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In Buddha’s footstepsBuddha’s path through life is to his followers what the Camino

de Santiago is to catholic Westerners. It is a pilgrimage of a

thousand kilometres that starts in Nepal and ends where Prince

Siddhartha transformed into the Awakened One, in the north of

India. Dutch journalist Dirk Mulder followed Buddha’s footsteps

in search of meaningfulness.

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Arriving in India feels like suddenly being woken by a loud brass band from the peaceful slumber of a life-

time. It’s an invasion of the senses, it blares in your ears, it fills your nose with lovely and horrible scents at the same time. The violent colours make your eyes blink and the heat smothers your body like a warm coat. Sometimes the band calms down a bit, but it never stops playing. It follows you like your own shadow, intoxicates you and drives you to distraction - but back home you will keep thinking of this loud band, maybe even miss it. For it is so terribly quiet here in the Netherlands, where I live.

All is oneLast autumn my phone rang. Did I want to go to India to walk in the wake of Buddha? Although my knowledge of Buddhism easily fits on a lotus leaf, I immediately said yes. This is no coincidence, I thought and immediately thought of my brother. Last year, Christmas day, he suddenly became very ill and three days later I saw life leaving his body. His death was and to this day still is a terrible loss. I loved him so very much. Spring felt grey, summer seemed cloudy, but somehow I knew I wanted to move on. But how? In a way I sensed that my brother thought it was time for me to break away. He gave me two wonderful fellow travellers to accompany me: the rugged but gentle Harley-Davidson- loving Harold, a decoratively tattooed

photographer in cowboy boots. And Maarten, environmental biologist, tour guide, India expert and writer of a moving book about his 1000-kilometre adven turous walk along the path of Buddha’s life, which converted him to Buddhism as he went along. He is also president of the Vajra Foundation, which runs development projects in Nepal. Maarten, Harold and I seem very different at first sight, but the Buddha, a.k.a. the Awakened One and the Accomplished One, is right: all is one. I never would have thought that we’d be squeezed onto the back seat of a tuktuk singing in fake coun-try accents: ‘no roses without thorns, no hearts without pain, and never was a per-son born who did not learn what tears are’.

Detour towards timeWe arrive at the brand-new Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi in the evening. Outside it is dark and a car is waiting for us. When Maarten asks the driver what time he will take us to the train station tomorrow so we can catch the night train to Patna, we receive an elaborate answer. All possible influential factors are mentioned, except

the hour of departure. Westerners are binary thinkers. Zero, one, yes, no. So need-less to say after a while we become impatient. ‘Yes, but what time? ’we try again. A new flood of words gives us more in-depth knowledge of weather, traffic and various experiences from the past, but without a clear timeframe. There isn’t just one truth, there are several truths and we visit them all before we finally come to the answer: 15.30. Thus we drive around on a calm detour towards time, sharing in the honking chaos. Indian traffic is one long near-death experience. Impossibly unequal vehicles ranging from ox-drawn carts to fast Audis share the road, apparently with-out any traffic rules at all, and yet there are very few accidents. I feel like a pinball in a machine, flung to and fro between hope and fear. The only way out is a Buddhist acceptance of the present combined with a strong faith in a positive outcome. After a little practice I manage to relax and lean back, despite some overtaking manoeu-vres that defy all logic of time and space. The chai wallah, the tea boy on the train, provides us with sweet and milky sips. The wonderful vegetarian meal costs almost

In the first few centuries after his death,

Buddha was never depicted as a man,

but as a tree or a lotus; sometimes only

his footprints were depicted, like here

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nothing for the three of us. Other than that there is not much comfort to be had. My hard bed is rather too short for me and I have to remove cockroaches from my hair every now and then; I don’t get much sleep. The sun comes up around six and endless rice paddies move by outside the steamed-up window of our compartment. We see water buffalos in dreamy land-scapes, fresh green fields after a wet monsoon, but also ramshackle huts and grinding poverty. Manure is stuck on the walls by the handful and has the unfortunate habit to become smoky fuel when dry. In spite of considerable opposition, beauty blossoms everywhere like a lotus in the mud. Tractors, trucks, rickshaws, they are all decorated and prettified in screaming colours. Indian women don’t like subtle hues; they wear saris that make you want to grab your sun-glasses. We arrive in Patna and travel on by car, stopping off at archaeological digs and temples, until we reach Rajgir and spend the night at the Siddhartha hotel. Siddhartha, ‘he who achieved his goal’, was Buddha’s original name before he achieved enlightenment. Incidentally, September is not the ideal month for visit-ing this country: It ain’t half hot, Mum. My shirt is drenched within three minutes and drops of sweat adorn my notebook like tears; these words have not had an Imma-culate Conception. We have travelled many miles, but now our first real place of pil-grimage is not far. In a Tata, a typical Indian

car, Bodhgaya is only three hours of dusty bumping and lurching away from Rajgir.

