Disneyland for Buddhists

Some of us went temple hopping with Shantum in the late afternoon. Dean and Natalie borrowed bicycles from the hotel, and the rest took the bus. Our first destination was the excessively ornate and colorful German-funded Tibetan temple, called the Great Lotus Stupa.

Even from outside the wall, I could see three-dimensional snow lions and wind horses gaily decorating the roof, and I was so excited to see the temple that I practically skipped ahead.

Reliefs in a rainbow of colors embellished the gateway and displayed turquoise-maned snow lions, flowers, gold filigree-like decoration, and auspicious Buddhist symbols. Three-dimensional garudas, or mythical birds that have a vendetta against snakes, topped the gateway, and looking up I could see that on each corner of the roof perched a mythological and colorful creature. As we faced away from the temple’s gate and looked across a large tank to a location on the other side of a wall, where other Buddhist temples were partially built, I said, “It’s like Disneyland for Buddhists.” We took off our shoes in front of the tank and went through the gates, where we left our bags in a tiny gatehouse room with a guy in a beige uniform.

At a sweeping glance I could see an abundance of colorful detail. On top of the temple’s roof was a white and gold stupa-shaped dome, in which a Buddha statue sat within a glass window, and I now got a better look at the three-dimensional snow lions on the roof; four sat in each direction and held the end of a chain in their mouths, and the four chains rose up and met at the top of the dome. Just below the dome was a gold wheel of the law flanked by two deer, a reminder of Deer Park; and below that, a colorful Buddha relief decorated the roof. Hanging from the roof, in front of the porch, were blue and white banners, in the center of which were painted large auspicious symbols such as the continuous knot.

I approached the steps to the temple and heard cymbals clashing, so I smiled and rushed up the stairs because I didn’t want to miss the chanting. I could see Shantum in his lavender cotton kurta on the steps already; I want the next Doctor Who to dress like him. The porch was consistent with the rest of the architecture: it included countless boldly colorful columns and murals everywhere that murals could be painted.

Inside, only two monks sat chanting on the front row of red mattresses on the left, and both of them looked to be in their twenties. One monk used a large drum and the other clanged huge cymbals, and both had traditional Tibetan scriptures open in front of them: books made of two painted boards containing strips of paper printed with sutras, such as I saw also in Bodh Gaya and previously only in museums and art books.

I gawked around at the murals covering the walls and ceiling, and I looked straight up to see a huge and colorful mandala centered on the interior of the dome. It’s fortunate no flies buzzed around, because my mouth hung wide open. On the walls, murals depicted events in the Buddha’s life, all painted in bright, vivid colors. A few feet ahead of the entrance stood a sort of carved wooden counter, and on each side of the central vicinity of the room were red benches or mats where monks sit to chant. Along the left wall stood scaffolding with painters at work, and to the right was a forbidding rope attached to metal stands, like in theater lobbies.

Straight ahead, I saw a canopied throne topped with a big gold Buddha statue, and resting on the throne were large framed photos of the Dalai Lama and at least one other lama in a goofy red hat; this was where the Dalai Lama would presumably sit if he visited this temple. Like the gateway, colorful reliefs embellished the throne; they included lotuses and dragons winding their way up each column that flanked the throne.

On either side of the throne were glass cabinets, several rows of them up to the ceiling, containing gold statues of what looked like the Tibetan Buddhist king Tsongkapa but were probably sundry characters out of Tibetan legend. I boldly walked up rather close to the throne and took a picture of it, and next thing I knew a caretaker came out of a door near the throne and said to me, “No, no.” Apparently we weren’t supposed to step beyond the little front section of the temple; perhaps it was because of the scaffolding, or perhaps he simply didn’t like my taking a picture of the throne.

Peter approached through the row of benches, and I turned to him and said that apparently we weren’t supposed to come up here, and he confirmed this with the caretaker. Peter wasn’t happy about it and sternly said, “This is bad, very bad.” I remained equanimous and headed over to the right side of the big circular room and stayed on the “correct” side of the ropes, where I listened to the two chanting monks and admired the breathtaking Buddha murals. I wandered off to the porch that wraps all the way around the square temple, and I inspected the elaborate metal mermaid handles on the double glass doors. I gawked so much my eyes could pop out, and then I’d look like a monster from the Hell Realm in a Tibetan mural.

