Arriving back home after three months of being in India was a mild culture shock. The first thing I noticed was all of the billboards lining the freeway as I drove from the airport with my dad. I felt both the sadness of leaving a country so rich in spiritual wisdom and the comfort of being able to roll down the window and breathe fresh clean air.

Traveling through India by train is both a joy and a slow torture when you are a large 6’2 man. On any plane, train, or automobile, it is almost a guarantee that your body will be forced to contort into some awkward physical posture or another. To make matters worse, I somehow ended up on the wrong train (with a much smaller bunk than I paid for) from New Delhi to McLeod Ganj.

After a circuitous trip that culminated in a grueling (and bumpy!) overnight taxi ride, myself and my travel companions (two nuns) pulled into Mundgod, India. We quickly learned that getting into Drepung Monastery was not going to be as easy as we thought.

Flying into Bodhgaya, India was like entering a time warp. As my taxi drove down a tiny two lane road, black smoke spewed, horns honked, and huts and ox-drawn carts lined the road. Bodhgaya (the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment) is ironically centered in Bihar, one of the poorest Indian states.

Cooking and attending to my teacher Geshe Tsulga was one of the most precious periods of my Buddhist life. For three years he was often the first person I saw in the morning, and his gentle smile and joyful “good morning!” always made it worth the early rise to cook him breakfast.

The first time I met Lama Zopa Rinpoche it was sort of like meeting God. Walking into the room, he filled it with a curious other worldly presence. As the other students bowed down or cried as he touched their heads, I felt a strange combination of fear, as if my ego was going to be annihilated on the spot, and a deep exhale as if arriving home.

Dissolution, you are crushing. Like a hammer striking, you obliterate indecision and shyness. I love and hate you dissolution, you are a cruel muse that belts such wise and brutal tunes.

Each day we wake up and face the unknown, that vast space of possibilities yet to be experienced. We arise anew, coming face to face with it. Yet it is so easy to miss this magic dance, writing it off as we solidify our impending day dream.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980’s and 90’s. Raised Jewish, I went to Hebrew school like any good little reformed Jewish boy. I loved going because I could sneak into the back with friends and smoke cigarettes.

A parachute is something we normally think of as a kind of refuge. A tool that if utilized in the right situation can mean the difference between life and death.