Timepass: having sat four days under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya and watched in procession:
– an ant struggling to go the wrong way as hundreds of devotees perambulate around the tree/shrine – it was eventually crushed flat
– literally thousands of feet passed as I watched – people’s feet are so varied in India, rings on toes, twisted toenails, variety of socks (its winter)
– a red carpet was laid out, before some dignitary came an was shown the shrine
– Tibetan, Thai, Sri Lankan, Indian, and occasionally European monks
– groups of 30 spiritual tourists and tour guide sitting and chanting in 15 minute blocks (there must be a schedule)
– a scramble for a fallen Bodhi leaf (one had fell on me while sitting with the meditators in 1989 – I did not realise its meaning, but could see the devotees looking at me and wondering why someone who had come for just 15 minutes was lucky enough to get a leaf – I gave it to one of them
– a glossy-bearded well-groomed clean/wealthy US american 35 year old explaining everything about the temple, from the Lonely Planet web guide, to a younger female, loudly, during the monks chanting, and quite annoying (sent to test my patience I think).
– the Tibetan, Thai, Sri Lankan, Indian monks accepting gifts of money and gold jewellery from 30-something Korean, Japanese women visitors dressed in elegant salwar kameez
– older white women doing full exotica
– crazed Indian sadhu types that speak fluent English hippy
– eastern European women and Indian men about 25 doing full length body prayer, pranam crouch, sit up, yoga type perambulations round the shrine (there is a name for this that I’ve not looked up in google brain).
– 65 year old Australian guy watching all this with his Vietnamese friend who sneaks snacks from her bag (strictly buddhist!). This guy takes occasional notes in a notebook
– a spider web spun among the Bodhi tree leaves
– bodhi tree leaf sellers, a jewell embedded in the leaf, vacuum sealed in a plastic cover
– armed police, male and female, and a ruckus started nearby, they join with enthusiasm and lathi sticks
– different nationalities with organised meditation spots – the Vietnam one usually vacant after the first saturday
– non-la (vietnamese conical bamboo hat) is more evident here than in HCMC.
– Indian female army troop in a fabulous blue and white camouflage pattern uniform – you would not be able to find them in… an aquarium.
– 50 year old californian walking super slow, mindful of each step, in everyone’s way nevertheless
– stray dogs
– monk feeding female stray (so ‘not’ stray) metres from the holiest of holies
– crows, apparently dying but because rubbish is cleared too quickly now and they are starving, evident here also (as in Kolkata)
– all mosquitoes matter
– cleaning staff work 5 hour shifts, while devotees offer a few minutes cleaning as votive penance, murmuring gatha or parithas.
– other parts of the bodhisattva’s journal not emphasised in Bodhgaya, as if he landed for those 7 weeks from outer space – sci fi buddha
– still peace, much heavily robed, cloth selling, fashion-conscious, peace (tailor stores doing well near the main market)
Much more of this…World keeps on being interesting I guess. I am not ready to renounce…
