To: Shakyamuni Buddha
c/o Ultimate Bliss
Nirvana
From: (Another) Precious Human Form
Samsara
Bodhgaya, India
Dear Buddha,
Or perhaps I should begin this “O Great Enlightened One”?
I know it's been a while since you've visited Bodhgaya (about two and a half thousand years), so I thought you might be interested in the developments here. It is, after all, the place where you achieved your Enlightenment, just across the river from where they say you took the milk rice and broke your fast.
In order to arrive here, travelers come through the city of Gaya, a terribly poor and devastated city. I'm told that these days, the state of Bihar is one of the poorest in India, and as I look out into the dusty city at the dusty faces of the impoverished, I can see that it is true. Trash is a common site in the streets of India these days, but it is doubly so here; cows, dogs, small hairy pigs, goats, and sometimes people can be seen chewing away at the garbage. Everything is dry, waiting for the monsoons.
I share an auto rickshaw with another pilgrim, and am given an clear view of the city from it. We pass through.
Bodhgaya, I am happy to report, is neither so poor nor so depressing. The mood here is light as pilgrims from all over the world come to visit the Bodhi Tree. It seems, Enlightened One, that there are only two types of people left in Bodhgaya: the pilgrims and those who take their money, and even those retreat to houses and huts outside the city grounds to sleep for the night, returning every morning with their wares. With the exception of some slums and a few small residential areas, the city is now mostly hotels, guest houses, and monasteries. This is where I find myself shortly after my arrival.
The main temple, built on the site of the Bodhi Tree, rises only a short distance away as I turn to enter the hotel (something, something International). A fat, greasy man waits, and, without greeting, answers my question (how much is your cheapest room) with a grunt: “500.”
I shake my head and turn to leave, and he calls after me, “Is 500 not cheap?” I laugh derisively and shake my head, asking to see the room. No windows, but no bugs. I'm generous when I return. “For this room, I give you 200” (for, you see, my speech patterns take the strangest paths in India). He looks down and smiles like a little boy caught misbehaving, and checks me in.
Bodhgaya is still beautiful, O Shakyamuni, although perhaps not in the way you had known. It is colored in earthy hues of the dust, and is now ancient. The main temple, now thousands of years old, is the heart of it all, surrounded by gardens and marred slightly by bizarre garish sculptures. A meditation garden entices pilgrims, then stops them with a sign: “Meditation: 25 Rupees.” Shaking my head, I continue to circumambulate past this.
Thousands of Butter Lamps glow in long shelters off to one side as I continue my walk. Finally, I arrive at the center, and see it: the Bodhi tree. Unfortunately, Great Teacher, the Bodhi tree was just as subject to impermanence as the rest of us, but I am told that this is a descendant of that tree. The Main Temple looms, beautiful and ancient (although equally impermanent, it has been refaced and restored many times). Monks and nuns line the inner courtyard, catching the leaves of the now shedding tree. As I sit below the tree, serene, leaves begin to fall into my lap. I collect them for others who know Your teachings. When I go, I leave crane 92 to continue to meditate under the tree.
Alas, I said that there was good news and bad news. The good news, I have largely shown: the city of Bodhgaya is still filled with pilgrims, cherishing the Dharma, and celebrating your life.
But for every pilgrim, there is a tourist. These are mostly Hindu tourists, who talk loudly in silent areas, who stop meditating Westerns for a photo with them, including the dozen (plus) men to hit on me in the temple periphery.
And for every pilgrim plus every tourist, there is a someone seeking to empty their pockets. Beyond the temple (even, sometimes, sneaking inside of it) there are thousands of salesmen of every sort, selling crystals, selling Hindu items of worship, selling Buddhist items as well. At the center of the circle, the heart, is the bodhi tree, surrounded by a small periphery of relative peace. Beyond is a circle of salesmen, beggars, and thieves, using religion in cunning ways.
Beyond this are the temples and monasteries. They are dotted throughout the landscape, temples from nearly every country, from many, many traditions. One can visit these, walking past more salesmen, beggars, and thieves, to enjoy the artful decoration of the shrine rooms. Crane 91 sits in a Kagyu Temple, facing a picture of His Holiness Karmapa. The monks, it seems, are mostly hiding from the loud Indian tourists, and after a temple tour (filled with pushing and shoving tourists, eager to get their pictures) I do as well. I see little sign of practice or teaching; with the tourists, the temples feel cold, like museums, despite the oppressive heat.
But it is not without hope. Early in the morning, the monks and nuns, the pilgrims, come to the main temple for practice. The stores and stands are not yet open, the thieves and tourists still sleeping, and the place is still sacred for a few hours every day.
The scope of time between your age and my own is difficult to imagine sometimes, but it becomes less difficult here in Bodhgaya, where I am surrounded by ruins. One of the shopkeepers, I find, lives in Dharamkot several months of the year, and we learn that we share a common friend: the friendly owner of the Himalayan Chai Shop (the one who rewards loyalty with extra chai). Bored and eager to practice English, he asks me if he can walk with me. His shop, he tells me, doesn't need more than one person's attention during the off-season. His name: Shiva: God of Destruction. My name: Kali, the dark ferocious goddess (for this, I find, is often what many Indians hear when I say my full name).
He takes me past the main temple to the river, which is now completely dried and dusty. He points across it; on the other side is the spot, he says, where the Buddha (You know this story already) broke his fast with milk rice. He takes me through ruins of an old ashram, no longer used, an old temple, and into a grassy area. “Cobra Gardens,” he says, “although I have never seen a cobra here before.”
And I'm back to the ruins quicker than my obligatory round at the reptile house at the Columbus Zoo. Relaxing among ruins, I leave behind crane 90, who, I'm sure, will be able to tell me if there are nearby cobras should I ever return.
So this, Teacher of Teachers, is Bodhgaya today.
It is good news and it is bad news. It is India, land of extremes, where the beautiful and pure becomes entangled with the corrupt and the ugly until everything is tainted with both beauty and ugliness. India, where the extremes are so great that we cannot help but be reminded of the Middle Path.
It is good news and it is bad news. But it's not really news.
Yours in the Dharma,
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