Annie’s Passengers

I have an appointment soon and loads of things to do today, but I really wanna write this review. I saw Anne Hathaway’s last year’s ‘Passengers’ movie last night… and was amazed by it. I’ve seen her in Princess Diary, Devil Wears Prada, Becoming Jane (fave!), and Rachel Getting Married, and I love her in all those movies. Upon watching her action last night, I am convinced that she is a classical star… and she might be the next Audrey Hepburn or something like that. And yes, I am aware of the low stars given by various reviewers about this movie. I don’t care. I like it, for it serves as a reminder for me.

‘Passengers’ was basically telling the story of a plane crash and its survivors. Anne Hathaway was Claire Summers, the therapist for 5 people that survived the plane crash, including the sexy and persistent Eric (Patrick Wilson). Along the way, Anne’s patients started to disappear one by one, and she had to track them down and uncover the greatest mystery of her life.

Annie was amazing with her bright deer eyes, and though I have to say that Patrick Wilson’s persistent prompting was rather annoying, but they made quite a good screen couple there (still nowhere near Annie and James McAvoy in BJ!). I also enjoyed David Morse, a guy who used to be Jodie Foster’s father in ‘Contact’, and he was now one of the airline officials in ‘Passengers’ (really, gotta love this guy!). But it’s not only the acting that I was talking about.

In its deepest sense, ‘Passengers’ was not talking about thriller and suspense movie. Nay, to me, it was actually talking about death, and how people cope with death. More specifically, how the dead ones cope with their own death.

I didn’t know about this until the last five minutes of the movie when (SPOILER WARNING!)…

Claire Sommers (Anne Hathaway) finally found the complete list of passengers… which contained… her own name! Yes, Claire was actually one of the passengers onboard the starcrossed plane, and she didn’t survive the crash. None of the passengers survived the crash, not even Patrick and Anne who had just met an hour onboard the plane before the crash. Claire panicked, and I really love the way Annie portrayed a panicked person who had to come to terms with the fact that she herself had actually died. That she was a ghost.

So… was ‘Passengers’ about ghosts? Well, yeah… ghosts who resumed their life (in this case, Annie resumed her life as a therapist, David Morse resumed the life as the pilot who kept regretting that he didn’t save the plane, etc etc)… but the most important thing is that these ghosts were actually guided to find the truth. That they were dead already and that they must move on, and their guides were their loved ones who had left their lives earlier… In Claire (Annie)’s case, they were her deceased aunt Toni (who assumed to be her neighbour) and Mr. Perry, her favourite museum curator who she often talked to when she was a child (who assumed the role as Claire’s boss). In Eric’s case, it was his dead dog and deceased grandfather.
So, what’s the lesson learned? That death is naturally scary for many people, yes… but it is not so, actually. It is a natural process (though plane crash is one of the least favourable gate to death)… and trust that you will be guided in the process…

The Universe is kind, and will not let you go astray. So long as you want to see the Light… trust that you shall see It, and that you shall cross the bridge safely. Many traditions offer the salvation, the way towards inner peace. Call upon that particular Power and He/She/It will help you through. My own personal tradition reminds me of the legend of Lord Shiva who is often called the Destroyer… but is actually more than that. Lord Shiva is the Benevolent one, and also the Destroyer of Death itself. I hope I don’t forget to call upon Him, my Ishta Devata, when my time comes one day. And then I shall go home peacefully, leaving all worldly attachments in love and peace.

And this reminds me of my scheduled meditation session tonight. Have to go there… for living a meditative life would make us celebrate Life as it is, including embracing the final passing easier... when it’s time.

Pic: 'Passengers' poster from Wikipedia

What is Patience?

The age-old quote says that ‘Patience is a virtue’. Yes, generally speaking, we agree on that, though many people would say that being too patient has its downfall. But what is patience actually?

Patience is often associated with waiting, pain endurance, or perseverance. My focus on this post is patience related to waiting and perseverance, though mere ‘waiting’ itself often has a large dose of agony in it...

One of Dictionary.com definition for ‘patience’ is:

“Capable of calmly awaiting an outcome or result; not hasty or impulsive”

By that definition alone, one of my best friends was correct: I am not patient. I often rush to doing something… or deciding something without carefully considering all related factors; in the name of ‘rapid response’ and ‘tactical thinking’. The result was often not to be proud of… if not total mayhem. Most definitely I am not suited for jobs like private detectives that requires my sitting for hours inside a dark-coloured car, or as a metahuman superhero who lurks around dark roofs, waiting for the evil doers to do their utterly out of sense deeds. Forget about knocking the door of the Batcave and ask for a part-time job; Batman wouldn’t even want to see me.

