Aitken, Molly Emma. Meeting the Buddha: on Pilgrimage in Buddhist India. Riverhead Books, NY: 1995.
Easwaran, Eknath, trans. The Dhammapada. Nilgiri Press, Tomales, CA: 1985.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. My Autobiography. Dover Publications, Inc., NY: 1983.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. For a Future To Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA: 1998.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. Old Path White Clouds. Full Circle, New Delhi, India: 2006.
Khema, Ayya. Who is My Self?: a Guide to Buddhist Meditation. Wisdom Publications, Boston: 1997.
Kinsley, David R. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. University of California Press, Berkeley: 1988.
Kunsang, Erik Pema, compiler and translator. A Tibetan Buddhist Companion. Editors, Marcia Binder Schmidt and Michael Tweed. Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, MA: 2003.
Red Pine. The Heart Sutra: the Womb of the Buddhas. Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC: 2004.
Shantideva. The Way of the Bodhisattva. Padmakara Translation Group. Shambhala Publications, Boston: 2006.
Singh, Rana P. B. Where the Buddha Walked: a Companion to the Buddhist Places of India. Indica Books, Varanasi, India: 2003.
Stein, Joseph. Fiddler on the Roof. Warner Brothers Publications, Miami, Florida: 1999.
Varsha Rani, Subhadra Sengupta, M. N. Rajesh, Lavanya Kondepudi, and Shantum Seth. Walking With the Buddha. Ajanta Offset & Packaging Ltd, on behalf of Eicher Goodearth Ltd., New Delhi: 2004.
Yu, Anthony C., translator and editor. The Journey to the West. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1977.
Recommended Reading
Allen, Charles. The Search for the Buddha: the Men who Discovered India’s Lost Religion. Basic Books, NY: 2004.
Azar, Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir of Books. Random House, NY: 2003.
Batchelor, Stephen. Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture. Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA: 1994.
Bernstein, Richard. The Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment. Knopf Publishing Group, NY: 2002.
Bouldrey, Brian, Ed. Traveling Souls: Contemporary Pilgrimage Stories. Whereabouts Press, San Francisco: 1999.
Brooks, Geraldine. Nine Parts of Desire. Knopf Publishing Book, NY: 1995.
Chodron, Pema. No Time to Lose: a Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva. Shambhala Publications, Inc, Boston, MA: 2005.
Cortright, David. Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism. Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO: 2006.
Eck, Diana L. Banaras: City of Light. Columbia University Press, NY: 1998.
Fields, Rick. When the Swans Came to the Lake: a Narrative History of Buddhism in America. Random House, NY: 1992. (He’s a friend of Shantum’s.)
Gutschow, Kim. Being a Buddhist Nun: the Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 2004.
Nhat Hahn, Thich. Blooming of a Lotus: Guided Meditation Exercises for Healing and Transformation. Beacon Press, Boston, MA: 1999.
Byron Katie has written numerous books and runs seminars, and her website is:
www.thework.org
Laird, Thomas. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama. Grove/Atlantic Inc., NY: 2006.
Macdonald, Sarah. Holy Cow. Broadway Books, NY: 2004.
Pachen, Ani and Adelaide Donnelley. Sorrow Mountain: the Journey of a Tibetan Warrior Nun. Kodansha International: 2002.
Mishra, Pankaj. An End to Suffering: the Buddha in the World. Farrar, NY: 2004.
Salzberg, Sharon, and Joseph Goldstein. Insight Meditation. Sounds True, Boulder, CO: 2001.
Seth, Leila. On Balance: an Autobiography. Penguin Books, New Delhi: 2007. (Shantum’s mom and the first female Chief High Justice in India).
Seth, Vikram. From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet. Vintage Books, NY: 1987.
Ibid. A Suitable Boy. Penguin Books, New Delhi, India: 1993. (The character who’s into meditation and gardening is based on Shantum.)
Walshe, Maurice, translator. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: a Translation of the Digha Nikaya. Wisdom Publications, Somerville, MA: 1995.
Strong, John S. The Legend of King Asoka: A Study and Translation of the Asokavadana. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, New Delhi: 2002.
Wriggins, Sally Hovey. Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang. Westview Press, Boulder, CO: 2004.
Some books published by Dharma Publishing:
Gesture of Balance by Tarthang Tulku
Is Tibet Forgotten…We Hope Not Tibetan Aid Project
Time, Space, and Knowledge by Tarthang Tulku
Knowledge of Freedom by Tarthang Tulku
Crystal Mirror series
Organizations
Ahimsa Trust (the organization Gitu founded)
For donations, send check to:
Ahimsa Trust
309-B
Sector 15A
Noida 201 301, India
Asha for Education
http://ashanet.org
Care
www.care.org
Child Haven International (Tibet, Nepal, India)
www.childhaven.ca/
Dharma Publishing
www.dharmapublishing.com
Education for Change
www.education4change.org
Folkwear Patterns
www.folkwear.com
(This is not a charitable organization, but a company that was founded in the Hippie era and has patterns for clothing from various cultures and eras, including patterns for basic Indian and Tibetan clothing that’s still worn today.)
Global Fund for Women
www.globalfundforwomen.org
International Campaign for Tibet
www.savetibet.org
In the Footsteps of the Buddha (the annual pilgrimage directed by Shantum Seth)
www.buddhapath.org
Made by Survivors
(This is an international anti-slavery organization that rescues, for instance, women and girls who have been victims of sex trafficking. With this organization, the former slavers create and sell arts and crafts.)
www.MadeBySurvivors.com
Pragyavihar School (the school we visited in Bodh Gaya; you can make donations on this website)
www.insightmeditation.org
The Tibetan Nuns Project
www.tnp.org
Save the Children
www.savethechildren.org
Women for Women International
www.womenforwomen.org
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, February 9, 2007
It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Reaches Nirvana
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 are becoming better in recent years, despite all accusations to the contrary.
The pilgrimage has brought home to me the historic fact that the Buddha was a real person. Such awareness makes it more believable that anyone, any mortal, with effort, can also attain enlightenment. This pilgrimage inspires me to be all the more serious about my path, perhaps even, dare I say it, confident that I can become more equanimous and not take insults personally, and more confident about my meditation practice.
During my first night in my own bed, I had a dream that took place at the tail end of the pilgrimage, and everyone got out of the bus and our legs were in pain as we walked. It was like having a bad cramp in each leg, and we were trying to overcome this pain and walk anyway, onto grass at the side of the road. As we walked, Jagdish explained that it’s a pain you experience when you know it’s about time to leave and you don’t want to part. I woke up with a horrible cramp in my right leg.
In hindsight, I’ve noticed that along with my poor ability to trust or rely on others comes a sort of fear of abandonment. At the beginning of the trip, I kept experiencing this fear, no doubt because I’m so accustomed to relying entirely on myself. When I waited on my front porch for the airport shuttle, I seriously wondered if it would actually show up and imagined my having to quickly get into my car and drive on ice for approximately an hour and a half to the Kansas City airport. Before the plane landed in Delhi, I wondered if my suitcase would be lost and was seriously afraid that the hotel representative had given up on me, since the flight was an hour and a half late. When I climbed down from the wall at Bimbisara’s jail, I preferred to help myself than to let Rick help me. Continually, I did not trust others to be reliable.
But later I became comfortable with being part of a group and sometimes thought, “Oh, Shantum will take care of it.” I simply relaxed and experienced interconnectedness firsthand, in practice and up close rather than only in theory or at a distance. When I arrived at the house in Kansas after the pilgrimage, I felt some dismay that instead of having others taking care of everything, I’d have to do my own grocery shopping and cooking and sweep the floor and scoop kitty litter. The house is such a mess, like it always is, and I’m the only one to clean it. But that’s the American way: if you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done.
Siddhartha Gautama gave up three palaces, a wife and kid, silk and jewelry, and future kingship to seek truth. I can give up a two-story house, at least one cat, the furniture and most of the material items in the house, and a full-time job, in order to move to the west coast and seek truth.
I’ve never been anything remotely like a minimalist, but ever since returning from the pilgrimage I’ve been eager to get rid of material things at a drastic rate and have to some extent acted accordingly, although I have so much more to do. I’ve donated many boxes full of books to the public library. I keep taking carloads of junk to recycling bins and am currently filling a box with old files to be recycled. Over and over again I continue taking carloads of paraphernalia to thrift stores and donating them. I plan to sell more online, and I have taken boxes filled with CDs and DVDs to a store that buys and sells them.
In a related vein, ever since I returned, I haven’t felt like eating as much. I drink vast quantities of water, but I’m eating breakfast and lunch and no evening meals. I feel like I could live entirely on Indian food, although in the States it’s a challenge to turn my back on other foods, especially when people bring snacks to work or when I see something appealing on sale. With the Mindfulness Trainings as a guide, it has been much easier to refrain from buying extra food. A couple times, when I was highly tempted to buy chocolate muffins, I remembered skinny beggars in India, and I lost my interest in the muffins. Between my urge to get rid of vast quantities of material things, and my waning inclination to overeat, I think I can safely say I’m on the path of mindful consuming.
Perhaps I am so eager to get rid of many things because in India people with few possessions surrounded me, and here I am with no human roommates in a big house that contains a great deal of paraphernalia, much of it mine rather than possessions dead relatives left behind. Also, one of the Mindfulness Trainings mentions not owning things that should belong to others; old clothing and board games, for example, which have been in closets for decades qualify as items that should belong to someone else, someone who would use them. While selecting things with which to part, whether to sell or donate or take to recycling, I am thinking in realistic terms about how chances are I’ll never use this or that. I am experiencing genuine detachment with so many material things, although I have my limits, since at this stage I am unwilling to part with many of my books and pieces of artwork.
A major theme of the pilgrimage had been renunciation, despite the way I shopped. The monks and nuns set an example of renunciation, owning very little and having a communal lifestyle, sharing closely with others rather than being possessive. The poor people and the squalor do not demonstrate voluntary renunciation, but they do contribute to my awareness that I, like most Americans, have a great many more material possessions than I should have. It is a senseless waste for one person to hoard so much, when the world holds so many people and so many of them own very little.
Although chances are I’ll always surround myself with plenty of artwork and many books, I am definitely lessening the quantities of material things I have and doing so with enthusiasm, so this is renunciation on a small scale. I am also working toward shopping less. No amount of material things will ever make up for psychological and emotional starvation.
I am also, thanks to the pilgrimage, all the more serious about my meditation practice, and although creating art, especially writing, is as important for me as breathing, I have been making a point of meditating twenty minutes every morning, even on workdays, and at least half an hour in the evening, no matter how busy I am or how tight my schedule. On weekends I’ve been meditating longer, both morning and evening, and doing some basic yoga beforehand.
The Buddha became enlightened when he was a year younger than I am now, so surely I can at least reach a point in this lifetime at which I’ve cultivated enough detachment that I no longer care what vicious and ignorant people think of me and no longer take things personally. That is certainly a lot of baggage with which to part. Given where I started in this lifetime, that would be significant progress. Knowing the Buddha as a human being has brought home to me the possibilities.
2
Approximately two weeks after my return to the United States, I made some new observations. I ended the pilgrimage thinking I have had a transformative and healing experience, and I’m sure I have had one, although relatives have proven that they can still creep me out and trigger my depression and brooding. I often feel guilty and inadequate because after spending three weeks in India on a Buddhist pilgrimage and undergoing some change, I sense that I haven’t changed as much as I should have. I have a theory that it should have been a more dramatic transformation, so that I no longer have fear and loathing toward people. This continued ability to let relatives upset me doesn’t strike me as a good thing, but maybe by expecting not to have such reactions, I am expecting too much and being unreasonable with myself. I didn’t seriously think I became a buddha during the pilgrimage. I find that I make an annoyed comment and realize that I said it out of habit and don’t feel particularly angry after all. I shall continue meditating at least once a day and reading up on meditation, and I shall make a point of observing my progress and my reactions.
During the first couple weeks back in the United States, I noticed that, despite the two instances in which relatives got under my skin, overall I felt significantly more equanimous than before the pilgrimage. I did not feel grumpy at work as I did before, and I did not become angry so easily. I didn’t brood as much as before the pilgrimage. I came to the conclusion that verbally abusive relatives are the biggest “elephant” for me and the most horrendous thing to deal with on a personal level.
3
A skeptical voice in my head questions whether I’ve truly conquered fear and will continue to act fearless, or whether riding the elephant was one lone incident.
One local relative in particular continues to harass me and fill me with aversion. She is petty and immature, and by getting offended by her attacks, I am acting petty and immature. Angry and negative thoughts are a habit and I need to work harder at eliminating them. The voice in my head that’s telling me that this relative’s opinions and delusions are her problem, and that it doesn’t matter what she thinks of me, has gotten louder, dare I say even louder than the angry voice in my head.
I am often aware of the conflict between my buddha-nature and the inner demons that verbally abusive relatives and other vicious people have planted in my psyche. I need to refrain from brooding, refrain from mentally repeating bad memories and my negative and hostile thoughts. If not only things like making masala chai and looking at photos from the trip bring me back to a happy and peaceful mental state such as I experienced in India, but if also meditation, self-reflection, and journal writing do this, then I shall know that I have truly made significant progress along the path.
My relatives would convince me that I am the most horrible and worthless human being in the world; in my more depressed moments, they did have me convinced. Before I visited India, I knew that everyone in the world is entitled to acceptance, respect, and love…everyone, that is, except me. Now I have reason to suspect that my relatives have exaggerated how inadequate I am.
