Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya, a small city in Bihar, is where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Since Buddhism died out of India around 700 AD, there has been little interest in preserving sacred Buddhist sites, so until just a couple of decades ago the ancient temple was just ignored among the filth and grime of the village. People set up shacks on the grounds, and the temple was used as a toilet.

Buddhism pilgrimage site

After the Tibetan Buddhists began their exodus in 1959, they began to visit Bodhgaya as a sacred site. Slowly they worked to clean up the temple area and seek preservation. Today it is a World Heritage site and hosts visitors from around the world. Buddhists from many countries have established monasteries and temples in this holy city. I recall Tibetan, Bhutanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Thai, and Burmese temples. There may have been Vietnamese and others, too. The town has been transformed from a typical Bihar hell-hole into a tourist area.

With Bodhgaya as an example, other sacred Buddhist cities are starting to take notice of the potential. Many tourist companies are now selling pilgrimage tours through several different cities, such as Buddha's birthplace, the place of his first speech, etc., and these areas are starting to get cleaned up and developed. But they have a long way to go. Unless you compare them to the rest of Bihar, they still look pretty miserable.

One group (the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Traditions) has proposed to build the world's tallest statue of Buddha in Bodhgaya. For three years they worked with local officials, but could not get through the corruption. Recently the plans have shifted to the nearby state of Uttar Pradesh instead, another example where corruption has denied the locals of potential beneficial investment --the project has a budget of $300 million! The officials were more interested in pocketing a portion of that themselves, and locals suffer.

Annual Kalichakra teachings by the Dalai Lama

Bodhgaya has developed as a pilgrimage site largely through the goodwill of the Tibetans. Every January, the Dalai Lama comes to Bodhgaya to give teachings. These have grown such that this year over 100,000 people attended! The small city is completely overwhelmed with monks and Tibetan refugees, with many staying in tent cities erected on the outskirts. This is also the time for the locals to earn a little money, so rents and food prices go sky high, especially for foreigners.

We arrived a couple of weeks before the teachings were to begin, so filled the time with visiting temples, a side trip to Varanasi, and such. But we also were fortunate to stumble into a rare opportunity. We knew some of the people involved with the organization hosting the Dalai Lama, so we were able to spend 3-4 days helping to get his apartment ready. It was quite special to be able to serve such a special person. Some of the other helpers were constantly in tears due to their intense devotion.

During the teachings we could barely see the Dalai Lama with our binoculars (which rapidly became very popular with everyone sitting around us!). But we did happen to be along the side of the road one day when his procession slowly drove by less than nine feet (3 meters) away!

As the crowds come to Bodhgaya, so do the beggars. They line the street, sitting peacefully in rows three deep the length of the main area. There are many hundreds. The deformed are wheeled in carts, but mostly the streets are just lined with beggar women with their children, staring vacantly as the crowds pass by. We hear that some restaurants take turns feeding the beggars and plan to find out which restaurants so that we can donate, but we are not successful.

We eat mostly at Mohammad’s, a well know haunt of westerners. He serves excellent food at fair prices. He also has opened a new guest house, hoping to cash in on the annual teachings. He rents rooms for 10,000-15,000 Rupees per month during January, compared to the norm of perhaps 50 Rupees a night otherwise.

Westerners and Indians invariably have different cultures. One difference shows up regarding reservations. Several people have made reservations at Mohamed's, so he has held the rooms, even though they paid no deposit. He left them vacant for many days waiting for the arrivals. Some people eventually were located at other hotels. To an Indian, this is extreme dishonesty. To the westerners it was just a business transaction. However, I'm sure they would have felt differently if he had not held their rooms and they showed up wanting them!

We pitched our tent on the roof of Mohamed's guest house. It was nice up there, with a good view. Unfortunately it was also during a record cold, just a few degrees above freezing. But we were quite snug with the tent and our down sleeping bags. In fact people in the guest rooms downstairs (which are drafty and unheated) seemed colder.

Some found the place to be wonderful, but one woman found it deplorable. It was a great lesson to us that most of what you think you see around you is actually your own projection. She was forever yelling at Mohamed and his brother about one thing or another. First the power was out, then there was no hot water, then the doors were not secure, and so on. Once you get into a mindset where you believe things are bad, then they indeed are. But in exactly the same circumstances, the rest of the guests were quite happy. So the power goes out? This is India, after all. And the hot water? Mohamed brought over a gas stove for people to use to heat water. We were extremely grateful and commented that this was very kind of Mohamed. The irate woman couldn't see it that way -she saw him as delinquent in not providing it earlier and that it was his duty to provide it so there was no generosity to be acknowledged. Indeed, if you think people are kind than you find their acts to be of kindness. If you think they are mean, then the same acts seem to be of meanness. Most of the bad we see in the world has roots in our own minds...how else to explain that what we see as bad others see as good?

Mahabodhi Temple

We visited the temple many times during our stay, trying to meditate under the tree, circumambulate around the temple, or otherwise practice. Some practitioners have made major vows, such as staying at the temple for three months to complete 100,000 prostrations. At night, literally thousands of people would make light offerings --hundreds of thousands of candles and butter lamps lined the whole of the temple. A most amazing sight.

While in Bodhgaya, several high lamas led a ceremony for the deceased. Offerings and prayers were made for their spirits, and scraps of papers with their names were burned under the Bodhi tree. Fran added the name of her grandmother, who had died in December while we were at the Kopan monastery, to the list. The ceremony was quite moving for us since we were unable to attend the funeral in California.