Not a good night last night I had a flask of tongba in the Double Dorje last night, it comes in a wooden jar packed full of fermented millet, you pour boiling water over it and drink it through a metal straw topping it up from a huge chinese flask…someting like warm wine…nice!. I thought I would sleep like a log but instead……stange dreams…little sleep and that tooth! Looks like a abcess….I just hope the antibiotics keep a lid on things until I get home…root canal work here does not bear thinking about….! Anyway….’mustn’t grumble’!
I am tired, my legs are sore again after a good few days and I feel a mite lost, worrying about the tooth I guess, so I decide to walk down to Pashupatinath and the wooded hill above. I wander down the back lanes, shake of a bloke selling drugs and stumble upon a group of large colourful tents, in each one there is a wedding taking place….and I left my camera behind!
I cross the footbridge and start to climb the temple steps to the woods but I am stopped by a policeman wanting money so I stroll along the Bagmati which is literally an open sewer but holy also….bathe here and you have release from the cycle of rebirth…..just like the Ganges. I think it must give a quick release from this life also!!!! I work my way up through the woods and along the path that ends on the terraces above the ghats. Courting couples sitting in the shade..Nepali men strolling, holding hands…gangs of scary monkeys run riot through the trees and along the terrace walls.
I sit for a while in the sun, a good vantage point to look into the inner temple precincts. Opposite there is a dilapidated white building hanging over the river….a hospice for those who come to die. The ghats below are the ones used by royalty and young children wade in the filthy water panning the gravel….pilgrims on the temple terrace above toss coins and the children fight and scramble like monkeys. The breeze wafts smoke from the burning pyres over me…it certainly helps focus the mind…..impermanace….this fleeting life..! A young man in white with shaved head, probably the oldest son, pushes charred and blackened human body parts into the flames….a beautiful deep sound of a bell rings out over the rooftops. There is a huge bell by the stupa and last night I watched an old monk walk around inside it bashing the side with his stick
I climb the steps up into the complex of tombs and temples…a old man welcomes me to Nepal..he.knows all about Northern Ireland and Wales. A gruff looking soldier asks where I am from, thinking he may ask for a ‘ticket’ I smile, say “namaste” and amble on. On the steps there is a ornamental hole in the wall and young girls holding their hands in prayer close their eyes and walk towards it…if their hands enter the hole everyone cheers. A wild looking sadhu is building a bamboo shelter and fire pit on the edge of the steps and below a old sadhu covered in ash is handing out little packages to a group of young men. As I pass they beckon saying “ganga, ganga” …..I shout back “bom shankar” and they all collapse laughing…even the sadhu who calls back “bom shankar” in return……..laugh and the world laughs with you! The old scoundrel sadhus who tout for a fee for a photo are surrounded by a large group ao Japanese tourists…business looks good.
I sit for a while by the bridge and joke and flirt with the women trying to sell me bracelets etc., they laugh and home in on another group of tourists. I make my way back to Boudha along the dusty lanes flanked by endless piles of rubbish, houses sit crumbling beside fetid pools…abandoned paddies I guess? Dogs…goats..and children with catapults…teenagers playing with their mobiles. In amoungst this I pass english and music schools …..the’Brainy Shine Acadamy, a english medium school’ and others with quotes from Francis Bacon painted on the walls….another says ‘the desire for dicipline is the beginning of wisdom’!
In the distance I can see the golden spire of the stupa covered with prayer flags……..
terry
More frustrations with Qatar so I go to e.mail their head office with complaint..easier said than done. As I leave the road is lined with monks holding banners and parasols, little monks with bunches of flowers……a famous Rinpoche is due to arrive at the Sakya gompa by the stupa. We wait then we are told that it is running late so I go into the stupa and climb to the top level to see if the snow mountains are visible. They are still shrouded in mist but Phulhari floats above the trees. I hear trumpets, drums and horns so I join the rushing crowd to get a glimpse a three 4×4’s slowly pulling into the monastary compound….these little old Tibetan ladies take no prisoners if you are in the way!!!
The next morning after a sleepless night ( barking dogs and some poor soul throwing up for ages!) I phone Qatar again and am told no problem. I taxi into town only to be told by the patronising clerk that ” you have to pay”……manifesting my wrathful aspect I demanded to see the manager and finally got my free flight change, I decided not to push my luck and ask for a upgrade….back home on the 10th of Febuary….all being well!
