Summary of "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life"

Reading the "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" book by Marshall B. Rosenberg was on the top of my list for a while. Google used to conduct courses on it which were highly rated and many friends had recommended the book as well. I finally got to reading this and I am glad I did. Although I don't agree with everything in the book and am not convinced that the approach can be applied as is all the time, I still think that the core ideas are worth heeding and implementing as much as possible. Even just being aware of these ideas can bring a great difference in how we think and communicate. In fact, as I write this summary, I can already see improvement in my quality of conversations! I rate the book highly and one of those which I would like to re-read periodically.

The book explores how peaceful communication can create compassionate connections in personal and professional settings and uses stories and dialogues to provide solutions to communication problems. Guidance is provided on identifying and articulating feelings and needs, expressing anger fully, and exploring the power of empathy in order to speak honestly without creating hostility, break patterns of thinking that lead to anger and depression, and communicate compassionately.

Here is my summary of the sections I found important in the book. I would definitely recommend everyone to read this book.

1. The NVC Process

Four components of NVC:

1. Observation: what are we observing others saying or doing that is affecting us? The trick is to be able to articulate this observation without introducing any judgment or evaluation—to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like.
2. Feeling: we state how we feel when we observe this action: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated, etc.?
3. Needs: we say what needs of ours are connected to the feelings we have identified.
4. Request: what we are wanting from the other person that would enrich our lives.

E.g. a mother might express these three pieces to her teenage son by saying, “Felix, when I see two balls of soiled socks under the coffee table and another three next to the TV, I feel irritated because I am needing more order in the rooms that we share in common.” She would follow immediately with the fourth component—a very specific request: “Would you be willing to put your socks in your room or in the washing machine?” 

Thus, part of NVC is to express these four pieces of information very clearly, whether verbally or by other means. The other aspect of this communication consists of receiving the same four pieces of information from others. We connect with them by first sensing what they are observing, feeling, and needing, and then discover what would enrich their lives by receiving the fourth piece, their request.

It is possible to experience all four pieces of the process without uttering a single word. The essence of NVC is to be found in our consciousness of these four components, not in the actual words that are exchanged.

My summary of NVC:

• What happened?
• How did it make me feel?
• Why did it make me feel that way?
• What could be done to change it?

By going through this process we are able to break the stimuli-response chain.

Author's experience

I was presenting Nonviolent Communication in a mosque at Deheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem to about 170 Palestinian Moslem men. Attitudes toward Americans at that time were not favorable. As I was speaking, I suddenly noticed a wave of muffled commotion fluttering through the audience. “They’re whispering that you are American!” my translator alerted me, just as a gentleman in the audience leapt to his feet. Facing me squarely, he hollered at the top of his lungs, “Murderer!” Immediately a dozen other voices joined him in chorus: “Assassin!” “Child-killer!” “Murderer!” Fortunately, I was able to focus my attention on what the man was feeling and needing. In this case, I had some cues. On the way into the refugee camp, I had seen several empty tear gas canisters that had been shot into the camp the night before. Clearly marked on each canister were the words “Made in U.S.A.” I knew that the refugees harbored a lot of anger toward the U.S. for supplying tear gas and other weapons to Israel. I addressed the man who had called me a murderer:

I: Are you angry because you would like my government to use its resources differently? (I didn’t know whether my guess was correct, but what is critical is my sincere effort to connect with his feeling and need.)
He: Damn right I’m angry! You think we need tear gas? We need sewers, not your tear gas! We need housing! We need to have our own country!
I: So you’re furious and would appreciate some support in improving your living conditions and gaining political independence?
He: Do you know what it’s like to live here for twenty seven years the way I have with my family—children and all? Have you got the faintest idea what that’s been like for us?
I: Sounds like you’re feeling very desperate and you’re wondering whether I or anybody else can really understand what it’s like to be living under these conditions. Am I hearing you right?
He: You want to understand? Tell me, do you have children? Do they go to school? Do they have playgrounds? My son is sick! He plays in open sewage! His classroom has no books! Have you seen a school that has no books?
I: I hear how painful it is for you to raise your children here; you’d like me to know that what you want is what all parents want for their children—a good education, opportunity to play and grow in a healthy environment . . .
He: That’s right, the basics! Human rights—isn’t that what you Americans call it? Why don’t more of you come here and see what kind of human rights you’re bringing here!
I: You’d like more Americans to be aware of the enormity of the suffering here and to look more deeply at the consequences of our political actions? 

Our dialogue continued, with him expressing his pain for nearly twenty more minutes, and I listen for the feeling and need behind each statement. I didn’t agree or disagree. I received his words, not as attacks, but as gifts from a fellow human willing to share his soul and deep vulnerabilities with me. Once the gentleman felt understood, he was able to hear me as I explained my purpose for being at the camp. An hour later, the same man who had called me a murderer was inviting me to his home for a Ramadan dinner.

2. Communication That Blocks Compassion

Being compassionate is our natural state. Certain ways of communicating alienate us from it.

Moralistic Judgments

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” - Rumi

• Moralistic judgments that imply wrongness on the part of people who don’t act in harmony with our values. 
• Such judgments are reflected in the language such as, “The problem with you is that you’re too selfish.” “She’s lazy.” “They’re prejudiced.” “It’s inappropriate.” Blame, insults, put-downs, labels, criticism, comparisons, and diagnoses are all forms of judgment. 
• When we speak this language, we think and communicate in terms of what’s wrong with others for behaving in certain ways, or occasionally, what’s wrong with ourselves for not understanding or responding as we would like. Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and not getting. Thus if my partner wants more affection than I’m giving her, she is “needy and dependent.” But if I want more affection than she is giving me, then she is “aloof and insensitive.” 
• It is my belief that all such analyses of other human beings are tragic expressions of our own values and needs. They are tragic because, when we express our values and needs in this form, we increase defensiveness and resistance to them among the very people whose behaviors are of concern to us. Or, if they do agree to act in harmony with our values not because they concur with our analysis of their wrongness, they will likely do so out of fear, guilt, or shame.
• We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs, not out of a desire to give from the heart, but out of fear, guilt, or shame. Sooner or later, we will experience the consequences of diminished goodwill on the part of those who comply with our values out of a sense of either external or internal coercion. They, too, pay emotionally, for they are likely to feel resentment and decreased self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear, guilt, or shame. Furthermore, each time others associate us in their minds with any of those feelings, we decrease the likelihood of their responding compassionately to our needs and values in the future.
• It is important here not to confuse value judgments and moralistic judgments. All of us make value judgments as to the qualities we value in life; for example, we might value honesty, freedom, or peace. Value judgments reflect our beliefs of how life can best be served. We make moralistic judgments of people and behaviors that fail to support our value judgments, e.g. “Violence is bad. People who kill others are evil.” Had we been raised speaking a language that facilitated the expression of compassion, we would have learned to articulate our needs and values directly, rather than to insinuate wrongness when they have not been met. For example, instead of “Violence is bad,” we might say instead, “I am fearful of the use of violence to resolve conflicts; I value the resolution of human conflicts through other means.” 
• A researcher took random samples of pieces of literature from many countries over the world and tabulated the frequency of words that classify and judge people. His study shows a high correlation between the frequent use of such words and incidences of violence. It does not surprise me to hear that there is considerably less violence in cultures where people think in terms of human needs than in cultures where people label one another as “good” or “bad” and believe that the “bad” ones deserve to be punished.
• At the root of much, if not all, violence—whether verbal, psychological, or physical, whether among family members, tribes, or nations—is a kind of thinking that attributes the cause of conflict to wrongness in one’s adversaries, and a corresponding inability to think of oneself or others in terms of vulnerability—what one might be feeling, fearing, yearning for, missing, etc.
• Comparisons are a form of judgment.

