Four Days in Madurai

Leaving Sri Lanka for India I thought I was being prepared for the typical Indian experience. Often in India you have no idea what's going to happen and things are not quite what they seem.

We were told by three different sources in Sri Lanka that because the airport was undergoing runaway renovations we needed to be at the airport five hours in advance; that meant 3 AM for our 8 AM flight.

It made no sense to us but we went with it. We arrived at the airport by 3:15 and were all checked in and through security by 4:30 which left ample time to browse the shops (expensive, all prices in US$) and spend the last of our Sri Lankan rupees  before we 

For boarding people are put on buses and driven on the tarmac to the plane where you walk up a stairway. As we pulled up to the plane we saw the engine open and a man run from a truck with a small toolkit in his hand. 

There were three or four men sitting on the ground beneath the engine. The man with the toolkit handed of the other men a wrench; I boarded the plane, did 3 Om Tryumbakum mantras and hoped for the best.

Given that as an introduction I was prepared to be dumbfounded and bamboozled when the plane landed in India 45 minutes later. But that was not the case. 

The Madurai airport was clean, new and quiet. I did have a strange interaction with the Indian customs agent though.

He asked what I do for work. This question confuses me in the best of times because for me that's a complicated answer. I should have said "I'm a cook" but I used my default answer, working for an NGO. 

He asked if I'd heard of PETA, I said yes. He asked if I thought they were good or bad. I told him it depends who you ask. Then he said something to the effect of "that's with the CIA says" and then I started to get a little nervous that he wasn't going let me in or thought I was CIA or something strange. 

A few more weird exchanges and he let me through. The Driver we had arranged with the hotel was there waiting for us, only slightly ruffled that  the plane was an hour late. "Mechanical trouble" I said smiling.

I had heard that South India is different from the north
(where I had previously visited); if Madurai is typical of the south than that is true. It is still very much India but it is calmer, cleaner and has far fewer people begging for money. I didn't even see anyone with leprosy. 

The reason we were drawn to Madurai was because it is called "the city of temples" and one in particular, Meenakshi Amman , is what it is most well known for. 

We decided to take a 5 hour tour of the city on our first day there and a full day (12 hour) bus tour to a place called Rameswaram in the south the day after that.

I can't describe the temples we visited. It's not possible for me to put into words the experience of being in these ancient and powerful places so I won't even try. 

What I can explain is those tours which were an experience in and of themselves.

I assumed the bus drivers would speak English and the tours would be conducted in both Hindi and English. Nope. This was a real Indian experience. These were tours that middle-class Indian tourists take and they all speak Hindi.

This was slightly disconcerting to us that first afternoon since we had no idea what was going on.  A good samaritan offered to translate a portion of what was said so that we were able to understand when to get back on the bus (which was really all we need to know anyway). 

As is my way in India I just surrender to the experience. I knew that I didn't need to understand with intellect what I was seeing, I just knew that there would be something worth seeing. And sure enough there was. 

That afternoon we visited a temple about an hour outside of city that I'm told was 4,000 years old. 

Again, I can't describe any of that experience but I feel very fortunate to have been there.

The next day we got back on the bus with a different driver who also didn't speak English. Our guardian angel appeared in the form of a very tall Indian man who spoke excellent English.

That bus was a miracle in motion. I don't know how it kept going but it did. From an American perspective to label it a jalopy would be making it sound  grander than it actually was. 

Let me be clear I am not complaining, I accepted that this is what it was and I was perfectly comfortable riding in it...but I will describe it for you.

The driver would stop periodically and look at the tires to make sure that they were still OK. The seats were ripped up, the seals around the window were cracked and brittle, which was evident when it started to rain...on me.

I thought the bus driver was going to have a heart attack. The poor guy was not the right temperament to be a bus driver in India. He was honking his horn like a maniac the whole time. It was hilarious. 

In India they use their horns to communicate many ideas such as "hey I'm going to pass you",  "hey  move over", "OK sure cut in front of me". 

This driver took his horn frequency to a whole new level. The funniest thing was that no matter whether he honked his horn at a cow, a monkey, a dog, a goat or a person they all had the same reaction. The look on their faces said "yeah, whatever dude" as they continued to saunter two or four-legged across the road.

The other amusing thing about that bus driver was that he was driving barefoot, smoking cigarettes and talking on his cell phone while driving and honking the horn. Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore!

