Buddhism and Its Melodious Enigma

Buddhism and Its Melodious Enigma

I recently visited Delhi- the capital city of India. A day long journey to the city took me through many villages and towns. Some of them have schools; some are consisting only of vast cultivable land with electronic water pumping machines. Yet through out my way, I never saw a town or village deprived of a temple or mosque.

“We need all the religions. All religions are important. All religions serve the humanity.”                  

 – H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama. So true, I now realized.

*

When I was very young, while schooling, I thought, studying Buddhism is one thing, understanding it is another. Today, long after the completion of school life, my old notion of differentiating between studying and understanding Buddhism is gradually taking shape. It has been four years since I am studying Buddhism at Institute of Buddhist Dialectic. It has been four years since my two small ears had welcomed the most valuable words like Impermanent, Dependent Origination, and Emptiness etc. And more importantly, it has been four years since I dealt with an ever-growing fear of oneself excessively romanticizing with conceptional thoughts and ideas. Hence, in search for the relevance of what has been said or what I was taught, I often visit different places, meet different people. And it is with this in my mind, I recently visited Delhi, although there are some other reasons as well.

My journey started from a global town- Mcleod-Ganj. I have chosen HRTC (Himachal Road Transport Cooperation) bus service to get me to Delhi. The pleasure of traveling into an ordinary government bus is the element of surprises it provides on the way. An ordinary government bus often stops at villages and towns that appear far from help and hope. And by examining these darker aspects of the world, in my opinion, one’s understanding of the Buddhism grows.

The bus left Mcleod-Ganj at around six thirty in the evening, nearly two hours later it reached at Kangra- a district of Himachal Pardesh. Kangra had a peaceful place in Indian history, but that was until a century ago. In 1905 AD, a devastating earthquake shook the valley, wept away ten thousand innocent lives, and caused severe damage to many of its historical sights. The darkness of Kangra is not limited up to that, the town is also a painful reminder of my late brother who died two months before. Having problems with his lungs he was admitted to Tanda Medical College, Kangra. And after a weeklong struggle between modern medical science and his fate, the doctors finally gave up and pronounced- hopeless. He died that evening.

The bus stopped at Kangra’s newly constructed bus station for quarter of an hour. Despite under the roof of a newly constructed building, there was an air of decay lingering all around. There was a smell. I felt like living in horizon of uncertainty. I was in pain. I desperately wished to escape. I wished to forget the history of Kangra all together. Yet, I couldn’t help myself from being carried away by the painful remembrance of my late brother. And it was at that point of time when I suddenly remembered the final words of Lord Buddha, as put by Sir Ruskin Bond in his book, ‘India That I love’.

“Seeing Anand weeping, Gautama said, do not weep Anand. This body of ours contains within itself the powers which renew its strength for a time but that which leads to its destruction. Is there anything put together which shall not dissolve? And turning to his disciples, he said, when I am no longer with you, I will still be in your mist. You have my laws, my words, my very essence. Beloved disciples, if you love my memory, love one another. I called you to tell you this.”

The driver restarted the engine and we moved on. I tried to introspect on the final words of the Lord Buddha. I tried to keep cool. As the bus crosses over the Kangra-valley, I asked myself: In life, there are many separations and deaths, who belongs to whom? Half an hour later, the bus entered into a tunnel and I felt asleep.

 *

It isn’t a long time back, half a year or probably little more than that, I was in Rewalsar (Tso-Pema), when I met two very distinct people- Charly and Thore, a German man and an Iceland woman respectively. Both of them are in their late fifties or early sixties. We met at a workshop organized by the Tarab Ling Association under the title called ‘Unity In Duality’ or Tendel (Inter-Dependent). Throughout the twenty-five day course we discussed on many aspects of Buddhism. We discussed on Buddhist philosophy. Under the statue of Guru Padmasambhava, where we had our daily classes, we discussed the differences between various schools of thoughts, that how one school of thought supports the other. And through sharing our wisdom I learnt that both the westerners possessed good understanding of Buddhism. Charly, being a staff member of a government hospital in his native land, on many occasions illustrated his points with many case histories.

Charly, a day before leaving Tso-Pema, said,

     “Tenzin, you might be thinking that I am a Buddhist. I am not. However, I attend these workshops. The reason why I came here is that I found Buddhism very helpful. It is hard to explain specifically. My wife hasn’t any interest in India nor have my children, although they are quite fond of Bollywood movies. Yet, somehow, I feel this land has lots to offer.”

He then turned on the heater and turned off his laptop.

     “You will hear about the lessening degree of faith in West, particularly in Europe. You will hear about lessening number of people going to Church on Sundays. The reason is that even the one who is supposed to preach in Church didn’t feel connected with the God. Studying Buddhist philosophy helps me to get connected with the God. It strengthens my belief in Christ.”