Under the Bodhi treeMuch of the suffering in the West is hidden behind the walls of houses and institutions. In India old age, sickness and death are very visible indeed. It was like that in the days of Siddhartha, who grew up protected and in luxury, and it is still like that today. The world outside the safety of his palace became the reason for his spiritual quest. Pilgrims following in the footsteps of Buddha encounter four important locations. Lumbini, Nepal, his birthplace. Bodhgaya, India, where he achieved en-lightenment. Sarnath, where the Accom-plished One held his first sermon and ‘set the wheel of his teachings in motion’. And lastly Kushinagar where he passed away quietly at the age of 80, but not before he had advised his followers to visit these four places because they have meaning for every individual’s life and therefore will

give it more depth. Maarten, my guide, has walked this pilgrimage more than once; Harold and I will only be able to answer this summons partly. We have eight days and that is not enough to finish the entire walk. So we are forced to skip the Buddha’s birthplace as well as the place where he died; we’ll go straight for the enlightenment and the propagation of his doctrine. I can barely comprehend what enlighten-ment entails exactly. I do know it happened to me under the Bodhi tree. The heart-shaped leaves make the branches look so lovely, but Maarten offers a brief comment: the Awakened One may not have known, but it is a parasitic strangling fig that slowly encapsulates its host and smothers it. The popular temple complex near the Bodhi tree is a place where you’d want to stay for days. The colours, the flowers, the rituals, the endless stream of pilgrims, many Hindus among them - it is an explosion of devotion and my eyes are working over-

The photograph below the middle is a detail of the top left image. From the position

of the hands, the mudra, we see that Buddha is depicted at the moment of his enlightenment. With his right hand he

invokes the earth as his witness

Right where this tree now grows, Buddha received his first meal after six years of fasting from a woman named Sujata

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An endless stream of pilgrims visits the temples.

They include Hindus,

who venerate Buddha as one of their gods

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time. That night I think of my brother. ‘I was always a religious person,’ he wrote, ‘but in the end I never wanted to commit to one specific religion. Religion is a boat with which to cross the river; it is a window let-ting in the light, but it’s not the light itself.’ In the stifling heat of my guest room in a Buddhist monastery I toss and turn but cannot sleep. Then suddenly I think of something: enlightenment for laymen, wouldn’t that just mean that things would feel a little lighter, a little less heavy? Promptly the electricity comes back on after a power cut. The ceiling fan is slowly put into motion and a humming breeze fills the room. Let the spirit drift.

UphillIt is good for your karma to give, but where to begin? It seems the entire population of India wants something from me. Even if I had a backpack full of rupees, it would never be enough to fill all the outstretched hands. “There are better ways to help India,” says Maarten. He gives us some robust advice. “Ignore them, don’t make eye contact. If you help one beggar, you’ll soon have a whole herd in your wake and they won’t leave you alone.” So I feign deaf-ness, look straight through people and pretend they don’t exist. It’s hard. Spending money is so easy at home, but you could save dozens of children with that money; the only thing is, they’re not right in front of you when you’re at home. Here poverty

stares me right in the face and I look away. Fortunately, the patient Harold often functions as a lightning rod. The tribal tattoos on his arms are regarded with deep respect. Little boys point a tentative finger and ask timidly: “Sticker?” We walk on, we have a lot to do that day. After crossing a nearly dried-up river, we walk through the rice paddies along narrow dikes, an umbrella protecting us from the heat. Our goal is a mountain with a temple dedicated to the ascetic, emaciated Buddha. After six years of fasting he decided to take the middle road: no sumptuous meals, just eat what you really need. No matter how badly I want to climb that mountain, I can go no further. Harold is also beat. Maarten, fresh as a daisy, sug-gests a litter. We protest; we don’t want to burden those wiry little fellows with our weight. “It’s a days’ wages,” Maarten ex-plains, “they’d be glad to have it.” He walks on under his own steam. A little while later we sit in the lotus position on small platforms dangling off a big bamboo stick, with a panting carrier front and back. We shout jolly remarks at each other; embarrassment is scantily clad in lame jokes. I feel like an English colonial, how utterly embarrassing. That night

I dream of dead carriers, collapsed under the strain. I wake up feverishly, over-whelmed by all the impressions. India is as fantastic as it is horrendous, I want to go home. Anitya, says Buddha consolingly, everything is born and everything perishes, nothing is permanent. When morning comes the crisis has evaporated. Daylight falls into the room and I quite fancy some breakfast.

