This is not a pipe.

"I mean does everything happen for a reason, the change of seasons, even the slugs screamin' to stop you from breathin'. It seems we're all a target in this mosh pit. The world be spinnin' lopsided, that's why I have my logic.

We are what we are - musical contrast/sound clash/bomb blast
We are what we are - musical contrast/sound clash/bomb blast
So don't tell me how to act - how to be - how to live
We are what we are - forever live or die
Don't tell me how to act - how to be - how to live
I am what I am from beginning to the end

My conspiracy theory threatens national security, speaking clearly, you assholes don't hear me. Walked the psychopath of Timothy Leary when self therapy wasn't curing me, God put fear in me, scaring me"

-"In Memory" by Soulfly

So I was listening to that song on the way to Sarnath, thats why I put it in...The sight of the Buddha's first sermon where he taught the four noble truths and the eight fold path. I went yesterday. It was uneventful. I went to the same places I visited with our entire class during excursion. Both times (yesterday and with the group) I felt like something was missing.

However, one interesting thing happened yesterday. My rickshaw driver had a friend with him who rode in the back with me. He wore one of those hats Irish shepherds wear. For the first ten/fifteen minutes of the ride he kept trying to ask me this question in broken English I couldn't quite understand. It had to do with how I do experience and understand God personally. After I tried to both re-articulate the question and simultaneously answer it several different times..I paused..I then turn feeling I found my answer (sort of) and the guy just puts his finger up to his lips signaling for me to be quiet. Okay. He says nothing to me for the rest of the ride. Be here now, I guess...He wasn't though...

I visit Sarnath. It was whatever. The highlight was either seeing the Sri Lankan temple which had beautiful paintings depicting the Buddha's mythological story along with a Bodi tree that was supposedly a seedling from the original or else my chicken burger which was also pretty good.

On the way back my rickshaw driver (same guy) drops his friend off at some random place. He then tells me his friend is disturbed. He used to be at school. Knows english and french. But started talking about God all the time and now does nothing and is going insane. Interesting. I'm not surprised.

Next Day:

I went to the Chaukhandi Stupa today. This is supposedly the actual place where the sermon was given but of course, no one really knows. I haven't been here before, unlike the deer park complex.

A stupa is essentially a massive cylinder structure that is supposed to represent the cyclic nature of existence (samsara and such) along with the upwards path one internally "walks" upon to achieve enlightenment. They aren't all that aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. This one was kind of cool because you could actually climb it and overlook Sarnath.

It sort of looks like a castle. There is this giant bird cage looking brick chamber that sits on top. Inside there are six stones sitting in a holy looking circle meant to represent the Buddha and his five disciples.

I walk up. I look. I walk around the top. I sit down and...I've been feeling the presence of anomie all day and in a general state of internal disconnection. Uncomfortable. Anxious. Angst. Warping. Falling Apart.

I sit down and think to myself how I can avoid social interaction with anyone because usually when I chill at these places people come up and try to talk to me and I'm not at all in the mood for that right now. I really don't want you to practice english on me at the moment...

I plan on just raising my hand to my lips and giving the "shh" gesture like the insane guy in the rickshaw did to me.

These two guys come up to me who look to be about 35ish and ask me whats wrong.

I don't answer at first and kind of ignore their first attempts at saying hello. Then I cave in once they ask me why I'm sad. I quickly inform them I'm fine (Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional) and they ask if they can have a quick conversation with me...eh, alright, whatever...I'm not good at creating boundaries between myself and other people...or saying "no" for that matter...whatever...

We start talking and for some reason I find myself actually enjoying it. We wind up talking just basic bullshit for about 35 minutes and my rickshaw driver (who speaks English really well) joins in. At one point there are six of us total, discussing Buddhism and such--not in any depth what so ever. But I found it kind of cool because this was the same place where the Buddha taught to his five disciples the basic principles of buddhism. Sort of a cool parallel when I think about it.

We talk for about an hour and a half and I genuinely enjoyed it. That might not sound very significant but it honestly meant the entire world to me. I mean that too. I think I'm finally coming back to reality...I walk down, not enlightened but feeling better and more at peace with myself than I have in a long time which is more than I can ask for...

This was the first time I engaged in conversation with uneducated Indians for a long time and actually felt like I connected on a deep personal level. The two dudes who first approached me were really chill. They were truck drivers but had no jobs. They told me they make either 12,000 or 3,000 rupees a month. I don't remember which one it was...They only said one or the other but I can't recall. But thats only when they're working...

