Being Buddha....

I have been reading some Buddhist philosophy books lately. At present I am reading a book titled "A Lifetime of Peace", Essential writings by and about Thich Nhat Hanh. Its a lovely book which talks about peace, presence of mind, unhappiness, understanding, compassion etc. I am writing some excerpts here.

Understanding and love are not two things, but just one. Suppose your son wakes up one morning and sees that it is already quite late. He decides to wake up his younger sister, to give her enough time to eat breakfast before going to school. It happens that she grouchy and instead of saying, "Thank you for waking me up", she says, "Shut up! Leave me alone" and kicks him. He will probably get angry, thinking, "I woke her up nicely. Why did she kick me?". He may want to go to the kitchen and tell you about it, or even kick her back. But then he remembers that during the night his sister coughed a lot and he realizes that she must be sick. May be she has a cold, may be that is why she behaved so meanly. He is not angry any more. At that moment, there is a Buddh in him. He understands, he is awake. When you understand you can not help but love. You can not get angry. To develop understanding, you have to practise looking at all living things with the eyes of compassion. When you understand you love. And when you love, naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.

Some one who is awake, who knows, who understands is called a Buddha. Buddha is in every one of us. We can become awake, understanding, and also loving. I often tell children that if their mother or father is very understanding and loving, working, taking care of the family, smiling, being lovely, like a flower they can say "Mommy, (or Daddy), you are all Buddha today. Two thousand five hundred years ago, there was a person who practiced in a way that his understanding and love became perfected, and everyone in the world recognized him as Buddha. His name was Siddhartha. When Siddhartha was very young, he began to think that the life had a lot of suffering in it, that people do not love each other enough, do not understand each other enough. So he left his home to go to the forest to practice meditation, breathing and smiling. He became a monk and he tried to practice in order to develop his awakening, his understanding and his love to the highest level .............

Another paragraph says something like following.

The way to liberate yourself is to look deeply into the nature of the guilt and self hatred and see the seeds of the suffering, your ancestors, your parents, and the violence and the lack of understanding in our society and its institutions. If you went to Vietnam on a war as a soldier, your actions were dictated by those forces. That is also true of those who opposed the war. (He is talking about how Americans attacked and did a war with Vietnam).

The seeds of suffering come from many directions. When your parents conceived you, you already had many seeds of happiness and suffering handed down by your ancestors. In your mother's womb, you received more seeds. If your parents were not happy together, you received seeds of sufferings.

As you grew up, if your parents argued and made each other unhappy, you received those seeds of sufferings too. If your parents were alcoholic, they made you suffer. IF your father abused you, you suffered. Violent films, sex and TV programs also watered the seeds of fears and hatred in you. By the time you became a soldier, you were already filled with sufferings. Then in the army you were told that the Vietnamese were beasts and you had to kill them. You can not kill another human being without visualising him as a beast. The mass media reinforced this image, watering the seeds of hatred and fear in order to help you kill. So many seeds of violence were watered before you were a soldier and during the time you were a soldier.

With such a heritage of suffering, it is no surprise that you committed atrocities during the war. You knew you could be killed any time. You saw your friends killed in ambushes. You became more and more angry and more afraid. You may have killed children and women. You may have raped women or destroyed villages out of this fear, hatred and rage that were pouring into you from so many directions. If you committed atrocities in Vietnam, if was the act of everyone. Your father, your mother, the press, the media, the society, the commander, everone who watered the seeds of anger in you so that you could kill.

Well the excerpts end here.

I like such thoughts. They make me think and they make us think. I like to write them here, because many times all that is needed to awaken people is to guide them or to tell them some real things like this which could make them think.

I used to create and commit so many acts of foolishness before. For example calling on the phone and without understanding the situation other person could be in, assume things. More close we get in terms of communication, more barriers we might commit too. I troubled many people with such acts. But most of them always stood by me with patience. Today I understand many mistakes. Some things are realized only by age.

I like Buddish philosophy and I hope to read it more from more such books. This monk has written some nice books and I hope to read them all some time.