Other experiences in Madurai included my visit to a tailor, eating the best vada, dosa and uttapam ever in a 100-year-old restaurant or simply sitting on the stoop of our hotel watching the world go by with endless fascination. Everywhere I turned my eyes was a photograph waiting to be taken. but those will be stories left for the imagination. I am already in Coimbatore so the next entry will have to be about that.

What I Learned From People in Sri Lanka

As you all know I am an introvert. Generally I don't talk to people much, however, when I am in another country I am always interested to learn what life is like. I try to have conversations with people to learn their point of view and the culture of the country that I'm visiting.

Here is what I learned from speaking to people in Sri Lanka.

I met a young woman named Sumudu at the Temple of the Tooth. She is an 18-year-old student who will be taking her university entrance exams later this year.

When she gets stressed she goes to the temple and meditates to calm her mind. Smart girl. From her I learned that children go to school for grades 1 through 13.

School is competitive. If one scores well on the university entrance exam the government will pay for tuition. If one scores very well the government will pay for a university education overseas in the United States or in Europe.

Only about a third of the students who take the exam score high enough to get the free education. If you don't score high enough to have the government pay for your education there are private colleges which one can pay for themselves.

I also learned from her that parents still help their children determine an appropriate spouse. She feels that there is still a personal choice in the matter among her generation about who to marry, although the parents are very much involved.

I spoke with a kind 84-year-old woman who lives in Tennekumbra , the town just outside of Kandy where the ashram is. From her I learned that the average age at which people retire is 55; 60 is the maximum age that one can work.

She had been a schoolteacher and now lives with one of her children, her other children live close by.

She is proud of the fact that she still cooks for herself; when I met her she was sweeping in front of the house. I was surprised when I learned she was 84, I thought she was in her mid 60s.

From the 30 something woman who owns the food stall in Hikkaduwa and serves as its cook (and everything else apparently) I learned that in the beach towns along the southwest coast much of the land is destroyed in order to build hotels and houses that people are trying to rent to tourists.

From her point of view this gentrification was not good. Many coconut trees are being cut down and it is much more difficult to find this staple item in Sri Lankan everyday cuisine.

I also learned that a few years ago the government in that area told everyone to fill in their wells because they would start providing water through pipes. The water comes from rivers and is treated with chemicals. Unfortunately there's been a bad drought and water is only available after 7 PM at night and gets turned off in the morning.

During the off hours the only water available is water that has been stored in tanks. The big fancy hotels on the beach have huge numbers of water tanks and the poor local people who can't afford water tanks store their water in plastic bottles or wherever they can. She was smart and chose not to fill in her well.

She told me there is a town inland where they do not turn the water on more than twice a month. People have to store enough water for 15 days in a row.

Although she is not happy about what's happening to nature as a result of the influx of tourism she is supporting her elderly parents and husband through this restaurant which many foreigners frequent.

A quick aside... I had the best rice and curry of all my meals in Sri Lanka at her place. You order the meal four hours in advance and pay upfront, then she cooks a homemade real Sri Lankan meal for you.

From Siri, a man who is probably in his 60s in Hikkaduwa, I learned to identify coffee, cashew, almond, papaya, banana, orange, and mango trees in addition to curry leaf plants.

I learned what water lizards look like. I learned what fruit bats look like more closely than I would like to see necessarily.

He was caught in The tsunami that affected that whole part of the world in 2004. His English was not the strongest so I could not get nearly as much of the story as I wish I could have.

He told me the wave took him and he kept rolling and rolling in the water. He broke his legs and the worst injury was The result of ingesting a large amount of sand.

His point of view about on the gentrification is positive. He makes his living trying to get foreigners like me to take a lagoon boat ride with him (which I did) or surf lessons.

I learned Chevin's point of view about how this new generation of Buddhist monks is different than the older generation. Chevin is the 36-year-old man who ran the guest house where we stayed in Hikkaduwa. 

According to him the Buddhist monks are changing and not for the better. He told me that things are different than  monks are being educated in secular universities and not learning enough about Buddhism in the Scriptures. 

His point of view is that young monks are breaking the celibacy vows much more commonly than in the past and are still staying in robes. His perspective is also this younger generation of monks improperly ask people for money to visit the temples. He is so dismayed by this trend that he has stopped going to temples completely.

