七星山 ~ Qixingshan

I arrived to find
the mountain still sleeping,
enveloped in winter’s fog
which swallowed
the slightest echo
leaving a hollow
in the absence
of even a single
singing bird.
However even
the emptiness was warm
independent of late
February’s chill.
As if rising
from the worn stones.
As if the heat
generated by every
contracting muscle
which had scaled
Seven Star mountain
over thousands
of years had been trapped,
held by the mountain’s
fog cloak, held
to warm those
who walked
what could otherwise be
a lonely trail.

Conclusion of the Pilgrimage

Not in Bodh Gaya anymore

We made our way slowly east from Bihar into the state of West Bengal, descending into a more sultry climate. After 10 hours in transit, we arrived via the Poorba Express train to Howrah station. The shunting crawl at which we traversed the suburbs of Calcutta illustrated how words like express are entirely contingent upon one’s geographic location. The increased comfort of the 2^nd class coach, relative to 3^rd, was further enchanced by the train being largely empty for the latter half of the journey.

After bargaining for the fare, we followed our taxi driver pausing as a traffic police guard halted the oncoming cars for pedestrian passing. One large TATA truck careened through the gesture. The police guard hollered and swiftly wielded a wooden baton shattering the passenger window. Rather wide eyed I instantaneously recalled my final morning rounds, only hours before, at the Mahabodhi temple.

We arrived in Calcutta without hotel reservations which made the entry more cumbersome than either of us anticipated. Our taxi inched its way from the train station to the Chowringhee area through ‘very traffic jam’ as our driver commented. We stopped at hotel after hotel to find them all fully booked. After a half dozen attempts, Cris elected a very upscale hotel where they could accommodate us for two nights after which we moved to a less opulent hotel geared toward Indian business men. And so after a broad range of lodging from humble temple rooms, to the dark, damp, cold night in Sonauli to the lovely garden courtyard in Varanasi we checked into the finest hotel I have ever stayed in. I felt like a bedraggled ruffian walking with my backpack through the lobby. While this threshold in my journey seems almost intrisically surreal, I believe the nature of our lodging those first days contributed to this quality.

***

I spent last autumn and early winter deliberating about my plans after graduating from school. February last year, day four of a week long meditation retreat, the itinerary for this quasi epic journey arose. There’s simply no other way to phrase it. It was like watching a map draw itself. After the retreat’s conclusion I tested the waters by sending emails to Belgium, Israel and Australia, knocking at the door of friends and family to see if there would be proverbial room at the inn. Each came back with a resounding YES! While the details evolved over the months, even more than anticipated with Ewan’s entry into my life, the nature, the marrow of the journey has not changed. Today, I board a plane for Taipei. Today, six countries and one essential leg of this voyage conclude. Since boarding the train in Bodh Gaya, those hours watching mile after mile of the Indian countryside slip by I have felt both a tremendous amount of internal movement along with a feeling of being suspended in time and space. As if in free fall, the world has been moving at an astonishing rate with a concurrent quality of complete stillness.

Over these recent days I have experienced a broad range of emotions of excitement and joy to fear and overwhelm. By blessed introduction from writer and translator Bill Porter (Red Pine), I have a place to arrive, an old friend of his who has lived in Taiwan a long while, and knows everybody. Originally I questioned the wisdom of accepting this offer as Nic and his wife live outside of Taipei some distance, up a mountain. At this moment, I am doing mental prostrations in both Bill and Nic’s direction for a safe haven to land while I find my sea legs in a very new place still in the process of digesting the many facets of my travels in India.

***

Calcutta

I will summarize my final days in India in a rather limited manner. A trip to the Indian museum stands out most vividly amongst the few sites visited. The museum houses an extensive collection of Buddhist sculpture, mostly dating from the 5^th to the 10^th century CE, and excavated from the places in which we had just traveled. For the first time I was introduced to Gandharan sculpture, a blend of Grecian and Indian influences. It was the first time I have seen a Buddha with Roman features. Additionally and what most stirred me amongst the collection was the Bharhut Stupa Gate. An entire room is dedicated to the railings and gate of a stupa dating from the 1^st and 2^nd century BCE. From the museum description, “Profusely carved in red sandstone depicting scenes from the Buddha’s pre-birth stories, floral and animal motifs; besides yakshas, yakshinis, and devatas, the Bharhut remains constitute visual store-house for the reconstruction of the political, social, economic and cultural history of India during the 2^nd-1^st centuries BCE.” Beautiful round symmetrical carvings, maybe 18” in diameter, constitute a large amount of the railing, from winding leaves to peacocks, elephants to flowers.

Over our final days, Cris and I shared reflections on the journey, our learning about each other, ourselves. Interestingly, folding in all the hiccups and challenges, particularly of the first week on the road, both Cris and I felt satisfied and fulfilled with the nature and flow of the trip. Neither of us was inclined to change much of anything, even the tough pieces. Were someone to inquire about doing a similar trip I would simply modify suggestions based on their interests, needs, threshold for discomfort and uncertainty.

