Shambhala

by Miller, Brian E.

  A rustle in the trees above brings his attention to some monkeys going about their business. One monkey drops down, eye level on a branch, staring at Paul.

  “Bandar!” he yells out, excited as he runs toward the monkey, who screeches and shows his teeth before climbing further up the tree. “Bandar, it’s me, Bahi!” he says, thinking the monkey may not recognize him with the beard.

  The monkey lets out a rant of hoots and haas as he shakes the tree before springing along, out of sight. Walking off in wonderment, Did I dream all of this? he thinks as he sits by the waterfall. Feeling a sense of deep unity with all that is, he remembers the world outside of the jungle. “It’s time for me to go,” he says in a whisper as he smiles at the waterfall.

  THE LIGHTS SLOWLY come up on the platformed stage-like perch of a New York City class center. Paul sits cleanly shaven and clothed. He is in mid-sentence, a sentence directed to a gathering of students: “And because we have this wrong view, this mistaken view that we are limited, fixed, unchanging, existing independent of everything else, we feel isolated and imbalanced, so we crave anything that will relieve this suffering. We grasp at people who we think will make us happy, things, places, jobs, anything that will dull the pain of our isolated view of ourselves. This is an utter lie we engage in every day, that somehow there is peace and light. But it’s not us. And therefore we must reach for it all day long. And finally these things we reach for do not keep us happy. So we grasp at more and more, like children in a candy store feeding their faces with chocolate, thinking the next piece will surely be the one to bring lasting happiness, final contentment. But instead they get sick to their stomachs. We are slaves to this independent self, which is insatiable because ‘an independent self, separate from everything,’ is a wrong view. So we will never be satisfied because we are seeing it all wrong. So we attach ourselves to people and things that make us happy and push away and get angry at things and people who cause us suffering. If only we relate to things how they really are, we realize everything is constantly changing, existing only because of others. And in this way we learn to respect this body, this Earth, and we realize we are all the light, and nothing is separate from that. Everything exists in dependence on all else. This is logic. Check up on this yourself. Don’t take my word on it. So we need to relate to the world as it is. We all need each other, and that’s how it works. We need to respect the Earth, our mothers, our friends, and our enemies, because none is separate from anyone or anything else. And our deluded view that we exist independent of the Earth or other people is a misconception of reality, a fantasy we have conjured up.

  In this way, we can just relax and enjoy each moment, each person, each thing knowing we don’t have to grasp at them or push them away, because they will soon end, and change and flow back into that unending flux, which is all. You can think of it like this: Without the sun nothing here would be alive. A plant grows. We eat the plant, creating our muscles, or we eat animals who eat plants. And so the sun just moves through everyone and everything. The energy it creates enables us to create, build things, come to this lecture, and so on. There is a an untapped resource of this all-pervading light, and the sun is part of this as well, because one day it, too, will burn out, but it will not end. It is endless, beginningless.

  A silence washes over the crowd as Paul looks out in thought. Taking a sip of water from his glass, which sets beside him, he notices a familiar face in the crowd. It’s Eva. She smiles at him. Returning the smile, he focuses again, placing down the glass.

  “I would like to share a story with you for a moment. There was once a modest farmer who lived by the shores of India. Having lost his beloved wife, and fed up with the world of his village, he would walk down by the shore every day and stare off to the land far in the distance. He was told of this land. Shambhala, they called it, a place of peace and serenity, a place where men were so wise and enlightened that all of his suffering would be eradicated once he stepped foot there. Every day at dusk he would walk down from the foothills of the mountains and stand at the shore, yearning to go to Shambhala, until one day a boat pulled up to the shore with a sign that read, Shambhala. So the man got all excited and hopped on the boat. The captain looked down at him and said, ‘This is a one-way trip. Are you sure you want to go?’ Ecstatic, he yelled, ‘Yes!’ And so off they went, thrashing along the sea. And suddenly he missed his children back in the village and began to worry for them. This worry passed, and after sometime he realized what he thought would be a short trip had become a very long and arduous journey. On and on they rode, week after week, month after month, and soon he became complacent with the simple tasks of living on a boat, until one day the boat scraped ashore. Finally they were there. Excited, he leapt out of the boat and ran out to the island of Shambhala. And as he calmed himself, he thought, ‘I wonder what India looks like from here?’ Looking out he realized, there is no India, there is no Shambhala, there’s no boat, no farmer. He was always in Shambhala. Realizing this he surrendered, knowing that giving selflessly and enjoying every second is all he can do, all he wishes to do, and all he need do. For the divine light and bliss of Shambhala is within us all, within each and every thing. So we abide in this, enjoy without thinking, let go our fantasy of separation, and thus respecting ourselves we respect others. Because all we are is others. So to change the world around us we change ourselves, because we are the world around us. So we extend ourselves out to the world, destroying the lie that we need to fend for ourselves. We can easily tap into the joy and blissful light, which pervades everything, and then we will know Shambhala. Thank you.”

  The lights go up as the crowd bursts out clapping, Paul smiles on the stage of life that he knows excludes no one.

  About the Author

  BRIAN E. MILLER is a writer and teacher born and raised on Long Island, New York. Growing up, Brian was always crafting stories, whether written or verbal, exhibiting a passion for storytelling from a very early age. Today his stories invite the reader to view their own lives through the lens of his unique and interesting characters along their journeys. Inspired by the magical places and people Brian has encountered along his own worldwide journeys, he creates stories that are not only fun and engaging but often reflect an underlying truth of humanity. Drawing on the mythology and heroes journey that we all walk in our lives, his teachings and writings entice us to delve deeply into the often dark recesses of the mind, discovering truths that can lead us to a more balanced, harmonious and purposeful life.

  After a career working in production for commercial television in New York, Brian’s dreams and ambitions of writing and teaching prompted him to leave it all behind in the midst of the worst recession he had ever known. A leap of faith took him on a journey to India, where he had visited a year prior working on a documentary film and recognizing a deep connection with both the people and the land, he knew he would return. This next trip, however, was taken alone, to travel, write and deepen his studies and practices of Buddhist Psychology and Yoga, both of which he had been a student and practitioner of for many years.

  Brian followed his heart along a fantastic journey with which he still travels today. His current novel, “Shambhala” was inspired by the magical places and people he had encountered along his often arduous and life-transforming trip to India and South East Asia. Brian is always writing, recently finishing the rough draft of his second novel, with several more already underway toward completion.