Kumiko, how are you?  One week has passed in India.  I am afraid you were surprised at my experiences in Delhi and in the murder bus.  After that, however, I have had no problem.  Traveling has been nice as I understood the tips how to walk around the city and how to use transportations.  Last night I arrived at Bodh Gaya.  The hotel I am staying, one of the best here, is comfortable.  From the veranda, I can see a beautiful field.  I will have a rest here for two night. (November 24, Saturday)

About money

The rate of this nice hotel is as reasonable as Rs1500 or $45 per night.  You must have been surprised at the rates, Rs150 and Rs300, for the hotels I stayed at Khajuraho and Varanasi, respectively, because they are about $4.5 and $9.0.  They were never worst ones, however.  I met a lot of common travelers there and was satisfied with the private room with twin beds.  They were much more comfortable than camping with a tent.

Playing the Game, “Old Maid”

One more talk about money.  Sometimes I receive worn-out or stained bills in India.  If they are so damaged to have any breaks or fixed with tape, shopmen never receive the bills.

At the first night in India when I arrived at Delhi, I had a light dinner, paid by a Rs500 bill and received a change from a waiter.  Shortly he came back to me, showed another Rs500 bill and asked me to exchange it with my change.  I declined but he insisted in exchange.  An Indian guest came to us and said that the Rs500 bill the waiter showed couldn’t be used normally because it was fixed with tape.  I escaped the trouble narrowly.

In shopping the other day, a shopman refused to receive my Rs10 bill.  It was due to fixing with tape!  I didn’t remember where I had had it.  When I was waiting a night train at a platform, I try to give the bill to a boy beggar.  He swung his hand to tell me it was a bad bill by gesture.

In another chance when I made a payment with Rs20 bill for a bottle of cola, a shopman also refused because it has a small break. I said I didn’t buy the cola and then he received the bill reluctantly.

What’s this!  It looks like to be playing the Old Maid!  I am carefully guarding against drawing Old Maid in shopping everyday though I haven’t had any trouble for large bills so far yet.

********************************

November 23, Friday

Left Varanasi to Bodh Gaya

Varanasi was the place that had a mysteriously attractive power.  I understand why the Japanese I met stay there for a long time, for one week or even more than one month.  I left Varanasi with my lingering attachment to ride the train departing at 16:25 as scheduled.  Soon when the train crossed through a bridge, I saw the Ganga, Ghats and the sun going down in the west.

In the train I read a small book about Buddha, “The Sutta Nipata,”  particularly the beginning sections, “The Snake” and “Dhaniya the cattleman.”

                From “Dhaniya the cattleman”

The Dhaniya the cattleman:

            “The rice is cooked, my milking done.

               I live with my people along the bank of the Mahi;

                 My hat is roofed, my fire lit;

                    So, if you want, rain-god, go ahead and rain.”

The Buddha:

            “Free from anger, my stubbornness gone.

               I live for one night along the bank of the Mahi;

                 My hut’s roof is open, my fire out;

                   So, if you want, rain-god, go ahead and rain.”

      ...............

I felt as if I were directly listening to Buddha’s voice in these phrases.  In the conversation with the cattleman, Buddha is expressing his thought gently and straightforwardly.

In the train I was thinking around by comparing the Sutta Nipata with the Heart Sutra: the latter is philosophical whereas the former clear and natural.  I felt I was getting more familiar with the human Buddha during this traveling.

While thinking around, the train arrived at Gaya 10 min earlier than scheduled.  I wondered if it was Gaya because there was no announce system in trains.  I made sure of the station name and got off to the platform.  I found an Indian displaying my name written in paper.  It was a service by the hotel I had booked.  He took me by his car to the Hotel Taj Darbar located 10 km apart from the station.  It was one of the best hotels here.  Went to the inside restaurant after 10 p.m. to take a dinner.  A young waiter gave me a massage for a short time.  He said it was Rs300 to massage for 30 min in my room but I declined.  Went to bed at 11 p.m.

November 24, Saturday

The Maha Bodhi Temple - Place of Enlightenment

I woke up at 6:00 a.m.  I slept very well and energy has flown up.  I saw the blue sky and green fields from the terrace of my room.  I took a rest at the hotel early in the morning.

I went out and walked along a village road, which has roadside trees with yellow flowers like locust to Maha Bodhi  Temple.  Here is the place where Gautama Siddhartha or Shakyamuni, later called Buddha, attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree (listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site). 

I checked in my shoes at the entrance, walked in socks and went down the steps to the tower or stupa being 50 meters high.  Two Nepari monks came up (Right).  I entered inside the stupa  where a golden statue of Buddha was placed and  sat on the floor to say The Heart Sutra.  I went out to the square beside the stupa, sat again on the stone floor under a Bodhi tree and tried meditation for a while (Below).

