Meditating with Monkeys

We're out! We're out! Yes, the rumours are true. We have made it through our 10-day retreat in silence, learning about Tibetan Buddhism. Now, the time has come for me to share nothing other than our encounters with the lovely monkeys of Dharamsala.

The monkeys around Tushita are very clever and rather sneaky little guys. We were warned that if we were eating any of our meals away from the dining hall and some monkeys approached, it was best to just hand your food over to them, since they would take it anyway. Since we had heard similar warnings in the past, I wasn't too concerned about it. I mean... they're just a few monkeys, right?

Well, it turns out we lived very intimately with these creatures and I will share three encounters with you.

The Cookie Thief
From 2-3pm everyday we were allowed to speak in small groups of six to ten people. These were our assigned discussion groups. After a few days, one of the members of my group thought it would be nice to bring a package of cookies for us to enjoy while we discussed different points of Tibetan Buddhism. What a lovely gesture, I thought, and apparently so did the rest of my group, as the next day three people brought packages of cookies!

Three packages!!! A FEAST! Oh boy oh boy, so we quickly devoured the first package and opened the second. Discussions took our attention away from the cookies and towards each others' hearts. It was really the most lovely part of the day.

Anyway, back to the monkeys. So, as were were listening to one of our group members speak, a monkey slowly crept up and crawled silently between two of us. Before we had time to even acknowledge that a monkey was sitting in the middle of our circle, it snatched the package of cookies at incredible speed and ran away to consume them in a nearby tree.

We laughed heartily as did all the neighbouring groups. Oh, you little monkeys.

The Apple Snatch
Often we had the opportunity to eat apples as part of our lunch. We grabbed as many as we liked from a bucket where they had been sliced in half. Being an apple lover, I grabbed a half, put it in my salad bowl, and head outside to eat on the porch of the dining hall.

Practicing mindful eating meditation, I sat very quietly and observed every bite I took, taking special care to put down my fork between bites. While I sat there, surely as serene as Shakyamuni Buddha himself, a monkey saw the perfect opportunity for his lunch. He jumped down from a tree ran across a nearby roof, fell to the railing, scurried across the table, and SNATCH! He reached into my salad bowl and looted my apple!

Everyone laughed and the monkey returned to a tree just above where I was sitting and sat there eating the apple right in front of me. Oh, you sneaky little bugger.

The Revolution
One evening while we all sat in the gompa, we heard incessant monkey cries from outside. This was not altogether unusual, but this time there was quite a bit more than what we typically heard. So, Stephanie and I took a peek out one of the windows where we saw around ten monkeys just hanging around out front of the gompa. They just sat around in what Stephanie saw as a planning moment of the revolution when monkeys will take over. It lasted for 20 minutes and was really quite interesting to watch.

Around fifteen of us were just standing watching the monkeys in confused amazement. Oh, you crafty little buggers.


Anyway, hope you enjoyed this post. I've been at this computer for far too long now, so I'll see you later :-)

Monkey Business

Before leaving Shimla we made the trek up, up, up to the Jakhu Temple (a temple for the monkey god Hanuman), which is situated around 2500m above sea level. It was a steep and tiresome climb, but when we reached the top we were thrust excitement and danger!

Monkeys! They've gone mad! They are very aggressive near the temple, since many visitors give them prasad (food offerings). They think whats yours is theirs. Oh boy!

As our guidebook had recommended, we rented a walking stick for Rs. 5 at the bottom of the climb to the temple, so we were well armed to deal with the foul beasts. We managed to visit the first temple without any confrontations, but as soon as we left, we were talking with an Indian fellow from England and a monkey crept up to him, jumped, hung off his backpack and ripped off a bag of prasad. It sat right there beside us eating the entire bag and picking up very meticulously all the little sugar balls that had scattered when it tore the bag.

It was pretty funny, since we were just spectators and nobody got hurt. Things were a bit different on our way down from the second temple when Stephanie showed her true, barbaric colours. We were alone on the stairwell which was crawling with monkeys. I began shooing some of them away with my stick, but Stephanie was awestruck by the sight of it all. I had walked maybe 10 steps ahead when I heard Steph shriek a warcry fit for a fearless amazon. She was afraid a monkey was about to jump on her, and managed to scare it away with her glorious, thoughtless, instinctive roar.

We stayed closer together for the remainder of the descent and experienced no difficulties :-)

In other monkey news, the day before we visited the temple, Steph was sitting on our balcony in Shimla when she noticed a monkey about 6 feet away from her on the roof. She called me out to come see, and out I came. Unfortunately, I had to walk directly beneath the monkey to get out to see it, but I managed to do it without harm. It looked angry. Furious, even. Quite satisfied by my short observance of the creature, I began to head back to the room, under the monkey again. This time he was scowling and I made a quick dash and just as it was about to jump on me, Steph let out an instinctive cry, "PEEEEEEEEEEEETE!!" which scared the monkey away. Thanks, Steph.