Compassion, tolerance and truthfulnessEverything is born, everything perishes. Once upon a time, Buddhism was wide-spread in India. Islam obliterated it and was in its turn eclipsed by Hinduism. Currently there are an estimated 20 million Buddhists in India, a small percentage of the population. And yet India has three of the four places of pilgrimage that many followers want to visit. Follower Maarten is fond of coffee, likes having a cold beer and has a subtle sense of humour. He is not a strict Buddhist. That would be almost impossible if you absorb the doctrine a little better. Compassion, tolerance and truthfulness are key words, my brother said. He'd described himself as ‘someone with strong Buddhist tendencies’. On this trip we

So much work, so much dedication - this sculpture

of clay will be painted in blazing colours

and then committed to the water of the Ganges

as an offering to the goddess Durga

Left: Varanasi, on the banks of the River Ganges, is an important place of pilgrimage for Hindus. Above: the merging of two religions: a Buddha statue with a red dot on the forehead

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learn a little more about what that means. Maarten occasionally finds a place in the shade and reads to us from his book. One particular story I remember vividly. It is about Kisagotami, who comes to Buddha maddened with grief with her dead son in her arms. In her desperation she thinks the child may still be cured and asks for medicines. Buddha advises her to get some mustard seeds from a house where no one has died yet. Kisagotami goes from door to door and is offered mustard seeds in abun-dance, but in every house she visits, a loved one has passed away. Eventually she comes to her senses. She realises she was sent to discover the truth. That truth goes for me too. My grief is not exclusive; sooner or later we will all suffer losses that are hard to bear. Yes, brother, I get the hint. Nevertheless I wouldn’t mind if you came back to explain it to me once more.

The promises of the GangesFrom the frying pan to the freezer. The afternoon train to Varanasi has the airco on full blast. I wrap myself in a blanket, teeth chattering. The ticket collector looks at me in surprise. He has parked his big body on our bench because we have to pay a pilgrim season surcharge, a few cents person, no less. This involves an impressive amount of paperwork, including carbon copies. Indians are meticulous administrators, that is to say: it doesn’t matter what you fill in, as long as you fill it in. We settle the bill, I put on a warm jumper and look out the window. I will see the Ganges in a few

hours. For Hindus, the attraction of this wide river lies in its two promises. Bathing in the grey-brown water will wash all your sins away, and if you die with your feet in the Ganges, you will go straight to nirvana. The true believers swear by a glass of Ganges water as a tonic for their health. The Ganges View Hotel is a relief to the wilted traveller; and Indian palace, nostalgically furnished. Unfortunately I don’t have much time to enjoy my four-poster. The alarm goes off at 5 AM for a boat trip along the ghats, the tall stairs that go down into the water. Stupefied, I glide along in a world where the year 2015 seems absolutely meaningless. We are, however, following in the footsteps of the Awakened One and after docking we drive to Sarnath Deer Camp where Buddha held his first sermon and spoke of the four Noble Truths. He explained to his followers that human suffering is largely caused by desire, fear, hatred and ignorance. Buddha established the rules for living according to the eight-fold path as a practical way of diminishing suffering. Therefore the notion that Buddhism is a ‘pessimistic religion’ does not match the contents of his message.

Maarten tells us about the murals in the temple, but no matter how I try to listen, my head is still in Varanasi, the city of learning and burning. ‘Learning’ refers to the University established there, ‘burning’ to the public industry of death that goes on there all day. Cremation fires burn continuously, in the middle of daily life, visible to everyone. Not all the deceased are burnt. Lepers, pregnant women, babies and people who died of snakebites are wrapped in cloths and consigned to the Ganges. Reality is not gentle. During a second boat trip at dusk I see a corpse float-ing by. “Dead body,” the boy at the helm says resignedly. From the stairs on the river-bank we hear the sounds of the daily Fire Puja, the spectacular ceremony for the god of flames. A girl climbs aboard from another vessel. She sells me a tea-warmer surrounded by petals in a basket of palm leaves, so I can honour the holy fire. I light the wick and carefully launch my offering. It floats away on the big river of life, flicker-ing amidst dozens of other lights. Goodbye brother, goodbye Paul, there you go.

As soon as it is dark, the Fire Puja

in Varanasi is started, a daily

ceremony for Agni, the god of flames

TEXT: DIRK MULDER, PHOTOGRAPHy: HAROLD PEREIRA