Open questions/meta-points

• Aren't there some values that are universal? Wouldn't not valuing them be bad.
• Nikhil mentioned that labeling can be non-violent also if we are aware of the reason behind it. E.g. we might label someone as violent, but if we are aware that they are so because of the situations they went through as a child, we probably would still be kind to them.

Denial Of Responsibility

"The horrors that we have seen, the still greater horrors we shall presently see, are not signs that rebels, insubordinate, untamable men are increasing in number throughout the world, but rather that there is a constant increase in the number of obedient, docile men." - George Bernanos

• We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.
• The lack of responsibility in our language can lead us to cause great violence (physical, mental etc). E.g.
• “I cleaned my room because I had to.” -- results in resentment
• “I hit my child because he ran into the street.” -- blaming on the actions of others
• “I lied to the client because the boss told me to.” -- blaming on the actions of others
• “I started smoking because all my friends did.” -- blaming on the actions of others
• “I hate giving grades. I don’t think they are helpful and they create a lot of anxiety on the part of students. But I have to give grades: it’s the district policy.” vs “I choose to give grades because I want to keep my job.”. This results in much less resentment.

My summary: The core idea here is recognizing that the stimulus is often inside and not outside. E.g. I hit the child because I was angry, not because he ran into the street. Only when we take responsibility for our actions, then can we change them.

Communicating desires as demands

• A demand explicitly or implicitly threatens listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply.
• Demand-led actions lead to retaliation.

3. NVC Step 1: Observing Without Evaluating

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

• The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation from evaluation. We need to clearly observe what we are seeing, hearing, or touching that is affecting our sense of well-being, without mixing in any evaluation.
• When we combine observation with evaluation, however, we decrease the likelihood that others will hear our intended message.
• NVC does not mandate that we remain completely objective and refrain from evaluating. It only requires that we maintain a separation between our observations and our evaluations. NVC is a process language that discourages static generalizations; instead, evaluations are to be based on observations specific to time and context.
• For most of us, this objective separation is difficult.

Distinguishing Observations From Evaluations

Author's experience 

During a workshop I was conducting, someone raised a hand and declared, “You’re the most arrogant speaker we’ve ever had!” 

MBR: (guessing at the observations he was making) Are you reacting to my having taken 30 straight minutes to present my views before giving you a chance to talk?
Phil: No, you make it sound so simple.
MBR: (trying to obtain further clarification) Are you reacting to my not having said anything about how the process can be difficult for some people to apply?
Phil: No, not some people—you!
MBR: So you’re reacting to my not having said that the process can be difficult for me at times?
Phil: That’s right.
MBR: Are you feeling annoyed because you would have liked some sign from me that indicated that I have some problems with the process myself?
Phil: (after a moment’s pause) That’s right.
MBR: (More relaxed now that I am in touch with the person’s feeling and need, I direct my attention to what he might be requesting of me) Would you like me to admit right now that this process can be a struggle for me to apply?
Phil: Yes.
MBR: (Having gotten clear on his observation, feeling, need, and request, I check inside myself to see if I am willing to do as he requests) Yes, this process is often difficult for me. As we continue with the workshop, you’ll probably hear me describe several incidents where I’ve struggled . . . or completely lost touch . . . with this process, this consciousness, that I am presenting here to you. But what keeps me in the struggle are the close connections to other people that happen when I do stay with the process.

My summary: Without specific observations, past biases tend to obscure the reality and any downstream actions are then in ignorance.

4. NVC Step 2: Identifying and Expressing Feelings

The Heavy Cost Of Unexpressed Feelings

• Our repertoire of words for calling people names is often larger than our vocabulary of words that allow us to clearly describe our emotional states.
• The difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings is common, and in my experience, especially so among lawyers, engineers, police officers, corporate managers, and career military personnel—people whose professional codes discourage them from manifesting emotions.
• One dissatisfied woman brought her spouse to a workshop, during which she told him, “I feel like I’m married to a wall.” The husband then did an excellent imitation of a wall: he sat mute and immobile. Exasperated, she turned to me and exclaimed, “See! This is what happens all the time. He sits and says nothing. It’s just like living with a wall.” “It sounds to me like you are feeling lonely and wanting more emotional contact with your husband,” I responded. When she agreed, I tried to show how statements such as “I feel like I’m living with a wall” are unlikely to bring her feelings and desires to her husband’s attention. In fact, they are more likely to be heard as criticism than an invitation to connect with our feelings. Furthermore, such statements often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. A husband, for example, hears himself criticized for behaving like a wall; he is hurt and discouraged and doesn’t respond, thereby confirming his wife’s image of him as a wall.
• Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts. 
• NVC distinguishes the expression of actual feelings from words and statements that describe thoughts, assessments, and interpretations.
• A vocabulary of feelings can help in their expression (link).

My summary: Identifying feelings is important as without that it's hard to find what is causing it e.g. what need is being unmet.

5. NVC Step 3: Taking Responsibility For Our Feelings

“People are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them.” —Epictetus

Hearing A Negative Message: Four Options

• What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.
• Our feelings result from how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as our particular needs and expectations in that moment.
• Four options of receiving a negative message.
• Blaming ourselves: We accept the other person’s judgment and blame ourselves resulting in guilt, shame, and depression.
• Blaming others: Results in anger.
• Sensing our own feelings and needs: For example, in response to “You’re the most self-centered person I’ve ever met,” we might reply, “When I hear you saying that I am the most self-centered person you’ve ever met, I feel hurt, because I need some recognition of my efforts to be considerate of your preferences.” By focusing attention on our own feelings and needs, we become conscious that our current feeling of hurt derives from a need for our efforts to be recognized.
• Sensing others’ feelings and needs: We might, for example, ask, “Are you feeling hurt because you need more consideration for your preferences?”
• The basic mechanism of motivating by guilt is to attribute the responsibility for one’s own feelings to others. E.g. when parents say, “It hurts Mommy and Daddy when you get poor grades at school”.
• We can deepen our awareness of our own responsibility by using the phrase, “I feel . . . because I . . . ” 

We accept responsibility rather than blame other people for our feelings by acknowledging our own needs, desires, expectations, values, or thoughts. Note the difference between the following expressions of disappointment:

A: “You disappointed me by not coming over last evening.”
B: “I was disappointed when you didn’t come over because I wanted to talk over some things.”
Speaker A attributes responsibility for the disappointment solely to the action of the other person. In B, the feeling of disappointment is traced to the speaker’s own desire that was not being fulfilled. 

Example 2
A: “Their canceling the contract really irritated me!”
B: “When they canceled the contract, I felt really irritated because I was hoping for an opportunity to re-hire the workers we had laid off last year.”

The Needs At The Roots Of Feelings

• Judgments, criticisms, diagnoses, and interpretations of others are all alienated expressions of our needs.
• “You never understand me,” they are really telling us that their need to be understood is not being fulfilled. 
• We are accustomed to thinking about what’s wrong with other people when our needs aren’t being fulfilled. 
• When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism resulting in self-defense or counterattack.
• If we express our needs, we have a better chance of getting them met.
• List of basic human needs.

