Can't Buy Me Buddhahood

After lunch, we first visited Ramabhar Stupa, the sacred ground of the Buddha’s cremation. It consists of crumbly brick ruins in the shape of cake made by someone who’d never made a cake before, sort of a lopsided and flat-topped hill, with a base around which many colorfully dressed Nepalese lay like reclining Buddhas while a lama, with Tibetan-style book open before him, chanted. From a short distance I saw him twirling a little two-sided drum and holding a gold vajra (dorje, in Tibetan, or thunderbolt, in English) while chanting. The Nepalese looked a bit like Tibetans, and the women wore sarongs and blouses in wonderful bright and colorful prints. Shantum talked with the lama and learned that the group was from Mustang, a small region of Nepal that practices Tibetan Buddhism.

Meanwhile, Thai monks in orange and yellow robes with that alluring off the shoulder look circled the stupa, chanting and creating a pleasant vibration around us. I mindfully circumambulated the Ramabhar Stupa three times, enjoying the chanting. The entire setting was calm and soothing and peaceful. On the backside of the stupa there was a pot of incense and some offerings. While I circumambulated, the Thais stopped chanting and gathered before the offerings. Meanwhile, most of our sangha joined the Nepalese pilgrims by lying on their straw mats in the reclining Buddha pose with heads toward the stupa.

At the ancient stupa ruins, a crowd of beggar children gathered around Val, who put little stickers on their hands; Yvette said it looked like she was feeding pigeons, because of the way the children gathered around Val, who reached out and put the stickers on their hands. As we started heading for the bus, Erika passed out pens to the beggar children: they grabbed at the colorful writing utensils, and she told them all to sit. They promptly sat in unison, like well-trained puppies. When she walked toward the bus, children surrounded her, and Ann commented on how kids are most inclined to approach Erika and Yvette, since they are close to the children’s size.

Due to my enthusiasm for using my camera, Mukesh started on ongoing joke. He says, “Susan, where’s your camera?” My answer is one of the following:
“It’s in my bag.”
“In my pocket!”
“My camera? Oh, no, I must have left it at the last hotel!”

We left the cremation stupa and walked up a path that the Buddha walked. We walked to a Hanuman shrine close to a group of colorful little mud Islamic shrines shaped like stacks of square boxes. In front of the shrines, at the edge of the path, sat Gypsy-like musicians with a drum and a rectangular box of an instrument that sounded much like an accordion and which I later learned is called a harmonium.

We came to a goddess shrine that included a square platform with a life-size blue Kali standing in front. Inside a little house-like structure at the back of the platform, a life-size Durga rode a lion. I tagged along behind, and by the time I caught up with the group, Shantum was explaining, “Women connect with the goddesses that are most like them.” That certainly explains my attraction to Durga, the single and independent woman, and Sarasvati, the geek.

Some of us, perhaps half of the sangha, walked down the road to the Thai temple. Bicyclists gawked at us as they glided past, and of course I had to stop and pet baby goats along the way. On our left, we soon arrived at the very elaborate and gorgeous Thai temple and monastery complex. It is made of white marble with gold trim and has the typical Thai look: a very steep pointy roof like a gingerbread house but ending in curly dragon faces at the corners.

We slipped off our shoes and climbed up the stairs of a temple that was the first building at the monastery, and we came to a white marble balcony where I paused to gaze at another temple nearby, that was a big square full of glass windows topped by a roof made of countless pointy gold domes. We went further up the white marble stairs and stepped into a breathtaking hall with deep blue walls and a shrine at the far end. On the shrine sat a big gold Buddha and many other gold, filigree-like statues and ornaments. We sat down on the carpet, and a monk turned on electric lights, or rather gold and crystal sconces. The abbot Govinda, whom we had met on Vulture Peak, entered the room, for Shantum had made an appointment with him. Govinda sat to our right, in what looked like a French Louis XIV chair.

The abbot gave us a talk and among other things said that his daily schedule includes three hours walking meditation, one and a half hours sitting meditation, and one hour praying. Most of Govinda’s talk focused on the unimportance of money, how it doesn’t buy you happiness.

“Next time, I’ll speak better English. Come back in five years,” Govinda concluded, before the sangha began asking him questions. Rikki asked him how he would teach us if we were his students, but he does not think his English is good enough; he could teach only in Thai. His English sounded impressive to us.

Shantum asked if Thai monks have bank accounts, and Govinda replied only for the sangha, not for themselves. Someone asked who cooks for the monks, and Govinda said they have “no food after noon, and nuns do most of the cooking.” Upon hearing this, I clenched my teeth and thought: big surprise. “The monks only go for alms in India on special days. In Thailand, they wake at five in the morning; in India later,” like eight or nine.

When it came time for us to leave the beautiful room, Govinda asked Shantum, “What country are you from?”
Shantum smiled and said, “I’m an Indian Buddhist.” This conjured a big smile out of Govinda, who is no doubt aware of how Buddhism died out in India. Who knows, maybe with a little help from Shantum, Indian Buddhism will make a comeback and in a hundred years, it could be perhaps even as popular in India as it was during the Buddha’s time.

The sun was rapidly setting by the time we went outdoors. From the balcony we paused to look out on the long white monastery and the temple. Yvette mentioned that both monks and nuns live at this monastery, and I said, “Yeah, but guess who does the cooking.”

We followed Govinda to the domed temple that I had noticed earlier. It’s a shrine that “looks like a big jewel box,” as Erika put it. We went inside, and an enormous glass case in the center contains a relic of the Buddha in one little box and some of his hair in a slightly lower box, both of which looked like standard-sized jewel boxes. We sat on the floor and practiced some chanting and meditation in front of the glass case. Everyone rose from the floor, and I circled the big glass box, reminiscent of Willy Wonka’s glass elevator, and I noticed that at each corner stood delicate-looking dainty gold tables covered with pretty gold things that were like filigree.

The temple and monastery are beautiful, but I was rather unimpressed about the comment concerning nuns and cooking. That jarringly woke me up, though I have read quite a bit about Asian women and Buddhism, enough that I once considered ditching Buddhism altogether. I must remind myself that bell hooks and Alice Walker are Buddhists, and that sanghas are more egalitarian in North American Buddhist communities, where I’m much more likely to participate in a sangha. But this distaste is about women in general, not me; we all are sisters.

The Thai monks can afford elaborate gold temples; this one in Kushinagar had a wealthy donor, despite Govinda’s stress on the unimportance of money. Yet they “can’t afford” to fully ordain nuns and not use them as servants, which really cuts in on the time the nuns should be practicing. The concept of treating nuns like monks is still alien to Thai culture, although from what I have read it is slowly changing. Tibetan culture has the same problem, with nuns working as servants and in many cases only starting to read when they’re in their thirties, whereas monks down the road are very literate and do all kinds of ceremonies and get plenty of donations, since it’s considered better merit to donate to monks than to donate to nuns.

Govinda talks against money and extravagance and emphasizes charity, yet Thai Theravada nuns are subservient to monks even right here at his Kushinagar monastery, while the temples are so elaborate and expensive. Jennifer spoke up about this conspicuous consumption to Shantum as we walked away from the temple, and Shantum reminded her that this monastery has a major donor.

I have read in the Buddhist magazines Tricycle and The Turning Wheel that boys who live in poverty in Thailand go to monasteries and get an education, while their sisters often end up as prostitutes and donate some of their money from prostitution to the monasteries. If Govinda would have thought of it, maybe he could have politely asked the donor to use the money to help improve life for girls from poor families in Thailand, those who would otherwise end up in brothels or on the streets. Compassion is important even, or rather especially, when it challenges the oppressive status quo. Compassion should help open your heart and open your eyes and inspire you to be awake when something is unjust and to do something about it, whatever you can.

Such thoughts don’t come to my mind because I’m under some smug delusion that I’m better than everyone else, as vicious relatives would sneeringly imply not for the first time if they read this, but rather because I genuinely believe in compassion, loving-kindness, and justice, regardless of my imperfect actions. I am at this particular point on the path, and no matter how incompetent I may seem at this point, I really want to change myself and the world. The more open-minded you are and the less in denial you are, the more able you are to embrace truth. Even if I don’t do a perfect job of expressing compassion, I have the sense to know that it is a top priority.

I admit I found the Thai temples and monastery breathtakingly beautiful and enjoyed wandering around the complex. For a long time I’ve had internal conflict between aesthetics and ethics. I like elaborate art and architecture, even castles and palaces, despite my anti-hierarchy beliefs, and yet part of my mind says this elaborate architecture used up money that should have gone into, for instance, saving Thai girls from sex trafficking. When I read about goofy pseudo-Neoclassical palaces in Kathmandu, I thought such buildings should be torn down and the materials sold to save Nepalese girls from being dragged into such a life. And in Thailand especially, sex trafficking is a huge problem, yet the male-dominated religious institutions get flashy gold and marble architecture.

It was dark outside by the time we left the big jewel box. The monastery, from what I could see, consisted largely of very long one-story white marble buildings. A short flight of steps led up to a little store that sold such things as postcards, where Yvette and Liz browsed.

I heard countless frogs croaking gently, like peepers in the early spring, and I noticed a sort of moat and a white footbridge leading to the short flight of steps to the gift shop. Much plant life that I couldn’t identify covered the bank of this little brook, and inside floated lily pads. I stood on the bridge and watched, and sure enough I saw movement in the water, a frog that created circles on the glistening black surface.

Besides Yvette, Liz, and me, the only other two members of the sangha who didn’t disperse were Jennifer and Rikki, who lingered in order to place a candle offering at a shrine that consisted of a simple square metal structure with a row of burning candles, in front of the short flight of steps leading up to the monastery shop. However, Rikki didn’t have a candle or a match and asked for them at the shop. We all ultimately stood in front of the shrine, and I gazed at the flickering candles, watching them dance and float in the dark night air.

