Buddhism East and West (travel)

Ashley Wells, Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Golden Buddhas in Thai Grand Palace (Steveohim/flickr.com); trekking Himalayan foothills, West Bengal, Singalila Nat'l Park, Darjeeling district, near Sikkim (Biswarupsarkar72).

 
As the world was ending, most of us gathered in Los Angeles, the mecca (Bodh Gaya) of world communication right at the planet's throat chakra. But two of our editors took a trip to the far reaches of Buddhistdom, which is just outside of Christendom and the world's other Vedic/Hindu offshoots.

One went east, the other west, one to India, the other to Europe. There didn't seem much use in traveling to world-class cities to find Buddhism hiding out in the city. We can get that at home.
 
No, all spirituality resides, as it has for millennia, in and around the Himalayas. It's the rooftop of the world. The "Rebirth Stories" (Jatakas) tell of the Bodhisat resorting to quiet Himalayan caves.

"Enlightenment does not perfect personalities;

it only perfects perspective."

Saints may be jerks, but you can't let that get you down.

We need to stand right where we are and begin our climb.

  

Island peak on Indian Sea (NH53/flickr.com)

Alas, what did we find? Travel is amazing, amazing beyond imagining. Get a backpack, and get on the road! We recommend it to everyone. If only because it lifts us out of the provincial, the biases we never even think to question.
  
Buddhist Europe is more Central Asian, having traveled up from its co-origins in ancient India/modern Afghanistan. Kalmykia is a lot like being in a second or third world Asian country but with Caucasians.

Bhumi (Earth) is a great place to learn.

Better to spend time on top of the world with a guide like Bish. But what is there to find? Talk of the food, talk of the pain, talk of toilets, talk of dreams, talk of pushing limits, talk of past misgivings -- but for all that what we find is that YOU CAN STAND IN THE PLACE WHERE YOU ARE. That is, you can begin right where you are, wherever that may be.

 

Kukulcan pyramid naga temple (wiki)

We should have all gone to Mexico together and danced at the foot of Kukulcan temple pyramid in Chichen Itza and danced with the Aztecs. Right here, right now, this is where it's at. We dreamed of going there (anywhere) to begin. But we have to stake our ground and set up our mats-and-cushions (zafus and zabutons) and do our sitting (zazen) until dhyana/jhana (zen). Then on to insight (vipassana).

None of this takes a plane ride, a bus tour, a train hop, or a suicide-by-taxi bid. It can all start right NOW. Stop, drop, and roll (out a sitting mat) and see. One can start meditating right here, right now. Or, if one prefers to stand, R.E.M.'s lyrics may make a little more sense. So sit.
  

"Stand" as performed by Legos and R.E.M.

"Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. live on MTV

• Where in the world is God?
• And what about the Son-of-god?
• Buddhism's "31 Planes of Existence"

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"The Monkey's Heart" (Rebirth Tale)

Stories of the Buddha's Former Births (The Jataka) edited by E.B. Cowell (Cambridge University Press, 1895), Book 2, No. 20; more at Pitt.edu; updated by Wisdom Quarterly

Mr. Monkey (John Downer/materialismisanaddiction/facebook.com)

   

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta [the "Buddha-to-be"] was reborn in the Himalayan foothills as a monkey. He grew strong and sturdy, with a healthy frame, living by a curve of the river Ganges in the forest.

  

Mr. Crocodile (Jon Sevcik/Naturephoto.cz)

Now at that time there was a crocodile dwelling in the Ganges. The crocodile's mate saw the great frame of the monkey, and she conceived a longing to eat his heart. So she said to her mate, "Sir, I desire to eat the heart of that great king of the monkeys!"

  

"Good wife," answered the crocodile, "I live in the water, and he lives on dry land. How can we catch him?"

  

"By hook or by crook," she replied, "he must be caught. If I don't get him, I shall die."

  

"All right," replied the crocodile, consoling her, "don't trouble yourself. I have a plan. I will give you his heart to eat."

  

Kind monkey kissing kitty (animalszooguru)

When the Bodhisatta was sitting on the bank of the Ganges, after taking a drink of water, the crocodile drew near and said to him, "Good monkey, why do you live on bad fruits in this old familiar place? On the other side of the Ganges there are many mango and labuja trees with fruit sweet as honey! Would it not be better to cross over and gain all kinds of wild fruit to eat?"

  

"Lord crocodile," the monkey answered, "the Ganges is deep and wide. How would I get across?"

  

"Well, if you want to go, I shall let you ride on my back, and I will carry you over."

   

The monkey trusted him and agreed. "Come here, then," beckoned the crocodile. "Up on my back with you!" Up the monkey climbed. But when the crocodile had swum a little way, he plunged the monkey under the water.

  

"Good friend, you are letting me sink!" cried the monkey. "What is that for?"

  

Nagas surround mammal in cage (wikipedia)

The crocodile roared, "You think I am carrying you out of pure good nature? Not a bit of it! My wife has a longing to eat your heart, and I intend to give it to her!"

