The Lotuses of Kapilavastu

Our first stop today was the Kapilavastu archeology site that is probably the real Kapilavastu, unlike the one that’s in Nepal. Shantum said, “The beggars are particularly aggressive in this area,” shortly before we got off the bus.

The ruins we walked amid were the site of palatial buildings and the township of ancient Kapilavastu, capital of the Shakyas, the Buddha’s family. This is the kingdom where Siddhartha Gautama grew up. To my immediate right, after getting off the bus, stood the ruins of small rooms around a capacious central room or courtyard. Small rooms remind me of a dorm or monastery; perhaps that’s not the palace but rather a monastery. I recall that monasteries were built in Kapilavastu after the Buddha reached enlightenment: that explains the dorm-like set-up. These structures that we see now would not have been around during the Buddha’s youth, when the art of brick making was temporarily forgotten. But no doubt the people who built these brick buildings knew about the Buddha and admired him. They would not have built the brick monastic structures if this hadn’t been the Buddha’s home kingdom, and so these structures are connected to him.

I walked further to a tall red brick structure that other members of the sangha were climbing on, and I also climbed on it but with much caution. Beggar children hovered in the background in a pack, but I ignored them.

I rather suspect that India invented bricks. I’m ninety-nine percent sure of it, since they were using bricks a long time ago, before the Buddha’s time, and still make them from hand. Bricks are everywhere, in great numbers. I first noticed them in New Delhi, where we saw the piles of bricks, ruins of recent squatter’s homes. In ancient ruins, even bricks often have beautiful designs sculpted into them.

Our second stop was at some of the same kingdom of Kapilavastu, with more brick ruins. A huge stupa stands in the center. According to the archeological survey sign, we looked at the ruins of monasteries, stupas, shrines, votive stupas and a public hall. Sealings with the legend of Kapilavastu are in a monastery here, which perked up my curiosity; I wanted to see what these sealings looked like. “This complex represents the Buddhist establishment of ancient Kapilavastu,” according to a sign out front.

After I took a path and passed most of the ruins, I approached an excessively blue and sparkling pond sprinkled with bright pink blooming lotuses. My mouth formed a big O. This was the first time I saw lotuses in their natural environment, unless we saw some in the bamboo grove. In Bodh Gaya I had noticed some picked lotuses that wallahs walking on the street sold as offerings.

Most of the sangha had reached the pond before I did, and I wasn’t the only one who was struck by the beauty of the scenery and the great sense of peace. We were indeed close to the Buddha, and it isn’t difficult to picture him walking slowly around the pond and looking down at the flowers. People were already settled comfortably on the bank of the pond, seated or standing or wandering, even lying on mats, by the time I came within sight of the pond. Shantum said we’d sit in the Mango Grove, gesturing up a slight hill to a grouping of trees. Shantum preferred the grove because it’s shady, so I thought that was a good idea.

I followed the winding path up to the Mango Grove, took a picture of another ancient brick building’s foundations, and set foot into the mango grove. Indeed the grove was much shadier than the pond and consequently cooler. Although the lotus pond was certainly beautiful, the grove was also pleasing to the eye. It was a small forest, and I saw no mangoes whether or not they still grow in it, and the tall shady trees darkened it considerably.

The Mango Groove houses the most obnoxious, noisy, and greedy crows I’ve yet encountered. They fly around, squawk and caw away like they think they’re entitled to all the attention, and even walk fairly close to us. Natalie and I imitated their cawing. I’m better at turkey noises, and peacock sound effects are easy, since they sound so much like cats.

We all sat down on our straw mats, and Shantum began a talk in the Mango Groove at Kapilavastu. He told us about Nepal’s tourism relying on the other “Kapilavastu” there, and he spoke mostly about the archeology in the region before getting back to Buddha lore.

Under a tree to our right, a crow settled on our food and poked at the white plastic bags with its beak. The crow must be smarter than me, because I didn’t even know our food was there. The white plastic bags disguised it.

“Trying to beg is hard to do,” Shantum said at another point in the talk. He tried it in England at Victoria Station and was very uncomfortable with asking from strangers. Also he has begged with Thai monks: their method includes wearing robes and holding bowls, not saying anything. I think that would be much easier to do, and when I visited San Francisco as a tourist, I thought about what it would be like to be a panhandler on Powell Street. Who knows, I might resort to that someday, although I dread talking to strangers despite all my customer service experience.

Shantum told us about the Buddha’s return visit to his family in Kapilavastu. Ultimately he convinced many people here to become monastics, including his son Rahula. “He started out as a crow-chasing novice, in a place like this,” Shantum said.
“Caw, caw!” crows said in response.
“I think Mukesh is recruited as crow-chasing novice,” John said. Twice Mukesh chased crows off our lunch, before he and Jagdish resorted to taking the lunch packages away from the tree and keeping it next to them while they sat talking at the edge of the grove.

“The Buddha’s family enlarged from a small family to the universal family,” Shantum said. Mine too. That’s an aspect of interconnectedness: I feel more bound to the human family, the world family, than to alienating and contemptuous relatives. Although the Buddha got along much better with his relatives than I do with mine, and although he grew up in a loving and supportive community rather than a prejudiced and unsupportive community, I can see that he was bullied and threatened on occasion, such as by his bratty cousin who eventually tried to kill him. The Brahmins who were jealous of him could be seen as a bunch of bullies. I wonder if the Buddha ever felt depressed by this hostility, even though he obviously had a great deal of mental discipline. Encounters with vicious people are a very significant part of the path, and they test us. Unlike the Buddha, I keep failing the test.

