Burning Bodies and Street Dogs in Varanasi

After the Kumbh Mela, I stopped in Varanasi for a night, knowing that my schedule was getting tight and I'd better check it out while I had the chance. Specifically, I was looking to get down to the ghats, where Hindus come everyday to bathe in the river, wash their clothes, and yes, burn their dead. At the meditation retreat I did in Bodhgaya, the teacher, Christopher Titmuss, told about how his teacher made him watch dead bodies being burned on open fires when he was a monk back in the early 70's in southern Thailand. I felt very moved by this exposure to death, something were are very sheltered from in the west. Yes, we often have open caskets at funerals, but the bodies have been prepared to be on display, and it lacks the real feeling of death. I remember seeing a couple of bodies like this as a kid, and although it was somewhat unsettling, it just looked like the person was sleeping.

If I was going to do one thing while I was in Varanasi, it was going to be watching some bodies burn, but first, I needed to find a room somewhere. While looking, I slipped into an alley near the main ghat, which are like stone stairways that lead down the river, and got sort of lost before running into a Korean friend from earlier in my trip, making it the 3rd person from Sadhana Forest that I saw in 2 days. That is one thing interesting about traveling, even in a huge country like India with over 1 billion people, chances are, you'll see some of the same travelers, if you are here long enough.

The alley system in Varanasi is very interesting and somewhat overwhelming. The tiny streets are probably only 5' wide and can be packed with pedestrians, cattle, motorcycles, and street dogs. One thing about street dogs in high traffic areas like this is that they pay little attention to people. They only get territorial with other dogs, so sometimes you see them fighting amongst each other. Another thing you'll see on these streets, and apparently everywhere in India, is guys stopping to take a piss right in front of everyone, sometimes not even shielded from plain view. Between that and animal feces, it's a good opportunity to practice mindful walking.

I finally found a decent place for a cheap room, and met some nice people that were around my same age. On previous trips, sometimes I don't really meet anyone that I connect with, but on this trip, I've met a lot of really cool people. I shared a rickshaw into the downtown area again, as my journey through the alleys left me pretty far down the river near Assi Ghat, which proved to be a more peaceful area, and got some dinner before heading out to find the "burning ghat." It turned out that there are at least 2, and I had to go even farther from home to find the main one. By the time I got there, it was probably already 10pm. The general lack of lighting near this ghat and the relatively late time in the evening made my entrance somewhat sketchy, but by this point, I don't really get scared, at least with people. I know that fear will make me a target, like it does with street dogs, so I do my best to avoid it. Besides, most Indians don't seem like the type to be dangerous. Some may try to sell you something, others may try to con some money out of you, but I haven't come across any that were downright scary.

The scene was nonetheless quite dark and somber. There were a number of fires going, probably 5 or 6, and they were being tended to by young men who were obviously on the job. I guess I expected there to be some sort of ceremony, people gathered around the body, pre-burn, to chant something or offer flowers, but it seemed to operate more like a body burning factory, one after the other. The bodies were coming down on handmade stretchers, and were wrapped in some sort of white cloth. I also expected them to have huge fires, that would engulf the body in a matter of minutes, but I was completely wrong.

The fires were relatively small, and they'd set the body on some logs a few feet from the flames. Then, stuffing more wood under the raised body, they'd eventually get the fire to expand. Finally, they'd pile even more wood on top of the body, to sort of get the flames to surround the corpse. I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to get to see much of a body burning. While I had my attention fixed on one precession down below me, about 40' away, I was also keeping my eye on a closer fire to my left, about 20' away. I thought the fire below would be bigger, and when the baffled workers failed to really get the thing going, I gave up and watched the one closest to me. All of a sudden, the cloth had burned up at one end, leaving the bare feet and ankles exposed in plain view. I flinched a bit, and for the first time, what I had been watching became real.

Not knowing what to do, if I should stay or go, I just kept watching, unable to remove my gaze from the approximate size 10, fair skinned feet that were shining under the full moon. I've seen a lot of disgusting feet in this country, on account of diseases, lack of footwear, lack of hygiene/personal care, and the first thing I noticed about this guys feet was, "Damn, this dude had some nice looking feet!" The next thing I thought was, "What's going to happen to them?" I was curious, how does a body burn, and transform, especially in a fire this small. Well, I didn't see the whole corpse burn, but I did watch the whole process of these feet being slow-roasted. The color became darker and darker until liquid began to drip from the bottom of the heel. It was as if it was a wax foot in front of a heater, slowly melting. The shape of the foot also began to morph, losing it's life-like appearance and moving closer to being in skeletal form.

