. My parents did not mind it and when I was registered in school it was as Radhi Kannan, Kannan being my father's name.

So that was how I was called right through school. In Junior College I remember once a senior chided a boy for calling me Radhi, instead of what she thought was Radhika, and he was thus being "disrespectful" of me. I clarified that it was indeed Radhi. She looked puzzled but did not say anymore.

Then came undergraduate admissions and I remember the lady at the counter suddenly insisting I give my actual name and not a shortened version. I asserted it was my real name: Radhi Kannan. She looked over at her colleague and asked her if she had ever come across a name Radhi. The other lady shook her head  and said no, it is usually Radhika or Radha... not Radhi. However, as my school records did have it as Radhi, they couldn't do anything except be puzzled by it. So for fun, I simply thought up a reason: I told them that if it was Radhika followed by Kannan, there would be a "Ka" that was repeated. So, for brevity, it was Radhi. They were very pleased with that explanation and we all had a good laugh.

The next encounter was when I got married. While wedding cards were sent for printing, those that went forth for my in-laws, had Radhika on them and the ones that were printed by my parents had Radhi on them. In fact, my mother-in law initially called me Radhika, and later had no problems changing to Radhi after she realized that it was my name.

The strangest encounter was with a colleague I was working with. She would always call me Radhe. Initially I thought she hadn't got my name correct, so I explicitly told her it was Radhi and not Radhe. She said she knew, but she felt and thought that Radhi is not a name so she called me by the name that made sense to her. Isn't that weird? Can anyone randomly change someone's name like that? You are referring to a person right? A person with an identity, and a name that represents it? Well, our meetings were few, and I did not wish to make it an issue at that time.

I met an Indian Vipassana teacher at Kuantan, Malaysia. I was co-conducting a course with him. He told me that he was very puzzled when he was informed that "Radhi Raja" from Singapore would be the co-conducting teacher. He told me that no Indian can have a name "Radhi". Something is wrong here, he said, either she is not an Indian, or her name is not Radhi. The organizers have made a mistake. 

When I clarified my name was indeed, Radhi he refused to accept it. How can that be? You must have changed it. Radhi doesn't mean anything you see! 🙍

One interesting confusion I need to highlight is that a lot of Tamilians take my name to be Rathi. This is probably due to the spelling for both Radhi and Rathi in Tamil script  is the same. Probably the Sinhalese girl whom I was named after was also Rathi? 

But no, I would rather prefer to be called Radhika to Rathi. After all, Radhika was what my mother named me initially right?

But really coming to Shakesperes' famous quote: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." It will be good if people just accepted a name the way the person owning it wishes to be addressed.