Vipassana course...

Beginning the 2nd of December, I will stay for 10 full days (11 nights) in a center, meditating. People there are not allowed to talk, read or write. So I won't be able to communicate during this time. I met a german girl who is just out of the last session. What she tells me really make me like I can't wait to go there. If you want to know more about vipassana, you will find all information there :

http://www.dhamma.org/en/vipassana.shtml

Bodhgaya - day five

When I was in Arnaud Desjardins' ashram, in St Laurent du Pape, France, I met Matthieu. I came in India quite some time ago, and came in Bodhgaya. He recommended me this place, and that's how I'm here. I told me also he spent one month in an ashram in front of the Mahabodhi temple. So when I arrived here, the first thing I did was to go to this ashram. I met Bhai ji, the 'director'. It's actually a center that hosts poor children from the area, among which orphelins. They get a special education, whose philosophy is widely inspirated by Mahatma Gandhi. But the functioniong of the ashram is currently disturbed by this project whose aim is to operate people of the cataract. It settled many stands within the walls of the ashram. Bhai ji figured out that I cannot be really useful for the ashram since I am staying there only for ten days. So it came naturally that I am instead working for the project, in the place where they do the surgery, in what is normally a Tibetan monastery. I was allowed to see the surgery... Impressing ! I still wonder how the eye can still work after that it has been cut, open, and that a piece of plastic has been put behind the retina... But it works. Actually, there are already full teams of volunteers working there. There are several Danish nurses spending one third of their one month of vacations volunteering there ! Anyway, I feel quite useless there since the entire teams have already been set and where already functionning perfectly before I came. I am like the fifth wheel of the carriage. I figured out that I am half useful, so I spend there half of my time, and use the time left to meet other people and discover the places around.

My camera is still out of work. You can find some pictures of Bodhgaya there :
http://www.pbase.com/serenab/bodh_gaya

Ellora and non-duality

Yesterday, I went to the Mahabodhi temple, as I do every evening. There was a man with long hairs, long beard, dressed in white, as Hindu saddhus. His look was very kind and full of gentleness. It crossed mine for a few seconds, and then I felt very happy. Then, I began walking around the temple, with this happiness in mind. People sitting beside the way were smiling to me as my happiness was quite obvious. Some of them told it to me. Then I sat beside a chinese looking man who also comes there everyday in the evening. He was in deep meditation. Later on, I started walking on the higher and longer path around the temple. And, I don't know why, this thought came to me : the main Hindu cave in Ellora could be considered as a symbol of non-duality. Remember, this is the cave :



In everyday life, our psychological processes are based on a dualist perception of the world, that means in terms of subject (the spectator) and object (the show). For example, you (subject) looking at a carving (object). People having reached the non-dualist state of consciousness, which means awakening in buddhism, don't percieve that way any more. They don't separate inside and outside, me and other, their percpetive and mental processes are compared to water sinking in water. In Ellora, all the statues and the buildings are different and look separated, but they have actually been carved in the same single rock. As we feel disconnected from 'outside', other people, other forms of life, of matter, but it is just that we lost the consciousness of the deep links we have with the entire surrounding world.

Indios and the irmandade

I met Indios the first time I went to Alter do Chao. I got indirectly in touch with the irmandade, and drunk the ayahuasca. The experience has been really dizzy. I came back in Alter do Chao with a colleague a few months later, and then in July, with Alex. The irmandade has been created by Indios' father, Paulo Brasil. They have a brand new website (in Portuguese) : http://www.comunindios.com.br/



Ilha do amor, in Alter do Chao. The paradise on earth...



Typical landscape in the area



Sunset on the Tapajos river



Irmandade means brotherhood...



The hard core of the irmandade.



Waterfall vale do paraiso



Indios shipping on the Arapiuns river




Indios in front of the hugest tree in the area of Alter do Chao



Paulo Brasil and his tea, on the beach along the Tapajos river



Ritual






Feeling the forces of nature



Casa de Pierre in Alter do Chao. We had a memorable ritual there this summer with Alex, Indios and many other people.



Well... I'm on this picture !



Indios is in white and Alex is sitting



The same day, I made this picture of me



This one of Indios



This picture of the lake



And I captured also this beautiful tree



Concentration...