But patience is not only needed by those detectives and vigilantes. Patience is needed in almost all aspects of life. There is a difference between patience and sluggish, and it relates to our intentions when doing the waiting. Sluggishness happens when we know very well that we need to be quick and prompt in our actions and responses, and yet we do not do that anyway.

Patience… we know we want something and we work towards it. One by one, one small step by one small step. And when the time comes… Strike! And we win!

Just like those old martial artisans who patiently wait upon his enemies… waiting for them to make the first move. Ever watch Musashi? Great old movie. You should watch the last duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro. Classic.

But is patience always about winning?... Does it not have a deeper quality? The Zen-like quality that makes you smile from within, for you know it is good for your personal growth? Let me take you back to an event this morning, where I was floating on a little boat in the middle of the sea, waiting patiently for my dolphins to appear nearby me.

More than four dozen small boats were milled around me… as if they churned the ocean like that, the dolphins would appear from the water vortex. They did… the dolphins… appear for like 40-50 seconds before disappearing again. My boatman did nothing though ; just letting the boat afloat with the engine off. Then, out of the blue… the dolphins came to us.

We were elated, excited! They came!

… and then they left again, for as soon as they appeared, more than ten boats sped towards them. And once again, we were alone without the dolphins.

The event kept repeating itself until the boats got tired of the game and left the arena. Soon, there were only five of us, little boats floating at the big blue sea.

And then… one little dolphin jumped. Followed by another. And another. And soon… we found ourselves watching the dolphins feasting on their breakfast: juicy frigate mackerels… while we rummaged for our old boring snack to eat as we watch the dolphins. The snack was boring indeed… but the show was worth the wait.

So… coming back to my original question. What is Patience?

Now I see patience as one of the qualities or characters of alertness…awareness. It is one of the outcomes of awareness, of being alert and just BE in present moment. The Indonesian word for patience is ‘sabar’… and there is another word similar to that. ‘Disabar-sabarin’. Meaning, forcing oneself to be patient, though he/she is really truly yours faithfully NOT patient. A nice concept… which most definitely does not stem out of awareness, alertness. ‘Disabar-sabarin’ or ‘restraining yourself’ has the quality of insincerity, or at the very least mere obedience. You do not want to be patient, but you have to… otherwise a disaster will not be avoidable.

Interestingly, the very Indonesian word for ‘awareness’ or ‘being mindful’ is ‘sadar’. Sabar and Sadar. We only exchange B for D… and the whole context is different. Sabar (patience) to me is the product of Sadar (awareness). There can be no real patience without awareness.

Coming back to the example of dolphin watching, those who opt to turn off their engine and just wait for the dolphins to appear would often see that the dolphins would then appear and either approach them or swim alongside their boat. In this case, they are patient because they know that if they keep churning the waters with their noisy 12 PK outboard engine, the dolphins will unlikely appear for a significant amount of time for them to enjoy. Their awareness of the dolphin’s need of sufficient space and security lead them to turn off their engine and wait. Patiently.

And what do we do when we’re waiting patiently? We can chat with our travel mates, or talk with the boatman… or enjoy the picturesque sceneries… Or we can just sit down with straight back, relax, close our eyes… Then we breathe in and breathe out….enjoying the morning sun on our face, looking inwards to our own hearts.



Then, out of the silence, we hear that very familiar noise of ‘whoof, whoof’. The dolphin’s breathing. We open our eyes happily, knowing that they are here to see us. That they are here to grant us with their presence, thanking us for our patience.

And then we can allow ourselves a few moments of victory our patience brought us. The victory against our own impatience.

Then, what if the dolphins never come? Then, we will return home, knowing that at least we have exercised a good amount of aware waiting here… and that tomorrow we can do it again, until we see them one day. For we know that they are there to meet us… when we are ready to meet them with an open heart.

Pic 1: Siam Reap, Bayon moat. That’s my picture, by the way…
Pic 2: Batman and the dolphins! From Detective Comics #405, from Random Panels.com
Pic 3: Buddha's peace within, from Infinite Smile.org

From Romantic Relationship to Spiritual Journey

I’ve been thinking about the term ‘relationship’ lately, and how in spiritual world it seems to be counterproductive with one’s journey within. Well, from its track record, any kind of relationships – friendship, mother-daughter, father-son, or and particularly intimate relationship – often notoriously give adverse impact to one’s spiritual journey. Particularly intimate relationship, it has the large potentials to you needy, clinging, pining etc that eventually make you lose your self-respect. I often then understand how conscious people, inter alia but not limited to nuns and monks, choose to live celibate lives, for enough is enough. It is painful to go through a relationship. Why bother? Better get out and enjoy being alone.

