Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06of his knee. The feet were placed one exactly on top of the other. A yellowrobe was draped over his body, and the light from the huge windowsthat filled the north and south ends of the hall flowed over him. Imagesof attendant disciples, one weeping, one more composed, formed partof the sculpture’s setting. We knelt and joined them, paying our respectsto the Enlightened One.It is recorded that even at this last moment of his life, the Buddha wassolicitous of his disciples’ welfare, asking them several times whetherthey had any queries about the teachings that he had given, or if theywere too bashful, to ask one of their fellows to inquire on their behalf.All were silent. “Then I tell you, bhikkhus: all conditioned processes aretransient, practise with diligence!” Closing his eyes to focus completelyon his ebbing life force, the Buddha carefully guided his consciousnessto final nirvana.We paid our respects. I offered some incense and chanted someverses. The polished stone floor was cool. It was a still and peaceful placeto sit for a while and listen to the silence.Standing immediately behind the temple, like an attendant bhikkhuwatching over its reclining form, was the Nirvana Stupa, a simple dometaller than it was round with a stubby square turret on top. A stupa’sgreat dome echoes the totality and all-embracing nature of the awakenedmind; its elevation toward the sky moves the mind upward to thevast and eternal. It is the eternal still point around which the world ofevents turns. Contemplating such themes, the pilgrim circumambulatesthe stupa in a clockwise direction, so that the “fortunate” right sideis kept toward the stupa.Stupas are a devotional expression that predates the urge to representthe Buddha in terms of a human image. This stupa also acted as a commentaryon Buddhist activity in India, having accumulated and then lostforms as devotion waxed and waned. The invisible core of the stupa wasAshokan, dating back to some two hundred years after the FinalDecease. Then Buddhism was widespread, popular, and supported by8 6