Today we attended a retreat and workshop put on by the Ahimsa Trust. The mission statement of the trust is to ‘cultivate mindfulness for a peaceful world,’ though none of us truly knew what this would entail. The trust teaches taking inspiration from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk who based his teachings around the vital nature of mindfulness. We began the retreat with a 30 minute meditation, aiming to create a feeling of understanding and compassion for ourselves and our parents/family members by imagining them as five year old children. The nun leading this meditation called on us to reflect on the innocent, and pure nature of a five year old, untouched by the hardening nature of the world. By keeping compassion in our hearts for this five year both within us, and our parents, we hold compassion in us for the people that that five year old has grown into.  

Following this meditation we began the first (and final) workshop of the retreat. Despite the fact that we had missed the first two days and lessons of the workshop, the lessons we were taught today were still entirely comprehensible. I have struggled with presence and detachment for most of my life, with the consequence truly coming to fruition many times during this trip. Due to lack of presence, I lost much awareness of the feelings within my body, was filled with anxiety, and shifted my focus entirely to the overbearing thoughts in my mind. This caused me to suffer, though I had no idea why. In today’s lesson, a monk went over the teachings of the Buddha, and the eightfold path. Much of the teachings within this lesson stemmed from an awareness in the body, something I had been greatly lacking. One way to reconnect to the body, the monk said, was to consciously focus on the breath, as, “the breath is the spirit.” If we understand the nature of our breath, we understand the nature of our spirit. The next step, following an awareness of the breath, is to consciously relax your body. Through relaxing your body, you acquire a greater connection to the true emotions taking place within your body.

Once we went over the importance of connection to the body, it was time to understand the importance of suffering. I had been avoiding, or losing myself in my suffering for much of my time here in India, rarely allowing myself the space to examine why the emotion was present. The monk taught that the way to overcome these unpleasant feelings was to simply calm, and open our mind. From there we must notice the mental afflictions that we hold- feelings, ideas, emotions, and concentrate our focus on them. Therefore allowing yourself to be liberated from them. Suffering is not to be avoided, but instead, should be attempted to be understood. 

Though there were countless teachings today that created an impact, these were the ones that I found affected me the deepest. It is not just something that has changed my thinking for a day, but teachings that I hope to bring with me every day from here on out. As the Ahimsa Trust directs, “the only way out, is in.” Through investing time into understanding yourself and your emotions, you change and affect not just you, but the world around you. -Emi Lord

On our last day in India, we were invited to join a mindfulness retreat that was hosted by the Ahimsa Trust. The retreat was led by a group of Buddhist monastics from Plum Village, who follow the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn.  The name of the retreat was, “The way out is in,” and a very large part of it had to do with looking within yourself and seeing how our own suffering is almost always caused by our own preconceived notions and ideas.

We started the day with a guided meditation led by one of the monks. It was an enlightening experience because it gave me a perspective that I hadn’t really had before. It was about envisioning ourselves as five year old children; easy to laugh, easy to cry, and easy to forgive. It went on to have us envision our parents in the same way. As five year old children; easy to love, easy to cry, and easy to forgive. While I don’t have disdain for my parents, the exercise was still a great way for me as a daughter to see my parents in a different light. Knowing that they were also children, and that they are still dealing with any conflict experienced at that time of their life, made me extremely grateful for them and the life that I have been given the opportunity to live.

The next part of the retreat was a Dharma talk led by another one of the monks. He branched off of the guided meditation and expanded the understanding for our parents as children to include anyone who has made us angry or made us suffer. He explained that the power of imagining anyone as a child can truly change the way you view them. It can bring you a deeper understanding of why they act the way that they do, and that if someone is making us suffer, whether intentionally or not, it’s because they have suffered themselves and have not reconciled with that suffering. According to him, the reason for our suffering is our preconceived notions and ideas. We have notions of everyone around us and especially about ourselves. We cause ourselves so much suffering because we have a notion of self. “You think you know who you are, but you’re not them…’self’ is apart of everying thing that is not ‘self.’” Essentially coming back to this idea of interconnectedness. That everything is empty of an independent reality. Everything is built upon the basis of everything else. All of our actions and even feelings are affecting living beings across the world. Shunyata. So in order to try and relieve our suffering, we must let go of all of these notions and accept and understand.

