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.