I remember the drive through the mountains; one of us had gotten sick, and I remember the clamminess of my hands as we tottered over the edges of the roads, the wheels just scraping against the precipice of the mountain. All of us looked at each other; none of us really knew each other, but we all knew that we had to have some things in common, the main one being lack of sanity. Who in their right mind really goes to a different country, a different culture, and a different life for two years, putting on hold their old lives to help people across the world?
A bus full of crazy people, that's who?
And now, here we are - it has been almost five months since arriving. We know the language to get by, we know the culture to not cause an international incident, and we know that we never really left our old lives behind - the invention of the internet has rendered such an event an impossibility. Something called Post Pre-Service Training (PPST) is coming up, and we are all going to meet again, many of us for the first time since we swore in three months ago. We will exchange our stories, we will swap recipes, books, movies, and things that other volunteers left behind.
I know that it seems difficult to believe that there will be many changes in the two months that we have been apart, but I think that fails to take into account the fact that we have started with a completely blank slate of who we are. Who knows what influence our villages have had on us? We never had the vocabulary necessary to portray ourselves as not wanting to do anything, and so we have had to accept everything as it came to us. There was no ability to reject anything. So, that allowed for a radical acceptance that I had no choice but to go along. As I learned more language and became more acquainted with the village, however, I find myself drifting back into the comfort of rejection. I recall a line from the movie Waking Life, spoken by Otto Hoffman:
The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And, once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence.
I look around and the first thing I notice is that, though I have made many English lessons for the villagers, as the Rays wanted me to, have I really been integrating? Have I been successful? Have I been allowing this as an opportunity for growth into myself?
I'm not sure. I hate this doubting that I have of myself now. I hate this fear. I know that the people here are friendly - very friendly, in fact - and they mean well. It's just that I have created a persona before coming here that lent itself to introversion. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I wonder if I need to become more outgoing if I want to be truly successful. But that becomes difficult to do when you know that you have to be careful about what you reveal about yourself, and to whom. From little things, like an opinion about the women here, to large things that make up the basis of your personality, like your religion.
Sometimes, I wonder if I can truly be radically accepting of things here so long as I know that it is impossible to be reciprocated? Then I realize, that my ability to accept others is not predicated on their ability to accept me, that's not acceptance, but more of a bartering of self for self. My goal in this life is the ridding of self. Maybe to start with this, I can relinquish my unending devotion to the internet to maybe a few evening hours.
"Furthermore, Subhuti, in the practice of compassion and charity a disciple should be detached. That is to say, he should practice compassion and charity without regard to appearances, without regard to form, without regard to sound, smell, taste, touch, or any quality of any kind. Subhuti, this is how the disciple should practice compassion and charity. Why? Because practicing compassion and charity without attachment is the way to reaching the Highest Perfect Wisdom, it is the way to becoming a living Buddha."
"Subhuti, do you think that you can measure all of the space in the Eastern Heavens?"
"No, Most Honored One. One cannot possibly measure all of the space in the Eastern Heavens."
"Subhuti, can space in all the Western, Southern, and Northern Heavens, both above and below, be measured?"
"No, Most Honored One. One cannot possibly measure all the space in the Western, Southern, and Northern Heavens."
"Well, Subhuti, the same is true of the merit of the disciple who practices compassion and charity without any attachment to appearances, without cherishing any idea of form. It is impossible to measure the merit they will accrue. Subhuti, my disciples should let their minds absorb and dwell in the teachings I have just given."
Diamond Sutra, Chapter 4
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