It was all a part of the pilgrimage…every step. I believe it’s safe to say neither Cris nor I could have done this trip without the other. I am extremely grateful for his having created an opportunity for me which I may not have encountered or pursued otherwise in this lifetime. Through both our interactions and other aspects of the journey I have learned more about human communication, my own misconceived and potentially injurious expectations and critical nature. On this journey I experienced a very intimate discomfort with my own affluence and privilege. And particularly in Varanasi, I felt a strong aversion to being a voyeuristic tourist, or perceiving myself as one.

Ewan just sent me what feels like an extremely poignant passage from the end of Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels with Herodotus, a book which played a pivotal role in catalyzing our relationship.

Herodotus learns about his worlds with the rapturous enthusiasm of a child. His most important discovery? That there are many worlds. And that each is different. Each is important. And that one must learn about them, because these other worlds, these other cultures, are mirrors in which we can see ourselves, thanks to which we understand ourselves better—for we cannot define our own identity until having confronted that of others, as comparison.

And that is why Herodotus, having made this discovery—that the cultures of others are a mirror in which we can examine ourselves in order to understand ourselves better—every morning, tirelessly, again and again, sets out on his journey.

It’s all part of the pilgrimage and it will continue to be so, every breath, every step of every day until the end of this life.

***

 Calcutta did not pause for breath
as I sat that last morning on the narrow
tawny window seat of a hotel designed
for businessmen, the breakfast menu
a short list of paratha, puri & vegetables.
Outside the streets have been hosed down.
Trucks must pass every morning
as the day before I looked out 
upon darkened asphalt and wondered
about rain, but there was no rain. 
Kerosene stoves ardently burn
producing the morning’s tea, strainers
already wet and heavy with leaf,
clinging milk skin, the scent of cardamom,
filling the gutter a growing pile of discarded
palm size terracotta cups, whole and broken.
Calcutta is awake and moving, moving
broad banana filled baskets and easy chairs
atop human heads, moving rebar and cement
in carts pushed by hand or pedaled by foot,
moving woman on motorcycles, side saddle,
vibrant saree silk flowing cape-like
mystically evading ensnarement
in the rear wheel spokes. 
And crows, as they do everywhere, are
perched upon telephone wires, heckling
the human world from their lofty post.

And it was through a taxi window en route to the airport that I registered my final visual blur of India* vibrant and decrepit TATA trucks {Cris informed me along the way, noting our TATA bagged tea in multiple locations, that the company has recently bought Jaguar and maybe Lamborgini?} * Saturday morning fish market lining the hosed down streets * carts piled with fresh cut sugar cane being pressed for its milky juice * a wide array of items being carried atop human heads ~ broad banana filled baskets, enormous non-descript white plastic bags, several plush easy chairs * bicycle rickshaws arranged as if spooning each other for a night’s rest, not yet awakened for a day’s work * as indication throughout this country of construction happening somewhere nearby piles and piles of brick * the otherwise relatively drab streets vibrantly accented with colorful flowing sarees and shiny foil packets of the herb/tobacco mixes which it seems every single taxi/tuk tuk/bicycle rickshaw driver chews * empty chicken cages {vacant due to recent avian flu scares} * marigold malas (lays) threaded and hung for ritual offering * legions of sunshine yellow taxi cabs * men in wrapped in short sarongs or underwear engaged in morning bathing at common tap stands along the street * a stretch of tarps rigged up at 90 degrees along a building wall, sheltering homeless families * more piles of brick * glass cases stacked with pyramids of milky Indian sweets * piles of garbage being shoveled one soggy shovelful at a time into an open bed truck * open pharmacies * signs for the Calcutta Homeopathic College of Medicine, the Smile Zone Dental Clinic, The Pollution Under Control Certification program* more piles of brick * one extraordinary stretch of sweeping trees which temporarily changed the entire texture and quality of the air * just outside the airport rode a young man on a bicycle with large metal milk containers for saddle bags, grass wedged around the lid of each to create a tighter seal, the milk likely headed for one of the myriad tea stalls which, on a daily basis, with their pale brown sweet chai nourish and awaken the population of this country * Farewell mother India.

Pilgrimage Poems

 

 

pilgrims feet glide
across smooth grey stone
polished by centuries
turning the wheel

Dhammika Stupa, Sarnath, India
 

*** 

During an earlier chapter
of life when these hands
regularly wielded charcoal
and paint, sculpting tool & chisel,
my heart was often moved
in galley or museum corridor.
By contrast in recent years,
I have seldom been stirred
by another’s creative expression,
much to my own curiosity,
curiosity as to the loss of sensibility. 