Near the end of the retreat, there was a question and answer session where the participants could come up and ask the monks a question. I went up and asked how we are able to choose the path of mindfulness and compassion even though at times it seems so much easier to succumb to anger and competition? The answer was essentially that while, yes, there is constant suffering and a seemingly never-ending stream of scary stories on the news, there are always people doing good. He gave me examples he had seen in his brief time in India, such as people giving shelter and feeding poor people in Old Delhi.  He said that just the fact that so many people were at the retreat shows that there are many people who are striving for a better world. With so much negativity being pushed down our throats, it is difficult to put a spotlight on all of the people who are fighting for the good of humanity. It is important to acknowledge the good in everything and count our blessings. To always be thankful for the things you have instead of wishing for the things you don’t. -Lagi Hunnicutt

Architecture in Agra

The morning started at a brisk 6am and the Taj Mahal was our first stop for the day. Luckily, our hotel was about 45 seconds away from the entrance by car. The entrance gate was more crowded with tourists than Rishikesh. For the majority of our trip we had been the only foreigners around for miles, and now we were nine out of about 50 thousand. I had forgotten how much I dislike the feeling of being a “tourist.” Also, apparently, you can’t bring a notebook and pencil into the Taj grounds. So, while I was hoping this blog writing would come along with a nice sketch of the magnificent white marble clad tomb, it seems my innocent face was not enough to convince the security team. All jokes aside, I understand why they wouldn’t let writing implements through as I’ll discuss later with the Agra Fort. I also wouldn’t want my beautiful creation to be defiled by those who are probably just going to say they’ve been there.

It is no secret that the Taj Mahal is an incredible building, but it might be that it isn’t the most impressive thing about the grounds. The most impressive thing has to be the planning. Most of the techniques used on the Taj itself were used on other parts of the build site, from the layering of arches to turn a square into a dome, to the optical illusion of equality of size in the inlay Arabic writings by steadily increasing the size as you go further up. The build site was put right next to a bend in the river so that the slower moving water would erode the bank less quickly, and cause a cooler climate. The land itself was purchased in exchange for five large houses. The four gates are perfectly in line with the tomb inside the Taj. There are four gardens with a pool in the center which when combined is called the paradise garden. Its proximity to the river allowed for its main entrance, during its use, to actually be a river gate. A mosque was built on one side facing east so the other side had to be a guest house and the space could maintain the symmetry. 

The second place we visited was the Agra Fort. A large compound built with both barracks and a palace, so in short, a castle. It has all the bells and whistles a highly defensible position should have. A drawbridge, flared ramparts for arrows, spouts for water runoff and dropping hot oil on attackers, and last but not least, a ramp for flaming boulders to roll down, because of course you need one of those. Once you make it past those defenses you are met with some astoundingly intricate construction. The palace has more hallways and passages than I cared to count, each one has immense detail and there is even a view of the Taj from the back side of the palace. If you look closely at the walls and pillars of the palace, you will see what seem to be beautiful multi-colored paintings of flowers. In reality, they are semi-precious and precious gemstones inlaid on white marble. One design of a flower contained tiger’s eye, mossy agate, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. This style of inlay is a signature of the Mughal Empire. 

Another astounding thing was the amount of detail that was carved into seemingly unimportant places. Small pillars far below eye level and braces high above eye level, not to mention in one entrance there are four identical arches placed in line with each other so you can only really see the bottoms of the middle two, and yet, they are still fully detailed. While looking straight up to see that they were in fact fully detailed I realised that a bat family was making good use of the intricate but unseen grooves in the red sandstone. I’m glad that at least it’s being utilized by some creature since most humans passing through won’t ever notice.

All in all, the more touristy experience was less fulfilling to our interpersonal discovery, though I must say rather pleasing to the eye as well as the designer’s mind.-Mordecai Coleman

Taj Mahal and Red Fort

While staying in Agra, we visited the Taj Mahal. Our guide told us about the history of the beautiful landmark. The Taj was completed in 1648 and currently stands at 240 ft tall and is made out of a base of bricks, with an outer layer of white marble. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees; today the estimated price would be around 879 billion US dollars.

The Taj Mahal was built as a tomb for Mumtaz Mahal by her husband, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān. She died while giving birth to her 14th child. Although she gave birth 14 times, only 7 of her children, 3 girls and 4 boys survived.  After his passing, the king’s remains were entombed at the Taj as well. 

The emperor and his wife met when they were only 15 years old, and it was supposedly love at first sight, and they got married 5 years later. Shah Jahān was imprisoned in the Agra Red Fort during the construction of the Taj Mahal. He was actually imprisoned by his own son and remained there for 8 years. From where he was held he could watch the Taj Mahal being built, even from about 2 miles away. The section where the king was imprisoned was made out of the same white marble material used on the Taj. -Chloe Smith

Today we went to visit Lama Tenzin Choegyal at his organization the C.E.D. Institute, Children’s Educational Development, an orphanage for neglected children of the Himalayas. He also runs many other initiatives including G.I.F.T., Girls’ Institute For Technology, empowering disabled girls from remote villages of the Himalayas. When we arrived we were greeted by the children and young adults. They were all very excited to see us.