Walked down through Kathmandu along backstreets full of crowds on the move…endless shops selling everything you could imagine and much more …facinating….courtyards with temples and shrines,then the main square in the old town. A fierce looking policewoman says I have to pay entrance to the square so I slip around the backstreets and find another way in. The old pagaoda like buidings are mostly under repair but the touts and fake sadhus are still there.
I walk down Freak Street ( Jimi Hendrix stayed here in the 60’s) declining the invetitable offers of dope and found the Snowman cafe…a legend in its own right from the days of the hippy trail. Not much has changed since I was last here with Kieran listenting to Neil Young in the gloomy room….it has some of the best cream cakes in the universe……!!! Eating, sleeping and pottering around……………
I walk back through the square with an eye out for the policewoman and head through the backstreets towards Thamel. My tooth is playing up so I buy some clove oil only to find that the street was full of shops selling false teeth….and some very scary ‘dental clinics’. By chance I stumble into a courtyard….. there is a large stupa called Kathesimbhu and a Gelugpa gompa, the stupa is a small version of the one at Swayambhu. I read that a visit here brings considerable merit to the aged and infirm…….how appropriate!!! One guy, a student he says but really selling thangkas, asks me where I am from…I say wales…he says “North Wales?” I jump up and shake his hand much to his suprise!!! I hit the german bakers in Thamel , get a taxi back to the stupa and sit on my bench in the sun.
When I set out on this journey it was my intention to travel from the Bodhi tree to end up looking out to the mountains where Milarepa roamed…….Tseriningma (Gauri Shanka)…we will go up to the valley rim at Nargako hopefully in the next day or so. The last few years I have sat by my stove in winter looking at maps of the Yolmo valley where he stayed in a cave…the plan was to walk out there, a couple of days from Kathmandu but my knees say no way.His heart-son was Rechungpa who visited Nepal several times and would have been at this very stupa a 1000 years ago. Milarepa is an inspiration for my practice and study…..when I walked the misty crags and valleys back home I thought of him…………..
A monk from Kopan started talking to me and it was nice to have a Dharma conversation sitting there is the warm sun. Later a old monk sits down resting from his kora. He is from Yolmo near Milarepas cave………….a very distant paternal connection with Milarepa ( I did not quite understand, he had little english and my tibetan is non-existant) …..I sat in the fading sun as we exchanged information about our so different lives but connected by the thread of Dharma and Milarepa…..he asked my my name and said his name before ordination was ……Rechungpa!!! The plot thickens folks……
The relationship between teacher and student in Buddhism and so clearly illustrated by that of Milarepa and Rechungpa is sometimes difficult for westerners to grasp. If I was to use one word it would be kindness ……. a profound kindness that is deeply, deeply humbling. Without the kindness of Ringu Tulku Rinpoche and Chime Rinpoche before him as well as the many teachers I have beem blessed to meet none of this would be possible………I really don’t deserve this good fortune as I waste this fleeting life ……’eating, sleeping and pottering around’ and yet they still patiently offer advice and teaching. This journey in particular would not have been possible without the inspiration of Ringu Tulku…without his kindness…I will never forget it. If I were using pen and paper instead of a keyboard it would be damp with my tears of gratitude………….I offer kata, dana and the best intentions but so little of myself. Perhaps, with their guidance , in some distant lifetime…I will be able to express that unconditioned ‘kindness’ in some small way. So the pilgrimage continues…… maybe I will see the mountains …maybe not……I sense that this has been going on for lifetimes and will continue…..the ‘narrow road to deep heart’……….a solitary journey through ‘Myriad Worlds’….for now I have to look for antibiotics as my tooth is painful again and swollen…..there is snow on the mountains back home and it warm and sunny here….reality calls folks…..
terry
Kathmandu…..paradise….well thats really stretching a point but I had to think of something! Listening in on my radio to the BBC world service I hear that all is well in Nepal now and yet when I read the paper its is different. Along the Indian border there have been killings and trouble between the Maoists and a separatist group leading to the burning of buses and then a total countrywide transport strike for a few days. Cabs on the road were wrecked, I saw a couple of rickshaws and a cab surrounded by men by the stupa entrance a couple of days ago. Maoists with a banner by the stupa! Things are back to normal now….for the time being!
