In Love With the World by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Author:Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

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Where the Buddha Died

THE BUS RIDE from the Gorakhpur rail station to Kushinagar takes about an hour and a half. Handling money was becoming easier, but I still had to examine each rupee note for the correct denomination. I took a seat on a wooden bench by an open window. The highway passes through landscape that becomes increasingly remote and rural—fewer and smaller villages between longer stretches of green fields. Teams of yoked oxen prodded from the rear by old men in skimpy white dhotis made their way through the fields slowly, their tails swatting flies off their flanks. I saw entire families working together. The bus shared the highway lane with cars and trucks as well as with small horses hitched to carts that carried people, along with caged birds or plastic sacks of grain; others contained mounds of fresh-cut cauliflower, or stacks of long wooden poles that looked like building supplies.

I felt relieved to be away from Varanasi. The last few days had been difficult. Still, I had enthusiasm for this retreat. I had stayed aware of the turbulence in my mind, which remained at the surface. Deeper down I feel alert, confident, even content. I know that the turbulence is not the real problem. I still wish to be reborn as a carefree wandering yogi. I don’t want to live like a prince, trapped in a sanitized environment. If the point of meditation were to simply get rid of negative emotions, I would not be interested in practicing it at all.

Mongrels roamed freely; cows, chickens, pigs kept their heads to the ground, either eating or looking for food. Crows chattered from branches, and white cranes sat still as pillars on the ground or perched on the backs of cows. The farther into this peaceful countryside we traveled, the lighter I felt. These views of fields and animals must look similar to what the Buddha saw. During the Buddha’s time, Kushinagar was the capital of a small dynasty called Malla. There would have been more forests, with dangerous snakes and leopards and tigers. I suppose the Buddha walked barefoot on dirt paths. I wonder if he was ever afraid.

Pilgrims come to Kushinagar to visit the Parinirvana Park, the site that commemorates the Buddha’s death. According to the guidebook I had read in the Varanasi station, this consists of an extensive area of manicured lawns that surround a stupa, and an adjacent nineteenth-century building that houses an ancient twenty-foot sandstone statue of the dying Buddha reclining on his right side, his head facing north. A mile away is the Ramabhar Stupa, known as the Cremation Stupa, built to hold the relics from the Buddha’s cremation pyre. There isn’t too much else to see. Since my last visit, several temples from different Buddhist countries such as Tibet, Burma, and Thailand had been built near the Buddha-sites. Mostly Kushinagar remains an indistinct Indian village.

The park entrance is just off the highway, and from the direction of Gorakhpur, it’s located before the bus depot.

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