And there I found myself in a sleepy corner
of Uttar Pradesh, the Middle Land
where thousands of years before a man traveled
from Bodh Gaya to Sarnath to teach
the eight fold path to those who would listen.
Rounding a corner into the museum’s north wing,
a museum where Kusana & Gupta sculptures
perched upon rudimentary pedestals,
signage slightly askew,
temperature entirely uncontrolled,
I came upon a sandy pale teaching Buddha
gracefully illuminated,
radiant at the end of the hall. 

Rising from below my sternum a warmth swelled
into my chest, flowing up my neck to fill
the cavities of my head, gently throbbing.  
I stood, in plain view of suspect museum docent,
rumpled and reverent Ladakhi pilgrims,
I stood unspeakably moved and I wept.

Archaelogical Museum, Sarnath, India
 

***

Standing in Lumbini, behind a line
of Thai pilgrims I awaited the opportunity
to approach a crumbling monument
of brick hung with hand painted sign
Birthplace of the Buddha. 

While the facial expressions
were wrapped in brown skin, Asian eyes,
prayer beads and gold leaf, the hushed reverence
recalled for me the shadowed basilica
of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcre. 
Specifically the parallel poise
as each pilgrim was perfectly captured
in contemplative solemn
by the camera.   

Here, this place
this stone mass is sacred,
worthy of reverence,
pilgrimage, photograph,
proof that given pilgrim
traversed sea and mountain
to lay her forehead
on this spot, eyes closed,
closed until the film advances.  

Maya Devi Temple, Lumbini

 
***

 “Never again!”  she professed
vehemence and laughter in her radiant face.
“No marriage!  No children!,
they are like the cord which binds
the lotus to the murky bottom,
Not the next life!”  she laughed
slapping my shoulder, warmly
remarking on the twinkle
of contentment and freedom
in my eyes.

Thai Temple, Lumbini, Nepal 
 

*** 

October 1998, I traveled 17 hours
by bus to this dusty place
and he was here in grey robes,
building this temple walking distance
from the Buddha’s birthplace
but thousands of miles from his Korean home.
When I arrived this time I recognized
his shining eyes and I asked.
Yes, he has been here
all the time, from the beginning
13 years.  Yes, yes he will stay. 
Maybe this lifetime,
maybe this whole lifetime
will be here
given to his lineage,
that merit woven into the Dharma’s
global tapestry.

Korean Temple, Lumbini, Nepal

***

undulating layers
of rusty moss covered brick
form an earthen rooted mountain,
consecrated the earthen
and the ethereal
event of burning the Buddha. 
Fire rendered ash
from bone and hair,
but he left his eyes
to all who followed,
left them imploring  
when you take a deep breath
be aware you are taking a deep breath
when you take a shallow breath
be aware you are you are taking a shallow breath.
Intense in its earth bound quality,
it was this form, this place
which stirred movement
in my sternum and deeper still
in my belly, like resonance with
the most primal of tuning forks. 

cremation Stupa, Kushinagar, India  

***

a slow reverent line
filed before glass
encased relics, smaller
than half a rice grain,
adorned in pageantry
but this is not
where I find the Buddha.  

Mahabodhi Society, annual relics display
Bodh Gaya, India
 

***

 
To Cris’ inquiry, I responded yes,  
I could return here, find a place
on the north side, beneath the treed canopy
and merge with the quiet cadence of arms
sweeping into prayer, bodies elongating,
hands sliding to lay forehead to wood. 
Yes.  I could return
to the same untrafficed corner
of the Mahabodhi temple,
nestle up against a low wall, prostrating
monk on my right, feet in front of me
an elder monk wearing grace
as pragmatically as his thick glasses. 
The second day I showed up we exchanged
warm smiles which I sense would broaden,
deepen were I to return tomorrow
and the day after, and even after that.

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, India
 

***

Having traveled the Middle Land’s
flat, dusty and chaotic roads for several weeks,
I welcomed the sanctuary of Vulture Peak’s
raw terrain; magnificent white veined charcoal crags
tumbling down into a motionless treed valley
dissected by a single winding road.  
I arrived to find the summit ruins filled,
3 saffron robed monks encircled
by a dozen Thai pilgrims swathed in white,
all seated on the ground in the late morning sun,
their eyes gently closed.  I climbed
up a face of porous rock, faced south
out to the calm valley’s expanse.  Their chanting ceased. 
We sat in silent communion.  Only wind
whispered amongst the hills, stirring my hair,
warmly caressing every inch of my face. 
A wind which seemed to carry with it voices,
pilgrims’ spirits, centuries of prayer and intention,
hope and gratitude for this life, and the next,
for oneself, for the world.   

Gujjikhuta, Vulture Peak, Rajgir, India

***

The temple grounds
were bustling when I arrived late
afternoon throngs, monastic and lay folk,
elders and children, Sri Lankan,
Tibetan, Caucasian, and Thai.