Either way thats nothing. 3,000 rupees is like 70ish bucks. 12,000 is like 200 or 300 dollars I think. I don't know. They don't make much is all the point is. Also, when the guy who first approached me told me his age (24) I didn't believe him. He looked like he was 35. Damn.

We sat there and laughed about various things, girlfriends, not working which makes us sit and think leading us to feel like shit (they were doing the same thing I was in some way) and where we grew up.

sidenote: They seemed to inform me that thinking is not what I should be doing and that it leads to problems...thought n' distortion...

My rickshaw driver and I talked a lot. We discussed terrorist attacks in India, 9/11, religion, family (he showed me pictures of his kids), sex, drinking, drugs (he had some pot grower from california rent out his rickshaw for a month), polygamy (I explained Mormonism to him), my own religious background, what I want to do when I'm older...I told him I want to be a teacher of some sorts...He said I will one day but not yet. Not sure if he was clarifying what I said or trying to inform me of my place in the toilet bowl of life...

...Life's a stream of water. You start out clean (and possibly even drinkable) then you get hit with shit and piss falling into the toilet bowl. It sucks, you suffer and just when you think it can't get any worse you get sucked into the void for what you think is forever. However, once you accept the black emptiness of the pipes below you find yourself being purified and filtered. Serenity & Peace. But then you find yourself right back where you started falling into the bowl of shit after being reborn...You can fight it--you still fall. You can try and sort it out--you still fall. Or you can embrace it, lose your individual self and just become one with the steam...Thats my analogy...I thought of it the other day and laughed...

It was weird though. When I talked with these guys I really genuinely connected to them on a personal level. I connect with people on an intellectual level all the time. Fuck that. I hate that. I feel nothing. We stroke each others ability to "know" stuff and project false smiles. I'm not into that but I do it constantly to survive. I rarely emotionally connect to people like this so for me to do it with two jobless truckers and my rickshaw driver was like...it was really moving, profound, and just as significant as anything else I've done since I've been here...and I mean that. Like I've said in the past, simple stuff is always so much more profound than shit like the Taj Mahal...I'm not introverted, introspective (too much so, way, way too much so) but not introverted...I get energy from people...but my point is that I place extreme emphasis on my internal state of being...not my external factors (they matter too) but how I am perceiving, feeling, and experiencing the world from behind my mask is what matters most to me...So when I have a conversation with someone and they open the internal doorways into a more centered and peaceful state of consciousness for me, I value that above all else.

When I laughed with these guys I felt one with them. We vibed off each other and racial, sociopolitical, and language barriers dissipated entirely. I almost at one point felt like saying to them, "hey, we should come back here everyday and just bullshit and chill." My rickshaw driver told me how people in America, they're too wound up. They plan to talk for two minutes and talk for 30 seconds. People in Varanasi are slowed down. They plan on a two minute conversation and talk for two hours. We laugh because I know exactly what they mean. I could just exist in the moment with them and really begin to feel centered. They felt like friends I had known a long time.

There is a good story...I might butcher this...I saw fresh bloody goat skins being dried in the sun today on the streets of Banares speaking of butchering...anyway, the story...

So an Atheist approaches the Buddha with certainty and asks him, "God doesn't exist, right?"

The Buddha responds, "God does exist" and keeps walking.

A religious man, a priest, then approaches the Buddha with certainty and asks, "God does exist, right?"

The Buddha responds, "God does not exists" and keeps walking with no further explanation given. The holy man, like the atheist, is left perplexed and scratching his head. His mind is visibly scrambled.

A common man approaches the Buddha and asks him in confusion, "Does God exist?"

The Buddha doesn't respond. He looks at the man, smiles deeply, and continues walking. The man pauses for a moment and then goes, "ohhhhhhhhh" and smiles like the Buddha...

So the point is that mental concepts don't suffice. You aren't your mind. The thing people label as "god" is something that only exists in raw experience, beyond terminology or anything that involves the mind. The idea is detach from your mind and the conscious labels we use to fragment a unified and holistic world...

The fish in the ocean wouldn't know what water was if you asked them.

Its right in front of you looking at you in straight in the eyes, here and now...I had a sermon today and it came in the form of experience not intellectualizing so I'm grateful.

"the farther one travels the less one really knows..."