I once spent some time in the town of Bodhgaya in North India which is where, over 2500 years ago, The Buddha became enlightened. The hotel which I was staying in had contemporary portraits of Buddhas hung on its corridor walls which served to create a pleasant, relaxing ambience. Guess during the course of my stay I managed to take pics of all of those Buddhas on my phone, ghosts of myself included. Here is a selection to browse through during what is possibly reflective time of the year for everyone.
Seeking but not finding the house builder, I travelled through the round of countless births: Oh painful is birth ever and again.
House builder you have now been seen; You shall not build the house again. You rafters have been broken down; Your ridge pole is demolished too,
My mind has now attained the unformed Nibbana And reached the end of every kind of craving.
This little excursion saw me, in the company of Sonam Tashi who was behind the wheel of a Mahindra XUV 500, travel to the Tibetan settlement of Hunsur in order to see the lama dances – cham – at the Dzongkar Choede Monastery. Hunsur is part of Mysore district in the south Indian state of Karnataka.
The lama dances or cham, are held according to the Tibetan calendar on the 29th day of the final month of the old year. Their primary purpose is to purify negativity, get rid of all the bad spirits which might still be around from the old year, so as to begin the new one afresh, slate wiped clean, with the culmination of the day’s activities being the burning of an effigy symbolising all that needs to be got shot of.
This was about the third or fourth year that we had made the trip together. To be honest Sonam Tashi and I usually call it a day after lunch and don’t stay for the afternoon part of the proceedings, both of us possibly having rather low boredom thresholds you see, but that is OK, because by that point we will have been there a full 4 hours and seen the main lama dance performances which always take place in the morning.
Fourth in a four part account of a trip to Ramanasramam, making my way across South India from the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe two hours west of Mysore in the state of Karnataka, to the city of Chennai on the east coast of Tamil Nadu before heading down the next day to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai.
My early morning meditation began later than usual due to my late night struggles to get back on track, but still I was in the meditation hall by 6 am where I had a solid hour of sitting whilst feeling in a good state of recovery. Concentration good, body pacified, and back to the breath! Skipped breakfast because I wanted a couple more hours for my stomach to feel fully settled, so instead I went and had a large glass of coffee from the tea bar across the road to the ashram entrance. Cost me 20 rupees which was a bit of a rip off price, but it was good to sit there for a while and watch the early morning street life pass on by outside the ashram. I realised the sound of the lorries had not bothered me half as much the night before, maybe that was because I had other things on my mind, such as my twisted up guts. Probably would be the case that if I stayed round the ashram long enough, I would not even notice those lorries were there, because everything would eventually blend into one.
After my roadside coffee I decided to take the path up to the cave behind the ashram where Ramana Maharshi had stayed for 7 years from 1915 – 1922. Going by the name of Skandasramam it was a half hour walk which took me some way up Arunachala the holy hill, and it felt good to be walking because I needed to stretch out, take some exercise in the fresh morning air. Even though it was not yet 8 in the morning the weather was already hot, so the speedy pace I set myself soon brought me out in a little sweat with my heart moderately pounding. Might just be the case that I was getting out of condition! Struck lucky when I got to the cave however, as it was just before it was opened up by the ashram attendant and there were already a bunch of Westerners on the steps outside the entrance. I realised they were waiting to go inside to sit and meditate, so I took the opportunity to join them. Soon enough I was sitting inside the cave with my back against one of the walls, eyes closed and drinking in the atmosphere, which I have to say was very powerful. Sat there in blissful silence for a good 40 minutes in which it felt like my body had simply fallen away. It was unexpected, just like the best experiences always are, an inner bathing with no contrivance, punching me back to a state of no mind, no mental conversation, almost an out of body experience and under the circumstances most welcome.
TracelessTrails 