Looking back, take 3b (stranded in India; reflections on teachings, expectations and the tasks of a pilgrim.)

Domo Geshe Rinpoche and students in discussion on the grounds of Nalanda University

Well, now back to the very long day.....

After leaving Rajgir, we drove a while longer (it all becomes a blur after a while.) I began to tell that my tailbone was getting a bit sore - hmmm, if I was going to avoid a pressure ulcer, I was going to have to take precautions. The roads are uniformly bumpy, so comfort was a relative term. Some fellow travelers suffered from motion sickness and I was glad I brought along ginger Altoids for them.

We arrived at the ruins of Nalanda University. Nalanda is of great significance to Tibetan Buddhism. The great Buddhist philosophers and meditators who were the teachers and disseminators of the Vajrayana Buddhism that went to Tibet came primarily from Nalanda. The names of its scholars and practitioners reads like a "who's who" of Buddhist philosophy and practice. Nalanda was comprised of a collection of 'monasteries', perhaps like our modern universities are collections of 'colleges.' The student-teacher ratio was something like 2.5 to 1. Nalanda was a major center of Buddhist thought and learning for centuries and continued to be an active university until the Turkish Muslims invaded and, in their own version of the crusades, wiped out Indian Buddhism. If Indian Vajrayana Buddhism had not been disseminated to Tibet and neighboring Himalayan countries (such as Bhutan, Nepal and Mongolia), it would probably have been lost to the world. So being at Nalanda and walking the "hallowed halls"(or at least the hallowed courtyards) of meditation and learning was a real treat for us. We saw the individual cubicles of the monk scholars, and an altar nook was built into each room. These scholars did not just think and think; they meditated and meditated. They delved into the nature of reality. Yet, when all was said and done, it was the actual practice (the inner practice) that was the true dharma. Sometimes the strongest practitioners were scholars - and sometimes they weren't.

Rinpoche, being a scholar as well as a yogi, was in her element. She took us over onto the grass under a tree and we sat down and had a discussion, where we students asked questions and we discussed them, much as we imagined might have occurred centuries ago among the real students and teachers at Nalanda.

The grounds of Nalanda was the only place in India I saw that was truly free of litter. They were beautiful, flowers were planted, and there was still careful excavation going on. When we left, we were tired. We had been up a long time and had walked a LOT, climbing up to Massed Vultures Peak and riding for hours in the bus. We were ready for lunch and then a nap in the bus on the way to the airport at Patna and a plane to Delhi. Many of us did nap and we arrived at Patna as dark was nearing. We discoverd that fog in Delhi had caused our flight to be cancelled. It was Saturday and there were no more flights to Delhi from Patna until Monday. However, those of us going home were supposed to leave for the US on Sunday night. We were hours from any other airport. It took Jugney & John and the travel agent and the bus driver several hours to come up with an alternative plan. And we sat on the bus, or played our Chod drums, or walked around the parking lot as one plan after another was discussed and scrapped. As Trilbu finally said, if she was going to be stranded in India with anyone, she would rather be stranded with us. We ate more junk food during that time on the bus than we had eaten during the entire rest of our trip. I began to wonder if we would even have time to go to the tailor in Delhi and pick up our orders before leaving - if we even made it back to Delhi in time to catch our flight at all. I agreed with Trilbu; if I was going to be stranded in India, I would rather be stranded with Rinpoche and my dharma brothers & sisters than anyone.

