16:
We met at the temple. Back when my head was shaved and I looked like a 12 year old boy. I would later call this stage of my life “the ugly phase”. Ten pounds heavier on my petite frame made me chubby and frumpy. In the confines of a monastery, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, least of all myself.
“Joemar is here,” Dave told me, during one of our breaks. We were performing a graduation ceremony to showcase the arts, dance and Mandarin language we had learned in our four month monastery retreat. I had invited him through Facebook, where we initially met through Dave who told me about a crazy guy who was going to walk the whole island of Palawan. Something in me sparked an interest. Maybe it was intuition, although I was scared out of my mind to think I would actually do such a thing. But I added him, and we talked. And he came to see me. My heart smiled.
After the program, I came up to him and gave him a huge hug. I might be romanticizing in retrospect, but it seemed as if I had known him for years. Like those best friendships where no matter how long its been since you’ve seen eachother, you can always catch back up as if time hadn’t passed.
It’s easy being a loner. I’ve been a loner for years. I’ve felt alone, abandoned in relationships that didn’t work. I’ve lived my whole life solitary, in many ways. As an only child, as a panic stricken teen with social anxiety, and as an adult with a quiet disposition. So when I meet people that make me bubble with life and talk like there’s no tomorrow, I know its something special.
Our walk was magical. The Universe conspired to help us. After sharing a water bottle getting dirty with use and refilled by the native wells along the way, I declared that I wanted my own water bottle with ice cold water, while Joemar was craving beeko–a Philippine rice delicacy–the whole day. That very night, after finding a place to rest, Joemar offered his healing massage to a local he had befriended, who spontaneously gifted us with beeko and a 1.5 liter of ice cold bottled water. I was amazed by the synchronicity and humbled by the simple gratitude that comes when walking. Never knowing where we’ll rest from night to night makes a wooden floor and a warm family willing to offer their hospitality and food a welcome treat.
The first night under the stars, with a thin canopy of trees above us in the jungle road to San Vicente, we saw glowing leaves and foliage. It was just like Avatar. Drops of rain woke our slumber, and Joemar’s quick thinking survival skills had us relocate to a nearby area where my yoga mat and his malong blanket hung over two branches for shelter. It was pouring rain and the ground glowed florescent. We used eachother’s bodies for warmth and huddled together under the yoga mat. It was the beginning of our seduction. The jungle blanketed us with glow-in-the-dark leaves and seduced us into sacred sexual communion.
Eat, Pray, Love has been a big motivator in my journey. I read it prior to taking my travel leap and making the ultimate decision to free myself from stuff and become a nomad. Intuition knew I would do it, but it took awhile before my brain–the logical me–decided I was ready. As my journey wove itself inside temples, I witnessed my own postmodern awe at the resemblances of my life to Elizabeth Gilbert’s story. I knew I was having an Eat, Pray, Love adventure… I just hadn’t gotten to the love part, yet!
Love came sooner than I expected it. I wanted to love in whatever capacity I had. If that meant jungle and tropical beach flings, I was ready to accept it. After my five year failed relationship, I knew I needed time and space for myself–alone. I mentally gave myself two years to be by myself, learning, growing and being me after gathering the pieces from a quarter-life identity crisis. The jungle seduction was exactly two years to date from my life as a single woman. My break-up anniversary from 2008 which will now become my anniversary with Joemar from 2010. I manifested this.
Browsing through my own archives, I stumbled across a prophetic entry that talked about my capacity for love. I wanted to love in 2010, but I didn’t know how far I could take it. Mentally, emotionally, physically.
I’m not sure what [love] looks like, how far my boundaries can go. Is it merely friendship? Friends with benefits? I don’t know. Is it blow jobs and practicing deep throat and strap-ons? Is it wrestling and choke holds and martial art moves? 2am sex after an amazing day learning how to swim, hiking to hot springs, and sharing a banana leaf umbrella under tropical storms?
Later during our walk, we bushwhacked off the highway and sat under a banana tree to shelter ourselves from a tropical rainstorm, sharing one banana leaf like an umbrella.
