Business to the Buddha

Tag: walking meditation

  • Driving in India







    Many activities in India can be related to spirituality take for instance driving. It is a very spiritual experience. I have had the privilege of driving on Indian roads – streets and highways, metro to small cities and even two wheeler and four wheeler. I have used choicest of the words while driving. This experience also includes bicycle and how can I ignore walking? This idea of connecting spirituality and driving (plus walking) stuck to me when one of my friend’s was hit by a two wheeler rider breaking his wrist and handset.

    In two ways spirituality is manifested when you drive in India, one when you are stuck in traffic you have two options. Option one you are at the verge of meditation, or the complete opposite curse self or Google maps left right and center for selecting the route or abusing people who caused (not following lanes, jumping signals etc) the traffic. Option number one is better any day. I can vouch for this specially in traffic of Mumbai.

    The other way of manifestation of spirituality is when you are riding a two wheeler, specially in a tier 2 city. The two wheeler riders in tier 2 cities drive such that you have to take care of yourself. The thought processes of these riders are like this – “I’ve to take care of myself, hell with others, they will take care of themselves”. You have to be very careful because anybody can pop from any side. When my friend’s wrist was hurt badly and mobile screen broken I could not resist but think about all these. The rider it seems was practicing riding meditating (like walking meditation) while driving went away in thin air, without stopping and apologizing.

    You have to be selfish to drive in tier 2 city because a two wheeler rider will take care of himself you take care of your vehicle rest of the other people around you are Maya, signals are for mortals you are self realized parabramh (the non destructible God).

    This “selfishness” reminded me of the above short comment from Osho – the other way of connecting spirituality to Indian traffic conditions. What is your take? Can driving in India be a spiritual experience?

     

  • Eating for the sake of eating?







    I was reading blog of Thich Nhat Hanh – a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk. It is an irony that I’m an Indian, however this Vietnamese monk introduced me to the Buddha in true sense. I read his book Old Path White Clouds and I came to know the Buddha I know now.

    In his blog – The Value of Being Together when I read the point of Happiness, I remembered an incident of my life, sharing here.

    Once, I went to a restaurant – Annapoorna Bhojanalya – in Indore with one of my friends Vijay Sharma. It is a rajasthani/Gujrati thali style joint at Jail road in Indore. Its quality of food is very good.

    We sat and ordered our thali. I was eating very slowly, not noticing anything. I was enjoying the food. I was completely into the process of eating. Well, may be that is called meditation. After some time (usually time in which a sane person should complete eating his meal) almost every second person was looking at me. I was still eating, slowly and in all likelihood mindfully. On a lighter note, I did not over eat! 🙂

    I remember, while going out after the dinner Vijay told me “…what was happening?” I didn’t understand the question. He said everyone was looking at you the way you were eating. I had no idea what that meant. Well, he completed the sentence by saying – “…that was not in any derogatory terms. Something was different than usual while you were there.” This was what was happening there “…we eat as slow as we can so we can enjoy our freedom. . We can listen to the taste in our mouth.” (from Thay’s blog)

    Do we eating for the sake of it or we’d do this also completely, in meditation?

    Disclaimer– Author is neither Buddhist, nor a seasoned practitioner, just an explorer of the path; not authority on meditation either.