Snapshots

Above: Paan-spit-stained airshaft of a cheap hotel room, Delhi

The churn of experience has been churning away, and (besides the eventual, hoped for gobs of butter), bubbles of reflection have been percolating upwards towards the surface.  By some conspiracy of influences, I'm in the midst of what seems a paradigm-shifting metamorphosis, time plays funny, and everyday events spin themselves into Significant Happenings.  I've been drawn into a nexus, which is all very exciting, but it makes coherent interpretation difficult.  Until I pull some sort of perspective together, I'll satisfy the writing itch (and 'to write' in Hindi/Nepali is derived from an Arabic root meaning "to scratch") with a series of snapshots.

So, the last 10 days, in fragments:

After a frantically social last few days in New York, I wake at first light with a wisp of a memory of turning off an alarm two hours earlier, sit bolt upright, and five minutes later am out the door with partner and luggage, unshowered and greasy, and hop in a yellow cab for Newark airport.  My panic subsides as the driver sagely selects a route and we leave Manhattan behind.  Half to calm my nerves and half to solicit his obstacle-removing shakti, I repeat Ganesh's mantra under my breath.  An hour later we are through on board a Virgin flight for Delhi.......................Our first night in Delhi, in a cheap but clean hotel room armed with a big ceiling fan and a window into a paan-spit stained airshaft.  It's hot but bearable out but like a convection oven inside, the cement walls and hard mattress radiating the day's heat.  The jetlag trance state proceeds through successive rounds of a cooling ritual: rinse off with warm water from the cold tap, dampen topsheet, lie under it until its life-preserving power is exhausted.........................................Wandering the narrow gallis of Old Delhi our first evening, I ask a shopkeeper in my stumbling Hindi where good local eats can be found. His directions are, essentially, "go left, then right, then left again, and you're practically there."  At a bit more prodding, a map is produced.  The first left is to be taken at a Hanuman temple, and the shopkeeper will take us that far.  He wants to share some of his culture and his city, and we wash our hands in a tiny basin, leave our rubber sandals without, and tour the neighborhood shrine.  Soon we have caught the resident priest's attention and been walked through a puja.  Having completed our darshan (viewing of the divine image) we leave with smiles, marigold garlands, tika'ed foreheads......................................In the day's rising heat we charter a tuk-tuk to the Baha'i lotus temple, that faith's only outpost in Asia.  As we wait for the gates to open, I feel myself flushing with a heat greater than that outside, as if I'm the source of the high ambient temperature. Inside the vast, open space within the lotus, silence reigns.  I long to slip into the clear blue pools around the temple.  Mind occupied with the Baha'i creed that all faiths are essentially one..................................Getting the runaround at the New Delhi railway station as we try and purchase tickets for the next day's departure for Gorakhpur, 15 hours to the East.  It is not possible, no, not for four days...until we find the right office, the official one, and buy our tickets for less than half then price we'd been quoted.  Despite this, we have found Delhi much less tout- and scam-infested than we had been led to believe.  It is less concentrated than Kolkata, and without that city's sense of decaying grandeur disappearing under tropical growth.  Instead sprawling, drier (though this is due as much to the season, the last days before the rains begin).  Delhi Chicago to Kolkata's New York? Which would make Mumbai L.A....and Chennai?.................................On the platform awaiting the 8:25 Gorakhdam Express, along with what must be half the population of certain small city states.  We claim some space, people-watch, sweat, and are oggled in turn.  We remark to each other on people's willingness to stare.  Buy a 10 rupee folding fan: "folding fan!  folding fan!," a chant we decipher only after 10 or so repetitions................................aboard the train, sleeper-class.  I awake before 2 AM somehow convinced it is almost dawn, and sit in the open doorway of the car, watching the dark shapes of bushes and the occasional house go by in the Uttar Pradesh countryside.  It's not unbearably hot for a change, in fact almost cool in the heavy, grey pre-monsoon skies.  Move my bowels at the squat toilet, quite clean and perfectly odor free, since the hole opens directly down onto the tracks.  Marvel not for the first time that I'm in India. At 4 A.M. I buy a paper cup of chai (chaay, actually) from the tea-wallas who patrol up and down the aisles, and later some breakfast: aloo chop and white bread with a ketchup packet.  India's British heritage reveals itself, like divine will, in unexpected ways........................Divine will.  I wouldn't have caught myself using that term a year or even a month ago, but I'm becoming less shy about such things.  Do I believe in God?  Not the god I forswore as a small child lit up by thoughts of black holes and, later, the prospect of laying bare the workings of reality through string theory and the like.  I'm still not crazy about the term, and the capitalization, and most of the connotations.  Theology strikes me as futile.  The less said the better about the object of faith--but I've discovered faith, and understand, as Michael Gruber writes in the guise of one of his characters, that it's a gift.................I guess we're out of snapshot mode now, and I haven't even gotten to Nepal yet, even to Kushinagar and the first purposeful stop on what is to some extent a pilgrimage...but Michael Gruber.  The man has penned three novels that have provided an extremely timely source of spiritual nourishment in, of course, an unexpected form.  The books detail the life and most interesting cases of a Miami detective who finds himself embroiled repeatedly in what he comes to dread (and eventually embrace) as Weird Shit: African sorcery and its descendant Santeria, South American shamanistic practice, and less exotic but no less forceful cracker Protestant faith, amongst others.  They're a ripping, gripping read, but under the cover of the thriller, part of the books' real work is to challenge the world's current materialist worldview in ways that are hard to ignore.  Indeed, one comes to realize (if one hasn't already) that our society is as religious as any other, but with rather perverted idols: money, sex, speed, forward motion, shiny things.  Science itself, what should be a method and not a belief system, has taken on cult status.  In this light, alternative views become attractive and in fact essential, and Gruber presents a host of related spiritual systems that fill the void.  The overall arc of the trilogy is also concerned with the spiritual maturation of the star detective, Jmmy Paz, Gruber being a wise as well as an intelligent writer.  There's plenty of other juicy stuff, lots of sex, and also a recurring, hard-hitting racial theme.  Better than any white author I've read, Gruber understands the varieties of racism and the ways in which it is instutionalized and sanctioned.  They're challening books all around, but the medicine just tastes so good you can't put the bottle down.

In the interest of timely posting, I'll leave whatever typos in and save the Nepal stuff for next time.  How time flows, then oozes, sticks, recoils... 
Love to all my readers, with apologies if I've gone too far off the deep end this time.
Jonathan

Investing in Ourselves

It appears that the Escher-eque architecture of the political economy (or is that the economic politic?) is finally betraying itself for what it is: a mesmerizing but trumped-up house of cards.  And while most houses of cards are at least built upon foundations as solid as, say, a coffee table, ours is held aloft by increasingly sporadic gusts of hot air from the maw of a bloated, sickly, senile carnivore.

I'll let those images float around free of further interpretation.  I don't claim any real talent for political/economic analysis.  For that, I'd like to recommend Very Knowledge and Club Orlov.  The authors of both are highly skilled at summing up just why, exactly, we're in so much trouble.  Trouble?  It depends on how you look at it.  But most people would call this Trouble with a capital T: the Western, consumption-oriented way of life is on its last legs, at least in the West (China may just be getting started).  The writing is on the wall.  The eagle has crashed into the ocean.  Yes, change is afoot, Mr. Obama.  Great upheaval is on the horizon, as the re-orientation of something as massive as the global economy won't happen without making a few, uh, waves.  As in tidal waves.  Things in the U.S. are poised to get radically ugly.  This is a good reason not to gloat, even over the downfall of as brutal, myopic a tyrant as the U.S. has become.  But it is exciting.

