Birthplace of the Buddha

On the road again Thursday morning, we are departing from Kushinagar and heading for Nepal. My view from the bus window sometimes includes cone-shaped smokestacks with dark grey smoke coming out: kilns for cooking bricks. In the countryside, we see them periodically, but there was this one hellish area containing multitudinous brick ovens with dark smoke coming out. I choked.

Yesterday, I saw the figure of Death in a dream; morning practice included reading about picturing yourself as a skeleton and images of decay; we visited the cremation stupa and listened to Shantum’s talk of Buddha’s death; and I remembered that the Death tarot card means Change. It all fit together, all that in one day. I remember previously seeing a dead puppy lying on the meridian while a cow walked down the middle of a busy street in Varanasi, after we had been wandering through the alleys and approached the bus.

From the bus, we saw a herd of camels going the other way. That was exciting. I just saw a crow sitting on the back of a little baby goat, and the kid was walking around like normal, as if nothing were there. The road, by the way, is incredibly bumpy.
When we stopped for a “pee break,” Shantum said, “Pees be with you.” How Chauceresque.

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The border looks like just another lively, bustling Indian town. I’ve noticed stalls piled high with fruit or vegetables. One cart contained a pile of pomegranates, a bowl of the seeds, and a mound of the yellow and pink skins, and the merchant was grinding up the seeds in a metal contraption for pomegranate juice. The town teemed with people on bicycles and on foot and in their stalls or shops, and innumerable colorful trucks passed us. It’s all very Indian-looking, except for the men’s traditional Nepalese hats. They’re similar to Gandhi hats, except instead of having a flat top, they rise up to a point like a house’s roof. They also come in all kinds of colors and patterns. Festive.

The immigration office is located in a lively village called Belahiya. The office in question was a small pink building made of mud or covered with plaster, with a little porch reminiscent of a scene from the Old West. No cowboys or sheriff with a star-shaped badge stepped out, though. Street urchins peeked over a low wall and waved and threw kisses at our sangha. The boarder official chased them off.

While we stood around waiting in front of the pink building, John said that the authorities in Nepal are very much against begging and it’s not socially acceptable. If you’re a beggar, you get yelled at; if you give money to a beggar, you get yelled at. Also, word gets around, and someone might take you aside and give you a talking to. All told, it’s a bad idea to give money to beggars, but I wasn’t planning on it anyway. That’s been well drummed in, and I certainly wouldn’t want to repeat the craziness that happened when I gave out fruit.

Dean said he hasn’t been in Nepal in thirteen years; he was trekking that time. I mentioned that it’s my first visit and asked if he crossed the border into Tibet, but he didn’t. I mentioned that maybe my next trip will include Tibet and Dharamsala.

During our somewhat long wait, Shantum stapled photos to visas. He walked up to me and wrinkled his nose and braced his teeth in a comical grimace while he used the stapler on something below my ear. Hearing the “click, click” close to my ear before seeing what he was stapling, I smilingly said in a shrill dismayed voice, “What are you doing to me!” I looked down and saw staples on the luggage identity card tied to my mirrorwork bag’s strap.
Dean said, “You’ve been stapled!”

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Back on the bus, I could swear I saw two birds the size of ostriches slowly walking in a field. They were white with red heads and long skinny necks. I have seen a multitude of cranes, goats, and cows. This part of Nepal looks like India, though I’ve imagined Nepal more closely resembling Tibet, which it probably does further north. We passed a crowded country market with stalls made of sticks and thatched roofs. We also passed many fields, some of which are bright green, some bright and happy with the yellow flowers of mustard plants.

We’ve driven a short distance into Nepal, and in front of a shop I saw signs for “Buddha Airlines” and “Yeti Airlines.” I’m not sure I’d want a huge legendary ape piloting a plane. A few minutes later, a sign said, “Welcome to Lumbini.” Oddly, the sign looks like it’s in the middle of a village, because buildings and people and critters are on either side of it; I’m thinking that means no countryside separates two towns.

Later, surrounded by fields, periodically we passed shrines facing the road. The white mud structure of the shrine itself is often in ruins, crumbling away around the statue. But the statue in the center invariably looks fresh and new in bright and colorful paint. They are always Hindu and usually statues of Hanuman, the monkey god.

We drove further through the countryside, past woods where the trees are really skinny and look suspiciously as if people planted them, because they’re in such perfect rows. I don’t think it was someone’s orchard. We also passed farmland, and then a driveway with the sign “Lumbini Hokke Hotel” appeared on our right, and I quickly put away my notebook because it meant we’re home. Given how close Lumbini is to the Himalayas, I’m surprised that it’s as flat as Illinois or western Kansas. Fields and small woods surround the hotel, and a narrow, long road leads to our temporary home and to an assortment of temples. At the end of the road in the other direction stands the World Peace Pavilion, a huge white stupa. If it weren’t for the architecture, we may as well be in the center of the United States. It’s very green and very rural, and the sky is immense.

The hotel in general is pretty and peaceful and quiet; you can’t hear honking horns in this area. Honking geese would be a more likely sound than noisy traffic. We are seriously out in the boonies. The dramatic detail about the hotel’s décor is the enormous pair of Buddha eyes painted in red and black on the front gates, which consist of two white wooden doors that swing open, with an eye on each door. Big Buddha is watching you. I conversed with Gail about sanghas and about the San Francisco Bay area while we ate lunch on the patio before we went to our rooms; it was another boxed picnic lunch, with cucumber sandwiches, fruit, and boiled eggs, because Shantum thought we would stop for lunch on the way.

After lunch, while we lounged in white wooden patio chairs, Jagdish passed out the room keys, and Shantum made his announcements. He said we could have a Nepalese- or Japanese-style dinner, and that Nepalese food is a lot like Indian only with different spices. Since I know what Japanese food tastes like, I chose Nepalese. I like adventure. Shantum gave us a verbal questionnaire that involved asking a question and people raising their hands in response. The options he gave us were 1) vegetarian Japanese dinner, 2) nonvegetarian Japanese, 3) vegetarian Nepalese, and 4) nonvegetarian Nepalese. Shantum asked, and we raised hands, but the numbers didn’t come out right the first two times. “Apparently some people are fasting,” Shantum said smilingly. He started again, saying, “You have four choices. The Buddha is gone forever; the Buddha has gone on to another life….”

Eventually the numbers all added up correctly, and so Shantum moved on to the schedule. Tomorrow morning we will meditate and afterwards visit the garden where the Buddha was born, and then we hop on the bus and leave. For today, he said, we have the option of doing nothing, which appealed to a few people. However, several temples are in the area, so he said we also have the option of “temple hopping.” Or “a temple crawl,” he added, for the sake of the English members of our sangha. He mentioned a Chinese temple and a beautiful Tibetan temple funded by Germans.
“They must have liked the swastikas,” Erika said. Much groaning followed this. Um, since Erika is of German descent, she can say things like that.

I have a roommate for the first time, but that does not bother me; still, I am glad I haven’t had a roommate throughout the entire trip. I’m sharing with Erika a capacious Japanese-style room. “It’s like a little house,” I said, wandering around.