Toner Magazine - the Neurosis of Coming Home by Erin DeCou

the Neurosis of Coming Home

(( page 4 )) by erin decou

Bodh Gaya. We arrived after that ridiculous train ride and then another bus and a night spent sweating in a dingy guest house room with cement walls and a barred window. A fan was perpetually on but succeeded only in blowing hot air around and around and around. The bathroom for some reason has a heat lamp for a light and no windows. But at least we have a bathroom. Mary and I walk in and drop our packs, eat some dinner and drink some Cokes, replenishing our weariness with sugar and caffeine. Still, we walk back to our room minutes later and strip, content to spend the evening in our underwear under the fan, with maybe a handkerchief dipped in water and oozing over our foreheads. Maybe we’ll peel back the skin of a mango later and dive in, cooling our faces as much as our appetites.

We wake early to avoid the heat and explore. This is Bihar, the poorest state in India, the one everyone has warned us about, but we see no small children rushing up to steal our wallets. We do see beggars, and pushy men peddling post cards, shoe-shines, prayer beads. We push past to the temple we have traveled two days to see. A hulking mass, a mound like mud molded into a point, a figure carved in every crevice, the ancient structure rises up among trees and walkways and monks, and there is scaffolding around it but the burnished copper stands there silent and heavy even so. Golden light pours out around the Buddha seated inside, one hand in his lap, the other ever so slightly touching the ground.

The temple pulls us around and so we follow the path. I stop to take a photo of an old man leaning forward in prayer and then I round the bend and there it is—just a tree, fenced in but bending over, reaching out far across the outer wall and shading all of us. The Bodhi tree, and there as I walk to the descriptive plaque I know for sure it’s the tree of trees, and there behind it is a throne, empty for some 2500 years but still possessing that ancient and forever essence of Gautama Buddha himself.

There are tourists from Gujarat and monks from Thailand and everyone converges ever so silently in the presence of this profound piece of nature. Soon after the Buddha gained enlightenment here someone took a chute from that very tree and planted it in Thailand, where the original Buddhism still flourishes. When that first tree in Bodh Gaya fell away, someone else brought a chute from that descendant in Thailand and planted it where the first one stood. And so this tree is holy, original, like the lineages that go on and on, bearing the same sap and wisdom as those that came before.

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Bodh Gaya. We arrived after that ridiculous train ride and then another bus and a night spent sweating in a dingy guest house room with cement walls and a barred window. A fan was perpetually on but succeeded only in blowing hot air around and around and around. The bathroom for some reason has a heat lamp for a light and no windows. But at least we have a bathroom. Mary and I walk in and drop our packs, eat some dinner and drink some Cokes, replenishing our weariness with sugar and caffeine. Still, we walk back to our room minutes later and strip, content to spend the evening in our underwear under the fan, with maybe a handkerchief dipped in water and oozing over our foreheads. Maybe we’ll peel back the skin of a mango later and dive in, cooling our faces as much as our appetites.

We wake early to avoid the heat and explore. This is Bihar, the poorest state in India, the one everyone has warned us about, but we see no small children rushing up to steal our wallets. We do see beggars, and pushy men peddling post cards, shoe-shines, prayer beads. We push past to the temple we have traveled two days to see. A hulking mass, a mound like mud molded into a point, a figure carved in every crevice, the ancient structure rises up among trees and walkways and monks, and there is scaffolding around it but the burnished copper stands there silent and heavy even so. Golden light pours out around the Buddha seated inside, one hand in his lap, the other ever so slightly touching the ground.

The temple pulls us around and so we follow the path. I stop to take a photo of an old man leaning forward in prayer and then I round the bend and there it is—just a tree, fenced in but bending over, reaching out far across the outer wall and shading all of us. The Bodhi tree, and there as I walk to the descriptive plaque I know for sure it’s the tree of trees, and there behind it is a throne, empty for some 2500 years but still possessing that ancient and forever essence of Gautama Buddha himself.

There are tourists from Gujarat and monks from Thailand and everyone converges ever so silently in the presence of this profound piece of nature. Soon after the Buddha gained enlightenment here someone took a chute from that very tree and planted it in Thailand, where the original Buddhism still flourishes. When that first tree in Bodh Gaya fell away, someone else brought a chute from that descendant in Thailand and planted it where the first one stood. And so this tree is holy, original, like the lineages that go on and on, bearing the same sap and wisdom as those that came before.