Gobi State of Mind

If you want to really examine the content of your mind, and I mean count all the chattering squirrels that are caged up there, go somewhere absolutely silent. The Gobi Desert in November qualifies.

At the cave site where I installed myself for a five-day retreat, I didn’t get the full impact of the desert silence at first. For five days prior, I had been in the company of the director and several volunteers for F.I.R.E., participating in the distribution of warm clothing and medical supplies in and around Sainshand, the provincial capital of Mongolia’s Eastern Gobi region. They went out every day for four days; I joined a medical distribution one day and a clothing distribution another (I’ll talk a bit about this later – I’ve given my best photos to my cousin Ryan to post, since her site is HQ for the Dulaan Project, which provided the wonderful knitted goods we gave out), filling the rest of my time with completing editing work for UNESCO. While the overall effort was very beneficial for the poor people of the area, it was marred internally by a sharp personality clash between two of the volunteers. This expressed itself alternately as the ominous bubbling magma of clenched jaws and curt exchanges, and the eruption, at least twice, into full-blown screaming fights. The female translator was disturbed enough that she quickly moved out of the hotel to stay with distant relatives. The male translator and I (we were the only fellas) hid out in our room, enjoying the easy companionship of giggling at the strange Russian cable channels we clicked through, and agreeing between mouthfuls of junk food that the behavior of women in groups was definitely inscrutable, perhaps certifiable, and we should think well before unlocking our door.

This discomfort was further irritated by the odd experience that, in spite that fact that I’m 40, nearly bald, got 30 pounds I don’t need thanks to Paxil, and wear nothing but frumpy monk’s robes – the robes that should signify in a Buddhist country a vow of lifelong celibacy – one young female worker at our hotel flirted with me with increasing brazenness, despite my lack of response, as the days went by. Jetsunma warned me once that there would be women who, for whatever karmic reason, would be attracted by the virtue of my precepts, but would misinterpret it as attraction to me. I can’t think of any other explanation, other than the dazzling splendor of my natural charm. Anyway, I was quite happy to check out and pack my bags into the van for a day of sightseeing last Friday. But even then, the group dynamic felt so fractured and I was dismayed that no one seemed to really be interested in the sacredness of the sites I took them to. This included the cave. Those who saw it could only remark, “Gee, it’s kind of small. You can’t even stand up in it.” That’s true. It’s maybe eight feet in from the entrance, it bends 90º to the right making it about 10 feet across, and there is only one place inside where I can stand up straight, but that’s hardly the point. Taking in that I was happily going to call this my home for the next five days, the group started to look at me like I’d grown horns. They hastily bid me adieu so they could go see dinosaur eggs before the light faded. This was, frankly, a great relief. I waved goodbye, and installed myself for a welcome period of solitude.

I’ve written before about my strangely powerful affinity for this cave and the rugged ravine in which it’s situated. My first act was a little housecleaning. The Gobi winds have covered the cave floor with a thick layer of fine sand and soft grass seed husks. Once I cleared it of stones, it was wonderful for sitting and sleeping – kind of like camping at the beach. In November. I also cleared the ravine of much of the pilgrims’ trash that had blown in.

When I first visited this cave, it had obviously been a place used to cache texts and other sacred objects so they wouldn’t be destroyed during the Communists’ anti-religious purges. Someone had scattered all these things about, however. The dusty floor was litterred with book pages, and various other objects were strewn everywhere. On a subsequent visit, I cleaned it all up very carefully, leaving a handful of items. These items remained, and I arranged them as a little shrine to past practitioners and the brave individuals who tried to preserve elements of their Buddhist faith:

I ate a modest supper as night fell, glad that the cheap propane burner I bought worked like a charm. As happens in the desert, the temperature dipped swiftly as the sun set and I became sharply aware that perspiration had soaked into my clothes with the exertion of getting my gear down to the cave. I experimented with various clothing layers, but it was too late. I was chilled.

No matter. I’d done cold retreats before, and I was determined that I would stay for those five days no matter what the conditions. I thought of the stories I knew of past masters and the hardships they endured over the course of years for the sake of Dharma practice. Encouraged, I set up my seat, got out my books, and discovered that what I thought was a superfluous purchase before I came to Mongolia last year turned out to be indispensable. It’s a headlamp with the virile name of Night Blaster. I could read my texts at night – or anything else I needed to do – and have my hands free. Perfect.

During my free time in Sainshand, I had plotted out the rhythm of the retreat. From about 1996-2001, I headed a project at KPC called the Migyur Dorje Institute. This was a program of intensive study retreats in the summer, and practice retreats in the winter. We held four different 30-day retreats during that time. I used that program as a guideline for my morning and evening sessions, folded in a bit of my own intuition, and reserved the bulk of the time for my main practice, which is Guru Yoga. The focus of this practice is an intimate kind of visualization of Padmasambhava as inseparable from my own root teacher, and the accumulation of the Seven Line Prayer.

It felt so good to sit down and begin chanting, but I was surprised how jumpy my mind was. I puzzled about the events of the past few days, and worried about my deepening chill and whether I had what it took to tough it out. Later, as I settled in to sleep, things didn’t get much more encouraging. Despite several layers of clothes, a sleeping bag and my thick wool blanket, I couldn’t shake the chill, especially in my feet. I dozed fitfully, waking every hour or two until it was time to prepare for my dawn session.