From Emotional Slavery To Emotional Liberation

In the course of developing emotional responsibility, most of us experience three stages:

1. “emotional slavery”—believing ourselves responsible for the feelings of others, 
2. “the obnoxious stage”—in which we refuse to admit to caring what anyone else feels or needs, and 
3. “emotional liberation”—in which we accept full responsibility for our own feelings but not the feelings of others while being aware that we can never meet our own needs at the expense of others.

My summary: Blame the need, not the person. This would make you more compassionate towards the person. This also helps avoid the other person to become defensive or counter-attacking and thus results in better reaching a solution.

6. NVC Step 4: Requesting That Which Would Enrich Life

• Use positive language. Express what you want, not what you don't.
• Avoid vague, abstract, or ambiguous phrasing.
• Word the requests in the form of concrete actions that others can undertake.
• Expressing needs concretely can also help the request maker see if their requests are unjustified. E.g. A father wanted his son to be more responsible, but when asked to express this more concretely, it turned out he wanted sleepish obedience which he himself found incorrect.
• People are often depressed when their needs are not being met. The most common reason for their needs being unmet is not that others are failing to meet them but they themselves don't know what they want and hence, don't ask for their needs. 
• Whenever we say something to another person, we are requesting something in return.
• Group meetings often waste time on fruitless discussions. When someone brings up a topic/story, members should ask, "What response are we wanting from the group from this?".
• Requests are received as demands when others believe they will be blamed or punished if they do not comply. When people hear us make a demand, they see only two options: submission or rebellion. Either way, the person requesting is perceived as coercive, and the listener’s capacity to respond compassionately to the request is diminished. Both listener and requester carry this to future relations.
• How to tell if it’s a demand or a request: Observe what the speaker does if the request is not complied with. If the response of noncompliance is punishment, judgment or guilt-trap, it's not a request.
• The more we interpret noncompliance as rejection, the more likely our requests will be heard as demands. This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, for the more people hear demands, the less they enjoy being around us.
• We can help others trust that we are requesting, not demanding, by indicating that we would only want the person to comply if he or she can do so willingly. Thus we might ask, “Would you be willing to set the table?” rather than “I would like you to set the table.” 
• The most powerful way to communicate that we are making a genuine request is to empathize with people when they don’t respond to the request. Choosing to request rather than demand does not mean we give up when someone says “no” to our request. It does mean that we don’t engage in persuasion until we have empathized with what’s preventing the other person from saying “yes.”
• The NVC process is designed for those of us who would like others to change and respond, but only if they choose to do so willingly and compassionately. This is difficult especially for parents, teachers, managers, and others whose work centers around influencing people and obtaining behavioral results.
• When we occupy positions of authority and are speaking with those who have had past experiences with coercive authority figures, they might perceive our genuine requests as demands as well.
• When making a request, it is also helpful to scan our minds for thoughts of the following sort that automatically transform requests into demands: • He should be cleaning up after himself. • She’s supposed to do what I ask. • I deserve to get a raise. • I’m justified in having them stay later. • I have a right to more time off. When we frame our needs in this way, we are bound to judge others when they don’t do as we request.
• Since the message we send is not always the message that’s received, we need to learn how to find out if our message has been accurately heard. Paraphrasing or asking them to repeat what they heard us say can help.

My summary: By requesting specifically, we can become aware and honest about what we want and it also helps the other person understands what they could do. I spent some moments wondering what's wrong with "He should be cleaning up after himself". My conclusion is that he may not value cleaning. If I value, then I should let them know of my needs.

7. Receiving Empathically

 “Don’t just do something, stand there.” - Buddhist saying.

• Empathy occurs only when we have successfully shed all preconceived ideas and judgments about someone.
• We tend to have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, on the other hand, requires focusing full attention on the other person’s message.
• Common behaviors that prevent us from connecting empathically:
• Advising: “I think you should . . . ” “How come you didn’t . . . ?”
• One-upping: “That’s nothing; wait till you hear what happened to ....”
• Consoling: “It wasn’t your fault; you did the best you could.”
• Story-telling: “That reminds me of the time . . . ”
• Shutting down: “Cheer up. Don’t feel so bad.”
• Sympathizing: “Oh, you poor thing . . . ”
• Interrogating: “When did this begin?”
• Explaining: “I would have called but . . . ”
• Correcting: “That’s not how it happened.”
• Believing we have to “fix” situations and make others feel better prevents us from being present.
• Questions such as, “When did this begin?” block the kind of presence that empathy requires. When we are thinking about people’s words, listening to how they connect to our theories, we are looking at people—we are not with them.
• In empathy, we are wholly present with the other party and what they are experiencing. This quality of presence distinguishes empathy from either mental understanding or sympathy. While we may choose at times to sympathize with others by feeling their feelings, it’s helpful to be aware that during the moment we are offering sympathy, we are not empathizing.
• You’ll find people to be less threatening if you hear what they’re needing rather than what they’re thinking about you.
• Time and again I have witnessed people transcending the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically -- the author has used empathetic listening to cure many patients with acute psychological disorders.

Paraphrasing

• Speakers expressing intensely emotional messages would appreciate our reflecting these back to them. E.g. to "I'm depressed." responding with, "Oh, so you are depressed.".
• Paraphrasing tends to save, rather than waste, time. Studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to accurately repeat what the previous speaker had said.
• My note: From my past experience, in arguments, repeating what other person said helps. Often, either we don't listen to what they said and here our own story or they might have said something without realizing. Paraphrasing helps clarify things and prevents unnecessary escalations.

Example:

Wife: “You never listen to me.”
Husband: “I do” he replied.
Wife: “No, you don’t,” she countered.

vs

Wife: “You never listen to me.”
Husband: “It sounds like you’re terribly frustrated because you would like to feel more connection when we speak.” 

Sustaining Empathy

• Allow others the opportunity to fully express themselves before turning our attention to solutions or requests for relief. 
• When we proceed too quickly to what people might be requesting, we may not convey our genuine interest in their feelings and needs; instead, they may get the impression that we’re in a hurry to either be free of them or to fix their problem.
• By maintaining our attention on what’s going on within others, we offer them a chance to fully explore and express their interior selves. We would stem this flow if we were to shift attention too quickly either to their request or to our own desire to express ourselves.
• We know the speaker has received adequate empathy when a. we sense a release of tension or b. the flow of words comes to a halt. 
• By listening to what’s going on in ourselves with the same quality of presence and attention that we offer to others, we can provide ourselves with empathy.

My summary: Empathy helps us get in touch with the feelings and needs of the other person. Empathy is being without doing.

8. Connecting Compassionately With Ourselves

"Let us become the change we seek in the world." —Mahatma Gandhi

• When we are internally violent towards ourselves, it is difficult to be genuinely compassionate towards others. Hence, the most crucial application of NVC is in the way we treat ourselves.
• We were not meant to succumb to the dictates of “should” and “have to,” whether they come from outside or inside of ourselves. And if we do yield and submit to these demands, our actions arise from an energy that is devoid of life-giving joy.
• Self-judgments, like all judgments, are tragic expressions of unmet needs. By self judgement, what we are saying is, “I myself am not behaving in harmony with my own needs.”
• NVC mourning: connecting with the feelings and unmet needs stimulated by past actions which we now regret. We see how our behavior ran counter to our own needs and values, and we open ourselves to feelings that arise out of that awareness. 
• When our consciousness is focused on what we need, we are naturally stimulated towards the creative possibilities of how to get that need met. In contrast, the moralistic judgments we use when blaming ourselves tend to obscure such possibilities and to perpetuate a state of self-punishment. 
• NVC self-forgiveness: connecting with the need we were trying to meet when we took the action which we now regret.
• An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves—the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place. The process of mourning and self-forgiveness free us in the direction of learning and growing. In connecting moment by moment to our needs, we increase our creative capacity to act in harmony with them.

