Letter from Nepal
by Stevan Orescan
received April 2003 from our man in the field,
to all the "armchair philosophers" back home
Kathmandu, Aug.10, 2002,
the Royal Mountain Kingdom with emanations and vibrations
of Shangri-La, the United Nations, ex-pat American and
Europeans and the Nepalese Army. Most of the time I
only experience the Shangri-La part behind brick walls
surrounded by a lush, green garden of ferns, indigenous
bushes and trees of every shape and size, elephant ear
leaves of taro and banana, flowers of every imaginable
color mingling with the brilliantly hued sarongs of
the young girls working in the garden. In the background
can be heard the low drone of chanting monks and the
occasional piercing blast from a Tibetan long- horn,
the clanging of giant cymbals or the deep, melodious
reverberations of a monastery gong. The man servant
brings me breakfast, tea, lunch, again tea and then
dinner. The woman washes my clothes, does the cleaning
and keeps the kitchen together.
The other night we went to
a gathering at the house of a US Senator’s mad
and multi-talented, hippie daughter, the night before
to the palatial home of an old, Dutch antique dealer
who has lived here for years and sleeps with a different
sweet young thing every night. The exchange rate is
Rs.78 to the dollar and ten bucks US buys a huge amount
of groceries. For those so inclined another ten brings
home a hunk of black hash the size of their big toe.
I sit in front of the screen
which sits in front of the window looking out into the
garden. I tap-tap letters all day to people all over
the world and can think of no better way of spending
my time. The monsoon is here which lends itself nicely
to reading the many books in the library. Sometimes
I stroll down to the stupa and linger over a morning
coffee in one of the many small cafes that encircle
it. Monks and townspeople and funny, serious western
types come to circumambulate this holy shrine, mumble
in their beads and spin prayer wheels in the eternal
quest for enlightenment, a more auspicious rebirth and
a new Honda motorcycle. Not wishing for any of these
I am happy to just sit and watch.
I have a small coterie of
beggars that wait for me on my morning walks. Two Indian
sadhus, a one legged man and another young man that
glides across the ground on twisted, malformed legs
all seem to know when I’m coming.. No welfare
or disability here, no crazy pay for the mad hatters,
no kinder gelt for the poor moms. These are the real
holy men and women of this Buddha land; the beggars
and scavengers, the cripples, the whores and goondas,
the dregs of humanity that evoke from the depths of
your innermost recesses thoughts and feelings of such
intensity that one cannot help but be transformed by
them. These experiences are an every day affair; an
entheogenic voyage, a daily epiphany of insights and
illuminations that the West does not offer its inhabitants,
Oprah land notwithstanding.
This is the home of the King
Of The World and the Mother Of The Gods, two local residents
that I see several times a week. They smile and wave
hello, never asking but always receptive to a small
donation. How can one not donate to such royalty? One’s
beneficence may one day affect the evil king that rules
this land at present, a sardonic, debauched and corrupt
ruler that everyone hates. When he dies his son will
take over, a killer in the Saddam mold, feared by all
for his unpredictability and sociopathic inclinations.
The Maoists clamour for entrance
to the palace gates. Outside the walls steeley-eyed,
camo-dressed gurkas with automatic weapons patrol the
tree lined road that surrounds the palace and give hard
looks to all passerbys, their finger always on the trigger.
How nice not to be a person of importance.
There are many Westerners
here in various capacities; dharma scholars, antique
and textile dealers, NGO workers, Social Security retirees,
left-over hipsters and drug dealers. One can stay five
months a year on a tourist visa for about a dollar a
day or you can enroll in music or language school, sign
up for a Ph.D at Tribuvan University or apply for a
research scholar’s visa, all of which will allow
one to stay indefinitely and are fairly easy to get.
India and the holy city of Banaras are right over the
mountain, about $160 round trip and an hour away, an
easy commute if one were inclined to keep an abode in
both places, an idea that I have been considering. It’s
a good place to hole up with books and laptop after
the heat, dirt, venality and intensity of the Motherland,
its softness a welcome respite, like an oasis in the
desert.
Though this is a Hindu country
the large, Tibetan community brings a quality of equanimity
and perspicuity that cannot be found in any other culture
that I have experienced. The hardship of life on the
high, treeless plateau seems to mitigate against the
ravages of self indulgence; the austerity feeds their
spirit and the hardship strengthens it. They are good
business people, clear-eyed and charming in their dealings
and one need not be fearful of being cheated.
In India the full repertoire
of feint and manoeuver coercion and cajolery come into
play, the caged despair of the hungry and unsatisfied.
It is a good school for the teaching of patience, the
ability to just be without anxiety. The false pride
and moral standards of the West need to be relinquished
if one is to survive. Survival demands that we stand
alone, devoid of the baggage of conditioning and desire
and be ready to die at any time, to shut off the brain
and release the sorrow that binds us to the wheel. Camus
said one is most awake on the way to the gallows. In
Asia the hangman’s noose is everywhere and one
is not paying attention if death is not observed at
least once a day. Living in the East is both a deeper
life experience and a deeper death experience. A good
place to live, a good place to die.
