Tag Archives: Meditation

Amchi

Traditional Tibetan Medicine

In December of last year I went to see an Amchi, or Tibetan doctor. I had been thinking about a system to support my mental and physical health, particularly after some important family losses.

I also feel I am entering middle age, and I want to start thinking about how to take care of my mind and body as I age. Ideally, I wanted to return to a holistic and relational system. When I was in my 20s I started to see a Tibetan doctor, and when I moved to Belgium I quickly found an Amchi in Brussels.

After I moved to The Netherlands, twice per year I would travel from Leiden to Brussels to go see her, but eventually I stopped.

Through a Google search I found a handful of Amchi. One of them engaged my imagination and I decided to make an appointment to go see him. 

The day of the appointment I arrived an hour early. Because it was my first time, I didn’t want to be late. The place was a typical modern Dutch house in a residential area. I knocked on the door and the Amchi let me in. Then he immediately took me to a shed at the back of the house. 

The shed was made into a room for consultations. It was a very small room but quite beautiful, it looked like a mini-Buddhist temple. I immediately felt good and welcomed, it was a nice refuge from the miserable gray day. The Amchi left for a moment and then came back with tea for both of us and started the consultation. I felt bad because I was over an hour early, and when I came in, I could smell lunch was ready.

Because I had seen two Amchi regularly before him, I thought I knew what to expect. But unlike other Amchi, this consultation lasted two hours. He first took my pulse and asked about my life and why I was there. I told him that in the last two years I had a late-term pregnancy loss and that I had also lost both of my parents.

He took his time to talk to me. He talked about kindness and how important it is to be kind to everyone. He talked about gratitude and asked me to make space every day to be grateful. He gave me some breathing exercises and then checked some points around my body. A couple of places were moderately painful, and when he touched one point on my left leg it made me scream in pain. 

And after nearly two hours, when he was finished, he prayed.

My parents had different religions and belief systems, and growing up like that made me non-religious. But both of my parents always prayed for me, and they would mention it sometimes and I would roll my eyes.

Eventually, as I grew older and the years living abroad accumulated, I started to soften to their good wishes and appreciated the ways in which they showed me their love. After their passing, I was surprised to discover I was actually sad no one would pray for me anymore. Even though I don’t believe in a God, it felt like a real loss.

And there was my new Amchi, praying for me.

I thought I was looking for an Amchi but I think I was looking for my dad, his steady gentle advice, his care and love and good wishes.

One of the things that caught my attention most when I was seeing my previous Amchi in Brussels is that she would seem genuinely happy every time I would come back with my health slightly improved. After taking my pulses she would almost jump with joy and run around the room getting pills and powders to prepare my next treatment. I always found that so beautiful. It is rare to find people who can so freely and immediately care.

When I left Amchi’s house I felt I was going back into the world more protected, cared for, even stronger. As the days went by, I felt less fearful, less guarded, my mind more relaxed. Being kind became easier, and finding a moment every day to be grateful became something to look forward to.

Amchi in one of his travels to Tibet

Deathless ALDI

On The Ordinary & The Sublime

Some time ago I was at an Aldi near the Central Station in Leiden. I almost never go to the Aldi, but for whatever reason I was there.

It’s a small store, there are no windows, the produce is surprisingly fresh and sometimes you can find Trader Joe’s products.

I was standing there, nothing special, bright white lights, people moving quietly through the isles, then suddenly something shifted. There was an experience of “being everything”. If I try to describe it probably the closest I can come is a kind of unbounded awareness in which nothing stood apart: the Aldi, Iguazu Falls, it’s all good. There was no-body to reference back to or to “ground me”, no need for that either.

No magic, nothing shocking, I just dropped into a state where everything simply was. In the moment, the experience felt very ordinary, but when I look back, it feels completely extraordinary.

As usual, it took a long time to integrate the experience. And as the months went by (and the years) one day I found myself talking to a very old sympathique Dutch man in Katwijk, he was selling tiny handmade poetry booklets on a street market. At the time I was also writing poetry, I had accidentally started writing poetry to try to make sense of who or what I was, a habit that grew stronger and more fun after my son’s birth.

We had a long conversation, he had been practicing Zen for many years, it was a quite pleasant and unexpected encounter. At some point he paused and told me: you know, Buddhism is a religion. He told me that to indicate his posture, but also to find out where I stand in the whole philosophy – religion situationship. To my surprise, I very easily agreed with him. I agreed with hm? That prompt a period of self-questioning.

I think I always saw Buddhism mostly as religion in Asia and a philosophy in the West. Probably due to an amalgamation of ideas, thoughts, assumptions and all sorts of mental objects supporting the idea of philosophy being superior, above or further ahead.

But after the Aldi experience + a lot of time, I seem to have integrated the experience in a way that now I seem to believe that what happened in the Aldi, unbounded pure awareness, is what happens when we die. The self dissolves, and everything just is.

This is not what I think. Due to the embodied experience, I seem to now believe this.

After years of meditation practice, Buddhism, or more precisely, some experiences brought about by meditation, changed my understanding of death. More significantly, my understanding of what happens when we die, and for me at least, that is what religions do, provide a map, idea or “certainty” about the afterlife.

Maybe in some years that experience will be explained by synapses and chemicals in our brains, or I’ll have a new experience that’ll override my experiences of unbound awareness.

More likely, that narrative or the need to interpret experiences will also dissolve. But for now, if I question myself, to my surprise I seem to believe this is what happens when we die, and I sort of live accordingly.

The tiny poetry book from the curious market man

The Dutch & the child in Katwijk

The Householder

The past several years have been all sorts of intense.

I moved to the Netherlands ten years ago, and my partner (The Dutch) and I had a child five years ago. We live in Leiden and this place has now truly become our home. Since the birth of my son both of my parents have passed away, my dad two years ago and my mom last summer. I formed some precious friendships and others that exist more in the rhythm of my son’s playdates. I took a break from work, and now that our child goes to school, I am slowly finding my way back.

I was pregnant during the hardest coronavirus lockdowns yet I felt fine, safe, collected. My meditation practice had been flourishing before I became pregnant, and it continued to grow during the months preceding my son’s birth. I was leading a daily Social Meditation Zoom practice with local folks, it was beautiful.

After my son’s birth I felt so good, it was like a warm wind carried me everywhere.

With the help of Martine, a dharma friend and guide, I tried to bridge my formal meditation practice with everyday activity. Beyond the famous washing the dishes or doing the laundry mindfully image, I tried to chop wood and carry water with an infant. I had some previous experiences to guide me, or remind me what a state of just being, or just doing felt like.

For a while it was relatively easy to ignore narratives, at least the known ones, and to come back to the breath, or the tiny child, or the warm sun.

But, in my mind at least, the lack of formal practice together with the complexities of life, including those of a foreign mother navigating child-rearing in a different country, started to create a different set of conditions.

As I return to formal practice, I want to write about what being a householder practitioner was and is like for me. There are not many accounts in the Buddhist scriptures about what a householder path looks like. And for some reason, that path has always engaged my imagination.

I find this an important conversation, not only for Buddhist or practitioners within (or without) a tradition, but also for people engaged in other disciplines that require the right intention, gentle discipline and space-time. I think for example, of Ashtanga Yoga, which I practiced in Belgium before I moved to The Netherlands. Maybe, this is something we can figure out this century.

The latest turning of the wheel is also driven by householders.

This photo is from Sunday, at the Amsterdam Zoo.