Beyond the Sky and the Earth

A few weeks ago I was looking for something good to read. I was altogether sick of coming home and downloading a movie every single night. It is a great way to unwind, but I felt like I was truly wasting away my life watching all these horrible chick flicks. Luckily my fellow teachers were smart enough to bring a few of their favorite books with them. Dear Mr. Scott kindly borrowed me a book titled Beyond the Sky and the Earth by Jamie Zeppa. He suggested I read it, knowing that I was going through a pretty bad case of homesickness at the time. He told me that I’d be able to relate to the book and would think about teaching abroad on a whole new level. He was correct.

I sat down the night I got it and knocked out the first 3 chapters with a few glasses of wine, while watching some candles burn. Usually it is quite hard for me to get into books, but this one was easy. She began the book with a description of Bhutan and I was hooked by her complete and beautiful description of the country. That night I finished reading about her decision to move away from Canada, her fiancé, and planned out life into the unknown of  Buhtan. She describes the culture of the country and I was struck by all her explanations into Buddhism. Religion has always interested me, mostly because my brother was a religious studies major and he always has such interesting information. Also, partly because I grew up in a Christian household, and in recent year I’ve just been interested about how other religions are similar and different. I find that most are far more similar than different. As I read the book, I flagged the parts that really resonated in me, with post-its, and looking back on them a lot of them have to do with Buddhism. Now I’m not saying I’m going to convert anytime soon, in fact I highly doubt I ever will, but I certainly may take some of the perspectives and try to use them in my life. Here is her initial explanation:

“The Buddha did no claim to be a deity. When asked about the creation of the universe and the existence of God, he refused to speculate. He was not offering a new religion but a way of seeing and living in the world. For me, though, one of the most interesting things about Buddhism is not that there is no all-powerful God who we must fall down and worship, but that there is no permanent self, no essence of self. It isn’t even clear among scholars if Buddhism accepts the idea of a soul, an immortal individual spirit. Separateness is an illusion. Nothing exists inherently on its own, independently of everything else, and a separate permanent, inherently existing self is the biggest illusion of all. There is nothing we can point to and say, yes, this is the self. It is not the body or the mind, but a combination of conditions, circumstances and facilities. At the moment of death, these conditions and facilities break down, and only the karma generated by that life remains, determining the circumstances of the next rebirth.

There is a principal tenet of Buddhism, but the Buddha tells his disciples not to take his word for it. They are to analyze and search and test what he says for themselves. On his deathbed, he reminds them, ‘Decay is inherent in all compound things. Work out your own salvations with diligence.’ I am struck by this spirit of independent inquiry, by the fact that enlightenment is available to all, not through a priest or a church or divine intervention but through attention to the mind. In Buddhism, there is no devil, no external dark force—there is only your mind, and you must take responsibility for what you want and how you choose to get it.”

The last part of this writing got me through my week. My life is my choice, nothing is standing in my way of getting what I want other than myself. This was a lot to take in, a bit responsibility, but it was reassuring in its own way. Now, I thought to myself, if only I knew what I wanted.

She also describes the 4 Noble truths, which I will summarize below:

1. We suffer in life.
2. We suffer because we have desires and are never satisfied.
3. Our goal is to end this ceaseless wanting.
4. The way to end it is to use the Noble Eightfold Path of Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

The next portion of the book seems to describe exactly what my first 2 month here were like, thought Zeppa’s experience is completely different from mine. She goes through culture shock. No running water, no supplies at her school, inability to communicate with those she loves in the way she wants to. She misses and desires things like I missed and desired them. She doesn’t cook for days because she just doesn’t know how, and she begins to meet those are destined to be her friends. “And I think, sometimes it all makes sense: you are sitting in a restaurant with your companions. It could be a restaurant anywhere, it could be Sault Ste. Marie. Other times it makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t know how this relates to the rest of my life. There is no link between my life on the other side of the planet, all those dark miles and starry oceans away, and me sitting at this table, tearing my beer label off in strips, no connection at all. Except for myself: I myself must bridge the gap, I am the bridge—although I feel more like the gap. All the experiences and achievements that defined me at home are irrelevant and insignificant here. There is just me, here, now. Wherever you go, there you are.”  The number of times I’ve  sat around with my new friends and wondered “How the hell did I get here” is uncountable. I just woke up one day and was. Innumerable times I will comment to Cortney or Scott in a overwhelmed and surprised voice, “This is my life.” Other times I say it with remorse and disillusionment. Zeppa comments: “There are long moments where I cannot remember where I am. I feel completely unfamiliar to myself, almost unreal , as if parts of me have dissolved, are dissolving. The Buddhist view that there is no real self seems completely accurate. I have crossed a threshold of exhaustion and strangeness and am suspended in a new inner place.” This is my life. I say it to myself again as I marvel at the obvious but unreal statement.

I continue to read every night, completely immersed waiting for the next entirely relatable part. It is too easy to find. As I begin looking for new apartments I read about the difference between arrival and entrance. “Arrival is physical and happens all at once. The train pulls in, the plane touches down, you get out of the taxi with all your luggage. You can arrive in a place and never really enter it; you get there, look around, take a few pictures, make a few notes, send postcards home. When you travel like this, you think you know where you are, but, it fact, you have never left home. Entering takes longer. You cross over slowly, in bits and pieces. You begin to despair; will you ever get over? It is like awakening slow, over a period of weeks, And then one morning, you open your eyes and you are finally here, really and truly here. You are just beginning to know where you are.” I wonder to myself when I will truly enter, and get my answer about a week later when I finally feel at home in my new place. I’m starting to settle into life here, and thankfully so. I can shop at the markets, I can cook for myself, I can find delicious beer,  and most importantly I can cross the street in a mostly safe way.

I continue to spend my nights reading and find myself continuing to be interested in the points that are related to Buddhism. “Nothing in this world is permanent. Everything changes, breaks down, dies, and this is why attachment to things in this world causes suffering.” I tell myself to let go of the things I miss. I don’t need cheddar cheese, I don’t need stout or live music. I’m lucky to have the things I do. I now have running water, and a working toilet, what else do I need? “Buddhist practice offers systematic tools for anyone to work our their own salvation. Here, the Buddha said, you’ve got your mind, the source of all your problems, but also the source of you liberation. Use it. Look at your life. Figure it out.” My life is changing and this is normal, and okay. All things change, and this is okay, a normal part of life. Nothing will stay the same forever, so why should I? I’m becoming a new person, and I am figuring things out slowly, but at a good pace. One step at a time, through talking to my friends and self-reflection, I will discover who I am and where I belong.

One night I sit down to read and find myself completely captivated with the writing, and yearning to know how this story ends. I just can’t seem to stop reading the book, and so I finish the last 100 pages in 1 hour, desiring to find some answer for my own life within. “I came to Bhutan to find out if the careful life I had planned, the life of waiting, watching, counting, planning, putting into places, was the life I really wanted. I can still go back to that life, even now, after everything. Here I am, in another high place, the highest edge I have come to so far. I can turn these last three and a half years into a neatly packaged memory, pruned by caution, sealed by prudence, I can still turn back. But I will not. I will go over the edge and step into whatever is beyond.” And so will I.