After about an hour of this, with the feet growing increasingly more and more morbid, I was just waiting for some sort of closure, and finally, I got it. The left foot began to rotate inward, and I knew that the fire was chewing its way through the leg bone and it was just  a matter of time. Another 15 minutes, and I finally got to see the feet, right above the ankles, fall to the ground. The kid who was stoking the fire took notice of this, though rather unemotionally, and proceeded to use a long stick to shove one foot into the coals. The other foot, on the other hand (can I say 'on the other foot' instead?), he had different plans for. He took this long stick, and as if playing a sport, tried to fling the foot to the top of the fire. On his 3rd try, perfect shot (not sure how many points for that?). Watching the last of the foot burn, toes still pointed to the night sky, was my closure, and I knew I had gotten what I came for.

I think acknowledging death is an important thing for everyone, especially those from western cultures that have tried to create so much of an illusion around it. In the east, the body is never thought to be the person. The person just uses the body and then is reborn into another one in the next life. Once the body passes through the body, it's just a corpse, and they don't see it as something so shocking. I doubt I'll ever forget the image I have in my mind of the melting foot, and for that I am grateful. In the past few years, I feel like I've gotten over my fear of death to an extent, but this experience showed me that I still have work to do.

The Buddha prescribed many different meditations that involve visualizing your body as a rotting corpse, etc, and also recommended to practice in graveyards and charnel grounds. This practice is believed to help one come to terms with the fact that they must surely die and to see it as a natural part of the process of life. The purpose of this is not to become pessimistic, but on the contrary, to see that one must use one's time wisely and make the most out of it while one has it. Do we get sad when we see a vase of fresh roses? No, we enjoy them while we can, knowing that in a short time, they will be gone. In the same way, we can see our life as something precious and fragile, and acquainting ourselves with the reality of death is one way of facing any aversion or fear we may have of it.

Okay, enough about death. On the way home, I got lost, on account of forgetting my guest house name, and ended up trying to navigate the dark empty streets at around midnight. I was pretty sure I knew I needed to go a specific way, and although the road was full of street dogs, I proceeded without much caution. It was when I got really close, and sort of saw how they were staring me down, that I was suddenly startled and became fearful. Of course, this is exactly the green-light on the attack that they were looking for. At the point when I set off the signal, I was trying to squeeze past one of them to slip into a side road, but as soon as they started barking, I retreated. I have been in many street dog situations in Thailand and one particular one in Laos that ended in me fighting of two dogs with a car tire, but this time, there were 7 or 8 dogs and I knew my chances for a victory were slim. Sometimes, I use intimidation, sometimes, I flee the scene. This time, I had no plan, I was just freaking out. As a general rule of thumb, if you run, they will chase you.

I knew this, but seriously, being only a few feet away, what else was I to do? So I kinda ran but didn't turn my back on them, and began frantically waving the half-full (or does half-empty better explain this one?) plastic water bottle around to scare them. It wasn't working though, and they were coming at me barking and leaping toward me to bite. As I backpedaled, I was yelling ,"Hey, hey, hey!" louder and louder, until at full volume. I remember having the thought, "Well, I'm probably going to lose this one, but I'm taking at least one of these mother f'ers down with me." They were starting to get smart and flank me from the sides, but there was one in particular, a white one, that appeared to be their leader, and was surely the biggest, and closest. He came right down the middle for a full-on bite, and I swung that bottle as hard as I could and smashed it into the side of his face when he was just a few inches from biting my leg. It was a good thing too, because that was a do-or-die situation. Had I missed that blow, it could have been a feeding frenzy. The white dog squealed and pulled back, and the rest followed his lead. They weren't done though, just regrouping to feel me out. My next move was to take a few steps toward them, which I probably should have done in the first place. I puffed up my chest and made myself big and kept waving the bottle. At that point, I remember wondering how long until they figured out that my bottle was a really weak weapon.

Just then, a young Indian man, who I had passed on the street several minutes before, ran up behind me and threw a handful of rocks into the pack of angry dogs. They backed off even more, and he grabbed me and pulled me out of there. They were still barking like crazy, and sort of following us as a continued threat, so I just kept turning around to show them that I was ready to fight if necessary.  I guess the guy heard me yelling and came to the rescue, but he didn't speak English, so I  I'll never really know. Either way, that was easily one of the scariest moments of my life, and I intend to carry better weapons when navigating dark roads at night. Eventually, I want to get to the point where I am no longer scared of them, or at least able to refrain from showing fear, but if these things keep happening to me, it may be hard to get there.