Shantum told us how the Buddha’s mother and other women insisted on becoming the first nuns. “In Plum Village, nuns are fully ordained,” Shantum said, referring to a meditation center that is Thich Nhat Hanh’s main residence and where he does most of his teaching. “Nuns are fully ordained in the West but not accepted in Thailand or Burma currently,” thanks to power-tripping misogynists in charge. It’s one of those situations in which old men in power don’t want to let go of their power.

Ann asked, “Who has the authority to change the precepts for nuns?”
Shantum said, “According to the Buddha you should change things, such as the precepts, to fit modern times. Unfortunately, there are traditionalists in the way.” Gail pressed him, asking if there was some central authority like the Pope, but there isn’t. She mentioned the Dalai Lama, and Shantum pointed out, “The Dalai Lama approves of nuns being fully ordained.”

Crazy crows are hovering around at lunch. Someone tossed a little food and a bunch of them swooped down disconcertingly close to my head. I ducked and could feel the wind from the wings and was unfortunately reminded of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I walked a few feet away before tossing food for the obnoxious black birds, and numerous crows swooped down in that part of the woods. All that for one little piece of bread.

Shantum had warned us that the child beggars are “more aggressive” around here. I had no problem at the first Kapilavastu stop and wondered what he could possibly mean, and until we returned to the bus I had no problem here. As I stepped up to the bus and ignored the kids, one of them tapped me on the arm, and after I got to my seat, I looked out the window and noticed down below one of the kids giving me a nasty look. I’m thinking that must be what Shantum meant by “more aggressive.” I had been inclined to believe he was referring to the crows, not the children.

2
After we rode the bus several hours, the sun was a giant crimson polka dot in the pale grey-blue sky. It was dark out shortly before seven in the evening, and now the long bus ride is complete. We have arrived at the Lotus Nikko Hotel in the village of Sravasti. Hurray! The lobby includes, in the center, a spiral staircase made of marble. Or maybe it’s not so much spiral as curving a little out of kilter. While we waited in the lobby, and just before staff members served us little glasses of a carbonated beverage rather than my much preferred choice of mango juice, Valerie and Dean sung Beatles songs, and by now I’m accustomed to members of our sangha acting a bit giddy when we arrive at our next hotel after a long drive. I’m invariably one of the giddy ones.

This is the third Lotus Nikko Hotel for us. The first was the early one with the totally tubular temple containing a big black Buddha, and the second was our home right before the Maharaja’s lodge. The Lotus Nikko Hotels are nice rather than obnoxiously posh like the Radisson. The most scenic thing about my current nondescript room is that the window is in the front façade of the hotel and therefore looks out on the roses and the road that passes through the village.

After we acquired our room keys, we had approximately half an hour in our rooms before the 7:30 dinner, located in an enormous dining room on the second floor, just down the hall from my room. After dinner Shantum talked about the rest of the pilgrimage. The sangha will be splitting up in about three days. The topic of the trip coming to an end is not a pleasant one for me, and I somewhat melodramatically said, “Oh no! I don’t want the pilgrimage to end! I want it to go on forever and ever!”

3
This morning, Sunday the fourth, as I descended the staircase to meet up for meditation, I saw six yellow-swathed Thai monks seated on the carved wood, velvet-upholstered sofas. Boxes and bags of supplies were piled next to the entrance doors, and one of the boxes contained strange nuts or seeds in it: they were like gigantic peanuts, two in the shell, three inches long; but they had a smooth medium brown shell instead of a bumpy dark yellow shell.

Members of our sangha started showing up in the lobby, and I went upstairs to get my shawl and tissues, since I had forgotten them. Not of course that I’m absent-minded. By the time I returned to the lobby downstairs, the Thai monks were no longer hanging out and instead members of our sangha were seated on the sofas. When I heard chanting coming from the downstairs restaurant, I crossed the lobby and stood by the glass door and the glass windows that flank it. Sure enough the Thai monks were chanting and filled a long table at one end of the restaurant, and Thai laypeople sat at another table.

I returned to the sofa at which the monks had sat recently, and an unusual conversation was in progress, one in which monks would probably not have participated. Someone explained to Mairgret that “booty” is an American slang word for “butt.”
“It’s too early in the morning to talk about booties,” Gail said.
“Boobies?” Mairgret said.
“’Booby’ means ‘breast,’” Gail said. “It’s way too early in the morning to talk about boobies.”
“How about bodhis?” Val said. “As in the Bodhi Tree.”
“This is when you should be writing in your journal,” Dean said to me. I laughed and pulled out my journal.

I’m currently waiting amid rose bushes and trees on the hotel grounds. Today we’re supposed to meet up again at about ten thirty in the morning and head for the Jetta Grove, which is within walking distance. I don’t remember reading about the Jetta Grove before, but I guess that’s not as dramatic as the Buddha’s footprints leaving lotuses behind him or as his encounter with Mara trying to distract him with demons and all. Besides, my poor memory for names extends to place names, not only people’s names.

