Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06process, our presence would be noticed. It was more like awaitingrebirth than being alive.The night was cool; at least I had a robe on, and Nick a white wrap.The people at the Burmese Vihara had immediately seen to that. Theywere shocked and ashamed that such a thing had happened in India toBuddhist pilgrims. Their reactions surprised me. In my mind, the robberyseemed as fair as anything ever is: poor, desperate people see touristswith lots of money; they see Buddhist monks with expensive equipmenttravelling in air-conditioned buses; they see wealthy Jain pilgrims,and hawkers and sadhus making money out of them—why shouldn’tthey have a share of the harvest? They owed me no kindness and knewonly the law of survival. For them, the human realm was like this.And as for myself, refuge had become very clear. Something in me onthat dusty track handed over my life rather than go into fear. When Ilooked back on my mindstate at the time, the dominant mood had beento maintain calm and introspection. What had seemed sensible at thetime was for the group of robbers to simply go through our belongings,take what they wanted—most was of no monetary worth—and thenallow us to continue on our way with the rest. I had felt some irritationat their frenzied mindstates, but I had actually been quite open to themtaking our stuff. I had not done anything against Dhamma, so my mindhad remained clear. They had left me one robe to wear around my waist,my sandals, and the bandage on my foot; maybe that was enough.It was incredible how much stuff—water filter, lantern, torch, clock,knife—I had checked over each morning in the predawn gloom to makesure that I hadn’t lost it, how much stuff I had struggled over squashinginto a bag that I then would sling over my shoulder and lug along fortwelve hours each day, cutting into my shoulders at every step. A bagwatched carefully whenever we sat down for tea. Sadly, some of the pilgrimagehad gone with it: the relics that people had given me and thepossibility of offering them to the shrines of the Holy Places, the malabeads and the Buddha rupa with their dimension of noble company. All2 4 4