Death and dogs are two areas I need to work through, and I feel like I made major progress with death, so I'll shift my focus to dealing with dogs. Sometimes, I can just laugh or smile and make angry dogs more relaxed, but my lack of confidence in this means that it doesn't work every time. I try to imagine, what would Jesus, or the Buddha do? Did they get attacked by crazy street dogs, or were they so chilled out that no animals saw them as a threat. It's an interesting place to become curious about, this relationship between humans and animals. If dogs are territorial, and you cross their path at night, chances are, they will try to attack. So what can we do? Well, two nights ago, I found a temporary solution, and hopped in an auto-rickshaw. But it's only a matter of time before my next encounter. What it's going to take to walk out unscathed is either a heart full of love and not a drop of fear, or a really big weapon. I'll keep you posted on which one it is.

Maha Kumbh Mela: The Largest Gathering on Earth

The Maha Kumbh Mela happens once every 12 years, and just happenend to fall during my first trip to India. Based around bathing in the Ganges River, the event attracts somewhere between 50 and 80 million people and lasts for nearly 2 months (people are coming and leaving throughout this period). Pilgrims from all over come to cleanse their past karma by taking a dip in the holy river on certain auspicious days, known as bathing days. On February 10th, the main bathing day, it is estimated that as many as 30 million people took the holy dip, which may have been the most people gathered in one day in history. One main aspect of the gathering is the various camps set up by different gurus and spiritual organizations. Just about every major guru from India is represented, either by devotees or in person, and so walking through the streets is like an expose of all the different teachers and teachings. This aspect of Hinduism is quite overwhelming, especially as an outsider, because oftentimes, there might only be a small piece of common ground that they can find between themselves to agree upon. The congregation is so vast that it can be seen from outer space.

When I bought my ticket to India, sometime last August or September, I knew I wanted to stop by the gathering, just to see it, and so I left my stuff at the Tibetan Monastery where I stayed in Sarnath, packed a light bag, and hit the road. Let me just take this opportunity to say that the train situation in India is really out of control sometimes and it's not always something you can count on. Figuring it would be the easiest way, I walked to the station in Sarnath and bought a 55 rupee ($1) ticket for Allahabad, where the Kumbh Mela was taking place. The train was about an hour late, and when it arrived, the thing was bursting at the seams with people. Every car was overflowing, to the point were the guys in the doorways had to practically hang out the opening the entire time.

Sure, some people managed to squeeze themselves in, it sort of depended on where you were standing. Knowing the train would only stop for a few minutes, I ran up to the different doorways and tried my best to push through, but it was impossible, especially since the young men guarding the doors refused to let me in. Even the thought of making it on was unsettling, and after having ridden in general class overnight from Kolkatta to Bodhgaya, standing the entire way with 10 people crammed into the nook in front of the bathrooms, I wasn't keen on reliving the nightmare.

Fairly discouraged about having wasted so much time, I walked back into town and caught an auto-rickshaw to the bus station in Varanasi and then a bus to Allahabad, each for a hundred rupees. The bus couldn't make it into town, the last stretch of road leading up was blocked to most traffic and the buses were at a standstill, so everyone got off and I started walking. I walked for several kilometers before deciding to have another auto-rickshaw take me the rest of the way, at least to the entrance of the giant plain that was filled with streets and tents, and millions of people.

It took me another couple of hours of walking to find the Rainbow Gathering camp, where I spent the night curled up on the ground with a thin blanket and plenty of chills. I woke up yesterday, knowing that if I stayed another night there, I'd get sick, so I walked around long enough to see most of the spectacle, took some photos, and then headed back to Varanasi. I would be willing to guess that from the time the bus dropped me off to the time when I found another bus back to Varanasi, I put in around 15 miles by foot. I ended up running into a couple of friends there that I met at Sadhana Forest down south, so it was really nice to see some familiar faces. The rainbow camp was was on the outskirts of the gathering and a pretty basic set-up, with about 40-50 young people from various western countries coming together in the evenings to drink chai, play the guitar, and share experiences from the day. Besides it being a nice refuge for a weary westerner at the Mela, it wasn't anything I wanted to stick around for.

Although I don't consider myself a Hindu, I enjoy many of the yogic practices that come from the vedas and could be considered to be a part of Hinduism. Buddhism was something of an offshoot of Hinduism, as the Buddha himself was a Hindu, but rejected the idea that only certain classes were allowed access to the divine, through the Brahmins. Instead, he gave everyone the key to finding liberation, and pointed us in the right direction, within. When you take away all the different gods and rituals of Hinduism, the basic message is the same, purify the mind through concentration and meritorious deeds and one will be free from the bondage of desire and aversion. The main difference, that I can see, is the use of language to convey truths. Since we know that language can never be truth, but only point to it, we may allow ourselves to not take the choice of language too seriously and instead, try to connect with that which is being pointed to.

