Immediately after my dip, I ran back to my hotel, showered and soaped my body, shampooed my hair, put in eyedrops and brushed my teeth. I ended up with just a mild rash which went away after three days... Before Varanasi, I spent a few days in Bodhgaya, where Buddha (formerly Indian prince Siddartha Gautama) attained enlightenment after seven days of meditating under the Bodhi Tree. There I wandered about the Mahabodhi Temple all day, trying to get a bit of my own enlightenment through osmosis! Several Buddhist countries have constructed elaborate monasteries for their own monks to live in while at Bodhgaya, and you can wander from Tibet to Thailand in a couple hundred meters. The other facilities for 'tourists' lack a bit, but most don't linger too long here. I searched for a Vipassana meditation class, taking a rickshaw a couple miles outside of town to this known Dhamma school, but alas, the teacher was away and no courses were on offer then. In fact, I arrived a few days after several festivals and important Tibeten events (their new year) so most of the monasteries and such were winding down from that. Instead, I made a nightly pilgrimage to the temple, removed my shoes (a requirement) and circumabulated the temple three times in walking meditation. Around me, groups of monks chanted, sporting the classic crimson and orange robes. Other groups in white sat in prayer: Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, groups from all over came to pay homage to the primogenieur of their philosophy/religion. As chants also played over the modern PA system, I sat in sieza (where both legs are folded under you and you sit on your ankles) since I cannot manage lotus and pondered the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment, etc. I also wondered, 'what the heck am I doing? I don't FEEL anything!' So I sat and sat and sat. Well, it took me a while, but I realized you can't force these things. Its a step by step process for most and half and hour of meditating where Buddha sat doesn't always do it. No shortcuts! |
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Leaving the tranquility of the temple grounds, one immediately falls under seige of the touts outside the gate, selling incense, toys, beads, prayer flags and all the other accoutrements of religion. Its the same everywhere in India and I felt more used to the noise and fury of it all, ignoring it more easily. (Maybe this meditation stuff does help!)
I drifted off after a couple days, and hoped onto a local train to Varanasi, tired of my valient but seeming futile effort to find my Buddha nature. Better luck next time!
Everywhere in Varanasi, wander these ascetics who renounce all possessions seek enlightenment through 'Sadhana.' These men (only men) are known as sadhus; though to uninformed eyes they look like homeless guys, and act like them since their renunciation of possessions means they must beg for money, I mean 'alms,' to get through the day. After a couple days, I tired of handing out 2-3 Rupees to each guy (about 10 cents).
Clad usually in orange robes, they look like a band of Fanta mascots, except for the scraggle beards and the yellow or red paint exhibited on their foreheads. For years they pursue daily meditation and mortification of the flesh to reach a state of nirvana, supposedly. Wandering around here you feel like you stepped into central casting for some Rudyard Kipling movie.
Many of the sadhus seem to swear by 'catalysts' to help them in the search for nirvana, smoking prodigious amounts of hashish and offering some to every passerby. I turned down these generous teachers, never sure what actually passed around posing as hash.
One Austrian backpacker went beserk in my hotel, howling obscenities and incoherent phrases. He dashed out and ended up fighting some Indian policemen. Without any travel companions to look after him, the hotel folks generously collected him screaming back to the hotel. I awoke one morning and in the lobby found him buck naked, smeared in his own feces and yelling at the poor Indian innkeepers, who stood with bamboo staffs to protect themselves.
Finally, a few days later, another Austrian who checked in was enlisted to try and talk this guy 'down' or get in touch with the embassy for assistance. I left later that day, not knowing what happened, but impressed on not sharing every joint passed my direction.
After a week in Varanasi, tired of relaxing on the rooftop and watching the river flow by, I headed north to the state of Himachal Pradesh and the headwaters of the Ganges in Haridwar and Rishikesh, about 300 miles from Varanasi.
continued on the next page.