Hot coffee helped and, as often happens, the sun rose. I chanted through one of my favorite short texts we used in our last long retreat, called Waking Up From the Slumber of Ignorance. At dawn, one is to visualize wisdom dakinis arriving to sing to you in exhortation. They begin like this:

“Alas! Fortunate ones!
Do not let ignorance overwhelm you;
Wake up now and be diligent.
Since beginningless time to this very moment
You have been sleeping in ignorance. Enough!
Now sleep no more and devote your three doors [body, speech and mind]
to the practice of Dharma.
Don’t you understand the suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death?
No moment of what is called ‘today’ is permanent.
Now the time has arrived to practice diligently.
This is the moment to accomplish permanent happiness
And not the moment to fritter away in the state of laziness…”

And that’s when it struck me. The complete and utterly profound silence of this place. Not just pretty quiet. Not just kinda tranquil. I mean no sound. Not a bird, not the rustle of a breeze, not a dog barking. No insects zipping by, no sounds of the monastery community rousing itself, no planes overhead, not a pebble rolling down the hill – nothing. Nothing.

Nothing, that is, except the inescapable cacophony of your own mind. It’s shocking when you’re forced to confront the unending riot of images and words that storm around the surface of the mind. But of course that’s exactly what meditation’s for. To finally meet your mind, see that the elements of your thoughtstream, though doggedly persistent, are all impermanent, ephemeral. And then sit, without judgment, and let the whole mess, little by little, settle down. And the best place to do this is one where your senses are stimulated as little as possible.

Welcome to the Gobi.

Every day while the sun was up, this was my view. Interesting for a moment (“Is that owl poop in the cave across the way? Yup, that’s owl poop all right.”) but then there’s not much more to think about it:

Then, from the cave opening at the bottom of this photo, check out my environs. Vast. Empty:

After the first morning session, I walked around a bit to get the blood flowing. I ran into my neighbor. He seemed to be adapting to the silence quite well:

And then I found a tree. Or should I say the tree:

And then I returned to my seat joyful, knowing the power of blending one’s mind with boundless silence such as this. Thanks to the training I’ve had under my sublime teachers, I found I eased very quickly into this situation, and was able let go of thoughts of the past so I could concentrate in the present.

More tales and images soon.

Comments

[Ariel]

That sounds like an interesting five days you had out there, or not interesting, per se. Maybe what I mean is, seems like something you may have needed, an experience the like of which I could hav emore often -- silence and the ability to rest your mind and discipline your body. I had some days like that in Dornod (not Choibalsan, but a soum much farther north), during the hoof-and-mouth quarantine of 2001. Couldn't go anywhere or do anything but look out the window and watch the storms come and go across the eastern steppe. I won't say I envy you your five days of silence in the West, because I know everyone has the individual experiences he/she needs to have, but I am happy for you that you were able to go and do that. I really miss the peace of the steppe on a cold night with no-one around.

[Ariel]

Sorry, I just read that --and have no idea why I wrote "West", Dornogobi (Sainshand and that area), I know is in the East (south-east). Two aimags south of Dornod, isn't it? I guess it's the early-morning after what- has-been-a-long-week sort of posting...

[Carol]

I'm glad you included your pre-cave experience. It's a reminder to me that, as important as solitary practice is, sometimes the challenges of the real world provide important learning experiences too. I had wanted nothing more this fall than to come along on the FIRE trip. And if I had, I promise that I would have been very interested in your cave, since I am sure that solitary retreat is one of the things that lies in my future.

Looking forward to hearing more!

[rho1640]

I have always wondered what that type of silence is like - here even when it is quite - you hear cars in the distance or boats in the distance, ocean crashing on the beach, birds, planes flying to the various airports in this area and I swear (but people just think I am weird ... don't say it LOL) you can hear the electricity in the air from all that is fed to the area around here.

Not to mention I can never feel alone with my ears ringing as much and as loud as they do.

maybe that is what the two people who were having personality clashes needed - to either be alone or to be left alone together to work it out ;)

[Ryan]

"As often happens, the sun rose?!" What a hoot!

Loved the entry, cuzzin, all of it. Welcome back to the Land of Din.

[Rinchen Gyatso]

I've also had the experience of women coming on to me. One used to tell me flat out, "I want you." I finally sat her down and made it clear it was never going to happen, so she dropped it after that. Just recently in Pasadena I saw a guy checking me out at work, but he didn't say anything. I'm always in my robes, too, and more often than not, people seem to know I'm a Buddhist monk here.

I'm also looking forward to my own retreat. Being left alone with one's own mind is a real wake up call.

[Sara]

I suspect the amatory hotel employee in Sainshand was motivated by something other than “the dazzling splendor of my natural charm,” as you put it. In any case, you are not alone in being a chick-magnet monk. If we are to believe the account of Ekai Kawaguchi, a Japanese monk who traveled in Tibet around the turn of the century, he had to fend off a whole slew of brazen Tibetan hussies determined to lure him off the straight and narrow path of monkhood. For details on how he withstood this onslaught see Three Years in Tibet by Ekai Kawaguchi.

[yeshe lhamo]

Thank you, thank you, thank you Konchog for the quote from Waking up from the Slumber of Ignorance...it is so extraordinarily clear..guess that's a display of what enlightened mind can produce, yes? And the visualization of it coming from the wisdom dakinis singing in exhortation - gorgeous and powerful!

Thank you for your post and description of some of the retreat experience (and those photos)..I've been waiting (like many others I suspect) for this post-cave-retreat posting.

Finally, I have to agree with Ryan...LOL.."Hot coffee helped and, as often happens, the sun rose."

[Vedran]

Where is the photo of that hotel employee? To see how close it was for DODR to become family blog...

[Rachael]

Wow. Amazing post. Thank you.

[Giovanna]

Beautiful photos. I don't understand the group's mis-givings of your retreat location. How sublime.