In Hinduism, once the mind is purified, the natural state of divinity shines through. God is seen as residing in everyone and everything, so in order to see that, we need to stop identifying with the small self, or the ego. In Buddhism, descriptions of gods and divinity aren't essential to the teachings. When the Buddha was asked about such things, he would say that it didn't matter, that it shouldn't effect one's efforts toward liberation. He feared, for good reason, that when these celestial matters were spelled out, religion turns to ritual and one no longer sees the need to practice, and only resorts to worship.

In Buddhism, today, there is also worship happening, and many people would rather pay respect to the Buddha by offerings and rituals than by following his teachings. These things can be seen as being cultural implementations around the religion, which is otherwise not much of a religion at all. Either way, I will continue to explore the differences and similarities between Hinduism and Buddhism in hopes to further connect myself, as a Buddhist, to the non-Buddhist world. I also intend to connect the many dots that exist between Buddhism and Christianity, and work toward developing a unifying perspective on the world's religions.

From my own experience, the more I back myself into a corner with my beliefs, the worse I feel. It can be easy to identify with one's own views, and then separate oneself from others who don't share it. The point of all the religions can be seen to be some form of love, so it doesn't make sense to create boundaries that lead to judgment, hatred, and intolerance. No, I don't think that there should be one path or practice for the whole world, we need to celebrate our diversity. But within our different paths, we would do well to discover our unity and to find respect, compassion, and appreciation for one another and our different views.

With this spirit, I wanted to get a taste for a massive Hindu gathering, such as the Mela, and find this connection with those who seem, on the outside, to be of a different world. What I found, besides lots of color, red dots on foreheads, naked saddhus and wandering ascetics, was that these all were just people. That basic human to human connection is possible regardless of language, cultural, or religious differences. One of the most difficult things is to see some of the beggars, lining the main street, lying out in the sun, many lepers with missing limbs, crying and screaming in agony and misery, and shaking to the point of near convulsion. To see these people, often young people, in such horrible states of suffering is shocking. The reaction is to reject these people, as being sub-human, some sort of mutant freaks. The practice, therefore, is to see them as equals, as humans who were dealt a hand that just makes you sick to think about. Can we see these people as reflections of that same divinity we know is within us? Can we learn to be compassionate and loving, even in the face of something so ugly and frightening?

Sometimes, where we are is different from where we want to be, so the first step is to have a vision and then what follows is continual practice. We are all conditioned to react and behave in certain ways, there is no reason to feel bad about this or to blame anyone. Instead, we can hold a vision for a unity between ourselves and others, even if those others seem to be so different from ourselves. It's going to take practice, but I have trust that I will dissolve these boundaries and be able to truly acknowledge every form of human life as being equally valuable.

When Destiny Unfolds

Okay, I don't necessarily believe in destiny, which seems to denote that we are without the freedom to choose, but I do make room in my view for the idea that things happen for a reason. Although I can't quite explain it, sometimes, things just seem to work out in a way that feels like it was what was "meant to happen." Another way of putting this might be that when both the choices that we make and the things we stumble upon end up being in accordance with what could be said to be what we needed at a particular time in our life. Whether it is coincidence, tuning into our higher purpose, or some sort of synchronicity, is something I am unable to say, but when it happens, I like to open up to the seeming magic and mystery that it has to offer.

Here is a quick backstory of my most recent of such unfoldings. Last year, as I was preparing to return to Thailand (which was a fairly spontaneous decision), I was at the chiropractor's office in Durango, Colorado, waiting to get adjusted and looking through some of the books in his waiting-room-library. In particular, I had a strong interest in visiting Burma and was looking at the Lonely Planet travel guide when my doctor, Ted Zerrer, came in and told me about his own trip there. He mentioned that his friends did non-profit work in rural villages over there and that I should get in touch with them and maybe I could get involved. He wrote down the name of the website and I later contacted Mike Karpfen, the Executive Director of the Shanta Foundation.