Sripada - Part 2

According to the official website Sripada or Adams Peak is a depression in the rocky summit of a mountain 7,360 feet high. 

The depression resembles a huge footprint, which has been venerated as a sacred sight from remote antiquity. 

The footprint was identified by Buddhists as the Buddha's footprint, by Hindus as that of Shiva, and by Muslims as Adam's. 

Reading that description and seeing a picture of a monastery at the top of the mountain I felt compelled to see it with my own eyes. 

Climbing that mountain was one of the hardest physical challenges I've ever experienced.

I awoke at 2 AM, or rather I should say I got out of bed at 2 AM. As I said in my previous post I wouldn't quantify the rest I got as sleep.

My traveling companion and I were out the door at 2:30 with the intention to be at the summit before sunrise. There were other people, all Westerners, who were also starting their ascent. 

The walk round-trip is 12 km or about 8 miles. The elevation gain is about 3500 feet and there are 5200 steps.

When you read the word "steps" you probably envision American steps which are uniform in height and width. These are not American steps however,  these are Eastern steps. 

Some are high, some low, some narrow and some wide. They were uniform only in that they were all made of concrete.

Although I started the walk with my travel companion she and I move at different speeds. She naturally has a faster pace than I so we agreed that we would each take our own pace and I would meet her at the top. 

It did not take very long for her to become a shadow in the night; which was fine with me. I preferred this to be a solitary experience.

Since this was a pilgrimage I decided to do japa (mantra meditation) the whole way up the mountain. For three hours and ten minutes (the time it took me to reach the summit) with only occasional breaks for thought, I repeated the same mantra.

The first 25% of the walk has elevation gain but is not terribly steep. Because this is high pilgrimage season the path is illuminated. 

There are stalls on each side of the path, many of which are closed that hour. The ones that were open sold tea or food or water; some played chants which sounded somewhat haunting. 

The first interesting thing I noticed was that all the white people were on their way up and all the Sri Lankan people were on their way down. 

The information on the web, which is written in English and geared for tourists, advises one to arrive at the summit at dawn.

I asked a few young Sri Lankans what their custom was. They said people start ascent around 6 PM and they stay awake at the top and leave sometime before dawn. By the time I reached the top at dawn the only Sri Lankans left up there were a few policeman and temple keepers.

One gets a sense of how the path traverses the mountain when standing in town at night because of the path lighting. When you're actually walking the path it is impossible  to tell the distance to the top. 

About an hour into the climb the steps got significantly steeper and the going got considerably slower.

About 45 minutes after that I started to feel it in my legs a bit but just kept repeating my mantra and putting one foot in front of the other. (Imagine you have been on a stairstepper machine for one hour and 45 minutes continuously).

I saw many people much younger than myself panting and sweating at this point. As I mentioned to some of you, I have been in training for this trip for the past six months; at this point I was thanking myself for all of the asana, healthy food and lack of sugar.

The path just got steeper and steeper. At some point iron railings on both sides appeared so one could pull oneself along with their arms as well as their legs.

Finally I started getting really tired. The travel of the previous day coupled with the lack of sleep was starting to get to me. But I said to myself "there is absolutely no way that I am not going to finish this".

I knew that I had to be most of the way there because when I looked down I could see far in the distance the lights in town below and the moon looked much closer than it had when I started. 

Around that time I saw a western woman walking down and I asked her how much further it was to the top.  She replied "you are two thirds of the way there but the last part is really steep". 

I thought to myself OMG it's been incredibly steep for what feels like a long time already!  In some sections I'd had to pull myself hand over hand up the steps.

But I just kept repeating my mantra and taking one step at a time. I could see the sky beginning to lighten as I got to the top. It was packed with people.

There is a very small temple where one pays respect so I bowed down and then looked for a place outside to watch the dawn with the throng of camera wielding westerners.

I found nothing sacred or spiritual in that scene. It was completely different than being in the Temple of the Tooth or at that "Bodhi Tree Temple". At those other temples the devotion was evident. 

At that moment I wished that I had known that the Sri Lankan people were up there earlier. I would have preferred to sit quietly with them.

By the time I got to the bottom (which took me two hours) legs shaking and hips screaming I was completely spent. There was no gas left in the tank.

And yet somehow after only 20 minutes of rest at the hotel I found the energy to pack up, take a five hour tuk tuk ride (those of you who have ridden in a tuk tuk understand the significance of this), a 1 1/2 hour bus ride, arrive in a new town without a hotel reservation, find a good hotel and watch the sun set into the Indian Ocean.