I am doing OK but my body is not so good..the usual Kathmandu colds, bugs and coughs…..the tooth problem threatening to return and my knees ( now legs and hips) are very painful at times …often at night. I found a local pharmacy on the main road with lots of boxes of pills and antibiotics covered in dust ……just in case. I have been sleeping well despite the dog that barks all night….I tell myself it is sitting with a prayer wheel and repeating mantras! I said tashik deli to the owner just now….thats compassion for you!! Anyway as I said ‘I’ am fine…….
I went into Thamel yesterday to change put my flight forward a week, I had one free change…or so I thought. The last 24 hours I have been phoning and e.mailing as they want money for the change….it will get sorted but it is a drag. Still at least there were the german bakeries……at the junction by the palace young beggars stick their hands through the cab window….”rupee, rupee, hungry hungry” and as we drive off they spit a well practiced “fuck off” in perfect english!! I get back to another power cut so dinner by candle light at the Dragon. Chat to Christopher who is off to Sikhim and share his delicious bar of german chocolate…an Italian guy offers biscuits…it is his birthday….I am doing OK!! Yesterday on my bench at the stupa I offered a wonderful old Tibetan man some crisps which he offered to the Gods with a huge grin…..
This morning I lay in bed reading and at last found a term that fits….’bhusuku’, (from Shantideva I think) someone whose behaviour is restricted to eating, sleeping and potters around…………………….
I made some more fruitless calls to the airline and checked my mail then in a very grumpy mood hobbled past the eight stupas at Shechen that are dedicated to the stages of the pilgrimage and remind me of my good fortune. I enquired at the Shechen gompa as to when I might be able to see the shrine dedicated to Dilgo Khyentse, one of the great realised beings of our time. I was shown into the room and then invited to sit down and chat to one of the monks…you know..”where are you from” ….”Wales”……silence. Then completely unprepared (no kata etc) I was shown into a huge room where the Yangsi (Hope I have got this right?) was sitting. Again solid as a rock and now a strong teenager, I met him seven years ago. Totaly taken by surprise I tried to explain and offered my kata loaned by the monk. Incredibly he said he remembered me from long ago with my son………………..!!!!! The Yangsi is the incarnation of Dilgo Khyentse. I forgot all about my problem with the airline.
With a spring in my step ( well almost) I headed for the Double Dorje for lunch, chatted to a french woman who helped at the Monlam and compared illnesses and ‘obstacles’! Read in the Himalayan that a big earthquake is expected in the Kathmandu valley….nothing would suprise me now.
Sometimes I wake and wonder what is going on….it was only a few weeks ago that I was floating down the ganges at dawn and seeing Ringu Tulku Rinpoche in the following boat with his huge infectious grin……………..
terry
Woke this morning with another cold starting and my legs painful after the long walk yesterday. It is getting colder now and this morning there was a thick mist enveloping the stupa. A fight started as two burley men attacked a beggar, soldiers with big batons and the stupa police looked on. I went to the Double Dorje early as I was planning to attend te saturday teachings by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Had a good breakfast of real porridge with bananas, toasted tibetan bread with jam and a ginger tea ( a glass half full with fresh ginger ) and read the news in the Himalayan paper. Incredibly I could hear bagpipes and a drum ……….a marching band passed through the mist in national dress…..I think they were Tamangs. The teachings were cancelled so I walked around the stupa…..piles of juniper and incence , the smoke merging with the mist. Proud Tibetan men in cowboy boots and leather jackets , mala in hand….ancient women being helped by their children……men from Mustang with red cords braided into their jet black hair, chubas and worn out nike trainers….curious tourists……a young boy in a bamboo zimmer frame…….colourful Tibetan women in striped aprons and torquoise jewlery…a teenage girl texting with her mobile phone and repeatimg Om Mani Padme Hum……and the hum……………in one of the side streets there were lepers begging, filty rags covering their sores and a man who everyday sits unmoving with a tube from his navel to a medical bag….
