warning: like anything you read you can stop when it gets too disturbing. this entry includes some of the most intense suffering i have come across so far. i am not being mellow dramatic, i am telling it how it is.
i remember the first day i saw the leper. he was kneed over rocking back and forth talking to himself. he wore his pants around his knees and covered himself with a stretched out sweater, he probably could not control his bowels. he lives is a box with the rough dimensions of 3x3x5 feet. the front is covered with a tarp, which he covers himself with as well.
he is always either sitting in his box, or laying down inside it, never leaving it. he seems to survive on food scraps people leave outside his box. he is there all the time, even in the freezing cold, which is how it was when we got here. I did not notice him for two weeks and i passed him at least twice a day.
and then i saw him, sitting on the edge of his box mostly covered by a blue tarp. i saw his feet first, the front half of each was missing, they were bloody stumps. for about a week i thought a car crushed them until someone told me he suffered from leprosy. some purple fluid was on the ground around his feet, i think it might have been treatment but i am no expert. he rest his feet on sponges too absorb what ever comes off them.
with the awareness of his presence i pass him everyday and look for him. i have only known he has been there for 5 days now, and in those 5 days his bloody stumps have been covered in white mold. i notice the smell of him now, strong, pungent, and unforgettable. day and night he is there, always.
he is located on the busiest street across from a clinic that i have yet to see open. sometimes i see the other street vendors telling him to go away. very few tourist notice him, and even fewer know what is going on.
this is the most intense suffering i have seen in india and it took me about a week to learn how to cope with it. there is no way you could dull the pain of an insane person who is helpless and suffering from one of the worst disease known to man. this is the second marker of my journey into compassion.
if you ask me if i have compassion for all strangers i would still say no, but i am beginning to understand what it means to truly have this for everyone i do not know. i have been reading the dalai lama's spiritual biography which is so inspiring. i think that i really get what it means to greet every stranger like an old friend and realize, in a non-hippie way i swear, that we are all brothers and sisters. it is really grasping what it means to be human, and to treat others as human which is what they are.
the first was time i felt compassion all the way to the bone on this trip was staring at zoë on a stretcher, my closest friend suffering from food poisoning. i knew she would be okay but i wished that for her suffering to be relieved with all my being. the second is this leper, a stranger, and with all my being i wish him to be free of his pain. the final installment of this chapter in compassion is to develop a sense of compassion for my enemy.
the final segment, developing compassion for my enemies has two parts. first, the majority of this segment is myself, my greatest enemy. if the root of all evil is ignorance, fear, and grasping, i certainly have a journey ahead of me. second is external sources which is every little problem all the way to coping peacefully with the unjust of the world. this could be china beating tibet to a pulp, the US presence in the middle east, or the corrupt indian government, the list is endless. i must non-violently, non-destructively, mindfully protest all these in my own way. this final segment will certainly be my greatest.
(this post will probably go under further editing in the next few days)
about a week later....
the man is gone now, he has become very ill. this morning i asked a vendor that sells next to him where he went. the vendor replied that he has been hospitalized, that he had become sick and continually got worse everyday until he needed to be hospitalized.
i also found out that due to his mental illness he rejects any treatment offered to him. he must have been so sick that he had not been able to refuse. he has been gone about 4 days now. i also managed to get a blurred picture of where he lives. on the ground there is a rock with sponges tied to it, that is what he normally rest his feet on.
i remember the first day i saw the leper. he was kneed over rocking back and forth talking to himself. he wore his pants around his knees and covered himself with a stretched out sweater, he probably could not control his bowels. he lives is a box with the rough dimensions of 3x3x5 feet. the front is covered with a tarp, which he covers himself with as well.
he is always either sitting in his box, or laying down inside it, never leaving it. he seems to survive on food scraps people leave outside his box. he is there all the time, even in the freezing cold, which is how it was when we got here. I did not notice him for two weeks and i passed him at least twice a day.
and then i saw him, sitting on the edge of his box mostly covered by a blue tarp. i saw his feet first, the front half of each was missing, they were bloody stumps. for about a week i thought a car crushed them until someone told me he suffered from leprosy. some purple fluid was on the ground around his feet, i think it might have been treatment but i am no expert. he rest his feet on sponges too absorb what ever comes off them.
with the awareness of his presence i pass him everyday and look for him. i have only known he has been there for 5 days now, and in those 5 days his bloody stumps have been covered in white mold. i notice the smell of him now, strong, pungent, and unforgettable. day and night he is there, always.
he is located on the busiest street across from a clinic that i have yet to see open. sometimes i see the other street vendors telling him to go away. very few tourist notice him, and even fewer know what is going on.
this is the most intense suffering i have seen in india and it took me about a week to learn how to cope with it. there is no way you could dull the pain of an insane person who is helpless and suffering from one of the worst disease known to man. this is the second marker of my journey into compassion.
if you ask me if i have compassion for all strangers i would still say no, but i am beginning to understand what it means to truly have this for everyone i do not know. i have been reading the dalai lama's spiritual biography which is so inspiring. i think that i really get what it means to greet every stranger like an old friend and realize, in a non-hippie way i swear, that we are all brothers and sisters. it is really grasping what it means to be human, and to treat others as human which is what they are.
as humans we automatically separate everyone in our mind into one of three categories which is friend or enemy, and for the vast majority strangers or nobodies. we must learn to develop equal compassion for everyone and break out of this ridiculous categorization habit.
the first was time i felt compassion all the way to the bone on this trip was staring at zoë on a stretcher, my closest friend suffering from food poisoning. i knew she would be okay but i wished that for her suffering to be relieved with all my being. the second is this leper, a stranger, and with all my being i wish him to be free of his pain. the final installment of this chapter in compassion is to develop a sense of compassion for my enemy.
the final segment, developing compassion for my enemies has two parts. first, the majority of this segment is myself, my greatest enemy. if the root of all evil is ignorance, fear, and grasping, i certainly have a journey ahead of me. second is external sources which is every little problem all the way to coping peacefully with the unjust of the world. this could be china beating tibet to a pulp, the US presence in the middle east, or the corrupt indian government, the list is endless. i must non-violently, non-destructively, mindfully protest all these in my own way. this final segment will certainly be my greatest.
(this post will probably go under further editing in the next few days)
about a week later....
the man is gone now, he has become very ill. this morning i asked a vendor that sells next to him where he went. the vendor replied that he has been hospitalized, that he had become sick and continually got worse everyday until he needed to be hospitalized.
i also found out that due to his mental illness he rejects any treatment offered to him. he must have been so sick that he had not been able to refuse. he has been gone about 4 days now. i also managed to get a blurred picture of where he lives. on the ground there is a rock with sponges tied to it, that is what he normally rest his feet on.
Max - this really really touched my heart. What an amazing journey you're on. Thank you again for making the effort to share your struggle and learning !
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