The last stop on my railway crossing of northern India was Bodhgaya, the place where Buddha attained Enlightenment under the bodhi tree. For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha.
According to Buddhist traditions, circa 500 BC Prince Gautama Siddhartha, wandering as a monk, reached the sylvan banks of Falgu River, near the city of Gaya. There he sat in meditation under a bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa). After three days and three nights of meditation, Siddharta attained enlightenment and insight, and the answers that he had sought.
Diary excerpt from February 6, 2008.
I just had lunch at the OM Cafe here in Bodhgaya. This place also has clothes for sale (and other wooly things and purses and beady things). The whole place looks and feels like the (hippie) places on Bloor Street in the Annex that sell the same stuff. The sameness is startling. There were places like this in Kingston and Buffalo too.
Everyone here is drinking tea, except for a table of monks (in maroon robes with shaved heads). They are all drinking Coca-Cola from the bottle with straws.
Not far from the filth here, I went to the Japanese Temple and joined their daily 5 pm meditation. Compared to the rest of India I had seen, just being in such a clean space took me half way to nirvana. After only 1/2 an hour of meditation, I had attained enlightenment; proven by the fact my right leg had completely fallen asleep, thus signifying a separation of the mind and body.
3 comments:
Hi Burke, so your irreverence for the meditation stuff is kinda charming.
You're the guy who deconstructs the likes of Brunelleschi, Bernini, and Dante with spectacular precision, clarity, and sensibility. Tuning into the sublime like that may put you in the same esoteric category as buddhist monks...Although standing between you and nirvana will always be your intractable attachment to Apple (which I so understand).
As for Toronto, since you will be back shortly...you may recall there are snippets of the sublime floating around here as well, despite the limited wingspan of this town, vis-a-vis the places you've been lately.
We had a taste of the sublime in PP and N's backyard the other night, with CC breaking into Kundalini chant, aided by DH the dazzling torch singer, and PP the purring baritone.
Spontaneity is sublime too and hard to come by in our over-communicated world.
Welcome home if that's the last of the blog before you drop back into TO. I think lots of people missed you here.
Since I don't know you, I'll miss the blog now that you're home. How backwards is that?
Inversely yours, AA
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Bodhgaya is on one of the most visited places in Bihar which is very famous in India for its tourist places. Last year vacation we visited to the Bihar, Bodhgaya is really an amazing place to visit. It is mostly visited by Buddhist peoples.
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