I returned later and sat for a while in the sun watching the parade….a man next to me asked me where I was from and then asked about the rules of rugby…he was listening to BBC world service. I know I am big and from Wales but I know nothing about rugby!!! He had been tuning in to the BBC for a couple of years trying to learn english and there I was with my tibetan phrase book knowing nothing of their language…………..Harry and John ( from the pilgrimage) passed on the Kora so I joined them for lunch at the ‘New Orleans’, an upmarket ( or at least they thought they were) cafe by the stupa. Jazz playing, stroppy waiters who would say ”hello man” and overcharge….bad modern art prints……a western toilet with toilet paper……..expensive, not very exciting attempt at a sort of european tibetan fusion!! We sat in the garden and swapped Dharma stories for a hour or so. Nice to relax with friends but give me the old dark mo mo houses any day. The snake charmers are in town with their cobras in waven baskets…the men look shifty and one spots me and lifts the snake towards me ….I move on. As I write dusk is falling on the stupa, the mist has finally lifted….people are sitting on the terraces which are now draped in fairy lights and the endless flow of pilgrims do the kora, when I leave here onto he stupa it is like stepping into a river, no choice but to go with the flow. Tonight I will try the Yak , good cheap tibetan food I am told reliably. The reason for the fairy lights is that it is Nepali new year, there was some kind of festival on the fooball ground with bands etc. but I missed it. Bed by 8 and up at 11…sunday lie in…still full of cold. There is a total transport strike today, the main road which is normaly full of dust and fumes is almost pleasant. A taxi and a couple of rickshaws with a western woman are surrounded by men but it looks fairly calm. The Yak was a real find…delicious veggie mo mo’s, big plate of fried rice , another big plate of mala tofu and free green tea in a huge chinese flask….all for about a pound!!! The cook came out to see me and practice his english, offered a pair of chopsticks (which he wiped with his hand!!!) my kind of place…friendly honest food and service …what a contrast to the New Orleans……..another day at the stupa.
terry
I have been thinking of home today…pure clean water… mountains clear of smog…rain….homemade bread and a good strong cheese…..a plastic bag on the mountain would cause an outrage! The contrast could not be greater and it is strange how I feel so at home in both places.
I am staying in Boudha for a couple of weeks, a tibetan community on the edge of Kathmandu. The focus is the huge stupa which is circled by sometimes hundreds of devout pilgrims doing the kora. It feels like a powerhouse continualy recharged by the devotion of the Tibetans….it is very humbling and can bring a tear to the eye of the big fella!!!! I am staying at the Dragon guest house which is clean, secure and cheap. I have a small room for 300 rupees a night ( just over 2 pounds !!) sharing a shower etc. Nice friendly family from Mustang and a good cafe. I normally eat in the cheap Tibetan places..Double Dorje,Bir and the Peace…the food is good, cheap and wholesome….I think I may well turn into a mo mo! I spend some time each day around the stupa, all life is here and some times it comes to me…many laughs, often at the expence of the big fella from Wales!!! There is a dark side though…a couple of days ago a frenchman in the next room was surrounded by seven men with knives on a narrow path by the soup kitchen, not far from Rinpoches house. He escaped with a few cuts, a few years ago a man was put in hospital for months. It is the cold season and I guess people are desparate. I walked up this dark stretch of path only a hour later with my life savings and passport etc…..now I go through Shechen monastary which has the bonus of passing eight stupas dedicated to the places we visited on the pilgimage.
Yesterday I went back to Swayambhunath the monkey temple. So named because of the thousands of yobbo monkey’s who swarm all over the place…as I sat on the terrace in the early morning mist a couple of monkeys sidled along the railing and began to enthusiastically scratch their balls in front of me!!! I explored the old gompa on Manjushri Hill and in the back I found a group of children singing ‘twinkle twinkle little star’!! It is beautiful here and I am one of the few visitors so am the focus for all the touts and beggars…assertivenes is the name of the game here. I give the huge bell a ring and work my way down the steep 365 steps aaand make my way to Benchen monastary.
I stayed here with my son seven years ago, it was his 21st birthday, and had teachings from Tenga Rinpoche, a truly beautiful man. I hoped this time to meet Sangie Nyenpa Rinpoche, incredibly he was there and I was able to have a blessing, he said he would say a prayer for me. So much is written about these Lamas but believe me some of them are extraordinary.
