Sudatta Stupa

After lunch, we returned to the bus and, as we passed the Jetta Grove, Shantum pointed out to us a little pond on the right. He said, “While the Buddha walked from Jetta to Shravasti, he saw two boys throwing stones at fish. The Buddha stopped them, saying, ‘If you were the fish, you wouldn’t like it.’” This, Shantum said, was probably the pond where it happened, though I suspect it was larger in the Buddha’s time; now it is a tiny water hole. But I could see the two boys and the Buddha in yellow robes.

The bus stopped, and we were in sight of two stupa ruins, across the road from each other. We climbed the one to the south, called Pakki Kuti or Angulimala’s Stupa. Angulimala was a mass murderer who, Shantum had explained, cut off the fingers of his victims, but when he met the Buddha with the intention of killing him, the Buddha gave him a dharma talk. Angulimala underwent a remarkable transformation, as did the Emperor Ashoka, and Angulimala became a monk. This story is part of the mural on the walls at the Theravada temple by Deer Park. In the mural, Angulimala is shown in what looks like a dancing position and wearing his legendary necklace of fingers, symbolized as life-size human hand prints, and reminiscent of a fierce Tibetan deity or demon. I prefer a necklace of fresh marigolds myself.

Most of the sangha had already climbed up high on the crumbly brick stupa ruins by the time I reached the top, where I peeked down into a square aperture in the center. Shantum, next to me, said that Natalie wanted to go inside the stupa, and I looked down the aperture and let out an exclamation, or rather a coo, and Shantum said, “Susan wants to go, too.”

I followed Jagdish along with Natalie, Yvette, and Dornora. Upon hearing that I wanted to go, Mukesh warned that it’s an awfully narrow space, but as Natalie put it, “This is about conquering fear.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” I said like a little kid. We were climbing down the stupa during this conversation. I remembered the very dark and narrow path into the Saptaparni Cave and tried not to think about how nervous I had been.

Jagdish, Natalie, Yvette, Dornora and I walked around to a different side of the stupa. I caught up with Yvette and walked next to her. Jagdish was a few feet ahead of us and called out to someone in Hindi, and Yvette said, “It just sounds to me like 'Glababaglababla.'”
I said, “Yeah, me too. Gee, I should learn Hindi!”

On the bottom level of the stupa, we stepped through a low doorway and into a space with a lower ceiling; this was a brick passageway with a series of archways through which we had to duck. When we reached the large rectangular center and enjoyed much more space and light, we looked way up at the cheering witnesses who stood at the top of the square aperture that I had previously seen from the summit. Then with Jagdish in the lead, we headed for the archway across from the one through which we had entered, and it was much lower, only a few feet high.

Jagdish said I should go right after him, and he demonstrated how to do it: we had to get down on our hands and knees, and at first we crawled on dirt. So I went right behind Jagdish. We kept moving along the low passageway and because the next few archways were so low, soon we crawled on bricks that lay loose on the ground. This was rough, feeling the pressure of the hard and bumpy surface on my palms and knees, and it was scary moving through such a confining and dark space. Perhaps the people overhead had cheered too soon. One of the archways was only about a foot high, and eying it I wasn’t terribly sure I could make it, but I took a deep breath and was determined to go through with it rather than turn back. And I did it, with Jagdish taking a photo. After one more archway, we stood outdoors in the expansive open air, and it felt so great that I breathed deeply and looked around at the nearby field and the huge blue sky.

The sangha crossed the road to the other stupa, which is called the Kachchi Kuti or Sudatta’s Stupa. Sudatta was a wealthy merchant who was so impressed with the Buddha and his teachings that he spread gold coins all over the Jetta Grove in order to buy it from Prince Jetta.

By the time I approached the base of the Sudatta Stupa, almost everyone was climbing steps to the top of the brick ziggurat-like structure, but when I saw that the group was crossing one by one along a narrow bridge above a deep drop, I experienced a great deal of dread. I’ve already fallen and gotten hurt once on this trip. Shantum saw me and said, “There’s another route around back,” and several of us followed Jagdish to that route. Fearlessness is one thing, but situations in which it’s blatantly obvious that I could fall are best avoided. What a klutz. Maybe with more mindfulness practice I’ll be less accident-prone.

As Ann, Christine and I approached the back of the ancient Sudatta’s Stupa, Ann said she’d like a scotch and soda. I giggled and said, “Yeah, and right after that you can do the Mindfulness Training!”

Ann said, “We don’t talk about what I just said with this group!” This conjured another giggle out of me. It occurred to me that it would be totally whacked for someone to show up for the Mindfulness Trainings with a hangover. I carefully followed Jagdish up the back side of the stupa and joined the sangha, gathered at the summit.

When I was a teenager traveling with a school group in German-speaking countries, our tour guide, Heinz, made a joke about a tour in which a woman kept writing in her journal, “ABC.” After seeing her write this many times, the tour guide asked her what it meant, and she said, “ABC: another boring castle.” I could as easily write, “ABCS: another Big Crumbly Stupa.”

So here we are on top of the ruins of Sudatta’s Stupa, and Shantum is conversing with a group of Muslim women and girls. The ones who aren’t children are wearing black tunics and veils over their clothing. Shantum is translating for us, with Erika coming up with most of the questions and answers. The interview is on such topics as where the family lives, how old the kids were and what they did, and we learned that the girls were students. It’s nice to hear that they are getting an education, but they don’t look poor.