******
K’du, Aug.12, 2002
Today, on my morning walk to the stupa I saw a child?
Man? Baby? With a body weighing no more than 15 pounds
and a head larger than a basketball with two more protuberances
the size of cut-in- half volley balls growing from it.
The whole thing looked like it was ready to explode
onto the circle of people staring at him. The mother,
sitting on the ground, held him as if nursing while
explaining in Nepali what his condition was, thanking
the people as they donated a coin or small bill.
Though this poor being was
sweating and obviously uncomfortable he looked amazing
alert and intelligent and as I looked into his eyes
there was a flicker of recognition, some kind of connection
that allowed the both of us to see deep into each other.
At first I had thought how horrible, that such specimens
of humanity should be eliminated at birth for they can
only suffer untold anguish, humiliation and pain but
the more I looked into his eyes the more I saw a soul,
a brain and a mind that could very well be much more
advanced than the puny one that we so arrogantly carry
around.
If mind is the unfolding
of thought and thought is the result or output of the
brain’s activity then this huge brain throbbing
inside the skull of this person could be a developing
mutation struggling to find and keep its place in the
hierarchy of the primates that presently occupy the
planet. Is this possible? Or could this be another form
from another planet who has floated down on a thread
of DNA to eventually occupy this land that we humans
are irresponsibly destroying with our greed and aggression?
Twenty years ago I saw another
such person in a small village in the north of Thailand,
a huge pumpkin head in a tiny withered body, lying in
a baby carriage as the mother solicited contributions.
They looked similar, could have been twins or members
of the same mutated species that have evolved into this
extreme deviation to teach us about mind and intelligence
and slowly replace us as we become extinct due to AIDS,
drugs and wars. And if they have come down , say from
Alpha Centauri, are there more? And if these huge brains
and withered bodies were to return to their place of
becoming would they refer to us as huge bodies with
withered brains that they observed on their travels?
Or are these just isolated
examples of encephalitis , "water on the brain,"
a condition more prevalent in Asia due to heat, dirt,
diet and strange tropical diseases, and one that has
not been swept under the carpet or warehoused in a special
institution as we do in the West? What if two members
of this group were to have children? Would their offspring
have the same characteristics, the same brain size and
intelligence, the same under developed body and withered
appendages?
Those, of course, are relative
terms; underdeveloped in relation to what? Withered
in relation to what? To say that they are underdeveloped
and withered is stating an absolute-that which doesn’t
stand in relation to anything else and that prevails
all the time and everywhere. That certainly is not the
case with homo sapiens. We are as varied as the snowflakes,
all beautifully shaped and singularly unique and equal
in our humanity. And if the world is God made manifest
then those two specimens of humanity, and all the others
of their form and substance, are just other versions
like all of us and with as much right to live as all
of us, if they so choose.
But what if they were not
specimens of humanity? What if they were not human?
Could they be angels? And what is an angel? A spiritual
being not of the corporeal world of time and space?
An immaterial substance? A disembodied spirit? An article
of faith? A winged doer of good deeds, bringer of light
and wisdom?
There is not much in the
annals of Buddhism regarding angels and there is no
theological, philosophical or scientific proof that
angels exist in any of the major religions of the world.
But there is also no proof that they do not exist and
the two beings that I saw, both times in Buddhist countries
and in areas of holy shrines, indeed carried with them
a radiant, celestial presence once one overcame the
shock of seeing their forms.
Angels exist as an article
of faith in the three major "revealed religions"
of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and there are angelic
intimations in some Buddhist circles that manifest in
divine forms such as mother goddesses or heavenly helpers.
Generally these beings have beautiful configurations,
ethereal, sometime with wings signifying other worldliness,
as if from heaven or even the nether reaches of the
underworld of darkness and shadow as in the angel of
death. But never distorted and misshapen, never frightening
in appearance, weak or physically helpless; these characteristics
belong to the world of evil, bad karma, hell, suffering,
punishment, all that we are afraid of and try to avoid
during our life.
However, since there are
handsome forms of evil as well, one could presume that
grotesque angels also exist. Osama and Saddam are handsome
men and Hitler would not have been considered ugly or
funny looking had it not been for his moustache and
haircut. Mother Theresa, considered by many before she
died a living angel with much inner beauty, had little
of the outer.
Does an angel bring happiness?
Wisdom? Comfort? The ever smiling drug dealer on Freak
Street does that, the whores and madams of the brothels
do that; succour, aid and attendance, an anodyne for
a tired body and anguished soul as it awaits the angel
of death, handsome in his black robes and piercing,
black eyes and bloodless, white face, ready to sweep
us up in his robe and carry us off to places unimagined
by mortal man.