For me the sacred was the climb itself which was a metaphor not the experience as of standing at the summit with a group of people at dawn. 

The pilgrimage is having faith and preventing the mind from getting in the way.

It was not the body that couldn't handle the climb it was the mind, doubt, that could have given in. 

The metaphor is starting the path in darkness and after great dedication and effort seeing the light burst forth.

The metaphor is not being able to see where the path leads but trusting that it leads someplace positive.

It was an incredible day.

More Than a Travel Entry

I awoke this morning in a town called Hikkaduwa on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka.

I love Sri Lanka, it is a wonderful country. The people here are a shining example of what a healthy Buddhist society looks like.

The Buddha's vision was not simply of how an individual should behave, it was far more comprehensive than that. The Buddha envisioned the blueprint for how a society should behave.

That vision was one of compassion, kindness, generosity, personal responsibly and peace. A society that consisted of a fourfold sangha; monastic women, monastic men, laywomen and laymen all of whom coexisted in a complex inter-dynamic were each group relied upon the other to live and thrive.

Much of the time here I have been the only westerner around (except for when I'm with my traveling companion).

I am a stranger who doesn't  belong, an other who is not part of this society.

In Donald Trump's America that would be cause for suspicion or aggression.

But here in Sri Lanka I've been treated with curiosity, amusement and friendliness. This is the world that I want to live in. Isn't this the world everyone wants to live in?

I have spent the last six years on a deeply personal, inward facing spiritual journey. I've indulged in the luxury of a "news strike". I've had the sense that what was going on in the outside world didn't have much to do with me.

I awoke saddened and deeply troubled by what has happened in my country (today is January 21, 2017). I awoke to the reality of the ugliness and hatefulness of the person who heads our country. 

What Trump represents is antithetical to my worldview and ethical system.

It compels me to pull my head out of the sand; to begin the process of relearning how to face externally instead of exclusively internally.

Since Trump "won" the election I've had a growing sense that I have to do something. Although I don't know how that will manifest I have faith that I will be shown what it is that I should do. 

Sripada - Part 1

At this moment I am sitting in a lean to on a beach looking at the Indian Ocean. Like everywhere in nature I've been in Sri Lanka this it is spectacular. 

As often happens on the road when I'm overseas  there are so many experiences happening in rapid succession there isn't time to process one before the next comes along.

I want to capture the last few days of experience in the mountains before my mind is overtaken by this blue green water.

I had read about Sripada (Adams peak) online and was intrigued. It is said that this place, the top of a mountain, is sacred to Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.

In order to get to the town at the base of the mountain we first took a train from Kandy to a town called Hatton. The train, which took four or five hours, cost Rs.220, less than two dollars. 

There were no seats in first or second class; when we got on the train it was packed with mostly foreigners. The terminus of the train line is a town called Ella. This ride is written up in guidebooks as one of the most beautiful in the world so the train fills with westerners. 

Usually there are many waterfalls along the way but Sri Lanka is having a bad drought, which is evident to me. Having lived in California so long I know drought stricken rivers and lakes when I see them. Although the vegetation is still lush.

The train ride to Hatton was slightly reminiscent of India in that people sit on the floor and men navigate their way through the human maze carrying different kinds of foods yelling out there wares in a language I don't understand. 

There were mangoes and Vada (like a savory Indian donut, although in this case it was a savory Sri Lankan donut) and tea and oranges.

Once at the train station in Hatton we switched to a local bus to get to the town called Nallathiniya. The bus ride made me feel  like I was riding one of those mechanical bulls. I was standing up and the mountain road was one lane, narrow and filled with S curves. 

On both the train and the bus we passed many tea plantations. Acre after acre of tea all of which would be picked by hand growing along steep hillsides. There were a few people in the fields picking the tea. Men and women with cloth baskets over their backs which were attached to their heads. They would pick the tea leaves and throw them in the basket over there backs. Hard work in the hot sun; think about that next time you sit down for a cuppa (as my British nuns say).

The bus let us off in town and I had to Google mapped it so I knew where to go to find our hotel. We walked down the dirt road which was lined with stalls selling the most bizarre assemblage of items. It was baffling. 

There were many stalls which sold an array of plastic crap. By plastic crap I mean dolls, blowup things, I can't even explain it, just a bunch of crap. 

