15-30/3/2017
Every day in Lumbini, we discovered some new Buddhist temples. Buddhist countries, in order to commemorate the birth place of Buddha, built monasteries that many call the United Nations of Buddhist temples. While we weren’t at the temples I was learning about Buddhism and I found very interesting results.
What are the core teachings of Buddha?
Neither wealth nor asceticism make people happy. Everything is constantly changing, nothing is permanent, including feelings, material goods, health, youngness. They appear, they stay with us, then they fade away and cause suffering, thus we are in constant cycle of desire - happiness - suffering. The way out of the circle and the path to happiness is attainable by leading a moral life and being in the present moment, not dwelling in the past or in the imagined future. The tools are in Buddha’s teachings and one of his most important tool is meditation.
If we take a look at old Buddhist cultures, such as Tibetan, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, we see people following traditions, believing in dogmas, worshipping Buddha and other enlightened teachers and attending at rituals, making offerings. They act and believe as in any other religions. However, in the 20th century, Sri Lankan and Western monks started to dig out Buddha’s original teachings and they found that it fits well into modern, western cultures as a philosophy or as a tool for happier life. Buddhism works without belief, without temples, without shaved-headed monks, without incenses. Most importantly, it works without karma and without reincarnation.
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| Tibetan Buddhists outsource their prayers.. to the wind. Praying flags. |
We enjoyed the peaceful environment of Lumbini. Every morning we visited a few temples and a few times we went to the sacred birthplace of Buddha. This religion appears in many artistic manifestations, every culture and every society adopted it in different ways. Our favorites were the German Tibetan Temple, the Chinese temple and the Austrian.
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| Temple from Myanmar: gold, gold, gold. |
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| Temple from Cambodia. Like insect legs. |
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| Temple from Thailand. White party. |
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| German Tibetan Buddhist Temple. Grandiose. |
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| Tibetan Buddhist outsource prayer vol. 2: Praying wheels. Spin it, and your prayer is done! |
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| Korean temple: even here they are cute. |
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| Chinese temple |
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| Vietnamese one pillar pagoda |
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| Austrian Temple: organised, clear. |
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| Austrian temple: so European. |
I attended a 30-minute-long Vipassana meditation at a meditation center which brought me already calmness and helped to be in the present moment. I decided to practice it in the future, at least 10 minutes per day for 2 weeks and based on the results I can decide if it’s “my thing”.
After arriving back to Kathmandu, we decided never taking a bus in Nepal again. It started at 5:30 AM and it supposed to take about 8 hours. In reality, it took about 16 hours and we were forced to watch loud Nepali music videos, Nepali and Indian movies, meanwhile our bottom was hurt after sitting too long and at 10 PM we were brought to the wrong bus station, far away from our host’s home.
In the next days, we extended our Nepalese visa and we left Kathmandu behind. Our next headquarter was Dhulikhel. From this small town , we hitchhiked almost to the Tibetan (Chinese) border to cross out something from my bucket list: a 160 m high bungee jump. These were the scariest moments of my life.
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| The jump happened in this valley. |
Before the jump I had plenty of time to prepare my mind to the situation, thus I wasn’t scared, only very excited when it was my turn on the bridge. But the jump was something you can’t prepare yourself. In the very moment when my feet left the consoling platform of the bridge, every rational thought disappeared on my mind. Only one feeling left: fear of falling and fear of dying. This panic felt endless, but after 2.5 seconds the bungee started to stretch and pull me gently upwards and the free fall was over. Every time I bounced and fall back I screamed again.
My mind got very distressed from the experience, but somehow, probably from the adrenalin rush, for 2 days I felt very happy, active and alive. I don’t know yet if I would do it again, but I definitely don’t regret the jump.
From Dulikhel, the first part of the road wasn’t very difficult, and it was spectacular. This highway was built by the Japanese as a friendly support to poor Nepal. There was another mountain pass though, that we had to climb and it was almost as painful as the one before Kathmandu. After the hill, the road become flat, and we arrived to the plains. We stopped for two nights in a small village called Bhiman where Linh gave English lectures to the local students and by this action she got a special insight into their worldview. She will share more about her experiences in the next entry.
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