Sarnath

Another whirlwind of India passing by now, and just a few minutes to write down some of the recent experiences before they get forgotten... maybe better that way...? :)

We woke up the next day at the Thai monastery and saw the many sites around Sarnath, stopping to meditate for some time at most of them. All are ruins now, ruins of two to two and half centuries old. The earlier ruins are from the Buddha's day, and there are other mixed in with these from Emperor Asoka's time, the ruler who built 84,000 monuments all over India commemorating the Enlightened One. Many of Asoka's pillars and stone designs are still visible as one walks around the area, and the better preserved pieces (some of them stunningly well kept in 2 centuries time) are on display in the local Archeological Museum. We saw the place where Gotama met his five ascetic friends after returning on foot from Gaya, the place where he first taught them, and the place where he met the wealthy merchant Yassa and where he became an Arahant. There are smaller stupas all over, and we are told that each of these smaller stupas contain a relic from one arahant. Needless to say a very peaceful, and very stong, atmosphere to sit in! The most powerful place of all, even after 2500 years, was the ruins of an old hall where Buddha himself used to sit. We passed many hours sitting here, and they were challenging moments to remain equanimous with! (I later asked a monk how they could remain so powerful even after so many centuries, and he responded, "Even after eons and eons, it will be so.") We also walked by Deer Park where Buddha gave many sermons, and which still contain spotted deer, and saw the remains of many monasteries. We meditated in one temple where there are remains from the Buddha himself... also very powerful. One hour and I felt like I was Day 5 of a course! Much of the historical information about these places come from the Chinese pilgrim Husin Tseng, one of the most famous Chinese ever, who risked peine of death to leave China, then a closed country (this was some 1000 years ago or so), to study the original Buddhist texts as he felt the Chinese ones had lost the essence of the wisdom. He snuck out of China and risked many dangers, came back decades later and snuck in, and is now celebrated as a kind of national hero. Anyway, he kept exact notes of everything he saw, so exact that much modern scholarship is based on his records.


The Thai monastery (and all the other Asian ones as well) offer this peace and respite from the Indian streets and in all ways make you feel that you are in another country. Everything is written in Thai and we even drank Thai hot chocolate. There was a seven day anapana course going on with a dozen or so foreigners (farangs!), and many monks. Many times groups of 50 or 80 pilgrims or monks come and we have to arrange with the head monk when we shall eat-- more difficult now that we have taken the vow of 8 precepts with Bhanteji and can't eat past 12 noon (a delay yesterday meant eating an entire lunch in 7 minutes... yikes!) The sites offered this kind of peace as well, an instant silence of mind and body upon entering and walking a few steps. As one monk (American, but had been away so long he had lost his accent entirely--see above as Bhanteji pays homage to him) said, this is a very good place to see more clearly and make a strong determination for something within one's life, and it seeps in deeper to the heart.



Meditating outside, even in such an environment, brought on a new sort of challenges. In the morning and evening hours, one has to cover the body in a mosquito net, and a crack of the eyes catches literally dozens of mosquitoes hovering about just outside. Even a covered knee, touching the net, somehow allows the insects to get a bite in, and not just one but half a dozen in a minute period. The daylight hours bring the scorching Indian sun, making the yogi search for shade or position an umbrella strategically, and also replaces the mosquitoes with equal number flies, literally a dozen or more at a time. Then there is the intense pain brought about from sitting on hard earth, the shuffling of extremely large groups of Korean, Japanese, Thai, Taiwanese, or Sri Lankan pilgrims who come to these highly charged places and recite chantings, light incense, and often take pictures of the meditating figures, usually while chattering much during the time and wearing the same color garmets. Also a small concern is one's property, there being a handful of poor Indians who jump the fences and try to hawk goods or ask for money (even from monks).

The essence of what the Buddha taught may be reviving in the country of its origin as well as around the world, but there is much to see in Bihar-- India's poorest state by far-- that makes one understand how it has been lost completely. Just minutes after these pilgrim groups deposit their offerings of candles and incense, and turn their backs, a whoosh is heard, and looking up from meditating one sees a horde of poor kids blowing out all the burning items and snatching them up to sell for a few rupees somewhere else. Manual labor is everywhere, it is pervasive. I think of the hardest jobs of physical labor I have ever done and see people of all ages and builds doing it every day, and in the Indian sun no less. Here are women spending their days pounding the earthen ground, to compact the soils (above left)...

