Picture 3 Sarnath

Sarnath is like I remember it. lots of cows, the wide main highway running through town. The Iway internet cafe and the chai-wallah that gives me my first glass for free. There seem to be lots of baby animals this time. Baby goats and puppies, there's even a calf that was just recently born. His hair is scruffy and he sleep alot. It has taken me about two weeks to realize all the smoke at night is from peoples cooking fires. It's funny how it takes you that long to thing about things. Thrangu Rinpoche's teaching was perfect and he is a great Bodhisattva. Now that the program is over it feels a bit strange. A bit formless. Because of H.H's visit, everyone has had to move out of the monastery, so I am now staying at the Nyimgmapa Nunnery just down the street. Today H.H. arrived along with Rinpoche, and there was a big celebreation. It was one of those moments I wish I had a camera. The procession of monks all dressed up, playing their instraments, holding incense. All of us lined up along the road with Kata's in our hands. Karmapa's vehicle drove slowly down the street and he looked so huge in the car! Eveyone had a smile on his or her face and it was very joyful. The temperature is slowly rising here every day, and with it the dust seems to get more and more intense. People seems to be moving a bit slower. Except for all the kamikaze motorcycles, driving 45 mph down narrow dirk roads, with their entire families perched on the end. Life at the monastery was great. It reminds me of something Reggie Ray said on my ipod, about how you go into retreat or into a program and so much choice is taken away from you; what you eat, where you sleep, who you are surrounded by, yet you somehow feel at home. Granted it's taken me about two weeks to feel like that, just in time for the whole thing to come to an end, but that is how it always is isn't it?

Picture 2: The Train

It is 8pm and I'm perched on my bag at the New Delhi Train Station. The platform is crowded and there are group of Indian guys strutting up and down, whitewhashed cargo bellbottomed denim jeans and T-shirts that don't make any snse, such as "Enjoyment" or "Absolute Permission" Unfortunatly I'm still thinking about terroist attacks, something I had never thought about before while travelling. Wondering what It would be like to die alone on this train platform. What would be the last things I hear? Or see? I resolve that because I am thinking about it, I will somehow have the forethought to die peacefully. I shake my head and realize I'm having serious culture shock. In the dark I can make out large brown things moving on the tracks, lotsof them. They are rats, my perch becomes stiffer. Usually I can laugh at myself, not tonight, oh well.

The train arrives and the hundreds of people on the platform rush the doors, some are not even open and something resembling a bottleneck, without the bottle occurs. Knowing I will never get my seat if I don't partake in the craziness I join the insanity and we all crowd on to the tain, all 100 of us, at the same time. Some are carrying large metal chests, some are carrying round plastic containers that are the size of a man torso, "Durga Cement" stamped on them. I can't even guess what's inside. A living room set? I make it to my seat, in a whirlwind of humanity, but no luck, there are already a record-setting 10 people ocupying the space for six, I make 11. There is no room to put my bag down, there is no room to turn around, there is no room to move. Those with claustrophobia take note. A fight breaks out between two people carrying trunks. Yelling, screaming, the trunks fall onto those nearby. An old woman get involed and I begin to worry. This is when things can go really wrong, some sort of anger induced something or other where people end up hurt, or worse. I wish only to gone from this situation, so I smile and crack a joke to myself, to keep for loosing it. I try desperatly to find my breath, my practice, all I have learned about imperance and compassion, but It feels more like a "hell realm." Eventually I leave my "seat" to find the contuctor, I haven't slept much in the last 30 hrs, and I NEED a place to sleep. No luck, after a few hrs the conductor gives me a very final and very curt wave in the other direction. Back to my old seat. Eventually I find another man in uniform who tells some ladies occupying my seat to all share one. I find out they don't have confirmed tickets, but apparently this is not a problem. The more the merrier. Eventually we make it to Varanasi, ony 4 hrs behind our original arrival time. Oward to the Monastery.