Then there were the requisite trinkets. Stalls with bracelets and necklaces and some clothes. And there were many candy sellers. The candy was interesting, what was more interesting was that every vendor had exactly the same items. 

There was ginger candy that had no ginger in it. There was a lot of an item that looked like big blocks of fudge but was actually made of wheat flour and sugar and fruits. It came in brights green and red, some the color black licorice. 

The plain one was kind of weird the green one was better. I know this because I received a generous sample but I didn't buy any.

A fair number of the local people in town were high. They were chewing something akin to beetle nut which they sold wrapped in leaves and I definitely smelled weed in the air too. I guess that's why they had so much candy!

We found our hotel without any problem, and that itself was unfortunate. The hotel was a total pit and a real rip off. At $35 a night, which for me is expensive, the man didn't recognize that we had booked in advance. 

The rooms I booked online said they each had a private balcony, there was no balcony. There also was no hot water, no soap, no towels, no toilet paper. The most unnerving thing for Swamiji was that her room didn't lock from the inside but she dealt with it like a trooper. 

I didn't care about any of the weird. I've been in my share of funky hotel rooms at this point in the journey. It didn't unnerve me at all.

Since we knew we would be getting up about two in the morning to start the ascent we tried to get to bed early. The idea is to be at the top of the mountain at dawn. 

At 9 o'clock I tried to go to sleep but that was impossible. There was a cacophony of sound both inside the hotel and outside on the street.

There is a Sri Lankan dish called kottu which is made in a wok with metal implements. The cook slams the implement into the wok making "a distinctive sound" according to one of the menus I read. 

From my bed I heard distinctive sound of Kottu, tuk-tuk engines, splashing around in the communal bathroom and the animated conversation of the Germans woman staying in the other room.

Despite all this my mind was happy and peaceful. None of it was upsetting to me. I really continue to see the fruits of my practice starting to bloom. What a blessing. 

I dozed on and off till 2 AM when it was time to get dressed and start climbing. That is a story fir the next blog entry...

Nature Temple

I spent time today at an unusual temple... 

There are 4 Hindu temples that were created to protect the Buddha's tooth enshrined in the Temple of the Tooth (which I wrote about the other day).

These temples are small and adjacent to the Temple of the Tooth. In between these temples are Bodhi trees which have been enshrined. The tree themselves are the objects of veneration.

The base of the trees are surrounded on four sides by white walls with a small Buddha shrine on each of the 4 sides.

The largest tree was the temple where I spent a number of hours. It was very peaceful and beautiful there (as I find so much in Sri Lanka is).

People were circumambulating the tree while carrying pots of water. Some of the people sprinkled a jasmine flowers into the pots of water, which were offered to the tree.

Flowers, drinks and fruit were also placed as offerings. When I first arrived a large number of monkeys were feasting on the offerings for breakfast!

Beneath the tree was an area that had coarse sand on the ground and some benches. People, all Sri Lankan, were sitting in this area beneath the massive tree. More than half of the people were women, many in white.

Some of the people were meditating, some were chanting, some were praying and some were simply sitting.

A fair number of the people had Pali chant books written in Sinhala. It was interesting to hear people chanting in Pali while I was looking at these chant books. Pali is an oral language and is written down phonetically so can be easily "translated" into any language.

Occasionally some westerners would come and look at the tree fairly quickly and leave. As was the case at the Temple of the Tooth I was the only westerner sitting, meditating and just being with the tree.

It was an idyllic way to spend my day. Something very touching about witnessing people worshiping a tree, making water offerings and expressing their devotion in a gentle way.

Bats in My Belfry OR Yikes!

Here is the interesting story of the day...

We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peridineya, a few kilometers outside of Kandy.

In some ways this whole country feels like a giant botanical garden to me; beautiful flowers, palm trees and verdant vegetation is abundant.

The botanical garden was truly special. It contains over 4000 species of plants from all over the world.

The first area we visited was a spice garden; you all know how much I love the spices. City person that I used to be, I am ignorant about how spices grow. 

It was interesting to see nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and vanilla in their natural state. I don't think I understood that spices grow on trees...that's what you get for living in the city or suburbs most of your life.

The next stop was the orchid house. Many  gorgeous varieties  of Sri Lankan orchids were on display. Kandy is the largest orchid region in Sri Lanka and has 110 different species which grow here.

