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).

Mayadevi and Lumbini Grove

I awoke before our wake-up call and wandered toward the narrow back room, where I looked out the immense window and immediately spotted a peacock on the lawn. I grabbed my camera and went out barefoot and still wearing the t-shirt and pants in which I had slept. The peacock walked along the stone path on the lawn behind our room, and I tip-toed very slowly and steadily behind it.

The bird was obviously a male, with a blue and green iridescent tail, several feet long, trailing behind. It walked with its head bobbing as if to music that it heard on invisible headphones. I followed it till it left the path and turned around a corner of the building, and I saw a low brick wall next to the structure. The peacock flew up and landed on the wall, and in a matter of minutes it flew upward again and landed on the slanted roof of the hotel room. I took photos, meanwhile, including two of the peacock in flight. Soon the bird disappeared as it strutted away on the roof.

Walking on bare feet damp with dew, I returned to the hotel room. “I stalked the peacock,” I told Erika. She later quoted me and said I “looked like an egret creeping up on a trout.” I gargled three lids of mouthwash, due to my congestion, and coughed up some phlegm before heading out for the meditation practice. Despite my search for Sherry’s room the evening before, I hadn’t spotted the temple, and I expected the sangha to meet up in the lobby, but nobody was there. I asked at the front desk, and a woman in Nepalese dress led me to the bridge-like walkway that crosses the courtyard, and straight in front of us, on the other side of the walkway, was a little brick-walled temple where the sangha had gathered. I thanked the employee profusely, feeling silly for not noticing the temple’s location before, and sneaked in a few minutes late. I put down my mat and cushion and sat near the entrance.

The brick walls curved into a circle, and the floor was also brick. To the right was a simple shrine, a square niche in the brick wall with a black Buddha statue centered in it. Shantum had already started guiding the meditation. Between my lateness and my cough, I didn’t have the most wonderful concentration on my breath, and I had to start meditating over and over again. I self-consciously tried to suppress my cough so that it wouldn’t disturb the other meditators. When we got up, we mindfully walked from the temple, across the courtyard, and to the dining room for breakfast.

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The sangha came to a gate leading to a long, long path; we seem to do that fairly frequently. Jagdish took care of our entrance fees at a small square building on our right, and we walked up the long path. We were out in the country and saw countless trees and bushes on either side of the path. We encountered a minimum of begging children, who as Feroza pointed out, could play in the lovely weather and in the beautiful rural setting. In addition to the trees and bushes, we espied a lake on our right, and toward the end of the trail we came to many merchants’ tents on our left and a red and white Tibetan temple on our right, partially hidden by the trees. Finally we reached a sign for the garden where Mayadevi gave birth to the Buddha on the way to her parent’s house. The sign said:

MAYADEVI TEMPLE BIRTH-PLACE OF LORD BUDDHA.

An extensive grassy lawn with scattered trees lay ahead of us. We moved across the lawn to an asok tree, where Shantum posed as Mayadevi grasping a tree branch like an ancient Indian tree goddess, as legend claims she did when she gave birth to the Buddha. The asok tree has dark, long and skinny leaves with curling edges; the sakya tree has a leaf of basically the same shape but smooth, without crinkling edges. After Shantum showed us each tree and identified them, I picked up a leaf from the ground under each.

We walked from the trees to a plain brick block, I mean building, which is rather nondescript and made of red brick with a cupola-like white square centered on top; on the white surface are painted Nepali-style Buddha eyes looking out on the world. That was the only pretty thing about the facade. On a far side of this building we came to another Ashoka pillar.

As we stood looking at the Rummendei Pillar, placed in the garden by Emperor Ashoka, Shantum explained that the message carved into the pillar says that Ashoka exempted the people of Lumbini from eight percent tax, because the Buddha was born there. The pillar dates from about 200 BCE. It is broken in half and a small black metal fence surrounds the pillar, not improving its photogenic quality, although I took several pictures anyway. Behind it is a long narrow metallic stand holding burning candles as offerings.

It took me a while to notice a rough stone lying by the pillar; it was the capital that has fallen off and has also been weather-beaten over the centuries, so that I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. It was curved and sort of shaped like a loaf of sandwich bread. Perhaps it originally had been a lion.

Next time I’m in London, I’ll go to Trafalgar Square, look up at Nelson’s column, and say, “I didn’t know Emperor Ashoka traveled all the way to London! Does this column mark the Tube station where the Buddha delivered a powerful speech that inspired hundreds of Britons to shave their heads and don yellow robes? Or is this where the Buddha climbed onto a double-decker bus?”

The temple now looks like an archeological site. We went inside the protective red brick building and saw the ruins of the Mayadevi Temple, around which we walked on a wooden bridge or catwalk along the edges of the room and bridging out through the middle of the room. The remains consist primarily of crumbly, beige brick and some square ditches that must indicate small rooms. I had to resist walking faster and kept glancing toward the bridge in the center of the building, because lots of people stopped there to admire something important.

When I reached that focal point, I saw that a tall brick wall stands in the center of the building, and looking up at a high point of this wall, I saw a much worn red stone image of Mayadevi giving birth to the Buddha from her side. She stands in a graceful and slightly leaning pose, just as earlier tree goddess figures stood, such as the large yakshi statue we saw at the Patna Museum. Below the plaque, little squares of gold plate liberally gilded the tall brick wall.