On the porch, I walked around and admired the colorful columns and murals before I skipped down a flight of stairs and spotted a huge prayer wheel several feet tall and underneath a brightly painted wooden roof. A similar enormous prayer wheel stood at each corner of the lawn, and I circled around, spinning each of the four gigantic wheels. The temple is a mandala: you can circumambulate at smaller and smaller squares. One of the wheels was stiff and a challenge to turn; I had to take hold of one of the wooden handles at the base of the wheel, and for this particular wheel, which was perfectly still when I approached it, I had to brace my feet and use both hands to get it to start moving. Despite the wheel’s stubbornness, and despite the less than friendly attendant I had encountered by the throne, I blissfully smiled and enjoyed the peaceful and quiet atmosphere.

A Nepalese guy stood gawking at me while I spun one of the wheels, and I grinned, pressed my palms together and said, “Namaste!” His mouth was still gaping open, but he slowly, still gawking, pressed his hands together and bowed. I figured he didn’t see many Westerners, and I moved on to the next prayer wheel.

I spun each enormous prayer wheel three times. I sent prayers into the air in this calm, quiet, and peaceful place. I sent prayers onto the wind, for a world that is in desperate need of kindness, compassion, hope, healing, and positive action. Walking happily from one prayer wheel to the next, I was like a little kid on a playground, skipping from the swings to the merry-go-round to the slide.

I returned to the porch that wraps around the temple, where Dean was admiring the murals. A particularly remarkable mural consisted of a demon or fierce deity holding up a circular image of all the Buddhist realms, and Dean pointed out the Hungry Ghosts. I’ve thought of sculpting a figure of a hungry ghost, but this was the first time I actually got a good look at an artist’s rendition of such pathetic creatures. I’ve read the description often enough: hungry ghosts are overwhelmed with hunger, with desire, but their mouths are too tiny to put any food in them, and their necks are very long and skinny and their bellies round. Shopaholics are Hungry Ghosts. In bookstores or fabric stores, I occasionally notice a resemblance between myself and a Hungry Ghost.

We were the only Westerners at the Tibetan temple and indeed the only tourists or pilgrims. The place felt extremely new, almost deserted, and out in the middle of nowhere. I saw very few people besides those members of our sangha who had gone temple hopping: we met the two guards at the gate, I saw a few young monks, all of them in their twenties, the unfriendly attendant inside the temple along with some voices behind the door from which he had emerged, and I saw the custodian or gardener who gawked at me while I spun the prayer wheels. That was all. It was a quiet and reclusive Disneyland for Buddhists.

Our next stop was the Chinese temple. It is pretty and traditional-looking, but it wasn’t overpowering and mesmerizing like the Tibetan temple, perhaps because it lacked the vivid colors and ornate décor, not to mention funding from swastika-loving Germans. Gee, that sounds more critical of the beautiful Tibetan temple, but while I connect with Tibetan style and admire the temple, I have to admit it isn’t exactly an example of embracing simplicity and minimalism. Not that I’m in the habit of embracing simplicity and minimalism.

The Chinese temple, on the other hand, does show moderation and simplicity. The structure is one story tall and on closer inspection I perceived that it is elaborately embellished, and the double-decker ridged tan roof curves outward at each corner with a dragonhead and a bell dangling below. On either side of the front façade was a round Hobbit window with a latticework dragon carved in it. Foo dogs flanked the steps that we took up to the front doors, and we had to be quick because the temple was about to close. Gee, um, it’s not like we spent a lot of time at the Tibetan temple.

Inside, the Chinese Temple is much smaller, simpler, more bare and humbler than the Tibetan temple; that is hardly surprising, given that the Chinese practice Chan, which is the same thing as Zen. All I know about Chinese Buddhism I learned from the classic epic fantasy novel The Journey to the West. In contrast, I’ve read many books about Tibet and about Tibetan Buddhism, and I rather suspect that I’ve been Tibetan in at least one previous life. Now that I’ve visited India, I also have reason to believe I’ve been Indian in at least one lifetime, perhaps many. Even in this lifetime, I could live entirely on Indian food. I’m not so keen on trying to beg, though.