Translating “Have to” To “Choose to”

• Whenever you feel like, "I have to do X " convert it to “I choose to do X because I want Y.” Then,
• if you are not convinced that Y merits the frustration/cost of X, don't do it.
• Otherwise do it wholeheartedly. This way you are empowering yourself and getting to a resolution.
• E.g. "I have to spend so much time driving kids to school every day." vs 
• "I choose to drive kids to school every day because the schools nearby are not good and I really value their education." and then doing it without complaints
• or "I choose to drive kids to school every day because I want to save some money." and then deciding not doing this and hiring someone to do this.
• This helps us identify our true motivators and makes us responsible for them. Have-to puts it on someone else.
• Common motivators: money, the approval of others, fear, shame, guilt or duty.
• The most dangerous of all behaviors is the duty. Because of this, Nazi officers committed so many atrocities without a second thought.

9. Expressing Anger Fully

• Killing, hitting, blaming, hurting others—whether physically or mentally—are all superficial expressions of what is going on within us when we are angry.
• What other people do is never the cause, but a stimulus, of how we feel.
• Cause of anger is judging or blaming the other person for being wrong or deserving of punishment.
• When we are connected to our need, we may have strong feelings, but we are never angry.
• Judgments of others contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Steps to expressing anger

1. Stop: Breathe and refrain from making any move to blame or punish
2. Identify our judgmental thoughts. 
3. Connect with the unmet needs behind these thoughts.
4. Offer empathy if possible: Ask the other person, “Are you feeling . . . ?” to understand their story.
5. Express our feelings and unmet needs.

10. The Protective Use Of Force

• In some situations, we may need to resort to force. For instance, the other party may be unwilling to communicate, or imminent danger may not allow time for communication. 
• NVC requires us to differentiate between the protective and the punitive uses of force. The intention behind the protective use of force is to prevent injury or injustice. The intention behind the punitive use of force is to cause individuals to suffer for their perceived misdeeds.
• When we submit to doing something solely for the purpose of avoiding punishment, our attention is distracted from the value of the action itself.
• Punishment is costly in terms of goodwill. The more we are seen as agents of punishment, the harder it is for others to respond compassionately to our needs.

Corporal punishment in Children

• Children’s fear of corporal punishment may obscure their awareness of the compassion that underlies parental demands.
• On countless occasions, children turn against what might be good for them simply because they choose to fight, rather than succumb, to coercion.
• When parents opt to use force they are we perpetuating a social norm that justifies violence as a means of resolving differences.
• In addition to the physical, other uses of force also qualify as punishment. E.g. labeling the child, withholding of some means of gratification, threatening to withdraw caring or respect.
• Two questions help us see why we are unlikely to get what we want by using punishment to change people’s behavior:
1. What do I want this person to do?
2. What do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing it?
• Punishment and reward interfere with people’s ability to do things motivated by the reasons we’d like them to have. 

My summary: Force (physical, emotional) can at best help in the short term and at worst can have adverse effects in the long term. Force hampers communication.

11. Expressing Appreciation In Nonviolent Communication

• Compliments are often judgments—however positive—of others. E.g. “You are really smart.”
• Modern psychology recommends using positive feedback as a means to influence others. However, the recipients of such praise do change behavior, but only initially. Once they sense the manipulation behind the appreciation, they go back to where they were or become even worse.
• The NVC approach: Express appreciation as a way to celebrate, not to manipulate.
• Saying “thank you” in NVC: “This is what you did; this is what I feel; this is the need of mine that was met.” The order doesn't matter.
• Receving appreciation is done in a similar manner. 
• Usually, appreciation is received from one of two polar positions. At one end is egotism: believing ourselves to be superior because we’ve been appreciated. At the other extreme is false humility, denying the importance of the appreciation by shrugging it off: “Oh, it was nothing.” We could receive appreciation joyfully, in the awareness that God has given everyone the power to enrich the lives of others. If we are aware that it is this power of God working through us that gives us the power to enrich life for others, then we may avoid both the ego trap and the false humility.
• Almost everyone is hungry for appreciation. Even when people are embarrassed, they still want to hear appreciation verbalized.

12. My notes: Open questions/criticism

• The language the book recommends sounds way too formal for a normal conversation. That limits its application. This might have worked for the author as he is a psychologist but I doubt it would work for the rest. E.g. it would be ridiculous to say something like this, "I’d like you to tell me if you would be willing to postpone our meeting for one week." vs "Would you be willing to postpone our meeting for one week?". 
• Also, some NVC dialogues can get too complicated to understand. E.g. “would you be willing to tell me how I could have let you know what I was wanting so that it wouldn’t sound like I was bossing you around?”
• Downsides of empathy: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-downsides-of-empathy-1 

Thanks for reading this far! If you managed till here, I would strongly recommend you read the book as apart from the theory, the book also has a lot of sample dialogues. Also, if you have any thoughts on the topics above, I would love to hear them. Please feel free to share them below. Lastly, check out the NVC website for the resources.

Notes from the Talk by Peter D. Kaufman

Last week I attended a talk by Peter Kaufman, a manufacturer by profession and the author of Poor Charlie's Almanack. He is very well known in Warren Buffet circles for his clear thinking and mental models. The talk was about life in general and about progressing in personal and professional life. There wasn't anything new in the talk that I hadn't heard before, yet it made me think a lot. I am sharing a few points that I liked here:

* If you align yourself with how the world works, it will work for you in achieving what you want.
* Doing what most people do, gets you what most people get.
* To get something different, you need to diverge. To get something better, you need to diverge correctly.
* One good way of diverging correctly is to combine a skillset / perspective /element not commonly found around you or people like you. For example, on the Mohs' scale of hardness, copper is a 3. When we combine it with lead, which is generally not found in the geographic viscinity of copper and is a 1.5 on the same scale, we get bronze which is a 6 -- higher than both of them. Such combinations result in non linear gains.
* When you combine empathy with smartness, you get to win win.
* When you start seeing from the eyes of the other person / party, it brings the best out of any relation, whether it be personal or professional. Best negotiators are the ones who can see the world from the other party's point of view and make them feel good.
* Best leaders are the ones which make others do something in a manner that the person doing it feels like it was their idea, their decision and their victory.

Quote: “Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” — Andy Benoit

* Advice on marriage - A successful marriage is not as much about finding the right partner as becoming the right partner.
* Diverse perspectives - just like the 2nd eye removes some of the blindspots of the 1st eye, getting additional perspective can help in avoiding our blindspots. Seek things you should change, qualities you should develop from a few people you trust.
* Many decisions can be made easy if you think what you would think about it when you would be 80 years old. If you have difficulty in thinking that way, seek that perspective from someone old you trust and admire.
* Always go first and go positive - Most people when they go in an elevator, would stand silently. In return, most likely they get silence back. Most people pass their entire life like this. Instead, be the first one to smile and greet. Most likely you will also get warmth back. This is pure profit that was created out of nothing. Only those get it who go first and put forward a positive side. Be that person.
* Wherever you are, add value to the life of people around you. Do small things, do them often.

