Finding Self in Other

By Richard Trinh & Soren Peterson

It was the bedrock of our authenticity in service and engagement: that second seminar discussion, on the speech "To Hell With Good Intentions," by Ivan Illich, brought authenticity to the forefront of Jan Term. We began to examine ourselves and our role in engagement.

Rather than being here for service, implying a server-served dichotomy, we saw ourselves as visitors. "Volunteer" we felt to be too heavy of a role. Our authenticity was found in genuine relationships -- seeing others as equal.

There is a line in Awakening Dignity, by Phakchok Rinpoche and Sophie Wu, stating that expanding our capacity to love involves the viewing of others as equal to self: “when we develop the quality of equanimity and see everyone as equal, we come to appreciate the precious existence of all living beings.”

Every day in Nepal, it felt like practicing viewing self and other; you could not go a day without talking or interacting with anyone. It made the lives and experiences of others worth hearing -- making compassion a no-brainer for all sentient beings.

Tangent: you could not help but realize that whatever was written in Awakening Dignity was being actively lived by Phakchok Rinpoche. That was one of the best parts of the trip -- seeing him on our last day -- with a surprising amount of insights.

I do not know if I will return to any Buddhist practice; I leave Nepal with numerous souvenirs and Buddhist commentaries.

Those memories of Nepal, like a stupa, will always return my mind to a search for compassion and dissolution of self. The places and people made so much of the trip; all of us were engaged in such academic and religious curiosity.

We never got to talk fully about the last reading, "When the Iron Bird Flies," a chapter in How the Swans Came to the Lake, by Rick Fields. Much of how Fields describes the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism seems to draw parallels to our own experiences.

Auspicious coincidences, curious Westerners, and great spiritual traditions were the backdrop to our class.

Tibetan Buddhism and learning about it felt like a mirror to look into what constitutes one’s self.

I took more pictures of others than myself; I find a lot of joy in the happiness of others.

Go to Nepal if you have the inkling.

Make friends and see that all sentient beings deserve compassion. There is Buddha nature in all of us.

For our last blog post, Richard and I (Soren) want to share what we personally and as a combined group learned and gained from our experience traveling in Nepal. We want to answer the questions: How did we engage authentically? How did we all learn and serve? We have been asking ourselves these questions throughout our time across the pond, constantly trying to challenge ourselves and answer them.

Personally to me, Soren, something that felt extremely authentic was eating dinner at Karma’s restaurant. The whole atmosphere of her restaurant: small, quaint, and loving, with openness, filled the room. How could you not love that

But not just that -- her energy and positive smile always made me and the rest of our group happy, every time, without question.

In terms of authenticity, she and her sister took their time to cook us amazing food, and also teach us about it along the way. They opened our horizons.

When Karma and her sister offered to teach aspects of how to make some of their food, we were all excited.

This was an opportunity for us to learn more about the culture we were immersing ourselves into, a chance to really learn from locals.

For a few days, some of us went over to Karma's in the afternoon and were instructed on how to make MoMos and Shapaley. She showed us how to prepare the buffalo and the dough and how to stuff and fold/pinch a dumpling to close it. There was definitely a learning curve with the folding of the MoMos, but after a while, I started to get the hang of it.

To me, it felt extremely authentic and personal to be doing this in Nepal and with someone of the culture, particularly a member of the Tibetan refugee community. I mean, here we are, in Nepal, and we have formed a close relationship, and now here we, right along with Karma, are making traditional food that we are going to eat together for dinner! How crazy!

When we witnessed such compassion toward us, which is only one example of a laundry list of compassion shown to us, it opened our eyes to the culture and how Buddhism affects an entire community and possibly population.

Everyone we encountered was incredibly open and inviting, welcoming and helpful. This was a big surprise for me, but it was a great surprise.

It made me and my classmates look within and contemplate compassion, impermanence, and how easy it is to be compassionate and make the world a better place.

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