Amidst such a backdrop of gushing oil and economic failure, it's a good time to think about very basic things, including such impolite questions as "where does your food come from (and where will it come from)?"  And "what is your plan for when oil costs $10 a gallon?"  Many highly intelligent authors have argued that the necessary questions are going to be good deal harsher than this second one, since I have assumed that oil will still be available, and, implicitly, that things like highways will still be in good repair and safe to venture out on in a private vehicle.  Check out James Howard Kunstler for some juicy speculations on that score.  There are limitless possible scenarios, but I don't fancy stockpiling guns and canned food or even for that matter moving up to a remote hilltop in Vermont year round and tending a big garden and a flock of sheep.  Much as I like the sound of the latter, it just ain't me.  For these purposes, the details of just how a post peak-oil America will look are not really the point.  Instead, I prefer to focus on the basics.  When pondering how to spend time, money, physical and mental energy in a time of intense uncertainty, I find myself asking "what can I invest in that I won't end up regretting no matter what happens in the world?"

The short answer is "myself."  Lest that sound irretrievably egocentric, let me backtrack a bit.  

I've figured out that the intersection of my talents and passions and the needs of the world--which is how someone famous or other once defined "calling"--lies in the realm of nourishing, in making myself a vessel for traditions that nourish and tend toward wholeness.  If this I were in The Giver, I'd have been named Nourisher on my thirteenth birthday (and been awfully confused at the time, except that even then I loved to cook).  So I've decided to invest in the pursuit of that general goal.  Health being at something of a premium these days, there will be no shortage of work to be done.  All the more so if we define health broadly, to mean not just lack of detectable disease, but also a positive state of balance and contentment.  Ayurveda provides a set of powerful conceptual tools for achieving balance in body and even in mind.  The contentment part, though, is more elusive.  This is the realm of what we might call spiritual health.

Wait, hold it.  This is getting suspect already.  What does "spirituality" even mean?  Luckily it doesn't fall into the category of asking "what is jazz?," to which Louis Armstrong famously responded "man, if you've got to ask, you'll never know."  Really good jazz has a certain ineffability that defies definition, and if you can't feel it, there's no use trying to pin it down with words.  Ultimate reality may share some of that elusive quality--ask Mahayana Buddhists, who have developed complex ways of talking about that very elusiveness without reifying the concept of elusiveness itself, or physicists, who delve ever deeper into the structure of time and space, uncovering marvels within marvels.  Even the innermost marvels, if there are any that are ultimately innermost, defy all comprehensibility, with features like wave-particle duality.  The most promising theory, String Theory, requires that there be something like 11 extra imperceptible dimensions curled up into vanishingly small knots at every point in space-time--and this is in the name of simplifying.  Ultimate reality may well be beyond our capacity to understand it (wouldn't it be weird if it weren't?), but spirituality is not.  Leaving aside the term's mixed connotations, let us think of spirituality as a sense of purpose in our lives.  This doesn't mean we have to "know the meaning of life," just that we have an operational, pragmatic idea of how to create our own meaning.  Once we have meaning, we have direction, and we have something larger than our own egos and desires to base our lives upon.  Direction gives perspectives and resilience, a certain stabilization that, tended to, will tend us in return and keep us on the path.  

If this spirituality--meaningfulness--is the goal, what is the means to it?  A good place to begin the search is with the Sanskrit term for health itself.  The word is swasthya.  It means self-situatedness.  It conveys a sense that the place to start is with ourselves.  Each of us.  Working on her/himself.  This sounds simple, but in the context of Western society it is in fact radical, for we are accustomed to looking everywhere but within for fulfillment.  But it would seem that some sort of self-work is in order.  This is not egocentrism, for the goal of the process (or one of its side effects) is to eliminate the pernicious and false construct of the ego.  Rather, one's self is the only place one can start.  Later on ripples will spread outward, but those ripples come from the center.  We have to be self-centered; the challenge is (to paraphrase Einstein again) to widen our circles of compassion enough to embrace every being.

It's worth emphasizing that this kind of spiritual work is precisely that: work.  It is work in much the same way farming is work, and involves many of the same processes: preparing the ground, planting the right seeds, weeding out what is undesirable.  It requires the same sorts of attributes that help make any long-term endeavor successful: attentiveness.  The will to succeed.  Effort.  A sense of timing.  Immense patience.  Faith.  All these are necessary qualities, and yet they are also the fruit of the labor.  Thus the process is cyclical, and as different stages are reached, the seeker gains the strength and skill to proceed further.

So far I've avoided talk of religion per se.  Spirituality in the sense of finding and refining one's purpose through "self-cultivation," may or may not come associated with a particular religious tradition.  Many find that having a well-trodden path to follow is helpful--even if (in the world of so many Southasians I've spoken to), "all roads lead to the mountain"/"all rivers lead to the sea"--while others develop practices independently.  For most, some level of guidance is helpful.  What kind of path to follow does, of course, depend on one's aims, level of motivation, and many other factors.  And not all spiritual techniques accomplish the same thing.  The term "spiritual work" is still a useful one, however, if understood as that which contributes to an increase in positive attributes in the practitioner such as contentment, selflessness, and equanimity, while weakening negative thoughts and tendencies.  Buddhism and Christianity, for example, have some serious metaphysical differences, but they both aim to cultivate ethical living through kindness and compassion.

In the Southasian context, spiritual paths take many forms.  Even within Hindu traditions in which the overall goal is union with the divine, there are a number of different paths that are recognized.  Since yoga means union, these have names like karma yoga (the yoga of action), bhakti yoga (devotion), and jnana yoga (higher insight), as well as the more familiar hatha yoga.  Speak with Bharat Natyam dancers or Tabla players, and you will hear of their own practices as paths to the divine.  It doesn't so much matter what as it does as how: Zen Archery could equally well be Zen Underwater Basket Weaving, as long as it performed with mindfulness and devotion.  Many profoundly spiritual people don't associate themselves with any particular tradition, but simply follow the quiet voice of their own way.  I'd love to hear people's stories of others they've known that fit this description, because I think we all have met people who inspire us with their inner quiet, quiet courage, courageous eccentricity.

As I find (to my own continuing surprise) my own spirituality unfolding along a Buddhist path, I have more to say from that perspective than I do in terms of general remarks.  At the heart of Buddhist practice lies meditation, a direct and unmediated act of self-cultivation (bhaavana).  As practices go, meditation is relatively subtle: no signs of visible activity or direct impact on the world.  There is a tendency in our culture to discount the subtle in favor of the obvious, the tangible.  This may partly explain the difficulty so many have in conceiving of something like meditation as having any real value.  Why do Tai Chi when you could really burn some calories by lifting weights?  In reality, subtle forces are the most influential, as gentle, unassuming water carves a gorge out of solid rock.  Emotions may be insubstantial, but murder would never happen if not for rage, hatred, fear, and jealousy.  This principle--that the subtle governs the concrete--is what makes meditation so powerful.  Along with plants and animals, who so far have not been the cause of much Trouble, the world is composed of vast human societies, each of which is composed of discrete cities and towns plus rural areas, composed in turn of families, and finally, of course, composed of billions of individual people.  These people's actions, their ways of being in the world, depend on their internal states.  Without peace and harmony in the inner world, we can't expect it on the outside, either.  Start at the center and ripple out.  And--neat trick--eventually (they say) the center disappears.

                                                                      *         *         *

  For someone interested in pursuing self-cultivation of the sort I've been describing, but who is not sure where to start, there is nothing to be lost and much to be gained by developing mindfulness.   A calm, steady mind is a necessary stage on a number of paths, and it's a beneficial practice in its own right.  Calming the mind through this kind of meditation is akin to simply stopping the motion that we're always making.  If the mind is a car, then it's always running, and of course we need to stop it before we can open it up, see what's wrong, and fix the durn thing.  I like the analogy of muddy water.  Since the mind is always moving, the mud never has a chance to settle out, and the water never clears.  But with enough calming meditation, the motion slows to a stop, and the particulate matter settles to the bottom.  The water becomes clear, full of light.

