Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

A J A H N S U C I T T O^0 T H I R D M O O N 06Everything was bright for that moment, everything was still. Nothingwas said, nothing thought. The Buddha’s ashes. His last words tolled inmy mind: “all conditioned processes are transient, practise with diligence.”But for a few precious moments there was the light. That’s all I neededto see.After the Buddha’s ashes, who could be interested in looking at moreremains? Apparently somewhere in Patna various sites had been excavatedto reveal its glorious past as the capital of the Mauriyan empire,but such things seemed irrelevant now. All conditioned processes aretransient: and the deepest irony was that in India the incarnate had lastedlonger than the Sangha of the Buddha’s heirs. And the legacy of histeachings. Pointlessness descended: here I am, a lone bhikkhu followinga long dead history. Where am I going?Now my right foot asked for attention. The blisters had all gone, butthe strap of my right sandal had chafed a sore on the upper surface ofthe foot. Before we set off for our trip to New Patna, I had put a stickingplaster over it but inadvertently created a slight tuck in the skin. In thecourse of the afternoon, the skin had torn open (you don’t think thatskin does that until you live in India) and opened into a sore about a centimetreacross. No big problem; but I knew from past experience howslowly things heal in India. It requires a sustained effort to keep the fliesout, and a regular bombardment of medicines to prevent further infection.And this was a foot, bound to get dirty and required to do a lot ofduty in a hostile environment. Hence I wound several layers of whitecloth around it and, suitably turbaned, returned to the gurdwara.In the cool of the following morning in that holy space, a renownedpreacher was expounding the Adi Granth. As the preacher was blind, apriest would beautifully intone a few verses from the sacred text, alwaysabout the same length; as he completed his last phrase, the preacherbegan his commentary in less formal cadences, but also softly modulated1 8 8