The Tibetans definitely wear prettier robes than the Chinese. Inside, some brown-robed Chinese monks played musical instruments I had never seen before, including what looked like a sort of gigantic brown gourd, several feet wide and carved with floral designs, that the monk hit with a stick. The room was small and square and sparsely furnished, and I admired a Bodhisattva sculpture inside a glass display case off to one side. It didn’t take us long to circumambulate one time and exit the building.

Outside, wallahs sold malas (hey, it rhymes!) and other Buddhist items on blankets on the ground, along the edge of the path. Jagdish and Mukesh appeared on a motorcycle, with Jagdish driving, and they stopped for a photo op. I went to the end of the path and looked across the road at an unfinished Korean temple. Most of the structure has been built, but currently it is the dull grey of concrete, and I suspect that it will ultimately be very colorful and magnificent. As it is, I can see the construction and details are pretty, though rather odd without color. Peter said, “This place will look very different in five years.”

We got back to the Lumbini Hokke Hotel and climbed off the bus. I was eager to get a closer look at the World Peace Pavilion up the road, but I was timid about walking by myself. Fortunately, Sherry agreed to go, and as we strolled up the road we talked about her teaching career and about teaching in general. I commented that the only kind of teaching I could ever have seen myself doing is college-level creative writing classes; even as a student I had acted as though I was the teacher.

Other than the white stupa that is the pavilion, the scenery consisted primarily of a very green and very flat field reminiscent of the Midwestern United States, and a fence ran alongside the road. However, the Japanese purchased wetlands around the Peace Pavilion to give the cranes a sanctuary, rather appropriately given that for the Japanese, cranes represent peace. Sherry couldn’t hang out long, because she had other plans, so when we met up with Jennifer in front of the pavilion, Sherry headed back to the hotel and I walked with Jennifer. In front of the World Peace Pagoda, we heard drumming emitting from a small temple to our left, and we followed our ears.

Inside the little side temple, a young Japanese or Korean woman in jeans and a white shirt sat at a big drum on the right, and a nun sat at another drum on the left. In the center of the room were meditation cushions and simple little drums that reminded me of fans; they consisting of a circle of fabric stretched on a frame and with a stick for a handle.

The woman in jeans led us to the back row of the cushions and gave us such drums, and we joined in with the beat while nuns chanted. It was a simple tune, and Jennifer recognized it, smiled, and chanted along quietly while we drummed. We did this for a little while, but Jennifer had plans much like Sherry had. After we got back outside and walked along the path, she explained that this particular chant was from a Japanese Buddhist group and is about it being OK to wish for anything, including material things. Before we walked away, a child nun in a white robe came out and gave each of us a handful of little round white candies that had more texture than taste. We smiled and bowed our thanks and as we walked away, I at my candy slowly; it wasn’t enough to spoil my dinner.

On the walk back to the hotel, the setting sun was a vivid orange in the light pink sky, like a giant tangerine floating in a universe-size bowl of punch. We heard strange voices in the distance to our right and wondered what it was, and I said, “It sounds like a crowd cheering a cricket match.” The cries continued eerily as we moved more quickly up the road. Jennifer was in a hurry to get back and said I’d be safe alone around here, but I was squeamish, even though the sun would stay out for perhaps an hour longer; in hindsight it’s too bad I did not let her go ahead alone so that I could walk around the World Peace Pavilion up close and possibly even go inside. Rather than be left on my own, I tried to keep up. The creepy cries continued, and they especially weirded me out when the cries suddenly came from the left of us, in a different patch of trees. Jennifer explained that it must be jackals, which I later heard sound just like coyotes. I said, “They must be calling to each other,” and thought it was a very eerie sound.