The simplest form of samatha or calming meditation uses the breath to still the mind and make it one-pointed, absorbed in its object of concentration.  Here are some simple instructions aimed at a novice meditator, enough to get you started with a simple daily practice.  Sit in a comfortable position on the floor or in a chair.  Establish a firm, comfortable foundation.  Straighten your back, but not so much that you make yourself uncomfortable.  Loosen any tight belt or pants so that you can breathe freely, down into your belly.  Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes.  Close your eyes gently, and turn your attention to your breath, just the way you breath naturally, in and out.  Try not to control your breath, just watch it as it passes in and out through your nostrils.  Sounds simple, but it's not.  The mind will wander away again and again.  Each time you catch it wandering, gently but firmly bring it back to the object of concentration, the breath.  This is enough for many sessions, and it will be hard work.  It sounds obvious, but there is no substitute for doing the work.  Merely reading about it is no good.  You have to do it, every day.  "5 minutes a day better than half an hour on the weekend," says one of my teachers.  If you persist, you will find that the ability to concentrate develops, and your mind will wander less far and less frequently.  You will start to notice sensations that you hadn't before.  As this happens, you can zero your attention in very specifically on the place in or around the nostrils that the breath touches as it moves in and out.  You haven't exhausted the usefulness of this technique until you are able to sit completely absorbed in your breathing, without a trace of discursive chatter nor even a feeling of joy at your accomplishment, for extended periods of time.  Until then, there's always room for refinement of awareness, for sharpness of concentration.  

Pathfinding

I'm not always sure whether this blog is more an open journal (as the subheading once proclaimed), a manifesto, a travelogue, a sort of ethnographic cookbook, or a resource for seekers of holistic health.  It's safe to say that, like Daniel Dravit in The Man Who Would Be King, Ill Wind has been "most things in [its] time."  Today I'll venture into the swampy terrain of self-disclosure and make a declaration, a sort of "contrack" between myself and myself, witnessed by you-out-there.  To wit:

I hereby declare to remove myself, after a third and surpassingly glorious and chaotic romp through the subcontinent to be chronicled in due course, to Portland, OR, city of bridges and natural health mavens and Ursula K. LeGuin, to immerse myself mind body and spirit in the philosophy, art, science, creed, and praxis of Classical Chinese Medicine.  That deep-rooted stuff.  That heterogeneous, contested, obscure, decidedly living body of traditions about the body.

It's official--I've sent in my deposit and I'm crazy excited to make a four-year run of it at National College of Natural Medicine.  This both is and is not a change of track for me.  Is, because I've spent so much time and energy on Southasia and its languages (Nepali, Newari, now Hindi) and medical traditions.  Isn't, because, like Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, in its classical, non Mao-censored glory, has the potential to integrate immanent spirituality and transcendent health.  And unlike for Ayurveda, there is both solid legal basis for practicing Chinese medicine in the States and a deep bank of resources (other practitioners and teachers) to tap into.  So as of January '11, I'm going to shift gears and dive into East Asia.  I'll be starting from scratch in some ways, and what I do already know may get in the way at times, but I have faith that I will not only become adept as an acupuncturist and herbalist in the Chinese tradition but also be able to integrate my Ayurvedic understandings and eventually become a stronger practitioner because of my eclectic background.

Not that it's all so cut and dry as this last statement may make it sound.  In fact, I suspect that this departure will end up being not so much a destination in itself but a substantial length of road to wherever it is I'm going.  Odd as it may sound heading into an intensive four-year program,  I see an intimacy with the Chinese traditional arts as a pre-requisite to something else--even if I don't know what that something is yet.  For I can't help but entertain notions of integration, in the most ambitious and inclusive sense, extending in this case to integration medico-spiritual understanding and techniques from different traditions into one eventual Path.  I'm highly aware of my tendency to think too much (why else would I do so much rambling?), but I think a lot these days about what that ultimate Path will be.  What vehicle I will wind up in for the better part of my journey in this life.  And I have inklings.  Unwise to articulate them too soon, perhaps, but I have inklings that this yog, this union, will occur in the historical meeting ground between India and China, in Tibetan soil.  I'm not sure about this, and even if I were, I don't think there's any shortcut there.  If I'm headed to the mythical Mt. Kailash, abode of Shiva, I must approach it as the pilgrims do, by making a kora.  Perumbulating.  Completing my part of the mandala, so that when I reach the destination I am prepared, i.e. equipped with the appropriate knowledge and experience.  For now, my path leads through China, if not actual China (and I am bone-scared of modern China), then a representative cultural distillation thereof.  Wish this foolish pilgrim luck.

Even as I write this, I'm conscious that it may be the most presumptive and pretentious thing I've spouted in quite some time.  In these few paragraphs are embedded some of deepest visions, faith, and (surely) pride.  But today I feel like letting all that hang out there flapping in the ether, if for no other reason that I'll have something to look back at in, say, ten years time, and be able to judge whether I was more full of pretension or prescience.

The Age-Old Quest for Nourishment

Today on the bus I saw a woman with a stroller get on and take a seat near the front.  She took out a bag of jelly worms and ate one, then fed another of the chewy red and yellow tubes to her infant.  I couldn’t see his or her little face, but I could picture the baby sucking the candy right down like a fat strand of spaghetti.  Ah, I thought--sweetness.  It’s the primordial taste, a direct link to our animal brains, the message that says “nourishment.”  But before someone gets on my case for advocating a diet of Haribo gummy candies for newborns, there’s a distinction that ought to be made.  There’s sweet, and then there’s sweet.  

As hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists--in other words, people who got along somehow without food-processing technology much more sophisticated than the blade, the mortar and pestle, and the clay cooking/fermenting vessel, humans evolved to recognize viable sources of nourishment by taste.  Basically, the things that tasted good to us were the things that would keep us going, providing strength and nourishment to keep us not just alive but thriving.  Things like animal parts (especially internal organs like liver and heart, which are typically prized by traditional cultures and are eaten first by wild animals), seeds and grains, starchy roots and tubers, fruit and nuts.  Most of these foods taste sweet, in subtle or not-so-subtle ways.  Take bread, for instance: chewed for more than a few seconds, the starches in any loaf break down into shorter-chain carbohydrates, i.e. sugars.   So, in the mythical golden age of human nutrition, when the only problem with most people’s diets was that they might not be getting enough to keep body and soul together, sweetness was a pretty good indicator of nutritional value.  Enter the industrial revolution, slave labor, factory farming, and the McDonald’s-ization of global food trends, and the picture gets pretty distorted.  Now sweetness can be extracted from its nutrient matrix and concentrated, packaged and sold.  And by golly the stuff is a hit.  Rather like crack is a hit.  The same can be done with fattiness and saltiness, two other once-reliable indicators of nutrient-density.  The result?  The ketchup-dipped french fry, which to our taste buds is the perfect combination of fat, salt, and sugar.   Unfortunately, 99.999% of the fries out there are made with bad fat (chemical gobbledygook with names like ‘partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil’) bad salt (refined NaCl, possibly iodized but stripped of all other trace minerals), and even bad sugar (high-fructose corn syrup, which manages to be even sweeter and more problematic than the old devil, regular old white sucrose).  The potatoes are from a sterile, mineral-depleted lunar wasteland fumigated by spacesuit-wearing farmers, and the tomatoes, well, aw hell, they can count as a vegetable!  

I tend to get a little carried away when I think about what our society eats.  But it’s not my fault--things really are that unbalanced.  I’m not really one for statistics, but I’d be willing to bet that the average American is at least five times more likely to know how to drive a car and upload a digital photo than how to cook a simple meal of beans, greens, and grains from scratch.  And once quotidian food preparation techniques like making sourdough bread or fermenting a crock of kraut are practically obsolete in mainstream  America.  There’s a lot more that can be said on the subject of our “national eating disorder,” as Michael Pollan puts it, but as that wasn’t really meant to be my focus in this post I’ll refer interested readers to his by-now seminal The Omnivore’s Dilemma instead.  My contribution here is this: people should eat real (ideally, local, seasonal) food in appropriate quantities, yes.  But what if that’s not enough?