Surprisingly the most delightful item for the senses was not visual however. One orchid in particular, while visually beautiful, was a spectacular olfactory experience. 

There is no way that I can describe the scent of that flower. It was enchanting; genuinely intoxicating. I could have stood there "huffing" all day. Ahh the life of bees...

Our meandering brought us next to an area called "The Great Circle"; in Sri Lanka they do not use puffery it was indeed great.

There were many different varieties of trees that I had never seen before. Each with its own strong prana and individual character. (Yes I hugged many of them).

One of the trees had grown in such a way that two of its branches were encircling another tree as if in an embrace. Another example of the way in which Sri Lanka's deep peace permeates everything.

The tree that was being "hugged" was massive. I'm not good at determining diameter or height. I can say that the tree was native to Queensland Australia, was planted in 1865 and had a perfectly round trunk with smooth bark.

There were trees with rough bark, craggily bark and smooth bark. Some trucks were gnarled, others smooth and one type of ficus had a trunk the was wavy.

As we started walking back toward the direction of the main entrance in the distance I saw a large tree with something shimmering in it's branches.

At first it looked like leaves glistening in the wind. I stared for a moment and realized that what was moving was too big to be leaves. 

I walked closer to get a better look and saw with a start that the tree was filled with Firefox bats! I looked around and realized that ALL of the trees were filled with Firefox bats!

According to the park worker there were upwards of 13,000 bats in fact.

Occasionally one would swoop down from a branch and fly to a different tree. I am not exaggerating when I say the wingspan of these beings was a solid 3 feet at least.

This assemblage was one of the freakiest things I have ever seen. I could not get over it. I just kept staring at all these trees filled with bats...in the afternoon.

We continued walking down the path to find tree after tree after tree filled with bats hanging upside down, chirping and screeching. Each one was in constant motion; folding and unfolding their wings or wrapping themselves up.

That is a site I am not going to forget for a long time.

Sacred Space and Elephants

Hi Dear Ones,

All is wonderful; I love Sri Lanka.

Yesterday we received permission to start staying in what will be at some point in the future the Satchidananda Tapovanam (ashram) here in Tennekumbra.

But some things are universal, construction projects being one of them.  The construction was supposed to be completed in December and now is slated to be done this summer. (Gun you know all about that!).

So while this is and will be an ashram, currently it is a very nice new big house. No one is living in the house and the workers live outside. Based on the number of workers here and the pace at which they move I think it's going to be a while before the ashram is ready to be opened.

For whatever reason we are allowed to stay here; Swamiji says that our mission here is to "charge it up ".

That means it is our duty to meditate, do asana and for Swamiji to perform pujas here. Which as you all know suits me just fine!

Yesterday we transitioned from the hotel to the Ashram and then did a spontaneous  trip via tuk tuk into what they call Kandy town (meaning downtown Kandy). We had an excellent Sri Lankan meal for Rs.225 which equals $1.50 and looked around a bit. (Yes Joan I took a picture for you!)

A quick aside to say that in every way Sri Lanka is a peaceful place. It is quite different from India, which is frenetic. The peacefulness permeates absolutely everything. Even the monkeys and the dogs are calm here, which is quite a contrast from the monkeys in India and the dogs in India and Thailand.

On our way back from Kandy town we were walking down our street and we had our first monkey citing, a family which were on top of the roof quite close to us. We walked a little further and there were some young teenagers in front of their house who struck up a smiling, giggling conversation with us in quite good English. 

We were invited into their courtyard and chatted with them for a while, let them practice their English, they like everybody else around here were very sweet. 

Another one of the things that I love about road life is being invited in to stranger's homes. Never ever ever happens in America.

We then came back and cleaned the ashram which, although had someone staying here only two weeks ago, already had quite a few large spiders and dust from the construction.

Today we went to see the Temple of the Tooth. It is said that one of the Buddha's actual teeth taken from his funeral pyre is enshrined here as a relic. This is sacred space; it was an experience to sit there.

We could not see the tooth itself, I was later told by a lovely young Sri Lankan woman named Sumudu that they only let people see the tooth once a month on the full moon. 

Despite not seeing the tooth with my eyes I could feel the energy of the tooth quite powerfully.

As you may have all figured out by now, witnessing true spiritual devotion moves me deeply. It's one of the reasons I love being in India and one of the things I love about Sri Lanka.

