Kolkata By Air

After a noisy night, we woke at 5am with a Buddhist prayer service happening at the tree across the street. It was actually quite beautiful, and as I lay in the dark, I could hear hundreds of devotees mimicking the chant coming through the loudspeaker.

Untitled from Ryan Schulz on Vimeo.

Mike soon woke up, and we hung out in the room looking at pictures and videos from the previous couple of days. We left the room in search of something to eat. Vishnu Café was next door and open so we went in. We ordered food and went back to the plastic tables and chairs out front. You could just barely see the temple from where we sat.

Breakfast was a multicoursed feast. A bowl of mueslix and curd (think chunky yoghurt) with honey soon hit the table along with our Chai. We added a little extra pepper to the chai, and devoured the cereal dish. It was great.

As our omlette came out, we noticed a surprisingly nice dark sedan roll into the parking lot about 15 feet from our table. It looked like the Indian version of an Audi. A very hip teenage or college-aged man got out of the driver’s seat followed by a very distinguished looking white bearded man wearing glasses. He sat down near us and struck up a conversation.

Throughout the course of the conversation we learned several facts:

- The man’s name was Lama Shree Narayan Singh.

- He spoke nearly perfect English.

- He received a very thorough Western style education in Bihar.

- His was very aware of the United State’s political and economic situation.

- He was married to an American for one year. She took their baby back

to the US when they divorced.

- He loves Obama.

- His family was one of the wealthiest families in Bihar and at one point had the

great distinction of having the largest cash reserves on hand of any landowner in the region.

- They were tax collectors.

- They lost one of the “old” buildings (built in the 1700s) on his property

during the 1932 earthquake.

- He has since turned his family compound into a liberal humanistic Rimay Buddhist

- Center called Bodhi Kunja – Jang Chuub Ga’ Tshal Ling.

- He invited us to come.

- He found out we were interested in meditation and offered to drive us to a

nearby mediation center.

We went with him. And I’m glad we did. He had so much knowledge and peace and gentleness in him, I was deeply sad that we couldn’t go to his home. Meeting him was one of the best parts about Bodh Gaya.

He took us to the International Meditation Center that was founded by the Venerable Dr. Rastrapal Mahathera. Although Rastra died in 2009, his successor was there, and offered to talk with us a while. It as so quiet and peaceful. in stark contrast to the previous 24 hours. The monk was generous and gave us about 30 minutes to ask questions. Then he offered to let us meditate for a while in one of the main mediation rooms.

He called for an assistant who took us to the second floor of a large guesthouse, down a winding dark hallway, and into a spacious room with windows and large carpet. There were pillows on the floor, he quietly bowed and left.

We spent about 30 minutes in complete silence. It was heaven.

Somewhere during the day, we told several people that we were taking an afternoon train to Kolkata. They looked at us in confusion. “They added an afternoon train?” they would say. We soon realized that our train, along with our first class AC cabin had departed the station at 4 in the morning. Being stupid Americans, we neglected to pay attention to the international timetable.

Instead, we are now sitting at Bodhgaya International Airport waiting for our flight to Kolkata. I saw more goats and cows on the way into the airport that I have seen staff at the airport. It’s actually quite nice. They have the same Buddhist chant echoing softly in the background that I woke to this morning. It’s been a long day.