Most of the people I see in my capacity as an Ayurvedic/herbal health consultant have something in common.  They are craving nourishment.  I don’t mean that they are wasting away, suffering from calorie-deficiency, but they find that they’re not as satisfied by their food as they would like, or they feel a nameless hunger for something beyond what they’re getting.  This hunger has spiritual dimensions as well, of course--the hunger for meaning that typifies the postmodern era--but I’m talking about the physical plane.  Perhaps its simply the people I attract--I, as someone who has struggled with issues of nourishment and who envision my work in this world as an act of nourishing, broadly-defined; maybe it’s the spectacles I wear that see everything in a nutrition-tinted hue--but I don’t think that’s all of it.  Across the nation and the world, people are hungry.

As I learned to see from Ayurvedic teacher Claudia Welch, how many Americans are weighed down with weight that doesn’t really belong to them, sheer ballast that’s standing in for true nourishment?  Eating nutritionally empty foods can lead easily to a vicious cycle of hunger for nutrients, a hunger which is then fed with more junk, which creates weight but leads to ever more ravenous hunger...even for those who eat a reasonably balanced, mostly whole-foods diet, there is the same craving for grounding.  

Grounding: this mysterious-sounding idea bridges the gap between physical and non, and ties in another symptom of post-modernity: we live too much in our heads.  Our lack of nourishment is inseparable from our lack of sensitivity to our bodies, and to the earth.  It might be said--I’ll say it--that we hunger, at root, for connection, for the umbilical cord linking us to the great mama underfoot.  “Alternative medicine” abounds in ways to talk about this: the root chakra, the earth element, sacral vibrations...these ways of conceptualizing all share an association with the lower parts of the body.  Maybe what we lack, on some collective level, is the ability to shake our metaphysical booty.  (This isn’t so far-fetched: health would be a lot more marketable if people realized the connection between it and their libido.) 

So what to do about it?  I haven’t even mentioned the myriad stresses we’re subject to, from traffic jams to conference calls and jet lag, environmental toxins, you name it.  From an herbalist’s point of view, luckily, these issues and those of grounding and nourishment all point to a common set of remedies.  For nourishing, for grounding, for cooling our feverish appetites, for building our reserves and stabilizing our frayed nerves, sweet roots are what the order of the day.  My staunchest allies, the herbs I find myself reaching for more than any other for myself and other people, belong to this class of nourishing, adaptogenic roots:  Ashwagandha.  Shatavari/Asian asparagus species.  American Ginseng.  Licorice.  These can be taken as powder or tea or even tincture, but my favorite way is simply to eat them, gnawing on the tough Ashwagandha, chewing the sweet Asparagus rhizomes like gummy candy, sucking and chewing up a slice of licorice root until the sweetness is gone.  All extremely safe herbs (the only contraindication for any of these is with licorice, which due to its watery nature shouldn’t be used in cases of water retention or hypertension), they can be chewed freely.  I’ve even been known to give a Christmas present of a jar of “nourishing roots to gnaw” to a certain family member who, I was reminded, loves to do just that.  

To these grounding, building, soothing roots, I like to add some more specifically nervine herbs, especially in cases of heavier stress or where there is more heat and irritation (Pitta involvement).  With my Ayurvedic background, Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) and Shankhapushpi (Convolvulus alsinoides) are my go-tos, but more recently I’ve been discovering the deeply cooling, calming, tension-relaxing nature of Motherwort and the nerve-feeding capacity of Oatstraw and seed.  A nice Ayurvedic trick is to add some calcium-rich bhasma (calcined mineral) preparation such as prawal or muktasukti bhasma, coral or oyster shell ash.  Given conservation issues, I go with oyster shell.  It lends a grounding weight to a formula and is especially nice for the Vata/Pitta conditions that so many people seem to be struggling with, and it isn’t expensive.  Finally, in cases where some extra grounding (bordering on mild sedation, such as in anxiety with insomnia) is in order, I will use something along the lines of Valerian root.  I prefer not to give heavy, dulling herbs for long periods, but they can be indispensably useful in the short-term.  

     Nourishing roots: Dong Quai (Chinese Angelica), Asian licorice, Ashwagandha, Tien Moon Dong (Asian Asparagus rhizome), American Ginseng

While herbs can nourish us and supplement the problematic food sources that are unavoidable, they are no substitute for deeper grounding work.  Depending on who, what, when and where you are, this might mean digging in a garden bed, sitting quietly and doing nothing for ten minutes, going for a walk in the woods, or playing soccer.  It almost certainly means unplugging yourself from the cyberworld for a spell.  In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’m off to cook some dinner.  

That High, Lonesome Road

I’ve mentioned how finding the right metaphor for a situation helps clarify it, give it handles for the mind to grip.  Four days into a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat in early March, the right metaphor wasn’t hard to come by: myself on a rocky path, silhouetted against an inky pre-dawn sky, toiling onwards and upwards through thinning air.  Dry.  Cold.  Alone.  What had I been thinking, signing up for this?  All my Ayurvedically-trained intuition was clammering for me to stop, turn back.  Dryness, coldness, harshness--these are the very qualities responsible for aggravating Vata dosha, the internal wind.  Ayurveda, “knowledge of life,” is predicated on balance; balance is achieved by treating with opposites, so cold is countered by comforting warmth, physical dryness by the lubrication of moisture or oil and psychological dryness by life’s master lubricant, love.  “Treat Vata like a flower” says one Ayurvedic adage.  Looking around the barren scree slopes around me, I see no signs of life at all.  No flower could survive here.  Nor would one have to study the ancient Indian science of life and longevity to understand that the remedy for loneliness is human fellowship.  But here I was, sworn to silence at the retreat center.  Warmth was parceled out in the form of two silent meals a day and whatever time one could find to spend in the shower.  Sneha--oiliness, love--was not to be found at all, it seemed, and this above all was what was getting to me on the fourth day of sitting.  And yet here I was living on the charity of others, their freely given gifts, so that I might have the same experience they found so powerful.  I was being fed, housed, served, instructed for free; this out of the way center in Northwestern Illinois was no prison camp but a temporary monastery of sorts, and I knew that behind the external roughness of the experience lay a vast reservoir of goodwill.  Still, I felt a thousand miles away from the fellowship and overwhelming feeling of accomplishment I knew would be waiting on day 10, when we makeshift monks would break our silence and prepare to return to the world.  

Day 4.  Underfed and overwrought, I returned to the meditation hall, my mind a seething sea of doubt.  This wasn’t for me.  I had been sick, needed nurturing, not the harsh treatment of this spiritual boot camp.  I wasn’t going to make it; that was OK.  There was no shame in that.  I would talk to this instructor after this group sitting, explain my reasons calmly, go reclaim my belongings and call Thandiwe.  She’d arrive by evening, understanding, loving, and take me home.  I’d have lost nothing.  But I knew I would be harsher on myself than that, that to leave would be to fail in the task I had set forth.  I gritted my teeth and prepared for another cycle of wrestling with myself.  But now it was time to sit again.  

For the past four days, we had been learning and practicing a technique called anapana.  Sitting upright, we were taught to bring our awareness to our breath, to its passing in and out of the nostrils.  This breath awareness is the foundation of many meditation techniques, and it’s notoriously difficult at first.  The mind resists the ball and chain of fixed attention, slips subtly out of its shackles to frolick free over field and fen.  Into memories and fantasies it travels, past and future, ever resisting the present moment.  Realizing the attention has wandered, the instruction is to bring it back, gently and firmly, to the breath.  Within seconds it is gone again, cherishing memories of past pleasures or reliving insults; tracing the contours of forgotten episodes from childhood, or plotting how to spend the first day of freedom once this Vipassana madness is over.  You realize you’ve been duped by your own mind again, and try and focus on the breath.  It’s been 10 minutes or so.  You are to sit quietly, not opening your eyes or leaving the room, for another 50.  Then you’ll have a break before starting again.  And again.  And again.  You’ll have a tea break, then watch the evening discourse and maybe even get to laugh once or twice at Goenka-ji’s all-too-apt characterizations of us fledgling students, our predictable trials and tribulations.  Then one more sit, and sweet bed in your cold little cell.  Tomorrow at 4:30 it starts again.  But what’s this?  Where has the mind gone? You were exhaling...