Lama Tenzin Choegyal arrived shortly after us because he was out shopping. We walked inside and there was a big table with samosas and different kinds of tea and all of the children sat with us. After we were all settled Lama Tenzin Choegyal told us the stories of each of the children, and he went in order from the youngest children to the oldest. Telling us the details of the circumstances that the children were in and what he had to do in order to get them to India. One of the older boys arrived in need of medical care. The doctors in India said it was a 50% chance that he would actually get better. After hearing this, the Lama got the boy a visa to travel to the U.S. because the doctors in the United States said that they could perform the surgery with better chances of the boy getting better. The Lama travelled with the boy to the U.S at the age of 2 and the surgery was successful. He is now studying to become an optometrist. 

Even without having an obligation to help these children Lama Choegyal does it out of the goodness of his heart. You can tell that the children have been raised well. They welcomed us with open arms, gave us gifts, as well as just having the most wonderful conversations with us.-Chloe Smith

We had the opportunity to visit Aasraa Trust today in Dehradun. The Aasraa Trust is an organization that takes in children who come from extreme poverty, abusive households, or have been abandoned and gives them shelter and education through a number of different initiatives. 

We first got to see the science and tinker labs. They contained many amazing projects that the 11th grade class made. There were inventions for automatic pet feeders to help the stray dogs get food, there were rain-proof stadiums, more efficient irrigation systems, and even an entire speaker system made from recycled tin cans. The kids were brilliant and so enthusiastic about their work. You could tell that they loved what they created. The kids even showed us how to play a new game called Koko which I definitely think we need to bring back to the U.S.

After seeing the labs, we went to another location which was the Aasraa Trust’s girls shelter and school. Around 200 lived there. They were excited to see and interact with us. They showed us dances, yoga, and a prayer and we played a game of musical chairs which was super fun. 

After the game and other activities, we met Shaila Brijnath who is the founder and head of the Aasraa Trust. Before starting the organization she worked as a European Equity Trader in London, Paris and New York for 15 years. In 2009 she decided to leave her profession and start an after-school program. At the beginning it only had 35 kids and they ran it underneath a highway bridge. Now Aasraa Trust impacts over 4000 children. She was an amazing person to speak to, her presence was so loving and funny, but she was stern and serious when needed. 

The work Shaila has dedicated her life to has been such a journey and she takes pride in it to the fullest. Her organization has bloomed organically and with sheer love and dedication to these children. Each and every one of the girls at the shelter had a story to tell and I wish we had more time to be able to stay and listen to all of them. The next time that I come to India the Aasraa Trust is a place that I truly want to come back to.-Lagi Hunnicutt 

We arrived at the Sri Ram Ashram Thursday afternoon and left Wednesday morning. The kids at the Ashram were very welcoming; they immediately want you to sit down next to them for meal time and ask you a bunch of questions relating to where you are from. A lot of the kids speak very good English, and the ones who don’t are still friendly and eager to communicate.

One of the games that they like to play is Ultimate Frisbee. The first time I played with Ashram kids was my first time ever playing and because of that, I didn’t play very well. I didn’t have the best positioning, I couldn’t throw the frisbee very well, and I had difficulty intercepting the frisbee while it was in the air. Nevertheless,I had fun playing, as well as seeing my peers and the Ashram kid’s athletic abilities. 

My second time playing,  I improved a lot. I understood all the rules. I could intercept the frisbee, but I still was not good at throwing. At the beginning of the game, Mordy and I were assigned as team captains. I did my best to recreate the team that I had in the first game because I knew them well and understood how they played in correspondence with each other.  During this game, I collided with two separate teammates. One on offense and one on defense. As expected, my team obliterated Mordy’s team.

The last game that I played went super well. Both teams had good coordination and we had a blast. Post game I found out that they only play Ultimate Frisbee when Mount Madonna students come to visit. -Nash Wilson

Sri Ram Ashram: Om Bhavan

The Om Bhavan or guest house at Sri Ram Ashram is a three story building with a roof space for drying clothes and housing their solar panels. The main thing I noticed about the rooms was the emphasis on functional space, while still having a bit of flair. There were two beds to a room with plenty of floor and shelf space. The bathroom is just as big as it needs to be (which is not very big). The walls are sky blue with a more earthy stained wood trim for the doors and windows. The curtains have detailed but not cluttered floral patterns on them as do the mattress toppers. Inside the closet are two paintings, one of Hanuman and the other of Saraswati, two very important figures to the Ashram and Mount Madonna communities. The  bathroom has a blue and white color scheme with the tiles on the floor being both colors with a sort of granite pattern. The tiles on the wall are a dark blue. Each room also has not one but two ceiling fans as it can get a little warm at times, especially after playing outside with the kids for a few hours. Many westerners would consider this living arrangement too simple. I’d like to challenge them to find something they absolutely have to do every day that this room would not accommodate.