Unfortunately, none of us was really sure which way to go in order to leave the monastery. We backtracked toward the temple where we had started out, and we made our way, in the dark, to the front gates. It was a beautiful evening and not too cold to be out and about, even though the darkness made it seem late. A tour bus was parked out front, but it didn’t take us long to notice that the people stepping off it were not from our sangha. We turned to the left and in the distance could see a few people walking away in the dark, down the narrow road.

“There’s Shantum!” Liz said. Sure enough, he was in the center of this group of people, walking at a leisurely pace. “I recognize his walk.”
“And his hat,” I said.
“Yeah, he has a distinctive walk,” Yvette said. It suggests that he walks mindfully every time he’s walking. We headed in the direction of Shantum and his walking companions, and surprisingly in a few minutes we were actually at the Lotus Nikko Hotel. None of us had had any idea that our hotel was so close to the Thai temple.

All Conditions of Reality Are Subject to Decay

I had a dream that ended with a scene in which I sat on the left side of the tour bus, gawking out the window as usual and seeing many people at the side of the road and litter on the ground. Standing still among these people was the tall and skinny figure of Death, wrapped in black rags. Even the face was covered with black rags.

My throat is full of phlegm and my nose is full of snot. Nonetheless, I crawled out of bed and headed down for our morning meditation. After we practiced our sitting meditation in the same hotel room as last night, the reading was about death and decay, rather appropriately given that we are in Kushinagar, where the Buddha died. The reading included gruesome stuff, reminiscent of Tibetan visualization practice. Hey, let’s take a field trip to a charnel ground! How peculiar it is that I dreamed about the Grim Reaper after arriving in the village where the Buddha died. It seems to me like more than mere coincidence.

I had time after breakfast to wander around the hotel courtyard, and on the path I met up with John and Yvette. We admired the trees around the lawn, such as clusters of thin bamboo tied together to form a mushroom shape, and a strange little fig tree with branches sticking out like the branches at the top of a stupa, above the dome. We stood near a small orange tree growing tiny oranges. Yvette said her mother had had a tiny orange bush like that, but much smaller, on her treadle sewing machine. “This tree shows what that little orange bush had the potential to become,” Yvette said. “We all have the potential to bloom into something greater.”

Shantum took us to the Paranirvana Stupa, during the monks’ lunch break. It was before noon, and Shantum explained it would likely be the monks’ last meal of the day. I have read that this practice of eating early in the day and fasting later prevents food from distracting monks and nuns from their practice. After I return to the States, I intend to only have breakfast and lunch, no dinner, but my lunches will certainly be after noon, not before it. I am sure that eating with others, such as houseguests, will prevent my sticking to this schedule all the time, but except for the exceptions I truly resolve to have only breakfast and lunch.

We walked along a path amid red brick monastic ruins, similar to the ruins at Deer Park and Nalanda. In the distance, amid the crumbly brick structures and trees, stood a small white building, the Paranirvana temple, which marks where the Buddha died. The roof curved like a barrel over the one story, and centered at each side of the roof was a large circular window. Below the front window was a veranda with big, bright red columns contrasting against the otherwise perfectly white façade. Flanking the central door were circular niches that may have once contained Buddha statues.

Behind the temple loomed a large stupa in good shape considering its obviously advanced age. The temple in front did not look especially old, because it was completely intact, sporting glass windows, and covered with a fresh lick of white paint. We walked on the path past small trees and a hedge and up a few steps leading straight to the front doors of the Paranirvana temple, which is built on top of a big square brick ruin with a metal railing all around the temple and stupa.

We entered through the front door. Centered inside is a gigantic reclining gold Buddha made in the fifth century CE. The statue is beautiful and on a larger than life scale; the Buddha lies on an ornate rectangular platform and looks so peaceful, as if he were napping. In front of him are various offerings, particularly of incense and oranges.

In a far corner, a row of five Tibetan nuns chanted soothingly in soprano voices while we circumambulated three times. I finally noticed that the walls were plain grey cement blocks; they did not draw attention away from the marvelous gold Buddha that dominates the small room and predates it by several centuries.

We sat down on the floor facing the Buddha statue’s front. The nuns departed and were soon replaced by three maroon-clad monks who sat in the same back corner. While we sat looking around or meditating, a young monk in a red robe approached the Buddha statue, got down on his knees, placed offerings in front of the Buddha, and pressed his palms together. Shantum continued telling us the story of the Buddha’s life, or in this instance his death here in Kushinagar.

The Buddha, at the age of eighty, was out walking with Ananda and ate something that disagreed with him and came here to lie down between two sal trees, tell his last teaching, and die. In the Buddha’s last talk, according to Shantum, he said, “Live simply,” and Shantum added, “No more silk scarves.” Ann and I exchanged an amused look, and I lifted a corner of my beaded and sequined paisley shawl.

Finally, as the tale neared its end, Shantum said, “’All conditions of reality are subject to decay. Strive diligently,’ the Buddha said. Those were his last words. In simple terms it means, ‘Change happens, and keep practicing.’”

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An Indian or more likely Sri Lankan monk, standing in the doorway in orange robes, spoke with Shantum, who afterwards explained to us that the Paranirvana Stupa is both a temple and an archeological survey. The archeological people are responsible for the signs saying, “No offerings,” and a Burmese temple is responsible for the donation box that sits close to the Buddha’s head. It is funny seeing a sign that commands, “OFFERING NOT ALLOWED,” below the Buddha statue’s head and inches away from a plate covered in marigolds, a bowl of fruit, and a donation box.

After Shantum’s talk, several people in our sangha asked to see the vast gold reclining Buddha without the orange and red cloth draped over it. Shantum spoke to the Indian attendant, and he carefully pulled the offering cloths off. We gathered around and took more pictures. The Buddha is plated gold from head to toe, with graceful curving lines indicating clinging draperies.
I was among those who circumambulated again. I gazed at the gold body all the way around, and as I approached the Buddha’s huge feet, several people ahead of me stepped forward, leaned, and touched the feet. I thought that looked like a good idea, but then I became slightly nauseous, thanks to this virus, and decided against it. I did not want to fall on or barf on the Buddha. That just would not do. So I slowly kept moving, reached the temple’s threshold, turned back for one last look at the enormous gold Buddha, then turned and slowly stepped out and took a deep breath in the relatively fresh air. When you meet the Buddha, vomit on the Buddha. No, no, take refuge in the Buddha; don’t barf on the Buddha. After we had had time with the Buddha uncovered, not to be confused with a Buddha unplugged concert, the attendants tucked him back in, so he could sleep peacefully.

I circumambulated around the two stupas, the one housing the statue and the one behind it, which we can’t enter, and that Emperor Ashoka built to mark where he believed the Buddha actually died. By the time I returned to the Paranirvana temple’s front facade, five or six orange-clad monks sat in a row to the right of the stupa entrance.

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I need to be more aware of death. Once in a while it has occurred to me that I should reject the Western attitude of avoiding death and pretending it will not happen, but I am not entirely sure how to go about doing this. Maybe I just need to think about it a little; I did once visualize myself as a skeleton while I was meditating. That’s simultaneously gothic and Buddhist. It would probably help if I get around to reading the entirety of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and if I read up more on Chod, a Tibetan practice that involves sitting in a charnel ground and visualizing a particular goddess tearing your body apart. Pleasant. Of course, Buddhism is not about blocking out things that aren’t pleasant but rather experiencing everything mindfully and seeking truth. I should also read the Mahaparinibbana Sutta; the original unwritten version of it dates to the Buddha’s death.

I know that I want my corpse cremated, and I thought I wanted the ashes scattered in earth, air, fire, and water, but now I wonder if maybe I’d prefer the ashes were poured into the Gangaji. On the auspicious side, that is, not the Ha ha, you’re gonna come back as a donkey if you die here side. True, there are plenty of people who live in India and would like their ashes to enter the Ganga, so it would be better if my ashes were scattered in North America or wherever I die.

This virus certainly won’t result in my death, but it is a reminder of impermanence and the fickleness of health. Impermanence is like death, which is a metaphor for impermanence, which is in turn a kind of death. That reminds me that the tarot card illustrating a skeletal Death actually represents significant change in general, not just literal death, despite the tarot scene in the opera Carmen in which the card predicts the title character’s demise.

A shift in attitude can be a death of a part of yourself, such as the transition from being in denial about something to having a better grasp of truth and feeling glad for the greater awareness. Likewise, such a change is not only death but also rebirth, because you have gained wisdom and knowledge. I know firsthand that shedding denial, such as my denial about relatives, can help an artist become more artistically creative, since naturally the artist has become more expressive and more observant; being in denial means putting up a wall between yourself and truth. Even that sort of impermanence, a shift in attitude, ultimately reflects the circular cycle of life, which goes from birth, to living, to old age, to death, and over and over again in the same cycle through countless lifetimes.

The Buddhist concept of being devoid of inherent existence is tied in with impermanence. Over the years, in this lifetime alone, I have undergone change in how I think, and that old part of me dissolves; so what is Me, anyway? We are constantly changing, constantly experiencing impermanence, and so we do not exist in the sense of being an individual entity, separate from the rest of the world. Gee, that connects impermanence with interdependence, too. I’m hardly surprised, since everything is connected; everything is interdependent.

I picture the Buddha lying in his golden robes between two tall, slender trees, with a large crowd of people gathered around. On his deathbed, and at the advanced age of eighty, his voice, I imagine, would not have been loud enough for everyone to hear. Perhaps when he answered questions, a younger monk announced the answers to the crowd in a booming voice. Meanwhile, the weary Buddha lay still and propped his head up with his arm and remained equanimous, fully accepting his death as inevitable.

On the Road to Kushinagar

Jagdish has a fitting metaphor comparing Indians and Westerners: Indians are sociable and outgoing like dogs; Westerners are solitary and introverted like cats. I am the most catlike of cats in the cat world. Meow.