Sitting on the beach one day and meditating towards the ocean horizon, I shared this information with Joemar and he said he had written something similar. He knew that he would walk with a girl and he had dreamed that things would develop and wanted to share a banana leaf with her under a rainstorm… Somehow, we both thought that banana leaf umbrellas sounded so romantic that we wrote about it before meeting. We manifested this. We manifested eachother.
It’s easy being solitary. It’s my disposition. It’s hard integrating myself and merging my life with another. Harder even still not to become the clingy girlfriend in a codependent relationship like so many times before. Relationships are challenging and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. It wasn’t easy to trust him because I was so weary of his motives as a “psychic”. He told me he had a vision that we would walk together. That he’d meet a girl at a temple. He told me I was part of “the Script”. I called him bull shit because I don’t believe in things like fate and destiny, but individual choice and free will. Maybe he was just pulling my leg and telling me things that sounded nice to impress me. I don’t know. I played devil’s advocate. It wasn’t love at first sight.
The spiritual and mystical circles are new to me, and my own spiritual growth has been accelerated to the point of being mind blowing growing pains. But in the end (the beginning), I knew I had to take the leap of faith and Trust. Trust him and his sincerity and trust that I was ready to be vulnerable again.
The people you meet in your life have something to teach you and in turn, you have something to learn. I knew that Joemar would have a lot to teach me, and intuition told me I should be with him but it took awhile before logic told me I was ready. In matters of love, logic can’t be trusted, because the language of love speaks from the heart. The language of love is the source of life itself, and finding love… operating on love will bring us closer to happiness and our greater selves. Trust your intuition and follow your heart and life will have more meaning. It brought me to Asia, it brought me to Palawan, it brought me to Joemar, and it’s bringing me closer to my ideal life each day.
24:
Walking 400+ miles of Palawan island wasn’t an easy trek. For starters, I am the most out of shape that I have ever been in my life. An irregular and more likely non-existent exercise routine plus my newly aging “late twenties” body has left me gaining 15 pounds and unsure how to get used to the changes both inside and out. By the first three hours of the first day, I was already limping. My feet were sore and getting blisters from my flip flops digging into the space between my big toe. At the end of the first week, my right knee was inflamed and I had a lame limp.
Before I started the walk, I had already told myself the theme would be “letting go”. Letting go of fears. Letting go of physical pain. Letting go of attachments. I knew that for the walk to be successful, I had to be able to let things be, and be open to opportunities. Try to stay present in flow.
This whole year has been about letting go. The walk was just a culmination of all these things into a literal metaphor. For 27 days, I was walking the metaphor.
Impermanence
Being a nomad and traveler is the perfect lesson on Buddhist impermanence. I’m letting go of possessions and stuff in exchange for experiences. I’m letting go of emotional baggage and toxic people in my life, in exchange for single serving friends (a la Fight Club), constantly in dynamic flux within the world as their playground. I’m learning how to let go of them, too. I cycle through people, wondering if I’ll ever see them again, yet knowing that the decision is entirely in my making. Europeans pass through and teach me about life through their perspective. We have a moment. A connection. Maybe many moments, and many connections. Will I ever see them again? We add eachother on Facebook or Couchsurfing or our social media profile of choice. Our friendship is reduced to the ‘like’ button and I wonder when my life will ever be less fragmented, or if I should just get used to this 21st century communication breakdown.
Road to Zen
Meditating on impermanence isn’t about detaching yourself from people. It’s about observing the world we live in and staying focused on the inhalation and exhalation of life. Inhale observe. Exhale let go. There’s such a thing as attachment to detachment. The world isn’t so serious that you have to be spiritually disciplined and emotionally robotic. Impermanence is the balance of the pendulum swing from attachment and detachment. Too much on one way and you’re not there. Impermanence is here. Now. In the present.
Impermanence is letting things be. Going with the flow. Realizing you can create your own reality, but also realizing that you can’t hold on to it, because reality is constantly shifting. Moving. Changing. And becoming.
30:
Au Naturale
Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. – The Bible
I never thought I would ever quote the bible. But that’s where my journey has taken me. I’m not the same person I was before I left. Left where? Left for the walk? Left for Asia? Left a codependent relationship? Go backwards. Backwards. Back. Back to basics.
When I made the decision to walk, I wanted to apply the lessons I learned from the monastery retreat into my journey. Things like impermanence. Mindfulness. Walking meditation. Karma. Letting go. This is what I called my Road to Zen.