For the first three days we practiced this anapana, awareness of the breath, with increasing subtlety.  Once an awareness of simple inhalation and exhalation was established on the first day, however shakily, we were to refine our awareness to the place where the breath first touches the nostrils.  The new instruction is exciting for the first hour, before monotony sets in.  The endless task of dragging the attention back to the patch of skin where the breath blows back and forth, the inevitable loss of concentration, the interminable sitting.  On day three we moved our attention to the patch of skin below the nostrils and above the upper lip: a further progression from gross to subtle.  There were moments now of quiet focus, perhaps 10 seconds at a time, between the mind’s protesting interruptions.  Grudgingly, I had to admit, something was happening.  Since the teacher, Goenka, likened Vipassana to surgery, I began to picture my attention as a blade.  Drawing the steel edge minute after minute across the stone, it began to gain an edge.  I was able to feel my breath below my nostrils, whereas I knew that four days ago I would have thought this impossible.  And this exercise represented a finer-grained stone than the previous day’s had.  My awareness was sharpening, slowly but surely.  And I knew that soon we would make the first incision.  

On the morning of Day 4, a sign posted in the dining hall proclaimed that this was Vipassana Day and listed a new set of rules and explanations.  After the previous day’s heroic push up a long dry slope, I felt ready to begin the real technique, the one we’d been honing our awareness for, the mysterious Vipassana.  But Day 4’s morning meditation dragged on, still concerned with our upper lips.  We were told now to notice sensations, not just the breath.  Perhaps there were some feelings, like tiny pricklings and itchy spots.  Christ, I thought,  how much longer can this go on?  Finally, after hours of morning practice and the afternoon group sitting, it came time to listen to the Vipassana instructions.  We were not to leave the hall for the duration, and the first instruction explained that we were now to practice adhitthana, the strong determination not to shift positions, move our hands, or open our eyes at all.  I felt the path steepen, the air growing even thinner, colder, the wind more biting.  After the previous day’s feeling of accomplishment and the confidence that went with it, I was now back in the jaws of fear and doubt. The instructions continued to unfold, Goenka’s gravelly voice on audiotape telling us to move our attention over the surface of our bodies and notice any sensations we might find.  It was crucial, he explained, not to react to the pleasant or unpleasant sensations we would encounter, and this was why we were not to shift positions or even scratch an itch.  Oh cruel technique, oh torturous technique.  I hadn’t seen this coming, this sadistic twist: the path seemed all but impassable now.  I labored upwards, trudging blindly, frostbitten.  I found my legs could keep moving somehow through the snow, even has they lay there crossed on the meditation cushion; flogged into submission, my attention and stayed mostly on my exterior and on the sensations that greeted it as it moved across my skin.  When the guttural sounds of Goenka’s chant signaled the end of our first proper Vipassana sit, I was a charged mix of emotions.  All through the past hour and a half I had been telling myself I would leave, would turn back.  Now there was a giddy high feeling that shot through me as well--I had made it, had sat adhitthana for over an hour.  I felt stretched to the breaking point, slightly mad.  Coming to the surface of my turbulent emotions once again was doubt.  This was the revolutionary technique?  Scanning the body for sensations?  I might be able to make it through six more days, but what would be the point?  What did this have to do with “purifying the mind,” creating new habit patterns in the consciousness, following the Buddha’s steps towards enlightenment?  I didn’t know exactly why I had felt compelled to come to the retreat, but surely it wasn’t to do this all day.  Outside the meditation hall I spied Josh, the manager of the men’s dormitory, an old student volunteer who served behind the scenes and sat the three daily group sits with us.  Early on I had noticed his inner quiet, his kind expression.  Someone I’d like to meet, I had thought.  He was the one person I was permitted to talk to besides our assistant teacher, and the only one with whom I felt a glimmer of possible communion.  Speaking with Josh was technically reserved for material concerns, so conversations with him should be strictly limited to a whispered “Josh, there’s no more toilet paper in my bathroom,” at which he’d nod and conjure up a roll.  On impulse now, as a last resort, I approached him and asked shakily, “are pep talks in your job description?”  He smiled a little, ruefully, and replied “not exactly,” but beckoned for me to step aside with him and talk.  Days of pent-up anxiety and doubt came tearing forth in a few short sentences.  “I--I’m not sure why I’m doing this,” I said.  “If I stay it’ll just be because I don’t want to quit.  But I don’t see the point.”  I looked over at Josh, putting him on the spot.  I was asking him point blank to give me a reason to stay, a purpose for the profound discomfort.  He looked at me with his deep, liquid eyes and said simply and slowly, “it...does change everything.”  Standing in the grace of his compassionate presence, I believed him, though such cryptic words might have only alienated me further.  Instead I felt my doubts melting a little in this ray of human warmth.  Echoing a feeling I was becoming aware of, he went on, seeming to choose his words carefully: “And everything changes with this sit,” meaning the beginning of Vipassana proper.  “I can see that, I think,” I replied.  Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the path plummeting precipitously below, and realized I had come to a pass.  The path ahead was rugged and wild, but I had reached the high country.  And I had made it through the first crucial phase of acclimatization.  I had made it through an hour of adhitthana without moving; though I would have to do this again and again, nothing more difficult would be asked of me.  Overcome with a slurry of emotions, I gave Josh a heartfelt “thanks” and walked in the late afternoon light into a grove of silver maples on the men’s side of the retreat center grounds.  I stood facing west in the circle of trees bare trees and let my tensions well up and out of me.  I cried hard, hardly knowing why, for a few minutes, letting the tears flow down my cheeks and into the mud at my feet.  My fear flowed away and carried much of my doubt with it, leaving a strange fierce joy.  I knew somehow that the worst was behind me.  I had had my crisis, and now I could get on with the journey.  

                      

         Image: Buddha displaying the Abhaya mudra (gesture of fearlessness) in Manang, Nepal

Vipassana is a Buddhist technique, in the sense that it originated with the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni.  And though steeped in a quintessentially Southasian worldview in which the concepts of karma and rebirth are assumed, Vipassana itself is simply a technique.  It is free from theology, and S. N. Goenka, Vipassana’s great modern promulgator, emphasizes the non-sectarian nature of the practice.  This approach follows directly from the Buddha’s teachings, for the Buddha offered his dhamma, or path, as a remedy for a universal malady.  The malady, what in Sanskrit is known as duhkha, is no more or less than the miserable human condition.  

We don’t have to look further than the Buddha did from the walls of the palace he was born into to see this misery, this suffering all around us: we all grow old and die, and we mostly spend our healthy years yearning after things or people we don’t have or cursing the circumstances we do find ourselves in.  Even in moments of peace and plenty, we are seldom content with out lot: the mind strays ever from the present, fixing itself on phantom or illusory objects.  On a broad philosophical level, our problem is attachment to impermanent things.  Even if we get what we want, it won’t last forever.  Our fair maiden lover will wither and stoop; our beautiful child may die a terrible death before his time, or simply disappoint us again and again with his choices, so different from the ones we had envisioned for him.  Moments of true happiness are rare, and, helpless to occupy the present, we usually recognize them only in retrospect.  Then we seek ways to regain the pleasure we remember, but such yearning does not bring peace.  Rather, it  paves the way for addiction: if not to drugs, alcohol, sex, or food, then to power, authority, making people laugh, to our own egos.  Or, when we encounter things unpleasant to us, we create addiction’s opposite: aversion.  We habitually shy away from pain and discomfort, from a rumbling belly or an unpleasant sound or image.  This is the difficulty in facing the present: the present is not always pleasant, and it is almost never as pleasant as we can imagine or remember it.  According to the Vipassana tradition of Goenka as passed down by Burmese Vipassana instructor Sayagyi U Ba Khin, all of our addictions and aversions, our attempts to replace the present reality we’re experiencing with one we can imagine or remember, are at root a single addiction or aversion.  This, tradition tells us, was the insight of the historical Buddha, the key to his enlightenment.  We are not addicted (or averse) to external objects themselves.  There is always an intermediary.  A heroin addict does not derive pleasure from heroin, but from the sensation the heroin causes in him.  Similarly, fear of heights is unpleasant because it causes us actual physico-emotional discomfort to look over the edge of a cliff.  With every pleasant or unpleasant experience, there is always a sensation on or in the body.  It is these bodily sensations we react to and, in reacting, grow addicted or averse.  