I settled on a tranquil corner
tucked up close
to a low wall, close
to several monks sitting
out of the fray. 

Initially, human noise prevailed;
chatter, chanting, footsteps.
Light waned.  Adhan cried out
from the mosque beyond
the temple gates.

Dusk rose, as did dampness
from the earth and the bird calls
swelled, filling trees and sky
drowning out human sound.

Pausing to unfold and recross my legs,
I opened my eyes to take in more
than sound.  The monks close by, previously
crimson wrapped pyramids,
had packed up to head home.
Two of the young ones, maybe in their 20s,
returned, crouched feet before me
to carefully appraise two handfuls
of fallen Bodhi leaves laying one
atop the other.  Even the dry crinkled ones,
not so amenable to stacking,
were delicately laid in the precious pile.  
I smiled thinking of the scavenged leaves
nestled between journal pages within my bag.   

Later still, the birds fell quiet,
the remaining human voices softened. 
A small rodent came furtively scritching.
The crickets began their rhythmic song
and the mute Bihari mosquitoes
danced upon my eyelids. 

   

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, India

 

 

Final Pilgrimage Destination

En Route to Bodh Gaya

There is a simple & surprisingly logical distinction between 2^nd and 3^rd class train travel in India. Goat and other livestock are not amongst the passengers in 3^rd class, nor are there baskets of cauliflower and cabbage. In a 2^nd class cabin there are 2 bunk type berths top and bottom on each side, in 3^rd class there are three. If traveling at night when all the berths are folded down, this would mean about 2 feet of vertical space per person. Thankfully, our 3 ½ hour 3^rd class ride from Varanasi to Gaya, 2^nd class being sold out, was during the day time. While the uppermost bunks are fixed, the middle fold up and all passengers sit casually sharing the horizontal surface of the lowermost bunk.

As with many elements of this part of the world, space was still at a premium. Cris pioneered the climb to the upper bunk. His enthusiasm in executing this acrobatic maneuver was hands down the clearest expression of his health and spirits being well on the mend. After a rather scrunched nap for him, we traded off. Even sitting on the bottom most bunk, one must duck or slouch in order to look out the low scratched and weathered window. As the cabins are not enclosed, one is continually serenaded by vendors passing along the narrow corridor, bucket or box in hand, each with their individual sing-songy pitch, ‘OhhhHHH, Sprite, Pepsi, Phanta, Phruiti, Padam MiiilK.’ ‘Paani, Paani, Paani…Paani ~WaateRR’ ‘Soup…Tomato Soup…Soup!’ ‘Chai…chhaaAAI, Coffee,’ ‘Gulab…Gulab Jamuum,’ not to mention the array of offerings for which I won’t even take a phonetic stab. Outside of taking in the many details of my first experience on Indian rail it was an uneventful journey. It’s amazing, in these circumstances, how much joy can be generated by the uneventful.

 

Bodh Gaya ~ Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment

Then being a quester for the good, searching for the incomparable, matchless path of peace, while walking on tour through Magadha I arrived at Uruvela, {now Bodh Gaya}, the army township. There I saw a beautiful stretch of ground, a lovely woodland grove, a clear flowing river with a beautiful ford with a village nearby for support. And I thought; “Indeed, this is a good place for a young man set on striving.”

the Buddha as quoted in Middle Land, Middle Way

There is something deeply and quietly perfect about Bodh Gaya being our last major destination on this pilgrimage. Without realizing it, I recognized with our arrival here that Bodh Gaya fulfills some image I have unconsciously held as to how a sacred Buddhist place might look. Having traveled through flat, dusty terrain since our arrival in Delhi, the air quality was noticeably different with our arrival at the train station in Gaya. We wove through hills, hills with trees! on our taxi ride from the station 12km or so into Bodh Gaya.

Like with many Buddhist monasteries and places of worship, the main Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya was largely destroyed with the Muslim invasion of India in the 12 & 13^th century. Thereafter, the remains fell into a state of further neglect and ruin. Apparently the devotion and support the Burmese Buddhist community were largely responsible for maintaining the temple for the some 600 years after the invasion. In the late 1800s, an effort to reconstruct and restore the temple’s splendor was initiated by the Burmese King and more fully manifested with the help of British pilgrim Alexander Cunningham, JD Beglar and the Indian government.

The temple grounds are delineated by a surrounding gate. One main and four smaller spires rise up amongst the trees from the rectangular foundation of the temple. It is the main spire which is initially visible from the road and the pedestrian market area leading up to the entry. A smooth stone path encircles the perimeter of the temple. Upon this path flows a rather constant stream of people circumambulating, some making the way one full body prostration at a time. From this path one looks down into the temple grounds. The main sanctuary is surrounded by myriad smaller stupas, the western side flanked by a magnificent bodhi tree, considered a distant relative of the original beneath which the Buddha purportedly sat. The south side is more open lawn and garden. On the north side, several large trees provide shade to those both meditating and doing purification through prostration practice, for hours, days, months.