I should also mention for those who don’t know, that the Sri Ram Ashram was started by the same people that started the Mount Madonna Center and Hanuman Temple in California. It seems to me that the ideals of Baba Hari Das as well as his students and friends are reflected in the design and setup of these rooms. 

As for the interpersonal aspect of the Om Bhavan, this guest house is not a place where the Ashram kids are allowed to go besides the library on the bottom floor. It houses staff and of course any guests that have come to visit. Currently, we are here with a few others in their early 20’s and 30’s who are working as teachers at the school as well as waiting for job placements from their employers. Everyone here is very kind and has a lot of good insight on India and how the Ashram works. As a side note most of them are also fantastic dancers. -Mordecai Coleman

Once a month, Sri Ram Ashram hosts a collective birthday party for all the children born that month. This month, we had the pleasure of attending and celebrating with them.

In preparation for the party, we spent several days learning two dances from an older girl named Preeti and practicing them so we would be ready to perform.

On the day of the celebration, all the girls were fitted for sarees—a traditional garment worn by women, typically for special occasions. Many of my classmates had worn sarees before for our production of the Ramayana, but since this was my first time, I was incredibly excited.

One of the sweetest moments was witnessing the children’s—especially the girls’—reaction to us wearing their traditional clothing. Sarees are a beautifully intricate part of Indian culture, often reserved for significant celebrations, so wearing them felt incredibly special. It was a true honor to be embraced in this tradition for the party.

That evening, we celebrated three girls at the ashram who had birthdays that month. To honor them, we created signs and cards that were later presented during the ceremony.

At the start of the celebration, the birthday girls sat at a table onstage while they were introduced and given their cards. Each girl also received a cake of her choice. This part of the event was brief, as there were many more ways for the children to celebrate together. For example, after dinner and cake, the youngest girls performed a dance they had prepared. In fact, most of the girls at the ashram had put together dances for the occasion and were eager to share them.

Finally, it was our turn to perform. Every year, MMS students prepare a song to share with the ashram. This year, we chose “Rama O Rama” and “Lakshman Brother Lakshman,” both songs from our school’s version of the Ramayana. We were thrilled to offer this to them, as they had shared so many of their gifts with us.

After our song, it was time for our dance. Though we were nervous, we felt prepared after four days of practice. When we finished, the children called for an encore, so we performed again—this time inviting our chaperones to join us onstage.

Afterward, the children rushed the stage for photos, followed by an impromptu dance party. With every song, the children came alive, singing every word and performing synchronized dances with boundless energy. It was a beautiful reminder of how deeply dance, music, and joy are woven into life at the ashram.

The night was magical—filled with love, laughter, and shared traditions. The ashram girls dressed us in their traditional clothing and welcomed us with such warmth. It was an unforgettable experience, and I feel so grateful to have been part of it. -Emi Lord

Moti Bazaar, another one of India’s markets, the Main Street is not more than a mile long and packed with thousands of people each day. This time of year, with Shivaratri fast approaching, the city of Haridwar is multiple times more packed than usual, making it both a sensory hellscape as well as an amazing reminder of just how many people there are in our world. If you’ve ever gotten the feeling that you’re small while looking at the stars, looking at the streets here is a very similar feeling though with a little less time to process it. And, all while being swarmed by every person who could possibly ask you to spend your money.

 Luckily, we had some helpful guides who knew the place. A few of our older friends from Sri Ram Ashram led two groups through the market. Now, if you want to buy bangles, fancy rings or items for worship, it is the best market to go to. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the market for any of those things, so I got to spend my time actually taking things in, while failing to find any Kurtas (the male equivalent of a sari) that weren’t thin and made of cotton. Our friend Neha told us that this was because of the location of the market and the time of year. As for the flow of the market, it is pretty swift. I was honestly really impressed with how slow the second group managed to walk. It’s almost like they stopped to look at every Bangle they saw. We moved our way through the market and I noticed that the shops were basically just repeating with a few variations of course; an alleyway with a huge snack shop, a spice shop with a few powders I’ve never heard of before, and a few with different woodworks. For the most part though, if you’ve walked fifty feet you’ve walked the whole mile or so. The variety wasn’t anywhere near as vast as the streets of Dharamshala though the volume was much higher.

The thought of just how many people are moving through these large markets at all hours of the day is sort of incomprehensible. They just aren’t numbers we are used to thinking about. The human mind can maintain active relationships with about 150 people and perceives almost no difference between 250 and 500 people. In the almost two hours we spent there, we would have seen at least sixteen thousand and that is a low estimate considering the proximity of Shivaratri. The feeling was surreal. -Mordecai Coleman