On this road, it’s not unusual to see oxen pulling carts piled high with hay. At this very moment, in fact, a cart is going by, full of hay, topped by two guys in turbans, and led by oxen. This is a rather common sight in India, especially here. Yesterday we passed what I thought of as an Indian rodeo: a flat area at the side of the road, occupied by many oxen-drawn carts full of hay. Numerous men were there, perhaps in the process of loading the carts. And here comes another cart.

It has weirded me out how typical it is in India to see many men, at work or on the streets, and very few women. Members of our sangha have of course commented on this, and Liz said the women are behind the scenes, in the homes. They are hidden. We on the other hand are visible, gallivanting around on the other side of the world, boldly going where I suspect no Kansan or Hoosier has wandered before. Escaping Kansas and the mundane existence of everyday life gives me a sense of freedom, even if freedom is a rarity for women who live in the country to which I have escaped.

Think of an Elephant

It was shortly after six in the morning when I stepped out a French door and spotted the driver Mishra, his assistant Viru, and the masseur gathered on the back porch, and I asked where the others went for meditation. The masseur led me up the driveway and past a beautiful old tree surrounded by a set of circular steps, which inspired me to murmur, “Wow!” We turned to the left and entered the woods, and within seconds I was in a small clearing where only five people were doing yoga. One of them was surprisingly Devendra, wearing a pale greenish kurta, white scarf, and white pajamas. Green tarpaulins lay flat on the sandy dirt and served as yoga mats, and I found a spot. Rikki was giving the yoga instructions, as she had in Deer Park, and I arrived halfway through the lesson.

We faced a beautiful and misty lake surrounded by crowds of extremely tall trees that the pale grayish blue lake reflected. One huge tree lay in the lake, and someone with no fear and excellent balance would be able to walk out onto the tree. I later gazed out at the lake and noticed a tiny island just large enough for one tall and skinny tree to sprout from its center. The air was misty and the atmosphere felt still and surreal. Enormous old trees full of birds framed the little spot where we practiced yoga and afterwards meditation.

After Rikki gave us her yoga instruction, more people showed up for meditation, and Shantum guided us through a meditation that, like most, sounded like something I read a few years ago in a book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Unfortunately, the virus got the better of me, and I choked through most of the meditation. I kept stopping to drink out of my bottle of water, but the cough simply wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried to suppress it a little till the meditation was over, but I could only do that for so long. It’s ironic that the coughing fit attacked me when it did, since a meditation sitting is when I least wanted to cough. Of course, this was early morning, when I’m most likely to be congested.

Another distraction, and a much more amiable one than coughing, was the birdcalls. Crows cawed, peacocks meowed, many kinds of birds sang and chirped and twittered, and a couple of egotistical birds let out really loud and somewhat high-pitched and comical sounds close overhead. This was a series of “Coo, coo, coo, coo.” No, they were not cooing like pigeons; it seemed like the word they uttered.

We followed Shantum in a walking meditation to the big old tree, circled by several concrete steps, which had attracted my attention on the way to the sitting. My coughing died down after we stood up, and I was more able to enjoy and genuinely practice the walking meditation than the sitting meditation. I know that lying down is a position in which I’m most susceptible to congestion; apparently changing positions was helpful, even though I had been sitting up straight to meditate rather than lying. When we arrived at the tree, we stopped and stood before it, and Devendra told us a story about the tree.

When the Raj came here, there wasn’t any water, and the king’s guru was a medium who could communicate with spirits and believed the spirits are everywhere, including in this three hundred year old tree. A servant left sweets to the tree in hopes that it would reveal the location of the water. The guru, without knowing who had been giving the tree sweets, turned to the servant and told him to bring it offerings like oil, so he started doing that, and sure enough they soon had good water. People still leave the tree offerings, at least of marigolds.

Devendra gave us a little tour of his property. We admired flowers and trees on the lush grounds, saw an old white building in a far corner, and watched gardeners already busy at work. I can’t begin to name most of the trees, except for banyan and palm trees. A particularly odd tree was bare of leaves and rather small, and it consisted of tall, narrow branches that ended in gnarled lumps from which protruded many narrow twigs. A bright green hedge lined the front yard, and parallel to the hedge are countless pink rose bushes.

Devendra led us up the path toward the house. I finally noticed an assortment of terra cotta pots full of plants lined up at the edge of one side of the porch. Behind us stood a particularly tall hedge with an arched doorway cut into it. The Raj stopped at an old and hollow palm tree that is the residence of a six-foot-long snake. But it’s not a cobra; I’m thinking it’s harmless. Someone, probably a servant, meant to kill it because it got into the house, “but he didn’t have the heart,” Devendra said. In his enunciated Indian accent, the words sounded musical.

After our little walk, we passed a pale tree that wound its gnarled branches around a corner column of the porch. We walked up the few porch steps and entered the lodge through the front doors, and a few people already sat in the dining room for breakfast. The evening before, Feroza had said that she could stay just here for a week, and I certainly see what she means; it’s idyllic.

2
During breakfast someone looked out the window and said, “There’s an elephant in the garden!” Like many others, I headed for the nearest French door expecting to see a wild elephant stomping through the rose bushes with no Buddha to pacify it.

