There was this enlightened guy, Drukpa Kunley, who came to Bhutan from Tibet and his method of spreading the truth was pretty much just by fucking with people. He was always drunk, having sex, and slaying demons with his penis. In one story, he kills a demon with his foreskin by smothering the demon with it (there are many more tales of this nature). In Bhutan, they honor him by drawing large penises all over the buildings. I quickly became a fan of Drukpa Kunley since he was a social menace. I read his biography, which was coincidentally translated by one of our previous lecturers, Keith Dowman, who came in and spoke to us about if we are interested in uncovering the true ground of being we should look within our own culture and not conform to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, which he claimed, are largely irrelevant to the Western way of mind. He made the point that our own culture has methods for uncovering the true nature of mind and the mistake many foreigners make is trading one set of conditioning in for another by becoming monks or following the Tibetan tradition. I agreed and the longer I’ve been over here the more I’ve distanced myself with the religious elements Buddhism, seeing it as no more valid as going to church or something of that nature. I think the Buddhism I’m interested in is just the mind training part, everything else is over-ritualized and irrelevant to the final product in my opinion.
Anyway, back to Drukpa Kunley—Druk, means dragon and is the name of Bhutan, Drukpas are people from Bhutan, Drukpa Kagyu is the Bhutanese sect of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism—the school led by the Karmapa, the enlightened master I met a few months back in Bodh Gaya. There are four main schools: Kagyu, Gelug (Dalai Lama is the head), Sakya, & Nyigma—Drukpa Kunley, according to my teacher’s assistant, also did things such as eat his own shi, piss, and masturbate in public in order to break down the duality of good & evil.
When you enter into a temple it is common practice to prostrate (sort of a religious gymnastic to purify mind, speech, & heart (I think)) three times to the deity in the shrine and then three times to the head of the temple (or his chair if he isn’t there)…The only temple I prostrated in on our Nepal/Bhutan trip thus far has been in Drukpa Kunley’s temple, I even left 5 rupees on the shrine. Sort of sidenote: there was a Ak-47 that someone had offered and was hung up on the pillar next to the shrine…odd….
At the temple, they even do a public service where a monk will bless you with what is essentially a very large dildo for fertility. People from all over the world travel here to be dick slapped at the Drukpa Kunley temple. I of course, participated. I don’t think this was the Divine Madman’s intention though—I must point out how bizarre it is that intentionally counter-culture actions become a staple of ritualized normality. Feelsweirdman…You become what you resist….
There is a pre-Socratic philosopher, Diogenes, who also did things of this nature—his purpose was just to upset the general order by stepping so far over the social lines that the arbitrary rationality that ordinary people accept as logic/truth becomes exposed as the bullshit it is—or at the very least they are shocked and a new disturbingly entertaining dimension is added onto their previously superficial reality. When you become enlightened, there is no good or evil, its like stuff just happens—good and evil only exist for egos who live in perpetual turmoil over their impeding doom, therefore they (we) feel the need to separate this “good” from that “bad” in order to maintain our impermanent existence (impossible!)….
When “you die before you die” as Eckhart Tolle points out, all of that insanity goes down the tubes and the never-ending peace of the moment overrides all this nonsense, so at this point you can become like Drukpa Kunley and just go out into the world fucking with egotistical bullshit—a dream come true…This is not to counteract compassion and become fatalist about life using the argument that “things are just this way”…This is a point Ram Dass makes, that we must not confuse the absolute and relativistic levels of life, on the absolute level of non-duality, nothing matters, on the relative level of the human heart we should reach out to others in suffering. However, always keep in mind its just sort of a big game—that’s how the Hindus envision reality, a big game god plays with itself…Their philosophy has god beneath the material world while in the West we place God above everything…Its more or less the same thing when you start to climb the ladder…Up is down and down is up…
Interesting to note though, this practice of doing “decadent” things is not limited to the already enlightened. It can also be a way to realization. My friend on the same program here has a homestay brother (the family’s son he is staying with) who is a Tibetan Yogi. Yogi’s do all kinds of crazy shit like do nothing but meditate in caves for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days straight sitting in a wooden box so they can’t lie down and sleep…That meditation retreat is also the protocol for becoming a lama (lamas head temples). There are stories of them going to ice cold lakes up in the Himalayas and making the water boil because they are emitting so much energy. This is supposedly fact too, not just hocus pocus stuff. They are said to be capable of controlling the weather & odd things of that nature—however, these are side effects not the goal of meditation I must point out. Mila Repa, one of the most famous Yogis of Tibetan Buddhism whose lineage can be traced to the Karmapa, is said to have conjured up a hailstorm with black magic, killing 35 people out of revenge but then later became enlightened (not without karmic penalty of course). I thought this is a nice story because it means even murderers can reclaim grace. However, Mila Repa did what he did more because his mother desired vengeance rather than the other way around but…still…