2
At some point in the evening, Erika said, “I’ve never before seen so many guys peeing!” I laughed at that even as it brought up the common image of riding past a row of guys at the side of the road with their backs to the bus, not only in the country but also in villages. Toward the beginning of the pilgrimage, this was shocking, even though I had read of it and therefore had some warning ahead of time. At least they do turn their backs to the road, rather than aim at the bus. Hey, an open window!

Given how prudish the country is about sex and therefore unfortunately about such things as birth control, it strikes me as ironic that the men are not more prudish about peeing in public. And not just peeing: Erika mentioned guys squatting in fields, also. I’d hoped that wasn’t what they were doing. This is why the phrase “culture shock” was invented. No, I don’t think it was for the traffic going in the opposite direction and the steering wheels on the right instead of the left.

3
Shantum wanted us to do “Strucks” before dinner, at six thirty, so that more people would attend, and it worked: the entire sangha showed up. Shantum told us beforehand that he wished to talk to us about beggars, so I’m thinking that was a major incentive. We gathered in a nook near the hotel’s shop. The nook contained a circle of cushy armchairs and a few small side tables and was somewhat hidden by a screen. Feroza and Shantum showed up wearing the white and dark blue Japanese robes and slippers that were available in our Japanese rooms; I almost wished I had tried one on.

“Begging is not considered shameful in India,” Shantum said after we were all ready for the talk. “It’s simply a way of life there, a part of society. What’s new is tourist begging.”
He explained that those walking on their hands and dragging their legs had polio. It’s starting to go away in India, because it’s starting to be vaccinated more often. “India still has six thousand cases of polio, and it was just in the news that there are ten new cases of it.” I had read that India has universal health care, but clearly it has serious flaws; perhaps the main problem is that doctors cannot always reach remote villages.

“School is not required, but highly recommended,” Shantum said. “It’s free, too. The government schools are not very good; for instance, teachers don’t show up. School isn’t relevant to the nutrition of the food or how to farm;” in other words, to hands-on instruction on how to do things that kids need to know in order to work on a farm. “Despite the free education, not everyone takes advantage of it and its quality varies, so more than one fourth of the population is illiterate.”
Shantum asked Mukesh for his opinion, and Mukesh said, “We need to expend more on education.”
India is currently experiencing an illiteracy campaign: school education stresses literacy. This priority comes from people who like Shantum have Western education, whereas literate kids in some cases “don’t know how to start a fire or where milk comes from,” Shantum pointed out. Practical things are important to learn, not just how to read. “Schools don’t teach how to handle anger, etc, such as we learn with the dharma. The Western-based education standards miss a few things.”

Yeah, they’re missing a few things in America, too. Not long ago, I wrote an essay about making peace education, or nonviolence education, a required course for kindergarten through twelfth grade, and The Turning Wheel published a version of my essay that was a letter to the editor. I think it would make a huge difference in our society if nonviolence and compassion were taught in schools. But back to the subject of education in India: Shantum said, “Ironically, Westerners come here for wisdom, and here the West is influencing the education system.”

“Begging children is a recent phenomenon, and it used to be that children were slapped for begging,” Shantum said. “It was a practice for people who are on a spiritual path. People who are begging by and large are poor people, but they’re not starving.” Someone comes along and plays with the children, and they stop being beggars and instead act like normal children; I’ve noticed Erika has that effect on kids. Shantum said, “I think giving is a good thing to do, but it’s hard to give wisely. Giving to children is like making them into beggars, disempowering them.” Also, as we’ve noticed, if you give something to one beggar, pandemonium breaks out. “People give, and so the children come begging.”

Gail said a teenage boy in Bodh Gaya followed her around, and she said, “He had some sort of legitimate-looking ID card and pleaded with me about sending him to school. He knew I was at the school that morning, and everywhere I turned, there he was. I stepped out of an Internet café off the beaten path, and he still showed up, using school as a pretext to get money.”
“Giving to the school rather than to individuals, beggars, is a good idea,” Shantum said. Fortunately, we had passed around an envelope and donated while we were at the Pragyavihar School.

Shantum offered to send a street kid to America for a university education, but the kid was making so much money and having fun begging from tourists, that he turned down the offer. Shantum warned him, “You’ll lose your cuteness,” and sure enough “he’s taken to gambling.”
“Most beggar children go to school or have dropped out,” Mukesh said. Some kids only go to school for the food, the midday meal, and don’t care about learning.

