I Do Not Exist: Morgan and Nick

Today started with our first early morning visit the great Boudhanath stupa to join the community of Nepal in circumambulating in clockwise motion to practice the traditions of the Buddhist religion. Some of us even found comfort in an Americanized coffee shop cleverly called Himalayan Java Coffee that overlooks the massively magical stupa. We then gathered for our first official class session of the journey in our humble abode of a classroom.

"One thing I've really struggled with in What Makes You Not a Buddhist is the concept of impermanence. If change is constant, then how is change not permanent?" This question asked by our colleague, Sabrina, brought the entire group into the deep end.

The idea of permanence, impermanence was of great conflict for our group today. Many of us struggled with the idea of constant change being coupled with nothing being permanent, or constant. The discussion evolved into dialectic of both sincere misunderstanding of one of the main tenant of Buddhism as well as a skepticism of that tenant’s reality.  Many people in the group were confused by both the vague answers given by our instructor, Larry Marmelstein, purposefully, and the very explicit ideal of impermanence that is expressed in Buddhism. Despite the misunderstanding or confusion, our class had a profound and light-hearted discussion of many philosophical points expressed. There was an overall energy of curiosity and sense that our questions ultimately could not be answered by anybody but ourselves. And then we broke for dinner. 

A member of our group (inhale) Sir Maximilian Xavier Cox Conrad Knight of the Orthodox Order of Saint Anna, Order of Seraphim, California Commandery, Confrere of the Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem (exhale) . . . had contacted a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend named emphatically Lucky, whom the group was invited to dine with. After being led astray by some local passersby’s, we eventually braved the Kathmandu traffic, which seems more chaotic than calm, taking our lives in our hands just crossing the street to the cafe (crosswalks are non-existent, the same goes for streetlights, or even road rules in general) we could finally leave our little bubble at the monastery and experience the real rush of the streets. It was only then that we realized that we had simply traded one bubble for another, the safety and bubble of Moraga was exchanged for the safety and the calm of the monastery. After dodging cars, motorcycles, and mangy dogs, we all ate Chinese food, except for Catherine who found happiness in an American style dinner: donuts and coffee. 

We ended the day by gathering on the roof and conversing about the different topics of discussion and events of the day, which ended up turning into a very philosophical conversation on permanence and ego once again. In the end, we all shut our eyes with many unanswered questions to dream upon.