The stupa of Maha Bodhi Temple

Meditating or hesitating?

Buddhism and I

I continue to think about the Heart Sutra.  It was at my elementary school days that I heard a phrase in the sutra, “The body is exactly empty”.  A precocious classmate wrote it somewhere.  I did not understand its meaning at all but the phrase was left deeply in my memory probably due to its sophisticated appearance and also due to its crisp sound when I read it in Japanese. 

I forgot the sutra for a long time although occasionally I heard monks saying the sutra, such as in funerals.  As usual for most Japanese, I could not understand what monks were saying because sutras are said out in Chinese pronunciation.  They just sounded as if they are spells and they seemed to be a too old-fashioned, meaningless phrases.  One day my son, Tojiro, talked about the sutra and explained the meaning when he was in high school.  I had an interest in his words and read a book about the sutra.

Body is nothing more than emptiness,

emptiness is nothing more than body.

The body is exactly empty,

and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence --
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness --
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.    (From the Internet site)

I felt that the concept of these phrases has a significant coincidence with the modern thought of science.  In science, all the recognitions like law and theorems are approved as the truths based on experiments, for example Newton constructed the law of motion based on the  observation (of falling apples).  However, his theory has found not to be applied to the small particles in the world of molecules and atoms.  Scientists know that all the “truths” will be unavoidably modified or denied in the future: this thought must be exact truth.  -  The body is exactly empty, and emptiness is exactly body.  When I realized the coincidence or harmony between the sutra and modern science, Buddhism  has appeared differently in front of my eyes.  At the same time I wondered why and how Buddha had found the rational thought in the ancient world full of superstition.

This “discovery” excited curiosity in me for a time but I forgot about the sutra soon without notice.  Several years later, however, I encountered it again. It was when I was at the crossroad of my life.  I lost my way of life and could not understand myself.  I desperately read various kinds of books including religion, philosophy and psychology to resolve such complicated and difficult matters.  I felt I was powerless and ignorant.  I believed there should have been some important truth I had never known yet.  I also tried to visit priests and to pray for the God.  One day, I casually took a small, stained book on Buddhism that I bought several years ago.  I turned over and a phrase came into my eyes: Live under the light of yourself. Never live by others.  The book said this was the last words before Buddha died.  The phrase gave me a peace and ease.  I stopped hunting for books and began to trust myself to move on.   It was like the storybook of  “The Blue Bird” by Maeterlinck.  That experience naturally made me understand the Heart Sutra more than before.

Recollecting the past, I was in peace under the Bodhi tree while my arms were asleep.  I crawled a bit and stood up slowly.  I went back to the hotel to be relaxed there in the afternoon.

November 25, Sunday

Touring ancient places sacred to Buddha - Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Patna

I woke up at 5:30 p.m.  Not having breakfast, I walked to the Maha Bodhi Temple and walked around the stupa.  Under the Bodhi tree behind, known as the place where Gautama attained the enlightenment, about twenty people sat in contemplation or za-zen.  I joined them for a while.  The stupa began glowing in the morning sun. 

I started driving at 9:00 a.m.  with a young driver.  He drove with deadly speed on country roads.  We passed several public buses that were carrying too many passengers even on the roof (Right).  It would be too much for me to ride such a murder bus again.

At 10:30 we arrived at Rajgir, by only one hour and a half driving for the way that usually takes more than three hours.  Here was located in a basin surrounded by hills.  On the way of driving, I saw constructions that looked like ancient earthwork.  Rajgir was Rajagriha, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Magadha during the Buddha’s era in 5th century B.C. Now it was a crowded sightseeing spot.  The main course is going up the top of Mt. Ratnagiri with a lift.  At the top is a white stupa constructed by a Japanese Buddhist group.  There was a nice view of the surrounding hills. I talked with a monk and his mother from Tibet (Above).

We left Rajgir and stopped by at Sonbhanar, the caves carved during third to fourth centuries A.D. by Jaina group.  We drove for more 30 minutes and arrived at Nalanda at noon.

The ruin is extended in very large site and the buildings are totally built with red bricks (Above).  I walked around thinking Xuanzang who carried back a huge amount of sutras to China.

We arrived at Patna Railway Station in the dusk of of the evening after 5 p.m.  Patna is also an ancient place called Pataliputra, the second capital of the kingdom of Magadha and of the following kingdoms.  I have to stay here until 10:10 p.m. in this evening, the departure time of my night train. I went to a hotel near the station and ask the front to keep my luggage.  A front person accepted it casually and free of charge.  I am writing this at a restaurant of the hotel, Sujata.  Tomorrow I will be in Darjeeling.

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