My Christmas With Buddha

It seems as if, within the last two months, I have been caught up in a whirlwind of activity!  My schedule is full at almost every moment and new projects and commitments are being added on almost daily.  It is hectic and tiring and immeasurably good for me.  I am learning how to mange my time, set priorities, and plan ahead – all good tools to have in my belt.  Let me give you a brief outline of what I am up to right now.

1)    Two new students recently enrolled at the school, Aidos and Zarrina.  Aidos is from Kazakhstan and Zarrina is from Tajikistan.  When they arrived, neither of them spoke a word of English.  I have been put in charge of teaching them English from the bottom up.  Considering that I am not even sure my own English is correct most of the time, this has required me to review lots of English grammar books and hearken back to my lessons in Latin.  The three of us work together for about six hours a day from nine o’ clock in the morning till six or seven o’ clock at night.  Since I do not speak Russian and they do not speak English (yet), we have all improved our sign language and spend a lot of time just laughing at each other while attempting to explain something.  Nonetheless, they are very bright and are picking up English at an unbelievable pace! 

2)    I have started a children’s virtues class in a nearby village called Siddharthnagar.  There are about 19 kids that come each Sunday and each week we learn about a new virtue.  The class starts with prayer, after which we sing songs, memorize quotations, share stories, play cooperative games, and then end class with an art project.  All of the activities in the class are related to that week’s virtue and, because the virtue is presented in so many different ways, it really sticks in the kid’s minds and, more importantly, their hearts.  The children are simply little love angels and the purest, most beautiful reflection of the Divine I have ever seen.  I can never forget the first day I held class with them.  We started by discussing prayer.  What is prayer?  Why do we pray?  How do we pray?  When discussing this last question, I had each child stand up in front of the group to show his or her most reverent prayer position.  “Different people may look differently when they pray,” I told them, “but that is OK because prayers come from our hearts.  For example, Shweta crosses her arms.  Abhishek put his hands together.  But, both are praying!”  When I asked them to “pratna kaho” (“say a prayer” in Hindi), I saw the most beautiful sight.  Every child put his or herself into the most reverent position he or she could muster and I glimpsed, for a second, what it might look like to God when we pray.  It was a moment that just felt completely and totally right, as if everything was aligned and pure.  There is a quote in the Baha’i Writings which states, “There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than prayer,” and if I ever held any doubt about the verity of this quotation, this moment completely dispelled it.  Prayer, coming from anyone, is the sweetest thing in entire realm of existence!  I hope everyone gets to have (or has had) an experience of sweet prayer like I had on that day. 

 Here are some pictures of my with my amazing kiddos!

  

 

 

 

 

 

This was one lesson we did on sharing! 

 

3)   In late December, I was invited to accompany the Standard VIII students on an educational tour to Arangabad.  Arangabad, another city in Maharashtra, is most famous for the caves at Ajanta and Ellora (both UNESCO World Heritage sites).  These caves are actually Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu temples carved into the cliffs and mountains of the area.  Inside of the caves are beautiful, intricate, and spell-binding frescos and sculptures dating from the 1^st century B.C. to the 7^th century A.D.  To say that I was excited to see these temples is a gross understatement.  It happened that our group ended up visiting the caves at Ajanta on Christmas Day!  The night before, I had found myself really missing home and yearning for something that seemed to acknowledge that Christmas Day was just around the corner.  But there was no Santa Claus, no Christmas trees, and no sparkling Christmas lights to fill my craving.  Instead, there was just me.  Now, I have never thought of myself as a big Christmas person before, but here, alone in India, I literally began singing Christmas carols just to comfort myself or out of some attachment to the tradition.  It really got me to thinking.  What was Christmas to me?  Why did I miss it?  Why did I need to be in America to enjoy it?  Wasn’t Christmas the day in which we celebrate the birth of Christ, not a Santa Claus or gingerbread house or eggnog or any of those other things that are so “necessary” for Christmas to be Christmas?  For perhaps the first time in my life, I really began to think about Christmas as the birth of Christ, the Manifestation of God whose message taught nothing but love.  Suddenly, I no longer cared whether there was a Christmas tree in all of India because the most Christmas-y thing in the world was with me already and that thing is love.  Love for mankind.  Love for Jesus Christ.  Love for love.  And, most dear to me, love for God.  Looking at it that way, perhaps everyday is Christmas.  Or should be.

      The next day (Christmas Day) we visited the caves at Ajanta.  These caves are all Buddhist and were built by monks over many, many generations.  What is perhaps so stunning about these temples is the unfathomable amount of work that was required to build them.  They were literally carved into sheer rock face and the engineering behind them is astounding.  Then, once you walk into the temple you see the most delicate, intricate, comprehensive, and awe-inspiring frescos EVERYWHERE!  So much detail and so much care had to be put into each and every temple (did I mention that there are over 25 temples all with the same level of artistry?)  One of the most beautiful things about the temples is that they are all laid out in something of a suite style, with one main room (where the statue of Buddha is held, surrounded by all the beautiful frescos and other carvings) and little rooms adjacent to the main room (where the monks would pray and meditate).  These little rooms had only two benches carved from rock in them for the monks to sit on while meditating.  Even though they were capable of making beautiful rooms for themselves, the monks left barely anything in their rooms and gave all the beauty to Buddha.  Speaking of Buddha, it seemed a little odd at first to be visiting Buddhist caves on Christmas, but as I thought more about it, the concept became perfectly fitting.  I believe that Christmas is a celebration of one of God’s Messengers and that, in all reality, there is no difference between these Messengers.  Though their names may differ, their spirit is the same.  Was it not the same Holy Spirit that made Jesus of Nazareth into Lord Jesus Christ and prince Siddhartha Gautama into Buddha?  Just as the sun that shines on Monday is the same as the sun that shines on Tuesday, the Messengers of God shed the same light at different times and under different names.  If one were to say that the sun of Monday is the same as the sun of Tuesday, he or she would be correct.  And yet, if one were to also say that the sun that shines on Monday and the sun that shines on Tuesday were different, he or she would still be correct.  So it is with the Messengers.  They are at once unified and distinct.  Spending Christmas in a Buddhist temple was truly a celebration of the Holy Spirit which surpasses the limitations of names and traditions. 

 Here are some pictures from the trip!

 

 

 

 

Me and Zarrina at a temple

 

So, life is great over here and everyday I am learning many new lessons. Thank you for reading and until next time, bye!