But… but… How do I say this? I’m not saying that being alone is wrong. I think it’s great when you are alone and immensely happy with yourself. It’s great, it’s amazing. You feel whole, well… you ARE and always have been whole… and you feel that the world is in your hand. Or rather, you are melting and becoming part of the world. Part of Life. Trust me. It’s good. IT’S GREAT, and it’s peaceful. More over, it gives you time to thoroughly explore the journey within. It’s amazing and for some people – including me – it is the best thing that comes out of a single life. You become acquainted with yourself, and you are immensely happy with it. After all, Khalil Gibran put it most eloquently:


It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

Sacred Moon, Sacred River: Celebrating my 5th year of living healthily

I was waiting in a domestic departure lounge for a delayed flight three nights ago when I saw a big discount in the local Periplus booth. Being a book aficionado, I had to go there and browse. That was when I found a very important book to me as a woman, and as a person: ‘Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdoms’ by Christiane Northrup, M.D. A New York Times Bestseller, and upon reading it randomly since two days ago, I have no doubts about its bestseller status.

The book is about – among others – how women’s bodies try to tell women what’s the best for them, that illness comes to tell the women what’s wrong with their lifestyle … and how the health of women is link to the health of the Earth. Completes with a great guidance of the seven chakras and how our problems with a particular chakra is likely to result in a health problem in particular organs. Very… new age. Very pagan… very me. In many ways, the book resonates well with an older post of mine about the joy of menstrual cycle, our sacred monthly rites.

New AGORA trailers Rachel Weisz!

Okay... I don't want December 2009 to come quickly, cos I have looooads of things to beforehand... But when December comes, at least I have one thing to wait upon. Rachel Weisz's AGORA, where she plays as Hypatia, the last librarian of the Library of Alexandria.



Thanks to Pukimex for the HD version, I now really want to see it. Rachel is so awesome!

Annie Hathaway rocks!

Okay, she didn't win the 2009 Oscar, but I don't care. First, Anne Hathaway has stolen my heart (and I am straight!) since I saw her in Princess Diary, and then of course Becoming Jane... and several other movies. But also because I love Kate Winslet too, and I'm so happy that she finally wins. Kate deserves her Oscar (well, so does Meryl Streep), and I am sure that Annie will win her Oscar one day. What a girl... (and Annie loves Kate and Meryl too!).

But I just wanna share what Annie said to Barbara Walters in the pre-Oscar Specialon interview on 22 Feb 2009. Lots of good things there... and her words really remind me of important things in my life.



These are some quotes I love the most from the interview:
- "Being vulnerable is not being weak."
- "Love is not just about giving. It's about receiving as well."
- "I broke up with my Italian boyfriend, and then two weeks later he was sent to jail for fraud!" (Saturday Night's Live)

The first one relates very well to the second, and perhaps the 3rd one (which was about his &#^$ Italian boyfriend!). In the second quote, note that she didn't use the word 'taking'. She used 'receiving', which has a much wiser meaning than taking. Receiving requires you to open up to the whole world, to the Universe, to be receptive. What a girl, what a woman!

Annie, one day you will receive your Oscar. And meanwhile, you're still gonna be my girl!

Day 1: Bangkok to Varanasi

Day 1 (8 January 2009): Bangkok to Varanasi

The Swarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok was surely different from the old Don Muang airport I visited more than 4 years ago in November 2004. Don Muang back then was dusty and gloomy, and rather hot and uncomfortable. Now, in Swarnabhumi I felt like arriving in the second version of Singapore Changi Airport, with duty free shops and inviting cafés with wireless internet everywhere. You can even have a few hours of spa if you transit for more than 2 hours!

Bangkok is always memorable. Back then in November 2004, I was there for the nth IUCN Conference, and with loads of memories too beautiful and personal to reveal here… Now, in January 2009, I only transited for 6 hours, but it was a nice and fun transit. The first cup of hot coco that I tried was terrible; it was not even in the same zip code with second class hot coco, let alone Max Brenner. But the next one that I had as I enjoyed the free wireless internet was better. Still Max Brenner is da man!

