"pilgrim-10day" Archive

Day 0, To Be Like a Coconut

"If you had to had to be fruit, what would you be?" That was the question that several of us were discussing, couple years ago. I don't remember what I said but Guri said, "I'd be a coconut. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside, empty at the core."

For the next ten days, I have to be like a coconut. I'm facing one of the most unique challenges of my life, as I get ready to serve the next ten-day meditation course for college students.

Among the 300 male students for this course are 120 college students. About 40 of those students are coming because the college authorities "convinced" them to come. Past experience shows that these 120 will be a handful; they won't wake up on time, they won't be able to stay silent and will disturb other meditators, they will organize into small groups of mischief, they will call each other on their mobiles to pass time and lock each other's room to escape meditation hours, they will disrespect those who serve them, and basically, create a serious racket in a typically peaceful meditation center. Despite the hefty price tag for creating this opportunity for youngster, it's a very worthy exercise because many willing young minds will get a taste of themselves and possibly change the course of the rest of their lives.

The entire operation is unlike any other course. Specially trained "meditation corps" are being called in from around the state; seven assistant teachers are on hand to do all kinds of things from 4AM belling to counseling to teaching; close to thirty other servers will be around to manage the course; everyone who comes to serve this course knows that they will be pushed to the limits. One teacher recently told me, "If you can survive these 10-days with a smile, you can do just about anything else." :)

For the last three months, I have been alternating sitting and serving a course; this was my course to sit but I don't know how I ended up in the thick of this challenge. Actually I do know. His name is Sudesh Leal.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 3 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-10day'

Day 1: Speech and Silence

Today is the first of ten days of the college meditation course. If I had to take a guess, I would say that these 22 year olds have never woken up at 4AM, nor have they ever been silent for a whole day.

Our primary purpose today, as the "dharma servers", is to establish authority and set a culture of strong discipline, to essentially create an environment conducive for meditation. Yet I can understand their difficulty, especially the silence bit.

Purpose of noble silence -- no reading, writing, or talking -- is a rather subtle concept to grasp. In theory, many people will say that if you don't babble your usual dose of few thousand daily words, you deepen your awareness. For these kids, though, it's a daunting task. Being from a competitive premier institution, where 120 students are selected from 40,000 applicants, the students simply don't understand how it is useful to spend time "doing nothing" and that too, in complete silence.

To be honest, I don't think I really understood noble silence or noble speech until recently when I broke silence after 10 days of meditation. Somehow that day I naturally started listening to myself speak. After the whole day of deliberate talking, the sharp contrast between my deep, meditative silence and shallow, idle speech created a temporary void in which the interdependence of speech and silence became vividly clear.

That night, as I was meditating, I came face to face with my white lies -- all unannounced visitors in my conscious mind, with repeated streams of half-truths said for this justified reason or that selfless outcome. While watching the charade, the only question that came to mind is this: where exactly did I learn to stop being fully honest? [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 7 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-10day'

Day 2: Dharma Works

"Guys, we leave for Goa after b'fast tomorrow morning. Collect ur laundry, pack and meet outside the dining hall. We leave at 7:00AM sharp."

That was the introduction to a page-long note that was anonymously circulated on day 2 of this college meditation course. One of our "CID" volunteers -- cop in disguise :) -- impounded this note that he saw a student reading outside his residence footsteps.

My guess is that this kind of silly behavior has never ever been seen on this meditation campus. But this is an unusual case. The principal of this school "gently coerced" at least 20% of the class into attending this course, and whenever those students come face to face with their bottled-up negativity, all they can think about is how they were compelled to do this. For precisely this reason, dharma always has to be received with a two-folded-hands request; you simply can't ram dharma down someone's throat.

Whatever the cause, our job now is to deal with the ramifications.

The note also timidly said, "All those agreed to the plan, assemble outside laundry area after dining tonight, 5:30-5:45PM. No words will be exchanged. This is just to understand how many people are going. If there are less than 15 people, the plans stand cancelled. We disperse at 5:45PM. Don't be late."

When we first read this note, we started laughing. I mean, why go through these elaborate plans to leave? Just walk out. If you don't care to purify your mind, feel free to leave anytime. But, of course, the students are all afraid of the consequences from their principal and they want to take refuge in numbers.

We aren't sure whether we should disperse the group at 5:30PM and not let them see their full strength, if they have it, or if we should just take it head on. Rather than playing games with them, we decide to play it straight. Let 'em do what they want and we'll see where nature takes this situation.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 9 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-10day'

Day 4: From Power To Force

"I have learnt one thing today: power rules. Instead of getting a job, I've decided that I will only do my own business," one of the meditation students told me on day 3 of his 10-day meditation course, with a strong sense of frustration.

As promised, the director of the school showed up today. Two of us walked with him to show him the campus. All his 120 students saw him and one could feel the waves of fear arising in them. Because he controls their college lives and their future job placements, everyone is afraid of him. Students are happy to hype up negativity by talking behind his back, but very few have the guts to face the consequences of standing up against him on principle. And even those few are always looking for strength in numbers.

To that power-craving student, I responded, "If you can't control your own mind, do you really think you can have any authentic power over anything else?"

In today's world, power is mostly equated with money. During a conversation with a very influential venture capitalist in the Silicon Valley, I once said, "Quite frankly, I just can't understand people's obsession with money." It was a direct challenge to his profession of investing and re-investing money into profitable businesses. Speaking to a 23-year-old at that time, he blankly responded, "Money is power. Without money, you can't do anything in the world, good or bad." It's a good thing I didn't listen to him, because at that point, I was starting CharityFocus. :)

Sooner or later, though, we have to ask the question about money, the underlying need (or greed?) for power, and the command-and-control organizing culture.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 12 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-10day'

Dirty Pond, Beautiful Lotus

Guri and I sat in a train today, from Igatpuri to Bombay, escorting my sick brother for some medical tests.

It's been about six months since we sat in a moving vehicle. All the landscapes, its people, the subtle cultures, everything flashes in front of us as if it were all one big commercial. With a smile, Viral remarks, "Hey guys, did you see that naked 2-year-old with an umbrella?" No, I didn't because the rickshaw had long since zipped past it. A bit later, on the train, Guri says, "Oh, look at that lotus in that dirty pond?" Sorry, missed that too since we were going 70 kilometers/hour too fast. On the walk, we probably would've made a few funny faces to make that kid smile and we might've sat down next to the lotus to reminisce at the irony of beauty in filth; for now, though, my awareness flickers past the life in front of me as I hear echoes of nature laughing at my fast-paced moves.

We arrive in Bombay. Our taxi drives past a charade of Bollywood actors and actresses plastered all over the sidewalks, billboards, and car windows. Loud honking horns and push-and-shove traffic are a sharp contrast from the serene meditation center that was our home for the last three months. It's a tough world, to live up to the expectations of all the images in our confused mind. I can understand -- but not accept -- that the taxi-driver attempts to rip us off for a few rupees; he probably needs a few extra bucks to survive.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 20 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-10day'