I listened curiously. I didn’t comment any. I wondered in what manner a non-theistic religion could support a theistic one. Yet, somewhere at the bottom of my heart, I felt the magic of Buddha Dharma. I felt joy besides being little confused.

Thore, an Iceland lady, told me about her bond with H.H. 14^th the Dalai Lama. It has been more than twenty years since this lady from a small state, Iceland, receives teaching from the Dalai Lama.

     “You know, even now days, whenever His Holiness notice me in a queue while greeting Him, He at ones says, ‘Iceland, Iceland’.”

Thore, a lady who loves Indian foods and prefers wearing Indian dresses found Buddhism very appealing. Many a times during our discussion, she says:

     “His Holiness often says that the great Tsong-kha-pa gives commentary only on the difficult points from the great Indian texts.”

Thore will be very busy this year and also for a year to come. She and some of her friends are working on a project, to invite His Holiness for the first time in her country, Iceland.

*

“Chandigarh! Chandigarh! Chandigarh!”

Repeatedly shouted the conductor. He then stepped out of the bus and added,

     “Bus will stop here for fifteen minutes, anybody needs to have breakfast can have.”

Paper, paper was a noise coming from a distant apart. I was in a perpetual sense of doziness and failed to notice that we had already entered inside a city, India’s first planned city, Chandigarh. Chandigarh has its own place in my heart. I have a way of looking and feeling for the city. Sikh, the largest community in Chandigarh, despite under going numerous hardships during partition, radiates the depth of their inner values. The people of Punjab, having highest per capita income in India, also exemplify a sort of middle path where one can live harmonically with external and internal values. So is with the Buddhism. Buddha, during his period of time, didn’t give up everything (materialistic needs) and acted accordingly to the social norms of that particular society. Buddha could have encouraged banking system if he lives in this highly complex world of 21^st century.

As my journey proceeds over the smooth and shiny highways of Chandigarh, I recalled myself a quote of H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama:

“I do not believe everyone can or should be like Mahatma Gandhi and live the life of a poor peasant. Such dedication is wonderful and greatly to be admired. But the watchword is ‘as much as we can’ without going to extreme.”

Few hours before reaching Delhi, we passed through Karnal and Panipat. The first time I heard of Karnal was through a news channel and Panipat through my history textbook, the great battle of Panipat. Less than a month back, according to a news service from Delhi, at Karnal, a man killed his pregnant wife as he was in relation with a neighborhood girl. Since from that period of time, the place Karnal and its name, Karnal, reminds me the teachings of Lord Buddha, that how an uncontrolled mind provide wings by hatred and jealousy etc could lead to pain and tears. Panipat isn’t exception to Karnal. The soil of the city still preaches the lessons we haven’t learnt or cared. Who could have forgotten the battle of Panipat? Less than a century after the two great World Wars, excessive sense of greed and hatred is still finding its way, still dazzling the humanity, still defeating the reasons. As I left two of the towns behind, I asked myself: Aren’t we failed to learn anything from lunacy of the past?

I finally arrived at my destiny; it was eight thirty on my wristwatch. Delhi was in its usual state of rush and timelessness. I carried my bag and stepped into our own world of refugees- Manju-ka-Tilla. Manju-ka-Tilla is an old, shabby and dense sort of place. The small Tibetan settlement at the mouth of Delhi was supposed to pull down by the government of India, but somehow managed to survive till date. Many of the Tibetans living there in Delhi and in India love to believe that the miracle had taken placed because of being Buddhist, being one who has full faith in His Holiness.

At Manju-ka-Tilla or MT, I stayed in a single guess room and rested for a while. I got a very small room. A bed, a table and an old fashioned fan was enough to give away a sense of temporariness, that there isn’t anything which completely belongs to oneself, that there isn’t anything very solid. Few days later when I checked out of the room, I thought, sooner or later one has to check out from this world.

Three days later, I embarked on my return journey. I gave an agent, five hundred rupees and booked a seat in a Potala bus. While returning back to the school, my thoughts took me into another realm, another level of consciousness. I found myself wondering about the Tibetans who came across the great Himalayas in late fifties or early sixties, built roads on the mountain tops, leveled the forest, constructed refugee camps and ably preserved our unique heritage. Tibetans here in exile, whose job putted dirt in their finger nails, lived without a passport and at end died as a stateless being, could have perceived this world darker than the usual. Nevertheless, I thought, being Buddhists, they had grown to live with the idea that things change; already lived with the idea of decay. They already live with the idea of death, the idea, impossible for a young person like me to possess, that one’s time on earth, one’s life, was a short thing. These ideas, as provided by Buddha, of a world in decay, a world subject to constant change, and shortness of human life, could have made many things bearable.

Few hours later I found myself back in Mcleod-Ganj. I unlocked the door of my room and entered inside. I opened the windows and burned incense. I looked at my shelf and found all of my texts greeting me. I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this duration of my stay at I.B.D., for this service to the Dharma.