Last night I had a dream in which I leaned over a grey stone or concrete railing and watched a filthy polluted river flow past with algae floating in it. I don’t recall seeing any part of the Ganga that looked like that, so perhaps my dream river was based on how I expected the Ganga to look after reading that dead babies and dead cows, among other things, are dumped into it. That is hardly an appropriate way to treat a sacred river.

Piles of trash with animals such as cows, dogs, pigs, and goats rooting through them are a common sight in India, whether in a city or village. They were particularly noticeable in Varanasi. That city had its share of filth and squalor, with piles of cow shit in the alleys and piles of trash with dogs rooting through it, but we had scarcely any encounters with beggars. The exception was while we passed grotesquely crippled beggars and headed toward Gangaji and it was still dark out.

We climbed on the bus this morning to leave Varanasi, the big filthy city full of phallic symbols. Today, while some people took a potty break, I took pictures of the view, particularly lentil fields and a white Hindu temple in the distance. Meanwhile, Erika, Shantum, and others walked down the road and saw many people at work, doing their sundry jobs.

After the small group of pilgrims returned, and everyone had climbed aboard the bus, Shantum took the microphone and announced that Erika would give us a report on the various industries that they just encountered. He handed Erika the microphone, and she said that they saw: people pressing oil from linseed, a shoemaker, an iron maker, a guy with a dancing bear, a carpenter teaching an apprentice how to make something, and a mosque. If I’d been paying attention, I would have taken that walk with them. But I’m glad I didn’t see the dancing bear. Shantum said, “Bears come from hills and forests. India domesticated bears and elephants, more often the latter.”

An industry I’ve noticed in India that I find particularly interesting is the tailor shops that don’t have electricity. They are typically what look like one-room shops such as the buildings I just described, and in the center of the room stands a black treadle sewing machine. Wooden shelves covered with bolts of fabric lined the walls. In one village, I saw a couple of tailor shops crowded with at least eight treadle sewing machines and with guys sewing at each of them.

I wonder if the sewing machines were all well-preserved antiques, or whether India still manufactures treadle sewing machines, which to me look Victorian. In the States, I’ve seen them often enough in flea markets and antique malls, and sometimes they’re rusty. I once sat down to a treadle sewing machine that had belonged to my grandmother; sewing with it requires constantly rocking a large pedal with the feet and continually turning the wheel with the right hand.

Today is another festival, a Muslim one, and during our long bus ride Shantum said, “There are always festivals in India.” The Shiite sect is central to the festival, a day of atonement. It is the day their leader, a son-in-law of Mohammad, was killed. The holiday involves intense self-punishment and lots of marriages (that alone sounds like intense self-punishment); it is an auspicious time and involves lots of processions. We drove through a village and saw throngs of Muslim guys walking around on the street and wearing simple cylindrical white cotton hats, or fez. Meanwhile, Shantum said, “You can make out what village someone came from by the type of hat or turban they wear and how they wear the turban.”

Members of our sangha asked Shantum various questions on the bus. He said that doorways to hotels have hats because it’s imposing. At the doorways of houses the paintings are a sign of welcome; I’ve certainly noticed quite a few wonderful and colorful murals on facades, especially while we were traversing down the lanes of Varanasi. Ganesh over or near door is also auspicious and welcoming.

“India has two legal systems,” Shantum explained. “The local caste system, with elders in charge of disputes about such things as land and children. And a legal system based on the British legal system. A case goes to court and there’s a precedent, and it goes to that precedent. Police stations are the location, and people file first an information report and say there’s a problem. The courts include: a local court, district court, high court, supreme court, and a national court in New Delhi.”

“Ashoka set up a traditional legal system,” Shantum said, “but the British system is based on power tripping. A small number of people have lots of power.” That sounds to me like America, despite claims that it represents freedom and democracy.

“The Indian president is Christian,” Shantum explained, “and she is very healing and good at solving disputes, but she’s not good at keeping down corruption; she just lets it go. Her husband is involved in some of the corruption. India has a movement to educate and elect women, but it’s more talk than action currently. Women are getting more training and empowerment.” Gee, that sounds like America too, but I’m sure we’re farther along.

While traveling, I usually look out the bus windows. I have observed stacks of dried cow paddies forming something like stupas. Also shaped vaguely like stupas are piles of tires with small ones on top. India has many scarecrows made of sticks and rags. I didn’t have success with sleeping on the bus but did something I called pseudo-dozing, not really quite dozing. That sounds like it should be a Sanskrit name or word: Suddhadosa.

“India has too many problems, too many issues,” Shantum said. It is overwhelming: the horror of things, such as sex slave trade, selling girls to be prostitutes. Some organizations work to save them, groups that are against child prostitution, such as the organization Care. “Media and education need to do research and expose the sex trade,” Shantum pointed out. Globalization involves selling girls to other countries, and even sex tourism. AIDS is another big problem. Child labor is a huge issue, but Shantum said, “The problem with ending child labor is that it would destroy the apprentice system.” Well, I figure that’s if you end all child labor across the board; the apprenticeship system could be an exception, as long as the hours are limited. After all, kids work on their family farms and do chores around the house.

“No hurry, no worry,” Shantum said as we were about to leave the restaurant after lunch on a restaurant patio, where we had a typical delicious buffet and followed it up with masala chai.
Natalie said, “Moving at the speed of guidance,” would make a great poster.

Right after we got on the bus, Jagdish passed out Cadbury chocolates and said, “Today is my cow’s birthday.” And he added, “I have a cow back home.”

During the all-day bus ride, we stopped at a village market. We wandered around and saw merchants with their paraphernalia spread out on sheets on the ground: countless colorful vegetables, herbs, spices, terra cotta pottery, and clothing. The spice guy took a newspaper and spooned a variety of spices together and wrapped them up in the paper, and Dornora bought spices from him. I thought the spices looked pretty, with the different colors and textures together on the white paper.

A woman, the only female merchant, stood in a corner of the market and sold stacks of terra cotta pottery, and Shantum bought a couple of little bowls, because Nandini broke the ones she had found in Deer Park. I’ll be lucky if I don’t break the chai cup I picked up, but then again it’s wrapped up in my fake silk scarf. Meanwhile, Erika took pictures of the many people, all male, something we were accustomed to by now, who followed us around, fascinated by this strange group of foreigners. They might see tour buses now and then, but I doubt many tour buses actually stop to visit their village market. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people whose idea of a vacation in a foreign country revolves around lying on a beach; you can do that on Lake Michigan in Indiana.

Near the seller of pottery, a guy sold clothing, much of which was still wrapped in plastic and therefore apparently had never been worn previously. I think all of it was cotton. There were lightweight cotton shawls, and Valerie purchased one that was a pale off-white, almost orange, and trimmed with a pattern in metallic gold. Jennifer bought a small pink sleeveless blouse, and later, after she realized it was too small, she gave it to a little girl who was begging while we took a walk. The clothing merchant also had a bright blue cotton skirt with a three-inch ruffle along the hem, and Shantum explained that this is a petticoat worn under the sari. As Jennifer observed, Indian women wear underwear that looks a lot like Western outerwear, such as the sleeveless blouse and the petticoat.

After dark we arrived at the Lotus Nikko Hotel in Kushinagar, which has a gigantic lobby with a long row of large arched windows, and centered in front of these windows is a Buddha statue, a replica of the one at Sarnath that we imitated in our performance art with Rikki. In front of the hotel’s statue is a plate of offerings, particularly marigolds. While Shantum, Jagdish and Mukesh organized the room keys, the sangha sipped cups of masala chai and sat at yellow carved wooden Victorian-looking sofas or wandered around the lobby and observed.

Liz and Yvette stepped out of a doorway, which I soon noticed led to the hotel’s shop, where a merchant was selling wooden beads and sculptures. Erika said to Liz and Yvette, “I can always rely on you to show me where the shops are,” and to me she said, “And I can always rely on you to show me where the animals are. I can always rely on Jennifer to show me where the bathrooms are.”

My hotel room in Kushinagar is amazing. The décor is simple, but I think it would be very easy to live in such a room, because it’s bigger than my last apartment. It doesn’t have a kitchen or a walk-in closet, but it has more floor space than my apartment had, and it has a low partition rather than a full wall with a door, which sort of creates another bedroom at the back. On the far side of the partition, the room contains a third bed, a coffee table, and upholstered chairs. The carpet is a drab brown and the color scheme is bland brown and white, but I could see myself living in a place with this set-up for months on end.

Unfortunately, I feel like Tigger without his bounce, because my nose is badly congested. Last night I caught the virus that has been going around in our sangha. I am low on cough drops, and yet a cough drop in my mouth will likely get me through the night.

Since shortly after the pilgrimage began, the virus has been making the rounds among us, and a couple days ago Jennifer said I must be really hearty, because I have not gotten sick yet. I said that it might be because I had a flu shot, since normally I get sick relatively easily, but on the other hand this is no flu. On the second night of our pilgrimage, Rikki had warned during “Strucks” that when people get sick while traveling with a group like this, the germs spread; someone had suggested covering your mouth with your elbow when you cough, rather than using your hands and potentially touching someone, and I’ve been using my elbow to cover my mouth ever since. During dinner at the Radisson in Varanasi, Dean the retired doctor said that we’ll all catch it but after that will be immune to this virus, at least for five years.

Our journey to Kushinagar was surely much easier than the Buddha’s journey there. He had been about eighty years old and in less than perfect health, walking by foot with his buddy Ananda. During this walk, he stopped for lunch and was accidentally poisoned, so he must have felt even worse than I do with this virus, and he died after arriving in the village. We, on the other hand, travel using modern transportation and have nothing worse than a virus going around, from which we know we’ll recover. Impermanence doesn’t only apply to pleasant things, of course; we can look forward to recovering from most illnesses.

