Great Buddha Gym for All Mens and Womens
Page 5
The Buddha never spoke of Buddhism. He never said his teaching was a religion—just that it was the truth. He gently chided the weeping followers who mourned his dying. Perhaps all that I see is an unintended artifact—or even more, karmic traces best forgotten. History would lead us to believe in a powerful human impulse of devotion, but that doesn’t make it wise. Sacred, profane; holy, mundane.
Every day is a miracle.
On our last night in Kushinagar, we walked down the empty road, the pavement shining, the rain falling so gently in the pools of dim light we could see the tiny drops hanging in the air. On either side, dark fields rolled away forever into the night. We walked slowly, and talked about the way people meet and glance off each other, and sometimes meet and stay near, and how the slightest touch can be enough to change your course forever. We talked about whether it helped to be here, about finding a direction, about choosing a path. We talked about how a single degree of divergence becomes a great arc over time. Then we fell into the lasting silence of India, and just walked down the road.
Reading Guide Questions
1. Why does the author feel no “spiritual imperative” to visit the pilgrimage sites? How does this affect her view of whether or not the sites are sacred?
2. Discuss the implications of “I felt known by all” in a place where the author is a foreigner. What does it mean to feel at home in a strange place? How do we sometimes feel alienated in a familiar place?
3. The author and her companion are warned against Varanasi but pay no heed to the cautions. What kind of preconceptions have you had about a foreign country? Have they been accurate? When were you most surprised?
4. What is the author’s attitude toward Hinduism?
5. The author describes many kinds of noise during her travels and at the end mentions “the lasting silence of India.” What does this mean?
About the Author
Sallie Tisdale is the author of seven books, including Talk Dirty to Me and The Best Thing I Ever Tasted, a finalist for a James Beard Award. Her memoir Stepping Westward was one of the 100 Notable Books of the West.
Tisdale’s essays have appeared in such publications as Harper’s, Threepenny Review, the New Yorker, and Esquire. She is the 2013 recipient of the Regional Arts and Culture Council Literary Fellowship. She has received an NEA Fellowship in Belle Lettres, a Pushcart Prize, the James Phelan Literary Award, the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year award, and a Pope Foundation Award and was a Dorothy and Arthur Shoenfeldt Distinguished Writer of the Year. Her work has been reprinted in many anthologies, including Best American Spiritual Writing, Best Buddhist Writing, and Best American Science Writing.
Also by Sallie Tisdale
Harvest Moon: Portrait of a Nursing Home
Stepping Westward: The Long Search for Home in the Pacific Northwest
Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex
The Best Thing I Ever Tasted: The Secret of Food
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Medical Miracles and Other Disasters
Women of the Way: Discovering 2,500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom
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