Can't Buy Me Buddhahood

After lunch, we first visited Ramabhar Stupa, the sacred ground of the Buddha’s cremation. It consists of crumbly brick ruins in the shape of cake made by someone who’d never made a cake before, sort of a lopsided and flat-topped hill, with a base around which many colorfully dressed Nepalese lay like reclining Buddhas while a lama, with Tibetan-style book open before him, chanted. From a short distance I saw him twirling a little two-sided drum and holding a gold vajra (dorje, in Tibetan, or thunderbolt, in English) while chanting. The Nepalese looked a bit like Tibetans, and the women wore sarongs and blouses in wonderful bright and colorful prints. Shantum talked with the lama and learned that the group was from Mustang, a small region of Nepal that practices Tibetan Buddhism.

Meanwhile, Thai monks in orange and yellow robes with that alluring off the shoulder look circled the stupa, chanting and creating a pleasant vibration around us. I mindfully circumambulated the Ramabhar Stupa three times, enjoying the chanting. The entire setting was calm and soothing and peaceful. On the backside of the stupa there was a pot of incense and some offerings. While I circumambulated, the Thais stopped chanting and gathered before the offerings. Meanwhile, most of our sangha joined the Nepalese pilgrims by lying on their straw mats in the reclining Buddha pose with heads toward the stupa.

At the ancient stupa ruins, a crowd of beggar children gathered around Val, who put little stickers on their hands; Yvette said it looked like she was feeding pigeons, because of the way the children gathered around Val, who reached out and put the stickers on their hands. As we started heading for the bus, Erika passed out pens to the beggar children: they grabbed at the colorful writing utensils, and she told them all to sit. They promptly sat in unison, like well-trained puppies. When she walked toward the bus, children surrounded her, and Ann commented on how kids are most inclined to approach Erika and Yvette, since they are close to the children’s size.

Due to my enthusiasm for using my camera, Mukesh started on ongoing joke. He says, “Susan, where’s your camera?” My answer is one of the following:
“It’s in my bag.”
“In my pocket!”
“My camera? Oh, no, I must have left it at the last hotel!”

We left the cremation stupa and walked up a path that the Buddha walked. We walked to a Hanuman shrine close to a group of colorful little mud Islamic shrines shaped like stacks of square boxes. In front of the shrines, at the edge of the path, sat Gypsy-like musicians with a drum and a rectangular box of an instrument that sounded much like an accordion and which I later learned is called a harmonium.

We came to a goddess shrine that included a square platform with a life-size blue Kali standing in front. Inside a little house-like structure at the back of the platform, a life-size Durga rode a lion. I tagged along behind, and by the time I caught up with the group, Shantum was explaining, “Women connect with the goddesses that are most like them.” That certainly explains my attraction to Durga, the single and independent woman, and Sarasvati, the geek.

Some of us, perhaps half of the sangha, walked down the road to the Thai temple. Bicyclists gawked at us as they glided past, and of course I had to stop and pet baby goats along the way. On our left, we soon arrived at the very elaborate and gorgeous Thai temple and monastery complex. It is made of white marble with gold trim and has the typical Thai look: a very steep pointy roof like a gingerbread house but ending in curly dragon faces at the corners.

We slipped off our shoes and climbed up the stairs of a temple that was the first building at the monastery, and we came to a white marble balcony where I paused to gaze at another temple nearby, that was a big square full of glass windows topped by a roof made of countless pointy gold domes. We went further up the white marble stairs and stepped into a breathtaking hall with deep blue walls and a shrine at the far end. On the shrine sat a big gold Buddha and many other gold, filigree-like statues and ornaments. We sat down on the carpet, and a monk turned on electric lights, or rather gold and crystal sconces. The abbot Govinda, whom we had met on Vulture Peak, entered the room, for Shantum had made an appointment with him. Govinda sat to our right, in what looked like a French Louis XIV chair.

The abbot gave us a talk and among other things said that his daily schedule includes three hours walking meditation, one and a half hours sitting meditation, and one hour praying. Most of Govinda’s talk focused on the unimportance of money, how it doesn’t buy you happiness.

“Next time, I’ll speak better English. Come back in five years,” Govinda concluded, before the sangha began asking him questions. Rikki asked him how he would teach us if we were his students, but he does not think his English is good enough; he could teach only in Thai. His English sounded impressive to us.