I hobbled down to Thamel hardly believing my good fortune. Had real coffee and cake in the legendary Pumpernickel, more chocolate cake and apple muffins in the various german bakers….a very welcome change from mo mo’s and tukpa! Two men unfurl a banner and suddenly dozens put on maoist caps and it is demonstration! Found the Tibetan Bookshop… a big mistake…I could live there. Back home to the Dragon…brought some bottled water called Aqualia…says it is ‘pure like a baby’s heart’!!
Today I felt much better so I got a taxi up to Phulahari, the seat of Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche. I met the last one in 1973 when the 16th Karmapa came to London. My son and I had a blessing from the the new tulku who was a young boy in 2000 and now I was waiting outside his house being greeted by a very intimidating Tibetan mastiff…at least his tail was wagging!! I was shown in and there was this young man who sat like rock…like I said above sometimes you have no doubt. I offerd a kata and recieved a blessing cord. He said I could take a photo but incredibly my film ran out!!!! I ws shown the stupa dedicated to the previous Jamgon Kongtrul, it is absolutely stunning. Phulahari is set on a forrested ridge above the valley, the air is clean and as the morning mist starts to clear I can see Boudha stupa and the surrounding mountains dotted with gompas. The grounds are beautfully kept (no plastic!) with mature trees and shrubs. Marble and stone paths lead one to a fish pond, stupas and the temple which is covered in ornate frescos. I feel blessed and have been!!!!
I follow a narrow path through the forrest to Kopan monastary, the seat of Lama Zopa. It is set on top of a hill and I take time for rest and lunch. There is a beautiful garden set around a vey ornate stupa with fountains and lawns…a long way from the dust and smog of the valley. A large bird of prey circles up from the valley as I make my way down through the endless lanes full of shops, the inevitable laughs and stare asd the big bald fat man hobbles by…..namaste brings huge grins in return and children call out “hello hello” from the rooftops. I meet a lovely man, I think he is russian or jewish, big grey beard and a even bigger smile walking with crowd of children…I first met him at the stupa giving out leaflets about the plight of the mentally ill here. I get lost in the back lanes as I walk with a young school girl practicing her english…I wish I could talk to them because everyone has a story I finally find the stupa, home at last.
terry
Filed under: Uncategorized
when I finished my last post I went to the Peace restaurant , I was last there seven years ago and nothing has changed…I am probably pushing my luck eating in these places ( best not to look at the kitchen!!) but I love the real tibetan ambiance, many laughs with the waiter who asked politely if he could talk with me and practice his english and the old man turning his mala ( rosary) whilst watching a chinese soap!
In the morning I decided to try and walk to Pashnipatinath, a very sacred hindu site on the Bhagmati River just south of here. I went the stupa first for practice and then after a rest set out down the grubby lanes deep in rubbish…children calling out hello hello and crumbling shacks were artisans make equisite furniture…the tap tap tap of silver and goldsmiths ….folk sleeping rough in the litter and the inevitable mobile phone. Earlier a man stopped me and said he saw me at Bodhgaya, this led to a request to talk, perhaps a cup of tea ….another try for money.
I find my way the entrance to the main temple, non-hindu’s are not allowed in. It is beautiful and the surrounding streets are full of colour, fruits and vegetables, dyes ,wild eyed sadhus, beggars, huge cows, mangy dogs and goats everywhere. A crazy woman sits wailing a song in front of a roadside shrine splattered with red dye. I try to cross the river to the ghats but there is a guard wanting a huge fee so I follow the river to a small bridge and work my way back upstream through clouds of smoke from the pyres where bodies crackle in the fire. The river is like a sewer but children play and women wash as the mourners push the remains into the grey waters. The few tourists stare and the sadhu’s and snake charmers demand money for photographs. I follow a terrace upstream to where I can see hermits caves cut into the gorge side, Tilopa used to meditate here but now there is just the sound of drumming comming from the smoke blackened walls.
I take a wrong turn on the way back and end up on the infamous ring road, it must be the most polluted road in the world and soon my eyes are smarting. I vist Chabril stupa, a smaller version of Boudha and small children surround me feeling my arms ” you cholok ” they say…it means wrestler! Further along the road I pass a monastary with a huge celebration going on. Men and women from Dolpo and Mustang in traditional costume are dancing a circle dance and singing a beautiful song…it brings a tear to my eye. Another of those moments.
