When I wrote last, I was just finishing up a week in Indian heaven: staying with my friend Schuyler and seeing the Dalai Lama. After seeing the holiest man in Tibetan Buddhism, I decided I should see the holies place for Sikhs so I headed to Amritsar and the Golden Temple. With the type of luck one has in India I arrived the day before the biggest festival of the year. This meant I arrived during a 5 hour long parade of school children and sword fighters. On the actual day of the festival, around 20,000 people crammed into the golden temple and listened to classical Indian music while fireworks exploded all around us. After the fireworks, I headed to the community kitchen where the Sikhs feed around 10,000 people for free on a normal day, but that day was not normal. Try to imagine a few thousand people all armed with clanging metal plates and bowls making a human battering ram to try to get through the barricade the cooks had erected. After we broke through, I quickly sat down, and almost immediately had rice, dal and chapati slopped onto my plate. After about 15 minutes a man came around with water and a squeegee giving me just enough time to get up so another could fill in my spot in the feeding line. Oh, India!
After a couple days in the free temple dormitory, I headed of to be tourist in Rajasthan. I saw camels and elephants, a Bollywood film in a huge theater and had the most unbelievable lassis. This time was ok, but I decided that I don't really like being only a tourist very much. I caught the bus to Delhi and met up with a wealthy Indian woman who runs a NGO in the South Delhi slums. Checking out the NGO was good; I got to see the shocking and unbelievable reality that is the slums, talk to some very committed people, and look into remaking the books I had distributed in Ladakh to fit the schools of this NGO. But, the best part of staying in Delhi was getting to stay at this awesome woman's house. She's from an upper-class family so I got to stay in my own room, have amazing western style food, have drinks in the lounge (which features a tiger pelt) and be waited on by many servants. I was living in the farthest reaches of both extremes simultaneously.
After Delhi, I traveled up to Rishikesh, a very holy town filled with many ashrams (Hindu monasteries) right where the Ganga comes down from the mountain. I went here because I wanted to see the center for Andrew Cohen, an American spiritual teacher who my cousin Joel had gotten me interested in. In brief, his teachings combine the eastern view of enlightenment with the western view of enlightenment. I'll hold back on saying more for now becuase I got so much out of my time there that I've decided to head back to Rishikesh in a few days do a month long retreat there. Other than my time at Andrew Cohen's center, I got to clean and give offerings to an 11 ft Shiva Lingum (pretty much a penis). I also got to watch a 40 foot statue of Ravana get shot with a flaming arrow and then blow up in an explosion of fireworks in honor of Lord Ram's victory. After a quick dip in Mother Ganga, I set off to return to my home away from home, Bodhgaya, where I am right now.
It has been so wonderful to be back in Bodhgaya. First, because three friends from Wesleyan, Angus, Claire and Anna, are here right now. It is so nice to see friends again and almost feel like I’m back in college. Halloween party! (I dressed up a a shiva lingam, Angus was a teradactyl) I’ve also got to meet up with all the friends I made in Bodhgaya this summer. Its pretty cool/strange walking around an Indian town and having lots of people know me. Bodhgaya has changed a lot since I left in August. Many of shops have been torn down because they want to make the place into a Buddhist Theme Park. There are lots more tourists now as well. I got to sit under the Bodhi tree in the middle of 1500 Bhutanese doing this Tantric practice where they play a drum and ring a bell while chanting and doing a visualization of destroying their body and offering it to anyone in need in order to get rid of ego clinging. I also took refuge and Bodhsattva vows, which means I have committed to aspire to not harm any sentient being and work for the benefit of all sentient beings. I’m hoping to take it seriously, but I have no idea how things will end up when I go back home. Now I’m off for a bike ride with Angus and in a few days I am heading into retreat. So, unless you email me in a couple days, I won’t be in contact until around December 10. Happy Fall!
