im in sarnath. a little town about 10 km north of varanassi. this is where the buddha preached his first sermon, in the deer park, on the four noble truths. in life, there's dukkha (unsatisfactory-ness or "suffering" - but the latter sounds too negative and kinda misses the point, if you ask me), there's a cause for dukkha, there's a solution for/end to dukkha, the end of dukkha can be reached by following the noble eight fold path. as i'm writing this, half of the pages i try to load up on the internet don't work, im black from all of the cities dirt constantly being swirled up by all the motor vehicles and im tired from being hounded by every other indian person trying to take me their shop, a ride in their riksha, or are just trying to get a ruppee out of me. sounds like buddha was pretty right on with his observation, more than 2500 years ago. but all that doesn't mean i dont feel good, or happy. on the contrary. im here in india w/ my most kind mom, im getting to stay at nicer hotels than im used to be staying at, i'm eating good food, and we'll be on my way to ladahk tomorrow - by all accounts on of the most beautiful places in india. so other than the fact that i dearly miss some of my friends back in dharamshala, i really am having a great time. i feel like i'm floating a little bit. it's such a radical transition. the future's happening, and it's happening now.
oh, and in case you didn't know, new brant bjork & the bros stuff is up at myspace.com/brantbjork ~ i aint playing on it, but it's rad anyway, so go check it out and back it up! say what you will, but there aint too many folks out there fighting the good fight. and few do it like brant does. so... right on!
much kindness,
max
