3.22.11 Lumbini, Nepal
Back in Lumbini. Back in the shadow of the towering gray pagoda, the setting plains sun casting off its cool, unfinished cement facade, the dusty paths where the Buddha walked, over 2600 years ago. Yet the dust, the trees, the grass, these are all the same; evolution does not work so fast as the human mind; the solidity of the natural world, its radiance, comforts the tumbling consciousness.
Back with the birdsong, the gray clad Korean monks riding bright red Chinese bicycles, the golden Tibetan stupa, with its Buddha eyes and their knowing stare, poking through the horizon. A landscape literally littered with the Dharma. The end of a long day on the road, of 8 hours of hard bus travel, of crammed legs in tiny metal framed seats, overheated engines and frantic bus conductors pouring litre after litre of spring water in a vain attempt to cool; they should know, only time will do this, the futility of their actions blinded by repetition on the side of the dusty mountain road. I sit in the sun and watch the scene unfold, watch the passing trucks and buses, careening down the same mountain road, no guardrails and horrific drops, the unimaginable a constant companion, the mind learns to accept the inevitable over the hours of travel. Dusty bus transfers in dusty intersections where dust is the only reality; how people can spend time, can spend their lives in these spots I cannot imagine; my 15 minutes spent waiting for the new bus to depart begins to drive me mad, as I sit and choke in the afternoon heat. The Indian ladies, laden with children, golden bangles, golden earrings and nose rings, sit down on the half seat in front of me, literally dripping with colors, with hardship, with dreams I will never know. I offer their young children some dusty peanuts which they eat with the shell intact, staring at this strange white man with long legs crammed into the tiny tattered seat. I looked into the dark eyes of the young mother, holding her child casually, who was busily dismantling the peanut with its tiny brown hands; her ornamental nose ring dangling past her nostril, sari bright with color and kitsch, so young, so obviously young and burdened, despite all the beautiful ornament, I cannot stop wondering of her life in this harsh agrarian land. And then the bus stopped, as it did ever 20 feet or so, a slowly moving Nepali Thanksgiving Day Parade Float, and she, along with her young sister with her own children dangling, was simply gone, another memory, another story unknown, dreams, shadows. I am ecstatic for the simplicity and wonder of this place.