Hindu Day in Varanasi

It is eerie to walk through a dark and misty but busy street before dawn in Varanasi, as we did on our way to the Ganga River. Many people were already up and bustling about despite the early hour. We walked from the bus past already-open fruit stalls and vegetable stalls and pastry stalls and among dogs and beggars and bicycles and the occasional rickshaw. It makes me wonder if Indians ever stop working and go to sleep. They probably take a break in the middle of the day to nap, at least in summertime.


Out of the mist appeared a small wooden wagon, scarcely larger than the little red wagon I had as a child, pulled by a skeletal figure in rags, and inside the wagon lay a small, emaciated creature that scarcely seemed human, with twisted, thin, useless legs. A leprous woman in rags begged on my right; she had bloody bandaged stumps for hands. I felt a scream rising towards my throat, but I didn’t let it out. Instead I took several deep breaths and continued walking as if I hadn’t seen her. Another wagon containing a mangled human form rattled past on my left. Mostly I saw people in rags who were not incapacitated, though they were obviously very poor. Moving past them in the darkness and mist was like stepping into a nightmare or some sick and twisted idea for a Halloween celebration. It would be a fitting scene in a horror movie. But it was real, all too real.

We came to a flight of grey stone steps descending to the bank; by then the light was dark grey, and I’m not even sure by what light we saw, perhaps lanterns and candles, unless there are street lamps. Jagdish said not to take pictures of the naked saddhus, and as soon as he mentioned this, at a glance I saw to my left a crouching, longhaired and bearded naked man smeared with white ashes. A few others squatted or stood near him, just on the left of the top of the steps, or rather ghats. They seemed to have grayish blue skin, and I thought they were silently watching us, like alert and still cats, but I only briefly glanced at them.


We moved down the long steps and off to the right. Ubiquitous wallahs tagged along, with beads and incense and pink floral cardboard boxes. On the stone pavement a few feet from the ghats, while I waited for my turn to climb aboard the wooden boat, I spotted an intact bright yellow marigold, picked it up and sniffed at it, but it had no smell.
After each pilgrim climbed aboard the boat, Jagdish handed us each a saucer-size leaf plate on which marigolds circled a lighted tea candle. Following the example of others, I took my plate to the far end and leaned over the side of the boat. I slowly, delicately placed the plate on the surface of the river. I let go of it, and it floated like the other plates. The Gangaji offerings followed the current, slowly drifting together away from our boat, and I watched them till the candlelight was a group of tiny dots. I continued watching them gently floating away till they were no longer in sight. That’s a tradition I like; it was sweet and silent.

“Ghats are steps leading down to the Gangaji,” Shantum said. “Where we climbed on the boat was the original site of huge sacrifices. Hindus bathe in the sacred Ganga to get rid of generations of bad karma. This applies to Hinduism but not Buddhism. Ganges water has never been tested, but specific incidents indicate that it really has healing powers.”

Two skinny little guys rowed our boat, and throughout the boat ride we remained within sight of ghats and old buildings, many of which had domes and murals and were painted colors such as pink, yellow, and baby blue. One large structure was decorated with many colorful sculptures of Hindu deities, and my mouth hung open as we passed it. Groups of people bathed down on the bottom steps of some of the ghats.

I’ve read about saddhus, naked Hindu holy men. Shantum said, “Leaving society to them means abandoning clothes, haircuts, and money.” Naked saddhus did exercises higher up on the ghats; they reminded me of the ascetics with whom Siddhartha Gautama hung out before he sat under the Bodhi Tree.

“It is auspicious to die on the Ganga because Shiva whispers in your ear,” Shantum said. “Dying on the other side, however, means coming back as a donkey!” It seems to me like a deity whispering in your ear while you’re dying on the edge of a river would be a little creepy. Meanwhile, around us the atmosphere was surreal and somewhat misty even as the sun gradually came out and Shantum told us some local Hindu legends.

We passed a smoky piece of land that Jagdish described as cremation grounds, where men tended piles of burning dark wood. I did not, however, see anything that looked like a human corpse. Shantum said, “There are forty Sanskaras: these are the stages of life in Hinduism, starting before conception. The son is the only one to perform rites at death. Twice born means wearing the sacred thread; it goes diagonally across the naked chest and around back. Death is celebration: sometimes people dance and sing at cremation grounds.” I think that probably has to do with hope for a better incarnation next time.

During the boat ride, we glided past moored boats and floating boats, and once a guy swimming in the water. Our boat came close to a couple of guys in a boat with a television turned on, presumably running on batteries, and a travel video played on the TV. They were selling videos and giving this demo right there on the Gangaji. That was really weird. It was almost as weird as seeing a purple cow on a boat, but that didn’t happen. We didn’t even see a white or black cow on a boat.

Although we were not on land, we weren’t free from pushy salespeople. Some wallahs have boats, and their boats slowly glided toward ours till they gently knocked against the side. Shantum said, “The boat has a sensor that persuades other boats to stop or move away rather than wreck our boat.” However, it doesn’t prevent wallahs on boats from drifting right next to our boat. Eventually three boats at once surrounded ours, which made me laugh. John said that he had been glad to get in the boat, because we’d finally be somewhere free of wallahs. Oh, not so much.

We got off the boat at a different location and played follow-the-leader, climbing to the top of a ghat, and stepping around old stone domed shrines. I finally noticed, in the early morning sunlight, that Dean and Valerie wore white matching cotton kurtas with white cotton pants. I had to stop long enough to take pictures of what may have been goddess figures carved into the stone sides of a pale hexagonal structure, probably a centuries-old shrine.




We wandered through alleys: dingy, dirty alleys in which we avoided piles of cow shit. Every foot or two we came to a Hindu shrine or temple. These aesthetic manifestations of spirituality were so awe-inspiring and beautiful, even amid all the dirt, cow shit, dinginess and squalor, that I felt blissful and awed and smiled widely. I took a picture of at least one marigold-draped Shiva temple, a fine pair of dark wood double doors, and a shrine room with peacocks painted on bright green porcelain wall tiles. I raised my camera to take a picture of a Kali shrine, but then a woman in a green and red sari appeared, walking inside the little space behind the gate, so I shyly lowered my camera.

I found it painful passing rows of old women with begging bowls and trying not to look at them; maybe I should look at them when passing, even briefly, although I’m often too timid to look at people in general.

We passed people in faded, ragged clothing, buildings with cracked and chipped walls painted bright colors that hadn’t been repainted in a long time, and colorful Hindu murals. Painted good luck swastikas flanked a few wooden doors, and they didn’t remind me of Nazis; Nazi swastikas are at an angle, anyway. Finally we came to a section of the lane lined with little shops where people sold grains, spices, posters, beads, or statues. I saw on the stone pavement to my left a pile of discarded terra cotta bowls mixed with rubbish. I saw dogs and puppies with or without a skin disease.
My rubber-soled canvas sneakers slid occasionally on the slick stone pavement; so I walked carefully and watched my step, especially going up the few stone stairs, and somehow I managed to gawk the whole time, despite frequent glances at my feet. In the alley, scents that bombarded my nose included incense, spices, manure, burning trash, and sewage. Honking bikers and bell-ringing bicyclists came by as we neared a road big enough for vehicles, so in addition to cow turds we had to dodge bikes.

We made our egress out of an alley onto a bustling street crowded with rickshaws and bicycles and pedestrians and animals. A beautiful brown cow strolled through the center of the street, and I attempted to take a picture of the cow, but pedestrians and vehicles, especially rickshaws, kept blocking my view of the cow. I am cow. Hear me moo. Yes, the sacred cows wander around even in a metropolis like Varanasi. Since they’re sacred, they don’t have to worry too much about getting hit by a vehicle. The cow stands or wanders in traffic, perhaps thinking: “I am the It cow. I can block traffic all I want, because I am a Goddess.”

We returned to the hotel at about nine and had breakfast. It was bizarre to sit down at the table and realize how much we had already experienced. Like the White Queen of the Looking-Glass World, I could believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Next we headed for a contemporary art gallery called the Kiriti Gallery and dodged traffic across the busy street to arrive safely in front of the building. If it weren’t for Jagdish blocking traffic, I’m sure several of us, including me, would have gotten hit by now. Outdoors, looking at the art gallery, I had at first mistaken the white-washed building for a car dealer, but that’s because, like so many buildings in India, it has several doors that westerners only use as garage doors; by now I should be accustomed to that. A Ganesh plaque hung between two such doors.

Inside, we saw the exhibit called “Go Away Closer.” The artwork was all large black and white framed art photos by a young artist named Dayanita Singh. At least, I got the impression she was young, from something the art dealer said. She would have been there to meet us, but unfortunately she was sick with a cold.

After lunch at a south Indian restaurant, we returned to the gallery and had to wait for hired cars, because we would enter an area where large vehicles are not permitted. We waited for probably at least an hour in the gallery’s garden. I heard the constant swishing and rumbling and beeping of traffic and stared up at the weird nut tree and watched the mynah birds playing. In the garden I gazed up at the tree and the birds. I also closed my eyes to meditate, but Nandini interrupted to show me pictures; she was taking pictures of sangha members and showing them to us. Even her photos are good for a five-year-old. Ultimately I took out a book, Where the Buddha Walked.

Four cars finally appeared on the other side of the trees, and there was much cheering. They had been stuck in traffic all that time; that’s hardly surprising, given how much whizzing by and honking we witnessed during the wait. We had a choice among four cars that can each hold about seven people or more: two in front, three in the middle, and at least two in the very back, if you don’t mind sitting facing sideways. The wait had been so long that four people wanted to go back to the hotel and relax, so they all climbed into one car. The rest of us piled in to head for the ghats. I can’t pass up an adventure.
The cars stopped in a wide dirt path that might be construed as a parking lot, and we piled out to gawk at the big black cows next to our car; they were the kind of cows that have curled horns and big pretty black eyes. I didn’t think cows were beautiful until I came to India. We walked toward the beach and admired the Ganga, the boats, the animals, and the Hindu temples.