The trip to Varanasi was delayed for 30 minutes or so. No complains. I had a window seat, from which I could see the Irrawaddy River meandering below, the Gulf of Bengal, Myanmar, and parts of Southern India. We stopped for 30 minutes or so in Bodhgaya, Bihar, where a thick layer of fog covered most of the horizon. It was amazing that we were able to land at all. I also should rewind a bit and informed that I had also seen Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia) from above, before dawn where everything was still dark and sleeping, as I peeked from my Thai Air window. One day, I shall really visit other countries in Indochina as well. Godspeed, or rather, Goddess-speed.


I landed in Varanasi at about 3:30 pm local time, and went through a very short process of immigration, but a very annoying custom process, for the custom officers there asked me why I brought so many cameras; was I to sell them?! Well, I said, I am to visit His Holiness Dalai Lama for an Indonesia-made Buddha statue inauguration, and of course I need to bring many cameras! And it’s not really many, it’s just a standard pack. One SLR with standard lens, one 250mm zoom lens, one small digital camera, and one pocket digital camera (in case I want my pictures taken by friends or passer-by who are not familiar with SLR). Most definitely a standard pack for a semi-pro photography freak like myself. I should have carried a tripod and declared myself a real pro, and got more problems because of that. I knew that customs bloke wanted to make things difficult, but I persisted, and got away without having to pay anything. It was very annoying though. And porters. I did not ask for any porters, but a guy just persisted in helping me carrying my light-weighted stroll-luggage to the taxi. He glared at me when I didn’t give him tips. I glared back and gave him nothing. What a way to start my journey in India.

Entering Varanasi was like entering a small town in eastern Indonesia, or a less-developed suburbia of Jakarta. Rustic, with many worn-out billboards and signs of commercial and political ads. But by the Gods and the Goddesses, the worst part is… the DUST! I knew Varanasi, or Kashi as many people say, is dirty, but I never thought that it was THAT dirty and DUSTY. Well, I knew it was big, so I expected a metropolitan like Bangkok, or at least half of it. It might be 1/3 of Bangkok… but it definitely made Bangkok a much nicer and cleaner city in comparison to this beloved city of Lord Shiva.

I arrived at the Ideal Tower Hotel at almost 5 pm. Regrouping and mingling with my friends from Anand Ashram Indonesia, including my master Swami Anand Krishna, and then took a shower and had dinner. I exchanged news about the Buddha statue, and we received most relieving news that the statue would be inaugurated by His Holiness the day after, on 9 January. Praise Lord Buddha, Lord Shiva, and Mother Gangga! How lucky I was: one day later, and I
would have missed the precious inauguration completely!

Pic 1: Samudera Manthan (Churning of the Ocean) in Bangkok Swarnabhumi Airport
Pic 2: Me at the new Bangkok airport

Day 2: Sarnath, Varanasi

Day 2 (9 January 2009): Sarnath, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

I shall never forget that day when I walked to the empty field next to Dalai Lama’s house in Sarnath and saw the stone Buddha statue sitting in lotus position, covered with white clothes and adorned with many candles and flowers… it was like a dream. I never thought that it would come true, that I would be able to come to Sarnath and see the statue inaugurated by His Holiness, with my Guruji next to him.

But it did come true. The Existence is too kind… I was allowed to witness the historic moment that reaffirmed the ancient spiritual and cultural ties between Indonesia, Tibet and India. The Buddha statue inauguration, the main reason for my first pilgrimage to India, at least this life time. From the Anand Ashram Indonesia website, this is the bits of the press release:

The morning fog has not cleared away when at His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama inaugurated and blessed a 2.5m high Buddha statue humbly offered by Indonesian interfaith spiritualist Anand Krishna. Conducted at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (Deemed University), Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh), India, the inauguration was covered by several Indian media, e.g. K TV, Z News, DD News and Hindustan Times. The Buddha statue is made of the same source materials used to build the 9th CE Borobudur Temple in Muntilan, Central Java, Indonesia, and was offered to reaffirm the spiritual and cultural ties between the peoples of Indonesia and Tibet, also to support His Holiness’ non-violent struggle to protect the cultural heritage of Tibet.

And this is the full link.



I spent the rest of the day busily with press release and uploading pictures; other pictures can be found here. It was a very tiring but satisfying day… Geshe Ngawang Samten, the professor and director of Central University of Tibetan Studies in Sarnath was very kind to bestow each of the Anand Ashram members with beautiful white khata (ceremonial scarf). It’s truly a blessing, and sometimes I wonder, what did I do to deserve such blessings… and will I live up to it. Godspeed, I will.