India was still the land of missed opportunities and one Indian hour taking more than half the day. By mid-day one day, we were supposed to meet our friends Alastair and Gilod, coming from Bombay, and two Indians and monk coming from the south. No one was there up to hours later. So me and two others hopped in an autorickshaw headed for the afternoon group sit at the Sarnath Vipassana Center about 8 km from town, had a fierce conversation negotiating the price, and just before we set off, who shows up but Alastair and Gilod, who jump in with us (somehow!) to the rickshaw with their bags, we drive through the most bucolic and beautiful countryside I've seen in India, so clean, so lush... seeing hand operated spinning wheels that cut the straw, water buffalow being led over the fields, circular pillars of dried cow dung used for fuel (that one can see them picking up while still fresh), women balancing large baskets of wheat on their head, etc... it reminds me of a scene from Sujarat Roy's film the Trilogy of Apu. (Dung piles drying above)

We get to the center (left is a photo of the meditation hall), a walled in small area in the center of this pleasant country life, and even after calling to confirm we can arrive and sit, we wait through several people of the Indian bureacracy, are questioned on our Vipassana experience and nationality, and told not to wander past a certain point. Finally we get in for the 2.30 sit, on time, a beautiful hall with wide spaces and allowing an airy breeze. For the first time in days we are seated on a cushion in doors, and it feels like heaven... transient as both may be! I had actually suggested to Kedaar that maybe I should sit a few hours inside and some outside as well, since the distractions were making it almost impossible to meditate. But he responded that if I was just able to try, to fight, then it was better to be in such charged places-- that even though I might feel more equanimous in room, the benefits were much greater in these other places, even the moments of observing were far less...

After the sitting our taxi driver looks a little shaken (to the right is a photo of him looking shaken eh!), he has just spent over an hour on Dhamma land for the first time, and after some gentle words he shows strong interest to taking a course. "But I am a poor man" he says in his limited English. He is a grandfather, and even without leaving a donation after ten days, the income he misses from his work is considerable. The Indian hour sets in again, we wait as a Dhamma worker finds some forms in his language, then wait again as we get tea, then again as we get more tea for the half who couldn't get it the first time. Finally we leave, having made all the inquiries for our driver to be able to attend the upcoming March 2 course, and leave dana both with the center and for our driver as compensation... "You are very happy" he says to me, though questionable as it may seem... "I want to have a mind like yours. So I go."

We get back to the Burmese monastery and find Bhanteji the monk and the Indian couple. In my first meeting with him, I don't think I've ever been in a room with anyone who has lit it up so. Words are meaningless in trying to describe, so I won't. He left the householder life after taking about 10 long courses in a couple years, and Kedaar has told me that he has attained extremely high stages of meditation. It shows. He has been appointed by Goenkaji to be able to teach Vipassana "to Buddhists." In our next day with him, he chants as we sit, gives instructions, and as we walk around these important sites and monuments, he tells us many stories and even discourses. With a monk, there is now a whole new set of considerations, as the monk must follow the 223 rules (Vinaya) set down in the Buddha's time and still followed today. Also are the rules on the way that lay people must show respect to a monk. These are fascinating to me and also present a challenge to the Western (and especially American) mind, and much in my own has been giving kicks from within. Our society doesn't have a way of really honoring or showing respect to people (maybe outside of celebrities), and though I see the vast benefits that such meritous deeds surely bring, there are many strong aversions that raise their heads too at times... conditionings can be strong...

Now I have been writing this in such a flurry, I don't know if I will even be able to check for spelling errors or the like... we were supposed to leave yesterday but India had other plans. I could go into them but like everything else they don't really make sense to experience or to tll about... but involved ordering a car for us ten people and then having the car drive off with our bags and not getting them, taking a nap in the evening to leave at 11 pm by car but now it's close to nine a.m. the next day and still in Sarnath, someone just came in to tell me we have a bigger car (the last one was horribly small) and are leaving in one hour. The car shall take us to most sites, the trip has changed every day and often more so, we are now going to Nepal and extending the yatra by one week. The taxi driver, Krishna his name, showed up outside and with a serious face said "I am 100 percent going on 2 March" and asked for my address.

It is an interesting time, and nice to go into this space than the usually limited ways of either sitting or serving a course. As Bhanteji says, "This next while will be harder than what you do there in Igatpuri..." He went on to say it is because we must never take a break for the next little while... always aware, and even when walking or eating he says some words of wisdom on remembering sampajanna or anicha...

For photos of Sarnath, click here...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=bjovs9y.4g8ss6f6&Uy=3zyrm0&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0 or
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=bjovs9y.4g8ss6f6&Uy=3zyrm0&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=563742485163_151715647106