I stepped out onto the veranda and sure enough, just past the tour bus, an elephant with a skinny old turbaned man perched on top was walking in our direction. Shantum said that the elephant was a baby boy named Rajir, only a few years old. I walked up close to the pachyderm, took pictures, and thought he was a cute little elephant. Someone had painted pink and blue designs on his face. As I got really close, he raised his trunk in a curve and opened his mouth. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I interpreted it as a smile.

Shantum explained that we’re welcome to ride the elephant, but since I’m afraid of heights, I had no interest in doing so. Erika urged me, saying she’s also afraid of heights and that she cried the whole way up in the Statue of Liberty. After some coaxing, during which I remained stubborn and knew I wasn’t going to ride the elephant, she said, “You can tell me to shut up anytime,” and I laughed, thinking that was the end of it. I knew that I would not enjoy riding the elephant and it didn’t occur to me to try it.

The elephant appeared to be a bit hungry, and I ran inside and got a little banana for it out of my bedroom. I returned and held it out to Rajir, and he grabbed the fruit with his trunk, brushing my hand with rough wrinkled skin. He curled his trunk back and put the banana in his mouth. It was gone so fast; I wished I had saved more fruit.

I stayed outdoors long enough to watch a couple of people riding the elephant, before I entered through the French doors in order to drink more tea. I sat down with Shantum and Yvette, and Shantum asked, “Susan, are you going to ride the elephant?”
I said, “No, I’m afraid of heights. I wouldn’t even get on a horse when I was a kid.” Shantum was not beaming his usual charming smile on me.
“We should not let our fears control us,” he said sternly. “What is the worst thing that could happen?”
“I could fall off and get trampled,” I said.
“We are trapped by our fears,” Yvette said.
I stopped raising my cup of tea to my lips and looked at her in astonishment. I’d like to say that I jumped up and went to the elephant and climbed on it right after these comments, but instead I sat there feeling guilty, cowardly, and foolish. I even acted defensive enough to say, “I did climb the mountains and go inside little caves.”
Shantum nodded and said in a neutral voice, “That is true.”
Looking down at the white tablecloth, I said, “And some of the steps on the mountains slanted downward—that was really scary.” Neither of them pointed out to me that I was being defensive, but I sensed it on my own.

“Susan, what do you want to accomplish in your life?” Shantum asked.

It was a question that shouldn’t be too difficult to answer, and yet I was taken by surprise and did not know what to say, even though I thought I had figured that out years ago. Certainly, the rather un-Buddhist response, “Become a famous writer!” would not have been a good answer. I smirked and said, “You mean besides travel the world?” I felt stupid and inadequate and knew it was a lame answer.

What do I really want to accomplish in my life, besides make as much art as possible, whether I’m writing, sculpting, making collages, or costuming? I’d known for years that I want to change the world, to make it a better place, and to make a significant contribution to the overthrow of patriarchy and the start of world peace. But in the past few years I developed a tendency to think that I can’t save the world if I can’t even save myself.

A decade ago a friend back in St. Louis had said that she believes everyone has a purpose, and that my purpose in life is to not take things personally. At the time, I was disappointed and thought it sounded trivial. But after I exiled myself in Topeka, Kansas, it finally made sense. Buddhism is about not taking things personally, and it is also about not letting fear, anger, or depression run your life. It is about confronting the dark places that most people resist. I had gotten wrapped up in trying to do something about my anger and depression and had overlooked fear.

Instead of thinking about riding the elephant, instead of pausing and considering riding it, I had come up with my automatic, habitual response: “I’m afraid of heights, so I won’t do that.” But to progress on the path, I have to reject habits and confront my fears and aversions. How odd that didn’t occur to me, at least not on the surface, before the elephant came along.

When Shantum and Yvette finished breakfast and walked away, I went out to the porch with a fresh cup of tea rather than sit alone in the dining room. I felt sufficiently rejected without doing that. On the porch, Shantum and Val sat at a small white wicker table as spectators. I stood by the edge of the porch, sipping tea and watching people climb onto the elephant, yet something had shifted in my consciousness, just slightly, and I was no longer so certain that I was doing the right thing. I felt guilty, as if I had failed a test.

Now Val joined in with trying to persuade me to ride the elephant. She said, “This is an opportunity you might never have again, and this is better than a zoo. Back home, do you want to tell people you could have ridden an elephant in India and didn’t?”

I gulped down the rest of my tea, shrugged, and belligerently said, “Well, maybe I’ll do it after all.” I stepped off the porch and headed in the direction of the elephant. I wondered what on earth I was doing and felt like I was going on a suicide mission.

A white wooden step ladder stood next to the elephant, and before I got quite that far, Jagdish came from the house and called to me, “Susan, do you want me to ride the elephant with you?” I braced my teeth, the closest to a smile I could muster, and nodded vigorously at him, raising my eyebrows. I turned back to the ladder, and even it was scary, while my innards were feeling rather fluttery. Jagdish stood near by the time I started climbing the dreaded ladder, with someone on each side of it holding it down. I went up three steps and already had the familiar fear that I have while climbing ladders. I gripped the railing on each side and was shaking and felt my heart beating faster than normal. Just climbing to the top of the ladder was more than I thought I could handle.