My 10 day Vipassana course experience

बुद्धम शरणम् गच्छामि, धम्मं शरणम् गच्छामि, संघम शरणम् गच्छामि । 

Buddham saranam gacchami, Dhammam saranam gacchami, Sangham saranam gacchami.

I seek the shelter of Buddha (one who is enlightened), I seek the shelter of dharma (the ultimate wisdom), I seek the shelter of sangha (the company of virtuous people).

Back in November 2011, I was visiting Water Kingdom in Mumbai. When we landed on the island, a beautiful under construction pagoda caught my eye. Outside the pagoda was a poster describing a 10 day Vipassana meditation course in which you are not allowed to speak, read or write, are completely cut off from the outside world and just meditate the whole time. I don't know since when, but anything related to minimalist living has always attracted me and I felt an immediate liking for the course. Then was not the time, so I made a mental note to try this course some day.

The Pagoda at the California Vipassana Center

After moving to the valley, in the last 3 years, I happened to meet many people at Google and outside, who had done this course and had only one thing to say: it had changed their life for good. In August this year, while walking towards my office, I met Sonali who told me she was going for Vipassana in the December holidays, again. At that moment, I decided I am going to do the same. The registration for course was going to start on Sept 15th, and not wanting to miss the opportunity, I woke up early that day and got myself enrolled for the course. The course is free and is run on "pay it forward" model - where past students who liked the course donate to sponsor future students. The course was going to start on 24th Dec, so I had to make sure was that I don't chicken out before that. I did have second thoughts a couple of times, but persisted and fast forward to 24th Dec, found myself carpooling to the California Vipassana Center (CVC) with 4 other people.

Before the course

Preparation

To make sure that I get the most out of my 10 days there, I started researching in advance which included meeting past students and reading other people's experiences online. Three common pieces of advice that I got were:

1. Try to find a good sitting posture in which you spine is straight and in which you are comfortable sitting for long durations. I watched a few youtube videos to learn how to sit with spine straight and left the "comfortable sitting for long durations part" to be decided during the course. During the course, I started with a full lotus posture, and quickly realized that it makes my feet go numb, so shifted to simple cross legged posture after a while. What posture you use is generally not as important and what matters the most is that you can maintain it for a while and that your spine is straight.

2. Avoid reading about other people's experiences during the course, everybody is different and will have different experiences. Having some experiential milestone in mind is the easiest way to flunk the course. (Described in detail later.) . As a corollary, I will skip the details of things I experienced while meditating and will only cover the common parts here.

3. You don't need any preparation, you will be taken care of well :).

The journey

One person in our carpool had done this course 7-8 times before. He described how this course has changed his life. I asked him, in the course all we will do is focus on our breath and body sensations, how could that change someone's life? He smiled and told me that I will find that myself during the course.

The center

The center was located in the beautiful Yosemite valley. It felt as if I was back in vedic times. It was located in a remote location, surrounded by dense redwood forests and mountains. Sometimes, we could see deers roaming in the campus.

The center is run entirely by volunteers. These are past students of the course and are now back to do seva (service). They prepare meals for the current students, take care of management and other logistics. Everything there was well documented and efficiently organized. Someone told me that the food recipe was also so precisely documented that even someone who has no prior cooking experience can cook!

During the course, men and women are not allowed to interact. So they have different cafeteria and dorms for each sexes. The entire center was divided in two parts for each sexes. The meditation hall was shared though, with women sitting on one half and men on another. We had our own separate walking paths so as to not get distracted by even the sight of a member of opposite sex. This was important as the course required following a few moral principles (described later), one of which was avoiding sexual misconduct. And Buddhism places equal weight to thoughts as well as to actions.

The Dhamma Hall

After arriving at the center, we were allotted our dorm rooms. The rooms were pretty good, comparable to those of a cheap motel and certainly much better than my IIT hostel room :).

Our dorm

Orientation

In the evening, we had an orientation session where we were told about the various rules we had to observe during the course, our schedule and other important instructions. In particular, we had to follow 5 rules, called sheela (शील). They were abstaining from: killing, false speech, stealing, sexual misconduct and intoxicants. Since false speech is so much ingrained in us that if we speak at all, we will end up lying at some point, we were asked to not speak at all during the entire course. The other advantages of not speaking was that it helps you focus on meditation, otherwise the conversations you just had with someone over lunch will come back to you when you meditate. Not speaking was to be practiced with so much rigor, that we refrained from making any gestures also and even avoided eye contact with others and would look down when others were around.

The Technique

The history

It is said that the Indian civilization had long known this technique and many ancient sages used to practice it. But it was lost and was rediscovered by the most recent Buddha - Gautama. He predicted that this technique will again be wiped out of India, but will find a home in Burma and from there, it will come back to India and then will spread to the rest of the world like a wildfire. Sidenote: There have been many Buddhas (enlightened one) before and will be many more in future. Siddhartha Gautama is the most recent one and his claim was that all the Buddhas before him and all those after him will have the same teaching.

The teacher

The course is taught by SN Goenkaji. He passed away in 2013, but the course is taught through his recorded videos. He was once a rich businessman of Indian origin living in Burma. Some personal troubles brought him to the practice and he learnt Vipassana from U Ba Khin, the attorney general of Burma for about 20 years. He benefitted so much from it that he came to India for a few days to teach his parents. In his first course, he taught his parents and a couple of other folks, who loved it so much that they requested him to do a course for their close ones. There was no stopping this chain reaction and now millions of people are practicing it throughout the world. Talk about virality using word of mouth!

The philosophy

According to Buddha, the root of all miseries of life are just the two habits of mind - aversion and craving. We despise what we have and long for what we don't. If only we could detach ourselves from these feelings, we will not only be liberated from the miseries of life, but also will achieve nirvana and become free from the cycle of birth and death. One way to achieve this equanimity is to train our mind to remember that everything in this material world is temporary and will pass. In Vipassana you do this by observing the passing nature of your own body. By doing this, you gradually achieve samadhi (one pointedness) and finally nirvana (liberation).

A typical day

The schedule was pretty excruciating, and would require 12+ hours of meditation every day. I wasn't very sure before the course if I would be able to follow it, but it felt manageable on the first day and towards the end of the course, I was meditating even during the break hours.

04:00 am	Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 am	Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 am	Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 am	Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 am	Meditate in the hall or in your room
11:00-12:00	Lunch break
12-1:00 pm	Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 pm	Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 pm	Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 pm	Meditate in the hall or in your room
5:00-6:00 pm	Tea break
6:00-7:00 pm	Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 pm	Teacher's Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 pm	Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 pm	Question time in the hall
9:30 pm	Retire to your own room--Lights out

Though taking a bath before the morning meditation was not required, I would generally get up at 3:45 am and get ready. After that we would meditate for two hours. Although we could meditate in our rooms, I preferred meditating in the dhamma hall. On most days, I would doze off every now and then, would go out, walk a bit, try a few yoga asanas and then get back to meditating. After that we would break off for breakfast. The food was really good and the breakfast was my favorite meal, followed by lunch (there was no dinner :P). New students were allowed to eat fruits in the evening, old students were permitted only green tea. Before signing up, food was my big worry as I eat a lot (like a lot, more than what most people do). But after a couple of days into the course my body adjusted and since we were just sitting the whole day, we didn't need much energy anyway.