This is where Vipassana intervenes.  The technique trains one to develop and maintain equanimity, a state of not reacting to bodily sensations.  ‘An itch arises on my nose?  Ah.  An itch.  It may be unpleasant now, but it shall pass.  I will refrain from scratching it.  A lovely tingling up and down my arms?  Quaint.  It will be gone soon, and that’s OK.’  Through changing the mind’s habitual tendency of blind, unconscious reaction, it becomes possible to change the way one relates to the world.  When someone causes us anger, there is again a sensation on the body that makes us feel bad.  We are angry because we have been caused discomfort, whether or not we are aware of it as such.  If we notice the sensation and cut off the knee-jerk reaction, it is possible to bypass the ultimate reaction, anger.  

This, at least, is the theory upon which the immense body of Buddhist meditation practice rests.  First calm and focus the mind through anapana (or other similar practices, all of which fall under the category of Samatha or calming meditation) practices, then use the mind’s sharpened faculties to gain experiential knowledge of the nature of existence.  Experience the habit patterns of craving and aversion and work to change them at the root level, while realizing the truth of anitya, impermanence.    Ultimately, it is taught, this practice of samadhi (control over the mind) and panya (experiential insight) leads to full liberation as long as it is build upon a firm foundation of sila, moral conduct.  

And in practice?  How does it work?  After a month of Vipassana practice, I don’t feel much closer to enlightenment.  But I do feel a bit wiser, more focused and disciplined, and with that comes renewed confidence.  And then there’s the compassion that develops through better understanding the human condition.  I don’t expect to reach enlightenment in this lifetime, and I don’t know that I’ll ever really try to break all of my attachments to the material world.  But I have succeeded in adding a few drops to each of the 10 jugs with labels like “determination” and “loving kindness,” the paramita or qualities it is necessary to perfect in order to reach the final goal--and which just might come in handy in any case.  

After completing the 10 day course and returning home, I no longer look back to see a high, rocky path amidst snow peaks.  I took a difficult solo journey, it is true.  But I also built myself something solid and durable.  With no blueprint at first but blindly following step-by-step instructions, I lifted the heavy stones and set them into place.  By the end, I had put together a simple but sturdy hut.  Back in the world, the austere dwelling is a wonderful refuge.  It requires a certain amount of upkeep, but it pays me back with shelter and warmth.  It is far from indestructible, and I must work hard to shore it up and protect its foundations.  But it has the potential to grow into a magnificent structure.  Perhaps one day it will have room for guests, but for now if you’d like to stay you’ll have to do as I do and sleep on the dirt floor.  Or you can always build your own hut...

Vipassana meditation website: www.dhamma.org

Root Growth

‘Tis a wonder to find the right metaphor--the one so fitting that it almost seems the thing itself.  Pondering this current, quiet phase of my life recently, I hit upon such an image: root growth.  That’s the phase of development I’m in.  Sending shoots down into the dark earth in search of nourishment; grasping the bedrock in a grounding embrace.  Above ground there’s not much happening--some buds visible, perhaps, to the discerning eye, promising flowers and eventual fruit in some season to come.  

It’s profoundly satisfying feeling my root tips drawing closer to the source of strength and stability: it’s no longer so difficult to have faith in a purpose and a path.  A path, a purpose: the book of changes, Yi Ching, suggested “subtle penetration,” an image appropriate to both.  The suppleness of water wears down rock; softness prevails over the hard, the brittle.  The hexagram shows a broken line, representing the soft force of yin, infiltrating a series of hard, yang lines.  So water trickles into rock, so roots penetrate into the earth through motion so slow and subtle as to be almost imperceptible.  

Our society worships all that is yang: hard muscles, outward displays of wealth or bravado.  Our heroes are athletes, one step removed from warriors.  In this context, it is easy to mistake subtle yin motion for idleness, torpor.  Don’t just sit there, do something!  (As the roots slide deeper, anchoring the tree against rough seasons to come.) 

Nor am I immune to the enticements of yang, as I watch friends spreading their names on stage, taking concerted action, forging ahead in their respective domains out in the world.  In comparison, I am hiding, digging my heels into the earth.  My most significant pursuits these days are internal.  On Thursdays I go to see one Mr. Lee in Chinatown, and he teaches me the ancient movements of Tai Chi Chuan.  The first lesson he simply showed me how to stand: knees bent, frame upright but relaxed, shoulders and tailbone always sinking towards the earth.  The second time we stood, then moved on to an exercise called ‘rubbing the ball.’  Loose arms gently trace the contours of a sphere whose diameter spans the distance from navel to shoulders.  The hands float up around the back to the top, then sink back down in front of the chest, curling around the underside before rising back up to the top.  Since then, 10 or 15 minutes of every day go toward rubbing this invisible ball, smoothing out my own flow of chi.  Letting my mind sink into my body, my body into the ground.  

On m=Monday evenings I go down into a basement room of Rockefeller chapel and listen to a droll Brit named Tom explicate a Theravada Buddhist meditation technique called Samatha Vipassana.  We sit for half an hour, and every evening I practice at home, following the prescribed steps.  First counting the breath, placing my concentration on the numbers as the breath comes and goes through a series of pre-determined lengths.  Then ‘following’ the breath in and out, concentrating on its movement and quality while maintaining awareness of the varying length.  Then ‘touching,’ concentrating on the point in the nostrils where the breath creates a sensation, still maintaing an awareness of the length and direction of the breath.  The idea is to train oneself to concentrate on progressively subtler objects, curbing the relentless tendency of the mind to wander free o’er farm and field.   

When people ask me what I’m doing here in Chicago, I rattle off the things I’m keeping busy with--tutoring ESL, studying herbs, teaching myself Hindi, not to mention strengthening the foundations of an important relationship--but my real work is the internal alchemy of meditative practice.  I am thankful to have the time and money to be able to delve down into myself, to grow my roots, in the knowledge that it is giving me the strength I need to spread my limbs, burst into blossom, and ultimately bear fruit.  

Agni and Ama--An Ayurvedic Perspective on Digestion

I've been immersed in all things herbal lately and haven't been writing much.  Here's a little something to chew on from the Ayurvedic archives.

Agni and Ama 

The concept of agni, or digestive fire, is central to Ayurveda.  The idea is that our digestive capacity transforms food into energy just as fire turns wood into heat and light.  Healthy agni is synonymous with a hearty appetite, radiant skin, enthusiasm and an abundance of energy.  Like other fire, agni needs proper fuel and tending to burn optimally.  Without fuel--food-- the flame of agni will grow small and disappear.  On the other hand, an excess of heavy, hard-to-burn foods will smother the fire, generating unwanted byproducts--picture a fire fed with wet cardboard sending off a plume of thick black smoke.  The physiological equivalent of such smoke and soot is known as ama, and it lies at the root of many types of ill health.  Over time Ama can accumulate and cause a sense of heaviness, fatigue, sticky and smelly feces, foul breath, diminished appetite and a host of other symptoms.  Ama clogs the system and undermines our bodily intelligence.  

When this happens it can change the nature of our cravings, from natural balance-maintaining urges to perverse once that perpetuate imbalance.  For example, a healthy person with slightly high kapha but no ama may crave hot, spicy food and bitter greens, both of which will help to reduce kapha and restore balance.  However if the same person has an ama condition, his natural bodily intelligence may become distorted.  He may crave ice cream and cookies, even though he doesn’t have the agni to digest them thoroughly.      

