Bodhgaya - Part Three

We would mosey on down to the kitchen late in the mornings, after long nights of sleep, and there would be Sintu and Poonam and a child or two, and maybe Virmila, and Sintu would ask what we wanted for breakfast: omlette? chapati? milk tea? Usually I'd opt for ginger tea or black tea no milk no sugar, and maybe an omlette or something more Indian if it was available – some vegetable, maybe some rice - and chapati, and she would set to work preparing these. During these preparations, or during dinner preparations later in the day, conversation would inevitably ensue: about women's rights in India, about arranged marriages, about homeopathy and Sintu's study, about schools and schooling, of course, about the family's caste (milk sellers) and some history about the now deceased father who was a kind man we're told, whose picture, garlanded, holds an elevated place of honor atop kitchen cabinets, and who seems to have set a real example for his children, about Dominique (before she arrived after 2 or 3 days) and her building of the guest house, about our plans for the day, about Karmapa and his blessing of the school project, about the various Rinpoche's who come through or have temples in Bodhgaya, about Situ's coming to give special Mahamudra teachings next April.

The family, though Hindu by birth, have adopted Buddhism and its tenets and practices, due to Dominique's influence, and their experiences with the lamas and rinpoches and high level incarnate teachers. The exercise of compassionate action, service to others, meditation and devotion are part of their ways in the world.

We do spend one day being tourists, visiting by tuk tuk – this relentlessly intense and relentlessly rugged experience by itself can be exhausting - the cave where Buddha is said to have meditated himself down to skin and bones before being fed milk and rice by the lovely, no doubt, Sujata, and before beginning to understand that the extremes he was going to were unnecessary, and before descending back down to the plains and walking over to Bodhgaya and finding that bodhi tree to continue to sit under until he finally attained Enlightenment and, perhaps inadvertently, started a spiritual revolution. 

 

Included in this day was a visit to Sujata's temple (Vimeo video link) and to an old stupa said to have been built by her father, at which location we heard and met Peng Tao, the aforementioned Chinese contemplative musician who, along with playing his stringed instrument, says he will write a book about it and about his musical pilgrimage travels to Buddhist holy sites around the world. Have a listen (the instrument volume is pretty low, and there's a lot of loud talking in the background, but earphones are advisable):  Vimeo video link

This tourist day was attended to by Binay, the aspiring tour guide, so we were able to contribute to his aspirations by employing him for the day, and also by giving him Arun's contact info as someone who might be able to, one way or another, help further Binay's career. (Having just a little while ago as I write re-arrived in Delhi for one more night before flying out to Bangkok tomorrow, and having been met at the train and driven by Arun to our guest house, we have learned that Binay has indeed already made contact).

And finally regarding Bodhgaya, that magnet that draws Buddhist pilgrims from all round the world, that Mecca, as it were, of Buddhism: the Bodhi Tree and the Mahabodhi Temple. Nancy and I visited here several times during our days and nights, including on the Super Full Moon night in October, and she visited with our new friend Kat (Katherine Smith, LCSW from Hawaii, who also joined us on our outing day and at several kitchen meals/discussions) as well. Is it easier to sit/meditate here than it is in many other places on the planet? No surprise. The location has that quality derived from centuries or millenia of devotion and practice that can be experienced at other holy sistes, of a paradoxical quiet amidst the ceaseless motion and activity of visitors. Maybe it wouldn't be far wrong to say that it has a sort of specifically Buddhist quality, by which I mean one derived from Buddhist sitting meditation as well as from chanting and prayers and circumambulation and offerings. Or, maybe this is only my imagination.

 

At this point in our travels, we both feel that when we return to India, we will spend most of our time at Sherabling, a month or two is what we're saying, and maybe some time at Bodhgaya. We would most likely fly to the latter instead of taking an overnight train, just for the ease of it in the face of the cumulatively overwhelming psychic and visceral/sensual experience that India is. For all of its wonder, India is also a difficult, taxing place to be. For me the difficulty is largely physical, although the painful emotional impact of the grueling and widespread poverty can't be denied either.

When I was younger, and more emotionally shut down, and stronger physically, and more opinionated and more judgmental (can you imagine!?), I would have said, and probably did say, that India was more real, and more raw, and more authentic, and more gritty and a place that only the special few could handle well. Of course I was amoung those few. Now, I'm less charmed by the filth and the grime and the pollution of every kind and the aggression and the hordes and the destitution and the extremes. I find individuals and the connections to be made more appealing and more meaningful, even in the cauldron of India, and these are what make the rest of it now doable.

Vimeo video link

On the other side of that coin though, I have to say that there is also, again paradoxically, as India is nothing if not quintessentially paradoxical, a certain familiarity and comfort, even ease in being here. Sherabling is an island of relative calm and quiet in the madness of India, and Bodhgaya is just a special enough and small enough place to make the rest of it workable for a while.

(Street musicians playing for tips outside the MahabodhiTemple: naturally they caught my full attention: Vimeo video link)

At this very moment, maybe just because we are about to leave, and have just come from Varanasi via overnight train, on which it's not possible for me to get real sleep – more to come about Varanasi– and we're clearly tired and in need of rest, the idea of “exploring” more of India has little appeal for either of us. We're ready for a break, which Thailand, according to the people we've recently met who've been there, will undoubtedly provide.