Kalachakra

Well, the Dalai Lama has come and gone, and we mortals are still here in Bodhgaya, which is slowly warming up. I've been told that the locals have a delightful 42 or 43 degrees (celsius, which is around 107 or 108 fahrenheit) to look forward to, and you can safely bet that I won't be here to enjoy it with them. We're still hectic down at Root Institute, because the high holy resident lama is giving a course and yours truly is looking after a hundred and fifty people, give or take a few tens, who have come to hear what he has to say. But today the rest of the guys at the office more or less kicked me out, and told me not to come back before evening, so here I am, at the computer (yet again), telling you about it all.

I did actually attend one of the sessions with the Dalai Lama himself. The whole commotion here was about the Kalachakra teachings, and I have to admit (although I am really and truly ashamed to say this) that I still don't know exactly what that is. The word Kalachakra means wheel of time, or something to that effect, and the teachings have something to do with the meaning of existence (which is what the whole Buddhist philosophy is about anyway), but I'm still just as hazy about the exact explanation as I was before. Maybe when I finally get it, I'll be an enlightened being...

So we all got our little green cards saying that we were entitled to enter the Kalachakra grounds, and we pushed (or got pushed) in together with the thousands of Tibetans that have been streaming into town (and are streaming out, now that His Holiness has gone). I've been told that there were a hundred thousand or more people here. The Kalachakra grounds are a big dusty empty lot, right next to where my road-boy friends (and about a hundred of their compatriots) set up their little restaurant. They built some kind of fancy (temporary) house in the middle and set up a bunch of bamboo poles and stretched plastic sheets over them, so that we common folk would have shade while we sat on the ground and listened. There was an area for foreigners and an area for Tibetans. Maybe part of the reason I like being in India so much is the preferential treatment you get in a lot of places just because your skin is white (I hope not). His Holiness the DL speaks in Tibetan and there are "on-line" translators speaking quietly into microphones that transmit to the FM radios which we all have. The first day, we managed to get the french translation and the chinese translation perfectly, but the english translation, which was supposed to be on a frequency between those two - just wasn't there (the next day was better).

While you're sitting there, if you look towards the Tibetan side, you see these long white silk sashes floating into the air. It looks like a school of dolphins, every few minutes another one gracefully jumps forward into the air and streams back down onto the sea of people sitting there. The Tibetan form of devotion and respect is offering these sashes, and if HH isn't right there to accept it, then he can get it airmail. Halfway thru the teachings, a huge group of monks got up and walked over to the edge of the grounds, returning with huge teapots. After they finished handing out tea (who would have believed that they could quietly serve tea to a hundred thousand people by just walking around with big pots) - they handed out money to the monks. It's really weird to see a monk with a wad of hundred rupee notes walking around handing them out to other monks. Everyone just sits quietly, and everyone gets what’s coming to him. And no-one complains. Amazing.

After it's all over, the crush of people getting out is enormous. You don't really have to push to get out, you just have to position yourself among all those monks (who evidently were only taught about patience when you're sitting down) in such a way that you can just coast along on their waves to get out. I wasn't terribly interested in getting back there afterwards (what can I say, I'm chicken when it comes to big crowds of people).

Since then, I've been holed up at our office, checking people in and out, and hearing complaints about leaky faucets and burned-out water heaters. All kinds of things happen here, including a girl who freaked out (just before the Kalachakra events started), declared that she was enlightened, and started to sing and dance around the main temple. Turned out she had a mental history, (as do we all, only hers was documented) and we only just barely managed to convince her to return home and get treatment. She just wrote us this morning, thanking the people here who took care of her, realizing that she could have got herself killed if we had let her do all she wanted to. So it's not a boring place to be.

I plan to stay here at least one more month, I just like being here, and anyone who can explain to me why - certainly has information that I don't have. I think I would pay solid gold (if I had it) for a hot shower that didn't turn lukewarm after a minute and a half, or ice-cold after three minutes. A clean, dry toilet would also be appreciated. And yet, I am already making plans to come back next winter...

In any event, you guys can enjoy your hot showers for me...

Dalai Lama

Well, it's been a crazy week, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any saner in the foreseeable future. After the last letter, full of beggars and road-boys, I've spent the entire week secluded here in the paradise of Root Institute. Mind you, this paradise cannot afford simple electrical heaters for the rooms - or even extra blankets if your toes get cold at night (and believe me, they DO!!) - but you can actually see through the air here (after the fog of your breath has dispersed, of course), which is more than you can say for the dusty, smokey metropolis of Bodhgaya, and you can hear what the person next to you is saying without them having to shout, because the loudspeakers in town only come across faintly at this distance of a kilometer and a half.