Since arriving I have spent many hours walking the temple path and some time sitting down in the inner temple grounds. There is a beauty permeating this place which extends far beyond the visual. Two nights ago, I continued to circumambulate beyond dusk as the stars began appearing. Into a deep blue sky the main temple spire rose encircled by Orion and other constellations. There was a delicious crisp edge creeping into the air, cold on the fingers of my right hand and my cheeks, my left hand kept warm as I rotated prayer beads. Into the night there were still monks and nuns prostrating and meditating amongst the trees below. I was moved by a sense of how hard so many people are working, working to see clearly, to live in a good way, to contribute positively to the world.

This is indeed a global sanctuary. While the place is most vividly colored by the Tibetan monastic community’s crimson robes, there is monastic and lay presence here from Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Japan, Caucasians from Australian, Eastern & Western European, the US …not to mention a large mosque and several Hindu temples. We have encountered far and away more lay pilgrims from Sri Lanka and Thailand than any place else and that has been the case at every site we have visited.

Upon leaving the serenity of the interior grounds one encounters a rather intense barrage of energies outside the temple gates. The pedestrian area surrounding the temple is filled with vendors selling postcards, statues & memorabilia, mallas (prayer beads), prayer wheels, necklaces, medical masks, and a wide array of things for offering within the temple ~ flowers, incense and candles. In addition there is a veritable army of mostly children who beg for money, books or sponsorship in school.

These childrens’ presence, in conjunction with our accommodations here in Bodh Gaya and a variety of other luxuries along this journey have cumulatively stirred a lot of my own discomfort related to affluence, specifically having it when surrounded by those who do not. Cris’ means and predilection for certain amenities has afforded a level of comfort on this trip above what I would choose or be in a position to afford were I traveling here on my own. It is everything from a cab rather than the public bus, the choice later in the trip of hotels in lieu of temples, hotels with hot water and costs ranging from $20-50/night rather than $5. His choices are perhaps part of what has spared us from more relentless haggling, begging and harassment. However, even if we were strictly using public transportation, as with the train, the situation has simply not measured up to how intense I anticipated India would be in this regard. I believe my years in Nepal provided a certain level of inoculation.

It is indeed a poignant paradox; to walk the temple grounds filled by a sense of joy, peace and hope for the world, and upon exiting to be confronted by the horrendous disparities present in the world and my own humbling ineptitude to influence them. I find no tidy bow to wrap around this particular mental thread. It is simply one arena of contemplation for me in this place.

Rajgir & Nalanda

Back in the US, in research & preparation for this trip Cris corresponded with a monk named Ven S. Dhammika. Dhammika wrote several books which have guided our journey, Middle Land, Middle Way, and the Navel of the Earth: The History and Signficance of Bodh Gaya. He maintains a helpful website for those interested in this type of pilgrimage

http://www.buddhanet.net

In addition to itinerary suggestions, Dhammika offered Cris suggestions about which temples are most accommodating in Sarnath and Lumbini. In Bodh Gaya he suggested stopping in at the Mahabodhi Society to see if any pilgrim buses were making day trips to Rajgir and Nalanda (total of about 200km roundtrip). While they didn’t have any scheduled trips, they placed us in contact with a driver for the day. Krishna, the driver, presented himself at 7am in a gleaming brand new Toyota micro SUV. I could have cared less, however Cris (all 6’2” of him) was positively head over heels with the vehicle. It was the first really comfortable transportation experience since his arrival in this country. Astonishingly capable of maintaining the car’s pristine condition, Krishna fell toward the more agro end of the Indian driving spectrum, careening along the roads with occasional lurching stops to avoid other vehicles, potholes or livestock.

 

We arrived first at Rajgir where Krishna directed us to the dodgy chair lift arrangement which carried us up the rocky terrain to the top of Chhatha Hill which is crowned with the Shanti Stupa. Constructed by a Japanese monk back in the late 60s, the buildings nestle in the trees, and the spirit of the place, is truly quite graceful and beautifully done. Prayer flags were streaming off one side, fluttering in a light wind. I even found a rather unostentatious elegance to the gold Buddha images adorning the stupa. Our wanderings occurred to the tone of a single drum beat, deep and soft, which reverberated out like a slow heartbeat from the Nichiren temple there on the summit. This is the sect which roots its practice in the chanting of na myo ho ren ge kyo.

