From Brahma to Buddha, Spring 2008

So, we are now two thirds of the way into our semester. We have just left another city, another place that was beginning to feel like home and are about to embark on a new adventure. Dharamsala for me was extremely significant. My host family, our speakers, and the community was so unique, I am so inspired by the Tibetan people and culture.

Being in Dharamsala at such a pivotal time was an experience that I didn't expect, and one that I may never experience again. The thoughts and emotions that were set in motion inside of me by all of the action and atmosphere around us have prompted me to truly evaluate myself, where I come from, the world we are living in right now, my current place in it, and what I want my place and influence to be upon this earth. I had expected my experiences in India to be eye-opening and life-changing on many levels, but our time in Dharamsala and the emotions and thoughts that it created I could never have imagined or expected.

By listening to the stories of my Tibetan host family and speakers, sitting with them tensely every night watching international news and hoping to hear something about the situation in Tibet, I tried to understand as much as I, a foreigner who has never experienced that amount of suffering and pain, could. Every day I picked up another story, another instance of suffering and of the strength of spirit. Slowly I began to realize that the best thing that I can do to help these people is to tell their stories, to spread the word and awareness of what is actually going on.

I feel extremely lucky to have been in Dharamsala at this important time, it has given me the opportunity to place a human aspect to news stories so that hearing about something happening in Tibet or any place really, I can remember the faces, the stories, the tears, the courage, the love, that these are people suffering, not just numbers or nondescript faces. This will help me to be a more active, influential, and compassionate citizen of this world.

So, for me, the last couple of weeks, or really the last month, has been extremely life-changing. It has been emotional, difficult, confusing, rewarding, comfortable, awkward, intense, and significant. It is hard to put exactly how I have been feeling, or how my time in Dharamsala has changed me into words. I just know that it has been important, and that the people I met and even just faces that I have no name to pair with, will stay with me in my heart and mind forever.

In a way, this has been a bit of a closure piece for leaving Dharamsala, which I have had trouble with the last couple of days. I don't know if I am quite ready to move on, but I know that our time in Ladakh will be full of many experiences that I can't even imagine.

I want to end this with saying to anybody that is reading this to start thinking about themselves and their place as they see it in this world, and what they think is important in life. I want to encourage everybody to stop and think every once and a while about what is happening in the world, close and far away, and not let the busyness of our modern lives forever restrict our minds. Stop and smell the roses! but stop and smell the bad things too, for want of a better metaphor, on every rose is a thorn!

These have just been a string of my thoughts, so forgive me if they don't sound cohesive :)
Love to all,

lara