It seems to me that at this stage, I shouldn’t be so disturbed by verbal abuse, especially since I know full well that my relatives’ attacks are all because of their delusions. Part of me has internalized my enemies’ contempt, accusations, and abuse. On a thinking level, I know that their delusions are their problem, not mine, and that relatives lash out at me because they are willfully ignorant and in denial, and because they are terrified of truth. People who abuse others do so because they don’t feel good about themselves.
Yet verbal abuse from relatives is the primary reason I needed to become serious about meditation in the first place; still they continue to be a gigantic hindrance. It’s ironic that I have yet to fully confront these particular demons. I don’t like being around people who consider me beneath their contempt and who act as if everything I say or do is wrong just because I’m the one saying or doing it. It is furthermore very depressing to be aware that people who should be supportive and loving in fact wish me harm.
My aversion toward relatives is much vaster than my acrophobia. On the other hand, I have genuinely conquered my fear of heights. I went from assuming I should avoid heights as much as possible and not question this choice, to facing my fears and climbing on the elephant. Perhaps that is a step toward conquering my fear of abusive relatives.
In late May I learned that particularly vicious and verbally abusive relatives would invade Topeka in about a month, and my gut reaction was panic. The prospect of in-town vicious relatives joining with out-of-town vicious relatives was more than I thought I could stand. However, I got enough of a grip on myself that I devoted an entire month to reading dharma books and to intensely practicing metta, or loving-kindness, meditation.
I took this upcoming situation as an opportunity to shed a great deal of bad karma, if I could handle the situation with equanimity rather than reacting and taking the malice personally. For a month I concentrated on my metta meditation, and one Sunday I sat meditating for four hours. I’ve been not only sending metta while sitting on the cushion, but I’ve also been sending it to myself when I’m in the car driving to work, when I’m at work and feel grumpy, when I go to bed, and whenever else I think of it. The phrases that run through my head, and that Liz taught me, are: “May I be happy and peaceful. May I be healthy and strong. May I be safe and protected. May I live with ease of well-being.”
For at least a week I had sent metta only to myself, which may seem selfish except I got the idea from the teacher Sharon Salzberg and her book Lovingkindness. After that initial week, I proceeded to also send metta to many others. I knew the metta was helping when at work someone with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old harassed me, and yet I felt absolutely no anger or fear. I was genuinely equanimous in the face of such bizarre behavior.
When the time came, sure enough, I could sit in a room full of relatives, including my most vicious relatives, and yet remain equanimous. I felt no anger or fear and was simply there, breathing and attempting to be civil. I even walked away feeling not depressed but cheerful, knowing that I had made significant progress and had shed some bad karma.
I had prepared myself for relatives over the age of sixty-five to harass me and even gang up on me. I felt calm up to a point, even during their malicious jibes. I was ready for old people who have the emotional maturity of five-year-olds to harass me, but I was not prepared for an actual five-year-old picking on me. My five-year-old nephew did so, and it was like returning to my miserable childhood, what I least wish to relive. It was as though I was nothing but a burning flame of rage. I yelled before making any attempt to figure out why I was so enraged or what was truly behind all that intense emotion; I had no thoughts, nothing but rage, and it was all consuming and it was everything at that moment.
However, minutes after this happened, I found myself having a guilt complex because I so easily became enraged and stopped being equanimous. I felt like a total failure at metta, because I had completely lost my cool and yelled at a five-year-old. For the remainder of the time with in-town and out-of-town relatives, my metta was completely gone and I was full of not only guilt but also hostility, particularly when a local relative insulted me in front of my mother, who as usual didn’t defend me.
I thought dealing with verbally abusive relatives over the age of sixty-five was my biggest “elephant,” but it seems a part of my brain is still carrying around the extreme verbal abuse and rejection I experienced during my childhood and adolescence, and either that’s a bigger hurdle than being equanimous around those “adult” relatives, or it’s simply a hurdle for which I haven’t prepared and didn’t take into account. Instead of jumping over it, I’ve bashed into it and sprained both ankles, so to speak. I have a long way to go before I can recover from my childhood, and I didn’t realize it till now.
I have discovered that practicing metta meditation continuously shows results, but that I have to keep it up, no matter what my schedule is like. Under the circumstances, I started all over again with metta meditation, spending at least a week sending metta primarily to myself. Meditation is one step forward, but associating with relatives is ten steps back; the more contact I have with them, the more devoid of confidence I become. Even when I’m angry toward relatives—and the mere thought of them triggers anger—I realize that their behavior is so petty and trivial, especially after I have seen vast numbers of people living in poverty and squalor. I must somehow confront my childhood in order to recover from it, but I don’t presently know how to do that, or whether meditating more is all it will take.
4
Before I visited India, I had never thought of the Buddha as a walker. I assumed he sat for long hours and emphasized sitting meditation, and my primary image of him was his sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Buddha statues most often portray him seated. The Buddha traveled by foot to all the places our sangha visited, and he walked to all those places during a span of forty years. Based on my own experience with walking, I think it is no wonder that the Buddha came up with the idea of meditating while walking, and no doubt he enjoyed such peaceful exercise.
Lately I have been taking one-hour walks just about every day and have discovered a trail running parallel to a river near my house. I make especially good use of time by not only walking and looking at the river, but by also mentally repeating metta phrases while I walk. During one of these walks, it dawned on me that taking walks has always had a therapeutic effect on me.
I recall how, beginning when I was about eight years old, my walks were a way I could get some peace of mind and stay more or less sane. I had my own bedroom, but sometimes closing myself in my room was not sufficient. With or without a dog, I took walks from the house, up the road through what we called “the woods” even though there weren’t nearly enough trees for it to be a forest, and through several cornfields. Whenever I attended an alienating family reunion, I slipped away and took a walk.
After my brother acquired a driver’s license, we frequently took the family dog to the Indiana Dunes State Park and hiked there for several miles, through a forest with sandy trails that often led to the beach. Standing at the top of the dunes, we could see Chicago across Lake Michigan on a clear day. I continued to walk near my parents’ house and in the dunes until I graduated from high school and left Indiana.
Especially while I walked alone, my walks were quite therapeutic, even though I knew nothing about the Buddha and walking meditation. No matter what direction my thoughts wandered while my feet also wandered, I felt much more relaxed than I was with kids at school or with my family. Hiking in the woods and dunes, I simply admired the scenery. Fortunately, now I am taking regular walks while simultaneously meditating. Even those childhood walks were connected to the Buddha’s walking meditation.
The pilgrimage has brought home to me the historic fact that the Buddha was a real person. Such awareness makes it more believable that anyone, any mortal, with effort, can also attain enlightenment. This pilgrimage inspires me to be all the more serious about my path, perhaps even, dare I say it, confident that I can become more equanimous and not take insults personally, and more confident about my meditation practice.
During my first night in my own bed, I had a dream that took place at the tail end of the pilgrimage, and everyone got out of the bus and our legs were in pain as we walked. It was like having a bad cramp in each leg, and we were trying to overcome this pain and walk anyway, onto grass at the side of the road. As we walked, Jagdish explained that it’s a pain you experience when you know it’s about time to leave and you don’t want to part. I woke up with a horrible cramp in my right leg.
In hindsight, I’ve noticed that along with my poor ability to trust or rely on others comes a sort of fear of abandonment. At the beginning of the trip, I kept experiencing this fear, no doubt because I’m so accustomed to relying entirely on myself. When I waited on my front porch for the airport shuttle, I seriously wondered if it would actually show up and imagined my having to quickly get into my car and drive on ice for approximately an hour and a half to the Kansas City airport. Before the plane landed in Delhi, I wondered if my suitcase would be lost and was seriously afraid that the hotel representative had given up on me, since the flight was an hour and a half late. When I climbed down from the wall at Bimbisara’s jail, I preferred to help myself than to let Rick help me. Continually, I did not trust others to be reliable.
But later I became comfortable with being part of a group and sometimes thought, “Oh, Shantum will take care of it.” I simply relaxed and experienced interconnectedness firsthand, in practice and up close rather than only in theory or at a distance. When I arrived at the house in Kansas after the pilgrimage, I felt some dismay that instead of having others taking care of everything, I’d have to do my own grocery shopping and cooking and sweep the floor and scoop kitty litter. The house is such a mess, like it always is, and I’m the only one to clean it. But that’s the American way: if you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done.
Siddhartha Gautama gave up three palaces, a wife and kid, silk and jewelry, and future kingship to seek truth. I can give up a two-story house, at least one cat, the furniture and most of the material items in the house, and a full-time job, in order to move to the west coast and seek truth.
I’ve never been anything remotely like a minimalist, but ever since returning from the pilgrimage I’ve been eager to get rid of material things at a drastic rate and have to some extent acted accordingly, although I have so much more to do. I’ve donated many boxes full of books to the public library. I keep taking carloads of junk to recycling bins and am currently filling a box with old files to be recycled. Over and over again I continue taking carloads of paraphernalia to thrift stores and donating them. I plan to sell more online, and I have taken boxes filled with CDs and DVDs to a store that buys and sells them.
In a related vein, ever since I returned, I haven’t felt like eating as much. I drink vast quantities of water, but I’m eating breakfast and lunch and no evening meals. I feel like I could live entirely on Indian food, although in the States it’s a challenge to turn my back on other foods, especially when people bring snacks to work or when I see something appealing on sale. With the Mindfulness Trainings as a guide, it has been much easier to refrain from buying extra food. A couple times, when I was highly tempted to buy chocolate muffins, I remembered skinny beggars in India, and I lost my interest in the muffins. Between my urge to get rid of vast quantities of material things, and my waning inclination to overeat, I think I can safely say I’m on the path of mindful consuming.
Perhaps I am so eager to get rid of many things because in India people with few possessions surrounded me, and here I am with no human roommates in a big house that contains a great deal of paraphernalia, much of it mine rather than possessions dead relatives left behind. Also, one of the Mindfulness Trainings mentions not owning things that should belong to others; old clothing and board games, for example, which have been in closets for decades qualify as items that should belong to someone else, someone who would use them. While selecting things with which to part, whether to sell or donate or take to recycling, I am thinking in realistic terms about how chances are I’ll never use this or that. I am experiencing genuine detachment with so many material things, although I have my limits, since at this stage I am unwilling to part with many of my books and pieces of artwork.
A major theme of the pilgrimage had been renunciation, despite the way I shopped. The monks and nuns set an example of renunciation, owning very little and having a communal lifestyle, sharing closely with others rather than being possessive. The poor people and the squalor do not demonstrate voluntary renunciation, but they do contribute to my awareness that I, like most Americans, have a great many more material possessions than I should have. It is a senseless waste for one person to hoard so much, when the world holds so many people and so many of them own very little.
Although chances are I’ll always surround myself with plenty of artwork and many books, I am definitely lessening the quantities of material things I have and doing so with enthusiasm, so this is renunciation on a small scale. I am also working toward shopping less. No amount of material things will ever make up for psychological and emotional starvation.
I am also, thanks to the pilgrimage, all the more serious about my meditation practice, and although creating art, especially writing, is as important for me as breathing, I have been making a point of meditating twenty minutes every morning, even on workdays, and at least half an hour in the evening, no matter how busy I am or how tight my schedule. On weekends I’ve been meditating longer, both morning and evening, and doing some basic yoga beforehand.
The Buddha became enlightened when he was a year younger than I am now, so surely I can at least reach a point in this lifetime at which I’ve cultivated enough detachment that I no longer care what vicious and ignorant people think of me and no longer take things personally. That is certainly a lot of baggage with which to part. Given where I started in this lifetime, that would be significant progress. Knowing the Buddha as a human being has brought home to me the possibilities.
2
Approximately two weeks after my return to the United States, I made some new observations. I ended the pilgrimage thinking I have had a transformative and healing experience, and I’m sure I have had one, although relatives have proven that they can still creep me out and trigger my depression and brooding. I often feel guilty and inadequate because after spending three weeks in India on a Buddhist pilgrimage and undergoing some change, I sense that I haven’t changed as much as I should have. I have a theory that it should have been a more dramatic transformation, so that I no longer have fear and loathing toward people. This continued ability to let relatives upset me doesn’t strike me as a good thing, but maybe by expecting not to have such reactions, I am expecting too much and being unreasonable with myself. I didn’t seriously think I became a buddha during the pilgrimage. I find that I make an annoyed comment and realize that I said it out of habit and don’t feel particularly angry after all. I shall continue meditating at least once a day and reading up on meditation, and I shall make a point of observing my progress and my reactions.
During the first couple weeks back in the United States, I noticed that, despite the two instances in which relatives got under my skin, overall I felt significantly more equanimous than before the pilgrimage. I did not feel grumpy at work as I did before, and I did not become angry so easily. I didn’t brood as much as before the pilgrimage. I came to the conclusion that verbally abusive relatives are the biggest “elephant” for me and the most horrendous thing to deal with on a personal level.
3
A skeptical voice in my head questions whether I’ve truly conquered fear and will continue to act fearless, or whether riding the elephant was one lone incident.
One local relative in particular continues to harass me and fill me with aversion. She is petty and immature, and by getting offended by her attacks, I am acting petty and immature. Angry and negative thoughts are a habit and I need to work harder at eliminating them. The voice in my head that’s telling me that this relative’s opinions and delusions are her problem, and that it doesn’t matter what she thinks of me, has gotten louder, dare I say even louder than the angry voice in my head.
I am often aware of the conflict between my buddha-nature and the inner demons that verbally abusive relatives and other vicious people have planted in my psyche. I need to refrain from brooding, refrain from mentally repeating bad memories and my negative and hostile thoughts. If not only things like making masala chai and looking at photos from the trip bring me back to a happy and peaceful mental state such as I experienced in India, but if also meditation, self-reflection, and journal writing do this, then I shall know that I have truly made significant progress along the path.