Accessories of the ritual, in Spain.

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya is the most amazing place I have ever been so far. It is the place where the Buddha is supposed to have been enlightened. Most people coming here are asian buddhists, half of them being monks, so the atmosphere is very different from other touristic places. Local people don't try too much to cheat me, which is very relaxing. And above all, they forbid the access to the center of the village to all vehicules, which creates a calm I never found anywhere else, since it's almost totally free of the deafening and annoying noise of the horns. My camera broke down when was in Chitrakoot. I put inside of it L6 cells, which look exactly like LR6 cells, and I'm afraid it spoiled a part of the system. So the upcoming pictures are not mine.


Mahabodhi temple



Inside Mahabodhi temple. The exact place of the enlightment is just behind the left monk. We don't see it. Entering this room, one can feel a very strong psychic energy. I could stay there sitting for days.



Behind the temple, the tree whose ancester whose the one under which the buddha was enlightened. Also a place of very strong power.



Diversity of people in the streets

I am currently working as a volunteer in a camp where local people (the state of Bihar is the poorest in India) who can't afford any medication come to get surgery to treat cataract. Last year, in one month, they operated more than 20 000 people. I will work there until the first of December.

Chitrakoot

Golu



Amit



Amit and Golu. We were like three brothers.

I met Golu and Amit in Khajuraho. They live there. They wanted to travel with me. I met their parents, who allowed them to come with me for three days. We went together to Chitrakoot, 'mini Varanasi'. It's a pilgrim place for Hindu people. Inhabitants : 15 000. Pilgrimers : 15 000. Monkeys : 30 000. Lord Ram, the incarnation of Vishnu whose life has been written in the Ramayana, which could be compared to the evangile, with more miracles, demons, monsters and human drama, is supposed to have spent 12 years in exile in the area. Many places are related to a particular episode of the Ramayana, and often you can even see, colored in orange on the stones, the exact place where the feet of Lord Ram were while he was sending an arrow on a monster ! All the more impressing that the Ramayana is supposed to have been written between 1000 and 500 BC...



Early morning at the ghat


Hindu people come there to worship the gods. Very few people speak english in Chitrakoot, so there are no foreign tourists. That means, I wasn't asked all the time to buy something. Golu and Amit spoke to the people, and I was generally standing apart. Thanks to their patience (well, mostly Amit's patience. Golu is very young - only 13), they helped me to sgnifically improve my hindi. We visited many of the temples in the area. In some of them, Brahmans wait for the people and if they think they are rich, they ask them for money. Many of them asked me or demanded quite a lot of money. They put the pressure on me, using their supposed religious powers to get money from visitors...





Most of the worships are made 'for good luck', and one can find in the boats white rabbits, also 'for good luck'. There are also many saddhus. Saddhus are supposed to dedicate their life to God and abandon all their belongings. They live of gifts given by people, who respect them. Some of them look serious, but a lot of them are cheaters that benefit from the situation to live without working. We even met a 12 years old boy begging for money. He told us that he had to do this because his father wants him to get money at home. But he confessed afterwards that he didn't want to go to school at all, and that he prefered this life.

The batteries of my camera emptied while I was there, and it was impossible to find cells. So many of the places where we went won't be showed here. And no pictures of the thousands of monkeys. They can jump on you if they think you have some seeds in the hand.









Huge statue of the god-ape and friend of Rama, Hanuman



Albino rabbit, 'for good luck'







After the cells emptied, I managed to take a few pictures, without flash, like this one. It's probably difficult to see, but we are in a cave, walking in the water until a small temple dedicated to Shiva.

Khajuraho - problems of water

It seems that India is a very dry country. The problem of water is becoming more and more important here.


This used to be a lake. The kids used to dive from that big tree in the top right corner

Alex in south America

Alex is a good friend living in French Guiana. I first met him through hospitalityclub. He's on the verge of the longuest trip of his life : three to four years in the Americas.


This is Alex, last time I saw him in Saint Georges de l'Oyapock, French Guiana.


This is his route planning, for the next two years (follow the red line) :

Khajuharo - the village and its inhabitants

Golu






With Amit



People from the village respect this guy as a holy man.



Ok... I can also do it... well, almost









This one is too difficult for me :)