Three light-skinned young guys headed toward the water and glanced at us; they wore bright orange robes and sandals and had thick and curly shoulder-length hair. They reminded me of a Hippie guy I knew in college, who grew a beard and wore sarongs, but I could say he was trying to be what they really were. Perhaps they were a type of saddhu or Brahmin.

People gawked at us as much as we gawked at them, as usual. We heard music coming from a loudspeaker, and I said, “That sounds like Bollywood music.”

“It’s watered down Bollywood music,” Natalie explained.

Behind us, Shantum appeared in the parking lot, waving his arms at us: we had gone in the wrong direction! So we returned to the cars and cows. We followed Shantum down a road, past a shop selling colorful goodies like paper lanterns, embroidered bags, and metal statues of Buddhas and Hindu deities.

We came to a ghat, above which a beautiful and elaborate old building loomed, and down the steps came a pleasantly smiling and stout older man. We met up with him at the bottom of the steps. Shantum introduced us with, “This is my friend Rana Singh.” He may have said more, but I was distracted because the name sounded very familiar to me. I reached into my bag and pulled out Where the Buddha Walked: a Companion to the Buddhist Places of India by Rana P. B. Singh. Ann and I had talked about the book in the hotel lobby that morning, and she had looked through it, seen the many maps, and said, “What a wonderful book! It’s all the places we’ve been going to, and a few more.” On the ghat, she was standing next to me, so I gently nudged her and pointed to the author’s name on the book cover. She whispered an exclamation, and Rana and Shantum noticed. Rana said, “Ah, you have my book!” Ann suggested I get his autograph.

The sun was quickly getting lower as, led by Rana Singh, we took a walk through narrow alleys and past ancient buildings and shrines. It was truly dark out when we came to a strange old well with square walls and steps leading down to it on three sides. In the brick wall without steps, straight ahead of us, there was an extremely tall (and I might add phallic-shaped) alcove ending with an arch at the top. Far below, at the bottom of the well, was a square aperture with water in it, connected to the Ganges but cleaner than the river.

Rana Singh gave us a history and mythology lesson on Varanasi, concerning lingas and such. He explained that every linga has two purposes: power, and after the ninth century they became decorative, and that Ishvalla is another name for Shiva, dancing and controlling cosmos. I’ve seen numerous versions of this image, with Shiva dancing in a flaming ring; a small one sits in my front hall. Rana said, “Demons came here because of powers of gods. People come to this city to get their souls cleansed.”

“Ganga touches everyone on a spiritual level, as a Mother Goddess; it’s your mother you’re dealing with. Some people dismiss it because it’s polluted,” Shantum said.
“The well represents the sun god and the earth goddess coming together,” Rana said. That reminds me of Newgrange, the Neolithic temple in Ireland, where sunlight enters through the door on the morning of winter solstice each year. “The water and earth are goddess symbols. Traditionally, women took off old clothes and put on new to descend into the well and bathe in hope of fertility.”

From the well, we went to a nearby lively little Hindu temple that I had observed from a distance and where people kept coming in, ringing bells that hang overhead, and praying. A priest with a big grey beard, shaggy hair and Coke-bottle glasses, wearing a bright red robe, occupied a little room with windows and a centered linga. The walls and floor were white porcelain tile; the floor was dirty, but I slipped off my sandals and walked around barefoot inside the temple. My feet are washable. As for getting cold, that certainly wasn’t a problem, because Varanasi is the warmest place we’ve visited; it felt like it was in the eighties during the day, in January.

I didn’t ring any bells, but I did stand before the central shrine, press my palms together and bow. The most interesting thing in that shrine was on its floor: the yoni and linga symbols but with a snake (a fertility/ goddess symbol), specifically a cobra, wrapped around the linga, rearing its head and sticking out five tongues. Rana said, “Each tongue represents one of the ancient elements: earth, air, fire, water, and space.” Also, in the tubular part of the yoni was a baby cobra, looking something like sperm. This was all made from a dark metal.

Snakes and dragons are goddess symbols, according to various books I’ve read on goddesses and mythology. When you come across a myth in which some Mr. Butch invades and murders or chases away a dragon or serpents, that’s about rejecting the goddess and embracing misogyny, patriarchy, and patriarchal practices such as war. Examples are Patrick, St. George and the Dragon, and Apollo. Of course, such myths are smugly written from the goddess-rejecting, cootie-infested jerk perspective.

At the little Hindu temple, we also saw small shrines on the walls, representing death and a few deities. The Death figure was a black mother goddess with huge round eyes and crazy hair. Maybe Death has a thyroid problem. We stepped out of the little temple, thus getting out of worshipers’ way, and Rana showed us a shrine facing the outside of this temple and containing numerous yoni and linga sculptures draped with marigold leis and presented with marigold offerings on little leaf plates.

We walked away and could see people praying at other small temples or shrines close by, with their palms pressed together, and Ann delightedly commented, “They’re always praying!” A small stone ox, Nandi, the ox that Shiva rides, sat facing another temple; it is a common enough sculpture facing the front doors of Hindu temples. A few feet away we stopped to look at a shrine with steps down to a linga circled with marigolds and shiny porcelain tile.

Rana said the fertility stuff is from a pre-Aryan religion that “got confused with Shiva and Parvati.” The goddess Aditi is the Hindu variation on Mother Earth or Gaia, and I am certain that she predates Hinduism by a lot, simply because the original religion, across cultures, is centered on a mother goddess who represents the earth itself. Another aspect of Hinduism that I suspect predates the religion is how cows are sacred because they are goddess symbols; at least two Hindu goddesses are sometimes represented as cows.

We wandered out on a paved platform above a ghat Two goats were seated close together in a corner by a short flight of steps; one goat was black and the other white, and the smaller one was probably a baby. Near the patio was a small one-story building and also tall old buildings with elaborate facades and monkeys climbing around on them. I thought it would be odd to be aware of monkeys climbing around on the walls and balcony just outside your apartment.

We could hear chanting and drums and looked out in the direction of the Ganga. A long boat moved slowly in the water straight ahead of us, and since it was after dark, it looked as though the boat was floating in the sky. I had to look carefully to figure out where the black sky stopped and where the black water started; the main difference was the texture of the waves. To the right of the boat, down on the beach, stood a structure of some sort, I think a hut made of sticks and a thatched roof. We saw in front of it lights, a bonfire, and movement: this was where the celebration was taking place, and Rana explained that this ceremony is a tribute to the goddess Ganga and puts her to bed. It’s done every night. Sometimes even goddesses need someone nurturing to tuck them in.

To our left, I heard a horrible, squawking and shrieking noise, and I turned to see several monkeys running around on the white façade of a stone building with embroidery-like decoration. “It’s a monkey fight,” someone said. We watched as two of these monkeys came closer and got down on a roof to the one-story structure close to us, and Jennifer, who sat under the roof, moved away saying, “I’ve never had to move out of a monkey’s way before.”

We drifted on and descended steps till we stood straight in front of the festivities and could see the ceremony much better. When we showed up and sat down on the ghat, kids with baskets of flower offerings approached us to peddle their wares, and I told a girl we already did it from a boat. The offerings were just like the ones we’d had that morning: leaf bowls containing marigolds and candles.

I settled my attention on the shack and the group of chanters in front of it. Down below, in the ceremony, a row of people on the beach stood with their backs to us, and they clanged cymbals. There were other participants, but I couldn’t see them as clearly. The important thing was I could hear the repetitive music, which, although not gentle like the Tibetan chanting in Bodh Gaya, was nonetheless hypnotic. I gazed out at the water that melded in with the dark sky, while I listened.

The ceremony ended, and we headed back toward the cars. We took a short ride to a Mediterranean restaurant, where we sat down on cushions in front of low tables on a veranda. The roof was made of sticks, and wooden poles held up the front open end of the veranda. A guy from Palestine owned the restaurant, and Shantum introduced him to us. As he stood in front of our table, smiled and bowed, I smiled and bowed back while wondering if he felt homeless. Shantum ordered for us, a tasty meal consisting of rice, vegetables, baba ganoush, hummus, and pita bread. I asked for a banana-flavored laasi, a cool beverage made of yogurt; it turned out to be really yummy, tasting rather like a banana milk shake. While we waited for dinner, Rana continued giving us lessons.

Shantum, when he contrasted the British enthusiasm for history and archeology with the Indian enthusiasm for mythology, said that Indians take mythology quite seriously, even literally. They really think there’s a boy with an elephant’s head, and that some goddesses have six arms.

Buddha Day in Sarnath

In Sarnath, on the way to Deer Park, a huge crumbly ruined ancient brick stupa, called the Chaukhandi Stupa, stood on our left. Legend has it that this stupa marks where the Buddha met up with the five ascetics again, after he gained Enlightenment. Here they wanted to snub him but he gave off such good vibes they couldn’t go through with it. On top of the stupa is an elegant and much more recent tower, built by the Mughal emperor Akbar, celebrating a visit to the area that his exiled dad, Humayun, paid. Imagine someone from the Renaissance building a tower on top of an ancient Roman fort. We drove past without stopping, which didn’t bother me, since we could see the stupa and tower fine from the bus, and I would rather spend more time in the legendary Deer Park, which crops up a great deal when you read books on Buddhism and about the Buddha.

Ubiquitous wallahs peddled their wares just outside the front gate of Deer Park: they wanted to sell us Buddha statues, postcards, and malas, like countless other wallahs. Once we got through the gates, the wallahs stayed behind us, unlike at the Bamboo Groove, where they follow pilgrims and offer their merchandise in a pushy manner. I don’t know why it’s different there; perhaps those useless soldiers in the Bamboo Grove simply don’t reinforce the practice of forbidding wallahs from accosting people in sacred places.