Shantum said that it’s not as bad to give fruit or nuts rather than money, but he pointed out, “It’s still perpetuating begging. India does have good organizations for distributing food to the poor: that’s another reason not to give to beggars. There is a need, but they descend on tourists because they’re attracted to tourists. In Agra, there isn’t much begging because they don’t want you to see it. The Taj Mahal is a way of presenting India as a superpower.”

“Family planning has been a big issue since the 1960s,” Shantum said. “But it’s a prudish country, and family planning focuses primarily on money to spend on condoms for married people. In the 1970s, Indira Gandhi was responsible for involuntary sterilization” as I read in Salman Rushdie’s novel Children of Midnight, “and so now when a politician or someone mentions family planning, people automatically think of involuntary sterilization. Female infanticide is mainly a problem in the Hindu low belt; people think boys are more important than girls. I think girls are just as important as boys. In India a doctor can be put in jail for doing ultrasound and telling the sex of a future child, because if it’s a girl it will likely be aborted. Awareness that smaller families are a good idea is coming through, although having lots of children traditionally is social security.”

Someone asked what would happen if you become pregnant out of marriage, and Shantum explained that likely you’ll be lynched, and you had better leave the village. “The girl will be blamed more than the boy.” Double standard is a common aspect of misogyny, so that doesn’t surprise me.

Shantum said, “I am interested in what is coming up in your minds when we’re dealing with begging. How does the situation make you feel? Do you feel compassion? Are you disassociating yourself? Feeling guilty about shopping? Thoughts about how you have so much more wealth than they?” Oh, yes, I’m experiencing all of the above. Peter has traveled in much of India and says the best thing to do is to blot it out, because it’ll drive you crazy and it’s on such a huge scale. It seems I do some blotting out, but I feel guilty doing that, like it is a hardhearted attitude, but in contrast I also find myself crying whenever I think about the poverty and squalor, which I suspect will be easier to cope with thanks to this discussion.

Shantum said, “How you support the economy is important. Tourists give work to hotel staff, and tourism can do things for the economy. The Middle Path means not being overly hard on ourselves and not being overly self-indulgent. Seeing a different way of life gives you more global awareness, your consciousness has shifted, has become wider.”

The topic briefly turned to how this is a globalized world; Gail said she encountered a teenage boy making a macho pose and got the impression that he’s been badly influenced by Western media, probably TV and/or movies. Shantum said, “There’s a movement now to drink more chai and less Coca Cola, but poor people are drinking more Coke because that’s what’s available.”
In Delhi, a young man latched onto Gail (gee, she has some bad luck) and asked if she was married and then asked if she likes sex. She was of course shocked by this behavior. Shantum said, “He’s probably a prostitute. He was offering himself to you.” He also confirmed Gail’s suspicion that this guy’s behavior reflects the perception of Western women, and Shantum said, “If he’d talked to an Indian woman like that, she’d have slapped him.”

“There’s a space thing in India with the opposite sex,” Shantum said. “It’s acceptable for two men to hold hands or two women to hold hands in public, but not for an opposite sex couple to do so, even if they’re married. If a museum employee holds your hand, it’s inappropriate.” Apparently Valerie had told him about her weird experience at the Patna Museum, and I had been correct in thinking the curator’s behavior was creepy.

My feelings about the poverty and beggars are not so bad since the discussion. It’s like a huge sigh of relief. That is, I feel much better about it and the sense of guilt has dissipated. I am not nonchalant about the poverty and begging; but rather I understand the situation better and feel more hopeful, knowing that charitable organizations exist that feed the poor, and also knowing that schools are free. Shantum’s explanation for why we should not give to beggars has shed some of my guilt; if not giving to them is sending the message not that we are stingy and greedy but that they need to go to school and have a different lifestyle, then I have no problem with not giving handouts, particularly with not giving the beggars money. Before I become too complacent, however, I have to remember that so many beggars do not look like they have taken a bath, eaten a hot meal, or gotten new clothing in a long time.