The Nameless Streets of Bodh Gaya

Today is India’s Independence Day, a national holiday. This morning, we walked from the Daijokyo Buddhist House and to a small two-story whitewashed school building across the walkway out front, where we attended a flag-raising ceremony on the front lawn. Teenage schoolgirls in bright salwar-kamiz stood in a row before the flagpole. They attended the school in front of us, which teaches abilities such as sewing and typing, and the headmistress said that girls who want a good marriage must go there. I thought that since I didn’t study there, it’s a good thing I’m not interested in getting married. A bunch of guys also stood on the other side of the flagpole, but they were adults, not teens; at least some of them were probably janitorial staff or servants.

Shantum stepped forward and raised the flag, and as he tugged on the ropes, pink, red, and white rose petals drifted out of the orange, white, and green striped flag. They presumably were supposed to flutter and drift gracefully, but at first the rope didn’t want to let the flag open up, and after a few more tugs a cluster of petals dropped onto the ground in mostly the same spot. It was so much less militaristic than what I’d expect to see in the States: flowers rather than drums and guns. Flower power. Several people, including Mukesh and Jagdish, delivered speeches, mostly in Hindi, and a girl in a bright yellow salwar-kamiz sang. I preferred the singing, because I don’t have to know the language to appreciate the music.

We walked to the Pragyavihar School, the name of which Shantum translated as the School of Wise Abiding. We were going there to attend the big celebration. Soon we reached the school, a large three-story white mud or plastered brick building, on the paved grounds of which stood rows of children in burgundy uniforms like British kids.

We entered the school grounds and sat in rows of folding chairs to the right of where the kids stood in neat lines. A very tall and slender grey-haired Englishman showed up wearing a black suit with a black turtleneck. But he didn’t wear a beret, so I guess he wasn’t a Beatnik. Coming to think of it, Allen Ginsberg was into Buddhism and took a pilgrimage to some of the same places as we. Our trip could have been called “In the footsteps of Allen Ginsberg.” The kids marched and saluted to the English dude, and he talked with Shantum and sat in the front row, ahead of us. I soon found out that he’s Christopher Titmus, who founded this school and thus got poor kids off the streets. If it weren’t for this charitable school, the children we saw in clean burgundy uniforms would probably just be more beggars on the street, like those we’ve seen by the masses.

Another important guest arrived, a round-faced and stout Buddhist monk draped in orange and yellow cotton and wearing a yellow stocking cap. Shantum identified him as the pope. Yesterday Shantum had said that he was stopping to see the pope, meaning the local Buddhist authority figure. This pope came across as much more pleasant, not to mention more humorous and easy-going, than the Catholic pope. He even had a faint Buddha smile.

The kids marched and saluted the flag, disconcertingly reminding me of the military, and some kids danced in groups or gave speeches by themselves in English or Hindi, and some adults also gave speeches, such as the principal or headmistress. The speeches were projected over a megaphone, a technology that I’ve concluded really doesn’t have good sound quality, but it seems to be in common use in India.

For one of the dances, a group of very small children wore flowery straw bonnets and white dresses and straw hats and danced like they knew what they were doing, though one girl had an issue with a pajama leg that didn’t want to stay up—she had pulled her pants up and worn them underneath her costume. My favorite part of the festivities was the girls dancing with rattling bangles: future Bollywood stars.

Toward the end of the celebration, I was astonished when kids brought out for us chai with a couple of snacks on paper plates. One of the snacks was a squiggly translucent orange candy that Val said she had made in New Delhi and that’s made entirely of sugar, although if she hadn’t said that I would have assumed it was made entirely of honey, as I had thought when I ate the same snack at an Indian buffet restaurant several years ago. The other snack was samosas: yummy, big triangular fried pastries, filled with veggies and spices. I found it surprising that they would bring us treats in addition to entertaining us; they really splurged with generosity, and we aren’t exactly starving beggars.

Erika has caught the virus that has been gradually spreading in our traveling sangha, and she was crouched next to me with her camera, when she had a horrible coughing fit, and I handed her a cough drop. I have noticed myself doing things like this on the pilgrimage, sharing and interacting with others in ways that I sometimes did in St. Louis but not in Topeka, where despite my general understanding and sense of being connected to the human family and the entire planet, I find myself overwhelmingly disconnected and alienated. There’s quite a difference between feeling connected with the world and feeling alienated by the people in your immediate environment. Yet here I am, without having to think about it, behaving in a nurturing manner to people who are around me, and who also treat me in a supportive and nurturing manner. No doubt I am acting this way because for a change I genuinely feel connected to the people around me.

