i went to the sunday feast last night. got there around 5:30, so i got to listen to chants and also the talk by param about defining the self within community before kirtan.

i do have a great deal of respect for buddhism, but i’m not really a buddhist; at the moment i’m religiously agnostic, and happy to be so. i feel the need for exploring ideas and beliefs, as i only possess a very limited amount of knowledge in so many different things in life. i hope to be able to have/form my own philosophy of life one day, but without the tunnel-vision effect. there’s a difference between being flexible with understanding and without. i guess i fall into the latter category at the moment, but would definitely prefer to be in the former - as soon as i can.

my first encounter with the local hare krishna community was through my friend brendan. we were both searching for something that we couldn’t quite clearly articulate; we were very much interested in buddhism, so when he was still in brisbane, we were kind of “spiritual buddies” and discussed about and experimented with lots of different ideas together. i still very much miss those days. one day brendan started to go to yoga classes at the loft (right next to govinda’s - now the loft is used as a gift shop and the yoga classes are held at atma yoga) and soon enough to the weekly sunday feast and Bhagavad-gita classes. i often joined him to yoga and sunday feast. although a lot of people tend to be rather prejudicial towards the hare krishna, i believe there are many things that you can learn from the religion and the people. regardless of concepts like political correctness, egalitarianism and so on, it’s sad to see people’s automatic reaction towards certain concepts, one of many behavioural patterns generated by the generally unquestioned social belief systems.

“I always believe that it is much better to have a variety of religions, a variety of philosophies, rather than one single religion or philosophy. This is necessary because of the different mental dispositions of each human being. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques, and learning about them can only enrich one’s own faith.” — The 14th Dalai Lama

in terms of religion, the closest i’ve ever got to the point of complete agreement was probably with zen buddhism - i think it’s largely because of its clarity, applicability, practicality, and very importantly, proscribing of blind submission. i don’t know too much about any religion but with those i’ve experienced so far, i’ve been pretty much ambivalent - in almost every case, there are some + and - aspects. the hare krishna is not an exception. but is that an adequate reason to be or not to be there? i don’t think so. i don’t believe in totalizing views on learning - it’s really not an “all or nothing” situation, well, for me anyway. i value learning and as i get older, i feel even more strongly about the importance of believing in oneself and exploring the world; it’s very easy to get lost, yet the fear of being lost shouldn’t be the reason for trying to remain in one spot or to go back to the spot/s you’ve already been to.

anyway, back to the sunday feast. after dinner (and such a yummy one too!), zoe (whom i met through a friend’s friend a long time ago but got to know a bit better at govinda’s) asked me what brought me to the sunday feast, and she further asked “is it the dancing?” i’d never thought about it up until that point - well even when i was asked, i couldn’t think thoroughly, so i gave her a pretty boring answer, which was truthful yet still boring: i like listening to the talks, i like the atmosphere, and yeah, i don’t mind singing and dancing. but really, i only come to see you :p

well, it’s true. i like all of those aspects. i get to think about and question certain things while listening to the talks, and i do enjoy the happy atmosphere there, especially during kirtan. it’s pretty uplifting to experience the joy of letting go and being happy mentally and physically. as the buddha once said, every existence endeavours to be happy and avoid sufferings. and i really appreciate the people there. of course zoe has such an amazing air around her, which makes me feel happy just to be around her; and with other people there, who sometimes teach me yoga, serve me food, and share different notions and emotions through conversation or just being together in the same space, i feel no harm and certain that they are really genuine people. so all these elements together make the experience very positive. i feel good - through learning, feeling, and enjoying. i guess this is what draws me to the sunday feast and generally to the hare krishna community. anyway, off to a lecture now.

came back from chenrezig.

my initial plan was to stay there for four nyung na’s, but after one and a half, it became clear to me that it’d be better for me to leave earlier. nyung nä (pronounced nyung-nay) was originated by an ancient indian princess, Gelongma Palmo, and continues to this day as a significant part of tibetan buddhism. it’s a “purification” process, in which you learn and practice compassion by creating positive energy not for yourself, but for all other sentient beings. each nyung nä involves two days of practice - on the first day you have one big lunch around 11:30am and unlimited liquid, followed by a full day of fasting without food, liquid, and talking. so really, it involves the following practices:

