The Last Great Adventure - a Pilgrim's Thoughts and My Last Will & Testament...

My teacher Sangharakshita, and founder of The Western Buddhist Order, on pilgrimage at Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha's Enlightenment, pictured with his teacher, Dhardo Rinpoche, a teacher to the Dalai Lama, circa 1955. 

A little while ago I read a wonderful book called "Notes From a Big Country". Some of our transatlantic Brothers and Sisters may know it as "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", but either way it's author, the irrepressibly funny and gifted Bill Bryson asserted that there are three things that you can't do in life; You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you cant go home again. This last one is undoubtedly the one of most interest to me, as I can rarely afford to eat out, and don't have a land line. I moved out of my family home in the quiet secluded valleys of mid Wales in 2002, and from that point onwards have found that every subsequent visit home has yielded less and less in the way of sentimentality, and an increasing sense of a place not that I once inhabited and called home, but of a place from a long forgotten past lived through someone else, in their dreams. Memories fade, faces that once I knew at 200 yards (well, actually it was their gait you recognised, such was the amount of walking done between the houses of friends) imperceptibly change to the barely recognisable. Perhaps because I have always been an occupier of more sonic realms, rather than visual ones (I have classed myself as an erstwhile musician since about 1988) that I struggle with faces? Who knows? Either way, as time goes on, those once-familiar smiles that I befriended in primary school, high school, even my short stay at university seem to broaden, distort and sag, lines ever deepening, my own uneventful visage seemingly wishing to lead this ignoble charge towards oblivion, it must be said.

1998

2005

2013

In the 15 years that these photos span (now that your horror has subsided), I have had no less than TEN changes of address, and as I write to you from my snug little sitting room at Mettaloka (the name meaning "the realm/world of loving kindness"), I can't help but agree with the statement, but only on the basis that you did indeed at one time or another feel at home somewhere. I have to confess that my childhood was always spent feeling slightly at odds amongst my geographical peers, with only knowing a select few "freaks" like me that could enjoy some rock music, dye one's hear an absurd shade of blue or per chance read a book for pleasure every now and then (without it being a statutory demand of the Mid-Wales education system). Occasionally we'd do all three at the same time. My point being that no matter where I have lived I have never been able to say "this is my home, these are my people, this is what I am representative of, this is where I feel most at ease..." From rural Wales to the council estates of Mosside, from the student "digs" of Fallowfield to the distant leafy isolation of Buxton, no-where have I been able to lay my hat with any degree of comfort or certainty that one day it would feel like "home".

All this is a very roundabout way of bringing me onto the deeply perplexing state of mind I now find myself in, seven days from a Pilgrimage with my Brothers and Sisters from our beloved Manchester Buddhist Centre. During that time we will be traversing many thousands of miles around sites of spiritual (I still struggle with the theistic connotations associated with the word "holy") significance vis a vis the wandering Prince Siddhartha Gautama, he who was to become the historical "Shakyamuni" (or "wise sage of the Shakyan tribe") Buddha that we all know of today. Let me be absolutely clear of a few things before we start this daring exploration of common sense and absurdity - I have never been to India, much less outside of Europe, and I am deeply concerned about flying period! I get nervous watching other people flying, or talking about flying, although to be fair, it's not so much the fear of flying as the fear of hurtling into the ground at 400 knots like a flaming dart with my nose gracing my testicles! Not so much heights as the fear of falling from them, if you catch my drift. Not only that, I am a keen appreciator of "alone time" in my life, and generally prefer things to be rather calm, quiet, peaceful and not covered in broken glass, rubble and animal faeces. I am sometimes prone to feeling self-conscious (although many from my wilder days would argue that I should have engaged with that feeling more often), and am a creature of routine, of habit. So on paper, in theory, the idea of going to the bustling metropolis that is India for three weeks with six comparative strangers (albeit ones whom I love deeply) is one of laughable foolishness. And I know foolishness. 

However, for some reason, none of this seems to matter much with regards to this particular trip. An order member called Nagabodhi (under his birth name of Terry Pilchick), who wrote an astoundingly hilarious and moving memoirs on being a rather pasty, middle-class, British fish-out-of-water-in-the-subcontinent entitled "Jai Bhim"(I implore you to read it, he is again a remarkably gifted wordsmith) described the streets of rural India as being "like a madhouse, set loose on a farmyard, strewn with the wreckage of a disused carnival" or words to that effect, and yet something in the stories of the tender-hearted people he met on his travels filled me with quiet awe. Not just that. It felt familiar, like a childhood dream recalled unexpectedly in later life. In short, it felt like home. In the six months I have been preparing for this trip, I have watch countless documentaries, listened to hours of talks off the Free Buddhist Audio website (I'm gonna keep plugging it until you all try it out, try any stop me, haha) and have read endless accounts of assorted travels, excursions, jaunts and pilgrimages to India, but nothing seems to worry me or bother me. Nothing seems weird alien or new. The noise, the pollution, the smiles, the laughter, the colour, the traffic, the generosity, the customs, even the language seems to come naturally to my ears. Hindi is a beautiful, language that seems to make perfect sense to me, and I can't wait to learn more than the basics. Pali, Marathi, Sanskrit, even hearing the names of these languages both dead and alive is enough to send me off into thoughts of bustling bazars, cool mango groves and utter tranquility. I've even had dreams about India. I never normally remember my dreams, but with crystalline clarity can I recall recent nocturnal sojourns involving a change of skin tone, speaking a foreign tongue (I have no idea which) and being sat in the presence of people I don't recognise but know intimately and acting accordingly. Intellectually, I'm sure it's nothing more than my total immersion in all things sub-continental of late, something of the hopeless romantic in me, but am I really sure? My heart says differently. It's worth noting by the way that as a Buddhist you don't have to believe in Rebirth, so long as you still believe in the notion of Enlightenment. One of course however still then has to ask the question of what happens after death if one is "neither reborn nor not reborn, nor neither, nor both (the words of the Buddha himself), but that is a topic for another time. 