Deer Park was a major hangout for the Buddha shortly after he gained Enlightenment. It’s also connected to the Jataka tale about the Buddha’s life as the Deer King who was willing to sacrifice himself in order to save the life of a mother deer. The foundations of at least one ruined monastery cover a large portion of Deer Park, which still contains live deer. It is yet another archeological location with crumbly brick ruins stretching across the landscape.





The most obvious piece of architecture is the Dharmekha Stupa, a very tall tower looming overhead. The tall and wide lower section is made of light-colored bricks that are smooth and elegantly arranged and has numerous niches where Buddha statues must have sat; maybe they were stolen or crumbled during harsh weather, or perhaps they’re in a museum, like the statues of Nalanda. The upper section of the stupa has a rougher and redder surface and is topped with a slight dome that I suspect used to look really different than it does now, but I could be mistaken. The Buddha preached his first sermon to the five ascetics at Deer Park, and the huge Dharmekha Stupa is believed to mark the spot where he gave this first talk. With Shantum in the lead, using an umbrella as a parasol, we walked toward the conspicuous tower till we reached it and circumambulated it, joining the Tibetans and others who also circled the stupa.

Up close to the towering stupa, while I walked slowly and silently, I observed the brick surface of the structure and noticed here and there some intricate carvings of Buddhas, in particular a row of creatures, including a frog that Shantum pointed out, and lotuses with long curving stems. I occasionally saw two inch pieces of gold leaf, such as those in the caves at Vulture Peak. The weather was beautiful and sunny, and we remained very quiet as we walked, and I simply lived in the moment and admired the scenery and the stupa. I was more mindful of my surroundings than of my steps.

A couple of raggedy, dirty beggar children approached us while we circumambulated the stupa. Each child held out a hand and looked up with big pathetic eyes, but I ignored them, preferring to be silent, while as usual feeling guilty and awkward. When I act like that, I’m afraid I must come across to the beggars as cold, selfish, and greedy.

The Wheel of the Law is a metaphor for teaching the Dharma, or the Buddha giving his teachings, such as when he taught the five ascetics here in Sarnath. Thus the first teaching was the first wheel turning, which took place more or less where the Dharmekha Stupa is now standing. The wheel crops up in Buddhist art often, such as flanked by two deer in Tibetan architecture; given that the first teaching was here in Deer Park, it’s rather an appropriate image. The wheel was originally on top of the famed lion pillar of Emperor Ashoka.

We finished circumambulating and followed Shantum’s black umbrella across a closely mown green lawn, where we settled under some trees and near a fence marking the boundaries of Deer Park. The large old trees reached out their branches over our heads and a plethora of happy birds performed their rendition of Oiseau Exotique. We spread out our straw mats, set down our cushions, and got comfortable on the lawn.

Shantum explained that Rikki is a certified yoga instructor and would give us a lesson, and she moved to face the group; the rest of us faced the tall stupa in the distance. All the yoga stretches Rikki taught were simple and didn’t involve any threat of finding yourself permanently tangled in a knot. The question that came to my mind was whether I could remember many of these stretches in order to use them in the future, during my amateur and solitary yoga practice. After the stretches, Rikki gave us a guided meditation.

We followed Shantum past the edge of the monastic ruins and to a chain link fence, behind which were trees and countless tame deer. I had always imagined Deer Park with the deer prancing around loose, but perhaps with people walking around that wouldn’t be terribly practical. A little boy with a bag of pink carrot sticks waited at the fence, and Shantum had paid him for perhaps the entire bag by the time the kid asked me if I wanted to feed carrots to the deer. I took a couple handfuls, and they ate the carrot sticks right out of my hand. Mesmerized, I gawked at the beautiful animals and remembered the Jataka tale about the Deer King. These deer are future Buddhas.

Shantum then led us around the monastery ruins, where we explored. I took a photo of ruins, with bits of gold leaf, where life-size Buddha statues and a temple bigger than the Mahabodhi used to be located. It seemed a little strange that the Mahabodhi still stands so tall and proud and looking good as new, after centuries of being buried in dirt, while this stupa is crumbled down to only one story tall, but Shantum told us that Turks and others invaded and trashed Deer Park. Visually these ruins are more reminiscent of Nalanda than of the Mahabodhi Temple. We kept walking, and I took careful steps amid the crumbly brick ruins, since I didn’t want to fall again.

We stopped at a small square space surrounded by a metal fence. Inside this fence was an Ashoka pillar, made of a smooth and shiny whitish stone, that’s broken in two pieces, so now it’s shorter than I. The inscription warns against disrupting the sangha and says what monks or nuns who do misbehave have to do, namely don white robes and move out, perhaps to be hermits (Aitken, p.167). The inscription gives some other instructions, or rather commands. I guess even Buddhist emperors are full of themselves.

A few feet away, we walked around the ruins of a great old stupa with some little bits of carved detail work still intact, such as flowery designs and Buddha figures circled by bead-like patterns. I thought it was exciting to see even these few little details, for they suggested that this piece of architecture was originally quite magnificent and likely covered with such engravings. This is the Dharmarajika Stupa of Ashoka, which was fixed up several times after the emperor originally built it.

We climbed up out of the ruins and onto the grass, to a spot beneath an enormous tree, where we gathered around Shantum for story time. Shantum sat with his back to the tree, but several people wanted a bathroom break, so the rest of us enjoyed lounging under the tree and relished the peace and quiet and balmy weather while we waited. We could hear birds singing and the only other people near us were doing an archeological dig in the ruins. Like at Nalanda, they carried large bowls on their heads.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the Buddha giving a talk here; he could have sat under a tree in the same spot as Shantum, and his sangha would have gathered around on the lawn, as we did. While we lounged under the tree at Deer Park, a friendly white dog came and lay down in the middle of our circle. Rick lay like a reclining Buddha, and I spread my mat out and lay on my stomach, propping my head up, reading the Dhammapada and wiggling my legs and ankles from time to time.

The others returned and everyone was ready, so Shantum thanked the bathroom break people for letting us enjoy our quiet time. I noticed that Nandini now had all three terra cotta bowls, and I wondered why people would leave such things lying around, but it was certainly better than leaving Styrofoam cups on the lawn; the terra cotta was a lot prettier and not a threat to the environment. I can hear softly chanting female voices in the distance; I’ll bet they’re Buddhist nuns. Shantum started his talk, which was primarily about the Buddha’s first talk in Sarnath and also about the archeological digs centuries later.

“Practice is the result of a lot of dissatisfaction; suffering gets to you and you take up Buddhism as a result. Buddhist practice is triggered by anger, irritation, and being with people you don’t want to be with,” Shantum said. No wonder I took up Buddhism when I did.

I heard peacocks crying from different directions, “Meow! Meow! Meow!”

“It’s important to remember that the Buddha is here, he is all around, and Buddha mind is everywhere,” Shantum said. I like that idea and should remind myself of this once in a while, no matter where I am, even in a restaurant feeling really tense with an obnoxious aunt or sitting at my desk at work getting bored. It isn’t difficult to sense the Buddha’s presence here in Deer Park.

Shantum told us a story about a wealthy merchant’s son, Yasa, who came to Deer Park and wandered around saying, “It’s disgusting, it’s disgusting, it’s disgusting.” When the Buddha asked him what was up, Yasa said, “Banaras sweets.” Maybe he stayed at the Radisson and saw the chocolate sculpture, too. The Buddha didn’t have trouble convincing Yasa to give up his luxurious lifestyle and become a monk.

After Shantum’s talk, we headed back to the bus, when I picked up a terra cotta cup, maybe two inches across, amid the ruins. Gail was walking alongside me, and she explained that it’s for chai, and that since I found it here in Deer Park, it’s special. It was as though I had picked up an ancient relic, since it had been lying amid the ruins. But apparently a chai stand was nearby, which would also explain Nandini’s little bowls. It is possible that the earliest Buddhist monks, and the Buddha himself, may have used bowls made of terra cotta. I know India has used terra cotta since prehistoric times; at the British Museum I have seen Neolithic terra cotta goddess figures from India.

We left Deer Park, drove a few yards down the road, and had lunch outdoors in the back yard of the Rangoli Garden Restaurant. We sat at little white plastic tables under parasols, like at a sidewalk café. Chinese tastes and otherwise more eastern food heavily influenced the buffet. That is, we had stir-fry and noodles, in addition to more typical Indian food. That is hardly surprising, given how many Buddhist pilgrims must come to Sarnath. Dessert consisted of yummy little pastry balls called ladoos.

The tour bus took us to the nearby Archeological Museum of Sarnath, a long one-story building that looks like it dates to the early twentieth century, like the other museums we’ve visited. We entered through the front double doors and immediately saw the famous Ashoka lion capital; it’s absolutely huge, much bigger than I pictured, and you can see it as you approach the doors, because it’s centered in the front room. The capital is a pale brownish-grayish color, and the surface is smooth and shiny. Originally, the four lions supported a Wheel of the Law; in a glass display case against the wall was a life-size diagram of what the wheel would have looked like, with the few found fragments of it in place over the diagram. The lion capital is featured on the Indian flag and on every single rupee, like a constant reminder that Buddhism started in India and still influences it. I’ve seen numerous hand-carved wooden lion pillars available to purchase, but I have yet to see one that includes the wheel.

In the museum, we gathered around the enormous lion capital, about which Shantum talked. Among other things, he explained that the four lions with their backs to each other symbolize peace, because lions are normally territorial, and these lions that have no territory are harmless, even if they are a bit snarly, with their mouths half open and their teeth showing. Actually, Shantum didn’t say anything about their less-than-friendly facial expressions. But since my cat Cheetah doesn’t control her claws well, she may be more dangerous than these lions, even if they had been flesh and bone rather than stone.

We looked at an exquisite Buddha statue and numerous detailed sculptures, both Buddhist and Hindu, which came off the architecture in Deer Park. Also, I took a particular liking to little prehistoric birds and animals made of terra cotta, displayed in glass cases. The museum was small and had a center gallery and two wings to the sides, so it included a total of three white-walled rooms open to the public and filled with ancient sculptures.