A bit earlier, another group of Muslim women hung out at the front of the stupa’s summit, along with some children. They wore black burquas and were a distance from us, since we’re perched up at the highest point, which is somewhat toward the back. Children and only one man accompanied the draped women. Looking at their feet, I could tell that they wore really spiffy clothing beneath the sober black, as do Muslim women in the nonfiction book The Nine Parts of Desire. They wore sparkly high-heeled sandals, and I saw glimpses of brightly colored pajamas at their ankles, even what looked like pale green silk on one of them.

Erika took a picture of the first group of Muslim women and children, and Shantum urged her to go over and show them the picture, as she does with others, especially children. For once, she was reluctant to do it, and we made comments like, “Don’t tell them you’re from the U.S.” I smilingly said, “Say you’re from Canada.” Val recommended the book Reading Lolita in Tehran, although I have to say I’m not crazy about Lolita. Ultimately Erika did approach the women and showed them the picture on her digital camera, but they quickly went away. Erika walked back and said they didn’t say anything.

As we watched the Muslim women and girls go, Feroza said, “Their husband told them to leave.” We watched them in the distance climb into a jeep, five women in black burquas, three children, and one man, and after they were all in the jeep, the women waved at us while the vehicle started moving, and we waved back. I felt like this was a warm fuzzy moment and a pleasant surprise. The second Muslim group waved much the same way when they started driving off.

Now three Thai monks (one in yellow, one in bright orange, and one in rusty orange) are standing at the front top of the stupa and a group of people off a tour bus stand in front of them, slightly lower down, and they’re all chanting. They’re attracting some attention from locals, including wallahs, who have been gawking at us all this time. Ah, we’re out of the limelight at least for a few minutes. To say nothing of the dog. That is, the stray dog left our group too. She was curled up near me for some time, but slightly out of reach. This was a pretty dark brown one with a white underside, unlike the usual blonde or white stray dogs.

In the United States, I complain about the stray cats and dogs and how ridiculous it is that people don’t spay and neuter them as much as they should. How can you live in America at this point in time without being conscientious about spaying and neutering cats and dogs? In the long run, it’s more expensive to take care of many cats or dogs than to take the first one in for an operation. True, I have a similar attitude toward zero population growth for humans: it strikes me as ridiculous the effort and expense people go through to have kids even if they aren’t very fertile, to give birth to babies, when plenty are available for adoption and we need to keep down the population; the fewer people using up natural resources the better.

But in India I’m practically nonchalant about the stray dogs and amused that dogs always join us under trees or in this case on a stupa. Maybe it’s because the scale of extreme poverty is overwhelming and such a bigger problem in India—a far bigger problem than the dog population. And I believe the human population and lack of birth control are closely tied to poverty. There’s also the little detail that I assume people are less aware of spaying and neutering and that it’s not as available in India as it is in America.

The Thai group left, and the dog has climbed back up to be with us, after going all the way to their tour bus. Dogs are good at mingling.

The group that included the Theravada monks also included at least one woman with hair as short as a nun’s, and someone commented on this. Val explained that some women cut their hair extremely short before traveling, in order to have less chance of being harassed. This is hardly surprising, given Natalie’s and Jennifer’s encounters with boys who wanted to take their pictures. A shorn head also makes it impossible for an attacker to grab a woman by the hair.

2
The hotel room for our evening meeting, concerning the remainder of our pilgrimage, conveniently was straight across the hallway from my room, and I was one of the first to show up. An assortment of chairs had been arranged in a large circle, and I headed straight across the room to a pair of elaborately carved wooden chairs with red velvet seats and carved wooden arms. I sat up straight in one of these two “thrones” and rested my arms on the chair arms. Rikki said, “Susan, you look like a queen!” I was wearing black pants with a sparkly magenta Bohemian kurta and one of my new shawls, the beaded paisley cashmere, so that was as queenly as I could have looked. Shantum showed up, spotted me and grinned. He said, “I’m sitting next to Susan!” And he did so, in the throne that was identical to mine.

By the time most of our sangha had arrived and found a seat, Natalie walked up to Shantum and handed him a folded piece of paper, which I learned was her Mindfulness Training aspirations. I asked what that was about, and Shantum said, “It’s some words--it could be one sentence even—about why you wish to take the Mindfulness Training.” He explained that I have to turn it in to him tomorrow, before the Mindfulness Training Ceremony.

During the meeting, Shantum said, “Worrying is a—“
“Waste of energy,” Valerie finished. He has us trained.
Shantum explained that those of us who will be on the sleeper train need to pack tonight for the train ride: he said that luggage goes under the seat, so if you want access to toiletries make sure they’re ... accessible. He said, referring to those of us who will go to Agra, “We’ll just carry on with the same Magical Mystery Tour.”

Alone in my room in the evening, I wrote out my little essay to turn in to Shantum:

My Reasons for Doing the Five Mindfulness Trainings
I look at the Mindfulness Trainings as a combination of lifestyle guidelines and detox, and as a reminder to behave…mindfully. I’ll be less inclined to respond toward vicious behavior and verbal abuse by expressing anger and instead work more at nonviolent communication skills. Also, I made a New Year’s resolution to quit buying cake, candy, and cookies, and this will help me to also not eat sweets even when others buy them. As a consumer, I hope to buy less and cut back on plastic bags. Lastly, whether I join a sangha or continue practicing alone, the Mindfulness Trainings will connect me with the world’s sanghas.