Back to my friend’s Yogi Bother…This guy, according to my friend John, has also drank his own piss before and attempted to eat his own shit. He told John eating his own shit made him throw up both times and he wasn’t able to down it. However, he was enthusiastic about his next attempt, believing he would be able to pull it off. John also says his Yogi brother constantly talks about sex and won’t shut up about it…
This shit eating thing is also a part of the “left hand path” of Buddhism from what I understand, where you do everything opposite of what you are supposed to—have sex (with both the living and the dead), take drugs, meditate in graveyards, kill things, eating your own shit/piss/semen, and do other fucked up stuff. Why? I think it all comes down to eradicating conditioning, normality, and false duality. You eliminate all psychological distinction, separation and uncover the essence of “isness” or god or whatever…There are probably better ways to go about becoming enlightened but some people are really desperate I guess…
The funny thing about religion though is that the true practitioners are always the social outcasts and non-conformists. Jesus was a goddamn hippie, I mean just look at the guy—long hair, beard, didn’t shower, robes, sandals, and always talking about peace & love. Why would you wear suits & fancy clothing to church if this guy is the one you are worshipping? Throughout the entire world we use religion as a way to conform and oppress people into a single mental framework. This is simple minded critique obviously but I don’t know, I just think its weird to find that the people who are so obsessed with upholding order and social control adamantly follow the biggest burn outs in all of human history. I guess I’m the only one…Does this make sense to you? Because I don’t understand how this works…Sadhus with dreadlocks sitting around in rags, smoking weed all day being worshipped by Indian/Nepali public officials who demand a business dress code and that pot remains illegal…once again, I am experiencing confusion….I think many people are unconscious of what they do & why they do it—that’s the only conclusion I can draw. One of the great things about Buddhism, from what my professor told me, is that it doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you are mindful about what you are doing. Be awake—don’t be asleep.
We had the opportunity to meet a Lama. I’ve met several on this trip, including one who was only 10 years old or so, which was an interesting experience. However, this guy was way different than all the rest. He was not recognized at birth and was a businessman only a few years back. It turned out at the age of 32 he began to suffer what can only be described as a psychotic episode where “everything was just suffering in disguise” as he put it. He spent a year just being completely psychotic, his family feared for him and thought he had gone insane. He consulted an oracle out of desperation and she informed him to build a temple, which he did after two years, with practically no money. Over time & with meditation, selfless action, and the help of various teachings his mind began to enter into a deep state of peace, awakening, and realization. He said he has no background in Buddhism, scripture, and never had any official teacher.
I think I’ve mentioned on this blog multiple times how insanity and divinity are closely linked, as both facilitate the destruction of the egoic mind. The whole enlightenment thing is just breaking down what isn’t real in the search for what is—so going batshit crazy can get you pretty close to “oneness”…vibrations of the higher being…Crazy people always think they’re god or talking to god for a very good reason…You meditate in a cave for three years, the person who went in isn’t the same person coming out…The lama was recently handicapped and confined to a wheel chair due to a car accident. He claimed that at the time it happened he had already detached from his ego to such an extent it didn’t matter to him—only that he wasn’t able to benefit others as much as before. His wife, who he married before his breakdown, said he didn’t even cry when the accident occurred.
His wife, however, seemed totally distraught by everything that happened to her husband in the past couple years. She kept interrupting her husband during his talk and you could just tell she was very much disturbed from her husband’s transformation. It was definitely one of the most interesting and bizarre talks I’ve ever been too.
We met this other Lama who was recognized as a reincarnation at birth in Tibet. However, he currently lives in Los Angeles but was travelling through Nepal. He told us how his master was totally insane (his exact words I believe). His master used to drink, smoke, use guns, and curse all the time because according to this lama—once you reach that heightened state of awareness beyond the astral plane or whatever you are sort of running the show if that makes sense…He told us a story about how there was a girl who was very sick or something along those lines and she went to see the lama’s master and he literally shot her with a rifle in the stomach where the illness was (I believe he was drunk when he did this) but a week later the girl was completely cured and back to full-health…crazy shit…Its best to be skeptical during these things but its still a cool story.
I had my birthday in Bhutan, which was different I suppose. We drank Druk 11,000 beer the night before (the government outlawed Druk 10,000 so the company just upped the ante a bit) The next day everyone in my group got me gifts. One girl gave me a chocolate bar with a message that said, “I hope this gets you one step closer to your dream of swimming in chocolate”…I had mentioned earlier that I wanted to swim in a vat of chocolate because I’ve been going through sugar cravings from eating nothing but rice every meal. We literally had rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and desert one day—sweet fucking Jesus. Despite all this, I am not sick of rice. However, the taste element of my mind is starting to snap from a lack of processed American food loaded with sugar & chemical additives. This is both good & bad I suppose.