Palawan – The Last Frontier
Walking Palawan is in and of itself one of the best places to go “back to basics”. With the slogan “the last frontier”, Palawan is known for being the most natural, well-preserved island of the Philippines. Locals live simple lives and are content without electricity. The island also has a low crime rate and is the only island in the Philippines that has not experienced major natural disasters. One of my local friends even believes that it will be the “last frontier” when 2012 comes and Palawan will be the spot for both locals and foreigners to gather and go “back to basics” while a spiritual shift in consciousness happens.
The Last Frontier is not immune to commercialism and colonialism, however. Miners in the south have disenfranchised local tribes, forcing them to lose their means of work and relocate to the mountains. Although the island does not have a McDonalds or Starbucks, that will soon change because they are currently building a McDonalds as well as their first major mall. Palawan’s capital city, Puerto Princesa, “the city in a forest”, is misleading because it’s surrounded by forest, but not really in a forest. Typical city life with more buildings than trees is what you’ll see and what the current trend looks like it is becoming. I walked the island of Palawan at the right time, before it’s growth in tourism has spoiled the local landscape.
A private beach in Palawan
Back to Basics
There are a lot of things I did along the walk that got me back to basics. Everything from showering in the nude in the great outdoors (fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that!), to wiping my ass with my own hand. Even the simple act of living out of my backpack, without even a tent and no certainty as to where to rest my head for the night was living back to basics. Using out houses with no flushing seats or toilet covers and only soap and water was back to basics.
Excerpt from 9/28/10 journal entry
Emotionally, it is difficult to take in the day-to-day challenges and the uncertainty of not knowing where we’ll have a place to stay. So far, we’ve been fortunate to meet nice families but you never know with the unpredictability. Each ditch or spot of grass looks like an appealing place to rest my head. If we could only stop to rest… Bust still we walk on.
You start to feel crazy. I mean mentally insane. You wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing. For “spiritual purposes”. Testing your faith on the road, which is so physically, emotionally, and yes, spiritually draining. The road tests your patience, your intentions, and your good (or bad) karma. But you start to wonder if there’s really a point to all this or you’re just a crazy nomad on a Jesus trip.
[...] Each day has a new lesson and each step makes me feel more connected to this Earth, and this place, than any metal vehicle entrapting my body could ever do… That’s why I walk.
The act of walking is back to basics. And I did 85% of it the local way, in flip-flops. No fancy shoes or hiking boots. Just slippers.
Pain is only weakness leaving the body.
In true minimalist fashion, I lived like the locals. Hand washing clothes and bathing in the river. Embracing simplicity and the hardships of the simple life.
18:
The year is almost drawing to a close and it’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly one year since I flew to Asia. Exactly a year ago today I got fired from a mind numbing desk job that left me feeling meaningless, uninspired and full of a good dose of Existential Angst. When they told me I got the boot I smiled and started laughing, resisting the urge to give them the middle finger. I was planning to quit in December anyway, to have just one or two more paychecks before I left for my booked flights. I guess they got to me first, but I packed my dwindling empty room where I sold all my furniture and took the 6 hour road trip through the mountains and back to my parents house. Back to my childhood room still in tact.
Weeks later, my car broke down and I was grateful that it had enough juice to bring me back home without any trouble. It’s almost serendipitous that way. As if I have my own spirit guides watching over me. Or maybe I’m just romantic and like to think with my head in the clouds. That there could be such a thing as invisible benevolent forces making sure I’m safe. Who knows. I don’t know what I believe but it sure seems nice.
This year, thus far, has been no short of amazing. I’ve cuddled with gay boys, taught Indian slum kids English, joined a four month Buddhist monastery retreat for free, temple hopped in Taiwan for free, connected with amazing people, and walked 400+ miles of Palawan island in the Philippines.
I didn’t win the Your Big Year fundraising contest which means I didn’t get to go to UK for Global Entrepreneurship Week and compete for a round the world trip, but who needs it? Something better came my way in the form of community and I now find myself staying at a raw foods vegan retreat center in Palawan with interests in holistic health and wellness, meditation, yoga and eco-consciousness. I’m staying here for free and working on various freelance projects in the hopes to start my burgeoning freelance graphic/web design career anew. I’m loving the niche I’m in and am involved in a transition town movement, which aims to transition towns into going green in response to peak oil and global warming. I’m learning all about intentional community, ecovillages, cod “mud-sculpting” houses, and permaculture.
