Inside Mohammad’s Tent

SUNDAY IS FUN DAY (Special)

Thank You God!  This morning I discovered Mohammad’s Restaurant on the Main Road that rings around Bodh Gaya.  At last—a relatively warm place to sit and drink real milk coffee, not the usual watery imitation I’ve been encountering since I arrived.  At Mohammad’s the tent is made of canvas, covered in plastic, so it at least stops the wind.  And the kitchen fires send little blasts of heat out into the dining area.  When you first enter the cozy atmosphere you feel like you are melting.  I have finally un-hunched myself and straightened up for the first time in days. I can actually stand tall.  Inside Mohammad’s tent I remove my woolen hat and gloves.  Before long I peel off my outer layer of sweaters.  I’m not close to enlightenment, but I had found a kind of nirvana.

The surprise of finding a pure vegetarian Muslim-owned-and-operated restaurant full of “foreigners” in Buddha Land pleases me.  I like the diversity.  Chocolate cream pie.  Apple pie.  French fries. Banana pancakes.  Tibetan momos.  Chinese lo mien.  The menu is also diverse—and each item is startlingly inexpensive.

At 8 a.m. the place is abuzz with conversations in a variety of languages.  An international crowd of heady Buddhists very hep on practicing their Dharma, as they call being good, debate over the meaning of the Kalachakra Initiation and other related topics.

Pretty Betty hails from Hong Kong, is half Chinese and half English and an airline hostess who hopes to find an American husband who will do what she calls a “paper marriage” with her so she can settle in the U.S. and be near her guru Rinpoche who is “mostly based in California.”  Betty wants only a marriage on paper, though, “no murky stuff,” as she refers to the joys of connubial bliss.

Betty’s Tibetan-style prayer wheel is of the designer kind, made in California with “more than 80 million prayers inside it on micro-fiche,” she claims.  Spinning the prayer wheel equals saying the prayers in full yourself, apparently; and, as she puts it, “You are gaining merits for the next life.”

Another way to gain merits, according to these New Age Buddhists hanging out at Mohammad’s, is to perform prostrations—moving from stand-up positions to kneeling, to lying down on the floor and rising up again, folding the hands at the crown, the mouth, and the heart in between. It is best, they agree to wear yoga pants or workout attire when you do these spiritual stretches. These aspirants are not talking about a couple of sets of 12 or 15 prostrations; they are talking in the hundreds of thousands per year!

Four days have disappeared.  Chunks of experience deleted.  Where is it? Gone with the winds of change.

Today I meet Harold E., a self-styled shaman from Philadelphia, USA.  He says he came to Bodh Gaya because, “I just got caught up with some monks I met in south India and I traveled north with them because they were coming up here for the Kalachakra.”

Harold E., in his 40s, is about six feet nine inches tall with a white Afro and a salt and pepper beard.  He’s about the size of a Canadian mountain bear.  There’s nobody with eyes that could miss seeing him.  And Harold E. seems to like that. To make matters more conspicuous, he carries his didgeridoo—given to him in Australia, he says, by aboriginals—wherever he goes.

At Mohammad’s the didgeridoo—about five feet long—rests beside him at a table where he chats with a variety of seekers.  Does he think he got to be in Bodh Gaya for the Bodhisattwa Initiations because of good karma, one of Harold’s new fans, a 21-year-old student from New Hampshire, USA asks.

“Karma Sharma—I don’t really buy it,” Harold E. replies. “I figure I got here because I was lucky and, most importantly, I wanted to come—just for the experience.”

Yet, it will be Harold E. who’ll be playing another instrument, a large Australian conch—on the second morning of the initiations.

“The powers that be asked me to play because they saw my conch and said it was a very sacred instrument,” he said.

Then, Harold E. removed his didgeridoo from its case and began blowing ethereal dreamtime music through it.  Everyone at Mohammad’s couldn’t help but notice the performance.  Whether they wanted to or not, they listened.

Shaman Harold, who wears an African jungle theme sheet as a cape over his jeans and T shirt, told us that he had visited indigenous peoples in many parts of the world.  In fact, he has his own website that he maintains in order, “To help all native peoples who have been displaced by so-called modernity and whose innate skills and talents are often unrecognized.”

What’s more, and mysteriously, all these indigenous peoples have concurred that Harold E. is a priest—an up-lifter of the dead in spirit.  In each of their particular languages his name turns out to be the same.  For instance, to some of the Red Indians of the Americas, he is, “God of the Wind Who Comes with Thunder and Light.”  To others Harold E. is, “He of the Wind.”  The Kahunas of Hawaii call him, “He Who Heals the Healers.”  And, to the Australian aboriginals, he is simply, “Strong Breath.”  Whatever it is, when it comes to talking about his talents, Harold E. is definitely long-winded.

He gives me a demonstration of his power.  He takes my left hand and holds it between his two palms.  Then he blows his breath into the center of my palm, the one on the hand he’s just held.  Most astonishing to me, I start weeping uncontrollably. Then, after a good cry, I suddenly feel relieved of all my burdens.  The feeling of peace I experience lasts for several hours.

Does Harold E. have healing powers or was I just grateful to be touched by a man?  Whatever, his touch brought with it the lesson of my complete attachment to the world.  I want a loving relationship.  I want to be kissed.  I want to be held.  I want …. 

Yes, of course, my Guru who teaches non-attachment, the dropping of desires, and the mirage of the body-mind-complex is certainly laughing at me.  But he also teaches, “Be happy.  Don’t worry.”  So, hear in the warmth of Mohammad’s tent I am full of joy and all my worries have dissolved like the morning fog.