Another girl gave me a giant bag of the powdered drink mix Tang because for some unknown reason I can’t stop talking about Tang…I suffer from arrested development and from time to time I become randomly obsessed with a single object or word, which then becomes the subject of every joke or sentence I make—for the past several weeks Tang has been it—I also believe my infatuation with the Wu Tang Clan has contributed to this issue.
I received a piece of paper that was colored in red and said “Misha” on it, which is Tibetan for human flesh. During Tibetan class one day in the rice paddies of Maratika (Eastern Nepal where Guru Rinpoche achieved immortality) I became disillusioned with making sentences about momos, tea, and other boring stuff and sorted through my dictionary and spat out this sentence in Tibetan, “I keep human flesh for eating in my freezer”…I received several odd looks for that one before people started laughing…Misha has become a staple word in our classes ever since…
The best gift though came later in the day. I purchased the national dress of Bhutan for men, the Gho, which is essentially a bathrobe and high socks, but I didn’t buy the socks. I later learned that socks are required (literally by law) when you go to temples and political places so I couldn’t wear it. To be honest though I didn’t really like wearing it so I didn’t care. Impossible to put on. However, on my birthday, I thought to myself that I wanted to wear it the next day but I was like, “how can I get some socks?....” The bus we were riding on stopped about 15 minutes later for a bathroom break and my Tibetan teacher, Tendor-la presented me with a gift and cutta (Tibetan cloth/scarf given to lamas and with gifts as a sign of respect). I opened it up and low and behold—socks! My faith in life had been restored.
We arrived at our next location—Sherubtse college—several hours later and we ate dinner with some students who were sort of sizing us up for who they wanted to room with for six days together. I walked back with my roommate and as I was sitting in the dorm room with him I thought to myself, “I hope something somewhat auspicious occurs towards the end of the night that brings significance to my birthday.”
About four hours later, at 11:47 p.m. my roommate comes back in the room after being on the phone in the hallway and tells me his wife just gave birth to a baby girl, which means she has the same birthday as me. I think that qualifies as auspicious. All the Bhutanese dudes tell me I’m good luck. My roommate was 27 for the record, a lot of students are older but most are around my age as well.
Later on the trip…. I was feeling like crap for some reason, lack of control over my personal situation in Bhutan. I didn’t get to chose where I went, when I got there, how I got there, or what I’m doing there—where I slept, what I ate, when I ate, or really just about anything…Lame…So I’m going to go drown my sorrows in pork momos, during our few hours of free time. I realize that last sentence contradicts the previous one but just ignore that…As I’m about to go up and order, this cute Bhutanese girl comes up to me and says something so quiet I had to lean my head down a foot to hear her repeat it. She asked if I will be free later that night and I’m just like—uh yeah sure I guess? Then she asked me if I could go on a walk with her in two hours. I’m sort of taken back and confused but I’m just like sure and tell her I’ll meet her there at six. My friends watching this quickly inform that she just asked me on a date. My head begins to spin for a number of reasons and I just sort of sit there as I slowly eat my momos with an odd confusion and feeling uncomfortable as to what I just agreed to...I must note she had a few homemade tattoos and smelled like cigarettes, which is odd because cigarettes are illegal in Bhutan…
Facts and such I remembered:
Population: 700,000 people (although you will find conflicting sources on this number for some reason)
National Religion: Drukpa Kagyu—76% (Hindus make up 23% mostly of Nepalis living in Southern Bhutan/1% Christians & Muslims)
National Bird: The Raven
National Sport: Archery
National Dress: The Gho for men and Khira for women
National Language: Dzonghka (pronounced zong-kA), same script as Tibetan but totally different structure, comparable to French & English I think.
The landmass is 15,000 square miles so its size is between West Virginia & Maryland.
Ruled by a monarchy of the Wangchuk family since 1907. Government is currently a constitutional monarchy. This is the 5th king, he actually studied at either Boston College or University (I don’t remember which), and did a special politics program at Oxford. He’s only 30 something and unmarried.
Main exports are apples (mostly to Bangladesh) and hydroelectric power to India. India dictates most of Bhutan’s policy. Bhutan was stuck between India & China so they needed to choose a side or risk being conquered. The Bhutanese rupee is worth the same as the Indian rupees (40 to the dollar).
You can buy Tang in Bhutan?
ReplyDeleteHell yes you can buy tang in bhutan!
ReplyDeleteMac and cheese too?
ReplyDelete