Under the Bodhi Tree
Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya, India
After meditating beneath a pipal tree for forty-nine days, Siddhārtha Gautama opened his eyes, saw the Morning Star, and achieved enlightenment, becoming the Buddha twenty-five hundred years ago. A temple marking the spot was built by Emperor Asoka in 250 BCE.
even one blade of grass
can become
a temple
Over the next millennia Buddhism slowly declined in India and the Mahabodhi Temple fell into disrepair and decay. Restored by the British in the late 19th century, it became a World Heritage Site in 2002. In the summer of 2013 a terrorist bomb attack by Indian Mujahideen, an Islamist jihadi group, injured five pilgrims meditating at the temple.
blinding day
the trail
momentarily lost
The seekers’ quest for enlightenment unhindered, I sit cross-legged on the ground with hundreds of other pilgrims from every corner of Earth beneath the immense spread limbs of the Bodhi Tree, a descendent of the pipal Siddhārtha vowed to sit beneath until he awoke. Some chant sutras and mantras to themselves. Others listen attentively to monks using portable loudspeakers give dharma talks. Cocooned in the amalgam of sound, I close my eyes and bow my head ever-so-slightly down.
descendent of descendants’ golden heart-shaped leaves fall
Michael G. Smith, Bozeman, MT, is a chemist. Recent haibun and poetry of his have been published in Contemporary Haibun Online and The Waxed Lemon.
You can see more of Michael's work in 13.1 and 12.2 and 12.2 and 12.1 and 11.1 and 11.1 and 11.1 and 10.2 and 9.2 and 9.2 and 9.2