After the meals, I would take long walks in surrounding forest to get my daily quota of exercise.

The trails around the center.

After breakfast, I would stop here and watch the Sun rise from the beautiful Yosemite Valley.

For the three group sittings, everyone had to be present in the hall and we had audio instructions by Goenka ji. After the lunch we had the opportunity to meet the TA personally and ask any questions that we may have. This was the only exception to the no talking rule.

In the evening, we had 1 hour discourse by Goenkaji in which he would explain what we did during the day, why we did it and what we are going to do the next. He is an amazing speaker, so much that everyday, by the evening, I would start craving for his session and after his session, I would feel so energized that I would literally run to my room and could not wait for the next day to get started and begin my practice. I sometimes thought, that if not a Vipassana teacher, he could have been a successful military general :).

The lectures were in english. I requested my lectures in hindi as I had heard they contained many references specific to Indians. The hindi lectures, because of the additional stories, were a little longer than the english ones, so made the baniya in me a little happier!

The course

For the first 3.5-4 days, we practiced a technique called Anna Panna (instructions). During this, you focus your attention on your nostrils and observe the incoming and outgoing breath. At any moment, there are subtle sensations present in every part of our body but we generally can't feel them because of the gross sensations, just like we can't see stars in the bright sunlight. By focussing our attention on a small body part like nostrils, our mind becomes sharper and we start observing these subtle sensations. Initially, you feel nothing, then you start feeling where the breath touches the nostrils, then the temperature and moisture difference between the incoming and outgoing breath and then the subtle sensations happening every moment.

After this, we move on to the main technique, called Vipassana. In it, we try to observe the same sensations throughout the body. By the end of the course, one is generally able to feel sensations in parts as small as the tip of a needle. The important goal throughout the exercise is to remain equanimous to every sensation - either pleasant or unpleasant, or the lack of and just observe how these sensations appear and disappear like waves in an ocean. By doing this, you train your mind to remember about the passing nature of matter and how nothing physical is permanent, so as to not be attached to it. Thus, you move from bhokta bhav (being a subject) to drista bhav (being an observer).

The implications

As you progress into the practice, you create a small separation between the stimuli of external world and your mind. You start "seeing things as they are" and not as what your mind projects to you. Gradually, instead of reacting blindly to external stimuli, you start analyzing what happened, what you are doing, why you are doing it and if it is the right thing to do.

Some Profound Elements

Thinking is becoming

Buddha claims that we generally don't crave for a thing, we crave for a sensation. That is the reason our desires are never fulfilled as the moment we get what we desired, our mind starts craving for the sensation and attaches it to some other object.  Similarly, an alcoholic is not addicted to alcohol, he is addicted to the sensation that alcohol produces. So if one can train his mind to respond to a particular sensation differently, one can change one's habit.

Intentions matter more than actions

Buddhism focuses a lot more on thoughts than Hinduism in my opinion. Just a good or bad thought is enough to leave a karmic footprint on you.

Who is the most important person in your life?

Here is a quiz. Without reading further, take a moment and answer this question and then read ahead.

Once, King Prasenjeet of Kosala and his queen, both students of Buddha, were meditating and this question came to both of them. After the meditation, they asked each other what their answers were and they were both surprised - their answer was that the most important person for each of them were they themselves. They went to Buddha and told him about this thought. On listening this, Buddha smiled affectionately and blessed both of them that you have identified the biggest weakness that humans suffer from, that is being attached to "I", now all you have to do is work on it. Most people don't even get this far.

This story really got me thinking. All my interactions with people around me, with family, friends or society at large, are just based on my own convenience. Relations go sour when they stop serving their purpose. This also reminded me of a story "ठूँठा आम" (Dead Mango Tree) by Bhagvat Sharan Upadhyay that I read during school days in which a lifeless Mango tree is lamenting how once he used to be the center of attraction of the birds, plants and people and now that he is dying, no one even looks at him.

The other key takeaway was how ego is involved in almost everything we do and how blind does it makes us. Kabir writes something similar about the dangers of ego:

दोष पराये देखि के, चले हसंत हसंत ।

अपने याद न आवहिं, जा को आदि न अंत ॥ 

Dosh paraaye dekhi ke, chale hasant hasant |

Apane yaad na aavai, Jaa ko aadi na ant || 

Seeing the faults of others, one smiles derisively,

But can’t see so many of one’s own, the list of which has no beginning or end!

The story of Prince Rama

One day during evening discourse Goenkaji was talking about how it's better to emulate the qualities of the gods / saints we worship than to just blindly worship them. His comment on Lord Rama really touched me. He read a verse describing that when the King Dashratha asked Price Rama to abandon his claim of the throne and leave everything to go to the forest, Price Rama walked out of the royal palace without even a fringe of attachment, just like a guest leaves his host's house. "Just like a guest leaves his host's house", I told to myself. I started to wonder if I were in his place, would I feel the same? Probably not, and the reason would have had been all the dreams that I have had about becoming the King etc. I wondered if it was possible to live without dreams and ambitions. Probably not. Then how did Rama did it? May be because his dreams and ambitions were different, may be all he dreamt of was to serve others and follow dharma. Then the question comes, without any material objectives, is it possible to live in a material world? Wouldn't we all have to become renunciates if we were to do that? I am still not sure. But that line is etched in my mind, "Just like a guest leaves his host's house".

The patch of compassion

On day 6, a thought troubled me for almost the whole day before Goenkaji cleared it up in the evening discourse. This was in a way, a testimonial of how great a teacher he is. This happened to me a few times and many other students, that Goenkaji magically knew what was bothering us and he addresses the issue in that day's evening discourse.

So coming back to my thoughts, I felt that this whole philosophy had a serious flaw. If everything in this material world is temporary and will pass, why bother doing anything? If you see a thief robbing someone, why bother saving the victim as everything is temporary anyway. This didn't seem right as not only this will cut you off from the world but also will bring utter chaos. 

Later that day Goenkaji introduced a new concept, which the nerd in me calls the patch of compassion. So, the deal is that not just you have to be equanimous, but you also have to be compassionate to your fellow beings. This patch makes sure that you remain in the world, just interact with it differently. So you should try to stop the thief from stealing and it may even require violence, but do it out of compassion to stop the poor fellow from doing something bad to his own self and not out of hate. This is like a mother slapping a kid adamant on playing with a knife. The slap is out of love and not because of any ill will. As mentioned earlier, intent matters the most.

My Experiences

The difficulty level

I was expecting the whole practice to be very difficult. Surprisingly, I found myself at ease from the very beginning. Not speaking was not a problem with me at all, although I did see many people having difficulty dealing with it. Sitting and meditating whole day didn't turn out very difficult either. My biggest worry before the course was that I will be bored, but surprisingly the practice was so intense that I didn't have any free time to get bored! Yes, even after 12 hours of meditation a day. Every single minute, I was working towards a goal, so there was no free time to get bored.

On day 6, I got distracted for a couple of hours though. I was not making a lot of progress in my meditation and was having trouble keeping up with the class. I started wondering if it was a mistake to come here and if I lost precious 10 days of my life. I wondered about how I could have travelled to a beautiful new place or wrote some code. But then I realized that I had already committed myself to the practice and it's difficult if I will ever find 10 days to try something like this again, so I told myself, pass or fail, let's give this everything I have got and see what comes out of it. I became so determined after this, that I even started meditating during the rest hours, not wanting to waste even a minute during the rest 4 days.

