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

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A most improbable world: Buddhist Kalmykia

Sandji Buvaev (kalmykia.eu),  Tomas Van Houtryve; edited by Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Girls in Soviet era uniforms, Victory Day celebrations in the capital. Lenin was part Kalmyk, but that didn’t save Russia from the Communist Party’s wrath. Stalin ordered the entire Kalmyk population loaded onto cattle cars and deported to Siberia after WW II.

 
(Russian version) In 2010 I visited one of the most improbable places on Earth, the little-known European Republic of Kalmykia, a former Soviet state. 

Gilded Buddha, Mes Aynak, Afghanistan (CNN)

[Most people are hard pressed to believe that Buddhism made it to Afghanistan, in Central Asia. But Siddhartha Gautama, who became the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, was probably born there 26 centuries ago when it was the northwestern frontier of India called Gandhara, near the portion of the Himalayan range known as the Hindu Kush. Buddhism did not come West to "reach" Afghanistan. 
 

"Hey, it's Seagal!" (kalmykia.eu)

Rather it rather co-originated there, as the recent discovery of the enormous 2,600-year-old Buddhist temple complex archeological site "Copper Well" (Mes Aynak) indicates, along with the maverick archeological research of historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, and the stunning Greek-Buddhist blended treasures, monastic caves, and the world's oldest oil painting art of Bamiyan.]

Located on the arid steppe region south of Volgograd along the Caspian Sea, Kalmykia is Europe’s only Buddhist republic.

 

Modern suburb surrounding the World Chess Federation building, Elista, Kalmykia

 

Nyusha concert (kalmykia.eu)

It is also billed as a Mecca for chess players with the headquarters of the World Chess Federation (FIDE, whose current president is the former president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov). An American-style suburb has been built near the capital, Elista, expressly for the purpose of holding tournaments and offering vacation homes to former champions.

  

The game -- which was invented by Buddhist monks averse to war but keen on peaceful expressions of strategy and wit -- is mandatory for all Kalmyk school children.

"We are not alone." Many are contacted by space ("heavens") dwelling humans.

 

Tea girl at car rally (kalmykia.eu)

Oddly, the man behind all of this, billionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, claims to have been abducted by aliens (devas). He says that “chess came to Earth from outer space [in the akasha deva loka or plane of 'shining ones'].” 

Men play open air chess on a massive board in Lenin Square, women do yoga in the main Buddhist temple in front of the Golden Buddha -- whose Western features are not due to Greek artistic influence, as has long been the speculation by Eastern Buddhists but because Siddhartha was from the northwest with a mother who came from even further west in what is now the geopolitical Middle East in or around Iran (Persia, Seistan-Balochistan, according to Dr. Ranajit Pal) -- and time seems to stand still in this arctic region of the Buddhist world.

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Ancient Buddhism in Pakistan, China (video)

Siddhartha Chabukswar; updated June 2012, Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

The former Buddhist civilization of northwestern India, now Islamic Pakistan

  

SWAT, Pakistan (formerly northwestern India) - Militants are holding sway in restive Swat Valley. They are destroying the remnants and heritage of Gandhara Buddhist civilization there.

In the absence of appropriate security arrangements, a historic rock-carved image of the Buddha (near Jahanabad) has already been partially destroyed. However, restoration ("facelift") is underway.
  

Indo-Ariyan Kalash girl

Situated on the banks of the Swat river, known in ancient times as Svastu, the scenic Swat Valley was the center of Buddhist civilization. Prior to being colonized by England as part of the United Kingdom, what are now called "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan" were simply the northwestern frontier of India -- much as it had been at the time of the Buddha.

• The Buddha's extended family -- the Shakya ("gray land" or Afghanistan) Clan was from this region. Kapilavastu, asserts Dr. Ranajit Pal (a maverick historian), was near modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

In ancient scripts Swat is known as Udhyana, meaning garden or park. Historians say the Indian Emperor Asoka re-introduced Buddhism to Swat spreading it to Peshawar, Taxila, and beyond into Afghanistan.
 

Chinese Caves

The remarkable Buddhist cave shrines of far western China

• Of course, it already existed all along the deserts and oases of the Silk Route up through Central Asia from Kapilavastu to Kalmykia (Buddhist Europe). This historical fact -- marked by colossal stone monuments in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and far western China -- could not be obliterated even by Muslim extremists, time, or the desolate desert.

Kalmykia, Europe is far from Central Asia, India

However, by seventh and eighth centuries ACE, Buddhist civilization was giving way to another influence in the area (Asuran, Zoroastrian, and Islamic).
 
Rock carvings and historical sites preserve this part of history in the mountains and plains of Swat. Images and statues of the Buddha carved in different forms are a semi-permanent record of the material remains of humankind.
 
We reconstruct the history of Buddhism with their help. Now these carvings, of which there are hundreds in Swat, says Professor Fidaullah Sehrai, the Director of the Archeology Department, NWFP.
  

(Sid) Extremists attacked Buddha statue in Pakistan in 2009.

  
Growing militancy has emerged as a major threat to these rare sites throughout the restive valley. Some have already been damaged. The Jehanabad Buddha is one such complete and inspiring symbol of Gandharan art.
 
Preserved by nature due to difficult location, this meditating Buddha carved some 20 feet high has survived many attacks since 1994. However, the last one proved destructive to the Buddha's face.
  
The body of the Jehanabad Buddha had holes filled with explosives, which the militants could return for the final round of completely destroying the unique image.
  

 
The Kalash: Indo-Greco Buddhist fusion "Aryans"

Complaints were made to the DOC and the Ministry, and they will take some action, said Nasir Khan, an official from the Swat Museum.
 
Unlike the past, the sites look bleak now: No foreign tourists are visiting the sites for fear of getting caught up in growing militant activity. This has badly damaged the economy of the area which largely depended on tourism.
  
Due to growing insecurity and lack of a well thought out preservation strategy, some of the sites are fast losing their attraction for tourists from around the world otherwise interested in following the Buddhist touris circuit in India and Nepal and other Buddhist lands.
  

Resurrecting ancient Afghanistan's Buddhist legacy

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