Shantum asked if Thai monks have bank accounts, and Govinda replied only for the sangha, not for themselves. Someone asked who cooks for the monks, and Govinda said they have “no food after noon, and nuns do most of the cooking.” Upon hearing this, I clenched my teeth and thought: big surprise. “The monks only go for alms in India on special days. In Thailand, they wake at five in the morning; in India later,” like eight or nine.

When it came time for us to leave the beautiful room, Govinda asked Shantum, “What country are you from?”
Shantum smiled and said, “I’m an Indian Buddhist.” This conjured a big smile out of Govinda, who is no doubt aware of how Buddhism died out in India. Who knows, maybe with a little help from Shantum, Indian Buddhism will make a comeback and in a hundred years, it could be perhaps even as popular in India as it was during the Buddha’s time.

The sun was rapidly setting by the time we went outdoors. From the balcony we paused to look out on the long white monastery and the temple. Yvette mentioned that both monks and nuns live at this monastery, and I said, “Yeah, but guess who does the cooking.”

We followed Govinda to the domed temple that I had noticed earlier. It’s a shrine that “looks like a big jewel box,” as Erika put it. We went inside, and an enormous glass case in the center contains a relic of the Buddha in one little box and some of his hair in a slightly lower box, both of which looked like standard-sized jewel boxes. We sat on the floor and practiced some chanting and meditation in front of the glass case. Everyone rose from the floor, and I circled the big glass box, reminiscent of Willy Wonka’s glass elevator, and I noticed that at each corner stood delicate-looking dainty gold tables covered with pretty gold things that were like filigree.

The temple and monastery are beautiful, but I was rather unimpressed about the comment concerning nuns and cooking. That jarringly woke me up, though I have read quite a bit about Asian women and Buddhism, enough that I once considered ditching Buddhism altogether. I must remind myself that bell hooks and Alice Walker are Buddhists, and that sanghas are more egalitarian in North American Buddhist communities, where I’m much more likely to participate in a sangha. But this distaste is about women in general, not me; we all are sisters.

The Thai monks can afford elaborate gold temples; this one in Kushinagar had a wealthy donor, despite Govinda’s stress on the unimportance of money. Yet they “can’t afford” to fully ordain nuns and not use them as servants, which really cuts in on the time the nuns should be practicing. The concept of treating nuns like monks is still alien to Thai culture, although from what I have read it is slowly changing. Tibetan culture has the same problem, with nuns working as servants and in many cases only starting to read when they’re in their thirties, whereas monks down the road are very literate and do all kinds of ceremonies and get plenty of donations, since it’s considered better merit to donate to monks than to donate to nuns.

Govinda talks against money and extravagance and emphasizes charity, yet Thai Theravada nuns are subservient to monks even right here at his Kushinagar monastery, while the temples are so elaborate and expensive. Jennifer spoke up about this conspicuous consumption to Shantum as we walked away from the temple, and Shantum reminded her that this monastery has a major donor.

I have read in the Buddhist magazines Tricycle and The Turning Wheel that boys who live in poverty in Thailand go to monasteries and get an education, while their sisters often end up as prostitutes and donate some of their money from prostitution to the monasteries. If Govinda would have thought of it, maybe he could have politely asked the donor to use the money to help improve life for girls from poor families in Thailand, those who would otherwise end up in brothels or on the streets. Compassion is important even, or rather especially, when it challenges the oppressive status quo. Compassion should help open your heart and open your eyes and inspire you to be awake when something is unjust and to do something about it, whatever you can.

Such thoughts don’t come to my mind because I’m under some smug delusion that I’m better than everyone else, as vicious relatives would sneeringly imply not for the first time if they read this, but rather because I genuinely believe in compassion, loving-kindness, and justice, regardless of my imperfect actions. I am at this particular point on the path, and no matter how incompetent I may seem at this point, I really want to change myself and the world. The more open-minded you are and the less in denial you are, the more able you are to embrace truth. Even if I don’t do a perfect job of expressing compassion, I have the sense to know that it is a top priority.