My relatives would convince me that I am the most horrible and worthless human being in the world; in my more depressed moments, they did have me convinced. Before I visited India, I knew that everyone in the world is entitled to acceptance, respect, and love…everyone, that is, except me. Now I have reason to suspect that my relatives have exaggerated how inadequate I am.
It seems to me that at this stage, I shouldn’t be so disturbed by verbal abuse, especially since I know full well that my relatives’ attacks are all because of their delusions. Part of me has internalized my enemies’ contempt, accusations, and abuse. On a thinking level, I know that their delusions are their problem, not mine, and that relatives lash out at me because they are willfully ignorant and in denial, and because they are terrified of truth. People who abuse others do so because they don’t feel good about themselves.
Yet verbal abuse from relatives is the primary reason I needed to become serious about meditation in the first place; still they continue to be a gigantic hindrance. It’s ironic that I have yet to fully confront these particular demons. I don’t like being around people who consider me beneath their contempt and who act as if everything I say or do is wrong just because I’m the one saying or doing it. It is furthermore very depressing to be aware that people who should be supportive and loving in fact wish me harm.
My aversion toward relatives is much vaster than my acrophobia. On the other hand, I have genuinely conquered my fear of heights. I went from assuming I should avoid heights as much as possible and not question this choice, to facing my fears and climbing on the elephant. Perhaps that is a step toward conquering my fear of abusive relatives.
In late May I learned that particularly vicious and verbally abusive relatives would invade Topeka in about a month, and my gut reaction was panic. The prospect of in-town vicious relatives joining with out-of-town vicious relatives was more than I thought I could stand. However, I got enough of a grip on myself that I devoted an entire month to reading dharma books and to intensely practicing metta, or loving-kindness, meditation.
I took this upcoming situation as an opportunity to shed a great deal of bad karma, if I could handle the situation with equanimity rather than reacting and taking the malice personally. For a month I concentrated on my metta meditation, and one Sunday I sat meditating for four hours. I’ve been not only sending metta while sitting on the cushion, but I’ve also been sending it to myself when I’m in the car driving to work, when I’m at work and feel grumpy, when I go to bed, and whenever else I think of it. The phrases that run through my head, and that Liz taught me, are: “May I be happy and peaceful. May I be healthy and strong. May I be safe and protected. May I live with ease of well-being.”
For at least a week I had sent metta only to myself, which may seem selfish except I got the idea from the teacher Sharon Salzberg and her book Lovingkindness. After that initial week, I proceeded to also send metta to many others. I knew the metta was helping when at work someone with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old harassed me, and yet I felt absolutely no anger or fear. I was genuinely equanimous in the face of such bizarre behavior.
When the time came, sure enough, I could sit in a room full of relatives, including my most vicious relatives, and yet remain equanimous. I felt no anger or fear and was simply there, breathing and attempting to be civil. I even walked away feeling not depressed but cheerful, knowing that I had made significant progress and had shed some bad karma.
I had prepared myself for relatives over the age of sixty-five to harass me and even gang up on me. I felt calm up to a point, even during their malicious jibes. I was ready for old people who have the emotional maturity of five-year-olds to harass me, but I was not prepared for an actual five-year-old picking on me. My five-year-old nephew did so, and it was like returning to my miserable childhood, what I least wish to relive. It was as though I was nothing but a burning flame of rage. I yelled before making any attempt to figure out why I was so enraged or what was truly behind all that intense emotion; I had no thoughts, nothing but rage, and it was all consuming and it was everything at that moment.
However, minutes after this happened, I found myself having a guilt complex because I so easily became enraged and stopped being equanimous. I felt like a total failure at metta, because I had completely lost my cool and yelled at a five-year-old. For the remainder of the time with in-town and out-of-town relatives, my metta was completely gone and I was full of not only guilt but also hostility, particularly when a local relative insulted me in front of my mother, who as usual didn’t defend me.
I thought dealing with verbally abusive relatives over the age of sixty-five was my biggest “elephant,” but it seems a part of my brain is still carrying around the extreme verbal abuse and rejection I experienced during my childhood and adolescence, and either that’s a bigger hurdle than being equanimous around those “adult” relatives, or it’s simply a hurdle for which I haven’t prepared and didn’t take into account. Instead of jumping over it, I’ve bashed into it and sprained both ankles, so to speak. I have a long way to go before I can recover from my childhood, and I didn’t realize it till now.
I have discovered that practicing metta meditation continuously shows results, but that I have to keep it up, no matter what my schedule is like. Under the circumstances, I started all over again with metta meditation, spending at least a week sending metta primarily to myself. Meditation is one step forward, but associating with relatives is ten steps back; the more contact I have with them, the more devoid of confidence I become. Even when I’m angry toward relatives—and the mere thought of them triggers anger—I realize that their behavior is so petty and trivial, especially after I have seen vast numbers of people living in poverty and squalor. I must somehow confront my childhood in order to recover from it, but I don’t presently know how to do that, or whether meditating more is all it will take.
4
Before I visited India, I had never thought of the Buddha as a walker. I assumed he sat for long hours and emphasized sitting meditation, and my primary image of him was his sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Buddha statues most often portray him seated. The Buddha traveled by foot to all the places our sangha visited, and he walked to all those places during a span of forty years. Based on my own experience with walking, I think it is no wonder that the Buddha came up with the idea of meditating while walking, and no doubt he enjoyed such peaceful exercise.
Lately I have been taking one-hour walks just about every day and have discovered a trail running parallel to a river near my house. I make especially good use of time by not only walking and looking at the river, but by also mentally repeating metta phrases while I walk. During one of these walks, it dawned on me that taking walks has always had a therapeutic effect on me.
I recall how, beginning when I was about eight years old, my walks were a way I could get some peace of mind and stay more or less sane. I had my own bedroom, but sometimes closing myself in my room was not sufficient. With or without a dog, I took walks from the house, up the road through what we called “the woods” even though there weren’t nearly enough trees for it to be a forest, and through several cornfields. Whenever I attended an alienating family reunion, I slipped away and took a walk.
After my brother acquired a driver’s license, we frequently took the family dog to the Indiana Dunes State Park and hiked there for several miles, through a forest with sandy trails that often led to the beach. Standing at the top of the dunes, we could see Chicago across Lake Michigan on a clear day. I continued to walk near my parents’ house and in the dunes until I graduated from high school and left Indiana.
Especially while I walked alone, my walks were quite therapeutic, even though I knew nothing about the Buddha and walking meditation. No matter what direction my thoughts wandered while my feet also wandered, I felt much more relaxed than I was with kids at school or with my family. Hiking in the woods and dunes, I simply admired the scenery. Fortunately, now I am taking regular walks while simultaneously meditating. Even those childhood walks were connected to the Buddha’s walking meditation.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
While My Sitar Gently Weeps
Shantum moved down the aisle and sat next to me during the bus ride, and it now was my turn for the farewell ceremony called moli. Shantum pressed his palms together and closed his eyes, and I did the same. I breathed in and out and attempted to concentrate exclusively on my breath rather than on the string he would tie around my wrist; I anticipated it, since I saw him do this with Peter in the Jetta Grove. I totally didn’t think about the fact that I would depart soon. Shantum placed his praying hands over mine and my mind continued doing what it had already been doing. I opened my eyes by the time he held a bright yellow and red string, and I held out my right wrist, but he smiled slightly and pointed to my left, so I held that out instead and watched as he wrapped it around twice and knotted it several times. It would remind me of him as long as it was on my wrist, and over time it would fall off, just like the Three Jewels strings that a Tibetan monk had tied on my right wrist.
Shantum said, “Thank you for being with us.”
Slightly tongue-tied and not sure what to say, I said, “Thanks for having me!” We exchanged a hug and somehow I refrained from shedding any tears and instead was blithe enough to smile.
He smilingly said, “You are a wonderful person and have a great deal of exuberance and personality behind your shyness.” This was overwhelming, and I smiled slightly and tipped my head downward, finding it hard to make eye contact under the circumstances. My poor ability to take compliments doesn’t usually get in my way, since I rarely receive compliments. I was truly tongue-tied this time, unable to articulate anything.
Shantum told me a story about a previous pilgrim. A few years ago, another young woman’s father noticed how much his daughter transformed after going on this pilgrimage, and out of curiosity he went on the pilgrimage himself the following year, even though he was a businessman who wasn’t into Buddhism. He also found the trip transformative. I grinned and said, “I’ll tell my dad that story.”
Later on the bus, when we were almost in Delhi, Shantum said, “As my friend Pico Iyer has said, ‘The last destination isn't the final place on the itinerary, but what happens when we get home and try to make sense of it.’” He added, “Whenever you go to another country, it expands your outlook.” I mentally repeated that a couple times; I had thought my consciousness was global before I went to India, but this was the first time I had ever set foot in the opposite side of the world.
The first place we went to in Delhi, or rather in the vicinity of Delhi, was Shantum’s house, which technically is in a suburb called Noida on the other side of the stinky Yamuna River. The bus parked on a somewhat wider residential street around the corner from the house. Shantum said, “The house has nine bathrooms, because Indian houses have bathrooms attached to each bedroom.” Gee, if you wanted to run a bed and breakfast, you wouldn’t have to renovate.
We wheeled the suitcases up the street, and I nearly had another collision with a bicycle. It seems like I’ll never be able to judge which way to dodge. The stylish black wrought iron gate outside the front door of the Seth house was ajar, and Erika and I slipped in. I dumped my suitcase next to Erika’s on the patio; quite a few were parked there just outside the front door, which was open.
I entered a part of the house that I didn’t recognize, a white-tiled little hall, in which I ascended a few steps and where to my right was a staircase going upstairs; otherwise the room contained some artwork and a side table. Shantum’s younger daughter, Animika, stood nearby and looked at me; a woman in a sari, presumably a nanny, held her hand.
I smiled at the kid and followed Erika through the door straight ahead of me and instantly recognized the next room. The Seth family, as I’m sure I mentioned before, lives in a beautiful house decorated with antiques and books and both Hindu and Buddhist art. Leila Seth’s law books are there in abundance, and one back corner room has a desk that displays a long white block with her name on it. The room I entered after the little hall contained floor to ceiling bookcases packed with books, a grand piano, and luggage on the floor.
It didn’t take me long to spot, on a long and low dark wood piece of furniture like a sideboard, two stacks of books: multiple copies of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and multiple copies of On Balance by Leila Seth. I took a peek inside the top books, and both titles were indeed autographed. What an amazing family; Leila Seth is the first female chief court judge, Vikram is a world-famous novelist, Shantum is a Zen teacher who gives Westerners pilgrimages, and Shantum’s sister, Aradhana, is a scene designer for prominent films, such as those directed by Deepa Mehta. It seems not all families are dysfunctional and unsupportive.
I dropped my backpack and mirrorwork bag onto the floor and admired the artwork around me and wandered around, noticing people setting out plates, silverware, and food on the dining room table. I listened to snippets of conversation and sipped masala chai. When I saw Premo Seth, Shantum’s dad, I pressed my palms together and said, “Namaste!” He smiled and did the same.
At Shantum’s request, we gathered into the living room and sat down for gift giving. Shantum said, “It is true that we’ve celebrated two people’s birthdays, Dean’s and Erika’s, but everybody has a birthday, sometime, so everyone gets presents.” He announced that Nandini would dance for us, and she came into the center of the living room and began to dance, while people pulled out their cameras.
Shantum placed a large quantity of “In the Footsteps of the Buddha” pilgrimage brochures on the coffee table and said, “You’re welcome to take as many as you want. This is an advertising segment.” I took a few, thinking I could deliver them to the Zen Center in Lawrence, Kansas that I have yet to visit, and also to a dharma center in Kansas City that I found out about shortly before the pilgrimage.
The first gifts to be passed around were the calendars, inspired by the upcoming film adaptation of Thich Nhat Hahn’s novel Old Path White Clouds, like those Dean and Erika already had. Shantum also brought out gifts wrapped in newspaper and smelling faintly of sandalwood; they were taped together in a neat stack and include a tube, which Dean, sitting next to me, identified as the pilgrimage poster Shantum had mentioned. The presents also include a strangely shaped big package, and a package the size and shape of a music CD. I thought Shantum’s generosity was amazing; he had already given us handcrafted gifts at the beginning of the pilgrimage.
It was time to pass out the envelopes containing tips over to Mukesh and Jagdish. Previously, Shantum had calculated appropriate sums and written them on envelopes, and we had placed the tips in the envelopes and passed them around. Sangha members gave Mukesh and Jagdish speeches about what a wonderful job they did and what a help they were. Mukesh was quiet and sort of cast his eyes down while he was being praised, and Yvette to my left murmured, “He’s shy.”
Mukesh said, “Your love, praise, gratitude and appreciation are enough. I don’t need the money.” He stepped forward, placed the envelope on the coffee table, and backed away. Wow, I don’t think I could have done that. Liz suggested the money go to the Ahimsa Trust, the organization that Gitu founded.
Jagdish’s envelope was passed down to him. He grinned and said, “I’m keeping the money!” Everyone laughed, and he said it’s for his son.
Next it was Shantum’s turn to receive a praising speech for all he has done for us. Jennifer was sitting next to me on my left, and the group wanted one of us to deliver the speech. Jennifer has a powerful voice and unlike me is good at projection, as she’s proved often enough when we needed someone to read aloud. Several people urged me on, to my surprise, and Dean described me as an “eloquent speaker” and used the phrase “great orator.” I smiled and said, “I’m a writer, not a speaker.” I couldn’t remember saying anything particularly eloquent on the pilgrimage.
