I’ve seen so much in the last two and a half years. Too much for my senses and
memory to take. Though
overwhelming, it’s not a bad thing in the slightest. Among these countless memories are a hefty lot of
experiences that have left me dumbstruck from the very first moment of
perception. Take the Leaning Tower for instance; once I
had laid my eyes upon it, I was absolutely amazed: my faculties
melted away, I felt half my weight, and every ounce of my perception and
attention remained fixed completely on the tower. I think this is true for everyone; it instantly grips you in
its uniqueness and spectacle, and holds you in what I would call a “fixated
stupor.”
First impressions, they say, are everything. In the case of a wonder of the world,
its first impression remains with you for the rest of your life. The state of “fixated stupor” is caused
by the enormous power of that first impression. Furthermore, I believe certain
places as designated as “wonders of the world” because it is before them that
this “fixated stupor” is felt most intensely. We do not forget that first impression because it says so
much. Thus we do not forget the
feeling of stupor that reinforces it.
Thus we do not forget that wonder of the world.
The length of the state of fixated stupor can be brief or
long, depending on the individual.
I remain captivated longer than the average person. Initially, at its strongest influence,
this fixated stupor—in which all of
my focus becomes directed to the thing in question as quick as the crack of a
whip, and I become oblivious to everything and everyone else around me such
that there is only me and the thing in question—can last as long as two to three
minutes. But think about it;
that’s a long time. An ordinary period of two or three
minutes is likely to be nothing significant in our everyday lives. Yet faced with something like the
Leaning Tower, those minutes stretch out as if being suddenly caught in the
gravity of a black hole…. You take
it all in, for what it is, from that glorious and striking instant of the first
impression until eventually the fixated stupor fades away and you feel your
feet land on the ground and everything and everyone else around you becomes
apparent again. But, the stupor doesn’t leave altogether;
you come back to reality while the remainder of the stupor accentuates your
senses. With your senses thus
enhanced you can appreciate the thing in question not just from the thing
itself, but from everything else around it, too. Like anything in the world it is related to other things
around it: the ground that holds it, the sky above it, the buildings or
vegetation or mountains or rivers nearby or in the distance, the other people
also admiring it and who may or may not be in their own fixated states
of stupor….
Now, I want to you to do something for me: keep this
progression of feelings and events in mind for the rest of the blog. In succession they are exactly what I felt from the moment I set my eyes on the Borobudur Temple, located in
Java, Indonesia. From that whip-crack
first impression I was reminded of how travel can be so tremendous, revealing,
and sublime.
I fell into a profound bout of fixated stupor that lasted as
long as two minutes. It’d been a
while since I’d been caught for that long…. It was in December 2014 when I’d last felt such power from a
wonder of the world. Which wonder
of the world? It was the Shwedagon
Pagoda, in Myanmar: a site more than 2000 years old, it is a Mecca of
Buddhism that until recently has remained hard to access for much of the world,
given all of Myanmar’s political troubles.
The pagoda was undergoing a re-finishing of gold after a
strong typhoon struck the area a month before. At first I was somewhat disappointed. However it quickly dawned on me; it wasn't so much the pagoda that holds all the grandeur. It was the site, and
all its unbelievable shrines, buildings, Buddhas, and artifacts. Everything was part of the whole; the site, not the pagoda.
It was there that I felt myself floating in a fixated stupor
for about five minutes.... Everything in my world was the white,
red, and gold of the site…. It was
a dream, I could have sworn…and yet there I was. People can overuse words like “amazing,” or
“unbelievable.” “Amazing” was
truly felt here; my mind was so immediately overtaken by the outside that my
surprise felt physical. The word “unbelievable” was truly
felt here; I couldn’t believe my perception. At all. No way
was this real…and yet…. To feel these words—incredible, awesome,
glorious—makes your existence transcendental. This transcendence is permanent.
After I touched the ground, I realized my friends wanted to
wander off around the pagoda. I
went with them.
I’d like to emphasize, once again, that the stupor doesn’t
fade away entirely. After coming
back down to Earth, the stupor
remains. Though in a subdued
form, it remains to guide your
thoughts, perception, and revelations but not to dominate you thoughts, perception, and revelations. I spent the rest of my time at the
Shwedagon Pagoda with my senses elevated and brightened by the stupor. I could then enjoy everything and
everybody else around it, and not just it.
And so the exact same
thing happened to me at Borobudur. The initial explosion of the first
impression gave me that fixated stupor, but even though the sound was fading I
could still feel the stupor. Once
all my attention wasn’t on initial blast of the explosion I could then focus
more clearly on everything else. Like
the good group of people I was with:
or the mountains in the background, no less a part of the site:
or the 100+F heat (which didn’t totally bother me but that I still wanted to forget!). And, the rest of the tourists wandering around and through the levels of the temple:
So, the remnants of the fixated stupor followed me toward our rendezvous point, and then throughout the levels of the temple.
Hell, even the soldiers were friendly! Some of us decided to pose with them; or rather, they decided to pose with us! |
or the mountains in the background, no less a part of the site:
or the 100+F heat (which didn’t totally bother me but that I still wanted to forget!). And, the rest of the tourists wandering around and through the levels of the temple:
So, the remnants of the fixated stupor followed me toward our rendezvous point, and then throughout the levels of the temple.
By the time we left the rendevous point, I felt my feet back on the ground. But I was
still gazing at the glory of the temple.
Kind of in between stupor and reality. Once we started our trek around the temple, and then up the temple steps, I
was able to see more of what makes the temple so special.
The temple walls are full of reliefs, all hand-carved. Around every corner were more reliefs, more artistry, more glory, more spirituality.