The elephant is young, a bit ornery, and in training, as I had witnessed when I saw him walking with passengers. I got closer to the top of the ladder and could hear the trainer speaking sharply to the pachyderm, and the elephant’s back moved up and down and sideways. I froze as I watched, feeling fluttery panic rising from my chest to my throat. I ascended to the top of the steps, and I heard countless voices urging me to climb on. Oh, great, a big audience. Jagdish stood on the other side of the stooping elephant and was holding his hand out to me, and although I was afraid to stop gripping the railing of the step ladder, I didn’t think that at this point there was any turning back from this suicide mission, and I reached out with my left hand, took Jagdish’s hand, and swung my left leg over the elephant.

I had already been told that I have to hold onto the ropes. Fabric covered the elephant’s back, and running parallel on the top left and top right were ropes like bungee cord. As I got onto the elephant, I felt unstable and fluttery-nervous and grabbed the ropes with both hands but had my right leg tucked under me. The elephant rose from his squatting position, and in reaction to the nightmarish sensation of suddenly rising upward without my feet touching the ground, I let out a small, high-pitched shriek that should have attracted numerous stray dogs. Fortunately, I don’t think any people heard it.

Numerous voices urged me to get my leg out from under me, and I slowly and awkwardly moved my right leg so that I straddled the elephant’s back, gripping each rope and panicking. I had no inclination to look to the left or right and instead stared at the elephant’s back several inches ahead of me, seeing the checkered green cloth and the white bungee cords. I didn’t know who was speaking, but someone, probably Jagdish, asked me if I wanted someone else to be on the elephant, and I nodded vigorously, with my teeth clenched. The old trainer climbed up over the elephant’s head like a spry little kid climbing a jungle gym, and the movement of the elephant ducking his head inspired me to let out another, though even smaller, shriek. The trainer turned and sat in front of me. I still clenched my teeth in a mirthless grin.

I was vaguely aware that while this was happening, a crowd, including Shantum, had gathered around the elephant and was urging me on. This awareness that many people were watching made me feel extremely foolish. I lifted my head enough to notice that on the path ahead, Erika was taking pictures.

As the elephant walked, I continued to feel completely ungrounded and precarious and vulnerable. My feet were, I felt, supposed to be on the ground. After a few steps, I was no longer panicking. I still felt nervous but had gotten beyond the shrieking stage, as if I had reached a plateau of fear; it was no longer escalating. I even paid enough attention to the garden for a few seconds to notice orange roses and bright green parakeets flying to and from a tree. The trainer spoke sharply to the elephant through most of the ride.

My heart rate sped up again and I was shaky as the elephant went through the slow process of turning in order to go back. I tightened my grip on the ropes. I was not in control of where I was going: an animal was shifting under me, moving sideways. It was a different movement than when the elephant walked almost straight along the driveway. I felt a bit relieved while we rode back, because we had returned to the steady pace and walked more or less a straight path, but I was still nervous.

Near the small crowd and the wooden steps, the elephant sank downward. In reaction to the sinking sensation over which I had no control, I felt shaky and fluttery and panicky again, and I gripped the ropes harder. I didn’t have to endure the steps and instead took the hands of two guys standing by the elephant. I slid down easily and let out a deep breath as soon as my feet touched the ground.

People congratulated me for conquering my fear, but I was simply glad it was over. That was no joy ride: it was an ordeal. Short of my two car accidents, that was probably the most terrifying experience in my life. I did not feel brave or proud but simply relieved that I was back on my own two feet. That ride was certainly one situation when I particularly liked impermanence, because I knew I wouldn’t forever be riding the elephant.

True, I also felt like I could do more, that I opened up to doing things that I would have avoided, out of fear, before I rode the elephant. I could see myself, for instance, going out into my back yard and organic gardening, even though I avoid spending time in my yard in daylight thanks to the misogynist creep next door, who harasses me if he sees me in my yard, and who even pretended that my back lot was his junkyard, until I finally called the police, which of course was yet another excuse for him to harass me.

I realize now that I’ve been controlled by my fears: fear of heights and enclosed spaces, and fear of people, especially of relatives. I also have fear of ridicule, fear of being yelled at, fear of abuse, fear of contempt. Fear of financial insecurity is the main thing that keeps me from moving out to the west coast, to a more artist-friendly and wholesome environment. But now I am starting to get somewhere on the path.

In his commentary on The Dhammapada, Eknath Easwaran wrote that the elephant for Indians represents untapped power inside everyone, and the Buddha, who used elephants as a metaphor for strength and energy, was nicknamed Great Elephant (p.175). Granted, the elephant that I rode was a bit more like Nalagira, the crazy elephant that nearly killed the Buddha, than like the Buddha himself. People were afraid of Nalagira, and I was afraid of riding Rajir, a young and ornery elephant in training. But that just means that Rajir hasn’t gotten very far along the path and needs time, as I do.

I was walking away from the elephant, enjoying the touch of the solid pavement under my feet, when Shantum walked past in the opposite direction and said while smiling and looking straight ahead, “Good job, Susan.”
I smirked, shrugged, and said, “Thanks.”

After the elephant ride, I packed what little I had unpacked the evening before. I left my suitcase and backpack on the porch and carried my Nepalese passport bag and my mirrorwork bag. I found a comfy spot to write in my journal: on a marble bench in the center of the grounds. When it was time to go, I walked to the bus with Natalie and we talked about my elephant ride. She said, ‘It’s perversely fitting that Shantum was pushing you more than anyone else and that he let everyone else get ready before riding the elephant.” Actually I didn’t have any idea that anyone else was scared.

