Today finds me in Sunny Pune.
After Sanchi and Bhopal I trained it down to Nagpur (means Snake City). Nowadays
known as Orange City and very juicy they are too. Train delayed three hours - not too bad really - can be a lot worse.
I spent three days in Nagpur exploring archaeological remains of a monastery, stupa and small college patronised by Nagurjuna no less. It's said he experimented in Chemistry here - Alchemy perhaps? Looked like a mini Nalanda.
I had the guided tour of the area by Dhamma Mitra Kapil and our friend from Bodhgaya Dhamma mitra Sheilesh. What a lovely suprise to see him here, such a positive and helpful guy.
We toured the Nagaloka College - a great TBMSG institution, which trains 40 youngsters per year in Buddhist studies during a one year intensive course. About forty students per year attend from all over India.
I was asked to give "short" talk to which I obliged, although with question time it ran into 2 hours! The students were very interested in life in the West and the benefits of Buddhist practice. I gave my talk an emphasis on the benefits of "taking responsibility for our actions" - at the request of the Head Teacher.
We also visited the Hsuang Tsang retreat centre (funded by Taiwanese donors). A magical spot in the heart or rural (Jungle) India. A fantastic stupa/shrine room with amazing acoustics. Tigers are common in the surrounding hills and have been seen on the centre land (though not recently thank goodness!). Beautiful lakes close by.
Dinner at Kapil's home (cooked by his younger sister) has added a touch of real life India to the trip. Great hospitality.
An overnight train to Pune was free from excitement apart from one informative passenger who wanted to initiate me into the secrets of his personal religious philosophy "all is one, god is all, god in everyone". He carried on and on until the Indian Doctor next to him said "For heaven sakes man, give the guy a break, you've said the same thing at least ten times!"
When the "informative passenger" popped to the loo, I quietly thanked the Doctor and we shared a friendly understanding for the rest of the trip. He had visited Cambridge several times with his job in tropical medicine.
I am recovering from an ongoing low level cold (hence the Oranges). I am a bit tired from all this non-stop travel and am looking forward to a quiet one week retreat before starting over.
Love to All,
Jayasiddhi
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