I took a bicycle-rickshaw into town yesterday, and it's amazing how a one-horse (well, donkey) town like this can multiply it's population almost overnight. The funny thing is, though, that it doesn't look like a city - more like a huge, enormous circus, albeit a spiritual one. The street (still singular - they haven't paved any new ones) is lined with stalls selling pictures of the Dalai Lama, shawls, peanuts and popcorn, and whoever can't afford a stall just puts a few crates together and spreads whatever he thinks will sell there. More than half the population are wearing the dark red robes of Tibetan Buddhist monks, but this is just as true at the Institute. Seeing a monk zoom by, hot-roding on a motor-bike or a bicycle has become commonplace, and Spiros (who is a Theravada monk, and sports dark orange robes instead of red) even went so far as to share a rickshaw with me, even though he told me that the population would gape, because he's not supposed to even be physically close to a woman (but he was tired and the road was long).

There actually is a circus on the road between Root and Bodhgaya, and a few more ferris wheels and such-like joy-rides on the other side of the road. So it seems that the Dalai Lama comes to Bodhgaya, the Tibetans come to see him, the tourists come to see both, and the Indians come to make money off of whatever and whoever they can. We Buddhists have a term called Dependent Arising, and this would probably be the more literal version of that term.

So somehow, I did actually find myself sitting on a stupa (which is some kind of holy building), a few hundred yards behind His Holiness (Himself), watching a Tibetan puja (ritual). And the Big Event they all came for hasn't even started yet, it starts tomorrow.

I got in with the help of Laurie, who lived and worked here for a couple of years, and knows enough Hindi to con the Indian police into letting her through the barrier. After she pretended to talk to the guy at the gate (or at least tried to), she came back with a face that looked official and motioned the guards to let me through (and they did, just because she was already inside and therefore could be assumed to have some kind of authority). Two minutes later, I did the same thing, and that's how Spiros got in with us. After some more pushing and shoving, we actually got into the main ground (which is the Mahabodhi Temple that I've been raving about ever since the first time I saw it last February), and for the first time since I've seen it - it was silent.

People were standing frozen, watching the entrance. This place is usually moving with some kind of flow, with Buddhists walking around and around it (always in the same direction, because that's the way to do it if you're Buddhist), and others prostrating from all directions. Now the entire temple and grounds seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for His Holiness to finish his prayers in the temple.

By the time he did, Laurie, Spiros and I had managed to hook ourselves a ring-side seat, not too far from the Bodhi tree (where Buddha Got It, remember?) So that's where we sat while the Tibetan guys did their stuff, chanting in their low, hoarse voices. This is the second Tibetan puja I've been at, and it seems they always feed the multitudes. Several young monks start walking around the hundreds of people, who all sit quietly cross-legged on the ground, watching the Dalai Lama with adoring eyes (get in their line of vision, and you will be hissed at). The monks hand out paper cups and small plates, and then start going through the crowd with huge metal pots of tea and enormous pots of rice, ladling it out. And the tea is butter-tea, I know because I got some.

The first puja I went to was more modest, they were handing out fruit and candy, and if you weren't careful, you got pelted by the stuff that they threw in your lap (because, really, they were in a hurry to get it done - so if you can't keep up with it and reach out your hand in time, it just drops in your lap out of nowhere). But this time, when they were done handing out food, they started handing out money - every monk got two hundred rupee bills - which could be enough to keep him going for a week or two, or more, if he's careful.

This morning, while I was riding my rickshaw, the police barrier shooed us off the road, because the DL was coming through. It was just like the good ole days back in Jerusalem - the street is suddenly empty, lined with people, a few cars come zooming by (maybe the president?), and then you're back on your rickshaw, going where you wanted to go.

Tomorrow the Kalachakra teachings begin, so maybe I'll actually get a chance to hear the DL speak, and not just watch him from afar. Meanwhile, my road-boy friends are busy selling bottled water and toilet paper to the tourists, trying to get their little nest-egg together for the summer months to come. It's a strange town, Bodhgaya, in more ways than one.