We halted at the far end of a long gallery, to the actual Buddha statue pictured on this pilgrimage’s “In the Footsteps of the Buddha” brochures. The statue is made of a shiny pale grey stone and at first look seems very simple, but as I gazed at it, I saw more detail. The statue shows the Buddha sitting cross-legged and poising his hands in a teaching mudra. Above him on either side are flying bodhisattvas at the top of a radiating circular halo, and behind the Buddha and below the halo is a square back. Beneath the Buddha is a rectangular pedestal carved with a wheel of the law dead center and donors and such draped figures on either side of the wheel. Altogether, it is a beautiful work of art.

We walked from the museum toward a simple and white-painted Japanese-looking temple. We passed it to head for an outdoor circular shrine displaying a shiny sculpture of the Buddha facing the five disciples, all of whom wore brown robes. From there, we walked to a nearby temple that is distinctly Indian in architectural style, with tall pointy domes.

The temple we headed for is the Mulagandhakuti Vihara, which is a Theravada Buddhist temple in Sarnath, run by the Mahabodhi Society. It’s next to Deer Park itself. Just as I started stepping up to the temple’s entrance, Shantum rescued Jennifer from a group of boys in maybe their twenties who wanted her to pose with them for a photo. She was perplexed by their behavior, and Shantum led her away by the hand, explaining that young guys like to have their pictures taken with Western girls. Great, if you’re an attractive Western female you’re sort of a status symbol for such boys. They tell people, “She’s my girlfriend,” when they show off the photo. Weird.

I promptly forgot about that incident as I walked amid the simple white columns leading to the temple’s entrance. An enormous metal bell hung overhead. Inside the temple was an altar displaying a gold version of the same statue as we had acted out in the museum, though it looks much better in the original stone. A Theravada monk in bright orange robes was up on the altar, and he greeted Shantum, who had minutes before we entered explained that a monk who was a friend of his worked there, and that he was “full of himself.” Of course, Shantum said it with an amiable smile. The monk looked Indian and had a profile reminiscent of Vulture Peak, but Shantum later explained that he was from Sri Lanka.

Covering the walls inside the temple are murals depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha and painted by a Japanese artist named Kosetsu Nosu. The colorful paintings totally cover the walls, except probably the one behind the shrine up front. Shantum explained, in chronological order, the meaning of the murals surrounding us: they illustrated the Buddha’s life from Mayadevi’s auspicious elephant dream to the Buddha’s death. Shantum finished by saying, “That’s the Buddha’s life in five minutes.”

Approximately ten orange-clad monks gathered onto the dais or altar on which the gold Buddha statue was centered. We sat on big rugs on the floor, and I noticed on another carpet sat a few people who weren’t with our group; they looked like they were from India and Southeast Asia.

The monks up on the dais lined up, facing the statue, and they held a long yellow string, connecting them to each other. The head monk used a microphone, and they chanted for some time.

I sat cross-legged, closed my eyes, and listened. I have to admit that I was so wired from all the excitement of the day that my mind wandered frequently, but I eventually made a conscious decision to focus on my breath and listen to the chanting mindfully. That was soothing and hypnotic: breathing in and out and simply listening to the monks, blotting everything else out, not trying to come up with opinions or reasons for all this and not wondering what happens next.

Five minutes of meditation followed the chanting, and the monk who is a friend of Shantum’s spoke to us, telling us about the life of the Buddha; I had trouble understanding him, because he was talking into a microphone in the echoic space that’s more appropriate for the chanting.

After his talk, we lined up single file and entered the altar. A monk held a goofy lotus-shaped cushion over each of our heads while chanting a short blessing, we walked to the left, and two monks tied orange strings around each guest’s right wrist, as remembrance for the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. A third monk poured water over each pilgrim’s right hand, using a brass teakettle. As we walked out of the temple, I took a really good look at the dramatic sight of the big two or three foot tall metal bell over our heads in the whitewashed and arched cloister leading to the front door.

Boogie on Down to Varanasi

I knew we had reached Varanasi when I saw many typical Indian booths selling produce, and before long we crawled in clogged up traffic consisting primarily of rickshaws, motor rickshaws, and buses. Honking and zooming motors barraged our ears. The traffic moved so sluggishly that many pedestrians, drifting past shops and vehicles, moved as fast as the vehicles.

I noticed two young women wearing orange tunics and was glad to see that the one in the brighter kamiz wore it calf length, like two I recently made; it seems like knee-length tunics are much more common. As I gazed out the window calmly, watching dingy-looking buildings and bustling pedestrians and a policeman in a brownish green uniform directing traffic and a chaotic mess of vehicles oozing along in four directions, I periodically observed the two young women in orange: they were walking as fast as our bus was moving. The scene looked like a Where’s Waldo book come to life.

Something else I noticed shortly after we arrived in Varanasi was a vacant lot or piece of land piled with trash through which pigs dug. They weren’t only the hairy black pigs I’m accustomed to seeing in India but also a few Western-looking black and pink pigs and piglets. Previously I had noticed primarily stray dogs digging through trash, which is bad enough. Bodh Gaya seemed much cleaner than Varanasi, suggesting that people cared about the beauty of the village.

We are staying at the Radisson Hotel, which is even more posh and extravagant than the other hotels where we stayed before Bodh Gaya. A doorman in a maroon uniform and a hat with feathers sticking straight up stands by the door, putting palms together and saying, “Namaste.” I gave him a big smile and greeted him the same way. Anywhere you step, male employees are bowing and scraping and saying, “May I help you, ma’am?” I want to say, “Yes, end poverty and war, thank you.” True, at least we’re giving these employees something to do. Most of the guests at the Radisson are Westerners, and we must seem frivolous and spoiled to the staff.

The only female employees I’ve seen at the Radisson are two young women at the front desk; they wear perfectly pleated dark green silk saris with black blazers. Even the servers at the restaurant are all male. Funny how no matter where you are in the world, the most posh restaurants have all male servers, but maybe I’m jumping to conclusions; after all, I’ve only been to a total of eleven countries on the entire planet, and I rarely hang out at the most expensive restaurants. Even the fast food place where we had had lunch on the way to Varanasi was staffed entirely by males.

In Bodh Gaya, Feroza and I had stopped at a booth where a woman sold sparkly, colorful adhesive bindi; we each bought a little packet of bindis, and Feroza explained that she likes to encourage saleswomen because they have it harder and have to get some sort of permit, unlike men. Clearly this country isn’t big on equal opportunity employment, even on a low-paying job level. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that farms are the only places that have equal opportunity employment, which is hardly surprising when they’re family owned. I suspect that corporate offices are also likely to have many female employees.

Perhaps the reason that Shantum chose the Radisson Hotel is because it’s more or less next door to the silk shopping center we visited tonight, or maybe because it particularly caters to Westerners, judging by the other guests I’ve seen. During “Strucks,” Val pointed out that from inside this hotel, it doesn’t look like you’re in India. Or maybe Shantum brought us here because he wants us to totally freak out over the contrast between the beggars on the streets and our staying at such a luxurious hotel. I suspect that he’s nonverbally telling us something.

After thinking about it for a couple minutes, I have to say: forget the fact that this hotel caters to Westerners. I seriously think Shantum means this to be part of our learning experience. It sure beats Zen teachers I’ve read about who, if you say the wrong thing, grab you by the throat and try to strangle you. I think Shantum is way too nice to do that! Or I’m pretty sure he is. I think he is. Um, never mind.

At approximately five thirty in the evening our sangha gathered in the lobby. A little bakery, consisting of one glass display counter, sits in a far corner of the lobby, and I was curious about what looked like a surreal brown and white sculpture on the bakery counter. I approached the bakery for a closer look, when a guy in a textured maroon waistcoat came up to me and smilingly said, “This is all made of chocolate.”
“Wow!” I said, or something equally eloquent.
“Would you like some chocolate, ma’am?” Great, he was a chocolate wallah.
I smiled and said, “No, thanks, I was just curious.” Before drifting away I did manage to take in that dark brown strips formed a perpendicular zigzag pattern on the chocolate sculpture, and round puffs of white and brown chocolate were at every point, except where a cone of chocolate was accompanied by a curlicue. It was definitely not a Tibetan butter sculpture but vaguely reminded me of one.

The sangha exited through the hotel’s front door and across an alley where a man crouched between two monkeys on leashes; one wore a purple cotton dress. This shocked me as much as a slap in the face. I had no idea people still had performing monkeys on the street, and I have to admit this was the first time I realized it was cruel. The only places I’ve come across such a thing before is in books or black and white movies. But I had not hopped into a time machine before seeing the monkeys; it was unmistakably here and now. I somehow felt unclean even looking at the poor animals, under the circumstances, like how associating with relatives when they make racist, phallocractic, or militaristic comments makes me feel unclean, as if I were an accomplice.

Weaving Varanasi silk

We crossed a threshold in the next building, entered a side door, and walked down a narrow white hallway and into a room containing a row of weavers working at looms. The wooden looms and the shiny purple and gold silk fascinated me so much that at first I didn’t notice a few less alluring details. We sat on benches, and the manager in a brown uniform-like outfit gave a lecture on how the looms work. I finally noticed that all the weavers were old men, not a single woman. Once again, I was weirded out by the absence of equal opportunity employment in the twenty-first century.

The manager said that on these looms the workers make brocade, from silk and gold, and that India is the second largest maker of silk, after China. It used to be made with real gold, for Maharajas. “Now it’s not for Maharajas, so it’s not real gold anymore,” the manager said with a big smile.

