Finding inner peace: a journey through Nepal

I traveled through Nepal this past summer on a humanitarian trip. A friend of mine named Max Kaplan and I embarked on a 6-week journey living and learning. We really wanted to immerse ourselves into the Nepali culture so we continually tried to be open-minded and positive thinkers.

June 26, 2009: “Today is departure day, so as you can expect things are hectic as we are finalizing just about everything. I have a new adventure ahead of me and cannot wait for the knowledge I will gain on this journey to Nepal. As always, I’m sure I will return with some type of crazy entrepreneurial venture in the back of my mind, so be prepared to hear my ideas.”

At the moment, I am attending Miami University in Ohio, double majoring in International Studies and Journalism.

For those who are curious about how my summer started, and what has led me to be preparing for this trip, I graduated high school! I know we all are very delighted to see that I actually made it. I registered for classes and had an orientation at Miami. I went to Bonnaroo music and arts festival in Tennessee, if your curious about the bands I saw, check the roster online, a few of the highlights were Phish, Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg, the Beastie Boys and many more. I also had the privilege of spending a day in the White House, where we met with Obama’s staff to talk about community outreach as well as the Middle East crisis. The meeting was held in the Roosevelt room, which is infamous for presidential decision making, if my sources are correct. I must say the White House is truly an institution of American values.

June 28, 2009: “I am now in Delhi airport waiting for our flight to Kathmandu. So far the experience has been great. The flight to Delhi was simple and we got upgraded to Business class! While in the airport in Delhi, we have already met with some extremely friendly people who are from Nepal, as they also have a lay over here.

We are looking forward to arrival at Kopan Monastery tomorrow for our program to begin. The excitement of this journey has left me to get little sleep, which has turned out for the better since I landed in Delhi with no jet lag and already adjusted to the time difference.

July 8, 2009: “Hope everyone is well. We are now in Pokhara working with Ashoka

Fellow Lucky Chhetri at her agency, which works to help empower the Women of Nepal. Tomorrow we will start teaching English and first aid in a classroom setting. Also Max, will be teaching rock climbing and repelling and other various mountaineering tactics. Now I’m sure everyone is curious to know how our stay at the monastery went.”

It was such an amazing journey for both of us. I am going to have a hard time putting it into words. But I will try.

Our teachers were both “westerners” our main guru, was Venerable Namgyel who came to Kopan back in the 70’s I believe and has been a Monk since. He is originally from Australia, and after getting hit by a car decided that there was more to life than materialism. Our meditation guru was Venerable Tingyel, who is an ex-Israeli soldier who found solace in Buddhism after spending time defending Israel. I will try and lay out some of the basics of Buddhism and also get into mediation. Our main focus was to realize our sufferings, and begin to the path to enlightenment so we can be a benefit to all sentient beings. What I found most interesting is that there is such a strong focus on others, there is no “I” or “me” in Buddhism, and so a large piece of the puzzle is focused on helping others regardless of how you may feel towards them. Also, Buddhism is open to advances in science; His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that “if science proves Buddhist beliefs wrong, than so be it.” Can you see the Vatican making a statement like that?

To read more please click here:  Nepal blog entry