Today I woke feeling rough and my legs are bad again. I go shopping for buddhas in Patan with a german guy who was on the pilgrimage. Patan is a old city much like Katmandu used to be. A warren of streets, ancient buildings and ancient people. Avoiding the touts we head for the Mahabodhi Temple tucked away in the back streets. This is the area where the statues are made. After some time I finally buy a Milarepa and the shop owner takes us up several fights of stairs to a dark room where they are made, it is hard to believe that things of such beauty could come from here.
I take my friend to the Golden Temple, a incredible place in courtyard, 800 years of Newar Buddhism , huge gold and silver statues, breathtaking architecture and peace, a still still peace. I talk to a monk and a young boy comes up and I have to explain once again where wales is….he is twelve years old and the high priest…it is moments like this that will stay with me forever. The guard with a big stick smiles and I notice his uniform badge says ‘British Security’! He falls about laughing with the others when I ask for a job as long as I can have a big stick like him!
Tonight I walked around the stupa a dusk fell on a sea of wonderful people, old Khampa men in traditional clothing, lines etched in faces as much by laughter as by suffering. Young monks in hoodies and beautiful tibetan women….but thats another story!
terry
I am in Boudha, focus of the Tibetan community in Kathmandu..it is good to be back amoungst these smiling happy people….I am exhausted and struggling a bit after some very grueling traveling by bus along dusty Indian backroads for 8 to 12 hours some times!! Maoist demonstations and road blocks to be paid off and a very scary hold up in a Muslim town while a rally was going on calling for the death of all supporters of Bush etc. A effigy was burnt and our drivers were very nervous. The bus surrounded by men ( no women to be seem) and a speaker saying” calm down, we are all brothers”……we are all surviving despite the 5 am starts, illness, lack of sleep, lost luggage etc. We have visited several sites of pilgrimage along with other pilgrim parties….zen monks…tibetans and monks from Shri Lanka etc. Many many encounters…a wild looking one eyed man in a border shop talking about Jihad and the Koran!…a woman on my bus grew up on the next road to me and her mother worked at the same place as my mother….it is a bit like that here….as we travel north we leave behind the poverty and dust of Bihar and the villages seem more prosperous…we see wild cats, cranes in the paddies and many eagles….finally we cross the border and visit Kapilavastu and Lumbini, this is where the Buddha was born. We are in Nepal at last…………our last day of the pilgrimage and we sit in the shade of a tree and listen to Ringu Tilku’s stories. The next day we are up at 4am for the 12-15 hour ride to Kathmandu, a early start to avoid possible encounters with Maoist on the road. We stop after a hour and the drivers are very nervous but a 500 rupee note per coach gets us through safely.
An amazing drive climbing all the time through forests and then mountains above a stunning river gorge. Lorries being repaired on the roadside by hairpin bends, colourful rural scenes and snow covered peaks of the distant himalayas…..we made good time but got stuck in a jam on the outskirts of Katmandu for over two hours, I had forgotten how bad the dust and fumes could be….night time Kathmandu is sleazy and I am followed back to my hotel by a vey drunk man until I send him on his way!!
Next morning we say our goodbyes…many friendships made on this trip…some of us go with Ringu Tulku ro visit Swayambunath (Monkey Temple) ….I am flagging and can hardly walk. I am given a lift by a Nepalise woman pilgrim now living in Scotland, and her brother to Boudha and by sheer luck am dropped by the Dragon Guest House where I stayed 7 years ago with my son………they have one single room left! I leave my stuff and go in the stupa to meet Ringu Tulku and some of his students. The place is buzzing with the sound of hundreds of pilgrims, mostly Tibetans….we do the kora ( circumambulating the stupa) then back to RingTuku’s house for lunch. He is so kind and patient it is humbling.
Later I go back to the stupa at dusk and there is now a great sea of people doing the kora…it defies description….chat to a few friends and go to the Double Dorje for a huge meal of tibetan dumplings, soup and bread.
I sleep well that night despite the barking dogs for the first time in ages. Then today I am back at the stupa after a Double Dorje breakfast of mint tea, tibetan toast and banana porridge. I get my indian lungi hemmed by a man sitting in the road with a old singer sewing machine and laugh and joke with some folk…if I die here it will be OK!
