Bodh Gaya - 3rd Week

Hello everybody!

I am alive, healthy, and happy, though exhausted, after my third week in Bodh Gaya. We just ended our three week session on the Theravada/Vipassana tradition. This next week we move on to study Mahayana and begin practicing Zen meditation. I just returned Sunday morning from Varanasi, India; most of this entry is about that trip.

Varanasi (or Benares) was both delightful and exhausting! Many of the students decided to take the four hour train ride west this past weekend, because we had an extended 3-day weekend. Varanasi holds deep cultural significance for Indians and Hindus for a variety of reasons, but its main focus is the series of ghats, temples/ashrams which have steps that descend into the Ganges river. I took a lot of pictures but am still figuring out how to upload them safely . . . Here are a few from google.
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/india/images/varanasi/ghats2-cc-taraonholiday.jpg
http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/NorthIndia/Varanasi/VaranasiGhats08.jpg
http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/NorthIndia/Varanasi/VaranasiGhats45.jpg

Although we met up with other Antioch students there, I only tavelled with two other students: my friends Matt and Ryan. Thursday evening we squeezed on to the train - my first time on Sleeper class, the second most crammed way of traveling by train, the next being out-right no reservation seating (the ridiculously crammed trains you may have seen pictures of). It was really fun though; I got to sit on some fold down bunks with a nice family from Calcutta. On the way back, the family wasn't as hospitable. I curled up around my backpack in one of the high bunks meant for luggage and napped until seats opened up.

We stayed at a nice hotel and ate really well. Some favorites were a local bakery with amazing muesli and a Nepali-run restaurant with everything you could imagine prepared deliciously. Even at a higher-end restauraunt like this, I could eat a whole meal for the equivalent of 2-5 dollars.

The first day we toured the ghats by walking along the Ganges river and through the narrow gulleys that connect tenements, temples, shops, fruit stands, etc. They're crammed in a lovely, dirty way and were always compounded with a wide range of smells. From ghee, to oil, to perfume, to urine, to incense, to cow shit. Cows, bulls, buffalo are everywhere on the same streets as humans and can often be more civil (as with Bodh Gaya, a cow just walked past outside the window to my left). I got to sit down and drink chai with Shankarji, a really wonderful and interesting incense maker. He showed us everything from sandalwood, to lavendar, to bamboo that he (and his family) makes from scratch. I made away with some goodies there . . .

Our main objective though was to visit Manikaranika Ghat, Varanasi's main burning ghat. While the Ganges has sacred significance for many reasons, the main attraction for many is to be burned at one of the major ghats and to have one's ashes dumped into the holy river. The fires at Manikaranika are said to be 3,000 years old, begun with the death and burning of Shiva's mother. So a few of us made our way to decidedly respectful watching points, that were still only about 50-100 feet away. We sat there for a few hours, meditating on death and talking with those who approached us. I got to speak with an older man who's worked there for lord knows how long, tending to the cows that give the milk for the food stand right there on the river. Also, while talking with him, the great-grandchildren (a few men in their late twenties) of the deceased man being burned then came over and chatted with me, mostly about subjects besides death: Bodh Gaya, Indian food, Islam . . . I won't describe much more of what I saw, but if you're interested in hearing more perhaps we can talk when I return.

That night we also went to the guru puja at the main ghat, a cermony held at the river. Puja (worship) also happens in the mornings, as a group of us got to see at 4am the next morning, when we took an amazingly beautiful boatride down the Ganges at dawn. Next to be burned at the Ganges, it's considered quite auspicious to bathe in the Ganges too . . . So we got to see that - a rather regular practice for people who live in Varanasi.

In addition to a late night classical music concert and an overwhelming visit to Varanasi's major mall, most of that next day was spent at Sarnath, one of the four major pilgrimage sites for Buddhists. The Sarnath Deer Park is considered to be the place where the Buddha gave his first teaching after becoming Enlightened in Bodh Gaya. We got to meditate at and tour the beautiful park that hosts stupas containing relics of the Buddha. They also had pillars from the Asokan empire (1st CE). For me, it was especially meaningful to get to meditate there and reflect on the Buddha's teaching. The location's spiritual presence was very powerful (like the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya) and it really pushed my concentration deeper. Definitely another place I would have to talk more about in person.

On a more superficial note, I talked down a street vendor from 1600 to 850 rupees (42 rupees to the dollar) for my first Buddha statue -- a 12 inch sandstone statue where his hands form the teaching mudra, he's considered to have used in Sarnath.

Well, like I said, I'm still recovering from the trip and am quite tired, so I'll leave it at that. As for all of you back home, I hope you're doing well and that your stocks weren't completely devastated these past few weeks!