I admit I found the Thai temples and monastery breathtakingly beautiful and enjoyed wandering around the complex. For a long time I’ve had internal conflict between aesthetics and ethics. I like elaborate art and architecture, even castles and palaces, despite my anti-hierarchy beliefs, and yet part of my mind says this elaborate architecture used up money that should have gone into, for instance, saving Thai girls from sex trafficking. When I read about goofy pseudo-Neoclassical palaces in Kathmandu, I thought such buildings should be torn down and the materials sold to save Nepalese girls from being dragged into such a life. And in Thailand especially, sex trafficking is a huge problem, yet the male-dominated religious institutions get flashy gold and marble architecture.

It was dark outside by the time we left the big jewel box. The monastery, from what I could see, consisted largely of very long one-story white marble buildings. A short flight of steps led up to a little store that sold such things as postcards, where Yvette and Liz browsed.

I heard countless frogs croaking gently, like peepers in the early spring, and I noticed a sort of moat and a white footbridge leading to the short flight of steps to the gift shop. Much plant life that I couldn’t identify covered the bank of this little brook, and inside floated lily pads. I stood on the bridge and watched, and sure enough I saw movement in the water, a frog that created circles on the glistening black surface.

Besides Yvette, Liz, and me, the only other two members of the sangha who didn’t disperse were Jennifer and Rikki, who lingered in order to place a candle offering at a shrine that consisted of a simple square metal structure with a row of burning candles, in front of the short flight of steps leading up to the monastery shop. However, Rikki didn’t have a candle or a match and asked for them at the shop. We all ultimately stood in front of the shrine, and I gazed at the flickering candles, watching them dance and float in the dark night air.

Unfortunately, none of us was really sure which way to go in order to leave the monastery. We backtracked toward the temple where we had started out, and we made our way, in the dark, to the front gates. It was a beautiful evening and not too cold to be out and about, even though the darkness made it seem late. A tour bus was parked out front, but it didn’t take us long to notice that the people stepping off it were not from our sangha. We turned to the left and in the distance could see a few people walking away in the dark, down the narrow road.

“There’s Shantum!” Liz said. Sure enough, he was in the center of this group of people, walking at a leisurely pace. “I recognize his walk.”
“And his hat,” I said.
“Yeah, he has a distinctive walk,” Yvette said. It suggests that he walks mindfully every time he’s walking. We headed in the direction of Shantum and his walking companions, and surprisingly in a few minutes we were actually at the Lotus Nikko Hotel. None of us had had any idea that our hotel was so close to the Thai temple.

All Conditions of Reality Are Subject to Decay

I had a dream that ended with a scene in which I sat on the left side of the tour bus, gawking out the window as usual and seeing many people at the side of the road and litter on the ground. Standing still among these people was the tall and skinny figure of Death, wrapped in black rags. Even the face was covered with black rags.

My throat is full of phlegm and my nose is full of snot. Nonetheless, I crawled out of bed and headed down for our morning meditation. After we practiced our sitting meditation in the same hotel room as last night, the reading was about death and decay, rather appropriately given that we are in Kushinagar, where the Buddha died. The reading included gruesome stuff, reminiscent of Tibetan visualization practice. Hey, let’s take a field trip to a charnel ground! How peculiar it is that I dreamed about the Grim Reaper after arriving in the village where the Buddha died. It seems to me like more than mere coincidence.

I had time after breakfast to wander around the hotel courtyard, and on the path I met up with John and Yvette. We admired the trees around the lawn, such as clusters of thin bamboo tied together to form a mushroom shape, and a strange little fig tree with branches sticking out like the branches at the top of a stupa, above the dome. We stood near a small orange tree growing tiny oranges. Yvette said her mother had had a tiny orange bush like that, but much smaller, on her treadle sewing machine. “This tree shows what that little orange bush had the potential to become,” Yvette said. “We all have the potential to bloom into something greater.”

Shantum took us to the Paranirvana Stupa, during the monks’ lunch break. It was before noon, and Shantum explained it would likely be the monks’ last meal of the day. I have read that this practice of eating early in the day and fasting later prevents food from distracting monks and nuns from their practice. After I return to the States, I intend to only have breakfast and lunch, no dinner, but my lunches will certainly be after noon, not before it. I am sure that eating with others, such as houseguests, will prevent my sticking to this schedule all the time, but except for the exceptions I truly resolve to have only breakfast and lunch.

