a bit of Agra, then Bodhgaya, Bihar

from poet laureate Tom:

Agra, contrary to Lonely Planet reports, was a welcome sight. It has a reputation for horrible touts (men who con you in a variety of ways into buying whatever they are selling, by lying about your hotel being closed down, or that it is easy to do this or that when it is in fact impossible) and beggars and hardcore yell-at-you sort of salesmen. In fact, it has many trees, and, although it is a large industrial city, it is quite easy to get around. People are friendly relatively speaking, and the sites of the Mughal empire such as the Agra Fort and Taj Mahal are astonishing. I did not expect to be impressed by mere buildings, but there are a whole host of fantastic things to see there. We have been reading( http://williamdalrymple.com )fantastic travel writings about Delhi, Agra and the history and intrigues of the Mughal royal families, which brings the buildings to life for us. We go back to Agra in October as part of Phoenix's trip/retreat (this was sort of a scouting mission) and I am excited to return and write more about the place. After Agra, we traveled for 26 hours to Bodhgaya. I am too tired to go into the horrible trip, but parts of it were quite funny in retrospect.

The road to Bodhgaya was grueling and testing of our faith at each bend, as all good pilgrimages should be. Drukchen Rinpoche said that it is too easy now for people to visit sacred places so he had his students bicycle to the Buddhist sites in India, a trip that almost killed him when he was hit by a car. For us, nothing that dramatic happened, but we endured two train rides totalling 26 hours--5 of which no bathroom was available, wallowing through mud up to our ankles with heavy backpacks at a bus "station", and getting through the most corrupt city in Bihar (quite a trophy title given the widespread crime here) to make it to the oasis of Bodhgaya.

Bodhgaya lies in Bihar, which is India's poorest and most crime ridden state and unfortunately comprises the area of the Buddha's life and wanderings (including neighboring Uttar Pradesh and parts of what is now Nepal). There is a Maoist organization here called the Naxalites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalites) which causes problems of the usual bombing and pillaging sort, and most of the problems are due to rampant and widespread corruption in the government and their condonement of brutal caste rivalry. It's a shame because the area abounds in natural and mineral resources and is crying out for some leadership that will bring education and jobs instead of robbing its people as the current administration does. The countryside in Bihar is gorgeous and lush, with endless rice paddies, small thatch-roofed mud buildings, and pipal trees. The people were very friendly on the train too, but neither Phoenix nor I could muster much response after our previously mentioned torturous journey.

Bodhgaya is an oasis of serenity. It is the most important of the four main Buddhist pilgrimage sites, the others being Kushinigar (where Buddha obtained paranirvana, i.e. died), Lumbini (now in Nepal, where he was born), and Sarnath (where he taught first). We will go to Sarnath later next week and possibly Lumbini. Bodhgaya is also close to Rajgir, the site of the famous Vulture Peak where the Buddha elucidated the concepts of Shuyata, or emptiness. I am excited to go there, and the nearby ruins of Nalanda, the monastery/university that housed up to 10,000 monks but was destroyed by the Mughals (I think...they destroyed vast numbers of non-Muslim temples so it is easy to pick them out of the historical hat).

Anyway, it is exhilarating to be able to sit next to the very spot where the Buddha sat, under the pipal tree (now called the Bodhi tree) that is a 4th generation descendent of the original, and just be quiet amidst the groups from Buddhist countries around the globe. The temple grounds are a welcome contrast to almost every other one in India (at least that we have seen) in that it is clean, quiet, and palpably serene. The Mahabodhi temple sits next to the tree and the entire area is filled with trees and gardens of dahlias and roses, crows and songbirds and beautiful bright green parrots flutter in and around the stupas, competing with the butterflies to catch the eye. The Bodhi tree itself protects the meditator in a canopy of electric bliss, a welcome respite from the chaos, but only insofar as it enables one to see it all for what it is, not a vacation from reality. Phoenix and I have talked of coming here together for so long that it makes this trip to India seem like such a blessing now, despite the difficulties. My guides today to the statues and Buddhist temples from countries around the world, as well as my Hindi tutors, were two small 10-year old boys named Amar and Vikram. We had so much fun practicing math and teaching each other phrases in English and Hindi. Tomorrow they are going to teach me to play cricket, which from my perspective has to be the most boring game on the planet, but I am willing to try.