Mike's plans were uncertain and so were my own, but nevertheless we stayed in touch and 6 months later I found myself in one of these rural villages shooting a video for Shanta Foundation. Over the course of my stay in the village, I got to know Mike and his wife, Tricia, a little bit. When Tricia learned of my interest in meditation, she recounted a few of her own stories, of becoming a nun in southern Thailand in the early 70's, and some of the difficulties that she faced. I didn't remember all the details of what she had said, but I remembered the name of the province she was in, Nakorn Si Thammarat, and that there was an English monk there who was secretly doing yoga in his kuti (dwelling hut) in order to keep the body limber for long hours of meditation. She asked me if I knew who the guy was, who apparently was quite renowned in the world of western Buddhism, but I had never heard of him, and I didn't really ever think about it again, until last week.

I came here to Bodhgaya, India, for a 10-day insight meditation retreat at the Royal Thai Monastery, and on the first day, when the teacher was talking, something clicked. Yes, the guy was English, yes, I knew he had been a monk in Thailand, but so have many others. I didn't know when or where, and I never thought anything of it. During his introductory talk, in addition to encouraging us to attend the morning meditation that was included in the daily schedule, he also spoke briefly about being a monk in Nakorn Si Thammarat in the early 70's. Like being hit with a miniature lightning bolt, I suddenly got goose bumps and that feeling, the one where you realize that you are exactly where you need to be, and that whether it was your choices, luck, or the divine plan that got you there, you are there, and that is enough.

I knew right away that this man in front of me, Christopher Titmuss, who would be leading my meditation retreat for the next 10 days, was indeed the man who Tricia Karpfen told stories of just a few short months prior while we were in Burma. What are the chances of that? Given the fact that Christopher was the only foreign monk there, and in the first wave of western monks in Asia, the chances are pretty slim. Of course, I needed to confirm, and was later able to do so during a 1-on-1 interview with Christopher, whose face lit up upon hearing of the "coincidence." I don't think they had any contact in the past 40+ years, but he definitely remembered her fondly and said she was even in one of the group photos he had on his wall back home in England. He asked me to send her his regards and now I have the pleasure of reconnecting long lost dhamma friends.

So let's look back on these events that led to this. First, I made a really difficult decision to come back to Asia. Then, I finally decided to address my back problems and went to see Ted, who came highly recommended by all my meditation and yoga friends in Durango. Then, I just happened to pick up that Burma travel book and Ted just happened to recommend that I contact Mike and Tricia. Mike and Tricia happened to overcome obstacles with the Burmese government and were able to make their annual trip. Although they had a full schedule and were extremely busy, they happened to agree to have me come shoot a video for them at which time Tricia happened to tell me stories of being a nun in Thailand. I didn't remember Christopher's name, but I happened to remember just enough details about him (England, yoga, Nakorn Si Thammarat) that would later lead me to believe that I had a match. Even with those pieces of information, I could have easily missed the connection. Of all the places to go and things to do in India, I happened to stumble across Christopher's annual retreat in Bodhgaya, and the dates worked out perfectly. Even though I faced many difficulties on the train to get here, and almost didn't make it, I did, and even without the coincidence, I would have felt that I definitely came to the right place, as the entire retreat was amazing and was indeed, from what I can tell, "exactly what I needed."

Wow, so many things had to happen in order for this to manifest in the way that it did. There are over 1 billion people in India, and I happened to meet the particular Englishman who Tricia had told me about. And no, she didn't mention him because she knew about his annual retreats in India as a way of suggesting that I attend. She knew nothing of the sort, it was purely the unfolding of my life according to something, and exactly what that something is remains to be unknown, but it isn't always necessary to answer every question, as long as we open up to the mystery and the magic of life and everything it has in store for us.

Sometimes we have to look at our lives in this way, using wise contemplative reflection, to really understand the importance of what has taken place. Too often we take these coincidences for granted, whether large or small, and don't pay any attention to them. But if we look at them, we can begin to understand how the choices we make effect our lives, and that when we follow our hearts, our dreams come true. If I would have decided differently on any number of things, to go to Thailand or not, to go to Burma or not, to go to India or not, to go to Bodhgaya or to take the invitation to travel in the south with friends I had made earlier in my trip, I wouldn't be here, now, and I doubt I would have this feeling that I was right where I needed to be. The teachings I heard from Christopher were both inspiring and relevant to what I am going through at this stage in my life, and I wouldn't have rather been anywhere else during that 10-day period.

The invitation here is to really see that we are constantly shaping our futures, and that a simple decision, like what chiropractor to go to, or what book to read in the waiting room, might change your life! Isn't that exciting?


To learn more about Christopher Titmuss and upcoming retreats and programs, and to download various talks given by him, visit:

www.christophertitmuss.org

www.insightmeditation.org

www.bodhgayaretreats.org

To learn more about the great work that Mike and Tricia are doing in Burma, visit:

www.shantafoundation.org