We walked along a path amid red brick monastic ruins, similar to the ruins at Deer Park and Nalanda. In the distance, amid the crumbly brick structures and trees, stood a small white building, the Paranirvana temple, which marks where the Buddha died. The roof curved like a barrel over the one story, and centered at each side of the roof was a large circular window. Below the front window was a veranda with big, bright red columns contrasting against the otherwise perfectly white façade. Flanking the central door were circular niches that may have once contained Buddha statues.

Behind the temple loomed a large stupa in good shape considering its obviously advanced age. The temple in front did not look especially old, because it was completely intact, sporting glass windows, and covered with a fresh lick of white paint. We walked on the path past small trees and a hedge and up a few steps leading straight to the front doors of the Paranirvana temple, which is built on top of a big square brick ruin with a metal railing all around the temple and stupa.

We entered through the front door. Centered inside is a gigantic reclining gold Buddha made in the fifth century CE. The statue is beautiful and on a larger than life scale; the Buddha lies on an ornate rectangular platform and looks so peaceful, as if he were napping. In front of him are various offerings, particularly of incense and oranges.

In a far corner, a row of five Tibetan nuns chanted soothingly in soprano voices while we circumambulated three times. I finally noticed that the walls were plain grey cement blocks; they did not draw attention away from the marvelous gold Buddha that dominates the small room and predates it by several centuries.

We sat down on the floor facing the Buddha statue’s front. The nuns departed and were soon replaced by three maroon-clad monks who sat in the same back corner. While we sat looking around or meditating, a young monk in a red robe approached the Buddha statue, got down on his knees, placed offerings in front of the Buddha, and pressed his palms together. Shantum continued telling us the story of the Buddha’s life, or in this instance his death here in Kushinagar.

The Buddha, at the age of eighty, was out walking with Ananda and ate something that disagreed with him and came here to lie down between two sal trees, tell his last teaching, and die. In the Buddha’s last talk, according to Shantum, he said, “Live simply,” and Shantum added, “No more silk scarves.” Ann and I exchanged an amused look, and I lifted a corner of my beaded and sequined paisley shawl.

Finally, as the tale neared its end, Shantum said, “’All conditions of reality are subject to decay. Strive diligently,’ the Buddha said. Those were his last words. In simple terms it means, ‘Change happens, and keep practicing.’”

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An Indian or more likely Sri Lankan monk, standing in the doorway in orange robes, spoke with Shantum, who afterwards explained to us that the Paranirvana Stupa is both a temple and an archeological survey. The archeological people are responsible for the signs saying, “No offerings,” and a Burmese temple is responsible for the donation box that sits close to the Buddha’s head. It is funny seeing a sign that commands, “OFFERING NOT ALLOWED,” below the Buddha statue’s head and inches away from a plate covered in marigolds, a bowl of fruit, and a donation box.

After Shantum’s talk, several people in our sangha asked to see the vast gold reclining Buddha without the orange and red cloth draped over it. Shantum spoke to the Indian attendant, and he carefully pulled the offering cloths off. We gathered around and took more pictures. The Buddha is plated gold from head to toe, with graceful curving lines indicating clinging draperies.
I was among those who circumambulated again. I gazed at the gold body all the way around, and as I approached the Buddha’s huge feet, several people ahead of me stepped forward, leaned, and touched the feet. I thought that looked like a good idea, but then I became slightly nauseous, thanks to this virus, and decided against it. I did not want to fall on or barf on the Buddha. That just would not do. So I slowly kept moving, reached the temple’s threshold, turned back for one last look at the enormous gold Buddha, then turned and slowly stepped out and took a deep breath in the relatively fresh air. When you meet the Buddha, vomit on the Buddha. No, no, take refuge in the Buddha; don’t barf on the Buddha. After we had had time with the Buddha uncovered, not to be confused with a Buddha unplugged concert, the attendants tucked him back in, so he could sleep peacefully.

I circumambulated around the two stupas, the one housing the statue and the one behind it, which we can’t enter, and that Emperor Ashoka built to mark where he believed the Buddha actually died. By the time I returned to the Paranirvana temple’s front facade, five or six orange-clad monks sat in a row to the right of the stupa entrance.