• 48 hours without food,
• 24 hours without liquid, and
• 36 hours without talking

on each day, there are four two-hour-sessions (5:00-7:00, 9:00-11:00, 13:00-15:00, and 17:00-19:00), each of which involes liturgical recitations and prostrations. it’s demanding physically and mentally.

actually, fasting was great. i learned so much about sufferings of various sentient beings, especially animals, children, etc. it’s an mesmerising thought when you can think how helplessly they would suffer without someone’s help, not having basic needs met and being unable to communicate their needs and sufferings. i felt that my compassion was growing immensely during my stay. it was amazing.

Doing Nyung Na is not just purifying many eons of negative karma, it is especially for developing compassion, bodhicitta. Each nyung nay makes us closer to enlightenment, that means closer to enlighten all sentient beings, which is our ultimate goal of life. And this is also making yourself closer to the Guru-compassion Buddha.”  - Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, LMB  July 2002

oksana and i had a really hard night the second night, as our bodies were trying to adjust to the lack of food and particularly water. although it was a very windy and chilly night, my body was so hot and i constantly had to fight the urge to throw up - well, i didn’t have much in my stomach, so there was nothing much to come out, really… but it’s amazing how quickly  your body adapts to changes. my body felt really light, and i didn’t even feel a slightest bit of hunger on the fourth day. i felt great. so the fasting part wasn’t that hard. it was actually the practice that made me contemplate and eventually leave earlier than planned.

right from the beginning, i felt uncomfortable with the contents of recitation. i didn’t understand the real meaning of most of the mantras (mostly in tibetan), and i didn’t feel comfortable with the prayers, especially those that involve lines like “bless me…” i thought that the core of buddhism was about blessing others through compassion and becoming wiser by gaining insights to “the ultimate truth” of life, which is simply the impermanence (or emptiness) of everything. in addition, i found the visualisations most distracting as i don’t believe in enforced symbolisation and imagination. i was more used to the zen-approach to meditation, which is focusing on the emptiness.

after thinking long and hard, i decided not to attend all four sessions each day. insteand, i attended two, and spend the rest of the day reading and meditating, while sending positive chi to all living beings. i have to be clear on this point that i didn’t think that there was anything “wrong” with tibetan buddhism; it was only that i was unfamiliar with some aspects of it, and i thought that i must first understand the meaning/s of what we did rather than blindly following what was told. i felt that if i just kept going, i would only be doing it simply to forget the physical exhaustion and mental confusion.

i started reading “the heart of the buddha’s path (1999)” by the dalai lama xiv, which answered a lot of questions i had in my mind directly and indirectly related to the tibetan buddhism. i spoke to venerable ailsa regarding my irregular attendance to the sessions; she kindly understood. nevertheless, i couldn’t help feeling as though i was being really disrespectful and rude. but the following lines in the book completely calmed this unsettling feeling of mine:

One of the reasons why I say that in Buddhist methodology, especially in Mahayana Buddhist methodology, greater emphasis is placed on reason and understanding, is because we find in Mahayana Buddhism a distinction between two different categories of Buddha’s words. Certain types of Buddhist scriptures can be taken as literal and definitive, and certain types cannot be taken at their face value … That (deciding which can and cannot be taken literally) can be done only by reliance on a form of reasoning. So ultimately understanding and investigation are the judge. This spirit is very clearly illustrated in Buddha’s oft-quoted statement: ‘Bhikshus and wise men do not accept my words just because they are the words of the Buddha, simply out of reverence for me, but just as a goldsmith would test the gold through various procedures and they finally make a judgement, similarly accept the validity of my statements only after you have subjected them to analysis and investigation (98-99).”