Thus the speech was up to Jennifer. She praised Shantum highly, and highly deservedly, and her concluding words stick in my head: “You are so full of love. In my next life I want Erika to be my mom and Shantum to be my dad.” That struck me as delightful and brought a Big Smile to my lips. And it would be wonderful indeed to have Shantum for a dad. And for that matter Jennifer for a sister, though I think I’d rather have Erika as a sister than a mom. Oh, heck, the whole sangha could be One Big Happy Commune in our next lives.
Some minutes later, after the ceremony was over and the house filled with a cacophony of conversations and people moved around and drifted into other rooms, I spotted Feroza crossing the living room. I took this as an opportunity to speak just to her, since I’m squeamish about speaking in front of many people. While we stood in the center of the living room, I said, “I wanted to say: I agree with Jennifer, except I want Feroza to be my mother in my next life.”
Feroza chuckled, said, “Ahh, that’s sweet,” thanked me, and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. The living room was still full of people, and Shantum was seated on the couch between two other pilgrims. Feroza turned to him and said, “Shantum, you have to listen to what Susan just said.” I repeated it to Shantum, and we exchanged beaming smiles.
I took my gifts to the back room and somehow managed to squeeze them into my firmly packed luggage, while most people already started eating. I had to detach the three wrapped gifts from each other in order to pack them separately, since my suitcase and backpack had so little remaining space. I had packed mostly old clothing and left almost all of it behind throughout the pilgrimage, but my suitcase was full anyway, thanks to the silk, shawls, books, and statues I had purchased. Hopefully I’ll practice more restraint on my next pilgrimage and be less like a typical tourist.
I went to the dinner table and put basmati rice and small scoops each of each curry on my plate while talking with Bina and Mukesh. Bina asked me, “Has Mukesh told you that he’s a journalist? You have writing in common.”
I smiled and said, “No, he didn’t mention that!” I turned to Mukesh and added, “My dad was a newspaper journalist, and he just retired.”
“What newspaper did he work for?” Mukesh asked.
“Just a local Indiana paper called the Post Tribune,” I said. I didn’t mean to trivialize my dad’s job, but he didn’t work for a huge internationally known paper like the Chicago Sun Times, about which Mukesh might have heard. Now as I write this, it dawns on me that I didn’t ask Mukesh what paper or magazine he worked for. Oh well, the pilgrimage hasn’t stopped me from continuing to be flaky. On the other hand, plenty of nonfiction writers are freelance and send articles or essays to numerous publications.
The rice and curries were scrumptious, but I chose not to overdo it: I didn’t want to gorge myself before waiting around at an airport and sitting on airplanes for many hours, so I only ate small portions. Although I knew I was one of the people who were supposed to be at the airport at eight forty-five, it had not registered with me, and I didn’t feel rushed. Everyone was either eating and talking or bustling around and getting ready to go.
Immediately after I showed up at the house and was in the big room with the books and the grand piano, for a short moment I saw a guy who I rather suspected was the world famous novelist, Vikram Seth. He disappeared into another room. I knew the extended family lived here and Shantum had said that his brother arrived in India on January twenty-seventh and would therefore possibly be available to autograph the books for us. The moment Shantum had mentioned that his brother, who usually lives in England, would be in the country, I had wondered if we could meet him. Yet according to Buddhist teachings, one shouldn’t care about fame. This magical pilgrimage would be quite enough without meeting a famous novelist.
After eating dinner, I wandered back into the living room, and Vikram Seth was seated in a corner of the couch and talking with a few other members of the pilgrimage. Dean and Valerie were there, and so were Rick and Dornora. Across the room from Vikram, I sat in the armchair I had occupied during the gift exchange. Dean was taking a picture of Vikram, and Rick said, “Hey, that’s a good idea,” and got his camera out. I had been seated for maybe a minute.
I jumped up and said, “I’m gonna get my camera!” I scurried off to the back room, pulled out my camera again, returned to the living room, and took a couple pictures of the world famous writer sitting and talking with Dornora.
Vikram came across as quieter than Shantum, but of course he’s a writer, and Shantum comes across as more like an actor. It came up in conversation that Rick is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it turns out that Vikram had gone there for a book signing. Vikram also speaks English with a British accent, and quietly. He looked around and asked if any of the rest of us were from around that area, and I said, “I’m originally from northern Indiana, and that’s pretty close, like maybe a ten-hour drive away.” And I’m afraid that’s all I remember of that conversation. I wasn’t about to blurt out, completely out of the blue, “I’m a writer too!” It would have been fine with me if the opportunity to talk about it had come up in conversation, like if someone else had mentioned that I’m a writer.
Some people had to leave earlier via taxi, because their flights were earlier, and Dean and Valerie were leaving later. A lot of hugging and saying of farewells soon took place, and although I’m normally not at all touchy-feely, it didn’t bother me now, and I hugged everyone. Jagdish walked up to me, and in a forlorn pouty voice I said, “Oh, are you leaving too?” and he said, “Yes, I’m leaving too,” and gave me a hug.
The next time Shantum entered the living room, those riding the taxi had already left, and only four of us remained in the room. “We’re all bawling in here,” Erika told Shantum, who stood beside me, and I laughed. I wasn’t bawling yet but felt like I could start any second. Strangely, I was sniffing only because of my cold and the tears didn’t come.
It was time to part, and Shantum put his arms around me and gave me a long-lasting hug. Normally if someone hugs me, they’re lucky if I hug back with one loose arm, but in this case I hugged him back with both arms, as though he were my purring cat Atisha. Tears started up in my eyes again, but they didn’t fall. I was still living in the present moment and not looking into the future.
Shantum urged me to return to India, and I said, “I’d love to. Actually, I’ve been thinking I’d like to go to Dharamsala and Tibet on the same trip.” It happens that Shantum takes a group to Dharamsala each year, to attend an important teaching of the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum said he knows people who take pilgrims to Tibet, so I could attend the teachings with him and go to Tibet with his friends. Wow, now that’s something to look forward to!
Shantum said, “See you in March!”
Dean, overhearing, said, “Oh, you’re coming back in March?”
I laughed and said to Shantum, “How about next year!”
I believe the reason I didn’t cry during our farewell was not because I was squeamish about people seeing me cry, but rather because I didn’t consider this the end. I shall communicate with the sangha by e-mail, and in a way it’s a beginning because this has been a healing and transformative experience. The pilgrimage, Shantum, and the sangha have affected me deeply and will continue to influence my life. To what extent the pilgrimage will affect how I feel in Topeka and react to the negative and psychologically unhealthy environment, I don’t as yet know. And how long-lasting an effect it has, I shall see. But as Christine pointed out, I’ve taken the Refuges and the Mindfulness Training, and that is a big step and a positive sign.
Shantum said during our parting: “I’m really glad you took the Five Refuges and the Mindfulness Training.”
“I’m glad too,” I said. It wasn’t the most expressive response, but I think it’s safe to say that he understood what I meant.As Shakespeare put it, “Parting is such swe
Shantum said, “Thank you for being with us.”
Slightly tongue-tied and not sure what to say, I said, “Thanks for having me!” We exchanged a hug and somehow I refrained from shedding any tears and instead was blithe enough to smile.
He smilingly said, “You are a wonderful person and have a great deal of exuberance and personality behind your shyness.” This was overwhelming, and I smiled slightly and tipped my head downward, finding it hard to make eye contact under the circumstances. My poor ability to take compliments doesn’t usually get in my way, since I rarely receive compliments. I was truly tongue-tied this time, unable to articulate anything.
Shantum told me a story about a previous pilgrim. A few years ago, another young woman’s father noticed how much his daughter transformed after going on this pilgrimage, and out of curiosity he went on the pilgrimage himself the following year, even though he was a businessman who wasn’t into Buddhism. He also found the trip transformative. I grinned and said, “I’ll tell my dad that story.”
Later on the bus, when we were almost in Delhi, Shantum said, “As my friend Pico Iyer has said, ‘The last destination isn't the final place on the itinerary, but what happens when we get home and try to make sense of it.’” He added, “Whenever you go to another country, it expands your outlook.” I mentally repeated that a couple times; I had thought my consciousness was global before I went to India, but this was the first time I had ever set foot in the opposite side of the world.
The first place we went to in Delhi, or rather in the vicinity of Delhi, was Shantum’s house, which technically is in a suburb called Noida on the other side of the stinky Yamuna River. The bus parked on a somewhat wider residential street around the corner from the house. Shantum said, “The house has nine bathrooms, because Indian houses have bathrooms attached to each bedroom.” Gee, if you wanted to run a bed and breakfast, you wouldn’t have to renovate.
We wheeled the suitcases up the street, and I nearly had another collision with a bicycle. It seems like I’ll never be able to judge which way to dodge. The stylish black wrought iron gate outside the front door of the Seth house was ajar, and Erika and I slipped in. I dumped my suitcase next to Erika’s on the patio; quite a few were parked there just outside the front door, which was open.
I entered a part of the house that I didn’t recognize, a white-tiled little hall, in which I ascended a few steps and where to my right was a staircase going upstairs; otherwise the room contained some artwork and a side table. Shantum’s younger daughter, Animika, stood nearby and looked at me; a woman in a sari, presumably a nanny, held her hand.
I smiled at the kid and followed Erika through the door straight ahead of me and instantly recognized the next room. The Seth family, as I’m sure I mentioned before, lives in a beautiful house decorated with antiques and books and both Hindu and Buddhist art. Leila Seth’s law books are there in abundance, and one back corner room has a desk that displays a long white block with her name on it. The room I entered after the little hall contained floor to ceiling bookcases packed with books, a grand piano, and luggage on the floor.
It didn’t take me long to spot, on a long and low dark wood piece of furniture like a sideboard, two stacks of books: multiple copies of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and multiple copies of On Balance by Leila Seth. I took a peek inside the top books, and both titles were indeed autographed. What an amazing family; Leila Seth is the first female chief court judge, Vikram is a world-famous novelist, Shantum is a Zen teacher who gives Westerners pilgrimages, and Shantum’s sister, Aradhana, is a scene designer for prominent films, such as those directed by Deepa Mehta. It seems not all families are dysfunctional and unsupportive.
I dropped my backpack and mirrorwork bag onto the floor and admired the artwork around me and wandered around, noticing people setting out plates, silverware, and food on the dining room table. I listened to snippets of conversation and sipped masala chai. When I saw Premo Seth, Shantum’s dad, I pressed my palms together and said, “Namaste!” He smiled and did the same.
At Shantum’s request, we gathered into the living room and sat down for gift giving. Shantum said, “It is true that we’ve celebrated two people’s birthdays, Dean’s and Erika’s, but everybody has a birthday, sometime, so everyone gets presents.” He announced that Nandini would dance for us, and she came into the center of the living room and began to dance, while people pulled out their cameras.
Shantum placed a large quantity of “In the Footsteps of the Buddha” pilgrimage brochures on the coffee table and said, “You’re welcome to take as many as you want. This is an advertising segment.” I took a few, thinking I could deliver them to the Zen Center in Lawrence, Kansas that I have yet to visit, and also to a dharma center in Kansas City that I found out about shortly before the pilgrimage.
The first gifts to be passed around were the calendars, inspired by the upcoming film adaptation of Thich Nhat Hahn’s novel Old Path White Clouds, like those Dean and Erika already had. Shantum also brought out gifts wrapped in newspaper and smelling faintly of sandalwood; they were taped together in a neat stack and include a tube, which Dean, sitting next to me, identified as the pilgrimage poster Shantum had mentioned. The presents also include a strangely shaped big package, and a package the size and shape of a music CD. I thought Shantum’s generosity was amazing; he had already given us handcrafted gifts at the beginning of the pilgrimage.
It was time to pass out the envelopes containing tips over to Mukesh and Jagdish. Previously, Shantum had calculated appropriate sums and written them on envelopes, and we had placed the tips in the envelopes and passed them around. Sangha members gave Mukesh and Jagdish speeches about what a wonderful job they did and what a help they were. Mukesh was quiet and sort of cast his eyes down while he was being praised, and Yvette to my left murmured, “He’s shy.”
Mukesh said, “Your love, praise, gratitude and appreciation are enough. I don’t need the money.” He stepped forward, placed the envelope on the coffee table, and backed away. Wow, I don’t think I could have done that. Liz suggested the money go to the Ahimsa Trust, the organization that Gitu founded.
Jagdish’s envelope was passed down to him. He grinned and said, “I’m keeping the money!” Everyone laughed, and he said it’s for his son.
Next it was Shantum’s turn to receive a praising speech for all he has done for us. Jennifer was sitting next to me on my left, and the group wanted one of us to deliver the speech. Jennifer has a powerful voice and unlike me is good at projection, as she’s proved often enough when we needed someone to read aloud. Several people urged me on, to my surprise, and Dean described me as an “eloquent speaker” and used the phrase “great orator.” I smiled and said, “I’m a writer, not a speaker.” I couldn’t remember saying anything particularly eloquent on the pilgrimage.
Thus the speech was up to Jennifer. She praised Shantum highly, and highly deservedly, and her concluding words stick in my head: “You are so full of love. In my next life I want Erika to be my mom and Shantum to be my dad.” That struck me as delightful and brought a Big Smile to my lips. And it would be wonderful indeed to have Shantum for a dad. And for that matter Jennifer for a sister, though I think I’d rather have Erika as a sister than a mom. Oh, heck, the whole sangha could be One Big Happy Commune in our next lives.
Some minutes later, after the ceremony was over and the house filled with a cacophony of conversations and people moved around and drifted into other rooms, I spotted Feroza crossing the living room. I took this as an opportunity to speak just to her, since I’m squeamish about speaking in front of many people. While we stood in the center of the living room, I said, “I wanted to say: I agree with Jennifer, except I want Feroza to be my mother in my next life.”