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I need to be more aware of death. Once in a while it has occurred to me that I should reject the Western attitude of avoiding death and pretending it will not happen, but I am not entirely sure how to go about doing this. Maybe I just need to think about it a little; I did once visualize myself as a skeleton while I was meditating. That’s simultaneously gothic and Buddhist. It would probably help if I get around to reading the entirety of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and if I read up more on Chod, a Tibetan practice that involves sitting in a charnel ground and visualizing a particular goddess tearing your body apart. Pleasant. Of course, Buddhism is not about blocking out things that aren’t pleasant but rather experiencing everything mindfully and seeking truth. I should also read the Mahaparinibbana Sutta; the original unwritten version of it dates to the Buddha’s death.

I know that I want my corpse cremated, and I thought I wanted the ashes scattered in earth, air, fire, and water, but now I wonder if maybe I’d prefer the ashes were poured into the Gangaji. On the auspicious side, that is, not the Ha ha, you’re gonna come back as a donkey if you die here side. True, there are plenty of people who live in India and would like their ashes to enter the Ganga, so it would be better if my ashes were scattered in North America or wherever I die.

This virus certainly won’t result in my death, but it is a reminder of impermanence and the fickleness of health. Impermanence is like death, which is a metaphor for impermanence, which is in turn a kind of death. That reminds me that the tarot card illustrating a skeletal Death actually represents significant change in general, not just literal death, despite the tarot scene in the opera Carmen in which the card predicts the title character’s demise.

A shift in attitude can be a death of a part of yourself, such as the transition from being in denial about something to having a better grasp of truth and feeling glad for the greater awareness. Likewise, such a change is not only death but also rebirth, because you have gained wisdom and knowledge. I know firsthand that shedding denial, such as my denial about relatives, can help an artist become more artistically creative, since naturally the artist has become more expressive and more observant; being in denial means putting up a wall between yourself and truth. Even that sort of impermanence, a shift in attitude, ultimately reflects the circular cycle of life, which goes from birth, to living, to old age, to death, and over and over again in the same cycle through countless lifetimes.

The Buddhist concept of being devoid of inherent existence is tied in with impermanence. Over the years, in this lifetime alone, I have undergone change in how I think, and that old part of me dissolves; so what is Me, anyway? We are constantly changing, constantly experiencing impermanence, and so we do not exist in the sense of being an individual entity, separate from the rest of the world. Gee, that connects impermanence with interdependence, too. I’m hardly surprised, since everything is connected; everything is interdependent.

I picture the Buddha lying in his golden robes between two tall, slender trees, with a large crowd of people gathered around. On his deathbed, and at the advanced age of eighty, his voice, I imagine, would not have been loud enough for everyone to hear. Perhaps when he answered questions, a younger monk announced the answers to the crowd in a booming voice. Meanwhile, the weary Buddha lay still and propped his head up with his arm and remained equanimous, fully accepting his death as inevitable.

On the Road to Kushinagar

Jagdish has a fitting metaphor comparing Indians and Westerners: Indians are sociable and outgoing like dogs; Westerners are solitary and introverted like cats. I am the most catlike of cats in the cat world. Meow.

Last night I had a dream in which I leaned over a grey stone or concrete railing and watched a filthy polluted river flow past with algae floating in it. I don’t recall seeing any part of the Ganga that looked like that, so perhaps my dream river was based on how I expected the Ganga to look after reading that dead babies and dead cows, among other things, are dumped into it. That is hardly an appropriate way to treat a sacred river.

Piles of trash with animals such as cows, dogs, pigs, and goats rooting through them are a common sight in India, whether in a city or village. They were particularly noticeable in Varanasi. That city had its share of filth and squalor, with piles of cow shit in the alleys and piles of trash with dogs rooting through it, but we had scarcely any encounters with beggars. The exception was while we passed grotesquely crippled beggars and headed toward Gangaji and it was still dark out.

We climbed on the bus this morning to leave Varanasi, the big filthy city full of phallic symbols. Today, while some people took a potty break, I took pictures of the view, particularly lentil fields and a white Hindu temple in the distance. Meanwhile, Erika, Shantum, and others walked down the road and saw many people at work, doing their sundry jobs.

After the small group of pilgrims returned, and everyone had climbed aboard the bus, Shantum took the microphone and announced that Erika would give us a report on the various industries that they just encountered. He handed Erika the microphone, and she said that they saw: people pressing oil from linseed, a shoemaker, an iron maker, a guy with a dancing bear, a carpenter teaching an apprentice how to make something, and a mosque. If I’d been paying attention, I would have taken that walk with them. But I’m glad I didn’t see the dancing bear. Shantum said, “Bears come from hills and forests. India domesticated bears and elephants, more often the latter.”