   

"Friend," explained the monkey, "it is nice of you to tell me. But if our hearts were inside us, when we monkeys go swinging among the tree tops they would be all knocked to pieces!"

   

"Well, then, where do you keep it?" asked the crocodile.

  

The Bodhisatta pointed out a fig tree with clusters of ripe fruit standing close by. "See there," he said, "hanging on that fig tree? There are our hearts."

  

"If you will show me your heart," offered the crocodile, "then I won't kill you."

  

Monkey's kindness to pigeon (paleonym)

"Take me to the tree, and I will point it out to you."

  

The crocodile ferried him to the place. The monkey leaped off his back, and climbing up the fig tree sat high in it. "Oh, silly crocodile!" he yelled back. "You thought that there were creatures that kept their hearts in the treetops! You are silly, and now you are outwitted! You may keep your [karmic] fruit for yourself. Your body is great, but you have no sense!"

  

Then to explain this idea he uttered the following stanzas:
 

Roseapple, jackfruit, mangoes, too, across the water there I see;

Enough of them, I want them not; my fig is good enough for me!

Great your scaly body, verily, but how small your serpent wit!

Now go your own way, crocodile, for I have had the best of it.

   

The crocodile, feeling as silly and miserable as if he had lost a thousand pieces of money, went back sorrowing to the place where he lived. More

• Housewife raised by monkeys in Colombia
• The Buddha's "twin miracle" as Vaudeville act?
• The Buddha's "twin miracle"?
• Weinergate Part II: Justin Bieber to pay to keep nude photos of "Mr. Bieber" off the Web

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"Lost Treasures of Afghanistan" (video)

National Geographic; Wisdom Quarterly

During Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, the National Museum outside [the capital] Kabul was literally on the front line, repeatedly attacked by rocket fire and looted by [CIA-inspired] warlords.
   
Then, during the reign of the fundamentalist [CIA-created] Taliban regime, all non-Islamic statues and tombs were ordered destroyed. This led to the loss of two-thirds of the hundred thousand items in the Kabul museum.

      
In search of a larger reclining Afghan Buddha statue than the ones destroyed (Nat Geo)

  

The Taliban was forced from Kabul after the U.S. military [illegally invaded in a preemptively strike and] intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001. Before then, the Taliban's culture minister supervised the destruction of many of the remaining exhibits at the museum.

 
What the Taliban didn't know was that many of the most magnificent objects had already been spirited away. More than 25 years ago museum staff had hidden the treasures as the bombs started to fall. (See photos of the Afghanistan museum treasures.)...

 

Bactrian Gold

Indian gold coins (coinindia.com)

Although virtually unknown to the world public, Afghanistan's cultural heritage is one of the world's richest. Afghanistan was for a long time a cultural crossroads. The lost treasure represents a Silk Road melting pot of precious objects from China, India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and ancient Afghanistan. 

  

Perhaps the most important of the lost treasures were the famed Bactrian gold pieces, great icons of Afghanistan's cultural heritage. The hoard -- discovered in the fall of 1978 by Soviet archaeologists -- included more than 20,000 gold objects from the 2,000-year-old Silk Road culture of Bactria, an ancient nation that covered parts of what is now Afghanistan. More

• Real history of Afghanistan (Invisible History) 
• World's Greatest Buddhist site: Mes Aynak
• Spectacular Bandi Amir (lake) of Bamiyan
• Afghanistan: Profile and Photo Gallery
• Ancient Assyrian Treasures Found Intact in Baghdad
• Lost Iraq Treasures: Rare Geographic Photos
• How They Found National Geographic's "Afghan Girl"
• PHOTO GALLERY: National Geographic 

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Another "Buddha" - Padmasambhava (video)

Buddhist Films; Wisdom Quarterly
(DharmaPublishingBookstore.com)

This is the dramatic story not of Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come, but of the ancient Indian Buddhist missionary Guru Padmasambhava. He was born in Udhyana -- modern Swat Valley, Pakistan -- and traveled across mountains and icy desert plains, moving across the spectacular Himalayas and finally reaching the Tibetan Plateau. Benoy K. Behl created this film to tell his story of one of the most forceful personalities of all history. Padmasambhava, with his magic and flamboyant masked dances, dominated the Rooftop of the World within his lifetime and is still revered today.

  

Behl in Berkeley

Mangalam Centers and the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley co-sponsored a special screening of art historian and photographer Benoy K. Behl’s film “The Second Buddha.” The filmmaker was present to discuss his work and take questions with Mangalam Research Center director Jack Petranker. The program included Sylvia Gretchen, the Dean of the Nyingma Institute, on the importance of Padmasambhava in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
  
“The Second Buddha” follows the journey of Guru Padmasambhava, an emanation of the Mahayana “Buddha” Amitabha who is regarded as the founder of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet and Bhutan.
  
The 25-minute film traces segments of Guru Padmasambhava’s journey across the Himalayas and the cold, high deserts of the Tibetan Plateau. According to Behl, the film tells “one of the greatest true stories of the world and is also the story of one of the most forceful personalities in all history.” More
   

(Myo Edizioni)

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