Feroza chuckled, said, “Ahh, that’s sweet,” thanked me, and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. The living room was still full of people, and Shantum was seated on the couch between two other pilgrims. Feroza turned to him and said, “Shantum, you have to listen to what Susan just said.” I repeated it to Shantum, and we exchanged beaming smiles.
I took my gifts to the back room and somehow managed to squeeze them into my firmly packed luggage, while most people already started eating. I had to detach the three wrapped gifts from each other in order to pack them separately, since my suitcase and backpack had so little remaining space. I had packed mostly old clothing and left almost all of it behind throughout the pilgrimage, but my suitcase was full anyway, thanks to the silk, shawls, books, and statues I had purchased. Hopefully I’ll practice more restraint on my next pilgrimage and be less like a typical tourist.
I went to the dinner table and put basmati rice and small scoops each of each curry on my plate while talking with Bina and Mukesh. Bina asked me, “Has Mukesh told you that he’s a journalist? You have writing in common.”
I smiled and said, “No, he didn’t mention that!” I turned to Mukesh and added, “My dad was a newspaper journalist, and he just retired.”
“What newspaper did he work for?” Mukesh asked.
“Just a local Indiana paper called the Post Tribune,” I said. I didn’t mean to trivialize my dad’s job, but he didn’t work for a huge internationally known paper like the Chicago Sun Times, about which Mukesh might have heard. Now as I write this, it dawns on me that I didn’t ask Mukesh what paper or magazine he worked for. Oh well, the pilgrimage hasn’t stopped me from continuing to be flaky. On the other hand, plenty of nonfiction writers are freelance and send articles or essays to numerous publications.
The rice and curries were scrumptious, but I chose not to overdo it: I didn’t want to gorge myself before waiting around at an airport and sitting on airplanes for many hours, so I only ate small portions. Although I knew I was one of the people who were supposed to be at the airport at eight forty-five, it had not registered with me, and I didn’t feel rushed. Everyone was either eating and talking or bustling around and getting ready to go.
Immediately after I showed up at the house and was in the big room with the books and the grand piano, for a short moment I saw a guy who I rather suspected was the world famous novelist, Vikram Seth. He disappeared into another room. I knew the extended family lived here and Shantum had said that his brother arrived in India on January twenty-seventh and would therefore possibly be available to autograph the books for us. The moment Shantum had mentioned that his brother, who usually lives in England, would be in the country, I had wondered if we could meet him. Yet according to Buddhist teachings, one shouldn’t care about fame. This magical pilgrimage would be quite enough without meeting a famous novelist.
After eating dinner, I wandered back into the living room, and Vikram Seth was seated in a corner of the couch and talking with a few other members of the pilgrimage. Dean and Valerie were there, and so were Rick and Dornora. Across the room from Vikram, I sat in the armchair I had occupied during the gift exchange. Dean was taking a picture of Vikram, and Rick said, “Hey, that’s a good idea,” and got his camera out. I had been seated for maybe a minute.
I jumped up and said, “I’m gonna get my camera!” I scurried off to the back room, pulled out my camera again, returned to the living room, and took a couple pictures of the world famous writer sitting and talking with Dornora.
Vikram came across as quieter than Shantum, but of course he’s a writer, and Shantum comes across as more like an actor. It came up in conversation that Rick is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it turns out that Vikram had gone there for a book signing. Vikram also speaks English with a British accent, and quietly. He looked around and asked if any of the rest of us were from around that area, and I said, “I’m originally from northern Indiana, and that’s pretty close, like maybe a ten-hour drive away.” And I’m afraid that’s all I remember of that conversation. I wasn’t about to blurt out, completely out of the blue, “I’m a writer too!” It would have been fine with me if the opportunity to talk about it had come up in conversation, like if someone else had mentioned that I’m a writer.
Some people had to leave earlier via taxi, because their flights were earlier, and Dean and Valerie were leaving later. A lot of hugging and saying of farewells soon took place, and although I’m normally not at all touchy-feely, it didn’t bother me now, and I hugged everyone. Jagdish walked up to me, and in a forlorn pouty voice I said, “Oh, are you leaving too?” and he said, “Yes, I’m leaving too,” and gave me a hug.
The next time Shantum entered the living room, those riding the taxi had already left, and only four of us remained in the room. “We’re all bawling in here,” Erika told Shantum, who stood beside me, and I laughed. I wasn’t bawling yet but felt like I could start any second. Strangely, I was sniffing only because of my cold and the tears didn’t come.
It was time to part, and Shantum put his arms around me and gave me a long-lasting hug. Normally if someone hugs me, they’re lucky if I hug back with one loose arm, but in this case I hugged him back with both arms, as though he were my purring cat Atisha. Tears started up in my eyes again, but they didn’t fall. I was still living in the present moment and not looking into the future.
Shantum urged me to return to India, and I said, “I’d love to. Actually, I’ve been thinking I’d like to go to Dharamsala and Tibet on the same trip.” It happens that Shantum takes a group to Dharamsala each year, to attend an important teaching of the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum said he knows people who take pilgrims to Tibet, so I could attend the teachings with him and go to Tibet with his friends. Wow, now that’s something to look forward to!
Shantum said, “See you in March!”
Dean, overhearing, said, “Oh, you’re coming back in March?”
I laughed and said to Shantum, “How about next year!”
I believe the reason I didn’t cry during our farewell was not because I was squeamish about people seeing me cry, but rather because I didn’t consider this the end. I shall communicate with the sangha by e-mail, and in a way it’s a beginning because this has been a healing and transformative experience. The pilgrimage, Shantum, and the sangha have affected me deeply and will continue to influence my life. To what extent the pilgrimage will affect how I feel in Topeka and react to the negative and psychologically unhealthy environment, I don’t as yet know. And how long-lasting an effect it has, I shall see. But as Christine pointed out, I’ve taken the Refuges and the Mindfulness Training, and that is a big step and a positive sign.
Shantum said during our parting: “I’m really glad you took the Five Refuges and the Mindfulness Training.”
“I’m glad too,” I said. It wasn’t the most expressive response, but I think it’s safe to say that he understood what I meant.As Shakespeare put it, “Parting is such swe
Akbar’s Tomb
At breakfast, I sat with Liz, Yvette, Erika, and Jennifer, and we got into a health-related conversation that ranged from Chinese herbal medicine to why underwire bras are not a healthy choice. After we’d been talking for some time, Shantum showed up and headed toward our tables greeting everyone with a Big Smile, and Erika said loud and clear, “Hey, Shantum, we’re talking about breast health. Do you want to join us?”
Still smiling, Shantum said, “I’ll be sitting as far away from you as possible.”
Still smiling, Shantum said, “I’ll be sitting as far away from you as possible.”
I later checked my watch and noticed that it was close to nine thirty, the time that we were supposed to meet up to get on the bus, so I left the breakfast table. I hopped up, set off, and exited through the glass restaurant doors. On the patio shaded by a wooden arbor covered with vines, I observed that despite the time, even Shantum was still sitting at an outdoor table and chatting away. He really did sit as far away from us as possible. I sat down at that table, with Shantum, Gail, and Sherry.
After a few minutes of conversation, Sherry asked Shantum, “What time is it?”
“I have no idea,” Shantum said, reaching for a watch. He had been tired a few days ago, and now that we’d finished with the Taj Mahal, he was very carefree and sitting back in his chair. Sherry pointed out that it must be almost nine thirty, and Shantum fumbled in his kurta pocket casually saying, “Oh, is it already?” He pulled out his watch and said it was nine twenty-eight.
Sherry jokingly, with a smile, said, “You don’t even know what time it is? You’re a terrible tour guide!”
Shantum smiled, giggled, and cheerfully said, “You’re right; I shouldn’t be a tour guide.” He was like an absent-minded and eccentric college professor at this moment. As always, he was free of worry. “Worrying is useless,” I’ve heard Shantum say a few times. When he climbed aboard the bus, Shantum smiled and announced, “The time is now officially nine thirty exactly.”
Little booths even in the touristy metropolis of Agra are made of sticks with a tarpaulin for a roof. When we stopped at a row of shops that included an ATM machine, I looked out the window and noticed a couple of skinny, petite guys hanging out in front of a typical booth with the shiny strings of tobacco or peppermint packets, and one of the two guys had his arm around the shoulders of the other, whose head rested on his companion’s chest. If I saw that in the States, I’d know they were gay. Here in India, it is socially unacceptable for opposite sexes to show affection in public but perfectly acceptable for a man to hold a man’s hand, or a woman to hold a woman’s hand. In Bodh Gaya, I sometimes saw Tibetan monks holding hands, and while I’ve read that homosexuality is a phenomenon in Buddhist monasteries, it’s not something the monks would want people to know about, so I figured that’s not why they were holding hands; it was more likely because they didn’t want to get separated in the crowd.
Erika returned to the bus from the ATM, and before sitting back down in front of me, she said, “What do you think of the two guys at the booth?”
I said, “Gay or straight?” I suggested that they might be a gay couple, but both Erika and Ann reminded me how unaccepted that was, so they thought they weren’t a gay couple. Ann said she thought showing so much affection to the same sex in public and to be absolutely against showing affection to the opposite sex in public is “pretty skewed.” I didn’t put it into words, but I was thinking about how our society emphasizes romantic and sexual relationships over friendship, even trivializes friendship, which I find extremely unfortunate.
I said, referring to the Indian way, “It’s less macho, which is a good thing.” Erika nodded at this.
“It’s a different kind of macho,” Ann said with a smile.
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” I said, and proceeded to think of it.
Certainly Shantum hugging his friend at the Taj last night was genuine, not “a different kind of macho.” But I can see how other behavior, such as the two guys at the booth, are examples of misogynist creeps flaunting their attitude of: I don’t want to hold hands with a mere woman in public, but with my male friends, I have a genuine bond. Such an attitude is reminiscent of platonic Hellenistic Greece, a society in which men considered friendship between men better than opposite-sex relationships, and in which misogynist males considered it impossible for men and women to be friends. True, in that Greek culture male homosexuality was very acceptable, but creeps of any sexual orientation can practice this macho attitude.
You know that Agra is a big city because it has traffic lights. The only times I see traffic lights in India is in the big cities, and even they do not have crosswalks or lights for pedestrians. Many traffic lights, or some, anyway, don’t work. I just saw, in front of a colorful Hindu temple, a broken traffic light hanging loosely with black wires; it was in pieces and obviously hasn’t been used in a long time, and I wished someone would just take the ugly thing down. It did not improve the temple’s ambiance or aesthetics. I recall that when we entered Varanasi, we came to a very busy intersection with traffic lights that didn’t work, and a cop stood in the center, near the statue, and directed traffic.
Now we’ve been sitting on the bus and waiting for a train to pass by. One train passed, we moved slowly forward, and the crossing gates lowered again for another train, one that hasn’t arrived, with the result that a plethora of people are walking or riding their bikes across the tracks anyway, slipping around the crossing gates. Some of the pedestrians hold big bundles on top of their heads while they walk across the tracks. We’ve been waiting for a while, and still no train.
2
Still in Agra, we stopped at a sweet shop. The sign over the shop says Panchhi Petha, and I think that is what the sweets are called; Shantum told us that Agra is famous for this kind of sweet. It consists of thin and slightly sticky beige wafers with bits of pistachios in the center. At first I wasn’t going to get any, but then I thought it would be appropriate to share at work. I told Shantum, including the part about sharing the sweets at work, and I asked for a small box of the sesame-flavored sweets, and he served as translator for the shopkeeper. I bought the box of treats, big enough to hold many wafers, for sixty-five rupees, less than two dollars.
The next stop after the sweet shop was Akbar’s Tomb. Akbar was the son of Emperor Humayun and became an emperor after him; he also had his tomb built just outside Agra, in a town called Sikandra. The tomb is made of red sandstone and looks much like the buildings at the Taj other than the white marble tomb itself. Akbar’s son had this tomb built for his dad in 1613; I suspect that perhaps he was impatient to become the ruler.
Judging by Akbar’s Tomb and the Taj, the Mughals were really into building elaborate tombs, in sharp contrast with Hindus and Buddhists, including myself, who would rather have their corpses cremated and the ashes scattered. I think that’s a much more humble choice, one that unlike a grave doesn’t take up lots of space. Cremation and scattering the ashes is also a choice compatible with interconnectedness; we are all one, all part of planet Earth, and if your ashes are scattered, then your body returns to the earth. Even more ecological than cremation are the sky burials in Tibet; the body is taken to a cliff and cut up and mixed with barley, and vultures gobble up their din-din. OK, I said it was more ecological, not less gross.
We entered through the frontal building, a two-story red gatehouse that alone is breathtaking with its archways and mosaics. Centered is a section with a really tall archway that forms a niche that in turn contains an archway on each floor. To each side of this are two archways, one on each storey, and the upper archway contains a balcony. Above are white minarets. Mosaic tiles cover the building and form floral and abstract patterns in white, blue, yellow and red. It is reminiscent of the gatehouse at the Taj Mahal.
Leaving the gatehouse of Akbar’s Tomb, we stepped out to a sort of patio: a space paved with large stone tiles on which monkeys sat, walked, and played. The monkeys mesmerized me and instead of mindfully listening to Shantum, I had my camera out almost the entire time he told the group about the tomb. Many monkeys were babies, and I delightedly watched them sitting in their mother’s laps, or playing with each other. Unfortunately, a man wearing a uniform and carrying a long stick came along and scared off the monkeys by hitting the pavement with the stick. Bully. Some of the adult monkeys quickly scooped up their babies, and the babies hung from the adults’ bellies as the parents ran off to the edges of the patio and onto the lawn.