We descended by foot along a path which leads down and then up again to Gijjhakuta, the famous Vulture Peak, purportedly the Buddha’s favorite spot in Rajgir and where he delivered a variety of important discourse. Having been on the flat for the duration of our time in India, it was extraordinary to be in hills, rocky mountains with cleaner air and better visibility than I have seen anywhere. On the ascent of Vulture Peak, one passes two caves now adorned with pilgrims’ offerings of gold leaf, candles, katas (white silk scarves so critical in Tibetan culture/Buddhist practice), money and incense. We encountered pilgrim groups from Thailand and Sri Lanka, maybe 20 or so people in each, one group seated chanting at one of the caves, another further up.

Cris and I approached the lower of the two caves, empty but for us, and Cris turned around with bright shining eyes, “this is REAL!” And it was indeed. There was something so authentic and clear. Perhaps it was just being ‘outdoors’ in a way I haven’t been on this journey. A very sacred and serene quality pervaded the place. I continued on up to the summit. Seated in the main open area of ruins sat a group of Thai pilgrims, 3 saffron robed monks, the remainder of the group dressed in white. I climbed up on a bit of porous rock and sat facing south out on the valley. Initially the Thai group chanted…after a time they too fell silent. I sat in the silence of that valley. I could feel the sun’s warmth and the gentlest of breezes across every millimeter of skin on my face. I sat steeping in the beauty and intimacy of the moment, breathing in the silence and the wind and the energy of all the pilgrims who have come to that spot with reverence and intention and hope, hope for themselves perhaps, but I also would like to think hope for our world and what is possible in this life.

Later we continued onto the ruins of Nalanda. Beginning in the 6^th century and flourishing for some 700 years, Nalanda was a monumental Buddhist university, at its peak educating & housing 10-12,000 monks. Its halls, monasteries, and library met the same fate as other Buddhist institutions in India in the early 12^th century. Cris read somewhere that the library took 3 months to burn. If I recall correctly the ruins have only been excavated in the recent decades and work, evident during our visit, is still being done to preserve Nalanda’s remains. While the scale was undeniably extraordinary and thought provoking, my eyes and heart remained full all day from the precious morning visit at Gijjhakuta, Rajgir.

 

***

 

The temple grounds

were bustling when I arrived late

afternoon throngs, monastic and lay folk,

elders and children, Sri Lankan,

Tibetan, Caucasian, and Thai.

 

I settled on a tranquil corner

tucked up close

to a low wall, close

to several monks sitting

out of the fray.

 

Initially, human noise prevailed;

chatter, chanting, footsteps.

Light waned. Adhan cried out

from the mosque beyond

the temple gates.

 

Dusk rose, as did dampness

from the earth and the bird calls

swelled, filling trees and sky

drowning out human sound.

 

Pausing to unfold and recross my legs,

I opened my eyes to take in more

than sound. The monks close by, previously

wrapped crimson pyramids,

had packed up to head home.

Two of the young ones, maybe in their 20s,

returned, crouched feet before me

and carefully appraised two handfuls

of fallen Bodhi leaves, laying one

atop the other, even the dry crinkled ones,

not so amenable to stacking,

were delicately laid in the precious pile.

I smiled thinking of the scavenged leaves

nestled between journal pages within my bag.

 

Later still, the birds fell quiet,

the remaining human voices softened.

A small rodent came scritching

amongst the leaves.

The crickets began their rhythmic song

and the mute Bihari mosquitoes

danced upon my eyelids.

 

Mahabodhi Temple, BodhGaya, India

Paris

 

Not Strictly Solo

In the ‘intention’ for this travel log as well as in my itinerary, I have eluded, although not very explicitly to my companion Ewan. At this writing he will enter more center stage considering that we have just shared 5 days in Paris and are weeks away from meeting again in Australia. Although we have known each other for over five years, each previously partnered, it was only upon our ‘meeting’ at a dinner gathering in August that something very different happened. Since that time, we have both been quite swept up in this very new and vital relationship. The ‘sweeping’ was dramatic. And we have both dedicated a great deal of time and energy nurturing this relationship since my departure from the US.

Back in September, tentative about our shared horizon I simply posited the question, “Do you have an interest to join me somewhere on this grand journey?” to which Ewan responded emphatically, “Yes.” This was evidently not quite a part of my solo plan. And it has been an extraordinary gift in a variety of ways.

As I have done with those who have graced my journey thus far, at the risk of indiscrete gushing, it seems only appropriate to more descriptively introduce Ewan. Born in LA, he moved shortly thereafter with parents to Seattle where he has lived since the age of 2, raised in a scholarly family; father a professor of literature at the U, mother a librarian. He worked in the hospitality industry cooking and later as a bar tender for a dozen years, in and out of school at the U, later he finished his MA in literature from Prescott in Arizona. He now teaches, quite passionately, as adjunct professor of English literature at Bellevue Community College.
Ewan grew up hiking in Washington’s forests and mountains and knows them more intimately than anyone I know. In our relatively brief chapter together before I left the US, we discovered our shared delight in attention to the world’s details; the line of clouds, trees, birds, water, light. He is deeply thoughtful, a poet, a lover of verse, prose, the crafting of thought. For his half of the species (or his species depending on how one views the male population) he is notably aware of what is going on in his internal landscape and remarkably articulate about experiences as they arise.