I said, “I never would have been ready for it.” I added, “I tend to feel guilty for having my fears,” but I was thinking of my aversion for my verbally abusive relatives, and just, well, relatives in general, when I said it.
She said, “Then you should embrace your guilt. You could write a sequel to Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Anger that would be called Fear.”

I seem to have an awful lot of negative emotions to embrace: fear, anger, depression, and guilt. However, in spite of relatives jamming down my throat their belief that I’m a horrible and worthless human being and that I’m not making any attempt to become a better person, I rather suspect that everyone has numerous negative emotions. I also happen to know for a fact that I am attempting to become a better person, while these vicious and hypocritical relatives, on the other hand, are set in their ways and make it extremely difficult for me to make progress.

Who knows, now that I’ve climbed steeper mountains with steep steps, entered confining caves in spite of my claustrophobia, and ridden on an elephant, maybe I’ll conquer my fear of financial insecurity and move to the west coast, to a psychologically much more wholesome environment and a thriving artistic community. Perhaps I’ll conquer my fear of relatives and remain equanimous even when they surround me.

I experience guilt for having emotions, particularly the troublesome emotions of anger, depression, and fear. I experience guilt for having so much rage and bitterness toward relatives. And relatives enjoy force-feeding me guilt-trips; in hindsight, I realize that I was brought up to believe I have no right to have emotions. It is part of that sick and twisted story my vicious relatives made up about me and about the world. But here I am, getting on a negative track as usual, something the Dhammapada addresses in chapter twenty-three, aptly called “The Elephant”:

Long ago my mind used to wander as it liked and do what it
wanted. Now I can rule my mind as the mahout controls the
elephant with his hooked staff.

Be vigilant; guard your mind against negative thoughts. Pull yourself
out of bad ways as an elephant raises itself out of the mud (p. 177).

The Maharaja’s Lodge

We’re off on the road to Kapilavastu, the kingdom where the Buddha grew up and got married and had a kid. It was the beginning of sunset when, surrounded by fields and swampland, we saw big white birds with red heads, and Shantum explained over the microphone that they are sarus cranes, the largest bird in the world. At his request, the bus stopped before Shantum stood up to announce this. He said, “Susan?” I raised my eyebrows at him. He said, “Susan’s going to stalk them!”

People started getting off the bus with their cameras, and I had to get my shoes back on and get out my camera, so I slipped my sandals on while simultaneously moving down the aisle. I stepped outside into a swampland under the vivid orange sun in the pink-grey sky, and we walked slowly and carefully on bumpy wetland with patchy grass and hay while looking out at the huge birds in the distance. I took several pictures using my zoom.

I caught up with a few other members of our sangha, and Peter let me use his binoculars. The birds looked so much closer through them that I considered placing my camera up against the lenses. My eloquent reaction to the view of the cranes through Peter’s binoculars was, “Wow!” After we climbed back on the bus and started moving forward, I sat next to Gail again, and we drove further down the road before she pointed out to me two much closer cranes, only a few feet from the bus.

Shantum said the sarus cranes mate for life and have two eggs at a time. When one dies, the other is alone for the rest of its life. I hope the females don’t shave their heads, wear white saris, and eat only once a day, like many Hindu widows. Rumor has it there are two hundred couples of cranes in this area.

During one of our bathroom breaks, or at least some sort of break that involved the bus sitting still while we sat in our seats and I wrote in my journal, Gail and I witnessed very bad behavior on the part of a boy probably about ten years old. I looked out the window and noticed that he was giving us, or at least the bus, a horrible scowl, and I smirked and made a comment about it. Gail said not to look at him, that he was really nasty and had been acting downright obscene. This was shocking news, given the reception we usually get. Typically people, not always just children, smile and wave at the bus as it goes by, and lots of children are very friendly toward us. This was very different behavior indeed, which just goes to show how problematic it is to generalize.

I don’t believe I’ve stressed how common Indian dress is in India, even among young people. That’s pretty cool, I think, and unusual compared to other countries. I’m getting new ideas for my wardrobe. That may suggest that I’ll have an awful lot of clothes, but really, I’m leaving behind so much old clothing on this trip, and after I get back I’m likely to take other clothing to thrift stores, so that should even things out. Many salwar-kamiz and scarf color schemes have leaped out at me on the pilgrimage, and they include: orange and turquoise, dark red and either teal or turquoise, yellow and turquoise, orange and purple, purple and blue, really bright blue with really bright yellow, orange and pink, and finally a red kamiz with black salwar or trousers.

2

The tour bus, in the early evening or late afternoon, slowly made its way down an elegant and perfectly straight tree-lined lane. We came to a breathtaking view of a garden, or rather the Maharaja’s grounds, with many trees and flowering bushes and various marble benches and flowery metal archways. We had a fabulous view of the Maharaja’s hunting lodge, our home for the night. It looks like a small yellow art nouveau palace, though it is only small for a palace. The house is two stories tall and curvaceous and has a spacious wrap-around porch facing the grounds. I think I’ll like it here.