Beyond the illicit monkey hangout was a sunken rectangle, an empty tank that might only be filled with water during and shortly after the monsoon. The paved courtyard stretched all the way to the tomb itself, and I headed for the centered mausoleum after Shantum finished talking. I walked straight ahead, noticing that on either side of the long patio is a garden occupied by countless blackbucks, and I gawked at the animals for some time. Too bad Peter wasn’t around with his binoculars. These animals had antlers sticking straight out but in wavy lines, “like creatures out of a fantasy novel,” as Gail put it. The males with the antlers were mostly medium brown and the females pale, sort of a blonde color. Small, young trees also dotted the lawn, and beyond them a red stone fence surrounded the tomb’s complex.
Ahead of us loomed the actual tomb itself, another awesome and beautiful building with a dome, many cupolas, and symmetrical mosaic tile patterns covering the façade. It was also made of red sandstone, and the mosaics used the same color scheme as the gatehouse. Like the gatehouse, this building had a high central arch, but it was flanked on each side by a long red one-story wing with a row of archways. Above the first floor were rows and rows, on three levels, of small exterior archways in sandstone, topped with whipped cream-like white domes. Centered above the huge archway was a white structure with a row of white arched windows, and above this were white cupolas.
As I came closer to the building, I took a good look at some of the mosaics, which formed stylized flowers and more abstract designs. Red and white zigzag patterns like rickrack marched up narrow pilasters. I arrived at the central archway, where the entrance was the size of a standard door, though the archway around it was filled in with a white metal grid; even this metal was flamboyantly patterned, in little flowery hexagons.
We took our shoes off before going in, and it was much darker inside than out. I stopped in my tracks. The front room was domed and groined and covered with a blissful abundance of colorful floral and geometric patterns. Some of the patterns, painted directly onto the walls and framed with other narrow little patterns, were shaped like vases or trees, while others were shaped like flowers. Amid all these busy designs, a lapis-colored strip wrapped all the way around the room, with a metallic gold carving of Arabic words, probably a quote from the Koran. Some parts of the walls were painted with a metallic gold background and a colorful floral foreground. Abstract patterned grillwork filled in arched windows overhead.
The interior of Akbar’s tomb was so much more colorful and busily decorated than the Taj Mahal, I couldn’t help thinking, and I am very partial to color and mixed patterns. The most prominent shades were red, deep blue and metallic gold. I could perhaps find fabrics in vaguely similar patterns and colors and create a patchwork wall hanging or garment. There’s an idea: an Akbar’s Tomb costume for Halloween. Over our heads hung a large old filigree-like lamp suspended from chains. Feroza said, “As ignorant as I may sound, I prefer this to the Taj. I’m sure the experts would disapprove.” I consider it a valid reaction; this tomb is the same style of architecture, but with more color.
Beyond the fabulous front room was a plain, narrow tunnel with grey walls and a ceiling that formed a curved arch. I walked along this corridor feeling anxious to get to a more spacious room, and it led to a semi-dark chamber containing the casket. Although this was the focal point of this piece of architecture, the casket room was so plain and simple compared to the colorful front room, that I didn’t spend as much time in it.
Shantum meant for us to stop at Akbar’s Tomb for a sitting, but gorgeous Mughal architecture distracted us, as did the monkeys, and the blackbucks on the lawn, so the sitting didn’t happen. We all eventually ended up to the right of the front entrance, in a space reminiscent of a cloister because its archways are open to the outdoors. The walls were simply white and light brown and were not covered with patterns or mosaics. Archways met at corners and formed groined vaults overhead, and that is the most elaborate detail in this part of the tomb.
In the cloister, Shantum told us that if you stood in a certain corner and spoke to the wall, someone in another certain corner would be able to hear you. This reminded me of a section of marble tile in a government building in Washington, DC, where you can stand and hear clearly what people are whispering on the other side of the room; that was probably due to echoes. We gave Shantum’s experiment some trial and error and finally I heard Dean’s voice come through. It was like a sort of Renaissance precursor to the telephone.
“Hallo! Money!” Some beggar children go straight to the point. They stood on the other side of a chain link fence separating what looked like a public park or garden from the parking lot that occupied our bus in front of the beautiful tomb. I was glad they had friendly smiles.
3
We stopped in the state of Rajasthan for lunch. Rajasthan has a plethora of camels, it seems, primarily pulling carts piled high with stuff bundled in a white cloth. This was on the highway, no less. In front of the restaurant, a camel was available to ride; Gail and Sherry did it. A musician and child dancers wore traditional flashy colorful Rajasthani costumes. The tunics were quite distinctive: I noticed that they had a horizontal seam at the waist and a skirt gathered into it, and the garment fastened on the side. Otherwise the costume included trousers, a turban, and jewelry, and it vaguely reminded me of nineteenth century illustrations from the days of the British Raj.
We filed into a simple little roadside restaurant, passed many tables occupied by Indian families, and went into a back room all to ourselves. Except for drinks, Shantum ordered for us, as usual, and this time I asked if they had banana laasis, the yogurt beverage that tastes somewhat like a milkshake, but the closest is a banana shake, so I asked for a regular laasi. I swore off ice cream a couple years ago, when I heard that it contains saturated fats, which clot arteries and thereby cause heart attacks.
Although Gail and Sherry intended to ride the camel before lunch, servers brought our food out promptly. Shantum said, “Look, Indian fast food!” We listened to Shantum say a prayer, or “say grace,” as he put it, before we ate. I suppose it wasn’t a big faux pas that I had drunk some water and laasi beforehand. We ate yummy south Indian food, in capacious metal plates with little metal dishes around the edges, and the food helped clear my sinuses.
Next door to the restaurant was a charming little shop, but after our Gratuitous Shopping Spree at the huge store in Agra last night, I genuinely had no desire to spend money anymore. That did not, however, stop me from wandering around the shop. I saw Feroza near the front counter; she felt obligated to buy something, because the shopkeeper had been so kind as to give her his watch. I looked at books and at more blank journals like the ones I purchased in Varanasi, and I walked further into the store to admire embroidered patchwork banners made from old clothing. To my left was a flight of stairs, and I realized that the shop wasn’t as tiny as I had at first thought. I climbed the stairs and saw colorful puppets and, as if we hadn’t seen enough of them, shawls of many colors. Yvette was trying to decide between two shawls, and I was not much help with her decision. My taste generally leans toward the boldest colors and patterns, and the more beads and sequins the better. Shantum came along and said we would be leaving in a minute.
“OK, I’m trying to decide which shawl,” Yvette said. “Do you think this one is the right choice?”
Shantum was clearly in a hurry but nonetheless smiling, and he said, “Yes, it’s perfect, get it!” I laughed, because I could tell he was only saying that because he wanted us to hurry up.
Back on the bus, we passed dried cow patties arranged in a sort of box, except the base was wider than the top, and it was perfectly symmetrical and on the sides was scratched with abstract patterns reminiscent of the mosaic patterns at the Taj Mahal and Akbar’s Tomb. Design, decoration, and ornament can be applied everywhere, even on cow patties saved up for fuel.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
The Taj Mahal
I’ve woken up on the train and daylight has arrived. I drew back the window curtains, and some of the cows look sleepy. They haven’t had their morning chai. I saw a couple of huge sarus cranes standing in a ditch only a few feet away, just off the tracks. After I drew aside the curtains facing the aisle, a guy who sat diagonally from me gawked at me, so I pulled the curtains closed again. I should be accustomed to that by now, but it’s first thing in the morning. I am not an exhibit.
The train is running late according to an older guy with a beard, a blue turban, and a high-pitched voice. This isn’t surprising; when we arrived at the platform in Lucknow, a different train still sat where our train should have been waiting. We originally were supposed to arrive in Agra at seven thirty, but we’re traveling on what Dean called “India time.” I hope we go straight to the hotel; I’d love to take a shower, preferably a steaming hot one, and change into different clothing.
Looking out the window reminds me that things which are more or less stupa-shaped include neatly arranged piles of cow patties (also reminiscent of bee hives), Shiva linga, rice haystacks (also reminiscent of Monet’s haystacks), bells, champagne glasses turned upside down (oh, I haven’t seen those in India), and neatly arranged piles of tires.
This train has an unfortunate stench of urine, thanks to the toilets. I’m struck by the sharp contrast between the posh hotel and the sleeper train. Despite the urine, I’m amused by this contrast, rather than disturbed as I had been at the Radisson. I’m glad that we’ve encountered ups and downs in India, both poverty and wealth and almost everything in between. It’s important to see different aspects of the same country. India is full of contrasts and contradictions.
3
We reached our train station in Agra, and it was a great a relief to climb off the train at last! The porters wore red or bright pink (in other words, faded red) shirts and pants. They balanced the suitcases on their heads and carried them off. A group of Muslim guys in white fez stood on the platform not far from us.
I followed our group, and we climbed on a new bus, one that does not have the ornate wooden carving along the edge of the luggage rack that our home-away-from-home had. Sigh. Remember: detachment. On the bus, leaving the train station, we passed, among other shops, the Buddha Tea Centre.
At last, we have arrived at the Trident Hilton Hotel in Agra. Nice: this place has lots of flowers. Flanking the front doors outside are foot tall square containers of water with rose petals floating on top, and I could see frogs plopping below. Inside the lobby are small square vases full of fragrant yellow roses and tabletop bowls containing floating little yellow flowers. On the wooden arbor that, like a cloister, runs along the hotel’s entire inner courtyard are bright pink flowers, similar to fuchsia, growing in clusters on vines overhead.
Centered in the hotel’s inner courtyard is a swimming pool that appears to be popular with old white people, or at least the lawn chairs are. Beyond that is a long water fountain surrounded by careful landscaping and small trees. I’ve gone to my room, looked around, and taken a lukewarm shower rather than the steaming hot one I foolishly anticipated. My favorite things about this hotel is that my room has a bright yellow loveseat with bright purple silk cushions, and matching purple silk cushions lie on the bed. We’ve had lunch in the hotel restaurant: an enormous buffet lunch that caters to both Western and Indian tastes. I primarily ate Indian food, but I tried a kind of short, squat, off-white rice we haven’t seen previously on this trip, rather than the usual white basmati.
4
On the bus ride to the Taj, I was startled to see a shop called The Indiana Gallery. It is startling because I was born in the state of Indiana and grew up there. And now I’ve seen a booth with the sign “Indiana Café.” I’ve gone from Indiana to India.
The moment a tour bus halts, wallahs eagerly approach it. We’ve stopped at an ATM, and sure enough we have wallahs. And now those of us who are still here truly are tourists without a doubt and can make no claims to being pilgrims: the Taj Mahal has nothing to do with the Buddha, beyond sharing the same country. And the Mughal invaders helped chase Buddhism out of India. Um, never mind. The Buddhists’ own arrogant and corruption, I must remember, had a lot to do with the demise of Buddhism in India.
5
We couldn’t take the tour bus all the way to the Taj, so we climbed aboard a cute little electric bus and walked across a small bridge over a stinky sewer I mean river and then stood outside the gates to the Taj Mahal. The tall outer walls were red sandstone with domed gazebo-like structures at the corners and a huge looming wooden gate that looked quite dramatic and medieval, probably because it is.
Starting at the big gates, we had two lanes to go through; one was so a man could search men, and the other was so a woman could search women. She used one of those security wands like at an airport, and we had to place our bags on a little wooden table so she could check inside. As we waited in line, someone explained that places like this are attractive to terrorists.
Done with security, we entered a red sandstone courtyard, where I gawked, with my mouth slightly open, at red stone structures that are elaborately carved and arched and domed. To our right was a large reddish building in the Mughal style, and this was clearly the direction in which we should be walking. Shantum led the way and said, “We are in the Taj Mahal complex.” I had always thought the Taj Mahal was one building, but obviously it is several. The gate and exterior walls were part of a big structure that wraps all the way around the complex, like the walls encasing a medieval castle. Otherwise, the red gatehouse stood before us, and beyond that were two more dark stone buildings to the left and right, with paths branching off the main central path; a few yards further down stands the famous white marble building in the center, with two red stone buildings to either side.
Excited in the midst of such stunning architecture, I almost felt like skipping, as we all headed toward the red gatehouse and walked through its gigantic central archway. Inside it was shadowy, but not too shadowy to see the elaborate and colorful mosaics covering the walls. An archway opposite from the one we had entered framed the familiar-looking white mausoleum in the far distance. We stepped through that archway, and I thought the Taj looked artificial, like a flat stage backdrop painted onto the sky. I was anxious to get closer to it, expecting it would look considerably more realistic up close. Shantum talked to us about the Taj while we stood in a great courtyard in front of it. He said that the official tour guides would tell you that it took twenty years to build the Taj, because that sounds so impressive. But Shantum smilingly said, “That is B.S.!” which got a good laugh out of us.
Dean said, “That’s very American!” referring to the expression that I would so not have expected to hear out of Shantum’s mouth, especially given the high-class British accent with which he speaks English.
Inside the Taj is the mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal, a wife who died having her fourteenth child, and the Taj was made “in memory of the beauty of our love.” Jahan experienced a major depression after her death, and what better thing is there to do when you’re depressed than build elaborate architecture. Another mausoleum resides in the Taj: namely, Shah Jahan’s tomb. “He meant to build a black marble Taj inside the white one,” Shantum said, “and the foundation for it has been found. However, his son imprisoned him and the only asymmetrical part of the whole Taj is his tomb. Mumtaz’s is in the center, and Shah Jahan’s coffin is at the end, on the north side.”