Agni and ama are two sides of the same coin: without strong agni, ama develops; without ama, agni is free to burn hot and clean.  However, agni is vulnerable not only to ama but also to the three doshas.  

                                                       

                                                   Without agni, this isn't any fun at all.  The yellow stuff is kichari, the perfect fuel for your fire.

Types of Agni

There are four classifications of agni, although most people will experience some combination.  

The idea type of agni is sama agni, balanced digestion.  Those with sama agni can digest almost anything and experience no gas, bloating, or discomfort after eating.  They get hungry at regular intervals but not so intensely that they cannot function if they skip a meal.  Sama agni is closely associated with a balanced state of the doshas and is both a cause and an effect of good health.

Each of the other types of agni is connected with an imbalance of each of the three doshas:

Vishama agni is agni affected by Vata, the airy humour.   Vata affects agni like a wind does a fire, sometimes causing it    to flare up and other times nearly extinguishing the flame.  Vishama means “irregular,” and those with vishama agni may get intensely hungry or may forget to eat for a day or more at a time.  Their digestive capacity is often limited so they may eat more than they can properly digest.  They usually have sensitive digestion, and can feel off if they don’t eat the right thing at the right time.  In general, those with vishama agni should take care to eat a Vata-pacifying diet and to eat regular, small-to-moderate size meals without snacking in between.  Establishing regular dietary habits and controlling Vata are key to bringing vishama agni back to balance.  

Tikshna agni is associated with high Pitta, the force of fire.  Tikshna means sharp, and those with tikshna agni tend to get extremely hungry and burn through their food quickly, as a hot fire that requires frequent feeding.  They are prone to hyperacidity and burning pain during digestion or elimination and are intolerant of missing a meal.  Tiskhna agni can handle heavy, relatively hard-to-digest foods like dairy products and meat and indeed need sweet and heavy foods to cool their fire.  A generally Pitta-pacifying diet is appropriate for them. 

Manda agni is Kapha-type digestion.  Kapha affects agni like damp weather does a fire.  This kind of agni is sluggish, so those with manda agni find it easy to gain weight and hard to lose it.  They can often get by eating only one meal a day, and if they eat heavy, greasy food they may feel like it lingers in their stomachs for hours.  Those with manda agni should eat lightly and sparingly and favor Kapha-reducing foods.  It those with manda agni for whom standard western dietary advice is often most appropriate.  

Stoking Agni

According Ayurveda, a marked lack of appetite and chronic digestive issues are signs that agni is low.  Whatever your agni type (see above), low agni needs to be treated just as you would tend a tiny flame when trying to build a fire.  If starved for too long, any fire will go out.  Yet a small flame cannot handle too much fuel, or too heavy or wet fuel, at one time.  Just as you would build a fire by feeding it increasingly larger sticks, your internal fire needs to be fed conservatively at first, then with gradually more substantial foods until finally it burns hot and clean.  Let your appetite and intuition be your guide as you work on building your agni.  Practice eating light foods in moderate quantities, and stop eating before you feel completely full.  Favor warm, cooked foods, especially vegetables and whole grains.  Soups, stews and other one-pot meals are excellent food for agni.  Perhaps the best possible such dish is called kichari, made of split mung beans (mung dal) and basmati rice stewed together with spices and vegetables.  

          A simple home remedy to boost agni is a home-made ginger pickle: grate a couple inches of freshly peeled ginger and season to taste with lemon or lime juice, honey, and rock salt (use the stinky Indian black salt if you can find it).  Eat a small spoonful of this before meals, or treat it like a condiment.  

Delights of Devon Ave

I have no use for Times Square or Michigan Ave, no business on the lower East Side, and I have never been to Wicker Park. As far as most parts of most cities go, I could take ‘em or leave ‘em. It’s the out-of-the-way quirks and corners, the holes-in-the-wall that I’m charmed by. One of my most vivid memories from Kolkata is of a tea stall so tiny that the proprietor couldn’t stand up in it. It was the size of the lower half of a telephone both but with its own shutters. There was just room enough for a propane burner, a couple of pots, some loose tea and chai masala and sugar. The proprietor could probably have crammed himself in, too, in a case of dire necessity, but his preference was to squat on the sidewalk while tending his chai pot. Needless to say I stopped for a cup of the sweet, milky stuff, squatted there a while on the pavement wishing I spoke some Bengali and slurping up my tea.

OK, so I’m nostalgic for Southasia. No surprise there. This state of affairs has both causes and effects. The causes are apparent enough from the content of this blog, and the effects are predictable enough: I’m already planning my next trip. I intend to head straight for the belly of the beast: to Varanasi, Banaras, ancient Kashi. Strung out along the thrice holy Ganga, it’s the spiritual heart of Hindu North India, a center for Vedic learning from Sanskrit to Jyotish, a mecca for Indian classical music, and one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities on earth. (Plumbing the depths of the Wikipedia article, now) Mark twain said "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." I can add, based on hearsay and premonition, that it’s also a great place to learn Hindi, to get swindled, to acquire a leaky gut and to choke on tuk-tuk fumes. In short, it’s my kind of city.  (Behold.)

in the meantime, there’s Devon Avenue. Granted, it’s no Jackson Heights (the microcosm of Southasia accessible via the 74th street and Roosevelt Ave 7 stop in Queens). Devon is to Jackson Heights as Chicago is to New York: less concentrated, but with a distinctive flavor of its own. Appropriate to the rest of the city, the predominantly Southasian stretch of Devon is spread out along half a mile or so of low-grade urban strip. And though it may not be apparent to the casual observer, this one-dimensional transcription of the subcontinent has its share of volatile borders: on Devon west of Western, it’s little Pakistan. East of Western, it’s little India, with a smattering of Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan for good measure. On the day of the Indian parade, I hear, celebrants march up Western to Devon and turn right. The next day, Pakistani marchers take Western to Devon and turn left.


For someone in my shoes, there are three reasons to visit a place like Devon: to eat, to shop, and to malinger, soaking up the ambiance of puja samagri (Hindu worship materials) shops and chatting in broken Hindi with the proprietor of a cookware store (a fruitful endeavor, in this case: I got a stockpot for half price. Despite the late hour--it was after 6 o’clock--I was the first customer of the day). On another visit I let myself be talked into getting my ear cartilage pierced by a no-nonsense Indian matron.

On my last visit, Thandiwe had come for all three of the above purposes. We wanted to stretch the evening out, make it last, but we were overcome with hunger by the time we parked the car. There was one obvious recourse: the Indian tea-sweets-samosa shop. Now, I consider it anomalous in the extreme that I haven’t found occasion to revel in syrupy descriptions of mithai (the generic term for Southasian sweets) before this. The topic fully deserves a post of its own, and it may yet get one.

On the occasion in question, however, in order to preserve our appetites, we ordered only tea (served milky but unsweetened, as in the diabetes-conscious fashion of some of the classier establishments in India) and made up a box of sweets to take home. Not so much as a taste of gulab jamun for the moment. Still, the eyes may feast: the display case is jammed to capacity with trays stacked pyramid-wise with sticky spheres and flat, silver-leafed diamonds. Saffron milk-soaked sweetmeats float in their sweet amniotic fluid, flecked with flakes of pistachio. The elephant headed god Ganesh’s favorite, the spherical cookie called laddoo, comes in a dozen varieties, featuring different nuts and sweet spices. A one-pound box fills quickly.
Fortified by the tea and the thought of sweet ballast brightly boxed, we ambled down the avenue and selected Patel Brothers from amongst the five or so sizeable grocery stores on the strip. It was large enough, brightly lit, inviting, and bustling with brown people doing their weekly shopping. We had a modest list, but knew to grab a cart.

