A trip to Nepal
If you are to choose where to go for Valentine’s Day, would it be a romantic or a spiritual journey?
Some of my friends started playing a game dubbed The Wishing List. I was surprised to find out that most of them would like to travel to spiritual places.
And I remember talking recently to another girl about her trip to Nepal and India. She took an organized tour and after her return back to Canada she admitted that it was a life transforming experience.
Drive to Kathmandu
To be honest, her drive was in a luxury, air conditioned bus, meaning a much pleasant journey.
Bodhi Tree in Lumbini
The Bodhi Tree is one of the most venerated objects in the Buddhism world. According to the legend,while sitting beneath the Boddhi Tree, Siddhartha became the Buddha, meaning the ‘Enlightened One’.
After getting enlightened, The Buddha spent the next seven weeks in meditation near the Bodhi Tree. Then, at the request of the god Indra, he began to speak of the great truth he had realized. His first sermon was given at Isipatana (modern Sarnath near Banaras). This first discourse, often called “Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Truth” presented the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path for which Buddhism is so famous.
The Four Noble Truths assert that human beings suffer because of the clinging nature of the mind. There is a way out of this suffering, however, and that is through the meditative practices of the Noble Eightfold Path. Through these practices an individual gains insight into how his or her suffering is caused by identification with the mind’s processes. Letting go of such identification, one discovers and increasingly resides in a pre-existing state of inner peace.
Lumbini-a place in the South-Western Terai of Nepal, evokes a kind of holy sentiment to the millions of Buddhists all over the world-as do the Jerusalem to Christians and Mecca to Muslims. Lumbini is the place Lord Buddha -the apostle of peace and the light of Asia was born in 623 B. C., Located in the flat plains of south-Western Nepal and the foothills of Churia range , Lumbini and its surrounding area is endowed with a rich natural setting of domesticable fauna and favourable agricultural environ. Historically, the region is an exquisite treasure-trove of ancient ruins and antiquities, dating back to pre-Christian era. The site, described as a beautiful garden in the Buddha’s time still retain its legendary charm and beauty. To the mere 12 miles north of Lumbini lies the dense and picturesque sal-grove.
For centuries, Buddhists- all over the world, knew that Lumbini where the Lord was born is somewhere around. The descriptions of famous Chinese pilgrims (of ancient times) Huian Tsang and Faeihan indicated to this area-saying ‘Lumbini-where the lord was born is a piece of heaven on earth and one could see the snowy mountains amidst a splendid garden-embedded with stupas and monasteries!
However, the exact location remained uncertain and obscure till December the 1st 1886 when a wandering German archaeologist Dr. Alois A. Fuhrer came across a stone pillar and ascertained beyond doubt it is indeed the birthplace of Lord Buddha.
Sources: http://www.nepaltravelinfo.com/lumbini.htm and http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/nepal/lumbini.html
More pictures from Nepal, including Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple) are here