We looked at the rectangular pool stretching out between the gatehouse and the mausoleum while Shantum talked. It is centered in front of the white tomb, between it and the gatehouse where we stood. “The most important structure is at the center. There’s a saying that the throne of Allah is at the end of a garden, as is the Taj. During the time of the Mughals, this garden contained many trees, such as cyprus, and many flowers and birds. There were also drum houses where musicians entertained people.” I guess the depressed emperor liked to party in order to forget his grief.
We agreed to meet at a certain place and time after our meanderings. “We are not there, but we are here,” Shantum said.
We walked down the white path toward the basin that lies in front of the Taj. I think I’ve spent enough time with the Taj to call it by its first name. When I look at the white structure from a distance, it looks so surreal, even after we’ve passed through the gatehouse, as though the mausoleum is a picture rather than an actual, large building looming in front of us. I had to stand and gawk enthusiastically, of course, and Feroza said, “Look!” pointing downward. I thought she was pointing at the white marble paving stones, which were large and square, and right there in the center of the group I began to hop on them as though they were for hopscotch, and she said, “No, at the water.”
“She’s doing fine,” Shantum said. I’m not the only one with a playful and childlike side.
“The Taj Mahal is reflected in the water,” Feroza said.
I finally looked at the water, and said, “Oh!” Sure enough: it was like a mirror for the white building that faced us straight on.
We first got together at a red stone building to the left of the complex, a little bit before the mausoleum. It was originally a music building but is now the museum, where at first the electricity wasn’t working and a tour guide beamed a big flashlight in front of the display cases as he explained the displayed items. We looked at brightly colored miniature paintings and mosaic tiles. Next we went back outside, continued heading for the white mausoleum, and put blue paper slippers on over our shoes before going up a few steps to the white platform on which the white mausoleum was built. We then followed Shantum toward the building itself.
Up close, seeing the mausoleum at different angles, it indeed no longer looked artificial. It resembled a huge carved mass of white marble, but something the viewer doesn’t notice from a distance is that the façade has bits of bright color, thanks to flowery mosaics made from precious stones. In the sunlight, some of the stones sparkled.
We entered the dimly lit interior, where a few pigeons sat up on a ledge and cooed. Yes, that’s right; there are pigeons inside the Taj Mahal. In the dim light, I could see that the white marble walls were decorated with more stone mosaics and rose to a dome high overhead. We looked through a carved white screen at the symbolic caskets. Shantum said that the bodies (of Mumtaz and Jahan, not pigeons) really are located in an underground crypt, beneath the Taj. The marble caskets at which we gazed are for show.
We split up when we were done inside, and I wandered all the way around the building, taking pictures while the sun set dramatically, streaking the sky with vivid orange and pink that looked especially breathtaking behind white marble minarets. Behind the Taj was a river, and at some distance I saw a gazebo-like structure. I headed for a mosque that was just to the left of the mausoleum, kicked off my shoes, went up the few steps, and entered on the right side, which someone had said was the women’s side. The mosque is red sandstone rather than white marble, and it is liberally embellished with archways and mosaics and floral patterns and minarets galore.
After wandering around the Taj complex, we sat on a ledge in front of the mausoleum, Shantum rang the bell, and we silently watched the setting sun behind the Taj. The trees around us were noisy with the chatter of parakeets. I watched one bright green parakeet, and twice I zoomed in to take a picture, but by the time the camera was ready, the bird flew off. I put the camera down and mindfully observed our surroundings. In particular, I watched the Taj while the pink and purple sky darkened, although periodically my eyes strayed to the trees and parakeets.
Shantum rang the bell and pulled out his book, when he caught sight of someone on the path behind us and his face lit up with a Big Smile. I looked behind us, and amid the people walking by in both directions spotted a young Indian guy who caught sight of Shantum and smiled back. Shantum got up and went over to the other guy and greeted him with a hug. Without any idea who Shantum’s friend was, and only as observers, the sangha smiled happily, getting good vibes. Perhaps positive energy like that, spread further and further, is all it would take to achieve world peace.
I thought it a pity that you just don’t see guys hug each other like that in the States, and I know it’s thanks to machismo. Machismo is a product of a derelict patriarchal social structure and is a great inhibition to love and compassion, the most significant values that will transform this from a dominator society to what the scholar Riane Eisler calls a partnership society. American males who buy into machismo are so not inclined to hug other guys, and their attitude disgusts me.
Shantum returned to the lawn in front of the Taj, sat cross-legged again, picked up his black-covered Plum Village book, and asked us who wanted to read. Yvette volunteered, and she read to us a discourse on love. Although the discourse wasn’t about romantic or conjugal love, but love in general, the subject struck me as appropriate, since here we were at the Taj Mahal, and love was its inspiration.
As we walked from the Taj in semi-darkness and passed the long basin that reflects the Taj, Gail took out her flashlight, calling it a torch, no doubt influenced by Indians and British pilgrims. She held the flashlight under Shantum’s chin and said in a mock interrogative voice, “What were you doing at blaah-blaah-blaah on the night of blaah-blaah-blaah?”
“I was in the present moment,” Shantum said.
“I was in the present moment,” Shantum said.
Heading back to the front gates, Rick reminded me of the security check when he said, “I don’t want to be assaulted again.” So much had happened since then, that it took me a moment to remember. We reached the end of the basin and stood at the verandah of the darker Mughal gatehouse that faces the Taj, while we waited for a few who had gone on a toilet break.
Standing and facing the Taj at dusk, I heard countless peacocks meowing to my right. I looked around at the trees and the long, ornate red stone cloister on my right side, but in vain: not a peacock was in sight. Many of them uttered their strange call at once, like an eerie chorus that isn’t in synch. I meowed back. Nobody seemed surprised, but they’ve also heard me imitate crows, turkeys, puppies, and goats. They probably thought I was another peacock.
6
We visited a huge folk art department store, where we watched a couple of guys demonstrate imbedding semi-precious jewels in a mosaic pattern on hexagonal marble table tops. They were reminiscent of the mosaics on the Taj Mahal’s façade. The store manager led us all to a back storage room full of handcrafted furniture and statues, and we all sat around some of the marble tables that were finished versions of what we had already seen in the making. In a glass display case was an amazing model of the Taj Mahal with a base several feet across. Valerie asked Dean how he was going to fit that model of the Taj into his suitcase. The mind boggles.
We visited a huge folk art department store, where we watched a couple of guys demonstrate imbedding semi-precious jewels in a mosaic pattern on hexagonal marble table tops. They were reminiscent of the mosaics on the Taj Mahal’s façade. The store manager led us all to a back storage room full of handcrafted furniture and statues, and we all sat around some of the marble tables that were finished versions of what we had already seen in the making. In a glass display case was an amazing model of the Taj Mahal with a base several feet across. Valerie asked Dean how he was going to fit that model of the Taj into his suitcase. The mind boggles.
We drank masala chai while the manager told us about the craft of the marble tables. The stones that go into them are imported from various different countries and include stones like lapis, marble, and amethyst. They used to get lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, but, um, not so much now. The manager said the craft is an apprenticeship tradition, and I gritted my teeth when he said that it’s passed on from father to son. Like, why not father to daughter? And then, like, the daughter could pass it on to her daughter.
After the talk and chai, we were free to wander around, browse, and shop. Valerie and I stood looking at some marble boxes, and she hadn’t caught the part about this craft being a boy’s club, so when I mentioned it, she said with utter disgust, “Ugh, I hate that.” I nodded.
I noticed a roll of Tibetan-looking brocade displaying a fierce deity, and I said to Feroza, “That would be appropriate for making a Tibetan abbot’s robe.”
I wandered around after buying statues and red silk, and I noticed Erika holding up a bright, bold, pink and green sari that she appeared to be purchasing. Manikins wore regal clothing, such as a long brown and gold brocade jacket for a man, which Gail showed Jagdish, asking him, “Would you wear something like this?”
He answered in the negative, and I said, “Oh, but you’d be dressed like a Bollywood star.”
While we waited downstairs for everyone to finish shopping, Shantum straddled a big porcelain elephant sculpture that stood between the two elevator doors. There was much amusement. I’m not the only one on the pilgrimage who has childlike tendencies. But riding one elephant was enough for me.
We had dinner at a South Indian vegetarian restaurant run by a Brahmin family. It’s a very impressive restaurant, even though the décor is, as Erika pointed out, reminiscent of a pizza parlor, with colorful Tiffany lamps hanging over each wooden booth. Like at the other South Indian restaurant, our food came on metal plates with a deep ridge, and it included pastries in the center and little metal bowls containing sauces and yogurt and such around the periphery. This time, we all drank tall glasses of pink pomegranate juice, something I’d never tried before. Someone said it’s good for you, because it contains oxymorons, I mean antioxidants. It has the added plus of being exceedingly delicious.
At the end of our meal, the servers brought us metal finger bowls containing hot water with a tiny bit of lemon. We had just ordered hot ginger lemon water, and I looked down at the bowl thinking it was odd, but fortunately I observed Shantum dipping his fingers in the water and wiping them with a cloth napkin, so I did the same. Not that I was going to pick up the bowl and slurp like an ogre.
We went outside to discover it had been raining slightly and was indeed dripping out. This surprised me; it was the first rain I encountered in India, after nearly three weeks. The closest I can think of is the morning I was out stalking the peacock in my bare feet and the ground was cold and wet with morning dew. Now, in my hotel room at eleven ten in the night, I hear thunder. At first I thought it must be drums from another wedding.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Don’t Look Now, But It’s Lucknow
As the bus slowed down, Shantum announced it was time for a “pee break,” and across the aisle from me, John said, “Chai? Oh, I thought you said ‘tea break.’ I only hear what I want to hear.”
One and a half hours before the estimated arrival in Lucknow, the bus stopped in a village, and we hung out in front of a tent-like shop and drank chai. The business we patronized was sort of an outdoor bakery or café, but not like something you’d see in Paris: it mainly consisted of a tent with tables inside, but we sat at tables outside in the open. A guy serenaded us, singing and playing a harmonium. It hung from straps that looped around behind his back, so that he could stand and walk with the instrument.
In front of the tent, two male cooks used a black iron frying pan over an open fire, and in the pan were round pastries and mushy stuff, perhaps made of rice. The main cook took a small leaf bowl and put in it mushy stuff and cilantro and powdered spices and yogurt; he mixed it together and thus created a snack. According to Jagdish, this leaf snack is both a tasty desert and good for the digestion. Americans could learn some lessons from India’s culinary focus on digestion, not to mention its emphasis on vegetables, legumes, and rice.
Shantum called Erika, and soon I saw her behind the counter at a little makeshift booth, like countless others in India, made mostly of branches and with a tarpaulin roof. I meandered from the end of the long table that was closest to the stove and approached the booth where Erika worked. We’ve seen hundreds of these booths, or little outdoor shops, on the pilgrimage: stands where the merchants make and sell food, and hanging from the front of the booth are strings of shiny metallic packages. Mukesh explained that it’s mostly tobacco and peppermints. To me, they look a lot like ketchup packets.
A bright green leaf lay on a red wooden board on the countertop in front of Erika, and next to her stood the guy who runs the stand. He handed her ingredients in little spice bottles, much like spice bottles in an American supermarket. Erika sprinkled the contents onto the leaf: a white powder that I surmised was sugar, colorful candy sprinkles, a red powder like paprika, and other ground-up ingredients. Shantum explained that the leaf was from the betel nut plant, like the betel nut juice that I sometimes see people spitting in a dark pink streak.
I found a seat at the head or foot of the long table, sat back, relaxed, and drank scrumptious masala chai while observing my surroundings. Local people hung out, children stood hoping for a handout, and curious bystanders hovered around watching us. All these people surrounded us, in addition to the men and boys, but no visible women or girls, at work. To eat with our chai, Mukesh passed out biscuits, or cookies in American lingo, and I suggested he should pass them out to the children who stood around watching us. I also chose not to eat a cookie so soon after taking the Mindfulness Training; I was all the more serious about cutting back on sweets. Mukesh finished offering the cookies to us pilgrims before he gave the remains to kids.
I took a picture of the musician, and he gestured to the top of his harmonium where people placed money. I smiled, turned toward several members of our sangha, discreetly opened my brocade Nepali passport bag, and pulled out thirty rupees, because the other bills on the musician’s harmonium were ten rupees. I gave the bills to him with a smile, and he gave me a big smile back. Actually, I meant to give him money anyway, since he was performing for us the whole time we were there. Whether you’re waiting at a London Tube station, waiting for a cable car in San Francisco, or having chai in an Indian village, I think there’s an enormous difference between giving money to beggars and giving it to street musicians.
Jagdish had finished ordering and paying for beverages, and amid the crowd he stood near the musician, in front of me, and started singing the same song as the musician, who stopped singing and let Jagdish take over the vocals entirely. Smiling, Jagdish sang beautifully in a smooth tenor voice (not to mention a much younger and stronger voice than that of the musician), while making a “gimme money” gesture with both hands. Yvette, while we all laughed, gave him a ten-rupee bill, which he placed on the harmonium as he stopped singing.
Close to the end of the bus ride, I noticed that Jagdish, in the front seat on the left side of the aisle was singing. Apparently Yvette or someone had urged him to sing after his impressive performance at the chai stand. His singing was interspersed with discussion of the meaning of the songs; Yvette and Liz sat up front, and Natalie stood in the aisle near them and held onto the back of a seat. I was seated three or four rows back and wanted to hear Jagdish better, and so I slid over and stood with one foot up behind Mukesh’s seat and listened to Jagdish sing a Hindu love song. Natalie handed him the microphone, and he sang a couple songs into it, between translations, and I happily listened, while the traffic moved by, trucks honked, and the sun set.