An industry I’ve noticed in India that I find particularly interesting is the tailor shops that don’t have electricity. They are typically what look like one-room shops such as the buildings I just described, and in the center of the room stands a black treadle sewing machine. Wooden shelves covered with bolts of fabric lined the walls. In one village, I saw a couple of tailor shops crowded with at least eight treadle sewing machines and with guys sewing at each of them.

I wonder if the sewing machines were all well-preserved antiques, or whether India still manufactures treadle sewing machines, which to me look Victorian. In the States, I’ve seen them often enough in flea markets and antique malls, and sometimes they’re rusty. I once sat down to a treadle sewing machine that had belonged to my grandmother; sewing with it requires constantly rocking a large pedal with the feet and continually turning the wheel with the right hand.

Today is another festival, a Muslim one, and during our long bus ride Shantum said, “There are always festivals in India.” The Shiite sect is central to the festival, a day of atonement. It is the day their leader, a son-in-law of Mohammad, was killed. The holiday involves intense self-punishment and lots of marriages (that alone sounds like intense self-punishment); it is an auspicious time and involves lots of processions. We drove through a village and saw throngs of Muslim guys walking around on the street and wearing simple cylindrical white cotton hats, or fez. Meanwhile, Shantum said, “You can make out what village someone came from by the type of hat or turban they wear and how they wear the turban.”

Members of our sangha asked Shantum various questions on the bus. He said that doorways to hotels have hats because it’s imposing. At the doorways of houses the paintings are a sign of welcome; I’ve certainly noticed quite a few wonderful and colorful murals on facades, especially while we were traversing down the lanes of Varanasi. Ganesh over or near door is also auspicious and welcoming.

“India has two legal systems,” Shantum explained. “The local caste system, with elders in charge of disputes about such things as land and children. And a legal system based on the British legal system. A case goes to court and there’s a precedent, and it goes to that precedent. Police stations are the location, and people file first an information report and say there’s a problem. The courts include: a local court, district court, high court, supreme court, and a national court in New Delhi.”

“Ashoka set up a traditional legal system,” Shantum said, “but the British system is based on power tripping. A small number of people have lots of power.” That sounds to me like America, despite claims that it represents freedom and democracy.

“The Indian president is Christian,” Shantum explained, “and she is very healing and good at solving disputes, but she’s not good at keeping down corruption; she just lets it go. Her husband is involved in some of the corruption. India has a movement to educate and elect women, but it’s more talk than action currently. Women are getting more training and empowerment.” Gee, that sounds like America too, but I’m sure we’re farther along.

While traveling, I usually look out the bus windows. I have observed stacks of dried cow paddies forming something like stupas. Also shaped vaguely like stupas are piles of tires with small ones on top. India has many scarecrows made of sticks and rags. I didn’t have success with sleeping on the bus but did something I called pseudo-dozing, not really quite dozing. That sounds like it should be a Sanskrit name or word: Suddhadosa.

“India has too many problems, too many issues,” Shantum said. It is overwhelming: the horror of things, such as sex slave trade, selling girls to be prostitutes. Some organizations work to save them, groups that are against child prostitution, such as the organization Care. “Media and education need to do research and expose the sex trade,” Shantum pointed out. Globalization involves selling girls to other countries, and even sex tourism. AIDS is another big problem. Child labor is a huge issue, but Shantum said, “The problem with ending child labor is that it would destroy the apprentice system.” Well, I figure that’s if you end all child labor across the board; the apprenticeship system could be an exception, as long as the hours are limited. After all, kids work on their family farms and do chores around the house.

“No hurry, no worry,” Shantum said as we were about to leave the restaurant after lunch on a restaurant patio, where we had a typical delicious buffet and followed it up with masala chai.
Natalie said, “Moving at the speed of guidance,” would make a great poster.

Right after we got on the bus, Jagdish passed out Cadbury chocolates and said, “Today is my cow’s birthday.” And he added, “I have a cow back home.”