I’ve always had a heart for Mother Nature and eco-consciousness but this is the first time I’ve actually lived in the heart of a green lifestyle. I’m living with likeminded people. People much more “into it” than me, and for much longer. I’m taking baths with buckets and pumping water out of wells. I’m handwashing clothes with green soap and bathing with green products. I’m even wiping my ass with my hands since toilet paper isn’t allowed for “environmental reasons”. And the weird thing is, I don’t mind. I’ve toughened up. I’m not just a sissy foreigner anymore. I get “local price” on the tricycles because I speak the language enough to communicate on a basic level. I’m a part of this country, and this culture. And this country and culture are a part of me.
I may not have won Your Big Year, but I have my own big year right here. Right now. And as much as I’ve enjoyed traveling through my country and slowly experiencing what it has to offer, I feel like it’s time to settle down. Even for just a bit. And start focusing on work again. Building my career. Networking in this beautiful, green city, and starting to draw some money in again. Replenish my funds, then travel some more.
05:
For 27 days, with some days of rest throughout the journey, I walked and walked a total of 400+ miles from the southernmost tip of Palawan island, Philippines to El Nido, a popular tourist destination. I did this with my local native friend whom I thought of as my spiritual guide. Many insights captured me along the way, and I am left feeling overwhelmed and unable to write the true essence of the journey on blog form. I have enough thoughts and materials to write a book… Maybe I will someday. For now, I will attempt to assimilate all of my near-daily journal entries and share what I feel is best. But what this is are journal entries. They’re raw. They’re ugly. They’re beautiful. Simple. After over a month hiatus from the internet, I have forgotten how to blog. I’m sure I’ll get back into it sooner or later but please bear with me.
September 25, 2010
Walked 30 minutes to get to a beach. Southern most tip of Palawan. The ride down was bumpy as hell. Half paved roads poorly built and under construction. Lots of gravel. Lots of roads with so many pot holes I couldn’t even tell it wasn’t gravel. The driver drove through it in such a fashion that he would surely fail a driver safety test. Speeding through gravel. We hit a flat tire which wasn’t surprising. It only set as back 10 minutes at the most.
September 26, 2010
First day of walk. Up at 4am and walking by 5am. I thought I would get to watch the sunrise over the beach and then take a nice leisurely bath in the ocean as I awkwardly attempt to switch on my bikini and then change my clothes. I am wearing my clothes from yesterday and my pants are soiled and have a slight smell of urine. Being a hygienic hobo is hard… Especially without toilet paper. I try to “rough it” with my hands and then use sanitizer but it still soils my panties which in turn soil my pants.
Next time, I should wear a napkin to act as my toilet paper.. or at least a shield from my underwear and pants. Need to get this more together. I now have a new respect for the homeless which society so looks down upon like mere scum. It’s not that they’re dirty, even though they probably are. But you try living without your basic needs and see how long you can keep clean. There is this sort of breaking point where it gets harder and harder to keep up and ultimately you let go. You cease to care that you stink or you’re dirty and let society think of you like scum. These people typically don’t have a choice. But they do the best they can. They are the true minimalists of the modern world, even though minimalism has become a sort of yuppie trend.
It’s hard not to feel like a hobo huppie (hippie/yuppie) on my walk. I’m lugging my Adidas backpack (borrowed), Nike running shoes, Nikon D40 SLR camera around my neck, Ray Ban sunglasses on my face, and a ukay-ukay (thriftstore) sweater tied around my neck like those stereotypical, white yuppies wear, particularly the ones playing golf. Every scratch upon my skin brings dirt and grime under my fingernails and the heat of the sun is turning my skin a darker brown. I can’t tell if it’s dirt or a tan or both.
24:
All my life, I have won contests. I guess I’ve always been sort of drawn towards the challenge. I’ve won at least three coloring contests in my day, and was legitimately upset when I became of the age when I was too old to enter them. For as much times as I’ve won, I’ve also lost. It’s part of the territory and you learn not to take it personally.