In examining the possible dovetail of his academic calendar with my proposed itinerary, Ewan responded keenly to the idea of meeting in Europe, particularly in Paris. He has very fond memories of his own travels there while studying abroad in Avignon, France in 1988. And so with some liberties taken in his class scheduling we planned a Thanksgiving reunion in Paris.

Descent to Paris

Word of the French railway strike wove its way to me via email while I was still in Tel Aviv. Having been a reasonably anxious child in some respects, struggling when things didn’t go as planned, during my adult life I have earnestly cultivated a light hearted and optimistic approach in such circumstances. After all, what else is there to do.

I arrived back in Belgium 3 days before Ewan’s & my pending reunion. Those days I spent quite laid up with a rather severe residual cold/sinus infection aggravated by a more than red eye flight from Israel, boarding at 1:30am and arriving at 5. Only moderately recovered, I traveled south by train toting a backpack of groceries to fill the fridge of our rented apartment. Jean, my Belgian host father, explained that in situations of strike all the rules are different. One can board any train that happens to be traveling in the right direction regardless of whether or not one has a booked seat. After all, in circumstances of strike, who knows whether or not there will be another train.

My tendency to hold such situations lightly and with optimism served me well in this circumstance as the strike proved only advantageous. I arrived in Paris even a bit earlier than expected on a TGV other than the one on which I was booked. Upon walking into the Metro from the Gare du Nord, I turned to a young woman and inquired curiously, ‘so we don’t pay…because of the strike?’ And indeed, there was all of Paris brazenly walking through the open turn-stills without parting with a single euro. For quarter of an hour the young woman and I continued bantering casually in French on the platform and in the subway before I descended at the Châtelet. She was in her final year of a philosophy degree at university. As she is not interested in teaching she was deliberating apprehensively about her future prospects. This was one of two lovely conversations with locals more in the know than I, facilitated entirely by the strike. I have not previously fallen so easily into conversations with locals in Paris. The Metro, as well as the suburban train lines, which I traveled upon later to the airport, remained free through the end of the week, a great unexpected blessing.

Paris is not cheap, regardless of how one does it. For anyone considering travel to this extraordinary city for more than a couple days, consider renting an apartment as an alternative to hotels. We stayed in an extraordinary little place in the premier arrondissement on la rue Sainte Denis close to Les Halles. I found our apartment through the website below which has a WIDE range of accommodations

http://www.all-paris-apartments.com/

My return to the public transport system later in the afternoon afforded the opportunity for another lengthy conversation, this time with a young woman who lives in the northern banlieu close to the airport. I have no idea whether or not she is in the area impacted by the riots early this week. Having recently graduated with a BA in Human Resources, she is searching for employment and spoke of how it is impossible for middle class working people to live in the center of the city. After waiting on the platform for 20 minutes with no activity, she steered me to another line where we hopped a train to the Gare du Nord and then were able to pick up the line traveling out to the airport. Such idiosyncracies are entirely a function of who has or has not returned from the strike lines. Under our collective wing, I folded a young British couple also lingering there on the platform. They neither spoke French nor even knew there was a strike, and yet had a pending return flight to England.

Rather than indulge in the intimate details of November 21-26th, I am more compelled to paint Ewan’s & my time together in broad brushstrokes. From our seamless reunion at Charles de Gaulle airport until our separation 5 days later, it was a leisurely, enchanted, reaffirming, precious time.
We were graced with cold, dry weather all but one rainy morning. A waxing full moon sailed through the skies each night bathing the city and the quintessential Parisian rooftops visible from our apartment in a resplendent lunar glow. We passed hours walking hand in hand through the wandering cobblestone streets of Montmartre & Sacre Coeur, the Left Bank, l’île de la Cité. We walked quietly through ancient churches and catherdrals; Notre Dame, La Sainte Chapelle, St-Germain-des-Prés, St Eustaches. Our time was spent sharing more leisurely coffees than museum visits. We delighted in people watching. We feasted visually on the magnificent architectural wealth of the city. We relished the opportunity to share each other’s company, to allow dialogue to unfold in its own timing, to share periods of quiet in the presence of the other. We ate simply, adjourning for all but one of our evening meals to the quiet refuge of the little apartment tucked up beneath the eaves on la rue Saint Denis.

A particularly cherished day for both us was the Sunday, our last shared together, and one which I have taken a humble stab at in the verse below. This rather unpolished portion touches upon my heartfelt veneration for the international institution of the market, be it in Tournai or Paris, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. I absolutely adore walking amongst people doing their groceries in the open air, exchanging not only money for goods, but pleasantries, bargaining, a warmth and depth of human interchange. True markets of produce and cheese, eggs and spices are all the more precious when stumbled upon by chance, as was this one discovered at the base of l’Eglise St Eustaches.