Bhagvad Geeta and Vipassana

Surprisingly, I found many elements of Vipassana coherent with what is mentioned in Bhagvad Geeta (subject to the best of my understanding, of course). The essence of Vipassana is to be equanimous to everything, knowing the temporary nature of matter. Geeta asks you to offer all your actions to Krishna and accept the results with gratitude no matter what they are. In a way, they are just different ways of reaching the same destination. The former is called Gyana Yoga and the latter, Bhakti Yoga. Similarly, Vipassana places a lot of emphasis on controlling one's mind. Geeta, says:

bandhur ātmātmanas tasya yenātmaivātmanā jitaḥ
anātmanas tu śatrutve vartetātmaiva śatru-vat

For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends;
but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.

Food, food and food

During meditation many distracting thoughts keep coming to your mind. For most people these are memories from past, any unresolved feelings or sexual thoughts. For me the most frequent ones were about food. I eat a lot, so during meditation I would often feel hungry and somehow would image a spoon full of kheer (rice pudding) going in my mouth. Then I would joke with myself that this was my Sujata's Kheer (the rice pudding after eating which Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment).

Names

Since we were not allowed to talk to each other, we didn't know each other's name. So people started giving each other a metal name based on their observed habits. I mentally started calling someone who always showed up in a half sleeve jacket and slippers despite the intense cold as the sailor guy, someone who always looked sad and struggling as the sad guy and someone who never moved even a bit during meditation as the stud ("outstanding" in IITB lingo) guy.

On the last day when we were talking, someone walked up to me and told me that he had named me "the food guy" as I ate so much :P. I burst into laughter and thanked him for the compliment :). Someone else told me that he would always look at my plate and wonder if I was carrying food for someone else as well. And someone else mentioned that it was a joy watching the satisfying feeling on my face while I ate oranges during the evening snack. In my defense, the oranges were really sweet and I had never eaten like those ever before!

After coming back

Now it would be too much to expect to change the habits of a lifetime entirely in just 10 days, but I can say for sure that I do feel a little bit of change in myself. Now, I often introspect about my actions afterwards and what drove them - ego, envy, lust, hate or anger. Hopefully, one day, I would be able to move this thought before the reaction state. 

Though Goenkaji recommends an hour of practice in the morning and evening everyday, I can't do it, so I try to do that over weekends. The practice involves taking an adhistan (resolve) to sit (in a cross legged position) with your hands in your lap and eyes closed and not move your legs or hands or open your eyes. I have done this many times now, but every single time, this still feels like a battle with my mind. During the practice, for no reason, sometimes my back would start hurting or my knee will reel in pain or I would feel itching sensation throughout the body or I will feel extreme heat and sweat profusely. Buddhist philosophy considers these as vikaras (defects) of past karmas surfacing, which are trying to steer the mind away from it's natural state of calmness. Some of these times, my mind will convince me to drop the adhistan and get up. But gradually, I feel more and more in control of my own mind. I will tell myself that I am not getting up no matter what, and I would see the pain subside gradually - demonstrating it is anichya (pali word for anitya, temporary that is). In many ways, this struggle is similar to the one I have when I am running long distances.

I am still far from the state where I have created a small buffer between external stimuli and my response to it and where I am in full control of my mind, but as they say, even the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and a step taken in the right direction, is a step well taken.

For The Curious Ones

A talk by Goenkaji at Harvard 

Official dhamma website

Vipassana centers in India and US.

Parting words

If you managed to read thus far, I would highly recommend you to try Vipassana at least once in your lifetime and when better than the next vacations! In the worst case, you would have wasted 10 days of your life and you can go back to whatever you have been doing so far in your life. In the best case, your life will never be the same again and for good. If you have any question, feel free to leave a comment here or drop me a message.

For me personally, I consider myself blessed that I got the opportunity to do this and am extremely grateful to all those (especially Sonali, Gurmeet and Nikhil) who planted the seed of curiosity in me. With this blog post, I am hoping to do the same to someone else.

भवतु सब्ब मंगलम् । भवतु सब्ब मंगलम् । भवतु सब्ब मंगलम् ।  

Bhavatu sabba mangalam. Bhavatu sabba mangalam. Bhavatu sabba mangalam. 

May all beings be happy. May all beings be happy. May all beings be happy.

Driver vs Doctor

I started writing this post back in Oct 2009, completing it today.

It was Oct 2009 when I was in my 2nd last semester at IITB. The day before I got my ankle twisted while coming down the stairs in Hiranandani. I thought my ankle was fine and just applied a regular off the shelf muscle relaxant. Next day, I woke up at 4am with intense pain in my ankle. I tried sleeping a few times, but the effort was futile. Walking even a step was very difficult, so the only option was to call the ambulance. IIT Hospital provides a free ambulance service which you can call to your hostel. I was secretly happy that I would be able to add more thing in the list of things I finally did in my last year!

So I hopped on one leg and got to the hostel lobby and the ambulance arrived in a few mins. The driver comes out and greets me. He was a tall and slightly obese guy probably in his early 50s. He helped me get in the ambulance and we started. I apologized to him that he had to wake up at this hour to help me. He said it was alright. We talked more and he told me the other driver with whom he rotates, has gone to his village. So he had been working for the last 72 hours. But he didn't look tired. On the contrary, he was radiating energy and positivity. There was something unique about him that made me feel happy. I asked him if he felt bad that he couldn't go home to sleep. He replied, "What can I do. This is a very important job. The other day I had to bring this boy who damaged his knee while playing football. Someone has to do it." Finally, we reached the hospital. He helped me get down and told me "Dhyan rakhna beta (take care son)". I smiled and said thank you.

I went in to visit the doctor. He was a short, bald guy with white hairs. He was sleeping with his head down on his desk. The nurse woke him up. He looked irritated. I greeted him with a hi and he didn't reply. He looked up and raised his eyebrows (gesture for asking why I was there). I told him what had happened, he took a look at my foot and jotted something on a piece of paper and told me which medicine I was supposed to take how many times. He then dropped his head back on the table to sleep.

I could not believe what I came across in the last 30 mins. Here were two people in similar situations and the one who was paid much lesser is the one who is happier. So much happy that I felt better just by talking to him. What was it that made the driver happy but the doctor sad? Was it the realization of the importance of his job and the feeling of serving others? I don't know.

I made a wish to be the driver and not the doctor once I started working. If you aren't happy, you have nothing, and if you are happy, you need nothing.

Backpacking in the Lost Coast

The Lost Coast is an 80 mile stretch of the California coast where the builders of Highway 1 decided to go around because it was too rough. That saved this area from humans and this beautiful trail continues to offer an unadulterated taste of the nature. In this post I am describing the experience of my maiden 24 mile backpacking trip that we did in November, 2013.

It was 25th November and I still didn't have any plans for the Thanksgiving long weekend starting on the 28th. I had thought earlier that I would use this weekend to work on my CS 229 project and assignment, but as the weekend came nearer, I realized I had enough time to do both. Abhijit also encouraged me that there was still some time before the quarter ends and I should go do something. Byron invited me to join him for the backpacking trip he and Hans had planned. Since I hadn't been backpacking, I thought this would be a unique experience and promptly said yes without much thought. Byron sent me a link to Marc's hike description and it seemed pretty easy.