Out front Shantum stood next to a tall Indian guy and introduced us to him. I was the third in line. When Shantum introduced the stranger to Christine, she said, “Namaste!” and bowed with palms together. Natalie said and did the same. I held my bag in one hand and a meditation cushion in the other, and when Shantum got to, “This is Susan,” I grinned and said, “Hi!” The moment I said it, I realized that the guy standing in front of us was the Maharaja, or as Shantum had said on the bus, “the king.” But the king didn’t seem to mind my informality. After introducing all of us, Shantum held his hand out toward the stranger, gave us a big smile, and said, “Devendra.” That’s pretty informal, too.

We climbed onto the porch, where white Victorian-looking patio chairs and tables were arranged along with potted plants, and we entered through the double doors. While servants handled our luggage and Shantum, Jagdish, and Mukesh sorted through the room keys, the pilgrims sat around the Victorian sitting room and chatted. I found a deep window seat and plopped down, hiding behind a lace curtain, peering out and saying, “Peek-a-boo!” to Feroza. She was seated in a chair next to the window seat. We commented on the two empty tigers on a wall of the living room. They looked like antique tiger skins, so on the bright side they hadn’t been killed recently but rather many decades ago. I said, “I recently read that in Nepal there’s a royal tradition of entertaining guests with tiger hunts, and that this tradition has continued even in recent times, resulting in the tiger being endangered. It’s thanks to idiotic machismo.” “Yes, indeed, it’s ridiculous,” Feroza agreed.

I noticed a certain irony to a group of mostly vegetarian Buddhists staying at a hunting lodge. Several people commented on this, especially because of the (ew) empty tigers and tiger heads on the walls. As we settled down in the living room, Shantum smilingly said, “The path is full of unBuddhist elements.” Otherwise, I like the décor. All the furniture consists of Victorian and Edwardian antiques and I expect the place to be haunted.

The living room has a formidable fireplace with an elaborately carved dark wooden mantel. Two large old bookcases, with glass doors, full of old British books, some of which are a bit on the crumbly side, flanked the fireplace. Throughout the center of the room are carved wooden sofas and chairs upholstered in yellow velvet, and amid them are little round end tables. Everywhere the furniture was accessorized with old paintings, old photos, and brightly painted glass vases. The white plaster walls reached high up to a white beamed ceiling.

John later mentioned that he should have grabbed his suitcase, because the guy who was supposedly bringing it to his room just stood staring down at it. He said that he had had trouble with getting his luggage at other hotels, and I remembered the incident in Patna. John said, “Apparently I’m the pilgrim whose luggage just gets stared at instead of taken to my room.” My bedroom was the first one on the left in a long and wide hallway. Oddly, the key was for a padlock on the outside of the big wooden double doors, which were painted white. I unlocked the doors, swung them open, and stepped inside with a gasp.

It looked like I got the princess’s bedroom. The window across the room from the door was big enough to be another door and had dark blue and white patterned curtains. To the left stood a white fireplace with a large framed photo of presumably a past maharaja hung on the chimneypiece. Nineteenth-century antiques furnished the entire room. A dressing table occupied the far corner by the fireplace and had a mirror old enough that it was losing its silver and looking grayish and fuzzy, but charming for all that. Straight across the room from the door was a tall double bed with a brass frame, covered in a bright blue and white cotton print bedspread with a rolled up yellow print bedspread at the foot, and next to the bed was a nightstand and lamp.

I set down my bags on an old dark brown table and walked across the dark blue industrial carpet, noticing that old black and white photos sprinkled the room and that as with the rest of the house, the ceiling was extremely tall and molded, with beams running the length of the room. In all, I have a very charming room that looks like something out of the late Victorian era. Out in the hallway, I could hear Jennifer visiting different people’s rooms to see what the décor looked like, and Shantum said, “Are you inspecting your castle?”

To the right of the door, near the bed, stood another door, and I stepped in to see the white-tiled bathroom, where the tub had feet, the toilet was modern and Western, and the sink was huge. I heard echoic voices and footsteps ascending stairs on the other side of a glazed French door next to the toilet.

I had glimpsed the dining room while we were still hanging out in the living room, and after I left my new room, I entered the dining room and sat at the largest table. In addition to the long main table, two small ones stood nearer the fireplace. Along one wall stood an antique glass sideboard, and along the back of the room stretched a long table covered with silver buffet dishes, with footmen, I mean servants, wearing black uniforms and standing by.

The table where I sat was not only very long, but also unusually wide, much like the dinner tables I picture while reading, say, a dinner party scene in an Oscar Wilde story or play. You’d almost have to have a wide table to accommodate so many plates and glasses. Rikki seated herself at the foot of the table, and to her right sat Christine, and I sat next to her. Shantum was one of the last people to enter the room, and as he sat down at the head of the table, Rikki called to him, “Hey, Shantum, could you pass me the salt?” Shantum picked up a saltshaker and comically raised his arm as if to throw it to her, like it was a baseball.

Erika looked around at us and said, “We’re looking more and more Indian.” Sure enough, lots of us wore shawls. I gasped and said, “I didn’t put on a shawl!” and scooted away from the table. “With all the shawls you have now?” Ann said with a smile. “I’ll be right back!” I said as I got up. Feroza said, “You have plenty of time; there will be seven courses at least.” Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who thought of Oscar Wilde.

