THE MEANING OF MUNDUK
In 1995, I traded living in a 100-year-old house in Macau for a 100-year-old renovated Dutch house on a mountaintop in Munduk, Bali. My students were the staff of the tourist accommodation called Puri Lumbung. Our classroom was a room with a roof, but no walls, in a colorful, fertile garden where the flowers couldn’t wait to bloom and roosters walked through the classroom whenever they wished.
On my flight into Bali, the man sitting next to me said nothing during the five-hour flight except that he could not speak English. As we neared the airport in Denpasar, he became visibly excited while straining to see out my window. He said with pride, and in perfect English, “Bali is my home.” While at a Munduk dance performance for the villagers (rather than for tourists) the young Balinese man sitting next to me told me he had spent several happy years studying in an Indonesian city outside Bali. “But,” he said pointing to his chest, “something inside me made me come back. I don’t know why.” I did.
I received a letter from my mother while I was in Munduk letting me know that my good friend, Carolyn, had died. She had suffered too long with a respiratory illness that tried, but never fully succeeded, to take away her zest for life. I thought of the variety of our shared experiences over the years including standing together gathering signatures for petitions for non-smokers’ rights; long, insightful conversations on many topics; her joy in eating hot fudge sundaes; her light, easy laughter; and her love for her pet cats. I wanted to bring Carolyn’s spirit to me in the paradise of Munduk. One of my students prepared an appropriate leaf and flower offering and guided me through a little ceremony in my garden.
One night, just before it was my time to leave Munduk after two idyllic months, a cat came onto my porch and looked me straight in the eyes. That started me floating in a stream of consciousness back in memory to people and times I hadn’t thought of in years.
I thought about the parts of my life in Munduk that I would have to do without — faces of my young and old students from the village, people I had only been able to smile to, and those who had talked to me deeply. Then the stream of consciousness carried me past the magnificent views of the mountains, valleys, and terraces that echoed with thunder rolling in the limitless, infinite sky. I saw the flowers calling for my attention as they joyously burst into bloom. I again heard the peculiar sound of a certain bird that made a trilling sound as though it were playing an instrument. I felt all the things about Munduk that seemed so right to me — the indescribable beauty and peace of a life lived entwined with nature.
All this and more jumbled together in my mind, ran to my heart, and came down my face in a gush of tears. I felt so incredibly sad that I must leave Bali soon — perhaps for a while, perhaps for a long time, perhaps forever. Even if I returned, Bali may have changed. Munduk may have changed.
When I thought my heart would truly break as panic took over, I intuited the invitation to walk out into the cool, star-filled night. As I calmed down in the embrace of nature surrounding me, I felt Carolyn’s spirit slip her hand into mine. As her presence and I stood together in the garden, a very clear message enveloped me. It was a simple statement from Bali to me. “You can take with you everything you have learned and felt here.”
I wrote a letter to Bali in that moonlight, declaring my gratitude, sincerest thank you, and deepest love. Then, I buried it in my garden. I had to leave Bali, but I carried the spiritual wisdom of Munduk inside me.
Tags: Bali; Puri Lumbung in Munduk; spirituality of Bali, Munduk, Travel