But I learned how to be smart. I learned how to impress the judges and I learned what they were looking for. Creativity. Of course. It always comes down to creativity.
When you’re given an Easter theme and a bunny in a basket, don’t color the basket brown or the bunny grey. Use your imagination! Don’t color the Easter eggs in solid colors, make polka dots and stripes like real Easter eggs should be. Choose color combinations that are pleasing to the eyes. My intuitive sense of color theory was instilled naturally at a young age.
This is the secret to how to “beat” the judges: give them what they want to see.
It’s the secret to how to “beat” school education and life in general. You’ve got to learn to be a bit of a chameleon, adopting to your surroundings. Seeing what fits each group or situation best.
In my life, I have won sweepstakes, coloring contests, guess the jelly bean jar, blog giveaways and raffles. Through coloring contests I have won a walkman (which gives you a sense of the decade, and consequentially, my age), spending cash, a box of 64 Crayola crayons, and gift certificates. Through a blog giveaway, I won a Hello Kitty vibrator and was literally a wishbone away from winning an HP laptop computer (a 50/50 chance). Through a work raffle, before they kicked me out the door, I won an XBox 360 door prize which I promptly sold away, along with most my other possessions, in order to start the next phase of my life and uproot it into Asia.
And now, through an amazing opportunity to travel the world dealing with issues like social responsibility, conservation and global community, I have the chance to win a round the world trip and go to UK.
A representative from the contest personally emailed me to say that I was already in the top 6 fundraisers. If I can keep within the top 6 until October 10th, I am going to UK. She emailed me to wish me good luck and hoped that she could meet me if I get there.
I can’t help but feel this contest was meant for me, and that this is one that I’ll win. If not the round the world trip, at least UK for semifinals where I would attend Global Entrepreneurship Week conferences and compete in challenges for a one in twelve chance to win the grand prize.
If they want creativity, I’ll show them creativity if I can get to UK. I’ll impress the judges and give them what they’re looking for because I know it’s what I’m looking for too.
I am completely aligned to the spirit of the contest. Social entrepreneurship. I am working on building up my courage and my networks in hopes to launch my own graphic/web design studio or freelance business. Words like studio and business really intimidate me. And I find myself glossing over them and pausing in my step whenever I say it to people. But I talk with a passion and I feel it in my bones that I will be successful. Somehow. Someway. I will make this work.
Call it what you will, I want to be my own boss. I want to target creative entrepreneurs, small business and non-profits in hopes to use my skills for something more positive than working for the corporation. I want to help people start projects, promote their messages, and be involved in the exchange of ideas, in the hopes that my involvement could play a small part in world changing.
I want to do amazing things and I want to help people. I won’t accept mediocrity or status-quo. I don’t want to do things the “normal” way, with house, husband, dog and career.
Winning the contest could help me network, build my web, as well as fuel my ideas for ways that I can make a difference. My business would be a small start in the right direction, but I know that I want to continue doing more. I believe art can change the world. I believe my art can change the world and I believe that’s my calling, my purpose, somehow. I just don’t yet know how.
Winning this contest is a step in this process.
If you’d like to help, believe in me, or just want to help me adventure on as I blog and travel the world, consider donating $5 with the widget on the right.
23:
Back in TMI spirit (LiLu from Liv It Luv It’s creation), I have a special vlog for you on how to handwash your clothes. I hope you enjoy my awkward dorkiness.
My commentary:
00:21 – How do you like my music choice? Isn’t it the best? I wanted it to be kind of like foreplay.. and when the horns come… so…horny! Hahahaha miso horny!
1:05 – I’m so Asian!
3:08 – I don’t know why I said counter-clockwise, specifically. It actually doesn’t matter as long as its circular, or even up and down. 
21:
With the close of my four month monastery stay at Buddhist temples in the Philippines, I got the opportunity to go to Taiwan where the main monastery of the organization was hosting an International Youth Conference for Life Education. The Manila temple organized the trip and came up with twenty one people from the Philippines, myself included, to attend the conference as one big group. Five other students from our retreat, the “Humanistic Academy of Life and Arts” first batch, also attended.