Just to give you an idea of how narrow the steps are. And below; the reliefs: |
The temple walls are full of reliefs, all hand-carved. Around every corner were more reliefs, more artistry, more glory, more spirituality.
The Borobudur Temple’s beginnings were in the 8th
century A.D. It is by far the largest Buddhist temple and monument in the
Southern Hemisphere, and indeed—like the Shwedagon Pagoda—one of the greatest
Buddhists monuments in the world. It
was built entirely out of volcanic rock.
Starting in the 1970’s great effort has been made to restore and
preserve the original temple.
Most Buddhist temples have a large stupa on their grounds. The stupa symbolizes the Buddha’s
mind. One walks around the stupa
to show respect and faith. Because
the right side of the body is considered the place of honor, one should
therefore walk around the stupa clockwise so that their right side faces it at
all times. In this way one shows
faith in the Buddha and his teachings.
Vertically, the base, body, and superstructure of the temple symbolize the three “spheres” of Buddhist cosmology. The base represents the sphere of desires (also called samsara), wherein people remain bound to attachment and ignorance; the body represents the sphere of form; and the superstructure represents the realm of formlessness.
The top level is nothing short of breathtaking. Here, the central stupa is surrounded by many smaller stupas. There are seventy-two in total and
within each resides a statue of the Buddha.
This guy on the bottom looks like I probably did at the time: excited, bewildered, awestruck, all of that good stuff. |
It was at the top, while looking all around, when I began to
perceive many other things. My
senses became gradually attuned to not only the uniqueness of the temple’s
details but to the mountains in the background:
and the tourists and young Indonesian students all around:
and the heat:
and the beautiful vegetation:
and the random buildings poking through the surface of the vegetation:
All of it, all of those things in relation to the temple, started to rival the first impression of the temple itself….
and the tourists and young Indonesian students all around:
and the heat:
The heavy rain clouds gathering over the hot land. |
and the beautiful vegetation:
and the random buildings poking through the surface of the vegetation:
All of it, all of those things in relation to the temple, started to rival the first impression of the temple itself….
Is the first
impression everything?
I don't think so.
It’s more like getting to know someone. Yes, the first impression can tell so much about a
person. As you get to know a
person, things from your first impression are often confirmed. Nevertheless, there are always more things revealed that weren’t
in that first impression. And some
contend you can’t really learn everything
about a person….
That’s how it is for traveling, too. Initially, the first impression shows
you so much. Once you dig deeper,
all those things reveal themselves to you even more so. But while exploring the area around the
Leaning Tower, the Grand Canyon, the Shwedagon Pagoda, Niagra Falls, the Golden
Gate Bridge, or the Borobudur Temple, new things are learned and more things
are perceived which both confirm that first impression and add to it. However there is a difference in meeting a person and meeting a wonder of the
world. The latter (almost always)
instantly strikes awe into the mind and suspends it in perceptual
ambrosia.
Perhaps, at times, the “traveler’s” first impression feels like everything, yet can mislead one into thinking the first impression
is satisfying enough. But no, it
is not enough. The impact from
first impressions in travel is far greater than first impressions from people,
but there is one aspect that is the same. Getting to know someone and getting to know a place has
exactly the same pursuits; you can’t truly know someone entirely, and you can’t
truly know a place entirely.
I believe one main reason why travel is so addicting is because of the pursuit of knowledge, of wanting to learn more and more. What’s the history of the people, of their culture, of their politics, economics, arts, philosophy, agriculture, religion, sciences, and traditions? And then dig deeper, so deep as to stretch the limits of what is possible: what’s the history of every street, building, park, plot of land, countryside…of every individual? Yes; the initially awe-inspiring stupor a place like Borobodur Temple gives us is tremendous, and says so much. And yet it might take a lifetime to learn everything about it and its locality. Therefore, this...
...and this...
...and this...
...cannot be everything. First impressions ultimately do not explain it all.
To conclude, I'll give you some links to learn more about Borobudur:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/592
http://www.buddhanet.net/boro.htm
Some great reads about the Shewdagon Pagoda:
http://www.shwedagonpagoda.com
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/myanmar-burma/yangon-rangoon/sights/religious/shwedagon-paya
And, the Leaning Tower; a great summation:
http://www.towerofpisa.org
I believe one main reason why travel is so addicting is because of the pursuit of knowledge, of wanting to learn more and more. What’s the history of the people, of their culture, of their politics, economics, arts, philosophy, agriculture, religion, sciences, and traditions? And then dig deeper, so deep as to stretch the limits of what is possible: what’s the history of every street, building, park, plot of land, countryside…of every individual? Yes; the initially awe-inspiring stupor a place like Borobodur Temple gives us is tremendous, and says so much. And yet it might take a lifetime to learn everything about it and its locality. Therefore, this...
...and this...
...and this...
...cannot be everything. First impressions ultimately do not explain it all.
To conclude, I'll give you some links to learn more about Borobudur:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/592
http://www.buddhanet.net/boro.htm
Some great reads about the Shewdagon Pagoda:
http://www.shwedagonpagoda.com
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/myanmar-burma/yangon-rangoon/sights/religious/shwedagon-paya
And, the Leaning Tower; a great summation:
http://www.towerofpisa.org
Disclaimer:
I do not intend to speak on behalf of Azamara Club Cruises. As an employee of Azamara Club Cruises, I hereby state that all views and expressions of opinion I hold are solely my own, and do not reflect or represent the views, values, beliefs, opinions, or company policies of ether Azamara Club Cruises or Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Additionally I neither own nor claim any legal rights to the links provided in this post.
Additionally I neither own nor claim any legal rights to the links provided in this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment