Pictures, pictures everywhere! A few words in between.

Ani Kuntsang Wangmo, whose full name means "Everything good in the world" and "Empowered Woman," makes wicks for butter lamp offerings.


"A thousand pages would not be enough for five minutes of real experience in India."

So says a journal entry of mine from February. So, I'm stuck somewhere between a thousand pages and nothing- unsure of how to convey life here or where to start. My time has been focused in three main places: the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, Bodhgaya in North India (where the Buddha attained enlightenment), and McLeod Ganj/Dharmshalla (home to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan Refugee colony, and an eclectic community of foreigners who flock here for a range of spiritual and political interests).

The first part of my trip- all of Bodhgaya, Kolkata, Varanasi, and my early time in Nepal- was all traveled sans camera (well, there was a polaroid- but that wont help you), so these pictures are all from March onward.




Since November, I've balanced time between studying Buddhadharma, primarily in the Tibetan tradition, practicing meditation and yoga, working for my friend Neil with groups of University Volunteers through LHA (lhainfo.org) North India, and sharing and learning from an amazing array of foreigners and locals alike.


Playing mom to the tired little nuns during a daytrip.



Sketches from Bodhgaya.

There have been countless music nights, dance parties on crowded Indian trains and buses, peaceful moments at Kopan Monastery, Nagi Gompa, Tushita Meditation Center, and the Ganga (and incredibly difficult times in all the same), and opportunities to share with several amazing groups of University students from Louisiana as they explored India for the first time.


The Boudanath Stupa at sunset.



This is what monsoon looks like.


A friend Christina plays us guitar in McLeod Ganj.

This trip has defied all expectations. It has been a time for painful, amazing, and necessary personal growth. I came here for myself- to learn methods, through meditation, to get over my anxiety, my worries, my neurosis. But what I've received, what I've learned, is anything but personal.

I studied political economy, thinking I would change the world with some well executed, holistic development plan I would complete sometime by my mid-fifties. Unfortunately, I didn't connect this so well with how I lived my life in a very immediate sense.

So know that I'm not here on a joyride; I'm not here to negate the responsibilities of home or forget those of you who I love. On the contrary; I'm here, working on myself, and my shit, so I can be more open, more genuine, and all around better for all of us.



Jenny watching the world pass through the surrounding shantytowns of Delhi.


Sunset from Triune

But lets not forget the joy- the lighter side of it all: living in a village outside Bodhgaya, waking up to roosters, baby goats, and adorable, Black-eyed baby Indians; tip-toeing around the monkey gangs at Tushita, setting my chai-count (the Indians drink short,sweet cups of spiced milk tea. They stop often to do this, valuing the social time and rest as much or more than the tea. It is the opposite of coffee-togo)in Varanasi for 50 in a week, but getting sick and only making it to 38; and learning to appreciate Bollywood in all its eye-wiggling, head-wiggling, sensory overloading glory.


Chaos, Confusion, Clutter! clarity, calm, insight.


Neil + Shree Ramakrishna = Awesome.



The colors and patterns of India.


A dear friend, Kin, whose music inspired most of this trip, sings into the sunset from a roof in H.P., North India.


In my time here, I've come to find greater unity in, well, everything. I see that my panic or frustration in a given moment doesn't have much to do with the conditions, and has much more to do with my mind and my projections. Same goes for the joy, peace, and love in my life, which I have habitually, to my own demise, placed outside myself. I remember friends, places, concerts, activities, and I stick my happiness there. During these times of remembrance, I've fondly thought of perhaps everyone who might read this blog. I love you all dearly, and you have been, in times of doubt, a great bolster to my spirit.

To embark alone, however, to have these experiences and traumas alone, has forced me to examine facts I would easily have painted over in the states. In the end, I've had to find meaning, inspiration, and purpose outside the comforts of University, work, bike rides, and Thursdays at Le Bon Temps. This has been the most necessary, difficult, and wonderful discovery.



Drinking some holy water in the jungle of Nepal. Thanks Shiva!



Me, mountains, India.



Me with the young Anis from Nagi Gompa after our day in the jungle. :D These girls are by far the sweetest, children I've ever had the pleasure to share time with.



Tibetans protest a crackdown in China following the birthday of His Holiness.


Crows cover the "Wish-Fulfilling" stupa in Boudanath, outside Kathmandu.


Life here is raw. It's stripped of all the custom and culture that we use to decorate it, and because I'm an outsider living in the east, the Indian/Nepali/Tibetan culture is visible, but doesn't envelope me the way America does.
For one, they burn bodies here, and be it in Delhi or Benares or Kathmandu, you can go and watch them. It sounds sick to us, doesn't it? Harsh smoke rises up in your eyes and nose as charred limbs hang from the pyre. Yet in Pashupati, a temple here in KTM, one side of the river bank has platforms for burning, and the other side has platforms for meditation.

Behind these, lay people line up along the steps and chat awhile, sucking on mangoes or sipping on chai. Its like a regular day on a pedestrian mall, except the view across the way isn't fashionable people strolling by, its dead people burning, and filty, no doubt exhausted people burning them. Does that sound horrible? At first, but then there is a great calm about it. When you realize you will go back to ash, and are aware of this, the minor issues in your life aren't so big. And when you see, openly, how the impressive military hero and the peasant have the same bones, it doesn't matter that they burn on different qualities of wood, because their bones burn the same.


A drawing of the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodhgaya in the pre-camera days of the trip.


Difficult words of wisdom from Gandhi at his memorial museum in Delhi.


Hanging with a Banyan tree at the zoo.


A man finishing ablutions at an aging mosque in Delhi.

Final words on the east? COLOR! SPICE! WOAH! chili peppers, chai, spinach. cross legs, straight back, chin tucked. OM AH HUM. renounce, grow love, find wisdom. Musakari, musakari, musakari Brits and Aussies and Indians, oh my! Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist. Professional, Elite, filthy, impoverished. THANK YOU, TUK JE CHE, DUNYEBAT! Experience for the lifetimes.


Waking up in the clouds at Nagi Gompa, a nunnery overlooking the Kathmandu Valley, where I stayed for three weeks.


A man sells spices in New Delhi's crowded markets..


A young Ani rests during a walk through the Shivapuri Forest.



I'll be home- to Missouri or New Orleans- in November. Till then, all my love.

(As per comments, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.)