Travelling and I....continued

I love to travel. I am a travel fanatic. These traveling posts are inspired by a friend of mine, who asked me to write about my travel experiences. Thanks a lot. I never knew it could be so fun. I am reliving those great moments again and I would keep on writing.

Many times I feel, if I were given a choice I would keep on traveling always. Visit new places. Meet new people. Experience new cultures and engross new experiences. "Into the wild" is one of my all time favorite movies. Its about a bright young 23something Harward graduate who abandons his family and chooses to travel and dreams about going to Alaska. Its a very nice and touching movie about how life could be so different for different people. Whenever I am tense, I feel like leaving everything behind, the relations, the responsibilities and just follow the hero of "Into the wild". Afterall its my life and I decide how to live it. I love that movie. It has a tragic end where the central character dies at the age of 25 in the forest after eating a non-edible fruit. Its sad. But its awesome.

I like to roam around with hippies a lot. Santa Cruz is a city of hippies. The motto of Santa Cruz is "Keep Santa Cruz weird". This is one of the best places to stay in United States with tourism in abundance and a great weather. I love this town. Just yesterday, I was taking a stroll on beach and I happened to meet a traveler who was traveling for last entire year. All he had was the motivation and the big backpack on his back. We chatted for almost half an hour. We discussed lots of things about his travel, about US about India. It was a great moment. He lived in New York and he was traveling across united states by taking free rides from people. Working in between for money. Sleeping on floors. He was in California for last 6 months and his journey was coming to almost end. He said, its painful, with no money, no telephone, not much dressing, no family, no girlfriend its hard. But I love it. The feeling of gazing at skies from the roof top of a hill with ocean beside you is beyond description. Its a heavenly feeling which only true souls can understand. I could related to so many things this guy was telling.

Traveling is so much fun. I remember my early school days when to get to my home town from my hostel during some breaks. I sometimes used to hitch hike if my bus was missed. Many times I had traveled in trucks with having conversation with truck drivers about different things. As a kid I used to love it since there was some kind of pride in it as I used to feel great to travel alone such long distance with so many strangers :) It was fun. I learned how to drive in 8th standard from my mom. I used to take pride in driving so early too :P haha. Some people take pride in so many different things. The good old days makes me nostalgic and I feel life was so cool and so relaxed as a child. There was so much of fun. There was so much enjoyment. Pure, joyous and innocent enjoyment which was not limited with some specific aspirations. Those days makes me feel too nostalgic.

So traveling was an integral part of life always. Be it in terms of treks or otherwise. How different were those days. How I passed through so many phases. How much I hate the current phase. I guess, age 25 to 30 is the worst age in a person's life since suddenly he is changing from that young boy to a mature adult with responsibilities. I hate this change. Traveling becomes less as the office space takes its toll. Still I manage to travel. Still I manage to enjoy my bit. Traveling in US could get monotonous after a point of time since many times the culture is uniform and except topologies nothing changes. Same food, same chains of hotels, same people, same language. So after a point you feel you do not want to. Atleast I feel that way. I feel travelling in India is way better than this. It is way hectic and troublesome. But are not these things called the experiences? I like it that way. The villlages, cultures, innocence, non exposure. So many things, so many differences. I love them.

Some day I wish I would be able to travel the entire world. Some day I wish I could roam around without any worries behind me. Gazing at stars lying on beach with moon by your side and the constant exploding of tides on shores, is a great feeling. I had done that once back in India. I want to do that again here, in Santa Cruz. I want to do so many things. I want to have so many things that managing all becomes really difficult :(

I wish, some day, I will have done most of them. I love it that way. Go and do what you want to do. Feel it. Experience the experience because tomorrow the same conditions might not stay the same. Life is so beautiful if seen with the correct set of eyes. I wonder why people spoil it with selfish attitudes. I wish so many things .....

Travelling and me...

I have always loved traveling. I am a travel freak. I like to visit new places and roam aimlessly.