I'm not saying I have no concerns about the trip. Whether my consciousness lived there in a previous incarnation or not, I am deeply concerned for the well-being of my fellow Pilgrims, and naturally would rather not have our wallets stolen at gunpoint, or die in a plane crash, or roll down a hill in a bus, or catch any one of the many tropical diseases that could befall any one of us. However, even if any of these things do happen to ME, I'm ok with that. Really, I am. Again, I don't know why, but I have also been recently having dreams about dying over there but beyond that I'd rather not say. Wouldn't want to spoil the ending now would we? Not to freak anybody out, but every year people do die on these trips. They have done for 2,500 years. People get sick and expire in a series of frothy convulsions, people get hit by buses, people in cars roll down mountain-sides into a startled and turbulent oblivion. At least nowadays I'm seeming unlikely to be gnawed pulpy by a giant boar or tiger, or die thirst-crazed and bug-eyed in the Gobi dessert, but I'm a sucker for tradition, so who knows? With my luck, these words may well be my last I put to "paper" as it were, and the next you will see of me will be my beaming visage on the front cover of the Manchester Evening News, or if I expire in a particularly messy fashion, Sky news. Dear Lord, I hope not! The idea that my demise could boost viewing figure for Rupert Murdock and his doom-bringer makes me want to kill myself, ironically...

That being said, and all joking aside, if anything does happen to me, that's cool. I know it will really suck for some of you, but you'll get past it, and looking back hopefully remember me fondly as a guy who didn't always get it right, but always tried to. Who always wanted nothing more than to see his friends well, happy and free from suffering. To bring a smile to someone's face, to give the gift of fearlessness, to befriend and then be a friend to another human being, to connect with others; THAT'S what life is all about for me. That I have been lucky enough to come across the Dharma in the first place is of gobsmacking incredulity! That I am going to India with six other wonderful, unique, warm-hearted people who I care about deeply is just quite literally beyond words, so I wont try. We all have to die, it's the price we should gladly be willing to pay for the gift that is life itself. Life and death are in fact at all times much closer than we would like to believe. Statistically, we have all done very well to get this far without shuffling off this mortal coil in an untimely fashion, and what is life if not for living fully in the present moment, one's heart bursting with a simple, joyous gratitude for the miracle that is existence itself? Indeed, as the acclaimed Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced Tik Nat Han) said:

Thich Nhat Hanh, 1926 - Present

"Death is a very necessary condition of birth. With no death, there is no birth. They inter-are and happen in every moment to the experienced meditator. For instance a cloud may have died many times, into rain, streams, water. Rain is a continuation of the cloud... [For] a meditation practitioner, nothing can hide itself. When I drink tea, it’s very pleasant to be aware I am drinking cloud... This body of mine will disintegrate but my karma will continue – karma means action. My karma is already in the world. My continuation is everywhere in the world. When you look at one of my disciples walking with compassion, I know he is my continuation. I don’t want to transmit my negative emotions, I want to transform them before I transmit them. The dissolution of this body is not my end. Surely I will continue after the dissolution of this body. So don’t worry about my death, I am not going to die."

I love you all, I couldn't say it better, so I'm not going to try. But here we go, regardless, my last will and testament:

My material goods are to be sold at auction, my debts to be paid off to various people (you know who you are, I promised I'd pay you back) and then the rest is to be donated to the Triratna Buddhist movement and to The Manchester Buddhist Centre. I wish to have a service at the centre in the Lotus Hall (beautiful and joyous), a party celebrating life itself in the centre and drinks in the northern quarter afterwards for those that wish to take the festivities to a somewhat later hour. As for this body, this perpetual cause of suffering and disappointment (check out those pictures again, it ain't gonna get any prettier from here on in folks!), I wish to be cremated and some of my ashes placed in a simple urn on the shrine in the Lotus hall, if that's quite alright with everyone there. The rest of the ashes can be taken to the beach at Talybont, on the west Wales Coast, and I would love for those of you who make it to have a massive camping beach party. At sunset, if someone would be so kind as to recite the Heart Sutra as you sprinkle them into the surf, I'd be ever so grateful. You will have a few months wait before it is warm enough to head to the beach, so don't stress, you'll have plenty of time to learn it! Remember me with a smile, and dedicate your lives to the good of others. These are my final wishes. I love you all more than you can ever know!

Learning how to die properly is learning how to live, and visa vera. As my latest tattoo says, "all things must pass, but with diligence, strive on..." These were the final words of the Buddha, and with a bit of luck they will be mine too, although I doubt it. I may be on fire and have other concerns. However, with all this in mind, and with a final letting go, I am ready to live this mad adventure to the full, diligently, and with a heart full of wisdom and compassion, or die trying. Whichever comes first... 

Yours, potentially from beyond the grave, and with tears in his eyes,

The Dharma Farmer xx

May any merit gained in my writing thus be given to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings. 

This article is dedicated to my teacher Sangharakshita, my friends, the living, the dying and the dead. 

May we all learn to rejoice in our own impermanence...

Buddham Saranam Gacchami - To the Buddha for Refuge I go

Dhammam Saranam Gacchami - To the Dharma for Refuge I go

Sangham Saranam Gacchami - To the Sangha for Refuge I go.

Sadhu.

Sadhu.

SADHU!