Later I call on Ringu Tulku for tea ( my fist milk tea in 58 years!!) and good advice at his house then rest… I need it now. Dinner at the Peace Restaraunt then a early night at last.
simja nang-gaw
terry
Well so much has happened that it is going to be difficult to get it all down…am in a very dodgy internet place in the backstreets of Benares so here goes…..last few days in Bodhgaya were good despite lack of sleep, dust, mild dose of the runs and on the last day a very nasty tooth infection which is still with me though I now have some antibiotics and a soft bed for the night in a posh hotel…..managed to sort out my room rent for the original price and went to the tibetan refugee tent camp for food..the legindary Mohumeds….a huge tent selling amazing tibetan food and the best apple pie in the universe…..went on to the last night of the monlam …the stupa beautiful under the full moon…millions of lights and we were all (thousands of us) given battery candles….Karmapa strides in and the skys are full of the sounds of monks shouting Karmapa Chenno…I was very weak but survived another amazing experirence to live another day…just! On the last morning I caught a peddle rickshaw up to Tergar Monastary where Karmapa was giving a empowerment. Got a blessing from Mingyur Rinpoche and a little gold Buddha and card. The temple was packed with westerners and tibetans…again the Karmapa was extrordinary for his years…very moving despite being in agony with tooth and legs…. crushed by devoted tibetans.
Later we went by bus for 7 hours on a gruelling bus trip which defies description to Varisanari, our next stop. The roads were unbelievable…might have well gone across country! Stopped in a truckstop and was accusd of not paying..a bad move on his part..don’t bother the bear with a sore tooth!!! Arrived late at out posh hotel to be put in a back room because they were over booked, cockroach in dirty bathroom etc….a sleeples night with sore tooth and I was ready for the manager..got a very nice room a soft bed and a free dinner and beer. I told him I sent reports into Lonely Planet and Rough Guides……………………..!!!
Huge breakfast with the pilgrims and Ringu Tulku and his family then by bus to Sarnath where the Buddha first turned the wheel of the Dharma….interesting remains..huge stupa and much fun as the underground sprinkers went off were we we sitting….Ringu Tulku teaching….payed our repects to the relics of the Buddha in Mahabodhi temple…..met Thrangu Rinpoche in his amazing, stunning temple and got blessed and given a cd of Karmapa…..Ringu Tulku buys everyone tea in the best chai shop in Benares…tea served in clay pots surrounded by beggars and hawkers everywhere and it is getting to people…….back to hotel to watch indian TV and claim free meal….long stand off with the manager over free beer which of course I won…..
This morning up at four to go on boat along the ghats of the ganges as the sun rose…wonderful. Offered a ruby to Mother Ganges on behalf of pal Paul and walked along the dusty street trying to avoid the woman with leprosy as I thought of the hotel breakfast…….As we drifted down the river infront of all the bathers Ringu Tulku got us to sing…row row row your boat swiftly down the stream……life is but a dream!!!!
Later we go back to Sarnath to the museum…more food and now I am here in the dust, fumes and chaos trying to recall so many crazy wonderful disturbing and uplifting experiences…tomorrow we head north on the next leg….another 7 or 8 hours on the bus….!
Making lots of friends and they are looking out for me as hobble ever onward , the tooth is a bit better now…it is very tough going at times the dust is lethal aand the floods od humanity flocking around us at every turn can be very heavy bu life goes on….life is just s dream….
