I began acquiring my personal hippy version of Afghani dress... I ordered from a local tailor a pair of orange, silky cotton baggy pants and a pink Afghan style shirt. To accompany this I bought a readymade multicoloured, flowery embroidered vest. And to top this off, I bought a white silky turban literally right off the head of an elderly Afghan gentleman, which happened to catch my fancy...

I... was concocting a fantasy to take a kilo of best quality Afghani hash along to India with me. I would go up into the Himalayas somewhere and find a quiet, picturesque spot and just stay stoned as long as it lasted. I knew that hash was also cheaply available in Pakistan, India and Nepal. But I wanted to have the best, number one Afghani, something to be one up and coveted by the rest of the western freaks...

... The [customs] inspector turned to me while sniffing the air and within a matter of minutes, found the hash inthe vest followed by the stash at the bottom of my pack. The escapade was over, we were caught red-handed, busted bigger than life... Shortly we were interviewed by a police captain who was assigned to handle our case. He spoke good English and politely regretted to inform us that we would have to stand trial for the attempted smuggling. The two of us would be remanded to the local jail until such time... The moment Larry and I walked inside, the first thing we heard and saw was a group of men standing under the shade of an old tree, hacking and coughing. It was the old, familiar sound of hooka smoking... When they caught sight of us they began beckoning us to come over for a blow on the big hooka. Not seeing any reason why not, me and Larry exchanged glances as if to say, 'This is prison? Well, let's make the best of it;' and we went over and commenced getting blasted. The prisoners got a big tickle seeing us two foreigners getting zonked with them.

Duprez later made it to India. He headed for the Indian town of Manali, at the foot of the high Himalayan Mountains, a favorite of Western hippies because wild marijuana grew all over the place:

Up higher on the mountainside lived an old, wise Tibetan lama in his small monasery to whom westerners went to visit or receieve some instruction in Tibetan meditation. I personally was not enthusiastic enough at that time to make the trek further up to check him out. I did, however, score two hits of acid from some freak and taking one, I spent a lovely half day wandering and exploring the high slopes and small valley of a nearby mountain. This was the first time I had tripped since leaving Gomera and it felt nice to experience some light, airy states of mind.

Traveling on, he visits a sacred Buddhist place---Saranath---the historic site where the Buddha preached his first discourse after his Enlightenment. The traveler consecrates the visit in hippie style:

I sat down in a clump of giant bamboo nearby to smoke a joint that I had previously rolled up. I thought a bit at first if it would be disrespectful or sacriligious to smoke dope in this Buddhist holy spot. I knew that certain Hindu ascetics smoked ganga believing it to aid their meditation or something to that effect, but I was not getting any special spiritual understanding or inspiration by it... In spite of my questioning and disinclination, I was powerless to stop and lit up while looking around to see if anyone was watching... I tried to remember what I had studied and heard about the Buddha and his teachings, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path; but it still didn't make any profound sense or ring any bells. I speculated what Enlightenment would be like, "Was it the ultimate, permanent high?" I despaired of having to smoke dope and use pschedelics all my life to get high and wondered where that would eventually lead.

High on magic mushrooms and hashish one afternoon, he meets an American who has recently returned from a meditation retreat led by S.N. Goenka and who also tells of retreats in nearby Kathmandu, Nepal, led by Tibetan monks. The news interests him:

I told him that I had once practiced TM but had suspended it due to my dope-smoking habit Only now did I tell him that I was high on mushrooms, and the description of his meditation experience struck me especially deep. I also conveyed to him my growing disenchantment with using drugs to get high, and thought meditation might perhaps be a way to make the mind clear and high naturally. He tended to agree.

He makes his way to a series of retreats and classes in Nepal and India and begins to learn and practice various methods of meditation and yoga. He throws himself into study of Buddhist teachings such as how individuals endlessly cycle through the round of rebirths known as "Samsara" unless they root out the causes of suffering and spiritual defilement:

The talks and book material in the first few days concentrated on the nature of the individual mind and how it has been involved in unlimited suffering of various kinds, degrees and intensities since time without beginning. The source of this individual suffering, thus collective suffering, lies in the three mental poisons of ignorance, greed and hatred. Ignorance is being under the imagined illusion, delusion and influence of the individual ego, feeling we exist separately in this world of subject/object relationships.

Because of this deep-rooted ignorance, the mind has become firmly enmeshed in attachment and craving to things which please and having aversion/hatred for the things which displease. Once these habit patterns are moulded, the imagined ego or "self-cherishing I" will do anything under the sun, breaking all moral laws if needed, to appease that greed and hatred. The mind thus poisoned and driven by these three root defilements, has propelled itself, so to speak, along with the bodies it creates for its use, through the innumerable rounds of birth and death, termed Samsara. There is no original starting point discovered, when the whole process of mind and body began and evolved. It has been going on since "beginningless time."

After being exposed to various traditions, he is especially drawn to vipassana or insight meditation in the Therevada tradition, eventually making his way to Sri Lanka to be ordained as a novice Buddhist monk.

[Goenkaji] spoke about the difference between the Buddha's teachings and other theistic religions, stressing that the Four Noble Truths were based upon direct insight into the deepest reaches of the mind and reality. Buddhism is not future oriented, seeking happiness in a distant or future world, but is concerned with creating or realizing heaven on earth or perfect contentment, fulfilment and happiness here and now. The body and mind can be our personal, portable laboratory and test tube in which we conduct our own investigation into the true nature of ourself.

The two mental tools used for this are concentration or mental calmness (samatha) and detached awareness which clearly comprehends what is occuring (vipassana). Concentration is like adjusting the lens of a microscope to focus in clearly on the specimen to be examined. Awareness is like the eye of the scientist that then observes and investigates the hitherto hidden elements and movements comprising the specimen which results in full comprehension. This is more or less how the Buddha arrived at his profound insight into the nature of body and mind, finally realizing the ultimate reality of existence itself.

Finally, one day in 1975, he prepares to be ordained by Ven. Vangisa Mahathera at Gothama Thapovanaya, a Therevadan temple near Columbo, Sri Lanka. His head has been shaved in previous days along with his "long cherished beard." The head monk then gives Scott Joseph Duprez a new Dhamma name by which he would henceforth be known. Duprez had previously been given the spiritual name "Rahul" while studying yoga with Swami Gitananda, after the Buddha's son, Rahula, who had become enlightened at a young age. He suggests this to Ven. Vangisa:

To my pleasant surprise he immediately exclaimed, "Rahula, Rahula: Lord Buddha's son, yes that will be a very good name." Then he added that I must have an identifying prefix. In Sri Lanka every Buddhist monk uses the name of his native town or village in order to distinguish himself from other monks having the same proper Pali name. There were many monks with such common names as Ananda and Rahula. My preceptor wanted to call me American or California Rahula, but I was instantly turned off by that explicit identification; I couldn't envisage Riverside Rahula either

... Off the top of his head he suggested the prefix, yogavacara. Yogavacara was an epithet used by the Buddha for the forest dwelling bhikkus who were devoted to meditation striving to attain that goal. The full name Yogavacara Rahula had a nice ring and I could relate to it. Having the word yoga included seemed to fit the particular blend of vipassana meditation and yoga practice that I was doing. It was just another image to substitute for the defunct hippie image, but one that I felt would have a positive influence and deeper meaning.

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