Often I help others from a distance by donating to humanitarian, anti-war, and environmental organizations and taking at least online action with help from such NGOs. I also sign petitions and e-mail letters, and write my own letters, thanks to organizations and the Internet, a great tool for introverted activists. I’ve done this, justifying how reclusive I’ve been in the past few years and believing that I’m nurturing large numbers of people.

Furthermore, in Topeka, Kansas, I’ve had too much contact with vicious relatives and other hostile people. Getting thank-you letters from an organization like the Global Fund for Women does give me a happy feeling, because I’ve helped in some way, though it has on occasion brought up the selfish thought: “At least someone appreciates me,” accompanied by awareness that people who appreciate me have never met me, while the people in my usual environment have utter contempt or at best indifference toward me. The second time I thought like this, I immediately became conscious that I was wallowing in self-pity and being self-absorbed. That does not fit in with the way of bodhisattvas; I need to cultivate egolessness, refrain from thinking about myself, and refrain from caring what people think of me. I must simply help others regardless of whether or not I get recognition or respect.

Regardless of egolessness, here in India it feels good to help and be helped by people with whom I am traveling, people who are in my immediate physical environment rather than far away and never likely to meet me.


2
I left the Pragyavihar School with Feroza and John, and we wandered in the general direction of the temples. Not far beyond the school, we walked parallel to a wall on our left and greenery on the right, and when we reached the end of the wall, I saw mud in front of me, so I stepped in what I thought was ground but turned out to be a bit of swampland; it was so full of plant life that it had looked like solid ground. I quickly lifted my feet and shook them off; they were covered with muddy water. First I fell in the Bamboo Grove, and now this.

We split up with John, who was heading directly for the Mahabodhi Temple. At first Feroza said we should go back to the hotel so I could change my shoes, but after some hemming and hawing about whether we should return, I decided that I was too eager to be out and about, so Feroza and I went to the Tibetan temple and paused in front of the gate. My feet and the hem of my pants were wet with dirty water, and my feet squished. I took off my sandals and persuaded Feroza to let me stop and wipe my feet on the grass, while we stood in front of the Tibetan temple gates. High above on the white façade was red lettering:

DUIDUL JYANGCHUB CHOLING MONASTERY
Tamang Buddhist Association H. O. Darjeeling- Bodhgaya
1992

In spite of my wet, squishy feet, I blissfully smiled at the temple’s festive front façade and cheerfully took a picture of it before entering the gate. I squish-squished along, yet blissfully smiled at Tibetan monks, walked squish-squishingly over to the grass on the left of the temple grounds, took my shoes off, and wiped my feet in the grass. It was very bright and sunny out, so my feet wouldn’t have trouble drying. Water dribbled down one corner of a monastery a few feet away, so I let the water run over my muddy feet and my dirty shoes. I wiped my feet on the grass, Feroza propped my shoes against the steps leading up to the temple, and I petted and petted a cute tail-wagging black and white dog on the steps before entering.

The interior is much as I’d expect from a Tibetan temple, although smaller. It was bright and colorful, with a gold Buddha dais straight ahead, vivid murals of demons and deities on the walls, and red meditation mattresses in the center of the room. I looked up at columns wrapped in brocade banners of the traditional Buddha colors: blue, white, red, green, and yellow, made of a horizontal strip with narrow necktie-like strips of brocade hanging in rows that descended to the floor.

Feroza pressed her palms together and bowed, and I pressed my palms together and gawked, and we had a moment of silence. Then I said, “I’ve decorated my dining room based on Tibetan temple style, and I made brocade valances like those banners.”

“Lovely,” Feroza said with a smile. Unfortunately, we could only stand in the foyer rather than walk into the room, thanks to a forbidding wooden railing and a collection box in front of us. We stepped back outdoors, where I petted the dog again and collected my shoes.

