I have gotten so far behind that I have given up any hope of detailing what goes on for me, on a daily basis, here at the monastery, but I would like to take a stab at describing my daily life at the monastery. One thing to remember is that while I have been here the academic year has ended, we have gone through a period of exams, some time off for the monks, which included the picnic, and have now entered into a period of training in temple practices and preparation for the celebration of Tibetan New Year, Ladakhi version. The Ladakhi's celebrate Tibetan New Year but on a different date than the Tibetans for hazy historical reasons that relate to a Ladakhi king mandating an early celebration because he wanted to fight a war and not have to stop for a celebration. Since most of the monks from this monastery are from Ladakh and because the Rinpoche who raised the money to build it is from Ladakh the monastery celebrates Ladakhi New Year (called Losar). All that is simply to say that this will be a composite of the days I have been here and not a typical day, I dont think there is such a thing, at least not during the time I've been here.
My alarm generally goes off at 5:30 or 6 AM depending on what time I've gotten to bed the night before. Sometime after that I crawl out of bed and head downstairs to the bathroom mostly in the hope that movement will wake me up. After finishing with my morning routine I head back up the stairs, the first of many walks up flights of stairs for the day. Then, if I've gotten up early enough, its some time for meditation and yoga, getting dressed and heading out, and up more steps, this time about 50, to the dining hall, where breakfast is served about 7 AM. Breakfast is served cafeteria style, but with few real choices, when you arrive your first day you are given a plate, a bowl and a spoon which you clean yourself at a long dining hall sink and bring with you to each meal. . Breakfast consists of, on most days, chapati flat bread, either a potato and vegetable curry or a similar soup and Tibetan milk tea which is slightly salty, there is also some tsampa (barley flour) available that you can add to the tea or soup. I most often sit at a table with older student monks, many of whom speak reasonably good English, especially when you compare it to my complete lack of competence in any other language. Most of these monks speak three to five different languages, often Ladakhi, Nepali, Tibetan, Hindi, English and some of them Bhutanese. Generally, conversation starts with some mumbled comment about how each day seems to be getting colder, no heat and nighttime temps in the low 40 F, and then slowly builds from that into what is going on that day and only then proceeds to things like Nepali politics, world events, the Nelson Mandela funeral or even if we are really awake that morning Buddhist or other philosophy.
After breakfast I often walk up, only about 20 steps this time, to the plaza above the dining hall, where the classrooms are located, to check my email and catch up on the news of the day, or actually the day before if it is American news. The plaza area, which contains the classrooms, the library, a computer room and the monastery office is the only area of the monastery with wifi. On a normal day, there are few of these, I download my email to read later and then read some US and world news. By this time it is 8 AM or later. Many days during exams I would start helping Jo administer the exams to her various classes at 8 or 9 AM usually until 10 or 11 AM. On other days I would head back to my room and help correct exams, something new for me, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. On days when I didn't have any of these chores I would spend more time catching up on news and friends often spending until 9 or 9:30 on the internet. I usually do this sitting in the sun on the stone steps of the plaza, though if the computer room is open I sometimes sit in there. In either area a foreigner with an iPad usually draws a crowd; the young monks want to see if I have any cool games,sorry, and the older ones often stop by to try out some English and /or just pass the time till there next activity with some conversation. In either case we are communicating in English and that is my reason for being here.
Recently my morning schedule has gotten a bit busier, regular classes are over and Jo has left for a few weeks to spend the holidays by meeting her sister from London, and her mother from Australia, in Borneo, leaving me to teach two morning English review classes, one to late grade school level monks and the other to late high school level monks. The young monks class is at 8 AM and I am definitely awake after that class, to say that they have lots of energy is a huge understatement. Keeping even a semblance of order in this class is real work. Teaching them is also challenging due to the wide disparity in their English competence. The older class at 9 is a lot more laid back, and easier to teach, as they all have general competence and only need conversation practice, some work on pronunciation, and a little work on sentence structure. Most of the time I divide them up into groups of three or four for conversation practice and then rotate amongst the groups to see how they are doing. And yes, I do see the great irony of me, with my great lack of competence in learning languages, teaching a language class. Class is over about 10 or a bit later and after some after class chatter I am back to my room by around 10:30. I usually take some of this time to read, or more generally pitch, my emails and then do a little work to prepare for the next days class while todays is still fresh in my mind.
Before I can get to much done the gong sounds for 11:30 lunch and I'm up the steps and back to the dining hall again. Sometimes I think of all the step climbing as a training regime. Lunch is much like breakfast except you take away the chapati flatbread and substitute rice and add dahl (lentil soup). There is curry to put over the rice which usually has more veggies than the breakfast curry but always has the ever present potatoes. Again, like at breakfast, there is lots of conversation at my table and we are usually the last to leave, the young monks have wolfed down there food at lightning speed in order to get outside to play.
After lunch on at least half the days I hurry down to my room to drop my dishes and change into walking clothes, for now it is time to do the work that is my main assignment here. I need to meet Kempo Dhundrup at 12:45 for our walk and English conversation practice. Usually I meet him at the top of our campus, over 200 steps up, which manages to get my blood started circulating. Both of us like doing the English practice during a walk. We both like to walk, it gets him away from constant interruptions, he is basically administrator of the monastery, and it is helping me to loose some weight and get back into a little bit of shape. I might add, that Kempo has also taken pride in the fact that our classes have helped me to loose weight, Our walks usually take about three hours, we most often get back between 3:30 and 4 PM, and involve a lot of walking up and of course back down. We are in the foothills of the Himalaya and are starting our walks at about 6000 feet so the going is pretty strenuous, especially for a 71 year old. On days when we dont go for a walk, days when I cant lift my legs, I meet him in his room for two to three hours of conversation, usually starting a bit later in the afternoon.
If we have gone for a walk I usually need to take a shower when I get back and after that a bit of a nap feels awfully good. When I wake up from the nap I take some time for reading, working on this blog or returning emails until the 6:45 PM call to dinner. Dinner is much like lunch, actually very much like lunch, so that about all I need to say about the food at dinner. Conversation is usually at full swing at dinner and the time passes quickly. A few nights a week a monk will come down to my room after dinner for some English help, to continue a conversation we started earlier or, on several occasions, to share a video or movie about Tibet on his laptop. But usually by 8:30 PM I'm on my way downstairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth before crawling into bed before nine.
So, thats an outline of my laid back days here at the Rinchen Palri monastery. More later on the walks, which are great fun and learning experiences for me as well as for Kempo and of the several trips I have made back to Boudha.
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