Looking down from the walkway, I saw a stone about a foot long behind a glass plate, in the floor. While we still hovered around the pillar, Shantum had explained that this stone, found at the site, is believed to mark the location of the Buddha’s birth.

We perambulated in hushed silence indoors, and after we went back out and slipped on our shoes with an absence of hushed silence, we followed Shantum past ancient brick ruins that included some tubular shapes, no doubt the remains of small stupas. Overhead was strung a riotous burst of color in the form of countless Tibetan prayer flags; they were apparently tied at each end to trees that were very far apart, so either they were particularly long strings, or someone tied normal strings of flags together to make longer strings. We walked around a big tank of green water where Mayadevi is said to have bathed before giving birth, and where I stopped to look at turtles. The Buddha’s mother was probably somewhat anxious to get to her mom’s house and not so interested in watching amphibians.

On the far side of the tank stood a huge and impressive old bodhi tree with Tibetan prayer flags tangled in its wide-spreading branches. I let a silly smile take over my face when I looked at this enormous, gnarly tree. In an ample niche of the tree trunk was a shrine, which included some sort of square carved structure painted bright red, a great deal of red powder paint, and some marigolds and burning candles. The old tree was seemingly made of ropes of whitish-brown bark that formed dramatic nooks, like upside-down triangles, in the trunk. In another nook of the tree, Natalie sat meditating between huge roots, the way I imagine the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. A mass of red, yellow, blue, white, orange and turquoise prayer flags hung so near that some of them must have brushed the top of her head.

I walked past Natalie and the tree and headed in the same direction as the rest of the sangha, toward two sizable trees each surrounded by a circular wooden bench. We sat at these benches and admired the many colorful Tibetan prayer flags overhead. This is such a soothing, peaceful, and happy place. Two stray dogs, craving companionship like most of those we’ve encountered previously, hung out with us. Shantum told us stories about the Buddha, his mother Mayadevi, and Lumbini.

Shantum explained that the ruins we just explored inside the Nepalese red brick building, the construction of which, I would like to point out, was not a stellar moment in the history of architecture, are ruins of the original temple, dating back to the third to seventh century CE. The bridge crosses the center, and Shantum now reviewed the part about the stone supposedly marking where the Buddha was born: it’s down below the walkway and inside a glass cabinet, and below the worn plaque of Mayadevi giving birth.

Shantum told us about Siddhartha’s birth, which is typically described in supernatural terms, but it certainly did take place here in Lumbini Grove, where Mayadevi was traveling on her way to her parent’s house; in India it is traditional to give birth at the maternal home. However, I’m reluctant to believe that the Buddha was born out of Maya’s side or that he walked shortly after birth and lotus flowers appeared in his footsteps.

Both Shantum and Jennifer were vocal about not liking attempts to deify the Buddha, and I certainly agree. The Buddha taught that he was a human being and stressed that anyone can achieve enlightenment. Shantum said, “Supernatural birth devalues birth, and women, in general.” And I might add it comes up a lot in male hero tales, such as Cuchulain and Jesus. No doubt this is one of those things that didn’t appear in mythology until patriarchy came along about five thousand years ago.

Shantum proceeded to tell us stories about the Buddha’s childhood and early years, up to the time that he left his wife Yasodhara and his newborn son, Rahula. Meanwhile, I hear whimsical birdcalls. The trees under which we sit are full of Tibetan prayer flags and talkative birds, and the two dogs lie on the dry yellow grass.

While we still sat under the trees, a couple of Nepalese men, one of whom was extremely old, came along and spoke with Mukesh and Shantum, who smilingly gestured and said to us, “The Buddha’s grandfather.” Shantum explained to the visitors where we are from and translated that the old man, who is almost ninety years old, said, “He’s very fortunate to come into our presence.” He was an old Nepalese man in an off-white dhoti and kurta, light green scarf, and sunglasses.

Buddha’s grandfather said this was the site of a goddess shrine, where people used to sacrifice animals, according to legend. The locals believed it was a goddess here and only later found out it was the Buddha. Shantum said, “A goddess is right because it is a temple to his mother, Mayadevi.” It’s a mother goddess power place; no wonder it feels so good here!

“It is very nice that people like to come here, we bring it good karma,” the old man said, and Shantum translated again.
“The local monastery supplies employment, and the price of land goes up,” Shantum said. “The old man is from here, and the guy with him is from India, a friend, and a father of his son-in-law. He is wearing his best clothes.”

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.

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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.

Disneyland for Buddhists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birthplace of the Buddha

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3
Back on the bus, I could swear I saw two birds the size of ostriches slowly walking in a field. They were white with red heads and long skinny necks. I have seen a multitude of cranes, goats, and cows. This part of Nepal looks like India, though I’ve imagined Nepal more closely resembling Tibet, which it probably does further north. We passed a crowded country market with stalls made of sticks and thatched roofs. We also passed many fields, some of which are bright green, some bright and happy with the yellow flowers of mustard plants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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