Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

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with a few brick houses among them; narrow winding paths with children
playing, half naked, hair matted with dirt; and a few old folk squatting.
My body felt out of scale, and my bowl was too bright. (I had been
given another one, one of those stainless steel bowls they make in Thailand,
of better quality than most Bihari villagers’ household goods.) But
they didn’t mind that I was special; they stopped me—the old folk with
their friendly inquiries, the children open-mouthed—and they brought
rotis and rice. A child came running after me as I was walking away; her
face glowing with joy, she heaved a roti over the lip of my bowl.
The road took me gently back to the Maha Bodhi temple. Overwhelmed
again, I could only sit in the garden of prostrations with my
bowl mothered in my lap. I chanted a blessing and meditated. They didn’t
mind that I was special; in fact they seemed rather to enjoy it. Why was
I finding this birth such a crucifixion?
Christmas was always about visiting relatives, reaching out to affirm
a connection with small gestures of kinship that get ritualized over
the years. So down the road we went, to visit monasteries to pay our
respects to the elders of the Sangha in Bodh Gaya. There was Venerable
Paññarama at the Mahabodhi Society, which was the Sri Lankan pilgrims’
centre. He was busy with people and could only make a little time
for us. Then there were the Thai bhikkhus, besieged in the Thai temple,
disjointedly polite. Being planted in India, especially Bihar, was difficult
for them. Everything was rough, dirty, and exposed—the exact counterpart
to what Thais hold dear. But we connected well with Venerable
Gnana Jagat, the head of the Maha Bodhi Temple committee. He was
Indian, a Brahmin by birth, courteous, solicitous, with just the slightest
whistle to his s’s. He invited us to share his midmorning snack of
chopped fruit and listened intently to our tale. Expressing profound
shame that we had been robbed in his country, he decided to extend his
patronage to us, offering to take us into the temple, up into the top of
the towering shrine itself. I left feeling like a favoured nephew who had
just received a shiny copper coin.
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