I had not traveled so much before till recently. All my travels till almost 1 year ago were limited to Maharashtra (In and around Pune) and Goa at the most. Why? Because I never had money as well as time. I always wanted to roam around. I always had the ambitions to see and visit so many new places. But all my life till now either I was busy studying or working, plus my parents were not retired by that time. So we could not go out mostly.

I remember the good old days when I used to roam around on my geared cycle around Pune. I used to cycle for almost 6 years extensively, right from 11th to my first job. I never had money to purchase a motorcycle or get indulged in fancy activities which many kids of my own age did. There always stays some kind of regret in heart that I could not enjoy the so called "Life" as an young teenager because of various reasons. But I guess that quality helped me in moving ahead of my peers and where I am at present is mostly because of all that hard work. Well, so I had familiarized myself with every nook and corner of Pune city and the places around it. I used to cycle as long as 30kms alone on my cycle, in a stretch sometimes just for fun. Visited Khadklawasla, Singhgad and many such places. All sweaty, tired and exhausted but with a great feeling in heart that yes, I cycled so much today. I used to cycle uphills for as long as 4kms, used to get so much tired many times that felt like no I will die the next moment if I peddle one more time :) Yet, I used to peddle, yet I used to push myself. I was an awesomely fitness freak. But I never enrolled into any fancy gym or paid excursion somehow. I always managed to do things in least amount of money. I used to swim so much once upon a time. Those were the best days of my life. The day I got my first job till I came for MS. I experienced so many different things. Got involved in so many activities. I myself am surprised how many things I used to do when I recall it slowly now. I am glad that I am writing this, because suddenly I realize that I had forgotten almost all that in the current hectic monotonous lifeless life that I am having here in US. It feels good to recall all the things and enjoy them. I was extremely disciplined. I grew up in a hostel since 5th standard because my native place did not have good education. I have so many fond experiences of my early childhood. I will write about it sometime. If I had to get up early morning 5.30 for a swim I did that daily. If I had to go to a guitar class continuosly for 3 years for 1 hour after my daily work in company was over. My instructor used to say he had never seen a dedicated person as me. I did that. In my life till now I never enrolled myself in a single coaching class except for the PCM classes I took from a professor of mine in 12th. I sometimes feel amazing about it. I did everything on my own. Engineering, MS and many other things. And the main reason I think for that is lack of money that we always had. Our parents never had enough money to sustain our fancies like many others kids parents did. But they always gave us best education and encouraged us and motivated our aspirations. I think I have this amazing quality of patience and dedication that sees me sailing through lot of difficult moments. I survived many rough patches and I will continue to. I have enough experiences for that I guess. Well, I am diverting from my actual topic but somewhere there I am feeling nice to write all this and recall all those great moments I once had. So I many times think all those things happened mainly after I got my first job. When I got some money of my own to spend on my own habits. What if I had good money while I was growing up? What if my family had good money to take care of many things that many kids which grow up in city always take for granted? I think I could have reached much much far ahead than where I am at present, because as I know my nature, I always wanted to do all this stuff but somehow lack of money put lot of curbs on lot of my ambitions. I feel somehow but that tremendous desire to have all this made me struggle and that makes me struggle.
Cool so let me get back, so once I used to travel extensively on my cycle. Period.

