Around Bodh Gaya

"Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly

He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please

He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me

He bag production he got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard he one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease
Come together right now over me

He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say "One and one and one is three"
Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see
Come together right now over me " - The Beatles

My hotel is centered right in the villages about 150 meters from the main road of Bodh Gaya. Pigs, people, ducks, and dogs live in a big pile of a crumbling society that never had a chance.

I get a rickshaw to other side of town for forty rupees. I step out and immediately I'm greeted by this kid who follows me into a restaurant thats half tent and half building. He's talking to me about various stuff and I just chose to let him be. He wants to drive me on his motorcycle to a cheaper guesthouse, alright. I finish my fried egg and chocolate pancakes which are more like crepes and agree to go with this kid. I get on the back of his motorcycle and we drive through the back streets about 1 km away to a guest house. He gives me his card, I guess its some kind of tourist thing he runs. There are these caves the Buddha used to live in that are 7km away before he decided that self-mortification wasn't working out too well...Took him 6 years to figure that out...So I guess I'll go there tomorrow with this 18 year old kid. He speaks English well and seems like an alright guy.

He then drops me off at the Mahabodhi temple, the sight of Buddha's enlightenment. My advisor told me George Orwell said:

"All places are equal, but some places are more than equal."- My advisor said that's a George Orwell quote...If you change the word "places" with "animals"

Anyway, the Mahabodhi temple is one of those places thats more than equal. Its the most beautiful weather I've seen in India. Breezy, perfect temperature, the sun is out and I'm in Bodh Gaya. The temple complex is fenced off and its kind of like a pit in the sense that the ground level is lower. It feels like you walk into a sectioned off Buddhist camp and you get sucked away from the outside world. Here, at the Mahabodhi temple, life is quieter, slower, and deeper. The whole place is kept up really well and is truly beautiful. It didn't take me long to feel like this is one of my favorite places on Earth. 90% of the people there are monks in different colored robes depending on which sect they belong to and its such a cool place, man. There are monks meditating, praying, doing exercises, chanting, conversing, and even engaging basic tourist stuff everywhere. Its awesome. Such a cool atmosphere.

I walk around the temple after going inside and come up to the outstretching Bodhi tree where the Buddha figured it out. A monk in yellow robes is conducting blessings for a group of people where I want to look at the tree. I wait for the people to disperse and go up there. The monk does the same service for me, giving me a flower, squeezing the water out on my hand and forehead and then says a blessing. In the middle of his blessing his cellphone starts ringing from under his robes. He finishes the prayer and then answers the phone loudly and walks past the sign which requests visitors remain in silence to respect the holiness of the place...This obviously isn't happening. Later on I saw a tour guide use a megaphone two feet from the tree to conduct a prayer service. Let it be, I guess, I don't really care and I don't think anyone else did either. Monks also have no aversion to digital cameras, which is a funny juxtaposition as well.

I sit down and meditate for 45 minutes under the tree. I sit after meditating for another good 30 minutes or so and then this guy comes up to me who wants to give me a DVD he made of the Dalai Lama's teachings for free, meaning I give him a donation. I at first am like sure but then when he tells me he doesn't want for me to give him money here because of the religious nature of the location I say forget about it, second guessing his genuine intentions. Go away. Don't try and sell me stuff when I'm at this place of all place. I'm polite though and wish him luck. I don't feel like this guy really embraced the ideas he was selling so nahi, nahi.

A monk in yellow robes comes up and when a leaf from the Bodhi tree falls he picks it up and gives it to me. We start talking. He's from Thailand. His name is Ajahn Louis, Ven. Luechai (Sivichaiya) Si but he goes by Louis (La-wees) which is weird and funny because when he agrees with a point I make or something and says, "Yeah" he says it just like my friend Louisa. They both say it with this kind of almost raspy strong emphasis from the bottom of their throat and their eyes widen up a little bit. Its funny. I think they are on the same progressions of incarnations or something...Of course, he's 54 and from Thailand though...

Louis was cool. He used to drink, smoke and had a girlfriend but then stopped when he became a monk at age 23. On a more positive note he was an artist before becoming a monk. However, he disrobed at age 30 because he said he hit a wall where he wasn't getting anywhere with meditation and realized he knew nothing of the world outside his practice. He described it as being a fish out of water. He sold jewelry then lived in Nepal for a month, and wrote a book that had a 1,000 copies put out. After several years of preparation he became a monk again at age 45. He looked really young, its hard to tell when you look at a monk because they don't dress their age and hair style isn't telling you much either.

He was a cool dude though. He was like," this is what its about" while pointing to various monks from all over the world being in harmony together, he demonstrated this by folding his fingers onto one another in a ball. He then started singing the Beatles to me, "Come together" and I was like, "ahhh alright! you know the Beatles! You like classic rock!" and he then told me how music is good but some is not okay that is about lust and said that, "some Jimi Hendrix, okay, some Jim morrison, not okay..."

See, even Thailand monks like Hendrix and the Doors...He sang "Come Together" several more times, I loved it. He also said its like John Lennon's, Imagine while singing that song as well..."Imagine all the people...This is it, that song is Bodh Gaya, tell everyone that, tell everyone to come here and see this, spread that message tell them Louis the monk said that" he laughed. So there you go. He even said angry music is okay sometimes. Maybe he was also a fan of Slipknot...I didn't ask him though. I wouldn't have been surprised had he started head banging...He then told me about where I should go if I want to become a monk in Thailand. He told me how to do it step by step by listing out the places I need to go to in order and then where they are...I didn't ask him but thanks, who knows, maybe I'll wind up there. I won't say it won't happen

He then gave me a tiny crystal bead and said make your mind like this crystal and you will be free. He also gave me a water because I was out. He left telling me not to get to attached to things. Will do. We talked for probably and a hour and a half.

I'm going back to the Temple now because there is a full moon and it will be a crazy picture. Also, there is always crazy chanting going on around the temple. Tibetan monks were pounding these drums and it sounded like they were trying to get King Kong to come. Crazy shit.