We’ve been through a major traffic jam. While the traffic was at a halt, Rikki moved to the front of the bus and started a sing-along. Jennifer also moved up and joined in, sitting next to me, since she was “getting stir-crazy in the back.” Rikki usually sits in the back and likes to periodically walk up the aisle when she wants to socialize. The music was assorted: Joan Baez, Joanie Mitchell, Beatles, and even songs from the musical Westside Story.
The white lines painted on the street indicated that it was meant for two lanes, but two lanes were headed our way, and both lanes sat still. Perhaps the vehicles were meditating. To our right the oncoming traffic slowly arrived and passed. Bikers had it easy coming the other way; they could slip around the other vehicles like mongooses slipping through tall grass. The cars, vans, and trucks moved more slowly.
One car driver behind us and going in our direction became impatient and cut over to the one lane in which the other traffic was coming. This resulted in two vehicles facing each other, at a standoff, and only bicycles and motorcycles could move, by slipping in between the bumpers. I heard some amusing comments from inside the bus.
“These people are not on their best Buddha behavior,” Val said.
“Do you know the song ‘Stuck in a Traffic Jam’?” Jennifer asked. This was between songs in the sing-along.
“Do you know the song ‘Stuck in a Traffic Jam’?” Jennifer asked. This was between songs in the sing-along.
“Notice how calmly they’re taking it. There’s no road rage,” Ann said, refering to the driver who cut over.
“Maybe there’s no road rage because the other drivers know they’d do the same thing,” Erika said. The male driver looked quite deadpan, and his car beeped like a truck as he attempted to move in reverse. Now I can’t remember how he slipped through, but after he did, we moved slightly forward, and I saw a couple guys pushing a red car along the shoulder from our direction, thus giving oncoming traffic limited space.
Our bus driver, Mishra, shut off the engine and got out, and I observed someone directing traffic. Eventually the red car was pushed off the street. We had a long but fairly entertaining wait, with the continuation of the sing-along, till we came to a large tree lying in the road, blocking oncoming traffic. After that, the traffic moved so much faster, like normal.
I just saw out the window a large carcass, perhaps a cow, lying in a field, and a dog and crows picked at it. Ick. It occurs to me that, unlike in Kansas, I haven’t seen the corpses of animals, such as squirrels, lying in the road. The giant carcass was an exception, as was the dead puppy lying on the meridian in Varanasi. Given how much the corpse grossed me out, I don’t think I’m ready to meditate in a charnel ground. I wonder if monks or nuns who did that ever went insane.
3
We arrived in the evening at what were probably the true outskirts of Lucknow, on a lively street full of male pedestrians and lined with shops in two or three story structures that stood right next to each other. The bus stopped in front of a store so that Shantum and Natalie could get off and get camera batteries. The bus driver took us a few yards further down the street and pulled over at the right side of the road. I looked out the window at the crowd bustling around in the street after dark and particularly observed carts piled with colorful fruit.
We arrived in the evening at what were probably the true outskirts of Lucknow, on a lively street full of male pedestrians and lined with shops in two or three story structures that stood right next to each other. The bus stopped in front of a store so that Shantum and Natalie could get off and get camera batteries. The bus driver took us a few yards further down the street and pulled over at the right side of the road. I looked out the window at the crowd bustling around in the street after dark and particularly observed carts piled with colorful fruit.
Meanwhile, I heard misogynistic males just below us, close to the bus, making whistles and catcalls. I muttered, “Creeps,” and scooted away from the window. It was like being back in St. Louis, or Topeka, or Washington D.C., or any city sidewalk in the United States. Sometimes a cloak of invisibility has a certain appeal. I think this goes back to how Indians perceive Western women and that if the bus had been full of Indian women, the immature creeps would have kept quiet.
At breakfast this morning, Erika had commented to Peter that he was about to leave, and Peter had said, “Yes, well, bye-bye,” quickly, and Erika and I laughed. It was obvious that he isn’t comfortable saying good-bye. I rather think he dislikes farewells even more than I do; I do give it a try, or at least pretend it’s not an excruciatingly awkward situation.
This evening, after arriving in the large modern city of Lucknow, we stopped at a gratuitously fancy hotel, where Elly and Peter both got up and headed down the bus aisle. Since their flight from Lucknow to London was coming up, they were the first to part from the sangha. Peter moved quickly and quietly down the aisle and got to the bus door. Shantum announced into the microphone, “Elly is leaving now, but pay no attention to the person who’s sneaking off the coach. That’s Peter.”
We all went inside the hotel, the Taj Royal Residence, which if possible is even more gratuitously posh and extravagant-looking than the Radisson. It was neoclassical, with a big white dome, and I thought it had a stronger resemblance to the White House than to the Taj Mahal. It has crystal chandeliers, a white marble floor, and indoors the enormous dome was paneled in little squares. Centered in the lobby, under the dome, stands a big renaissance-looking astrological gadget; it’s made of a dark metal and forms a sphere several feet around.
We saw quite a few people walking around in the lobby, and one of them was a really tall man wearing a black turban that has a lump toward the front. Liz said that he was the first Sikh she’d seen on this pilgrimage. I remembered that while we were on the bus and it was still daylight, I had seen a two-story whitewashed school in front of which was a bunch of little boys wearing white but with the same kind of black turban.
I’ve noticed people walking through in some resplendent clothing here, like in a Bollywood movie. While Christine and Rikki and I stood talking in the middle of the lobby, by the astrological gadget, I kept getting distracted when someone dressed up walked by, such as a woman wearing a sparkly bright silk kamiz. A light-skinned guy with shoulder-length hair strutted past wearing a spiffy white and gold kurta and pants worn with a bright red scarf, and I smilingly said, “That guy looks like he could be a Bollywood star.”
Christine and Rikki simultaneously said, “He probably is!” A woman in a pink kamiz with orange pants and scarf went by, and then one in a blue and turquoise kamiz and pants, and it went on like that, wealthy people passing by in rich and brightly colored and sparkly clothing. Rikki and Christine were amused at how easily I got distracted from the conversation. Notice I can’t even remember what else our conversation covered. That may have been when we got to the topic of feeling seriously underdressed: I for instance wore a bohemian purple kurta, a pair of blue jeans, and canvas sneakers, and Christine, who also wore blue jeans and sneakers, said, “When you’re in a fancy place like this, it’s the best time to be grungy!”
We had an excellent gourmet dinner tonight in the hotel restaurant, which looks like it belongs in a Maharajah’s palace, or in early nineteenth-century England. The walls are pale blue with white and gold molding. Above our heads hang chandeliers, and below our feet the carpet is a red, white, blue, and turquoise pattern. I sat at a small table with Liz, Yvette, and Val.
Looking around at the people in the restaurant, Liz commented that the Sikh guy was tall and handsome and observed that here in the big city there were lots of tall people, in contrast with the many short and skinny people we’ve seen during most of the trip. Of course, we did go to the poorest part of India, where Bodh Gaya is located, and obviously wealthy people live here in Lucknow. Val pointed out that they’re taller in general here probably because they eat more than the poor people; nutrition does wonders for height. On the other hand, as I think about this, we have throughout our journey seen several men who were beanpoles.
Waiting for our dinner, Yvette remembered that she needed to write out her insight poem and turn it in, so she wrote it out, with some stopping and starting since she was going by memory, onto a paper placemat. Yvette’s writing reminded me that Shantum had, in the Jetta Grove, asked if anyone was willing to type up the poems.
I walked over to the next table and stood next to Shantum. When I had his attention, I asked, “Do you still need someone to volunteer to type up the insight poems?” Natalie sat next to him and said that she would still be in India for a while and therefore wouldn’t get to it for some time, so apparently she had intended to type the poems. It was fine with both her and Shantum if I did it. After all he’d done for us, I thought this was the least I could do. It would be good to make myself useful for a change. Shantum mentioned that he would give the poems to me and let me look over them to make sure I didn’t have any trouble with handwriting.
An elaborate wedding will occur out in the hotel’s courtyard by a shimmering pool, which we could see out huge glass windows in a walkway leading from the lobby to the restaurant. I saw white lights, like Christmas tree lights, all over the courtyard, such as on the trees, and a red archway stands in a pathway for the wedding.
Gail said, “It’s almost enough to make me wish I were heterosexual.” I decided that I’d rather be a wedding guest than the bride. That way, I can enjoy the festivities and afterwards go home to my cats and books. True, if were an Indian living in India, I’d most likely live with my parents and maybe siblings and other relatives, in which case I wouldn’t be in a quiet house or apartment all to myself. Much as I like the idea of communal living, for me personally it might be better to be a hermit living in a cave. Make that a really capacious cave that won’t give me claustrophobia.
Seven people were to spend the night at the Taj Royal Residence instead of heading to Agra, since visiting the Taj Mahal has nothing to do with the Buddha and is therefore an optional part of the tour. Back in the lobby, outside the restaurant, we had much saying of good-byes and hugging; even I hugged some people back. Peter would have hid behind a curtain or under a table, but he had already left us. Fortunately, Erika will type up a list of addresses and e-mail addresses, and it’s easy for me to communicate by e-mail. Because of that, I don’t feel like I’ll be completely parting with the sangha.
Jagdish coaxed those of us who were not staying in Lucknow out the front doors. Well-dressed people stood on the steps and watched the wedding procession coming by foot up the driveway that approaches the hotel’s front doors. Ann and I paused for a moment before stepping hesitantly around this crowd. The procession consisted of a group of musicians and people in formal garb singing and dancing something Bollywood-like as they made their way up the path toward us. The mood was lively, celebratory and infectious.
Grinning delightedly, we remaining members of the sangha headed down the driveway, leaving the front doors and thus moving away from the procession, but it didn’t prevent us from tarrying to watch the procession gleefully. Amid the crowd came a white car bedecked with strings of flowers. We gawked and laughed and let ourselves be distracted by the procession, despite Jagdish urging us on, and Ann danced as she moved like the procession, with her arms in the air, while Jagdish urged us on to hurry up and get on the bus. But at least he was doing it with a smile; I could tell he was amused at our enthusiasm for the wedding.
Apparently someone behind me asked Jagdish about parents forcing their kids to marry, because I overheard him explaining that with modern arranged marriages the bride and groom get to know each other before the wedding, and parents don’t usually force their kids to marry someone they don’t like. Bollywood movies have given me that impression, although I realize that comparing Bollywood to the real India is like comparing Hollywood to the real America. When Westerners think of arranged marriages, it conjures medieval and early modern European images of extremely young royalty or aristocrats forced to marry total strangers as a political alliance. Marriage was invented for the purpose of bartering females, using daughters as chattel.
The bus passed at least one other wedding accompanied by fireworks. We saw fireworks several times while riding the bus that night. In future, I think I’ll jokingly react to fireworks by thinking, “Must be another wedding!” When it’s the fourth of July, I’ll be thinking there sure are a lot of people getting married tonight. On the bus, Shantum said that “ninety-nine percent of Indian weddings are arranged,” unlike his wedding. They still stick to the same caste, with the exception of a few really liberal-minded Indians.
Those of us who were not staying behind at the Taj Royal Residence took the bus from the posh hotel to the crazy train station. The bus pulled over at the curb and we looked out the windows, admiring the train station, a sprawling pink and red building with many towers and cupolas. Shantum said, “The train station is, on the outside, the most beautiful building in Lucknow.”
Dean got the picture and said, “On the outside!” As we climbed off the bus, we dodged a big stinky mess of cow excrement. Just inside the entrance, I could see lots of people sitting and lying asleep inside the station, and a cow stood to our left.
Shantum led us to the platform, where lots of people stood or sat around waiting and waiting, and where to our vast amusement a bull wandered. Now that we were no longer in a hurry, I took a picture of the bull on the platform, and Erika did too, saying, “Oh, look at those crazy tourists, taking pictures of a cow.”
Yvette said, “We’re staring at the bull, and everyone else is staring at us.” We were definitely the only Westerners on the train platform and perhaps in the entire station. We moved out of the bull's path and watched as it stopped by a turbaned guy who fed it pieces of bread. Shantum explained that the train before ours was running late, since according to schedule it shouldn’t have still been sitting there in front of us.
A little girl walked by us wearing yellow plastic sandals topped with yellow plastic daisies. With every step she made, her shoes squeaked. Yvette said, “Oh, that’s a good idea, so the kid doesn’t get lost.”
I said, almost in time with the squeaking shoes, “Squeak, squeak, squeak.” The little girl and the two women accompanying her passed us, and the women looked back at me with giggles as they covered their smiling mouths with the edges of their saris, which were draped over their heads. I giggled back.
Later Shantum said, “I’m going further down to make sure Jagdish isn’t at the wrong spot with the luggage. Don’t move unless the bull charges!” The train showed up not long after that, at the same time that Shantum returned. He showed us which cars we had to climb aboard. We each had a ticket and were assigned by car rather than to specific seats. I chose a window seat, one of the narrow beds that runs parallel to the length of the train and has its own window. Jennifer chose the bed directly above mine. Plain white cotton curtains hung so that anyone ready to sleep could have some privacy.
While we sat on board admiring our narrow blue vinyl beds for the night, Jagdish and the porters arrived with our suitcases, which they scooted underneath our beds. Erika’s suitcase is huge and green and took up much of the space under my bed, but each of our suitcases is identified with our name in addition to red ribbons tied to the handles, so it doesn’t matter if my suitcase isn’t close to me.
Lying behind a curtain on my bunk of the sleeper train, I got comfy in a reclining Buddha pose. That is, I lay on my right side, with my legs just about straight and one foot on top of the other and with my right arm tucked under my pillow. The train hasn’t started moving yet; I think it’s waiting for other trains to get a head start.
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