Then after my first job I purchased my first motorcycle. A Honda Unicorn. I did lot of information gathering about it before it was launched. I was the proud owner of a great bike that I loved so much. I took care of it like a baby of my own. It was no doubt one of the best maintained bike in Pune that even dealer used to acknowledge that. I remember I had faced tremendous problems (manufacturing defects) in that bike later and I had to sruggle a lot for getting them fixed. That struggle continued for 3 months and ended when a story of how the dealers were not addressing problems got published in one of the leading car magazines and then Honda India themselves contacted me and got everything fixed. The fixing was to the tune of 20,000 Rs. But the struggle was worth it. Bike was as smooth as cheese and I used it in the same good way till I came to US. Some how I can not stay with imperfections. I hate nonsense and ignorant behavior. I could not have rode that bike with the problems it was giving to me. Many times I visited my dealer as far as 5 times a week, because it was so frustrating. He was so bored of me. But I continued troubling him because it was his job. At the end I approached Autocar India and wrote an article in there about incompetence of the dealer. And then I received a VIP treatment from Honda, India. I guess nothing comes without a deep struggle and its deep in my blood. And I expect it from others around me. I can not take chalta hai attitude, which most Indians show. I hate it. This bike has lot of fond memories of long rides associated with it. I traveled 3,4 times to Bombay on it alone. I used to leave early in the morning by 6 and reach Thane by 9am. One stop in between at Khandala for around half an hour. I roamed many parts of Bombay and most of the Thane on this bike. Traveled to Yeur reserved forest, boriwali national park, andheri and many other places. The wind and the morning sun used to make me feel amazing on the route from Bombay to Pune. It was so young a feeling. How I miss all that today :( Today amongst all the married couple around me who travel in cars, I feel old. I feel demotivated. So anytime I see somebody on a motorbike here I feel like a childlike happiness. I traveled once on my bike to Deogad my home town near Goa, a distance of around 450km. With my brother. I once traveled the same distance on a Honda Activa and once on a Yamaha Libero. So quite a lot experience of long distance travel. I was so active :) It makes me feel so much proud that I did so many things once. Some day I will write a separate post on this alone. I did so many rides on this bike in and around pune and bombay.

All this makes me feel that coming to US and staying alone was the most deathning experience I had in my life till now. A look back at these 2 years makes me wonder how the hell I survived such a monotonous life here. It makes me feel dreadful about all the things that I had to go through. I traveled with my parents the entire south India in Dec 2008. That was a great experience. We were on road for continuous 8 days. We were out as a family after so many years. It was a great feeling. We visited Goa, karnataka, Keral, Tamilnadu and many prominent tourist places in these states. We sometimes slept in van to save on time. It was hell lot of hectic and tiring but at the end it was a great moment. I will write a separate post on that experience sometimes soon. I remember me taking off from Banglore to Bombay in a Volvo on last day of tour to save on some time and how dreadful my first Volvo experience was. The AC was not working, tire burst 3 times, driver was extremely rude. Huh, I spent 26 hours in that volvo and finally managed to reach Bombay somehow.

I am traveling extensively in US too. As soon I landed in US I was all alone, There was hardly anybody I knew here. I did not have a single friend. The only Indians that were present in the University were around 10. It was terrible. But I managed to make some friends amongst them. Went out with them on trips they planned. The US trips are very different from Indian trips. Most trips are done using rental cars where one rents a car from different rental companies and drives it on their own. Its a very systematic system and very convenient. Average rental per day varies from 30 to 150$ depending on type of car. I roamed in and around California with these people in the first year during my semester breaks. The studies were so tiring that that small outing used to feel like a huge blessing. I used to feel wow, such a great pleasure. I roamed around in major reserved forests and scenic locations around CA. Visited many beautiful beaches and gathered lot of experience on route. A post on that sometime. This post is more about my general habit of traveling. Most of these travels were not very costly and manageable for a student. I never had much money to spend on most of these. I saved a lot of money so that I can take some traveling out during my breaks. Average cost of the trip was around 100-150$ per person, with a group of around 5,6 friends.

I always wanted to see New York and experience its culture. Some very good friends of mine work in New York and so I visited it in March 2008. It was a fast decision. I did not think much because I knew if I would think I would not go to visit it. I spent my entire Spring break of 9 days in visiting New York and east coast cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New Jercy. I roamed New York for 4 days. People were like what is there to see in New York for 4 days? I am like I like it that way. I clicked lot of snaps experience the core New York culture to its fully. It was a great fun. I stayed at two friends place who made sure my stay was extremely comfortable. Some where while I was visiting these places I always remembered that I had to make my parents see all these places too because its from them that inherited the habit of travelling. So some plans were being made in my mind.

