Set out from Madurai at the beginning of last week to visit a Buddhist monk friend of Sekar's. The monk, Ishitani-ji, is originally from Hokkaido and first came to India back in the late 1960s when he was about my age now. At the time, the Vietnam War was raging. Fed up with the Japanese government and society in general, Ishitani-ji left to travel the world. His first stop was India. And he never made it any further.
In India, Ishitani-ji met a Japanese Buddhist monk, Fujii Nichidatsu,who had come to India to help bring Buddhism back to the land of its birth (Buddhism, for the most part, had disappeared from the subcontinent). In the course of his work, Fujii became friends with Gandhi-ji who called him "Fujii Guruji."
Until meeting Fujii Guruji, young Ishitani-ji viewed religion in general as a bunch of lies and was uninterested. Yet, this monk had something about him, something that he somehow felt he needed to be near. So Ishitani-ji stayed on and walked (literally) with this monk throughout India. In the course of it all, he became a disciple and eventually successor.
The particular sect of Buddhism he belongs to is firmly committed to peace. They are the same ones who build peace pagodas all over the world. And they are serious about this commitment...serious to the point that Ishitani-ji, for instance, went into Sri Lanka during the peak of the civil war and tried to the stop fighting. He told me one particularly harrowing story of being put up against a wall by the military and fired upon by a machine gun because he had plunked himself down in the middle of a battle scene and refused to get out of the way until everybody stopped fighting. They were only trying to scare him, but shortly thereafter, another monk who had come with him did end up getting shot to death (executed) by rebels.
In any case, after years of being based at a temple located adjacent to the Gandhi Memorial Museum in Madurai, he is now in a place called Shakarancoil (sp?), a dry, dusty and poor town which to me seemed like the middle of nowhere. He is trying to build a temple and a peace pagoda there on land donated to him by a wealthy Hindu patron.
I stayed out at the under-construction-temple with Ishitani-ji and two nuns, trying to help out where I could and asking questions at night of the three about their faith and their lives. Despite all the hammering and sawing noise of the day, the temple was a blissfully peaceful change from the BEEP-BEEP-HONK-HONK-BEEEEEP-CLANG cacophony and choking pollution of Madurai (FUN FACT: breathing the air in most major Indian cities for a day is something equivalent to smoking 2 packs of cigarettes...this is a significant improvement as only several years ago, the estimate was closer to 3 packs).
Friday came and I decided I should be moving along, so I hopped the train down south and then through the Ghats to the west, arriving that afternoon in Kollam, Kerala.
Kollam (Quilon) lies at the southern edge of Kerala's famous Backwaters (one of the towns along it, Kottayam, being Arundhati Roy's hometown and setting of her book "The God of Small Things"). The town was small and noisy, but seemed markedly more peaceful than Madurai. Also, a shopping complex that looked like it could have been lifted straight out of Kuala Lumpur or someplace in LA gave me my first glimpse of life for the much talked about growing middle class of India.
After staying one night, I hopped on a Backwater tourist cruise heading for Allepey. For the first time since entering India, I was with other tourists. I was at once disappointed and yet at the same time felt a sense of relief that made me feel a bit ashamed.
The Backwater is truly beautiful, made all the more beautiful by the stark contrast all the greenery and the dreamily slow life along its shores makes to the chaotic jumble of cities I've experienced thus far.
Partway up the route, we were scheduled to make a brief stop at Amritapuri, the site of an ashram devoted to one of India's most famous living mahatmas, "The Hugging Mother." I had read about it in the guidebook, but was stunned by the sheer size of the place - a city of devotees and pilgrims in the middle of a sea of palm trees. Several of the other passengers were getting off to stay for a night so I decided "What the heck" and hopped off. When we arrived, "Amma," as the mahatma is called by most, was giving her last day of dharshan (literally, "glimpse of God"), which here takes the form of her hugging each and everyone of her visitors, before getting ready to leave on a tour of Europe and US for the next several months.
It is estimated that to date, Amma has hugged over 3 million people. I am now one of them.
People say that they feel as if they have been imbued with energy or "cleansed" when they receive this hug. As I stood in line waiting for my hug, I asked myself what question I might have for Amma or what burden I might need her help with. And all I came up with was the conviction that the things I need to tackle are things that I must tackle on my own. So perhaps for that reason, the hug I received seemed to be only that to me; a hug.
Okay, running out of time, so this will have to be continued later. And to be fair, Amma's story is pretty incredible. Try googling her and see what you think.
Right now, still at the ashram (have stayed for two nights) doing some meditating on life. But more on that later (perhaps after I get up to Kochin in a few days). Thanks to Ishitani-ji and to Amma for setting me to the task of doing some long-neglected introspection and deep thinking.
Ahh, and a big shout out to Gandhi-ji (whose autobiography I am reading now); today is his birthday.
And to all of you:
Om Shanti Om
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