The tooth is enshrined down a long hallway behind an opulent door. The hallway is all dark wood and fairly narrow. Many people, Swamiji and I included, bring sweet scented flowers or lotus flowers as an offering to leave in front of the tooth.

Along the left-hand side of the hallway (where the shrine is) is a long table filled with the beautiful flower offerings. Along the right-hand side all the Sri Lankan people, many wearing white, sit on the floor and chant and pray and meditate.

Once again there were not many Westerners proportionally and we were the only Westerners who actually sat down and meditated and prayed with the Sri Lankan people. I ended up sitting there for over an hour. It was a beautiful experience.

There are many buildings as part of the temple site, it's quite a large compound. On our way out we decided to see if we could leave via the back of the compound to get out to the street. No one else was there and as we walked down the lane we saw two men washing and feeding palm leaves to a huge elephant! More accurately I should say the elephant was being fed entire palm tree branches.

I had wanted to see elephants on my trip here. It was such a random place for an elephant to be that for a second I didn't quite get that it was real.

As we approached the man washing the elephant waved us over and then he waved us even closer and let us touch the elephant. Another item off my bucket list!

As usual when I'm over here every day is so full with new experiences that to me it seems like I've seen and done so much already and it's only been a week while to you it seems like I haven't been gone at all...

The Revival of the Blog - Sri Lanka

At this moment I'm hearing the braying of water buffalo, the chirping of various varieties of birds and am watching people on the riverbank below where I'm sitting bathing and doing laundry.

I'm In a town 6 Km outside of Kandy called Tennekumbra.

The ashram renovations are still happening so not sure if we will stay there or not. Tonight at a nice hotel a few minutes walk from the ashram. It was recommended by one of Swamiji's friends but it's a little pricey so we're sharing a room. 

A very nice hotel but I don't understand what the Westerners are doing here. It's in the middle of nowhere so I don't know why they would be here, despite the fact that there is a very clean pool. 

It's a full moon tonight, in a Buddhist country that means today is a holiday.

The road was lacking in traffic on the three and a half hour drive from Negombo so the journey was quite mellow. 

There were not many cars on the road, so when we would have cars driving at us or when we would be passing the tuktuks and motorcycles and trucks into the oncoming lane it wasn't scary at all!

We saw a Buddhist temple on the main road about 15 minutes walk from the hotel so knew there would likely be a service because of the holiday. 

We went in and there were a few hundred women, all wearing white, sitting on mats on a tile floor in the very simple room I take to be the monastery. 

There were just a few men, also wearing white, all of whom were sitting on the stage at the front of the room. 

When we entered every head turned and a little bit of chattering went up in the crowd. As if we wouldn't of stood out enough in our colorful clothes but here we were Westerners. The only Westerners I saw in town at all. I love when that happens!

A little boy monk was doing some chanting and we sat down in the very back. Then another little boy monk came to chant and then an adult monk came at the end.

After the first little boy monk was finished a young girl came up to us and told us to sit in the front; we did and they put a mat down for us to sit on. 

It was sweet the way these women of all ages were turning and looking at us a bit shyly. I would look at them and smile and they looked at me and smiled back. 

I've been very well trained by my dear Aloka Vihara sisters...I could understand and knew most of the prayers being recited although the melody they use in Sri Lanka is different from the one used by the nuns, who are in the Thai tradition. (Danielle, you would've understood some of it, they were the same chants we were saying a few days ago.)

It made me happy to understand exactly what was going when the refuges and five precepts were offered. 

It thrilled me to be able to rattle off the Pali as quickly as the women sitting there, particularly since I know I was being watched with curiosity; I represented!

At the end of the ceremony a number of women came and spoke with us, smiling and kind. One had spent nine years living in Fairfax, VA where Bertie lives. It's a very small world nowadays. 

As we walked home we had our first coconuts, deftly hacked open with a machete by the woman in her tiny stall. 

Now I am writing this and waiting for dinner to be served at 7 pm. A buffet of what a I hope will be real Sri Lankan food, as opposed to something westernized for the tourists. 

The road life is wondrous to me every time. I have no idea what I'm going to see or where I'm going to go. 

I feel that I have hurled myself halfway around the world. It feels very far from home and yet... I know how to behave in temple and I met a woman from my sisters' hometown.

As always, I feel incredibly blessed to be sitting here.

Much love,
Satima