Masses of bundled bodies sprawl across every available space into a patchwork heirloom, a silent city. A designated sewer dribbles along the side wall, where men walk to spit as we search the list of passengers for our names. These people wait for days, weeks perhaps, for a train, and I wonder where it takes them. Away and back again. Some have baggage. A few have livestock, a goat dressed in a burlap jacket. I want to ask their stories, whether they‘re coming or leaving, running to or from. Children curl up on the stairway, and I slip a snack into one’s hand, hoping it doesn’t get stolen before he awakens. Bihar is the poorest state I’ve ever seen, and I fall asleep to the sounds of rats’ nails tickling cement and cockroaches gliding through patches of light. I forget where I am and take rest.
The morning reveals more poverty. Pretzeled people scuttle across the street and beggars line the roads. I buy a bushel of bananas, so big I can barely lift it. I pass them out individually to everyone who asks. A young bald monk approaches me, confused, and points to the temple. No, I say. Not for Buddha, for the people. A blind leper with knubbed hands holds them out into the darkness that surrounds him. I place a banana in his palms and he jerks away, and I’m startled and jump back. I wonder if I should peel it for him, but I’m afraid to and I walk on, ashamed. Children hide the ones I give them and come back for more. Women hold out shriveled infants asking for extras. I come to a cluster of kids outside a temple and begin to divide the bounty, but they charge at me and rip the bag from my hands and tackle each other into a pile like dogs, and I leave wagging my finger and my head, not sure whether to laugh or cry.
Born free, children run naked in the streets, snot streaking over chapped lips and scab crusted noses. Puppies and piglets burrow in the trash; baby goats bleat for their mothers in the fields. There are no leashes. Life roams. Mothers don’t brush off the dirt or clean the wounds, these are left for the flies, made to heal on their own, but the women and brothers and sisters hold the little ones in their arms, to their breasts.
Cobras don’t really dance; it’s only an illusion. They are deaf, their world is silent. They follow the movement of the flute, wiggling their bodies back and forth. But the children dance. They skip in a line behind the old man making the music, carrying the sacks of serpents on a balanced rod across his shoulders. The piglets dance; they trot after their plump uddered mother and mowhawked father. The dogs dance, spinning as they scratch mange from the places they can’t quite reach and no one else will.
I am sick-- so weak I can barely move, but I have little time left and I push on. My energy is drained, having seeped forth from every available orifice. I lie on my back and try to borrow it from the grass, the sky, to channel it from the chants that surround me. The streets team with people who all want something, and I’m tired of it. I seek refuge in the temples, where the light streams in through colored glass and cast a rainbow across the altar. Monks play drums with bent sticks and moan words I can‘t understand, but I agree anyway. Paintings cover the walls and tell stories, teach lessons. Practice they say.
And they do. Monks and nuns and men and women and children circle the main temple slowly, paying respects, penitence, offering prayers. Touts sell bouquets of fresh cut flowers to devout Buddhist who preach non violence and place the fresh cuttings across the altar. I pluck one from the trash and wipe away the sauces. Buddha teaches us that the rose and garbage are not separate; they depend on each other for nourishment, they inter are. Apparent opposites are codependent. I place my dripping lotus before the glittering statue as the caretakers clear bundles of bouquets into trash bins.
The building stands enormous and intimidating, a symbol of the incredible devotion of the Buddha, and now his followers carry that focus on. You can feel the energy of this place. My altered state intensifies it, and I feel light. Vibrations crystallize with each forced breath. I kiss the earth with my feet and hold the pain, recognize it, nurture it. All is empty and full of presence, a low hymn you can hear if you listen. Gate gate, paragate, parasumgate, bodhi svaha. The chant fills my thoughts, eliminates all others. It beats with my heart. I sit beneath The Bodhi Tree, the sapling that offered enlightenment to those before me, and I feel connected to them within its branches. I wish for a moment that I brought water from the Ganga to offer the tree, then I smile to myself as I realize that of course these sacred beings are intertwined. I am in this tree. Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gautama is in this tree. As is each creature that has come to consider its existence, or simply existed. Every part of the universe is present in each leaf. I see this, for a moment, and it makes me so happy. so complete. It is enough, as they say.
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