Category Archives: India

A Passage (back) to India

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Kolkata, India -After the trek around Annapurna, I moved into a quiet guesthouse near the massive Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, read books about Tibetan Buddhism, and joined hundreds of locals in the daily rounds circumnavigating the Stupa in the morning and evening, spinning prayer wheels and chanting mantras. All told, I stayed in Nepal for over two months. Then came time to leave. I heard about a direct bus from Kathmandu to Bodhgaya, India. Bodhgaya is the holiest pilgrimage site in Buddhism. It is where Siddhartha Gautama sat down under the Bodhi tree and got enlightened over 2500 years ago. The tree is still there (a descendent of the original), and I wanted to go sit under it.

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I was hesitant about the bus at first. We would be traveling at night, which is not advised for many parts of Nepal and is downright risky in the state of Bihar, India. Many Indians won’t go to Bihar at all, let alone travel by night. It has a reputation as a desperately poor and lawless place, where the wild dacoits roam, robbing busloads at gunpoint. Plus we would be crossing the border at Raxual, notorious for its sleazy and corrupt border guards. (“Don’t even think about it” is pretty much the sentiment on the travel forums.) But hell, if you got scared every time someone told you it’s dangerous, you’d never go anywhere (especially if you listen to the US State Department travel advisories). And anyhow the nice Nepali girl at the ticket office assured me it would not be a problem. Sensing adventure, I paid the twenty bucks and got the ticket. Continue reading →

A Short Border Story

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Sunauli, India - Whatever possessed me to stay the night on the Indian side, in the god-forsaken border town of Sunauli, rather than cross into Nepal first chance? The whispering spirits of Dust, Grease, and Diesel. Maybe the town was lonely. It was certainly desperate. And I was tired. All night on the hard-pack bunk (#14) of the only sleeper car on the passenger train from Varanasi to Gorakhpur, someone else’s smelly feet, my bad stomach forcing me to grab my cowshit-encrusted shoes from under the pack which occupied a full half of my bed, slink down to the floor without kicking someone below me in the head, and make my way to that little metal room at the end of the car with a keyhole-shaped squatter flushing directly onto the tracks. Then the bus to the border which, like the passenger train, stopped everywhere, finally landing in Sunauli where I was met by the inevitable chorus of rickshaw drivers jockeying their wheels into position in front of the bus door and shouting at me (only me) through the closed window pane. The only way to lose them is to keep blurting “No thanks” and head off with determination in some direction, any direction, as though you know where you are going. Which you don’t.
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On the Banks of the River Ganges

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Varanasi -From the prayer flags flying from the hilltops of the Tibetan community of Dharamsala to the yogis, ashrams, temples, and yoga centers of Rishikesh, I went from Buddhism to Hinduism on an overnight bus. Waking up bleary-eyed and short of sleep in Rishikesh, I thought: I’m back in India. Shopping ladies in colorful saris, ochre-robed wandering sadhus, huge trash-eating cows lounging about blocking traffic, destitute crippled and diseased beggars, families of Hindu pilgrims with red dots or straight lines on their foreheads visiting temples and shrines, the hum and bustle of people filling every space, garbage and raw sewage underfoot, mangy dogs, and constant honking.

For the next couple weeks, I followed the course of the Ganges, the holiest river in Hinduism (personified as a goddess, the mother of all). I tried to get to its source in remote Himalayan Gangotri, but couldn’t get all the way because the temple there had just closed and no transport remained. I meditated on its banks in hilly Rishikesh, where the tributaries converge into roaring headwaters, running fast and glacial blue. I bathed at the ghats in the Holy city of Haridwar, where the river is still cool and clean. I watched the cremation ceremonies at the ghats in Varanasi, a city older than history itself and the center of the Hindu cosmos. Varanasi is thought to be a gateway between the worlds. It is said that if you die there, you achieve instant liberation. Continue reading →

Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism

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Dalai LamaMcleod Ganj, India -A simple monk. That is how the Dalai Lama describes himself when approached by the Western media, who invariably want to know, “Who are you?” But come to the Tibetan communities of Northern India and you will get a very different idea of who the Dalai Lama actually is. His picture hangs from almost every wall. Almost always he has a silly joyous grin, like he just ate a cookie or thought of something really funny. He has those big goofy glasses and simple saffron and gold robes. Those in the West who meet him say he is completely without pretension. They feel as though they were meeting an old friend. He exudes an aura of warmth and unconditional acceptance, without judgment, moving those in his presence to laughter or tears. But for the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is like a combination of King and Pope, the head of state of the Tibetan Government in Exile and the most exalted lama of all the four major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. He is believed to be the incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Many believe him to be fully enlightened, a living Buddha, the highest form of being there is.

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The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1949, when the current (14th) Dalai Lama was only 15 years old. Ten years later, under brutal repression by Chinese forces, he fled into exile, making his home in Dharamsala, India (actually up the hill from Dharamsala, in Mcleod Ganj) and establishing the Tibetan Government in exile. Over 1 million Tibetans have died at the hands of Chinese; tortured, murdered, frozen to death on the long journey over the Himalayas in search of refuge. Over 6000 monasteries in Tibet have been destroyed, and those who remain are forced to denounce the Dalai Lama and undergo strict programs of “re-education”. The oppression continues unabated. In September of this year (2006), climbers on Mount Everest took video footage of Chinese troops firing on innocent men, women, and children at 19,000ft as they tried to make their escape out of Tibet. The suffering of the Tibetan people is almost unimaginable (see www.tibet.org), but under the direction of the Dalai Lama, they have responded to the Chinese with what can only be called compassion. Long-suffering, non-violent, patient. They have refused to adopt the mind of their oppressors, holding faithfully the basic Buddhist principle of causing no harm to any living being. Continue reading →