Buddha’s Blessing
On day three of our journey of around 2% of India we went to Kushinagar, Buddhas place of rest.
Buddha was born in Lumbini, which is on the border with India, then trekked towards Bodhgaya in the state Bihar, and finally made his way up towards Kushinagar, which is close to the border with Nepal.
Kushinagar is approximately and hour and a half drive from Siswa Bazar.
So imagine this.
- You’re fully in India, hearing and speaking Hindi
- You drive 60km
- SUDDENLY: Thai, Japanese, Korean.
- You get very confused.
Ok so for context, all major countries that follow Buddhism have set up centers for followers.
So essentially, one of the people who work at my mothers NGO is from this region (thank you Mishra-Ji!), and because he knew that Jean and I are getting married, he wanted to organize a special ceremony just for our family.
It was a ceremony led by the monks of Kushinagar, and even more special, it was the number two of the entire region who actually performed the blessings. We prayed by the giant reclining Buddha, we were blessed, offered blessings and covered Buddha so he could rest.
It really set the stage for what we could potentially expect for our wedding(s).
Now. The main question we had here going into this was: did we just get married?
Regardless, I think I need to rename this series to:
Four weddings and a culture shock.
Right so. After we received our blessings we were taken on a tour of the area, which included visits to all the different places Buddha might have gone to while he was going to rest.
At this point I’ve been to Bodhgaya, where he reached enlightenment and now his resting place. Clearly my next logical step is to go to Lumbini to see his place of birth. I’m already eating all the foods his family ate, so I should probably go see the beginnings.
Oh! I forgot the best part. While we were the ones being blessed, we were also the ones that were offered a Buddha statue.
He’s deceptively heavy, but then also, apparently only 3.5kg? There ain’t no way.
For those interested in history and religious studies, I would encourage a visit. Any place that has such a deep history is worth visiting of course, but this place is special.
To get here, you fly into Gorakphur and drive about 1.5 hours. The major hotel chains are/should be in the area so you should be good to go for a visit.
I don’t think little French Jean quite knew what to expect (to be fair neither did I).
This sincerely set the tone for our many weddings to come.
And speaking of weddings! No, we did not get married, but after Siswa Bazar we did start making our journey to Delhi and to the fort in Alwar where we will do our Indian Wedding Ceremony.
Next weeks episode (I feel like this is a reality show — should I be on reality TV?? Should Jean and I be broadcasting everything about our lives???): we’ll be in Jaipur, the Pink City. Stay tuned!
