Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 F I R S T M O O N 06flat and really boring and people everywhere.” But I was still starry-eyed:I’d heard glowing reports from monks in Thailand who had walkedaround the Middle Country, meeting sadhus and receiving alms fromvillagers. And the idea of following the Buddha in faith was made evenmore attractive by the possibility that it might be difficult. What is a pilgrim’sduty if it’s not to endure? Yes, there was a fundamentalist glowin my heart.Every now and then the pain in my back or knees, or the banging ofmy head against the wall, or the clicking of my neck as the head fell forward,would drag me back to Lucknow. The body seems to revert to afetus-like state when its instinct to sleep is checked: the head becomestoo massive to balance on top of the crumpled body. Sometimes I’dcome to with the top of my skull wedged against the wall, so that myface pointed to the ceiling with the jaw dropped open: the fans dronedon oblivious to such attention. The young Indian family continued theirarchetypalactivities—murmuring,feeding,grooming,andcuddlingthechildren—and were at ease with mine. Mother India’s benevolent aspectallows many kinds of religious observance, or dharma—in fact familylife is dharma. However, you practice dharma for its own sake; humansand gods cheer or curse, but the Great Mother looks on impassively.All good fundamentalists base their reality upon legend, and I amno different. My dharma as a Buddhist pilgrim is patient endurance, aquality much venerated in Buddhist legend. The stories say thatimmeasurable eons ago, in the time of Dipankara Buddha, the youngnobleman Sumedha left home and took up the ascetic life. Moved by thedemeanour of the Buddha of that age, he avowed to undertake birthafter birth of spiritual endeavour in order to develop the Perfections thatwould result in him becoming a Buddha in the future. And that meantnot just the arduous business of liberation, but doing it utterly alone,with neither supportive company nor a suitable teaching.Furthermore, it meant developing the understanding and the compassionto show others the way. How else to ripen that vast empathy of2 8