J. A. Kempf - Silicon Valley Monk: From Metaphysics to Reality on the Buddhist Path

From Metaphysics to Reality on the Buddhist Path

J.A. Kempf

Copyright 2014 JA Kempf

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Table of Contents

"Nothing behind me,everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road"

Jack Kerouac,On the Road

After an early morning limo ride to SanFrancisco Airport, Renate and I straggle out of the limousine andinto the terminal. We are on our way to India for a two weekpilgrimage to the Buddhist holy sites in Bihar and Uttar Pradeshwith Stephen Batchelor, the renowned Buddhist teacher. Thepilgrimage has been organized by Tricycle magazine, a Buddhist literary journal.Within a day of our arrival in Dehli, we will be in the wilds ofrural Bihar without guaranteed access to drug stores, clean water,the Internet, or other amenities of civilized life. We have nobaggage to check and I have printed our boarding passes the nightbefore. We thread our way through the crowds as energetically aspossible given the early hour, heading toward the securitycheckpoint. I'm carrying my backpack over my right shoulder andpulling my rolling suitcase behind me, occasionally stumbling as Istep on a wheel due to inattention from sleepiness. We make our wayto the long line leading into the maw of the checkpoint. A monthbefore our flight, Richard Reid tried to blow up a plane in Detroitby setting his underwear on fire, throwing international aviationsecurity into high alert. We are expecting the worst, but TSA hasno unpleasant surprises for us and the security check proceedssmoothly, with little delay.

The airlines instituted new baggage feesduring the previous summer in an effort to increase revenue, so noweveryone is carrying baggage onto the flight to avoid the fee.Because we have no special frequent flyer privileges onContinental, our boarding group is number 4. By the time we boardthe flight for Newark; all the overhead bins are full. We areforced to check our rolling luggage just steps from the door of theplane. We do get to keep our backpacks though. I travel a lot forbusiness, and checked baggage is an invitation for trouble. If ourbags are lost, our departure from Dehli might be delayed, or we mayhave to depend on Continental to find us in Bihar, a situationunlikely to resolve in our favor. This triggers the feeling ofanxiety in me that arises every time something doesn't go asplanned during a trip involving air travel.

"But what if our bags are lost," I say toRenate in German, for the third time as we sit at the departuregate in Newark, waiting for the flight to Delhi to board. Weusually speak German together when nobody else is around, "It'shappened in the past. Don't you remember it was on our honeymoonwhen we also went to India?"

"Yeah but that was when we returned to theUS," she replies, "I think you're being too pessimistic. Let's justwait and see."

My mind has become obsessed with the prospectof arriving in Delhi without luggage. I can see us beginning thepilgrimage with only the clothes on our backs and the contents ofour backpacks. Despite over thirty years of mindfulness andmeditation practice, on my way to India for a pilgrimage, I'mcaught in a round of obsessive thinking about myself and my futurecomfort.

I persist, "We only have one night in Delhibefore we leave for Patna. That's not enough time to wait aroundfor our bags."

She finally gives in with a sigh and agreesto go shopping with me in case our luggage doesn't show up inIndia. We rise from our seats and plunge into the shopping mallthat is the air terminal. We find a men's wear store and I buy twopairs of underwear and two pairs of socks. At a souvenir store, Ibuy two "I (Heart) New York" T-shirts. We stop at a pharmacy and Ibuy a toothbrush, Clartin for allergies, and dental floss becauseI've packed all that in my rolling bag (toothpaste is in theliquids bag in my backpack). Renate declines to stock up, insistingthat if our luggage really is lost,she'll find something in Delhi. With my new purchases, I think Icould do most of the pilgrimage without any luggage, if not exactlyin comfort, and my anxiety eases. After that exercise inconsumerism, we buy a couple of smoothies and return to thedeparture gate to await the flight.

The plane for Delhi leaves on time. We settleinto our seats, with water bottles and iPod near at hand, and theneat dinner. We spend much of the flight making extensive use of thewonderful in-flight entertainment system with several hundredavailable movies, and, surprisingly, sleeping relatively well. Weland on time at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhiafter 24 hours of travel including the 4 hour layover in Newark. Inthe end, to my delight, Continental comes through, validatingRenate's position that all would be well. Our luggage arrives,trundling around the luggage carousal and out into my gratefullywaiting arms, none the worse for having ridden out the flight inthe baggage compartment instead of four feet above my head.

After clearing customs and immigration, wemeet our driver waiting near the exit with a small sign bearing ourlast name. He escorts us out of the terminal to his car, and drivesus to our guest house through the dark streets of New Delhi. Theweather is freezing cold and foggy; the air smells of sulfur fromcoal power plant pollution. I am reminded of the smell of the cokeovens from my youth in Pennsylvania, when the east wind blew thestench from steel-making toward our home. It is almost midnightwhen we arrive. The guest house is clean and comfortable, and afterbrushing our teeth and changing into our bed clothes we lay down onthe double bed to sleep. I sleep fitfully, partially due to jet lagand partially due to the adrenalin from having travelled halfwayaround the world in a single day. Near 5 AM, I have a series ofhalf waking dreams where I am trying to look at the clock but can'tfind the button for the light. Just before waking, I think I hearthe sound of a mosquito, but is it a dream or not?

Though I was the first on my father's side ofthe family to enroll in college, I was really only peripherallyinterested in academics. After expending little effort in highschool, I did well enough to be admitted into a good university,but my primary interest in college was participating in the tidalwave of social and cultural change shaking the nation. WesleyanUniversity in Middletown, Connecticut - known for being veryliberal to radical - looked like a good place to do it. At thetime, it seemed a great adventure. I believed the young people ofAmerica had an opportunity to change Western civilization infundamental ways, to redefine the social, cultural, and politicalstructure of the country. Indeed, it even seemed to me that we hadthe opportunity to redefine the nature of ourselves and the way weknow and relate to the world.

Central among the tools in this quest werepsychedelic drugs. LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin were widelyavailable on campus. Many of my classmates treated psychedelics asparty drugs, conforming to the middle class stereotype of thehippie college student. But for me, they were, instead, a way ofexploring the nature of reality, no different in purpose than thescientific method taught in my organic chemistry class or theliterary analysis techniques I learned in freshman English. My useof psychedelics was well thought out, not indiscriminate. Iconducted my explorations alone, to avoid the complex emotionalchallenge of having to relate to other people while reality wasfluidly changing around me. I took only a half to a quarter of therecommended dose and restricted my trips to once or twice asemester. On every trip, I had to confront the fear thatrationality would desert me, and I would end up in a mentalhospital or worse. My grades suffered, naturally, but I was able tokeep them up and ended up graduating with a middle B average.