Walking the stupa

Every evening, people walk the stupa, a large octaginal shaped building in the center of the shops. Inside, men are chanting, ringing bells, blowing horns and drumming. The tradition is to walk clockwise and let your mind move to nothing, just that. As you walk, you can turn the prayer wheels that are built inside the walls of the stupa. You can chant. You can talk with your neighbor. It is a time for the old people to visit, the young people to hang out all the while accumulating good karma, walking the stupa. I don't know how that works. I only know that the first time I saw it, I was walking out of a shop and found myself wondering where everyone was going. I didn't explore, realizing it was time to go back to the monastery for the evening meal so I started walking back, against the flow. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream. No one seemed to mind, though, intent on their walking, their conversations, their silence. One man was doing prostrations. He had pads on his knees and wooden pads on his hands. He was not young and after stretching flat out on the ground and then pushing himself up, he would pause a bit, resting, before standing up and stepping a few steps and then doing it again. People walked around him as easily as the walked around me, going the wrong way, stopping, watching.

As I walked home I saw tables of small lights, a wick sitting in a tiny holder of oil. For 5 rupees, I could light one. (77 rupees for the dollar, you do the math). The lamp lighting was to remind everyone of the story of a poor woman who came to see the Buddha and had no beautiful gift to give him as the other devotees did. All she had was a small lamp. The other devotees mocked her, pointing out her pitiful gift to the Buddha. The Buddha commented that her gift was more valuable than all the others as it was from her heart and all that she had. And the lamp, it kept burning, long after it should have gone out.

I love how the stories all swirl together. How the religions teach the truths of love, generosity, kindness. So I lit five lamps and gave the old woman my money and we smiled at each other, our faces vivid in the light of all the candles, the dark surrounding the rest.