Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06ebbing out of my blisters when the door banged open and some beddingcame in with a pair of arms around it and a couple of legs carryingit along. I made the reassuring satisfied noises “Ahchaa, ahchaa, thik,thik,” “Yes ... right, that’s fine...,” and reverted to a woozy meditation fora while before stretching out on my half of the platform.Sleeping on hard surfaces goes in phases: first is the hour or two ofnear-coma, and then, as the mind begins to revive, comes awareness ofthe uncomfortable impression of bone on something that does notyield. Limbo sleep takes over—drifting in and out of the nether worldprompted by the need to roll over. Eventually the snatches of sleepbecome so brief that you get up. But that first draught of oblivion is sosweet ... I should have known that a Jain resthouse would snatch it away.All too soon, the crash of the door and a flash of light summoned us tothe surface world, blinking ...Three men wrapped in plaid blankets, one with a shaven head, allwith tense expressions: something wrong? Some phrases jostled aroundbut the waving of another book indicated that what was needed wasmore signatures and ... passport numbers. When the brief business wasconcluded, they continued looking around, commenting to each other,occasionally proffering a gentle inquiry in our direction; then theybrought over the blankets that we hadn’t used and put them on our table... I realized that they wanted to be sure we had everything we needed.We were guests, Westerners as well, and therefore instinctively to belooked after. Not knowing quite what to do, they settled for just sittingwatching over us attentively.My little clock said eleven o’clock. I knew what to do. So I made to liedown with “that’s it, I’m going to sleep” smiles and sighs. They sat backquietly to watch. This obviously wasn’t working. Nick, man of action,bundled them out of the room, drew the bar across the door, and putout the light.After the early morning meditation, we paid up and, having left ourbags in the resthouse, set off in search of Pava, the site of the Buddha’s1 0 2