I sat with Feroza and Jennifer, and while everyone else ooohed and aaahed over the fabric, Jennifer pointed out a few things that I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t noticed on my own. Under fluorescent lights that are not exactly good for the eyes, the workers sat on wooden benches that bowed in the center and that were held in place by a small pile of bricks at each end of the board. I looked at these appalling things that Jennifer had observed on her own so quickly and was suddenly abashed. I noticed that the weavers wear thick glasses, though that could be to magnify the fabric. Visiting India is, in some ways, like walking into a Charles Dickens novel.

Jennifer said, “Sometimes I get upset about things that don’t seem to bother others,” and she also mentioned the monkeys and asked me if I’d been upset about them.
I said, “Yes, the monkeys upset me! But I didn’t notice the working conditions until you pointed them out, other than that they’re all men.”
“Yeah, that’s another good point,” she said.

This got us on the topic of whether women are allowed to do handicrafts, and I looked down at my mirrorwork bag and said, “I’m sure they do embroidery and mirrorwork like this.” I remembered reading in a children’s book, at work, that at least in some regions of India women and girls are paid to do embroidery at home. That reminded me that in New York a hundred years ago, immigrant families, parents and even small children, made clothing in their tenement for a small wage; the conditions for these women and girls doing embroidery in India nowadays are probably better than that, however. I certainly hope so.

One of the weavers sat across the narrow room from the others, and his loom was right next to us. He handed me the graphed-out design of the image he was weaving; it was framed and under glass, and the same patterns are woven in varying colors. After looking at the design, I passed the framed image to Feroza and Jennifer, and they admired it. Perhaps he understood some of our conversation, because he also gave Jennifer a strip of shiny pink silk thread and tied it around her wrist. I thought that was really nice.

A green donation box is attached to the wall by the front door of the strange little room with the weavers, and as we headed for the door, Jennifer asked if the money goes to the weavers, not the manager. The manager said it goes to the weavers, and even a weaver nodded yes, so Jennifer, Feroza and I went ahead and donated. I put in two hundred rupees, which I realize isn’t much.

Disgust and sorrow at the weavers’ working conditions didn’t stop us from shopping enthusiastically in a silk shop on the third floor of the same building. Samples of elaborate silk brocade hung on the wall, shopkeepers showed us bedspreads decorated with elephants and peacocks, and Dornora looked earnestly interested in getting a bedspread. Shawls and scarves lay stacked and draped throughout most of the store, and many of us descended upon them like locusts. On a bench between two pillars, I noticed colorful silk scarves dotted with beads and sequins, and it didn’t take me long to pick out a predominantly turquoise one for myself. I selected three paisley silk shawls for gifts and headed for the cash register.

After I paid, many of the sangha were still absorbed in shopping, picking up and trying on many shawls and scarves, checking them out in a mirror, and often putting them back down. What better way to wait for other shoppers than to continue shopping? I finally spotted the fabric yardage: two rows of shelves contained bolts of silk in a rainbow of colors. I had been hoping to buy fabric in India but until now had only come across shawls, scarves, saris, and other ready-made garments, not fabric for cutting out my own tunic or for making smaller projects such as a patchwork wall hanging. I remembered that in Ireland the fabric was measured in meters rather than yards, and I asked a nearby clerk, “Is that fabric measured in meters?”
“Yes,” he said. Again, all the clerks were male.
“I’d like three meters of…this,” I said, reaching for a dark turquoise bolt. He pulled down the bolt of fabric and started to unroll it, and I smiled; the weave had visible lines and was a shiny deep greenish blue. I got myself some Varanasi silk!

After I paid for the fabric, Shantum asked me what I got, and I smiled and said, “Turquoise silk, to make a kamiz!”
“Oh!” He said. “You sew?” I replied in the affirmative, and he seemed impressed, even though I didn’t think to mention that I majored in theater costume design for a couple years before getting my degree in creative writing.


Before we reached Bodh Gaya, I was not truly ready to write in my journal about the poverty, but I think I can write some more about it now, alone in this posh hotel room. Normally it’s easy for me to write, but this has been a huge jolt, and I start crying every time someone brings up the topic of the suffering, poverty, and squalor, or when I think about it. I experience this emotional reaction but haven’t analyzed the situation much, which is really uncharacteristic of me.

After writing the above words, I felt terribly agitated, rose from the desk, and paced back and forth. I intended to finally write down some comments on the topic of the poverty and squalor, comments I more or less thought up several days ago but hadn’t gotten around to writing yet, but instead of immediately hurrying over to the big executive desk and writing them down, I first paced and fretted about it. Sometimes even with this journal open in front of me, I zone out instead of writing.

I thought I was poor when I lived in St. Louis and worked part time jobs with no benefits and no health care, struggled to pay for utilities, went for six months without phone service, got a twelve cent raise at my extremely stressful box office job, endured rude customers and vicious conservative coworkers for the sake of a regular paycheck, and drove an ’83 station wagon till it practically fell apart around me. I thought I was poor, even though my wealthy Jewish grandmother bought me stock when I was a kid, and so I still managed to periodically buy books, clearance fabric, and addictive chocolate.

When I thought I was poor in those circumstances, I sometimes reminded myself that some people had my earned income but no stock dividends, and they might be single mothers with dependent children rather than a couple of cats. They might work two or three jobs, as I did, and struggle to take care of themselves and their kids. They and their children might be living on ramen and boxed macaroni and cheese. Unlike me, such women probably don’t have a college degree and lots of artistic creativity that supplies the potential to eventually get a better life. When I reflected on this, I remembered that some people are financially worse off than I.

Varanasi silk samples

Someone is always worse off than someone else. I occasionally think about my potential to be homeless and even start to imagine what it would be like, and the first thing that occurs to me is that as a writer I wouldn’t have a wall into which I could plug a computer. Before coming to India, I had seen homeless people on the streets of St. Louis, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC, London, Dublin, and even once in a while Topeka or Lawrence, Kansas. Everyone suffers.

Yet the suffering I have seen here in India is on such an extremely massive scale. Mairgret described it as a nightmare. I have seen squatter’s homes that have been transformed into rubble; a plethora of begging and filthy children; rows of beggars lined up on the street or at the edge of a path; both adults and children with mangled legs that they drag on the ground, and/or with a burnt face, because their parents crippled them to ensure they have a career as a beggar; bodies lying on sidewalks for lack of a better bed; and shops made of sticks and rags. Normally, I have strong opinions and think I know the answers and know how to take action and how to change the world, but the poverty in India leaves me shell shocked and out of my depth.

It is difficult for me to process all this, and I feel considerable shame and guilt. It could have been me, after all, and I am someone who now lives in material comfort but psychological and emotional starvation, yet is reluctant to move to the west coast because of the uncertainties of keeping up with extremely high rent and finding another job that pays decently. Perhaps this is cowardice, or just indecision. Whatever it is, I don’t misuse the concept of karma to callously justify why I have much more material comfort than other people have. I think a great many people misuse karma as an excuse for oppressing others, thus not only being devoid of compassion but also conveniently overlooking the little detail that oppressing others means reaping bad karma for oneself.

Part of why poverty upsets me is because I want to help and do not know how; it’s overwhelming. It is maddening to see so much suffering and to do nothing about it. Something has to be done about it, such as no longer having governments that would rather waste money on guns and bombs than spend it on helping the people, but to have instead the majority believing in interconnectedness and participating in a vast movement toward compassion, peace, and empathy and helping those in need worldwide.

Whatever life throws at you, you have to deal with it one way or another and decide what to do, how to handle the crisis situation or even just a situation that you simply do not like and think shouldn’t be a part of your life. Living in a hostile and alienating town where I have undergone verbal abuse from unbelievably intolerant and closed-minded relatives is all it has taken to cripple me with the most severe and despairing depressions I have ever experienced. I have experienced indecision over the past three years about when and whether I should give up the comfort of the house my uncle left me, pack up, and head for the west coast, to a community that will hopefully be tolerant, therapeutic, spiritual, and artistically thriving.

What if I had, in addition to psychological pain, the extreme physical pain of an emaciated polio victim who moves by crawling across the ground? What if I had, in addition to psychological pain, poverty such that I would be living on the streets and begging? People here in India endure that all their lives, and they beg and endure looks of revulsion or pity, or eyes quickly turned away, every day of their lives. I don’t think I could be strong enough to survive like that, even if it was all that life threw at me.

My sense of guilt over all this poverty I’ve encountered in India is in part because I don’t appreciate enough what I do have. In addition, I find myself suspecting that maybe if I were a wonderful person, I’d receive more acceptance and understanding and own fewer material possessions. Someone who is psychologically and spiritually healthy is less likely to use shopping as therapy; having more things does not compensate for what is lacking inside. Instead of feeling grateful for the excessive material things that I have, I feel rather ashamed. I live alone in a two-story house; “a room of one’s own,” as Virginia Woolf put it, is important for me, but a house that size seems extravagant now that I’ve come to India and seen how little space people have here. Why should I have so much space and paraphernalia, when others have so little? Far from feeling smug about my material wealth, I’m acutely aware, more than ever, that it doesn’t make up for psychological, mental, and emotional starvation.

Staying in such a luxurious hotel when I’ve seen so many poor people and so much squalor leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I pull aside the curtains in this posh hotel room, and I see ugly buildings partially torn down and a derelict building with one lit window. It’s like “The Masque of the Red Death.” In here is luxury and it seems safe, and out there is the plague.

Seeing so much suffering in India has given me a strong suspicion that Siddhartha Gautama had plenty of opportunity to see people suffering in much the same way, during his walks around northern India. Perhaps he even saw ragged figures pulling polio victims in small wagons when he crossed the river to Varanasi. Clearly, the Buddha was deeply moved by the suffering of others, and that was the main motivation and inspiration for his spiritual journey. Having been a social reject and an underdog from a very early age, I have connected with underdogs and far from kissing up to the evil status quo, I have sought to overthrow it and to live outside of it, thus to alleviate the world of suffering in addition to my own suffering. I have often done a poor job of this, but at least my heart is in the right place, and my actions have improved in recent years and should continue to do so.