When it was time to go out to the concert, we all headed for a set of French doors at the back of the dining room, and as I passed the fireplace, I noticed Valerie looking up at the three tiger heads displayed on the mantelpiece. I had been making a point of trying not to let my eyes rest on dead body parts. Valerie said, “How fast do you think those tigers were running, to get stuck in the wall like that?” The three male servants—I’m tempted to call them footmen, especially since it looked like we’d gone back to the Victorian era—smiled broadly at that comment.

We strolled across the back yard toward a grouping of chairs and three little log fires in three-legged metal pots that stood within the semi-circle formed by the chairs. Behind the chairs loomed several trees, the lawn was closely mowed. Overhead the sky was very dark and the moon was full. I gazed up at the moon while I stood near one of the trees and remembered that today is the Celtic springtime holiday Imbolc. I sat down in the center, by Elly and Feroza, and I gazed at the bonfire that was directly in front of me.

The chairs faced a small one-story building, on the front patio of which were a couple of musicians seated cross-legged on a long white-draped table. Both musicians were male, which didn’t surprise me, and the younger one tuned a harmonium, while the skinny old guy sat behind a set of traditional drums. I was excited at the prospect of listening to live classical Indian music and enjoying the bonfires under the full moon at the Maharaja’s lodge. Wow, what a treat!
Shantum introduced the Maharani; her name is Rashmir; she was also at the bonfire, wearing an elegant silk sari, and she settled down up front with the Raj. Shantum and Devendra told us about classical Indian music and musicians, before the musicians started performing.

“Royalty patronized musicians in the past,” Shantum said. “Now classical musicians are mainly teachers, such as at schools and colleges. Musicians follow a guru, and there are houses of music, such as the Banaras School of Music. A musician can have a different style of raga, if they have a different teacher. It takes thirty years to master music. They start out taking eight hours just to practice on a single note, and it takes six years to acquire a master’s degree.” Eight hours on a single note? That has got to take a plethora of patience.

Shantum and Devendra continued to explain things to us between ragas. The older guy might not sing tonight, Devendra said, because he had a cold. He sang anyway, though not as often as the younger guy.
“All music is a form of prayer,” Devendra said.
Shantum said, “The highest form of music is vocal: singing the notes instead of words. They write a few notes and create the mood.”

The music, drums and harmonium, an accordion-like instrument, is rhythmic and hypnotic. The younger guy was at least my age, and the other looked very old. They really grooved on the drums. Harmoniums are wooden boxes about one and a half feet long by less than a foot, and placed on the floor or on the ground, if played by street musicians such as the woman we saw playing one by the colorful box-like Muslim shrines in Kushinagar. Sure, the harmonium is a sort of keyboard instrument, but the sound reminds me of an accordion.

Devendra said of music teachers, “Of course they are very strict. They will give you a thrashing,” and that’s why lots of students don’t stick to it.
Shantum said, “Gurus are often related. The father or uncle passes it down to the son.” I would like to think that maybe, once in a blue moon, the father passes it down to the daughter; Ravi Shankar taught his daughter Anoushka Shankar to play the sitar, although she’s probably the exception rather than the rule, judging by how common it is to see men employed but not women. It’s no wonder so many beggars are women. Shantum also said, “Men usually sing women’s parts—beautifully, and they sound like young women but are usually fat, balding men! Love songs contain a double meaning: they are not only addressing the boyfriend but also a deity, such as Krishna.” Well, for a blue guy, he is pretty.

The bonfires consisted of three little cauldrons on stilts, inside our semicircle of chairs. A couple of the bonfires were quite ornery and pieces of fiery wood periodically fell on the grass, and each time this happened, a servant came and picked the wood up with bare hands.
We drank delicious masala chai, followed by hot lemon ginger water, while we listened mesmerized to the beautiful music. I felt the air getting chill, and I wasn’t the only one swathed in a woolen shawl.

During the concert, I heard barking, growling, and running right behind us. At first I thought the animals were jackals and I gasped, but looking behind me I saw they were a group of four stray dogs. They were having an argument and running. Even the grounds of a maharajah’s lodge aren’t exempt from stray dogs. I remembered when Feroza and I watched dogs playing on the lawn at the Thai temple in Bodh Gaya, and she said they’re dangerous in packs, so this situation made me a bit nervous. However, the servants easily ran off the dogs.

Listening to the music, I rocked from side to side slightly, like a charmed snake. The music reminded me of Gypsy music, which isn’t surprising since earlier I overheard Liz say that Gypsies originated in India. The Romani are one of those groups of people I would love to get around to researching someday; so far I’ve only read portions of a book on Gypsy fortune telling, to help me out with tarot cards. When the music stopped, I heard jackals howling from all directions. I joined in.

The concert is over, and I’m back in the princess’s suite. Even from my gorgeous room, I occasionally still heard the jackals. The lodge’s ceilings are about twenty feet tall; Feroza had said it’s because hot air rises, and this way the hot air would presumably be overhead on hot days, since the house of course predates air conditioning. After dark, the house seems more echoic than earlier; I could swear people must be able to hear all over the house when I merely put down a glass of water or a toothbrush. Yeah, tonight I met a Maharaja and I’m staying at his hunting lodge. This is living it up.

As I settled down to sleep in the big soft bed and turned out the light, to find myself in pitch darkness, I felt glad none of the tiger parts are in my bedroom; I’d have nightmares. I would not be a bit surprised if this house is haunted; it feels like it is, but not in a bad way.