The best place in the world
Getting off at the train station and stepping through the sleeping bodies (at any time of day!) in the main hall, you emerge into a small square full of auto-rickshaws and big white 1950s-style taxis. Everyone knows where you want to go, and after some good-natured bargaining ("But sir, petrol prices very much going up this year sir!"), you're driven through the narrow and impressively potholed streets of this nondescript town of 300,000+ people.
Improbably small shops line much of the way; billboards advertise tip-top best quality IT training and English lessons to further your career; several examples of the standard-issue brown Indian stray dog lie curled up on the side of the road, napping a foot or two away from the wheels of passing vehicles; garbage is of course everywhere.
After around 15 minutes (it seems much more) the town comes to an end and opens out into a vista of fields and minimalist hamlets; people, goats, chickens and ducks wander around; ambient temperature is a pleasant 15 degrees or so - another dry dusty winter's day.
A few minutes later a tall grey stone temple comes into view in the distance, and soon the rickshaw is driving down one of the "main" roads of another, much smaller town, just as poor, just as dirty and ramshackle, but somehow much livelier.
You're about 7 hours West of Calcutta, in one of the poorest, and until a few short years ago, the most dangerous (for the locals) and worst-governed state in India.
So why?
Well, I don't know about you, but when I'm here, I'm in the best place in the world. And I intend to enjoy it :-)
This is a place where many of my best friendships have been forged, usually over discussions of the finer points of Buddhist theory and practice.
Where I've slept for 4 weeks on a straw mat in a dusty basement with 40 other guys (complete with a wide if predictable assortment of sound effects) before getting up early in the cold of the morning to meditate all day. And done it again the year after. And the year after that.
Where I've eaten half a dozen Christmas lunches (veg curry not turkey!) from woven leaf plates on the roof of what everyone calls the "VEE-har" (the Burmese vihara, or monastery).
Where I've met several of the teachers who have helped me change my life beyond recognition.
Where I've stayed in a hut where the gap in the door let in not only the mosquitos but also the cat.
Where I've sat under the trees at the back of one of the Thai monasteries (still under construction 10 years later …), learning Reiki from a guitar-strumming Israeli hippie couple.
Where I've walked thousands and thousands of circuits round the stupa (main temple), surrounded by laypeople and monastics from all over the Buddhist world.
Where I've found myself standing 3 metres away from Richard Gere, because hey, it's possibly his best place in the world too :-)
Where I've been to two(!) 5.30 a.m. job interviews on the payphone at the candle shop (wearing a blanket from the pile slept on by the stray dogs adopted by a meditation centre) - which is how I moved to Australia.
Where I've eaten a hundred veg thukpas (home-made flat noodle soups) at Mohammed's restaurant, a mud and tarpaulin construction that gets taken down in February or March every year and put back up again after the monsoon.
And where I've met hundreds and hundreds of people who went there and found that they too were in the best place in the world.
I sometimes ask myself: why is it that everyone else isn't here?!
Is it because they've found their own best place in the world?
Or is it because they haven't started looking?
Improbably small shops line much of the way; billboards advertise tip-top best quality IT training and English lessons to further your career; several examples of the standard-issue brown Indian stray dog lie curled up on the side of the road, napping a foot or two away from the wheels of passing vehicles; garbage is of course everywhere.
After around 15 minutes (it seems much more) the town comes to an end and opens out into a vista of fields and minimalist hamlets; people, goats, chickens and ducks wander around; ambient temperature is a pleasant 15 degrees or so - another dry dusty winter's day.
A few minutes later a tall grey stone temple comes into view in the distance, and soon the rickshaw is driving down one of the "main" roads of another, much smaller town, just as poor, just as dirty and ramshackle, but somehow much livelier.
You're about 7 hours West of Calcutta, in one of the poorest, and until a few short years ago, the most dangerous (for the locals) and worst-governed state in India.
So why?
Well, I don't know about you, but when I'm here, I'm in the best place in the world. And I intend to enjoy it :-)
This is a place where many of my best friendships have been forged, usually over discussions of the finer points of Buddhist theory and practice.
Where I've slept for 4 weeks on a straw mat in a dusty basement with 40 other guys (complete with a wide if predictable assortment of sound effects) before getting up early in the cold of the morning to meditate all day. And done it again the year after. And the year after that.
Where I've eaten half a dozen Christmas lunches (veg curry not turkey!) from woven leaf plates on the roof of what everyone calls the "VEE-har" (the Burmese vihara, or monastery).
Where I've met several of the teachers who have helped me change my life beyond recognition.
Where I've stayed in a hut where the gap in the door let in not only the mosquitos but also the cat.
Where I've sat under the trees at the back of one of the Thai monasteries (still under construction 10 years later …), learning Reiki from a guitar-strumming Israeli hippie couple.
Where I've walked thousands and thousands of circuits round the stupa (main temple), surrounded by laypeople and monastics from all over the Buddhist world.
Where I've found myself standing 3 metres away from Richard Gere, because hey, it's possibly his best place in the world too :-)
Where I've been to two(!) 5.30 a.m. job interviews on the payphone at the candle shop (wearing a blanket from the pile slept on by the stray dogs adopted by a meditation centre) - which is how I moved to Australia.
Where I've eaten a hundred veg thukpas (home-made flat noodle soups) at Mohammed's restaurant, a mud and tarpaulin construction that gets taken down in February or March every year and put back up again after the monsoon.
And where I've met hundreds and hundreds of people who went there and found that they too were in the best place in the world.
I sometimes ask myself: why is it that everyone else isn't here?!
Is it because they've found their own best place in the world?
Or is it because they haven't started looking?