We wandered in the direction of the Thai temple. I took several pictures before and after we entered the beautiful sparkly building. I noticed up close that some of the shiny stuff was mosaics of mirrors in different colors—red, blue, and yellow. We followed lots of other people into the temple, and it contained a forbidding railing like the Tibetan temple, but that didn’t stop me from admiring the décor and taking a few pictures. The wall beside the front doors was covered in a mural or wallpaper that was predominantly green and blue and was a picture of stylized ocean waves and fishes. That was less expected than the fire-topped gold Buddha on the dais and, well, lots of sparkly gold stuff. The Thai temple was about to close, and an attendant told us this mostly through sign language, so we “mustn’t tarry,” as Shantum would say. We went back out, accompanied by a small crowd who probably meant to stay longer. It was still morning, but perhaps there was supposed to be a private meditation or meeting, or a wild private party.

After we left the Thai temple, Feroza and I headed to the Mahabodhi Temple, the queen of temples. We passed by countless Tibetans and booths, or outdoor shops made of poles and cloth and maybe an aluminum roof, and we passed ubiquitous wallahs and beggars and rickshaws; this is all quite typical in India. The streets in Bodh Gaya are narrow dirt roads, with vehicles raising lots of dust. We came to tabletops with Tibetan goodies on them, and I had to stop and take a look. I noticed pendants, including dorjes, Buddhas, continuous knots, and near the jewelry stood a two-inch-tall bronze garuda. I saw turquoise and coral stones, ritual knives and bells and prayer wheels.

A turquoise prayer wheel with a handle of silver, coral, and bamboo caught my eye. For some time now I’d been thinking of getting a Tibetan prayer wheel and spun many of them during my two-week vacation in San Francisco last summer, but I didn’t want a huge one that would be awkward in my hand and probably topple over and spill a roll of prayers all over the ground. That probably would not improve my karma. The turquoise prayer wheel was fairly small, handmade, ornate, and the most attractive prayer wheel on the table, in my opinion. This was not something I could pick up in San Francisco or order out of a catalog.

The merchant was a pretty Tibetan boy, and when Feroza and I turned to him, he was deep in conversation with a Tibetan girl, and they were seated on a wooden bench next to one of the tables. Feroza said, “He’s courting,” and I giggled. She asked the merchant how much the prayer wheel was, and he said it was nine thousand rupees. Eek! Feroza haggled with him, saying that I’m young and a student, and after she had, in the process of more haggling, reminded the merchant of my youth and alleged student status once again, he said, “I can see she is young and beautiful,” and I giggled and covered my mouth, as if I were a twenty-year-old Tibetan girl. I was getting into the role. Feroza got the bid down to five thousand rupees and persuaded the merchant to add a piece of turquoise, and so he gave me a one-inch round turquoise bead. I’ll string it with coral beads. Even as I write this, I’m spinning the prayer wheel.

Somewhere on the streets of Bodh Gaya, we looked across the street and saw a booth where a Tibetan was selling herbal medicine. It was in glass jars on shelves rather than spread out loose on a cloth, as we’d seen herbal medicine, for instance, on the path of Vulture Peak. I’ve read a little about Tibetan herbal medicine; Tibetan communities still use as the primary medicine, and even the Dalai Lama’s doctor uses herbs.

Feroza and I stopped at a shawl stand and a store full of sculptures at which a “friend” as Shantum had called this sort of merchant persuaded us to stop. Mairgret had said that the bookstore next to the shoe stop and on the way to the Mahabodhi Temple sells Old Path White Clouds, and although I had initially planned to pick it up after returning to the States, I stopped at the book store and bought it with the plan to read it on my return flights. I also finally purchased Lhasa and Central Tibet, the Book of the Mysterious Price.

The bookstore is open in the front, sort of like a dollhouse. This is typical of Indian shops, which have a garage door that rolls down when the store is closed, or a set of folding accordion-like wooden doors that are folded out of the way on either side of the entrance. The bookstore had the latter. While Feroza was with the bookseller and I waited, a wallah approached us and stood just outside the front ledge of the store, and we each purchased a bag of dried bodhi leaves.

