Rainer Maria Rilke in his Letters to a Young Poet: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” “Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

This pilgrimage to India is to honor these questions. It is to also to honor the Ancient Awakened One and my teachers many of whom passed this way at the start of their journey almost half a century ago (Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Goleman, Richard Davidson, Goenka-ji and others). Visiting the same places where they started their path of heart and wisdom some 50 years ago seems like a good start to my new chosen path. Truth be told, there was something in me hoping to find while in this pilgrimage answers to many questions, foremost of which is the ever nagging question: Am I taking the right path? What has given me comfort is that the answer that keeps coming back to me is a resounding yes.

Early in the morning of the first day of 2020, my last day in Bodhgaya, I decided to make a last visit to Mahabodhi Temple.  I meditated among chanting monks overlooking the Bodhi tree, pilgrims circumbobulating the temple and monks doing their seemingly endless prostrations.

There were two little monks who took a liking in me and kept on engaging, smiling, talking, staring.  Very cute.  It always warms my heart when I see these very young student monks.

I paused to look at the Bodhi tree before I left the temple grounds.  But my legs seem to be keeping me from leaving.  I couldn’t turn my gaze for several minutes and had to pull myself out of the hypnosis.

I have always been a tree person.  I could spend a day under a tree and stare at it, especially the big, leafy ones.  I remember one tree on Riverside Park, where I usually see the falcon guy — I would spend a weekend morning reading at the bench fronting it and glancing at it furtively like a secret crush. Trees seem to play a big part throughout the Buddha’s life and that’s another marker of the truth of my path. Or I would like to believe that it is.

I was able to visit all the significant Buddha sites in India.  The ones that were inspiring were those still in nature — Vulture’s Peak (where he introduced the Lotus Sutra and where he is said to have held up a flower and his most senior disciple smiled and then and there got enlightened), Saptaparni cave where he meditated, Nalanda (and Ajanta). The ones on which his followers have through the years built worship sites were not as emotionally resonant.  

I did another Goenka-style 10-day vipassana retreat, at Dhamma Bodhi, just outside of Bodhgaya (after the first one in Kushinagar in November). I decided to walk the 4 kilometers to the center. To say that Google maps is not reliable in these parts is an understatement. And it’s been raining and roads in these rural parts are still not paved. I found myself in endless rice fields lost, my boots full of thick mud. I met a shepherd boy named Rocky pastoring buffalos. He guided me to a road and finally found my way. Good adventure. Proud of my calmness, okay semi-calmness.

100+ men, and probably 50+ women. Less rigid than Kushinagar which made for a more conducive atmosphere. A few big breakthroughs — observe intense pain equanimously, sit one hour several times with not too much effort, instances of deep concentration.

I met some serious meditators. Twin American brothers (Dan and John Green) who have each done more than 8 retreats. Then there’s Chilean Nicolas Hernandez from whom I got good information about places in Myanmar and Thailand. There’s the local Raj (no last name) who was one of the people who signed me in and he approached me at the end of the retreat. Beautiful guy, both inside and out. We had a connection but I didn’t want to exploit it. He has been doing these retreats for many years and is definitely the real deal. We had an intellectual argument about what the Satipatthana Sutta instructs and he remained calm and open. Wonderful fellow.
I continued reading Joseph Goldstein (who I learned considers Goenka as one of his teachers). I am interested to know what his view is of Goenka’s instructions and focus on “sensations” in the body. Later, I learned even Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson first learned vipassana via Goenka courses. I know Sharon Salzberg considered Goenka-ji her teacher as well — I believe it was at a Goenka retreat where she felt the power of metta. It made me excited that my experience in India mirrored the experience of these teachers whom I deeply respect. It is indeed a good way to start this journey.
At one point I was listening to Roshi Joan and John Dunne on Shantideva’s “The Way of the Bodhisattva” and it so happened I was in Nalanda where Shantideva was a not so well-liked monk. His fellow monks said that his three “realizations” were eating, sleeping, and shitting. That evening, I went to the Big Gompa at Root Institute, the main temple, to meditate. I decided to open the Gompa Prayer Book to a random page and who comes up?! Who else but Shantideva! And his message is so relevant for me in this path…

Journal:
Stayed at Root Institute

Visited

Wat Thai Temple

Daijokyo Temple

Giant Buddha

Bangladesh Temple

meditated under the Bodhi tree

Root Institute

Indosan Nipponji temple

Tergar Monastery

Buddhagyan Ashram (Sri Lanka)

Myanmar Vihara (Joseph G!)

Mahabodhi Society

Royal Bhutan Monastery

Karma Temple

Palyul Namdroling Temple

Mongolian Temple

Viet Nam Phat Quoc Tu

Metta Buddharam Temple

Raj, beautiful hearted Indian teenager

Vulture’s Peak (Griddhakuta), Lotus sutra, where Buddha held up a flower and Mahakasyapa (?) smiled and became enlightened

Saptaparni Cave, Buddha meditated, likely location of First Buddhist Council 6 months after Buddha died to define direction of new faith

Nalanda, 500 AD, greatest ancient Buddhist University. Around 700 AD, 10000 monks and students lived here, studying theology, astronomy, metaphysics, medicine and philosophy. Three extensive libraries so large they burnt for 6 months when foreign invaders sacked the place in 1193.

The Buddha is said to have stayed several times at Nalanda. Later, King Asoka (250 BC) built a stupa in the memory of Shariputra, one the two close disciples of the Buddha.

Many of the great Indian panditas taught at Nalanda, including Nagajurna, Aryadeva, Chandrakirti and Shantideva.

In its heyday it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was considered an architectural masterpiece, and was marked by a lofty wall and one gate. Nalanda had eight separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and classrooms. On the grounds were lakes and parks. 

The subjects taught at Nalanda University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. Students studied science, astronomy, medicine and chiefly metaphysics and philosophy. 

The library of Nalanda, known as Dharma Gunj (Mountain of Truth) or Dharmagañja (Treasury of Truth), was the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world. Its collection was said to comprise hundreds of thousands of volumes, so extensive that it burned for months when set aflame by Muslim invaders led by the Turk Bakhtiar Khilji in 1193. Thousand of monks were burned alive or killed.