Finally we had a plan. The closest ariport was in Varanasi, 7-8 hours drive away. If we left now, we would pass through an unprotected area during the night, which the bus driver said was not safe. So we went to a hotel, and 3-to-a-room, we slept until almost 2 am. We left all our luggage in the luggage compartment of the bus and slept in the clothes on our backs. At 2 am we boarded the bus for the 8 hour drive to Varanasi (Sarnath actually). Arriving close to 10 am on the morning of the day we were scheduled to fly home, we had a breakfast buffet and rested for a couple of hours. The travel agent was working on getting enough seats on flights back to Delhi for at least those who would be leaving the country that night. The plan was a moving target - as one flight after another changed, and the hours that we were originally going to spend doing our last day's shopping slipped away. In the end most of us took a flight that left Varanasi at 3 something pm, and we didn't actually get back to the Potala guest house until 7-7:30 pm. This left us less than 2 hours to get our orders from the tailor, make last minute purchases (which I knew I would not be able to do, so I let go of my wish to go back to the thangka shop I had found several weeks before and obtain a thangka of the 21 Taras.) My order at the tailor was not correct (this was my winter monastic robes), and there was no time to have it corrected. I was able to retrieve the remaining material and leave it with N. Pema. We hope she has time to get the correct items made for me during the week she remains in India, but she will be traveling and that may or may not occur. Final packing was completed just in time. With all of this unwanted excitement of the last day and a half, and in spite of the uncertainty and disappointment that accompanied each change in plans, everyone seemed to take it in stride. After all, this was only what one could expect from samsara. It was a bit disappointing, but it was not that big a deal. With bags in the lobby, those of us who were to leave went to Rinpoche's room for her end-of-the-pilgrimage instructions and a final blessing. In the lobby, Pema and Jugney gave us each a kata and reminded us that the purpose of pilgrimage is to remove obstacles. May they be gone!

The bus was loaded and we were off to the airport for our 24 hour plus trip home. Since we were heading west, Jan 15th lasted 36 hours for us. Difficulties were few and we arrived home safe and sound. However, as several have pointed out, we are not the same people we were when we left. I do not feel the same. Here is where I will try to pull together the themes of the pilgrimage for me: Who am I willing to become? and the tasks of a pilgrim.

I've never been a pilgrim before - at least not in this life, and so I really had little idea what to expect. I expected almost daily teachings like we get at retreats. We actually got very few outer teachings. What we got were initiations, empowerments, impromptu teachings and unbelievable inner teachings - if we were open to receive them. I cannot say I realized at the time where the questions of pilgrimage I posted way back in November came from. They seemed to write themselves and they sounded good. Looking back, it makes much more sense. At one point, Rinpoche had said that the purpose of pilgrimage is to remove obstacles, but I gave that little real thought. Looking back, it makes perfect sense. Rinpoche's first real teaching of the pilgrimage was about personality and healing personality. Looking back it makes perfect sense. At one point I wrote about dealing with self-cherishing, and finally realizing that I needed to apply the antidote (tonglen), after which I could move on to the tasks of a pilgrim. What I didn't realize at the time was - that was the task of a pilgrim. This pilgrimage was not about sitting at the outer feet of our teacher and learning more stuff. It was not about going to whiz bang nifty spiritual sites and saying, "Wow, what great energy!." It was not about fancy meditations and the direct experience of suchness (although I am sure that would be welcome if it happened.) This pilgrimage was about removing obstacles. It was about reducing self-cherishing and getting rid of (or significantly reducing) the dense habitual patterns that hold us in suffering - those aspects of our personalities that cause ourselves and those around us unhappiness. It was not about learning, but about becoming. Rinpoche once told me that enlightenment is not something you do; it is something you are. You don't learn enlightenment; You become enlightened. This trip was not about getting all the magnificent teachings we are accustomed to, but it was about changing enough so that when things did not go well (like on our very long day), we didn't go into suffering. When our buttons got pushed, did we wallow, or did we just disconnect the button?

Some days I wallowed. One morning, walking towards the temple, Pema asked how I was. (That morning I was near wallowing.) I told Pema and Trilbu that I was dealing with obscurations (actually the ones that most frequently cause me unhappiness.) Pema just said, "Hold them lightly and laugh at them....oh, you already are." Finally, they disappeared like a morning fog is burned off by the sun. My discovery is that the task of a pilgrim is to answer the question, "What am I willing to let go of? Who am I willing to become?"

I still hope that Pema has the chance to get the rest of my monastic robes made, but if it doesn't work out...... well...we'll just have to go at it a different way.

may there be a rain of dharma