Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 P U R I T Y 06from the outside, a big stupa. It was set about with manicured lawns andrecent tree plantings and was enclosed in a wall to keep the Indian chaosout. Notices inside in several languages telling visitors how to behavewere hardly necessary: the effect of the breathtakingly beautiful templequietened even the most boisterous Indian family. The large hall underthe stupa dome had been left mostly empty with that appreciation ofspace that the Japanese are so good at. Across the polished marble floorwas a shrine with an enormous elegant gold Buddha, and around thecircular wall were Japanese brushwork depictions of Buddhist arahantson tall wall hangings. The concave ceiling reflected the slightest sound,like a big cave, creating a well of silence that the echoing sounds disappearedinto. I stood for a long time appreciating the emptiness, beauty,and silence. When I left I put a donation in their collection box too, notbecause they needed it but just out of appreciation.I returned to the vihara to find my companion doing walking meditation,pacing up and down the cloister next to our room. He did agreeto join me for a trip the next day to visit the cremation stupa, but onlywhen I pointed out that this was a valid pilgrimage site.Next day on the way to the stupa we stopped at the well from whichAnanda fetched water for the Buddha’s last drink. This had been fencedoff and planted about with a few trees and shrubs and was overseen byan Indian chaukidar, or caretaker. When we entered, the chaukidar producedsome flowers, picked from the shrubs, for us to lay before thesmall shrine. He hovered behind us as we paid our respects and whenwe had finished he asked for money. The flowers were not his, and hewas paid already to look after them, so I declined.The cremation stupa was big; a hill of old eroded red bricks with noneof the original ornamentation left and surrounded by rice paddies. Welit incense, did some chanting, bowed, and then started to circumambulate.We went round three times, and on our third circuit, a touristbus pulled up on the road and disgorged a party of Southeast Asian peopleled by a Mahayana Buddhist nun. With shaven head, a long grey robe,9 5