Pic 1: Bapak Anand Krishna and His Holiness Dalai Lama with the 2.5m tall Buddha statue
Pic 2: Bapak Anand Krishna, His Holiness Dalai Lama, and very blessed Ashram members, including me

Day 3: Bodhgaya

Day 3 (10 January 2009): Bodhgaya (Bihar)

More than three times, I had looked at the map of India before and saw where Bodhgaya was… and imagined what it would be like to go there. Well, suffice to say that my picturesque image of beautiful greeneries where Lord Buddha sat in deep meditation at the bank of a clear water body 2,500 years ago dissolved in a speed of light when our two cars entered the vicinity of dusty and smoggy Bodhgaya. A man sitting next to me en route Bangkok-Varanasi already said that Bodhgaya was very dusty; to the point that you must wear a mask if you want to keep your lungs healthy. I didn’t believe him until I found myself in the dusty town. It was worse than Varanasi.

The temples were great, though. Bodhgaya’s income seems to be mainly generated from tourism, Buddhist pilgrimage tourism to be exact. There are many temple compounds around the town, ranging from Tibetan, Burmese, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Nepali. We just have to add an Indonesian temple there, and it should complete the configuration. We went to see a Japanese temple with a giant Nara-style Buddha in sitting dhyana mudra and to a Tibetan Buddhist temple. We also went to an old relic called Sujata Temple. This relic is almost 2,500 years old, and was named after a milk maiden who gave Baghavan Buddha some milk when He was meditating. But the best experience was going to the main Bodhi Temple itself.

The Bodhi Temple was built around the Bodhi tree where Buddha obtained His Enlightenment 2,500 years ago. It was fully packed with people, of course, and you have to take your shoes off and paid INR 20 for one camera. Not bad. The best part of the compound is where the Bodhi tree is, or rather, was. I am certain they planted a new tree years ago, for there is no way a Bodhi tree can survive more than two millennia. We sat there meditating, next to Guruji Anand Krishna, and I felt that immense peace that everyone always looked for. For a rustic path walker like me, it would be only 20% at the most of the peacefulness and enlightenment that Lord Buddha experienced, but it was so beautiful already… I could stay there for another 1-2 hours for meditation, had time not dictated us.


After the meditation under the Bodhi tree (I’m not sure if I received any insights yet…but the enlightenment process for someone as rusty as myself might take years to take effect…), we resumed with a more ‘down-to-earth’ mission: Shopping. Strolling the dusty shopping lane of the main Bodhi Temple, we went inside a shop that sold various wooden, brass and bronze statues. Mbok Wayan immediately fell for a piece of Kali and Shiva (I have to say that any pose of Shiva resting peacefully underneath Ma Kali’s foot is incredibly sexy…). Myself, inexplicably my hand reached for a statue the same time as Wayan reached for her. It was a standing brass Tara statue, with her clothes flowing as if caressed by the wind, her left hand in Abhaya (fear not, and also blessing) mudra and her right hand in the Varada (giving) mudra. As if dancing while protecting us. She reminds me of my Dakini statue at home, and I immediately fell for her. My eyes met Mbok Wayan’s, and with resignation I said that the statue was hers. But she shook her head and said that she did not like this Tara’s face for some reasons. I frowned and checked that the Tara: her Tibetan countenance looked beautiful and serene to me. But I did not complain of course. First: I really wanted the statue. Second: every piece of statue, especially those hand-made, is special and personal. The statue finds the person, not the other way around. In this case, the Tara statue does not find mbok Wayan. She found me instead. The Tara was then ‘mine’.

We had to wait for more than 45 minutes for our lunch, for seemingly the cook in the Sujata Restaurant where we chose to eat later decided that cooking with slow mindfulness will satisfy the empty stomachs of his guests. It was a quick and good lunch, but I didn’t eat too much, lest I might get motion sickness on the way back to Kashi. And shortly afterwards, we found ourselves back in our cars, heading back to the Beloved City of Shiva-ji, fighting our way back amidst the falling smog and occasional bad road.

I didn’t regret going to Bodhgaya. I went there with my Guruji who risked his own health for us, I meditated under the Bodhi tree, and I found my Tara statue. But the next trip shall not happen again unless they make a radical change in the pollution management of that town. Meanwhile, I shall have to visit the Buddha within me instead.

