Linda: Bodhgaya, Feb. 2-6

Linda: Bodhgaya – Feb 1-5

With much trepidation and a heavy heart, I said farewell to my husband and son on the streets of Varanasi. It has been a wonderful 6 weeks, a treasured time with many diverse events and a blessing to share as a family.

Eleanor and I left for the train station long before Patrick and Matthew. It was our first time on Indian trains – 3 hours late, three tier sleeper car. We only had a 5 hour journey, but my, those seats got hard by the end of the five hours! The trains are certainly less bumpy than travel by bus and one can lie down. We were in a second class compartment and it was cold enough that my shawl was very welcomed. Our compartment was shared with an Indian couple, a man from Austria, and a man from Japan. Both of these men had been to India before and were returning to re-visit some places and explore new areas. (December/January really is the best time to see most of India as the weather is, on the whole, quite pleasant.) The train is an excellent place to meet people, to compare notes, to play cards, to show photographs, and to share food – if one dares. Passengers come well supplied with many savory items and meals. The train stops about every 15 minutes, so a five hour trip by train would probably take half as long by car. At most stops, people would come on board offering tea and snacks, and often someone would come on board to beg for money. One ingenious little girl came on and did acrobatics in the hopes of making a few rupees. It worked on Eleanor! (In Varanasi, we have seen the most extreme cases of poverty and crippled people trying to survive. Because of the expense of medicine, many injuries go untreated, so it is not uncommon to see someone with twisted limbs. Some walk or creep along the ground, making their way the best they can. How incredibly difficult life can be.)

We are on our way to Bodhgaya, the place where the Buddha sat under a banyan tree and attained Enlightenment. It is the most significant place of pilgrimage for the Buddhist world, and the tree, stupa, and surrounding grounds are a World Heritage Site. We arrived at 1:00 in the morning to a sleeping town and slept later that morning and had brunch. We just went around the corner, past a few shops selling things and one beautiful Tibetan monastery that is across the street from our hotel. After eating an exquisite meal in a little Tibetan café, we made our way to the grounds where the Buddha had meditated 2500 years ago. And there, we had an immense surprise. As we neared the ground, we heard chanting and horns coming from within the gates. The stupa is a beautiful structure, and the grounds are surrounded by flowers, gardens, votive pillars, little buildings. At Sarnath, I had fervently wished to see a place that was living, vibrant, still manifesting what had inspired its creation. I wanted to see what Sarnath once was – and here it was! All the sacred architecture I’d wondered about in the ruins of Sarnath were here. And more! We came during the three days when relics, sacred to the Tibetan Buddhists, were on display. We came in the center of a large Tibetan pilgrimage. The grounds around the Bodhgaya tree were surrounded by thousands of Tibetan monks and nuns with their beautiful countenances and robes of maroon and ochre. Other nationalities were also present, all sitting around the stupa, praying, prostrating, chanting, reading. There are two walkways around the stupa; the first one is about 15 steps above ground level and the second another 15 steps above that. One could walk on the upper level, going around the stupa, and looking down at this immense spectacle. Because the walkway was up, I felt completely at ease taking photographs, knowing I did not distract the people praying below. It is a very serene and peaceful place here. It’s a quiet place, an inward place.

Going on at the same time is the Saraswati celebration, a Hindu celebration of a significant goddess. During this time, statues of Saraswati are taken out of the temples to be led in procession down the streets. In Varanasi, she is taken to the Ganges to be plunged in her waters before returning to the temples. I’m not sure where they took her here in Bodhgaya. It was such an interesting contrast between the two modes! The Buddhist monks and nuns were all around the tree, chanting and praying. Then, occasionally, out in the streets, one would hear loud drumming and playing (sometimes loudspeakers playing Hindu music). If you were out on the street, you would see a truck coming, decked in flowers with musicians in front. The statue of Saraswati would be on the bed of the truck, resplendent with flowers and fabric, followed by devotees dancing (all men, at least I don’t think I saw any women) and singing in the streets. This scene would be played off and on over a three day period – a little wild and very festive.

The Bodhgaya is a wonderful place, and the surrounding monasteries are also a wonder. Every Buddhist country was invited to build a monastery in the style of their country. So, even though there were mainly Tibetans here at this time, one also saw significant numbers of Chinese, Bhutanese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Indian and others. Some of the temples are absolute jewels, and in seeing the various temples, one sees a significant part of the Asian world. Truly, I marvel at the artistry that takes the same ideas, the same sets of principles, the same stories, and transforms them into archtypes that beautifully reflect a people’s hearts. The Tibetan monastary with its bright colors; the Bhutanese with more subdued colors and three-dimensional scenes in the walls; the Japanese with its stark and simple building whose austerity offset the resplendent Buddha that was at its center; the Thai temple with its exquisite blue and gold and the Buddha with the Thai style crown that connects man with heaven. In Thailand, people always sense the connection between man and God as a direct link between the head and heaven. Their artwork and halos reflect this, and it is considered very bad manners to touch someone on the head, as this cuts this connection. The artwork reminded me in some ways of the Christian art work of the descent of the Holy Spirit. One walks here, somewhere in a different time and in a different place. How small our world is, how wonderful, and how fragile.

(I am now back to being a minority again! And so are all the Hindus!)

For three days, we basked in the contemplative splendor of the Tibetan prayer life. I was quite tired from all the traveling and did not take as full advantage of this situation as possible. Besides the large gatherings at the site of the Bodhi Tree, there were also smaller, more intimate gatherings at the various monasteries, both early in the morning and later in the afternoon. The atmosphere vibrated with the hum of prayerful intent, and one’s heart was swept up with a calmness, a sense that it would be so easy to live this quiet, unhurried pace, letting the moments go by in a simple life of a plain diet, a simple room, and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding in the highest form.

Today is our last day here. I awoke after a fitful night, feeling quite restless and out of sorts – a significant contrast to the previous days of contentment. When Eleanor and I left to go to the Bodhi Tree, we saw that, indeed, all was over. The little blankets that had covered the walkways, resplendent with beads, prayer wheels, flags, and jewelry from Tibet were mostly gone and, inside the courtyards of the stupa, a few monks continued to pray and prostrate, but all else was being cleaned up. The bowls of flowers that had surrounded all the walkways were gone. The thousands of oil lamps, flickering on the walkways and in the 5 glass houses that contained them were all extinguished. Buses were lining up, dignitaries were leaving, and many of the Tibetans had taken off their beautiful robes for the western dress in which they would travel. One could see monks and nuns, lingering on the periphery, trying to hold onto the peace that had been there, something to savor and hold onto – perhaps for a lifetime. Others were already thinking of tomorrow, their faces already turned away. Transitions are such difficult times, and I found it interesting that the very air around us transmitted this; we were surrounded by an unsettled ambience saying it was time to move on. Still, to have been given this fleeting glance into this world, so unexpected, was a true gift – one of those moments forever in one’s imagination, like photographs which can be viewed, reminders of a happiness and a fleeting perfection in an imperfect world.