Fed, rested, honey sweetened tea lingering
in the pockets of our mouths, fingers threaded
between those of the other, we set forth into
the late morning Parisian streets of the premier arrondissement.
The freshly washed cobblestones were quite empty,
the city waking slowly but for the bustle
in the northeastern shadow of l’Eglise Sainte Eustaches.

Moving with measured conduct, locals wove
their way amongst each other with canvas bags in hand,
grocery lists in mind or in pocket beside small bills
and centime coins readied for market exchange.
Elongated rabbit, fur intact, lay beside cuts
of beef and duck, the air filled with the rot of soft
French cheese flirting with the perfume of oyster, anemone,
cut of salmon and sole, piles of prawns, quarters of pumpkin,
mound of leek, glow of persimmon and further on
the bread! Yes! Woven braids of olive and onion,
flaked croissant and tarte normande, stacked loaves
to be broken with soup, with game, the sweet,
the savoury, the air so pregnant with their rich flavour
a woman’s hips round at the scent of it all.

We wove amongst the civil throngs, crafting our dinner
along the way before we returned to where the mouth
of Sainte Eustache opens to Les Halles.  There,
turning up the Montorgueil we stopped
and nestled ourselves at a tiny terrace table,
sipped coffee surrounded by French, bathed
in the autumnal sun.  I exchanged silly faces
through the glass with two young children who darted
back and forth from fogging the cafe window
with their young breath to careening into the street.
All the while transpired a leisurely unfolding dialogue
between you and me over coffee and later food,
and later still another coffee before we ventured
back out into the street, by then quite filled
with bodies of midday leisure. 

After depositing our groceries at the apartment in the mid-afternoon, our day continued unfurling with a long walk past the Louvre, through the Tuilleries to Les Invalides and the vast tracts of open grass where we encountered dozens of soccer games in progress. It was a particular delight for Ewan who, having his own fair history with the sport, played his first pick up game in a fair while just weeks ago. We followed the arc of la rue Saint-Dominique west on to the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tour for a breath taking sunset which filled the sky with swathes of apricot and fuchsia. As the light faded, we descended into the Metro, where we paid entry the first time since our arrival.

Shared Path Ahead

We parted on November 26^th in the same terminal of the Charles de Gaulle airport. Days after finishing the winter quarter at BCC, Ewan will board another plane, this time heading west to meet me on yet another continent. Now back and deeply engaged in the ardor of grading and preparing his students for final papers and exams, he might do well to have his head examined for his own ambitious travel itinerary. I am grateful that his head is not the driving force in the present equation.

The title of this particular entry elucidates an element of my travel log not previously divulged. My voice in these writings is that of a solo nomad deftly, I hope, weaving my way into the lives of those along my journey. And yet Ewan has been an integral part of these travels. We maintain, as possible, extensive daily email correspondence. He has been the preliminary audience for many narratives which have later found their way here, some sections pared of particular intimacies, others expanded in detail before posting. Prior to August, I was my own primary axis in the midst of a rather focused and narrow graduate school life. That has changed. Ewan has become an indelible presence and support in the journey.

Check in, Bound for Tel Aviv

Had my interrogator come not
as a woman my age, not quite 5′3″,
proud nose, marvelous bright eyes,
deep brown curly lochs falling far
down her back, I might
have held the lengthy questioning differently
in the cage of my chest,
the depths of my belly.

As it was, I answered each
question with measured breath
truthful words, lightness
in my own heart & eyes.
It seemed a game of sorts.
Fewer points for an answer’s content,
more awarded for each phrase
delivered with calm and confidence.

Close to the end
she spoke with warmth,
without smile,
It will be wonderful…your trip. Summer’s
so hot, now it is perfect.
These words were punctuated
by apology
for all the questions.
I understand,
you are doing your job, I offered
with well intentioned smile.
I don’t use that phrase,
anymore...she said flatly
both eyes deeply engaged, you know
that’s what
the Germans said.

Flight

A hollow sense

 

A strange hollow sense arose in me

when, after barreling along the runway,

the wheels retracted,

tucking up into the metal underbelly,

and the noise fell away,

as did the earth.

 

Glossy in its morning stillness

the Sound stretched out,

hardly a craft

disturbing the line of it.

To the west, snow crested ridges

emerged between billowy contours.

And in another breath it was gone.

All of it.

The plane engulfed,

clouds gently parted to allow

our passage through shades of blue,

cream, white, grey, tinges of dirty yellow.

Swallowed up, we were,

and that hollowness,

a part of the ethereal texture,

as we were swallowed

into a gossamer sky.