Bodh Gaya and Makhala Cave on way to Deer Park

          This bottom photie has most of the pilgrims in it. From the left, Eric, Francoise, the German Catherine, Olaf, Catherine, Alexandre, Cecilia, Natalie, Brigitte, Marianne and Joachim. At least on is missing; Carol who does the Chi Quong.

           Some days there is so much happening that you cannot remember which day is which. Yesterday, I was up and in the Bo Tree park at the back of five. In the mid-morning we visited the cave where the Buddha spent six years doing the austerities. Like the last time I was there, we did the puja in a wee darkened room where Makhala is supposed to have been seen. Then we were on the road till seven at night, with a dinner break, and arrived here after seven.
 
           This is only the second place with wi-fi in the rooms and hot showers too, but the connections for the plugs is very difficult. Just enough to exasperate me this morning. But it's a little bit more basic, a monastery guest house. Breakfast with the wee monks today was spicy beans and curling topped bread roll things, but it was a good cheap, nourishing breakfast and there was milky tea.

          It costs 300 rupees for tourists to get into the Deer Park, which has extensive archaeological ruins and the scale of Kushingar. The recitation/puja and meditation there completely turned me around since I was tired and crabbit this morning and frustrated. Our nurse squeezed some puss out of the top of one of my fingers and dressed it after breakfast. That's the only problem I've had healthwise here. No flu this time (yet) and no upset stomach. After another three nights here, we head for home.

4th Day in Bodh Gaya

          If you get bothered by ants or flies or mosquitos, well, you've got an excuse to move. I saw this monk at the stupa with one of these mossie nets that fit over and around you, and I thought I'd buy one of those. But I'm not much of a shopper and managed to buy a too big one which you can lie flat.
Actually, a great buy at about £4.50. There is a Meditation Park in the stupa complex and it costs 25 rupees and it's always empty, maybe because the rest of the place is free. But you can watch the night come down and the dawn come up, and look on the stupa. Probably sat in this "mosquito net" for twenty hours over the last three days so it was well worth the investment. Before I came back to the hotel about an hour ago, I was sitting meditating under the Bo Tree, or its relative. So so pleased and happy to be able to do that. I wish we weren't leaving tomorrow. I've hardly seen anything of Bodh Gaya apart from the big marquee where we got an empowerment the day before yesterday and the stupa place. Time of my life!!

           By the way, I did not pick the colour. The silk outside bit was light blue. Imagine my surprise when I took it out of its circular container and it sprang into that. Just jumped into that shape.

Another wonderful day in Bodh Gaya

               We spent most of the day in the big marquee beside the Karmapa's Temple, the place where I spent so much when I was here last, during the Kagyu Monlam. I remembered all the coughing and catching the flu, so I remarked to my companion that I hadn't seen anyone selling surgical masks on this trip though plenty of folk are wearing them, mainly for the pollution. In two paces there was a guy selling surgical masks!

               After sitting in my wee tent for maybe eight hours yesterday ... well, the bliss today was off the scale, both in the morning and in the afternoon. Trying to do the visualisations during this empowerment ... well, I've been getting a lot better at visualisations since I left the drink and drugs behind me in Scotland. Also, it might have been helped by having a connection with Tai Situ, who was doing the empowerment, from the last time the lama took me to India. But it was special today.

             I would really like to spend all day at the stupa tomorrow, but something is planned for early on. I would like to go just now, but I am very tired and the park would be shut less than an hour after I got there. And I am very tired. The one drive thing seems to have downloaded some more photies.

Bodh Gaya

          What can you say about Bodh Gaya? Well, if your thing is meditating, you can't really find a better place for that anywhere else on earth.
           Yesterday morning we climbed a mountain to have a look at where the first council was held after the Buddha's death. A bit like Vulture's Peak in that these guys liked a bit of altitude for a sit down. Saw some joe getting carried up on a sedan chair which ... well, I suppose ... no, I did not like that. He wasn't ill. At the top, I had a wee meditate and there was a sadhu sitting there, quite impress really in a black suit jacket and red everything else. Top knot and a smouldering lump of dung. I have him some water and fruit since getting up and down yon mountain for supplies must have been a pain in the neck. Quite impressive looking, sharp eyed joe, and he wasn't begging.

             The giant stupa by the bo tree is most impressive and the surrounding noisy as hell, with competing chants and loud speakers and tons of folk there when we did our wee meditation. Lots of mosquitos.

              Today I went down with Francoise at half five and sat with my nose close to the stupa for an hour and a half. For most of that time a black dog was lying against the small of my back and we were warming each other. I'm not one for vows, but thought that was enough to make me a vegetarian again. Been eating chicken and any other meat since getting back from the Singalila Ridge.

               I was back at eleven and went into the Meditation Park, which costs 25 rupees if you are a meditator and 20 if you are a visitor, with a "mosquito net" I'd bought on the way. It turned out to be a pink mosquito tent with a seven foot long base. But it meant I'd no excuse to leave it except for the bog, so I sat there from eleven till seven. I had to move when the shade moved at 2.40 p.m., and that's probably the longest sit since I was with Winnie on the Holy Isle during the summer three years back. The meditations got better when night fell around half five.

                There's a cat in a photie. First one I've seen here. It's dog territory. Also, we were in a big tent with Bhutanese (great eyes shut meditation there) in Rajgir when a fat lady squeezed down beside me. Lots of folk ask us to be in selfies so I turned the tables there for the first time.