Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 B O R D E R 06Buddhist holy places of India; he’d like to take a monk along.” Assuminghe was asking for some suggestions, my mind whirred to come upwith some names of who would be suitable. “... So I was wonderingwhether you’d like to go.” A further quarter of a second was taken upwith weighing this up in my mind and formulating a reply: “Uh—yes ...when do I go? Tomorrow?” “Not sure, you’d have to contact him ... Ithink it’s in a few months’ time.” Then someone else came by.I held that incident like a kid does his last bite of chocolate, just tosavor the delight of the possibility before rude reality should dawn andtell me that the whole thing was a mistake and a miscommunication.Sister Jotaka, the monastery’s perfect secretary, was more precise andpractical: “Yes Bhante, Nick made the offer last year, and he’ll be goinglater in the year. He will be covering all the costs. So I reminded AjahnSumedho to choose someone. You had better phone up Nick.” I gave ita month, just to enjoy the fact that Ajahn Sumedho had chosen me, eventhough it had probably all fallen through. Then a tentative phone call:“Er, Nick, I er ... Ajahn Sumedho said...,” and Nick, enjoying his part,played it as if he hardly remembered—“Ohh, yee-es, I did say that...”—and gradually let his plan emerge until the fantasy descended into theconceptual womb. There it fattened for months—sucking in wellwishes,suggestions, gifts of pilgrimage equipment, traveller’s tales,books of Hindi grammar, maps from the time of British India—andgrew plump with wonder.By August our embryonic pilgrimage had developed a ponderoushead and lively heart. Sitting under the apple trees in the monastery’sorchard, Nick and I mused over plans and aspirations: informationabout climate and disease and the sites of Ashokan columns mingledwith our individual ideals. Nick’s idea of a good walk is rambling hills,mountains, forests, and glades where you can sit and enjoy the wondersof nature, not a flat plain with paddy fields stretching as far as the eyecan see, a giant farm five hundred miles wide full of people working theland. “It’s not going to be easy, the Ganges plain is unpleasant—hot and2 7