Later that evening, I met Gurmeet for dinner and told him cheerfully that I was going backpacking to the lost coast. It didn't take him much to realize I was totally underprepared. He told me it was one of the top rated hikes in the Northern America but also one of the most difficult. He introduced me to another Googler who had done the hike a few years ago and meeting him confirmed that I was in for some serious challenges. Googling more about "Lost Coast in December" sent a chill down my spine when various blogs and forums mentioned heavy rains, landslides and flash floods and not to mention bears, snakes and other wildlife. Thankfully for us, the weather prediction for the weekend was bright and sunny. I was sure that in the best case, this was going to be a painful but rewarding experience. I wasn't very sure what to do, and then I thought:

Everything worth doing is going to be difficult. The question you should be asking is not if it is difficult or not, but if it's worth facing the difficulties.

So in the next two days, I read more about backpacking tips and hiking in lost coast and gathered all the necessary equipments. This was one of the wettest place in California and since it was almost December, it was going to be quite cold too. I didn't have hiking boots and since it was already too late to break in new ones, I decided to take my chances with my non-waterproof running shoes. It was not supposed to rain afterall, so I thought I should be fine. Later on, they got wet in the very 1st hour while crossing a stream. Thankfully, it wasn't much of an annoyance.

Now comes the packing. I packed the tent, first aid and my warm clothes in the seemingly small backpack and it suddenly became quite large. There was no place left for the bear canister and food, but I thought we would figure it out later before starting the hike. Now I try to lift the backpack and it wouldn't move at all. After putting all my energy in doing so, I manage to lift it but I feel some pain in my back.

I said to myself, what have I gotten myself into. I have trouble lifting the backpack, how will I even walk with this thing. But it was too late to back out, there was only one way: forward.

So the next day, we drove through the dense beautiful redwoods and reached the trailhead at around noon. It was much warmer than I had expected. So I took a gamble and decide to leave some warm clothes in the car so as to make the backpack lighter. This was a bit risky as we were going to be next to the ocean for the 3 days and temperatures could drop suddenly because of the strong winds. Overall, it turned out to be a right decision.

Now begins the hike, I somehow manage to lift the backpack and I can feel that my back isn't very happy, but it can survive for a while. The hike was going to be along the ocean, which meant we were going to walk on the sandy ( and rocky, as we would find out later ) beach for a long long time. Walking on sand with a 30 pound backpack was excruciating and every step would feel like a small battle with my thighs hurting.

I said to myself, what have I gotten myself into. I have trouble walking even in the beginning, how will I complete the 24 miles. But it was too late to back out, there was only one way: forward.

I diverted my mind away from the pain reeling in the entire body, towards the beautiful mountains to our left and the mighty roaring Pacific to our right and the sound of wind from back rushing past my ears. It was a futile effort. 

Pretty soon we came across the Punta Gonda lighthouse. I wanted to drop my backpack and see it, but evening was soon approaching and we had to cross a narrow beach section before the tides block it.

After an hour or so, we were now walking on the mountains. It felt much better than walking on the beach sand, but there were quite a few places where the trail was quite close to the steep cliff and one slip of foot, coupled with reduced control because of a heavy backpack would send you off the cliff.

Eventually, the sun set around 5pm and it was beginning to become dark. We crossed a small fresh water stream and came across a flat terrain on a mountain. About 200 feet from us, there were 4 flat rocks in front of us in the ocean and it was full of sea lions. This area was called The Sea Lion creek.  This seemed like a decent place for camping. Hans started preparing for dinner, Byron and I fetched water. Hans made delicious chole and rice. Since it wasn't very cold, Hans and Byron wanted to sleep in the open (in the sleeping bag of course) and not set up a tent as it would save us some time in the morning. Since I had never slept in a tent, I was really looking forward to it. But I thought, I could do it the next day. Hans made some delicious chai and we called it a night. End of day 1 and it wasn't so bad after all. I felt I could do it for the next two days. I stared at the beautiful star studded night sky. This reminded me of the time when as a kid, during summers, we used to sleep on the roof of our house to beat the heat. Ah.. long time...

Next day we woke up to some breathtaking views. There were some powerful high tides of pacific in front of us. As we were drinking the morning chai, we could see the fierce waves rising high as if trying to reach the top of the cliff we were camping on. The sea lions were still holding their fort strong, although occasional waves would wash them off their rocks and then they would again nonchalantly crawl back up.

We packed our stuff and started again on our path. We had a long ground to cover today. We wanted to reach the 12 mile point today as we had to return the next day. After navigating our way through some mountains, the trail eventually led us back to the beach. This time it was different though. It was a rocky beach. Turns out, walking on rocks is even more difficult than on sand. If the rocks are small, they would be unstable and can throw your balance off. If they are big, you spend a lot of energy in stepping up and down them. A heavy backpack multiplies the  difficulty by 10x. We walked on the beach for what seemed like an eternity. I stumbled twice, my ankle twisted once but thankfully nothing major happened. I was totally drained out of energy.

Then came a crossing which I had read about. The beach there was very narrow and waves were reaching till the end. You have to time your start and cross it quickly to avoid getting wet. We managed to do that successfully. Eventually we came to 8 mile point and the campground we were looking for. It was the broad opening of a stream right before it merges in the ocean. There was a raised platform next to it and looked like a decent place to spend the night. It was about 3pm. We left our bags there and marched ahead to get to the halfway point. Now without the backpack, I felt as if I was flying. My arms would just raise with the wind. It felt really nice.

We came back to our campsite by the evening and started collecting firewoods for a campfire. Then Byron and I tried to set up my tent but it turned out to be very complicated. We gave up on it and since the weather was still pretty warm, we decided to sleep in the open in our sleeping bags. Byron and I started the campfire while Hans prepared pasta. It had been a really long day and warmth from the fire felt really good. We burnt pretty much any dry piece of wood we could find and kept the fire alive for about 2 hrs. Then, we went to the sandy bed and starry roof and it was the end of day 2. I congratulated myself for being strong thus far.

The next day we woke up to the usual high tide. But today, they didn't seem to settle. We waited till 12 pm before we could walk out of our campground as its opening was closed by the high waves. We were hoping to be back at the parking lot by 4 pm but we now had a much delayed start. Plus while going back, we were going to face very strong wind currents. It was going to be a difficult route.

We passed through the same rocky sections, but they made us much less miserable this time. At around 3 we were at our 1st day's campsite. This was a good sign. We had travelled much faster today, I am not sure what the reason was: lesser food to carry or the fear of getting trapped there during the night. Finally we came to the abandoned lighthouse and this marked that we had crossed all the tidal crossing points. I dropped my backpack and ran up to the old structure. I took the rusty iron stares in it to reach the top. Standing there, I felt myself as a part of mankind's eternal desire to explore. I somehow felt I have been here always.

I stared at the immersive ocean for a while and then closed my eyes and let myself soak into it.

We walked about a mile more and could sense that the parking lot was quite close. Hans and I decide to run. This was the very sand on which were struggling to walk on the first day and now we were running on it.

It's amazing how much we are capable of. The only way to find out, is to put ourselves through it.

This entire trip had been an amazing experience. I had learnt so much about myself.

Thanks Byron and Hans for planning this and inviting me to join you.