That sounds fancy, but it was just a series of day long conferences spanning about three days with students from all over the world in attendance. About 1,000 people made the monastery come to life. Many from ivy league schools. Myself having only gone to “art school” (the Art Institute of Portland), and having graduated five years ago, felt a little out of place. That soon vanished with the first conference and the day-to-day living mirroring the lifestyle and education of the four month retreat. Can we say been there done that? Each conference felt like a repetition, but one that I appreciated nonetheless.
The first time I heard that familiar American accent I cringed. Almost six months in the Philippines without contact with other Americans and the accent had become jarring to my ears. Like, really? We all talk like airheads like, all the time? This is the accent my peers would mock me with even though I don’t even talk like that. I consciously try not to use “like” in a sentence, ever since highschool.
The trip was entirely organized and after our conferences, we were taken around Taiwan. We visited museums and Danshui Old Street near Taipei. The cute cobblestoned streets were strangely bereft of much traffic or people.
Old street is known for its ceramic arts and a music shop for the traditional Chinese flute-like instrument, called the ocarina, was selling handmade instruments in its original form or various cute animal forms.
Temple hopping in Taiwan kept us well fed. Glorious vegan food at its finest. If you’re ever at a bind for a place to stay in a foreign country, go to a temple. They will usually house and feed you, and if you’re too shy to ask or take advantage of something “free”, you can always volunteer to clean or help out in any way. Bartering is legit.
One night, we walked out to view the temple lights and it reminded me of that bonding time you have during campfires. Only instead of a fire, we had sparklers.
And I even got to see interesting things around the city.
A 100 year old train.
A creepy ad.
14:
Love comes to you in many ways. I knew that it had to come from me first, and after a self-depreciating rut with a relationship going nowhere, I knew I had to cultivate it from within.
The end of a love relationship is always a difficult process, even when you’re the one who initiates the break. It took me five years to figure out this house, this furniture, this stuff, this job and this traditional man was not for me. Slowly suffocating my being, I cried every night. Not just for him, and this life we had built that I was leaving. But for me, and for the woman I was about to become. Who was I, really? Where would this new chapter take me? Amidst my broken self-confidence, crying stupor and blurred vision came a soft clarity that I didn’t expect. A whispered thought that seemed to come from outside of myself. An intuition.
Go to the Philippines, it said, gently.
Throughout the year, the whisper grew stronger until it became a chant, and then a loud cheer. All I could do was follow.
Growing up, I’ve been teased for being different. Bullied for being not-white, and for having a funny accent. I tortured my own demons with a shattered self confidence and grew up hating being Asian. I called myself an Atheist because how could I ever believe in God if I couldn’t even believe in myself?
Seeing differences and comparing myself to others did nothing to nurture self-love or confidence. Love and hate are always tightroping a fine line; intertwining and dancing together up on the live wire, waiting to see which one falls first. Hate no longer served me. It was time to find Love. To celebrate similarities in humanity, in the global world, and in my own motherland. It was time to get back to my roots. Soar my self-confidence until it had wings and find God from within. For the first time, I understood the meaning of “God is Love”.
God met me when I was ready to love myself.
They say love comes when you least expect it. When I started a blog, found a community to ease my break-up, and a special blogger who would teach me more about myself and my spiritual journey than anyone ever has in my life, was a big impetus for my travels, and is the only person I have ever been able to flirt so naturally with, will that become love?
When I found an old flame the day after I broke up with the love of my life and we connected over superficial things (like graphic design degrees and martial arts) and the important things too (like lifestyles, values, and spirituality), met in person and connected over chemistry, and found our lives paralleling in year-plus long solo adventures in Asia with the hopes to meet again soon, will that become love?
When I entered the monastery, shaved my head because I wasn’t trying to impress anybody and love was the least thing on my mind, found myself connecting with a newfound friend whom I strangely felt would be important in my life, will that become love?
Maybe it is all Love. Now. A bundle of joy kept for no one in particular but everyone that I encounter; celebrating similarities as my love for self becomes stronger by each life-affirming experience.
Sometimes, I want someone to share my life with, because I have so much life to give, and giving and sharing are loving qualities. But romantic love seems so small. Unstable. Like grains of sand, the tighter you hold on to it, the easier it falls through your grasp. It’s not about finding love. It’s about being love and choosing your best life, your friends, and maybe even your life partner.
