Varanasi to Bodh-Gaya, Preparing for Enlightenment

Varanasi to Bodh-Gaya, Preparing for Enlightenment

I had hoped to send one last post before entering my 10 day retreat and had a plan to do so. It was a good plan, but this is India and one must learn to expect the unexpected, to abandon expectations and go with the flow since to resist is futile. So what follows are a couple of stories from before I entered the 10-day retreat.

My last night in Varanasi was another incredible evening. I wanted to hear some Indian music and had noticed a flyer for what was described as Sufi Soul, kiwali music at a nearby guesthouse. I sat on the roof top with 100 others as we enjoyed the haunting sounds of a master flute player, accompanied by a guy on a vertical stringed instrument played with a bow (excuse my ignorance here) as well as a percussionist on a set of Tablas. They did a single song that must have been at least 30 minutes (all their songs were of similar duration) mesmerizing us all. This was followed by another set in which the flute player was replaced by a harmonium player and a sitar player who combined their voices in spiritual chanting that was breathtaking! It required the determination and will of an ascetic, but I managed to hold my camera by hand for over 30 minutes to record most of this. It should make for an interesting bit of video.

As if this performance was not enough, a woman started dancing with it. She was beautiful as were her graceful movements. I don't think it would be likely to see such dancing in the us. Though I was a bit concerned that she might think I was hitting on her, I did go up to her afterwards and express my appreciation for making a very special night even more special. She took the complement without offense or suspicion and instead gave me a huge and genuine smile, like the one she was displaying during her dancing.

As I walked along the Ghats back to my hotel I felt I'd been uniquely blessed yet again.

The taxi picked me up at 4:30 in the morning to take me to the airport. I had a sleeper car so figured I'd be able to get some sleep during the 4 hour ride to Gaya (which is a short tuk-tuk ride from Bodh-Gaya).

HA!

The train was packed like only India can pack 'em. It was a struggle but I managed somehow to get my backpack, my daypack and myself into the middle bunk. Once there the surrounding floor area was quickly covered with wall-to-wall humanity and I could neither see out any window to be able to find my stop nor imagine how I might be capable of extracting myself from my current position.

But I managed to get reasonably comfortable and tried to dose off, thinking that perhaps in 4 hours I might find the conditions improved.

I did manage to get a bit of semi-sleep and when I regained the better part of my consciousness, I began to notice the people around me with more interest. These were the folks who would either help me find my stop and get me out or not so I was relieved when they turned out to be some young high school students, most of whom spoke at least some English. They were quite friendly and helpful and said they'd tell me when we got to Gaya. They were in the middle of a 4-day train trip from Punjab in the northern-most part of India to Calcutta in the southern-most part. They had just placed 3rd in a music competition and they were the sweetest kids you could ever meet. With bright eyes and eager smiles we chatted about everything from economics (they were quite surprised that I did not know about Ravindernath Nath Tagore and his Nobel prize) and music (they love Michael Jackson). They taught me how to say I love you (ami tomake bhalobashi) which they had me recite to their teacher whom they called over from a neighboring compartment to meet me. They were delightful and when we got to my stop were instrumental in helping to extract me from the human sarcophagus in which I was entombed.

After arriving in Gaya, I was recruited by a monk to ride along in a tuk-tuk to Bodh-Gaya with several others. Along the way the driver would pick up some and drop off others. At times there were as many as 10 others. If you've ever seen one of these 3-wheeled glorified scooters you might be incredulous that 11 of us (some like me with considerable luggage) could fit into and on one of these, but I'm sure this was not a record of any sort. That's just the way things are done in India, no space is willingly left unused.

After arriving in Bodh-Gaya I had to catch another ride to the Bodh-Gaya Vipassana Meditation Center, which was surprisingly far from town, particularly to the poor rickshaw peddler.

Once there I got registered and unloaded my backpack (always a joy!) and was preparing to go back into town to get something to eat and find an internet café when one of the facilitators, Remi from France, said that lunch would be provided for us at the center and that I could use his computer and their wi-fi internet connection to send my last post before entering the 10-day retreat.

That sounded like a good plan but I was foiled by 3 converging issues:

1) The computer Remi loaned me had a French keyboard. Several of the letters and much of the punctuation is different than a us keyboard and aside from challenging my patience (what a great tool for discovering aversion and lack of equanimity!), it slowed down my writing by more than half.

2) There was no outlet in my Spartan quarters and Remi's battery was only good for about 1 hour of (very inefficient) typing.

3) In the end it all didn't matter because when I went to connect to the internet to send what I had, it was down and my time had run out.

So you now have what I would have sent then. I'll report on some of what happened during and after the retreat in another post, hopefully within the next day or 2.