Travels with Two Buddhas: Birth

  Walking in Buddha's Footsteps in Lumbini, Nepal
Sunday, December 10, 2006

Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

~Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the band Nirvana who died, allegedly by suicide, on April 5, 1994.

Thus begins my travels with two brass Buddhas. 

04 Buddha Statue, One of my Travelling Buddies

They formed from melted brass in the back workshops of Patan, molded, sculpted, and polished with love and care (click the photograph for more information). 

The monk Ahlie then breathed life into the body of the statues, filling them with scrolls of prayers, a life pole, and artifacts. 

Once sealed, tulku Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, the reincarnation of Nagarjuna, created the essence of the Buddhas by blessing them. 

Empowered in this way, the two statues were ready for travel, following the footsteps of the Buddha of 2,500 years ago--Siddhartha, Gautama, the Enlightened One, the Buddha. 

They were ready to visit the four primary sacred pilgrimage sites of the Buddha: the place where the Buddha came to be, the place where he ceased to be, the place where he became enlightened, and the place where he began teaching the Dharma. 
 

01 Gorkha Durbar Square

After a brief visit to Pokhara and Gorkha (see photos for the story) by crossing the heart of Nepal by bus, the two Buddhas and I took a night bus to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.  
 

03 The Himalayan Range From Gorkha

The bus was full of Tibetans from the small kingdom of Mustag, known as Mustang to the Western world.  The kingdom is now a part of Nepal, but retains much of its own identity as it is part of the Tibetan Plateau.  The bus was full and some slept on the roof in the cold December night.  They were heading for a ceremony for world peace, called a Monlam in Tibetan.
 
As dawn arrived, we walked through the gates of Lumbini.  Soon I found a small room at the Nepal Monastery adjacent to Buddha's birth site.  As the sun rose, I entered the ancient grounds to visit sacred trees draped in prayer flags, the pool where Buddha's mother bathed, and the place where she gave birth.
 
In Hindu tradition, a pregnant woman returns to her homeland to give birth.  The year was 563 B.C.E.  Maha Devi, wife of king Suddhodana of the Sakya Kingdom, headed north to her home but entered into labor on the way, in the flower gardens and Sal forests of Lumbini.  Prior to giving birth, she bathed in Puskarni, a sacred pool. 
 

Puskarni, the Sacred Pool

Seven days after giving birth to Siddhartha Gautama, she passed away.  Her sister and the king then raised Siddhartha.  The wise men of the kingdom predicted that Siddhartha would either become a powerful king who would expand the borders of the Sakya Kingdom or would see the sufferings of the world and lead people spiritually.  As you know, the latter became reality. 
 

Holy Bodhi Tree and Buddha

With the two buddhas, I walked on the meandering brick walkway through the foundational ruins of old monasteries under prayer flags and Bodhi trees.  Next to a large sacred Bodhi tree was the Purhkarni pool where Maha Devi bathed.  A nun sang under the tree as people came with offerings and lit candles. 
 

Ashoka Pillar in Lumbini

Around the corner was the Ashoka Pillar that marked Lumbini as the site of Buddha's birth.  Inside a brick building was a stone slab and bricks, upon which Buddha was born, as the story goes.  A long line of Nepalis, Tibetans, Thais, and others slowly passed the stone slab.  Everyone rubbed the brick mortar then rubbed the old mortar on their foreheads, like a tikka.
 
The Lumbini complex stretched for miles, from the Ashoka Pillar in the south to the Peace Pagoda to the north.  In the middle was an Eternal Flame, lit since 1986.  I wondered how they kept it "eternal" through the heavy rains of the monsoon.  They probably wouldn't tell us if the eternal flame extinguished for the night.  
 

Tibetan Stupa Temple

On the sides of the complex, the various Buddhist traditions--Japanese, Tibetan, Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Austrian, Korean--are busy building temples to create a Buddhist Disney EPCOT Center of sorts.  
 

Sambar Deer

In between the temples were large pools, wetlands, grasslands, and forests, home to deer, fox and many species of birds, including the auspicious and rare Saurus Crane.
 
With the two Buddhas, I walked throughout the complex, visiting temples, the Peace Pagoda, the wetlands and grasslands.  For a while, I joined the Sakya Monlam with the Tibetans from Mustag and elsewhere.  Prayers filled the air, for world peace.  Later, a fox walked through the grasses as I watched.  Slowly, he passed several water buffalo and four women sitting and talking.  The cranes were absent.

Peace Pagoda at Lumbini

On the way, many young Nepalis were walking the trails.  Dozens of them wanted their picture with me, which was surprising, as usually they weren't interested.  By the end of the day, after posing with an outrageous amount of people it became clear: today I had let my hair down and they all thought I looked like Kurt Cobain.  "I love Kurt Cobain," said one young man.  Ironic...that Kurt, a twisted yet brilliant mind who allegedly wasted his life with a shotgun, named his band Nirvana.  And here I was at the birthplace of the Buddha.  

Thinking about that situation, I think that if Kurt Cobain had met the Buddha, he wouldn't have died in agony, because deep down inside Kurt had it right...in a way.