I don’t know why my intuition told me to come to the Philippines, but I know it has something to do with love, learning and being. Because life is a love story if you let it be.
10:
“Good morning, baby.” My groggy eyes slowly opened to see a middle-aged Indian man carrying a tray of hot masala chai, waking me up in his personal sing-song Indian accent. “Time to wake up, baby.” Rubbing my eyes, I moaned a response. “Tea, baby? Very hot. You take,” he coaxed in his broken English.
Every morning, Rakesh would wake me in this same way. He was my host-dad as I spent the three weeks in India to volunteer at a slum school teaching English. And every morning, me and the other volunteers would eat delicious meals of ciapatti bread and potatoes. Justin, another volunteer, was vegetarian so our host family cooked all of us vegetarian meals. Who could complain? Authentic Indian food cooked by an Indian family is like going to paradise each time you take a bite. So simple and yet so refreshing. So heavenly divine.
That was the first time I tried a vegetarian diet and I found myself not missing meat. When Justin left, as volunteers continually come and go, Rakesh cooked us a special meal with chicken. Chicken is my favorite meat but even tasting this feast seemed anti-climatic. I didn’t miss it and I didn’t have to. I yearned for more vegetables. Peas. Cauliflower. Carrots. All made in a wonderful concoction of spices and curries. I yearned for coconuts and mangoes and local fruits and masala tea. I yearned for chocolate. I didn’t yearn for meat.
“Are you vegetarian because of your religion?” I asked Justin one day. He was a practicing Buddhist, with the diligence to meditate every morning. He wore his malas on his wrist and taught me about om mani padme om.
“No, it’s mostly out of compassion,” he said, after a thoughtful pause. I smiled. Nodded. Almost smirked. Compassion and Buddhism go hand in hand. There’s nothing the Dalai Lama stands for that doesn’t also involve compassion. Was this some sort of cheesy, canned, Buddhist joke?
Two months later, I found myself entering a Chinese Buddhist monastery retreat in Bacolod, Philippines. After declaring “I’m not Buddhist enough” I wanted a respite from my wandering mind. Anxieties about my uncertain future and wondering when love would happen and I knew I needed to find my center and balance my life again. Balance me.
“We are like family.” The old master said. “You’re welcome. Ask question. Do not fear.”
I had just arrived the monastery and was greeted with a warm bowl of soup and equally warm smiles. Biting into a bright baby carrot, I nodded back and felt my tongue burning hot and the sensation spreading down my throat. The baby carrot turned out to be a red pepper! First lesson: mindfulness.
We were taught how to eat. There’s a whole art to it, in Chinese Buddhist tradition. Back straight. Hands cupped to a “C” to hold the rice bowl “like open mouth of dragon”. Chopsticks delicately picked up in complete silence. No speaking. No food going to waste. Not even one grain of rice left on the plate. This was the start of eating meditation. Each bite with intention, mindfulness, and thoughtful consideration of the causes and conditions–the server to serve the food, the kitchen staff to cook the food, the vehicles to transport the food, the farmers to grow the food–that got our vegetarian meals to our plates.
When you eat in silence and complete concentration, something changes. The food becomes medicine. Nourishment. Nutrition. The food becomes reverent. Holy. Sacred. For the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of prayer and “giving thanks”. My skeptic shell of Atheism, already growing softer before the retreat, had completely disappeared.
But something else changed too. I couldn’t look at meat the same way. My taste for vegetables grew stronger since having left India. The “causes and conditions” of packaged meat–the helpless animals being commodified as if they were mere objects, the excess consumption-driven meat factories polluting our environment, the unnatural hormones pumped into beef, and the careless mistreatment of the food chain–became more apparent as I learned about thoughtful eating, slowly chewing each bite with intention. Meat wasn’t just meat any longer and I couldn’t ignore the process.
I finally understood how vegetarianism is a choice of compassion, and not of religion. Vegetarianism meets you when you’re ready to go to that level, just as religion (or no religion) meets you at the level you’re comfortable with, and God (or no God) meets you whether you’re a Bible thumping homophobic, or an open-minded bisexual.
In four months, I changed. I became more compassionate by the bite.
I became vegetarian.