Pic 1: The giant Japanese-style Buddha inside the Japanese Buddhist Temple in Bodhgaya
Pic 2: Interior of the Tibetan Temple in Bodhgaya
Pic 3: The Bodhi site, where Bhagavan Buddha obtain the enlightenment 2,500 years ago

Day 4: Back to Varanasi

Day 4 (11 January 2009): Sarnath, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

You’re not going to Varanasi if you have not gone to the Gangga River. So, I went there at 8ish in the morning with mbok Wayan and Sita, taking a very smelly thuk-thuk (auto-rickshaw) to Kedhar Ghat. After bargaining, we took off with a boat to the sand island across the river. Sita had wanted to step on the island since a few days ago when she went to the river for the first time, and I have to say it was not a bad idea. The scenery was picturesque, and it wasn’t as smelly as the main bank of Gangga.

Sita and I then tried to row the boat in Ma Gangga. We realised that it was not as easy as it seemed; we tried to row the boat, but it just went rotating at the same axis for 10-15 minutes. Surish-bhai the boatman laughed at us and took over the paddles again. Thanks to his professional rowing, we arrived at the other ghat in no time.



A trip to the Golden Shiva Temple was cancelled for we had to leave our shoes and – most importantly – camera (!) outside, so we went shopping instead. Just a piece of black kurta with beads and a yellow Shiva shawl, the latter came complete with the pungent odour of beetle nut. Oh, and a very nice sandstone statue of Buddha head with chubby face and friendly smile, and a pink Orissa stone small statue of Radha-Krishna with elaborate details. We also bought Bapak a very lovely pink stone Saraswati with her sitar.

After the shop-till-you-broke experience, we endeavoured to go to the Benares Hindu University with thuk-thuk, to no avail because as we arrived at the gate, we realised that it would be too late for us to go to Sarnath for His Holiness’ afternoon class. We hired another, a bigger, thuk-thuk and rerouted to Sarnath; a journey along the dusty roads of Varanasi that took almost an hour because that bloody driver took the opportunity to take other passengers too and went to various places. I think we were expensively robbed! Bastards!

Anyway… clear your mind, Padawan… After an exhausted journey, from which I learned that Varanasi was definitely worse than Jakarta in terms of traffic discipline, pollution and dust, we finally arrived at the dusty gate of Sarnath. Mbok Wayan and Sita opted to return to the hotel, but not before wandering around for a Tibetan skirt and a thangka. I chose to join the afternoon class, which was nice, but I honestly have to say that it would be much better for me to join Dalai Lama’s class in English next time, akin to the ones in Melbourne and Geelong in June 2008. I trust that His Holiness’ translators are excellent, but I prefer not to experience ‘lost in translation’ whatsoever. I think His Holiness is to visit Melbourne in December 2009. That’ll be another opportunity, eh? That is, if Dharamsala is too expensive for now.


After class, I strolled the dusty lane of Sarnath and bought a very lovely ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ thangka, black and red in colour, very beautiful. Plus a Bodhgaya style bag and a Tibetan praying flag. I found no available hotel or homestay in Sarnath, or if there was any, I couldn’t find it. I supposed the best course of action was to book another room in Ideal Tower for 14 January.

Despite my short visit to Sarnath, I learned one thing: I still respect His Holiness Dalai Lama’s decision for Tibetan autonomy, but I am also still 100% a supporter for a Free Tibet. There is no other way: Tibet has to be free, and the Existence better make it fast, or I shall launch my nth protest towards the Supreme Being for the utter injustice that has been happening in Tibet. Watching thousands of Tibetans in Sarnath faithfully attending His Holiness’ teaching (one man in front of me even did a series of praying in Tibetan way – looked very much like the combination of yoga and shalat – for more than 15 minutes!), I am proud of their persistence in maintaining their cultural identity despite the cruelty of Chinese government upon them. These people deserve to have their own land back; they have more right than any Chinese people (and any other people, including myself) to set foot in a Free Tibet, going in and out of the country as they wish, recreating and rebuilding their country as they believe in.

Tibet is a personal issue for me. More than once, people in Sarnath thought I was a Tibetan or someone from the Himalayan region. Perhaps…I was one of them in my previous life time. And now, my journey to Sarnath reaffirmed my belief in a Free Tibet, and I shall never tire of praying and helping them for that.

Pic 1: A boat and the seagulls hovering over Ma Gangga
Pic 2: Me and Sita trying to row the boat (to no avail)
Pic 3: People selling Tibetan crafts in Sarnath