Notes on a Pilgrimage to the Bodhi Tree

I am against participating in mad dashes. My anti-social side is too well-developed. Once, riding the Number 2 train in Manhattan, two men engrossed in a gunfight, stormed into my car. Everyone exited, screaming and tumbling. Only I remained, clutching my copy of The Brothers Karamazov, putting privacy (relative as that was) over safety.

I had always wanted to visit Bodh Gaya and see the tree, where many centuries ago, a man got it straight about suffering. A shrine without a blood component.

The first time I saw the tree I fell in with a cluster of Sri Lankan women, all in white, like a delegation of swans.

Seeing it inside its protective gapped fence (I imagined it unenclosed, unlimited, like the mind of the Buddha), I felt deep inside me the immense marching feet of tears saved over time for just this moment. Not so much tears of devotion, I think, as tears of recognition. Recognition of my ignorance.

Gingerly, I seated myself beside the burgundy-robed Tibetans, beside the tangerine-robed Thai monks. I am sure they are all clairvoyant and can see they have an impostor in their midst.

I search for my first mindful breath of the day. It’s here somewhere. I know it is.