Now, the first thing to be said about Patel Brothers and its Patel and non-Patel brethren across the country is that it’s cheaper than you can imagine. I fail to understand the economic situation that allows ethnic markets in general to maintain the low prices characteristic of national currency, but when you’re buying cilantro at five bunches to the dollar and cashews at $2.50 a pound, it’s insidiously easy not to question it. Daal (any legume, from red lentils to split mung beans to white, hulled urad to square horse gram) comes in 1-5 pound bags for a buck or so a pound. Rice prices range from intensely inexpensive to rather pricey, depending on the quality. For a rice-eating culture, this is a matter of status and keenly-felt personal preference. Top quality, well-aged basmati from Dehra Dun or Pakistan fetches almost $2 a pound. (Compared with what, $2.99 for middle-of-the-road stuff in the bulk section at the natural foods store?) Brands in this class include Zebra and Tilda. This is the rice that seems to triple in length when cooked without fattening at all and releases a heavenly and pervasive aroma. The stuff of wedding feasts, fine pulao, first-class biryani. The stuff most Americans manage to make a mush out of because they use too much water and stir while it’s cooking. [As an aside, here is a fool-proof method of cooking rice. Rinse the rice once in a strainer or in the pot you’re going to cook it in. Add cold water until the water level is an inch or the length of the last joint in your pinky finger above the rice level. Turn the heat on high, bringing it to a boil. You can stir it once or twice at this stage if your heart desires. Now for the important part: once the sinking water level has drawn even with the rising rice level, cover the pot and turn down the heat to as low it will safely go. Forget about the rice, don’t even think of stirring, and in 15 minutes it will be perfectly done. Fluff the rice by dragging the tines of a fork across it and serve.]

Back to Patel Brothers. Perhaps the most outlandish value is to be found in the spice department. Cumin, mustard seeds, coriander--the colors of the Southasian flavor palette come in bulk, in half-pound to one pound bags, sometimes for as little as 99 cents. I can picture the monkeys at McCormick buying these things up and gleefully filling their little ounce jars and slapping the five dollar labels on. But it’s not so much the prices that excite me as the variety: I think, ‘here is a culture that knows how to make use of every plant.’ Along with the more familiar spices like cloves and cinnamon bark are pungent, resinous hing (“devil’s dung,” as it was once known), thyme-like ajwain seeds, delicate “royal cumin,” oniony, black kalonji seeds...and interspersed with these, blurring the line between food and medicine, are amla and shatavari powder, two of Ayurveda’s most widely used tonic herbs. The cart is starting to fill up.

Every time I stop in at an Indian market like this one I make a point of checking out the oil selection: along with coconut, sesame, and peanut oils can be found mustard oil. Deeply golden, rich and pungent, this stuff is to Northeastern India and lowland Nepal what olive oil is to the Mediterranean.  Scandalously, it’s been mostly replaced in the homes of millions of Bengalis and others by thin, nutritionally-bankrupt refined soybean oil thanks to evil corporation archetype Monsanto’s strong-arm scare tactics and some shady dealing by certain parties in the Indian government. What? Corruption in India?  See The Mustard Oil Conspiracy.  The impact to Americans is simply that, due to trumped-up concerns over the safety of mustard oil--which happens to be one of the richest vegetable sources of omega-3's--the stuff for export has to be labeled “for external use only.” External?  Mustard oil is a popular hair oil, mosquito repellant, and (as I have just read) a sexual performance enhancer for men when applied topically.   But internal use is where it’s at: pakoras fried in mustard oil, fish steaks dusted with salt and turmeric and fried in mustard oil, any vegetable cooked in mustard oil...this stuff is a key component of Northeast Indian cuisine, especially Bengali food, it’s good for you and cheap to boot. Just make sure you’re getting the genuine article: the ingredients should read “Pure mustard oil.”

We’re almost out of the grocery store now, having bypassed the bulk tea aisle (I’m well-stocked from Upton Tea) and even the produce section, except for a couple-pound sack of slightly worse-for-wear ginger priced to move at $1.49. (That’s been turned into delicious ginger candy by now and lies awaiting someone’s sore throat or upset stomach in my freezer.) But there is one unexpected treat in store: back in the mustard oil pressing lands, gur-making season has just come around. After tapping coconut palms for their sweet sap, sugar-makers boil the sticky stuff down into various shapes, colors and consistencies of delicious. Normally gur or jaggery, as it’s also called, comes in hardened fez-shaped blocks wrapped in burlap. But at this time of year, some of the oozy fresh stuff makes it even as far afield as Devon Ave to be packed and sold by weight in clear plastic pint containers. If mustard oil is Bengal’s olive oil, than this is her maple syrup. You can taste the iron and minerals in it, eat it by the spoonful. If it ever snows in Bengal, maybe people will catch on and melt some jaggery to pour over it.  May that day never come.

By now the cart is heaping with dal and rice, spices, oils, and some odds-and-ends. I’ve resisted most of the Ayurvedic products, genuine and otherwise, and passed on various deities and trinkets. I’ve satisfied my curiosity and discovered that the inviting barrel-shaped bulk bins are in fact filled with a dozen kinds of Indian snack mix (namkeen). It’s time to check out and get something to eat.

So far our strategy of choosing places well frequented by Southasian immigrants has been working great. On the way to Patel Brothers, we had noticed an enticing but suspiciously well furnished South Indian vegetarian place (cut to image of paper thin, three-foot wide dosai), and spotted an Indian or Sri Lankan family in the window, eating with their hands. A very encouraging sign. But I had also spotted a sign in the window of a lower-budget, fluorescent-lit tea shop advertizing a special on Makki ki Roti with Sarson ka Saag. Punjabi comfort food, I thought: this is the place. Not a gringo to be seen, and the price is most righteous. We walked up to the counter, admiring the sweets arrayed therein, and placed our order for one Makki ki Roti special and one vegetarian thali. We picked sat down at a table on our plastic chairs, helped ourselves to water from the cooler, and awaited the onset of our feast. Out it came, steaming, on styrofoam plates. Thandiwe’s plate featured a pair of well-puffed poori, a pile of rice, an oily potato dish, some mushy chana reminiscent of packaged masala, and a greasy buttermilk kari. It was all extremely spicy but otherwise not exceptionally flavorful. The main impression was of heat, and of grease (the very definition of Pitta-provoking). ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘she’ll be happy when the Makki ki Roti arrives, fresh corn flatbread with sauteed mustard greens. They’re the real draw around here--we should have ordered two.’ But I bit my tongue when my plate arrived. The roti was a thin, hard yellow disk, dry inside but coated in what seemed to be petroleum-derived oil without, and the saag was a brown puree languishing under a film of chili-infused oil. Now, I’ve never been to the Punjab, but I know this isn’t what the ammas the village are making. ‘Still,’ we laughed, pushing around the grease on our styrofoam plates and eyeing the deranged sannyasin in the corner, ‘we can’t fault it for being inauthentic!’ From the non-decor and the hard scrabble denizens to the unforgettable cuisine, the place called to mind any number of sub-mediocre eateries in India and Nepal. Ah, the perils of authenticity.


Further reading:

Bannerji, Chitra. Bengali Cooking: Seasons and Festivals

This is exactly what I look for in a cookbook, with its emphasis on cultural context. The recipes are suspended in a wonderful web of information on bengali life, with special attention to the play of the seasons and the religious calendar in both Hindu and Muslim parts of Bengal/Bangladesh.

Svoboda, Robert. Ayurveda: Life, Health and Longevity
Svoboda, Robert. Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution

The first of these is my favorite English-language book on Ayurveda. It is suitable as an introduction to the subject without being simplistic, and it avoids the formulaic self-help trap that Ayurvedic literature is prone to. The second book is also excellent and includes more practical information for the beginning student of Ayurveda along with more food and diet-related material.
Svoboda is a link in the living tradition of Ayurveda. He was the first non-Indian Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medical Science and is versed in traditional arts from Sanskrit to tantra, which he has written about elsewhere. Luckily, he is also a witty and incisive author whose prose will keep you reading about the infinite nuances and intimidating depths of traditional Southasian healing and cultural practices.