Love to you all….terry
Up at 5 yesterday, still not much sleep and it is showing….breakfast at the Mahayana Hotel (free) and then on the bus for a day out…..two hours of dust blown flatlands, huge dry riverbeds and mile after mile of poverty ending in strange landscape of rocky hills and outcrops much like the Tor….we get off at Ragir..holy site for all religions and see the disney clike cable car to the top of the mountain…. we are heading for Vulture Peak where the Buddha taught the Heart Sutra to Shariputra….a stiff pull up a path with my trecking poles passing the stone houses mentioned by chinese pilgrim 500 years ago and the cave where Shariputra and Ananda meditated. Vulture Peak is a amazing rock platform below the summit and we sat there awestruck for a while…a cool breeze and space…reminded me of places I know back home…did the Heart Sutra and meditated for a while as instructed by Ringu Tulku . Saved my sandals from another polishing and headed back down to beggars and loads of people wanting to have their photo taken with me…I asked for a 100 ruppees per head with no luck. On to the Bamboo Grove where the Buddha sat out the rainy season and where one of the Samye Ling party fell in the sacred pool! Lunch and on to site of Nalanda where Shariputra is buried under a huge stupa and Guru Rinpoche, Naropa and many other great tantric masters studied….more photos of me and a geography lesson from a very enthusaistic teacher………home absolutely exhausted legs agony but spirits high……despite torture of indian bus the evening light was wonderful.
Met a guy at lunch who has bee recently on a mindfullnes course in Bangor and knows my pal, the old monk Rabsal, one guy on the pilgrimage tells me his brother lives in Ffrydlas Road near me….it is a small world…even in india!
Up later this morning and breakfast at the OM Cafe for a change….special oat and fruit porridge, coffe and a honey pancake…very camp chinese monk on the next table and another monk feeds beggar children breakfast noodles…it is very hot still and the dust is rising….
Rickshaw to TergarMonastary which is being consecrated by Karmapa today…manage to get a seat inside next to a huge tibetan guy who keeps giving me the thumbs up…a good look at the Karmapa this time….he really is incredible and it is hard to believe that he is only in his early twenties….he sits like a rock…unmoving…just ‘there’……fantasic lunch for over a thousand of us and a chance to experience the toilet block after several hundred monks….grafitti is the same in mens toilets the world over it seems………
Liase with chap who got my accomodaton booked and he is going to see the management today so I may get my original price for the room….the last day of the monlam today with a lamp ceremony tonight…last year they lit one million five hundred thousand butter lamps…..a 1000Buddha empowerment from Karmapa in the morning then on the bus to Varanasi which I suspect will be hell in my condition…7 hours……!!
So it goes on, I am ready to leave here now ….Vulture Peak opened a new vista for me inside and out…………….take care…
terry
Tashi delek…….just been for a wander around the temples to take my mind off the bug that has got me…muslim holiday as well as new year so streets packed and chaos prevails….it is good for my ego to be surrounded by hundreds of laughing people…who was that fat man? …..had a laugh in the japanese temple, all the indians wanted their picture taken with me…”where are you from”? “I am from Wales”….confusion…I explain it is a pure land of mountains and fat men……………Last night went to Karmapa teachings for westerners at his out of town monastary (over a thousand folk there). It is a 15 minute rickshaw ride ending up a dirt track with fetid ditches on either side…the drivers double the price on the way out and then they have you on the return trip. The teachings were good …he is very impressive and warm despite the heavy security. This morning he told how when he was a nomad child in Tibet he would cry when the animals were slaughtered and have to be taken away…now he has lots of training etc. but nothing compares to that direct experience of “small compassion”.
When we left in the dark there were hundreds of rickshaws, 4×4’s, three wheelers all jammed in the road, fireworks going off and rich americans arguing over 5 rupees. I walked away from it and caught a rickshaw on the way in avoiding the very dangerous chaos and the prospect of ending my life in a stinking shit filled ditch! I found out today that friends had their transport turned over…lucky escape with only a few cuts.
We are still getting various bugs…one woman escaped a lethal cokroach attack in the night and I am facing the possible prospect of a toilet retreat! I have a bad cold and chest and still not much sleep….last night being new years eve they let of fireworks by my room. I celebrated with some greasy spineach and cheese mo mo’s (Tibetan dumplings) and a hot lemon at the OM Cafe. Thought of you all……………………
The next few days are busy so the next post may be from Varanasi as we start the pilgrimage. I hope things will be a little less manic though being India that is unlikely! As I was sorting my stuff out to come into the cyber cafe a woman beggar approached only to be beaten off by the hotel doorman with a big stick…it is still very warm though the mornings are cooler…dust, fumes etc. are pervasive and unavaoidable…Wales seem like a pristine pure land from here…which it is………………
So time to venture out into the hell that is main street Bodhgaya…heat..dust…hassles and into my peaceful retreat where I hope to sleep this bug off.
Happy new year…………………….
terry