the tibetan buddhism is based on the two core elements of compassion and wisdom. so only with the both wings of compassion and wisdom, you can transcend to enlightenment. although i strongly felt the strengthening of my compassion wing, i didn’t feel the same for my wisdom wing. however, i didn’t want to give up on my learning of the tibetan buddhism altogether, as i’ve been greatly inspired by the teachings of numerous nuns and monks of tibetan buddhism, such as venerable robina courtin. nevertheless, one thing became very clear: i am not ready to jump right into Buddhism right at this point in my life. i’d like to practice compassion and love in a way that’s based on my genuine understanding of various beliefs and experiences, which will undoubtedly change and improve constantly. i don’t consider myself as a buddhist, not because i haven’t had such things as an offical “initiation” - i think what’s important is what’s in your mind, not merely what’s been conducted outside - but because i’m still learning and exploring different ideas and beliefs. but if i had to choose one religion for myself, i would probably choose buddhism.

during my second nyung nä, i felt not entirely but a lot more comfortable, and experienced great meditations and fantastically positive chi both in and out of the gompa. the way back to brisbane felt a little strange. a part of me was desperately pleading for a further stay in chenrezig, but i concurrently felt a fantastically positive energy and hope - i could feel that a big change would soon, or even already was, happening in my life. excited.

will i do it again? i’m not quite sure. i met some absolutely beautiful people there, and i had a spiritual growth that i’m genuinely grateful for. i’d love to go back. so i’ll have to learn more, and more importantly, see how i feel the same time next year :) at this stage, my advice for anyone who’s interested would be this: if you only want to find a peace of mind, i’d suggest you go up there and stay for a couple of days rather than participating in nyung nä - there are different kinds of accomodation and other activities you can participate in - but if you have knowledge and believe in the tibetan buddhism and nyung nä itself, then absolutely. if you’re like me, and really want to join but partially, then ask one of the nuns (probably venerable ailsa) and ask if it would be ok. she’ll probably say ok, but just to make sure :) in fact, i might do that next year, if i’m still around.

{+chi} for everyone-

a friend asked for my opinion on her newly purchased bag. i looked at it, examined it, and contemplated for a short while. i eventually came to a conclusion. yes, i think it’s good. it’s nice.

sometimes words come out in such a harsh kind of way, not the originally intended way. it happens frequently and i’m working on this particular communicative tendency of mine at the moment. i can be extremely direct and sometimes it hurts others’ feelings without realising. when the relationship gets pretty hostile i wonder what’s going on, and i find out then that what i have said was translated in a completely different way to my original intentions. but this also means that when i compliment you, you can safely assume that i really do mean it.

anyway, i joked about her “nana-like” taste in fashion, and said that the bag would go very well with all her fashion items. i went to teach after that. while the students were doing their exercises, i sensed a quiet osmosis of thought; on what basis did i come to the conclusion on her bag - rather, on the aesthetic qualtity of her bag - and did i communicate it well with her?

apparently the word “aesthetics,” coined by a.g baumgarten, is derived from the greek “aisthetikos,” which means “of sense perception.” there are generally two ways of approaching aesthetics: philosophy of beauty and that of art. initially the subject mainly remained in other “more established” philosophical realms like ethics, but it became a more autonomous philosophical entity largely thanks to Kant (well, in western society anyway). there are countless theories in the milieu of aesthetics, for which i don’t have a lot of knowledge. one of my previous phd plans was actually on the digital aesthetics of mobile media; before delving into the subject, i promptly changed it to something a lot more manageable and equally interesting though :)

anyway, the way i approached the evaluation of her bag was multifold, simply because it was practically impossible to view it in a completely objective manner. there were a lot of negotiations in my head.