In search of the Shiva Restaurant, where we were scheduled to meet up with everyone at one thirty, we ran into John and Natalie, who helped us spot the restaurant. We were the first of our sangha to arrive at the Shiva Restaurant. It looked too small for our group, and I was certainly dubious about how we would all crowd into it. The front was open like a veranda, painted light green, and contained approximately eight tables, with four Tibetan nuns at one of them. Feroza said, “Shantum” at the front desk, and an employee indicated the inner row of tables. We reached the far corner. Shantum and others soon showed up, and it quickly became obvious that my doubts about space were unfounded. The sangha spread out over several tables, filling half the restaurant. Lunch consisted of dal, rice, spinach paneer, and my second experience with Indian ginger lemon tea, which aids the digestion.

After lunch, Feroza and I headed back to the Mahabodhi Temple. I attempted to use my new prayer wheel while walking, but the crowd was so dense that I was afraid I’d swing it and hit someone. I can see the India Times headlines: “Tibetan Nun Knocked Out By Prayer Wheel!” While we circumambulated, Feroza had to use the restroom, so she went back to the restaurant, where the line for the restroom had been quite long as we left.

I finished circumambulating and sat down next to Ann in front of the Bodhi Tree. After looking at the tree for a short time, I felt already rather blissed out. But I closed my eyes and meditated, breathing in and breathing out, and listening to the monks chanting. It was as though I was breathing with the chant, and I felt so peaceful and calm. The weather was practicing the Middle Way, for it was neither too hot nor too cold but just right, with the slightest hint of a breeze, and the sky was bright blue. I opened my eyes and noticed Feroza beside me but closed my eyes again and continued meditating for some time. When I opened my eyes, I gazed up at the tree with its glistening heart-shaped leaves dangling overhead.

Christopher Titmus’s Dharma Talk was scheduled to begin at four that afternoon, and Shantum had warned us that it would get crowded, so we should arrive at the Thai temple early, such as around a quarter till four. It was hard to tear ourselves away, but Feroza and I headed out. As we walked along the path from the Mahabodhi Temple, we began passing a chanting Tibetan monk who had a traditional Tibetan book open in front of him. He reached up and gave each of us a bright red string. Feroza started tying mine around my right wrist, and I asked, “What is this for?”
“It represents the Three Jewels,” she said, referring to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
“Cool!” I said. As she started tying the string around my wrist, she fumbled a bit, and the monk took it and tied it on me without interrupting his chanting. He then did the same for Feroza. I wonder how Tibetans came up with their style of chanting. Perhaps they wanted to imitate the sound of a herd of yaks that hadn’t been milked in a week.

We walked through the crowd while “friends” tagged along with us and wanted to know when we’d stop by at their shops. One of them was a little guy with big pretty eyes who had seen us buy adhesive bindi jewels from one of the few female merchants, who had a little table at the side of the road; this guy had a shop that sold jewelry, such as bangles, and he really wanted us to stop there. I didn’t seriously think we’d have time, and a jewelry shop was extremely low on my list of priorities, but I was trying to be nice. When we got to the end of the street, Feroza raised her hands dismissively, turned to the guy on her left and said, “Bye-Bye!” and then to the guys on her right and again said, “Bye-bye!” and then to the “friends” who had latched onto me. They turned and abruptly walked away in silence, and suddenly we were walking by ourselves. Wow.

We went to the Thai temple to attend the Dharma talk, but when we arrived confused about where the talk was to take place. We approached a side gate prominently displaying a sign saying “No Admittance,” and behind the gate stood a monk who gave us a Big Happy Smile…but didn’t understand a word of English. For me, his smile was nonetheless contagious.

We walked around to the other side of the temple and spotted a long building beyond it. Some Thais were unloading boxes from a truck at that building, and Feroza inquired about the location of the dharma talk. It turned out to be in the same long building but at the far right end, and we slipped through the doorway and into a room packed with people sitting on the floor. I sat inches inside the doorway with my knees drawn up toward my chin.

The dharma talk was about renunciation, about how not getting our own way is a part of our practice, and we shouldn’t be attached to such things as, for instance, a specific meditation cushion. Other than packing old clothing that I’m willing to leave behind, I am not sure I have been terribly focused on renunciation on this journey. I certainly have been shopping as if I’m a regular tourist rather than a pilgrim.