More Beggars

On the one hand, things are more and more hoppin' here in the little town of Bodhgaya, where the usual population is probably somewhere around 250 most of the year, and is now swelling to something like 250 thousand. Our honored leader (really, I shouldn't be so irreverent...), the Dalai Lama, will be showing up here next week, and most of the Tibetan population of India is coming to see him, not to mention whatever tourists there are in the area. I was surprised (but not too much) to learn that Richard Gere (yes, THE Richard Gere) was going to come here too, and he has his own little room here at Root Institute (where he stays every time he comes). And here I am, working the reception desk!! But, alas, he cancelled, so the "only" celebrity we will have in the area will be His Holiness.

On the other hand, here I am (again), sitting in front of a computer, trying to build a database for Root Institute, in between phone calls and guests checking in and checking out. Quite busy, and basically doing pretty much what I've been doing for the last 15 or 20 years (or more, but who's counting?) Weird, in more ways than one.

So there aren't too many new and interesting things to write about lately. Still, I spend my afternoons with a bunch of "road-boys", as they call themselves, and I think it's pretty interesting from a anthropological point of view. I've written about them before, but I keep on finding out new things about them. First of all, I owe it to Bijay (whom everybody calls Gudu) to explain that when he told me about his sponsor that "sometimes I lie with him" - it was a misunderstanding - he meant "lie" as in not telling the truth, and I understood "lie" as in lie down, because of the "with" in there. (I found this out later, when he explained that he "lies with" other people too, and the context was different.) None of them have such good english. Actually, Bijay is not his real name, it is just the name he uses with this sponsor of his. And I also have to say that, even though this character makes his living by getting money from tourists, he has never asked me for anything.

Lying is a way of life for some of these guys, something they feel is necessary in order to survive. So I do take whatever they tell me with a grain of salt, but still, they can be very sincere. Now that I've spent so much time with them, they tell me about their lives, and I've seen most of them crying one time or another. Sometimes I think I'm in a high-school frat house, even though they are all in their twenties. They all have girl-friends, or they want to, and they tell me about their ups and downs with the ladies of their choice.

Now that Anil has opened his restaurant, that is where they all sleep (because "road-boys" means that they live on the road, with no home). This isn't saying much, because the restaurant is a few bamboo poles tied together with some burlap bags or leftover saris serving as walls, and the "beds" are benches that they built out of mud and a few bricks, and covered with a few rags. The floor is more packed dirt, so cleaning up is really not a problem - you just drop whatever crumbs or matchsticks there are on the floor, and it eventually gets ground in. The door is a cloth decorated with Tibetan symbols. And the cold at night is enough to make you see your breath when you're talking. They share their clothes, shoes, food, cigarettes, and liquor (lots of liquor, if they get the money). And when Anil gets really tired, everybody else closes up shop for him. Anil told me last night that he has a brain tumor, and from other things I've seen and heard, I believe him. But no-one is talking about surgery or treatment, because there is no way in the world any of them could pay for something like that. So they just live with what they have, in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Root Institute, I mean), we had a Beggar's Banquet the day after christmas. About 300 crippled men, women and children came in to be checked by some high-ranking doctor who came from Delhi, and he promised wheelchairs, surgery, etc. for about half of them (for free). This is evidently some publicity stunt he's doing, but if he actually follows through with his promises, then who cares? I don't know if you exactly get used to seeing people crawling on their hands and knees, or using their arms like crutches while their legs are slung over their elbows like so much excess appendages, but there are so many of them that you can't get excited by every one that you see any more. Along with the huge inflow of tourists, there are just as many beggars flooding the streets. And sometimes you manage to pass by them while they are busy with something else, like this morning, when the row of kids that I passed by were too busy laughing and joking between themselves, to wave their legs (not quite as thick as my arms, and completely bent out of shape) at me and ask for money.

Do I seem preoccupied with beggars and cripples? I don't know how I'm coming across there. The fact is that I am surrounded here - I read somewhere that India, more than any other Asian country "comes at you" with the sights and the smells and the experiences. And it's true, there is no way you can ignore the pollution, the noise, the poverty. But at the same time, it is so real that there is no way that you can forget you are alive (which is something that happened to me quite often when I was on the 9-to-5 routine). The people are always there, and here in Bodhgaya, I have been presented with gifts by people who met me for five minutes. A child who tried to sell me a lotus flower (tourists buy them to put on the Bodhi tree) - ended up giving it to me as a gift, and I never saw him again. A rickshaw driver handed me a small box of incense after I paid him, and I never saw him again either. It definitely gives you something to think about.