1. i looked at the bag. of course naturally, i examined the quality of its beauty from my point of view. she asked for my opinion, so i didn’t really examined it from her aesthetic point of view (yes, i’m often like this. plus, i’m not a mind reader so it’s impossible for me to comprehend someone’s aesthetic point of view without explicit/implicit in-depth communication on the issue). colours. shape. size. texture… i examined them. i thought the level of its beauty was higher than average.
2. my taste in fashion is pretty different from my friend’s. so of course, if i took the bag into my world of fashion, it would remain in the same spot … for a long time; it’d probably stay nice and clean somewhere in my wardrobe. but now i had to look at it in relation to her fashion style. sometimes she dresses in black - a very recent phenomenon - sometimes in grunge style, but she has a lot of vintage romantic style fashion items, which i think suit her really well and find lovely and beautiful. this bag would go really well with most of her clothes and accessories, i thought.
3. then i also somewhat automatically looked at it from the capitalist perspective to evaluate the “practicality” of the bag as a fashion item. i wasn’t sure how much she had paid for it, but it looked quite unlikely that it would fall apart any time too soon, unless you intentionally try to rip it apart or do something similarly violent to it. and as a fashion item, i thought about its APC: audience, purpose, and context.

• audience: in general, all is good. people would like it or at least wouldn’t have any aversion towards it
• purpose: i asked why she bought it, to which she replied “because i could actually fit everything in it, unlike all my other bags” - ok, not her exact words but something along the line
• context: a portable item that would hold things safely, which could be carried around to various places and events within her current (and potential) personal, cultural, social, and philosophical realms.

i noticed that (1) was definitely the first thing that came to my mind. but in a split second (2) and (3) became deeply inter-related with (1), so it became all too difficult to analyse the process of my approach. mostly fortunately, but not in this case, any thought process seems to be non-linear in its nature. so the conclusion of (1) (in bold) was reached through a multi-faceted exploration involving simultaneous contextualisations at both individual and social levels. so really, it appears that what was purchased is not the product itself, but the concepts and images reified in its contextualisation.

well, in the end, i found out that i’d made her doubt - though very slightly - her fashion style, so i guess the communication part wasn’t carried out very well. nevertheless, my conclusion remains unchanged. i think she should be happy with her purchase; good for her for having chosen that bag. now let’s move on :)

went to yoga last night.

deeply in love with yoga and Atma Yoga.

tanya and i sat with two other girls at dinner after our wonderful yoga class and started chatting. one of the girls asked tanya what she did for living; naturally she seemed to be quite impressed with what tanya was doing with her project and etc. it was all good and smooth until the girl turned to me and asked,

“so, are you just on a holiday here?”

tanya and i looked at each other. i smiled. so did she.

nearly two of seven australians are foreign-born; the asian population makes up about 6% of the entire australian population. but looks can be deceiving. of course. my yellow skin (or golden, some like to call it) still says something about me that i’m not aware of. something beyond me. something almost intrinsic. something of which i can’t decide the importance.

the truth is, i didn’t mind. i wasn’t offended. i didn’t feel upset. i was just surprised. that’s all. unfortunately the girl seemed to be rather embarrassed. i missed the chance to make a joke to quickly move on. split second. such an awkward situation. i couldn’t say or do anything about that other than smiling. she made a comment about how good my english was, and we moved on happily. i should’ve been more aware. and i should’ve been quicker and smarter to handle the situation before she felt embarrassed.

i went to govinda’s for lunch with lovely oksana today. and one of the things we talked about was how i felt when i went to korea a few months ago. i told her that i’d learned a lot about my own culture, and how my experiences had led me to re-examine myself as a korean-born, half-australian-grown female. i find asia so exciting. i may not know much about my own culture but i’m an asian, and i feel so lucky that i’m “naturally” given a chance to be a part of such a wonderfully exciting culture. but i do remember the time when i used to hate my asian identity. being harrassed and abused for my own body made me feel helpless and angry. i don’t feel that way at all now, but sadly, there are so many people still threatened and suffering from racism occurring both externally and internally of each individual.

a whlie ago i had a conversation with brendan and robbie over some seriously “hey-i-am-a-block-of-chocolate” type of italian hot chocolate. brendan wondered if austarlia would ever get to have an asian prime minister, to which robbie replied, “possibly. but after you guys have a female prime minister. before that, you can think of it as an impossibility. first, it’ll be be the gender barrier, then the racial.” i’m not sure why, but i concur.

money. education. race. sexuality.
poor uneducated non-caucasian queer women.
who’s the object? who’s the subject?

tourists are never busy.