During the remainder of the pilgrimage, I found myself looking at the rack over our heads in the tour bus, and I made a point of saying, “I left a cushion up there,” and making it quite clear that I’m not picky about which cushion I get. As it happened, I must have switched cushions at least four times, since most of them are dark brown and more or less firm, and I genuinely didn’t feel possessive about a cushion. The same goes for the straw mats Shantum gave us: they are all either trimmed with purple or green but otherwise look the same, and I’m sure I’ve switched mats at least once.

So often in the States I use shopping as a sort of medicine for depression, and I drive off to the town of Lawrence and not only wander through art galleries but also go into stores and shamelessly shop, spending money on books or pretty things or tasty groceries that I didn’t even know existed before I set foot in the shop, instead of donating that money to worthy causes and membership renewals. Plenty of times I’ve purchased a music CD and a few years later found it in a drawer and realized that although I had wanted it badly when it was new, I hadn’t listened to it in a very long time and I should take it to the used CD shop and sell it. If I were truly practicing renunciation, I would tell myself in the store that I won’t always want this object so badly, and I would choose to let it go, to not purchase it. This has the added advantage of being able to pay my gas and electric bills promptly; of course, renunciation suggests also turning the thermostat down in winter, bundling up around the house, and reducing my use of natural gas, in which case my bills would cost less.

After the dharma talk, Feroza and I headed back up the path leading to the Thai temple and talked about what we’d do next. She spoke of taking a rickshaw back to the hotel, but I persuaded her that we should walk, for the sake of getting exercise, something I particularly need. I noticed several stray dogs playing on the close-cut lawn and cooed about them, but Feroza said you have to watch out when they’re in packs. “Oh, even when they look cute and playful?” I said like a little kid, and she replied in the affirmative. So I didn’t plunge into the yard and march up to the frolicking group of dogs as I had the first monkey I saw. Instead I walked up the path and took a few more pictures of the Thai temple’s sparkly and ornate façade.

In Bodh Gaya, the streets don’t have names. I should send Bono an e-mail. The dirt roads are narrow and dusty, and Bodh Gaya is obviously a village rather than a city, and I like it that way. Rickshaws, motorcycles, and any other traffic bring up dust when you walk down the street. I saw people walk past us wearing surgical masks, and Feroza pulled her marigold-yellow shawl over her nose. I did the same thing with one hand, but I wasn’t wearing my bright red and orange shawl like a cowboy’s mask but rather as an elegant drapery over one shoulder.

As we walked past little stands up the street leading to the Daijokyo Buddhist House, I, as happens so often, reached a corner and misjudged in which direction a three-wheeled rickshaw was going. A Tibetan monk was driving, and in the back sat a monk and one other Tibetan. I thought they were probably going straight, so I stepped toward the side street, but then they turned sharply around the corner and I quickly stepped back to where I had been—just in time to not get hit! The Tibetans and I laughed heartily, and I continued giggling as I caught up with Feroza.

I wanted to get a good look at the huge eighty-foot-tall Japanese Buddha that’s by Daijokyo Buddhist House, because I’ve continually seen it from a distance beyond some small trees, and it looks quite surreal looming in the background. We headed for it, passed through a gate, and traversed along an extensive path with the giant Buddha centered in front of it. We walked as far as we could without taking our shoes off, and I took a few pictures. On each side, a row of standing disciples, sculpted on a much smaller scale but also in elegantly draped robes, flank the Buddha. All of the figures are made of a grayish white stone. We turned back, walked down the path, and returned to the gate. “I don’t remember which way we turn,” Feroza said. Neither of us could remember, even though the giant Buddha is visible from Daijokyo, but we were fatigued and very ready to go to our rooms.

“Let’s try this way,” I said, and we walked to the right. We soon reached the corner, and we turned right…and stood in a completely unfamiliar street. Oops. To the right stretched a long and low white building, and on the left stood a tall chain link fence on which hung a wooden sign painted with the words “Cambodian Buddhist Monastery” in at least two languages. On the other side of the fence, I saw young and muscular monks playing soccer and wearing nothing but orange or red shorts. It took some time for my brain to register the situation, and I thought: Are they monks? Surely not. Yes, they are monks. Scantily clad monks. We are so not supposed to be here. I said, “Ah, let’s go the other way,” and turned around. I’m not sure Feroza saw what I saw; she didn’t say, “Darling, look! Monks in trunks!”