Bouda I want to write something about Boudha, the term for the whole area surrounding the Bodnath Stupa. This is the center of the Tibetan community in Kathmandu and a haven, of course, for Buddhists. There must be dozens of monasteries close by the stupa area and monks are everywhere. The great stupa at Bodnath is one of the three major stupas in the Kathmandu Valley, the others being Swayambu and the remote Namo Buddha. Boudha is by far the most trafficked of the group. The stupa itself, a huge dome that rises out of the city, is visible for miles. A large spire marks its top and Buddha eyes stare in the four directions. Around the circumference of the stupa is a circular walkway made of stone sections. It is here that thousands of Buddhists do what they call ‘Khora’ or circumambulation, always in a clock-wise motion. From the crack of dawn until the last twilight, hundreds and thousands of devout Buddhist, many of them pilgrims, are doing Khora, and at a fast pace. The most activity is at dawn and dusk. With their 108-bead malas (rosaries) clasped in their left hands and hanging down below their waists, they circumambulate the great stupa saying mantras out loud. So fast do they walk, that I would have to synchronize my jumping onto the walk with them. Monks and lay persons, all walk together. And dogs. Everywhere around the stupa, there are scruffy-looking dogs, sleeping, scratching, walking, fighting, but mostly sleeping. And of course, the random cow can be found at the stupa. And always the cow and dog droppings to watch your step over. What struck me first off about Boudha (and Kathmandu in general) is how run-down and dirty everything is. There doesn’t appear to be any sanitation department and every kind of garbage and refuse is kind of just shoved into the streets and alleys, where it remains, ripens, and eventually decays. They don’t appear to have trash receptacles, so the whole city has to serve as one extended dump.. What I am saying is immediately apparent, the moment you step out on a street (there being few sidewalks). You have to watch where you step, all the time, because every possible kind of mess is right there in your way. I realize that I am not being entirely fair, because I have seen many persons with short broom-like whisks sweeping their portion of the sidewalk or the space in front of their stores. But still, I had the impression that the amount of refuse, the extent of this problem I am describing, was way beyond control. It had become a way of life, but one totally foreign to most of us in the West. It takes some getting used to. And beggars -- some lepers and the crippled, but mostly children and mothers with children. Everywhere begging. The really severely crippled are just there, with their hands out or bowing before you, with no expectations. To these, I always tried to give at once or gave after several times around the stupa, when I could sort them out from the next level of beggars, the proactive ones. These also had some deformity or disease, but they also are methodical and their methods always involve making eye and verbal contact with you. They make it hard for you to ignore them. I would vacillate on giving to them. Sometimes I did and sometimes I did not. Next were those who really did not have all that much wrong with them and who were always making some kind of personal contact with you. You could see them getting going in the morning, like going to work. These I did my very best to avoid. Next were the mothers with child. This was a tough one. You wanted to give to them, but when you did, there were ten more at your side, each a mother with child. They worked in teams or somehow communicated to each other when they received money. This made it very hard to decide to give to them. And they would follow you with their hands out, sometimes for a long way. And there are the children. What to do? Some were in need, but most were just scamming you. Or, yes they needed money, but perhaps they could get it in other ways. I was never really good with this group, tending to be too hard on them, trying to get them to back off. But my daughters had this group down cold and they would look or laugh at them in such a way that they gave up their pleading looks and burst out into laughter. They made friends with them. I could not master that. All around the circumference of the stupa were shops of all kinds, but mostly filled with various dharma goods. The prices were high (by Kathmandu standards) and you could get better quality and bargains elsewhere in Kathmandu, but it was hard not to look and there were good things here too. As mentioned, my young son dragged me through about every dharma-goods store on the Khora looking for statues of Manjushri, his main interest. I saw them all. Bargaining was what was required and I hate to bargain. I would rather pay the asking price than to stain a transaction with bargaining, which in my case amounts to bickering. But in these shops, bargaining is expected. And I had lessons from the master. In Darjeeling, when I had found a meditation shawl (extra long to wrap around your legs) that I thought I really wanted, my Tibetan friend Ngodup volunteered to accompany and act as bargainer with/for me. The elderly gentlemen who managed the shop already had my number. He could see from the first that I wanted that shawl and all he had to do was wait. We must have gone in and out of that shop four times, asking, looking at others, trying to get him to bring the price down some, walking out abruptly, etc. Ngodup wanted to take the hard stand of always walking out and, if need be, giving up on it altogether. I’m afraid I was not much help. Finally Ngodup took me aside and said that if I really wanted the shawl, I should just pay the extra money, since in U.S. terms it only amounted to a few dollars anyway. Back at the shop, both Ngodup and the store manager just kind of looked at each other and shook their heads as I tried to bargain. Finally the manager just lowered the price a little, just to put me out of my misery. After that episode, I would either pay the asking price or pick a number that seemed reasonable to me and stick to it, willing to walk out, if it was not accepted. Sometimes that resulted in a lower price. I had to be willing to not have it in order to have it at a reasonable price. Some dharma items I just did not want to bargain over, so I would pay the asking price. I consider it a flaw in my character that I cannot bargain well. ...back to the opening page go on to the next story...