Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 DA R K A N G E L 06something cost, so all I could pick up was the people’s appreciation forwhat Ajahn Sucitto was saying. Obviously, the basic Buddhist teachingswere just as relevant despite the very different culture; after all they wereoriginally taught in India. Later they brought cups of tea and encouragedus to wash under the village pump. When we eventually left, I tookwith me a feeling of peacefulness and openness from that village, awayfrom the urgency of the roads.We continued along the broad dirt track that had brought us there.Although we had rested and the worst of the day’s heat was now over,we found the afternoon’s walking hard. I was still feeling run down, andeach day a weariness would overcome me after a few hours’ walking.Ajahn Sucitto was affected too. Since Patna he had stopped setting sucha hard pace and now stopped at the slightest excuse. He seemed dazed,a bit like a punch-drunk boxer after fifteen inconclusive rounds. I supposeI must have looked much the same.I reckoned we were suffering from protein deficiency. In Patna I hadbought as much protein as I could—bags of cashew nuts, boiled eggsand curd—and we had felt better when we set out again. Now we wereon the road there was less opportunity to supplement our diet. In themornings, whenever we could, we would stop in a tea stall and have aplate of curried chickpeas as a small breakfast. Now I just ordered them;I did not bother asking. Although he was slightly dismissive of my concerns,he had let go of the idea of trying to survive on alms food alone.The chickpea dishes had much more protein than the runny dhal thatcame with the rice at midday. That was mostly water. I began to suspectthat the midday meal was for Indians a meal of stodge and that they atemost of their protein at other times.In the evening eggs were for sale from little stalls on wheels; the lightfrom their kerosene lamps illuminating a tray of them, a flat pan forfrying them on, and salt and spices to flavour them with. We were noteating in the evenings and we were hardly ever in the villages at thattime, but that did not stop me fantasising about them. My body so1 9 9