During the all-day bus ride, we stopped at a village market. We wandered around and saw merchants with their paraphernalia spread out on sheets on the ground: countless colorful vegetables, herbs, spices, terra cotta pottery, and clothing. The spice guy took a newspaper and spooned a variety of spices together and wrapped them up in the paper, and Dornora bought spices from him. I thought the spices looked pretty, with the different colors and textures together on the white paper.

A woman, the only female merchant, stood in a corner of the market and sold stacks of terra cotta pottery, and Shantum bought a couple of little bowls, because Nandini broke the ones she had found in Deer Park. I’ll be lucky if I don’t break the chai cup I picked up, but then again it’s wrapped up in my fake silk scarf. Meanwhile, Erika took pictures of the many people, all male, something we were accustomed to by now, who followed us around, fascinated by this strange group of foreigners. They might see tour buses now and then, but I doubt many tour buses actually stop to visit their village market. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people whose idea of a vacation in a foreign country revolves around lying on a beach; you can do that on Lake Michigan in Indiana.

Near the seller of pottery, a guy sold clothing, much of which was still wrapped in plastic and therefore apparently had never been worn previously. I think all of it was cotton. There were lightweight cotton shawls, and Valerie purchased one that was a pale off-white, almost orange, and trimmed with a pattern in metallic gold. Jennifer bought a small pink sleeveless blouse, and later, after she realized it was too small, she gave it to a little girl who was begging while we took a walk. The clothing merchant also had a bright blue cotton skirt with a three-inch ruffle along the hem, and Shantum explained that this is a petticoat worn under the sari. As Jennifer observed, Indian women wear underwear that looks a lot like Western outerwear, such as the sleeveless blouse and the petticoat.

After dark we arrived at the Lotus Nikko Hotel in Kushinagar, which has a gigantic lobby with a long row of large arched windows, and centered in front of these windows is a Buddha statue, a replica of the one at Sarnath that we imitated in our performance art with Rikki. In front of the hotel’s statue is a plate of offerings, particularly marigolds. While Shantum, Jagdish and Mukesh organized the room keys, the sangha sipped cups of masala chai and sat at yellow carved wooden Victorian-looking sofas or wandered around the lobby and observed.

Liz and Yvette stepped out of a doorway, which I soon noticed led to the hotel’s shop, where a merchant was selling wooden beads and sculptures. Erika said to Liz and Yvette, “I can always rely on you to show me where the shops are,” and to me she said, “And I can always rely on you to show me where the animals are. I can always rely on Jennifer to show me where the bathrooms are.”

My hotel room in Kushinagar is amazing. The décor is simple, but I think it would be very easy to live in such a room, because it’s bigger than my last apartment. It doesn’t have a kitchen or a walk-in closet, but it has more floor space than my apartment had, and it has a low partition rather than a full wall with a door, which sort of creates another bedroom at the back. On the far side of the partition, the room contains a third bed, a coffee table, and upholstered chairs. The carpet is a drab brown and the color scheme is bland brown and white, but I could see myself living in a place with this set-up for months on end.

Unfortunately, I feel like Tigger without his bounce, because my nose is badly congested. Last night I caught the virus that has been going around in our sangha. I am low on cough drops, and yet a cough drop in my mouth will likely get me through the night.

Since shortly after the pilgrimage began, the virus has been making the rounds among us, and a couple days ago Jennifer said I must be really hearty, because I have not gotten sick yet. I said that it might be because I had a flu shot, since normally I get sick relatively easily, but on the other hand this is no flu. On the second night of our pilgrimage, Rikki had warned during “Strucks” that when people get sick while traveling with a group like this, the germs spread; someone had suggested covering your mouth with your elbow when you cough, rather than using your hands and potentially touching someone, and I’ve been using my elbow to cover my mouth ever since. During dinner at the Radisson in Varanasi, Dean the retired doctor said that we’ll all catch it but after that will be immune to this virus, at least for five years.

Our journey to Kushinagar was surely much easier than the Buddha’s journey there. He had been about eighty years old and in less than perfect health, walking by foot with his buddy Ananda. During this walk, he stopped for lunch and was accidentally poisoned, so he must have felt even worse than I do with this virus, and he died after arriving in the village. We, on the other hand, travel using modern transportation and have nothing worse than a virus going around, from which we know we’ll recover. Impermanence doesn’t only apply to pleasant things, of course; we can look forward to recovering from most illnesses.