"All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation."
-Last Words of Gautama Buddha
I took a day trip to Kushinagar today and visited the site where the Buddha died (left) and was cremated (right). It's the off season and well over a hundred degees out so there weren't any pilgrims about and town was a heck of a lot more peaceful than Varanasi. The only people there were Hindus on field trips, hanging out in the park, or actually making offerings to the Reclining Buddha statue (below) as though the Buddha were a Hindu God.
The area is also home to a plethora of Buddhist temples, each with its own ethnically distinctive architecture, which people refer to by the nationality of their builders. The Japanese temple (below), which was the best cared for and best attended, is particularly stunning. I watched the gardeners trimming all the interestingly shaped hedges to Japanese perfection while field-trippers watched me sweating out a puddle in the July heat---no one in Kushinagar was descrete about being fascinated by foreigners and I was the only one around to gawk at.
2 comments:
all this is stunning
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
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