Root Institute

So, let me tell you a little bit about Root Institute. It's about a kilometer and a half west of Bodhgaya (where our revered Buddha attained his much-sought-after enlightenment), and it will evidently be my home for the next three months. It is a meditation center, retreat center (in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition), and also a free health clinic and hospital for the surrounding population (and they get free meals when they come in for their follow-up treatments, too). The inhabitants are mostly European, but there are enough Indians and Tibetans to go around.

Besides the two-legged inhabitants, we have our fair share of the four-legged type. One of the dogs has a hang-up about chasing things and she will drop stones on your foot (or in your lap, if you're sitting), and then watch them with a hawk-like gaze until you toss it away for her to catch. She is so hung up on this that she forgets to eat and is losing weight (we are worried about her health). The other dog (Flea-bag by name) just sticks her nose up your sleeve, in case you forgot that your main aim in life is to pet her.

And then there are the goats, especially the white billy goat with the attitude. They get tethered to various parts of the lawn every morning (in accordance with whichever part needs the most mowing), wearing their burlap bags as over-coats. So the lawns get mowed and manured simultaneously. There are two baby kids that have something to say to you every time you pass by them (baa), and Mr. Attitude will occasionally tilt his head back and raise his upper lip at you with a "come hither" (or maybe it was a "go yonder") look. Besides the attitude, he also has a fine set of teeth - he can and will eat the bark off the trees when his tether allows.

Bodhgaya has only about half as many mosquitoes as any typical South Indian town (which still leaves it in the millions), so my ankles and wrists are slowly recovering from the wildlife of Kerala - I wonder what the mosquitoes there are eating now that I've gone (at least 20 bites per ankle, and not much less per wrist). But I'm actually proud of my big right toe, which still shows where the leech got me. Walking along the roads of Munnar (a hill-station in mid-Kerala), and retreating to the long grass alongside whenever a car came by, I noticed later that there was some kind of black leaf stuck to the side of my toe, but I couldn't brush it off. Then I realized that it was too thick and too round to be a leaf, and much too persistent about staying right where it was. When I finally did pluck it off, it stopped being round, and one point of it (the mouth, I guess) started casting about in all directions, looking for lunch. Imagine a little ball of blood (my blood, no less), pulling itself around. Yuk.

But the really big thing is that I'm doing exactly what I came here for. A couple of years ago I was daydreaming about going off to be a Buddhist nun. So - living at a Buddhist meditation center, surrounded by Buddhist monks and nuns, meditating and practicing yoga every morning, and working as a volunteer in return for room and board – I would say that's pretty close. I spend my mornings working in the office, and my evenings riding around on the back of Raju's motorcycle and howling at the moon. (Well, that part wasn't exactly in the plan, but we have to be flexible, don't we?)

Raju is one of the local hot-rods that passed my pathetic little bicycle rickshaw the day I arrived and slowed down to find out "Where you from" and "Where you going". Later, in town, he reminded me that we met (yeah, like I'd remember him from all the motorbikes that did the same thing on that two-hour journey), and offered me a spin on his bike. What can I say, another dream come true, ever since "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Raju can speak six or seven different languages, but he can't read or write in any of them, since he never went to school. He's been living on the streets since the age of eight, when he ran away from home (twenty years ago), and now he's introduced me to his friends, each and every one of them just as homeless as himself. They spend their evenings round a fire in an empty lot, surrounded by bamboo constructions (which I have been assured will soon become tea-shops, in time for the Dalai Lama's visit here), making toast and smoking; and then they go to sleep in one of the tea-shop constructions. Pramod Kumar, one of the guys, has HIV, and is happy to declare that "my life is very short, but very happy".

Several people have told me that they couldn't handle India because of the poverty. And each time I think I have seen something bad, I find something worse. Raju and his friends, for instance, actually have clothes, a place to sleep, and food, and their limbs are intact, unlike most of the beggars rolling around the mall on your way to the main temple. (And I do mean rolling, because they can't walk.) I still haven't quite figured out the beggar woman who sits outside the fence of the main temple, bleating, with her hand stretched through the fence for hand-outs. So you have men and boys with match-stick legs, either crawling on all fours, or rolling, or otherwise propelling themselves with their hands, trying to get your attention and your money. And you have men, women and children trying to sell you anything. And all of these will wrap themselves up in their thin little blankets, or whatever other rags they have, and lie down to sleep in the street under the trees, and believe me, it does get cold here. Living with this, seeing it every day - there is a lot to learn here. How do you relate to it, to them, without getting either callous or depressed? How do you see them as people and not as phenomena? Not too easy...

I do a round or two at the main Mahabodi temple in Bodhgaya most days. Lately, it's been decorated (again) with millions of little lights, candles and lamps, and the trees around it look like christmas trees. This time, it's in honor of Tsong Kapa's birthday (some great holy guy in the Tibetan tradition, if I'm not mistaken). The point is, that it's still beautiful and awe-inspiring, surrounded by Buddhists of all types, with Tibetan monks (and sometimes just plain people) doing endless prostrations on wooden boards, pilgrims meditating, and people chanting and reciting all kinds of prayers in all kinds of languages.

Weird, strange, and very very wonderful, at least for me. I still don't know how to explain it, but I love it.