As I returned to school again for my last quarter. I realized I will not get time to spend with my parents if I do not get them here after my graduation. Job life and other responsibilities does not allow many things. So it was a decision taken in extreme hurry to get them here. Well I did not have enough money to make all the arrangements, so I got them here on their own money from retirement. I knew this time is important and I can replenish the money once I have it. I wanted them to see all this, experience all this. So somehow things happened smoothly and I got them here. I took them around all the places mostly that I had visited. It was worth it. It feels great that things happened so fast. I will write a detailed post on these experiences also some day.

But after having travelled so extensively now I feel, its enough for time being. I do not want to visit new places unless they are extremely different. Like say Alaska :) where the experience of staying in ICE or Amazon with the experience of staying in rain forests. Or Africa where the experience will be of staying in totally different set of black people and wild life. Well, I will not claim that I have experienced each culture extensively but for that I need good amount of money. Its an hobby of the rich. I am a student who tries to keep things uplift by managing things some how on his own. The travelling has taught me so many things. It has enriched me with great experiences and values. Some day I will mention it.

I felt extremely good today to have written this. Some where there I had forgotten who I am actually. What I like. And what all I have done till now in my life.
It feels nice to travel. It feels nice to get and see new topologies. I many times wonder how all those people who do not like to travel survive in the closed environments of four walls. :(

Marathi movies...

I like good Marathi movies. Some where down there they make me nostalgic and give peace of mind.

I yesterday watched the movie "Mi Shivajirahe Bhosale Boltoy". The movie started and finished as I had expected it for most of the scenes. Good movie. Gives nice message. Talks and shows lot of dramatic scenes. Director makes a very good attempt. Point is how much will people take in and how much they will remember. It is easy to get inspired, have the adrenaline rush in the blood for quite some time. They way "Rang De Basanti" did for many people. Point is people should remember it for long time. People should remember that a certain 26/11 incident happened. Point is people should remember the train in which they travel could get exploded and they could be the next victims. But as we are humans we have short memories. We get busy in our daily work. We forget the losses unless they cost us really good. Like unless some body in our family dies, in such incidences its just a mental show and trauma for others for some days. Well, I know many of us feel the same way.

I like many other movies which handle many other issues so well. They portray the real Maharashtrian culture, mostly from middle middle class families. I would like to classify middle class as lower, middle and upper. These movies show lot of hopes. Lot of positivity. Lot of emotions and the real life situations. They teach lot of good values and lot of good lessons. Post "Shwas" marathi cinema produced lot of good movies. And everytime I watch them, I feel extremely proud. I feel extremely nostalgic and emotional and sensitive. People ignore these movies saying they are serious movies. Well, I will say these people really do not understand the real movies. They just want to watch mediocre movies which make nonsense jokes, pathetic acting, monotonous dialogues. I like many of the marathi plays and some humorous marathi movies. They make me laugh. Make me feel energetic with refreshing change. Makarand Anaspure makes me laugh with most of his movies. Bharat Jadhav makes me sick with his monotonous acting. Prashant Damale takes me back to the good old romantic days where Marathi plays show a halaka fulka romance between him and his heroine. It feels great to keep watching them. Marathi movies could also be classified into two separate categories as films based on life in Mumbai vs films based in life in Pune. Some how every movie in Bombay portrays the same struggle, tensions and things which a Mumbaikar always faced. I feel bad to watch it and I feel bad to see how life could be so hectic. "Sariwar Sari", "Dombiwali fast" etc etc. Most of the Pune based movies show lot of educated middle middle class background, lot of positivity and great hopes. It feels great to watch them and remember good old Pune days. Some times it feels bad to understand that Pune is also changing at fast pace with lot of chaos, loss of peace and loss of the old culture because of the IT culture. Some developments happen at some costs. It feels bad though.

In all I somehow rate Marathi cinema much higher than its hindi counterpart. All of this happened post "Shwas". The way hindi cinema changed to a lot extent after "Dil Chahta Hai". And I feel so good that it happened.