Sarnath and Bodhgaya

Hello family and friends. We are now just about three weeks into the trip and time is starting to fly by. We are currently taking in the sites of Calcutta, however, I will be talking about our last day in Varanasi and our brief stint in Bodghgaya. On our last day in Varanasi, the group decided to venture about an hour north to a place called Sarnath. Sarnath is holy to all Buddhists because it is the place where the Buddha gave his first teachings. Sarnath contains holy stupas (basically temples) that Buddhists from all over the globe come to pray. It was a beautiful and peaceful environment where we had time to reflect and take in the history that surrounded us. It was interesting that there is this holy Buddhist site is less than an hour away from one of the holiest Hindu cities. The contrast was nice due to the fact that we had been in Varanasi for over a week; so the break was welcomed. We caught an extremely early morning train ride from Varanasi to Gaya the following day. After having been in class 3 with AC from Delhi to Varanasi it was quite the shock to all of us changing to normal sleeper class. When we boarded the train in Varanasi, there were people in our seats. It took a solid 20 minutes to get them to move because they were confused about there tickets. They had the seats reserved up until Varanasi, but couldn't comprehend that they had to move. In each section there are supposed to be 3 bodies to a bench. In this instance, there were 5 people to a bench the entire train ride. At this time we understood that there is no such thing as personal space in India. We arrived late morning in Gaya and took rikshaws to Bodhgaya. We were all tired and grumpy, but it didn't stop us from moving along with our day. We arrived at the root institute in Bodhgaya and all of us were in shock due to the beauty of this Tibetan Buddhist meditation retreat center. The grass was well taken care of, there were flowers outlining all of the paths, there were kind and gentle monks and nuns, and there were even dogs that we could play with that weren't strays. Later on in the afternoon we were escorted by David and Annette (monk and nun) through the city to the Bhodi tree and temple where The Buddha attained enlightenment. There were Vietnamese, Shri Lank an, and Thai Buddhists just to name a few who made the pilgrimage to the most sacred spot on earth for Buddhists. Our group continued on through the main market in Bodhgaya back to the institute. The next morning we were up for 6: 45 meditation. The meditation center was calming and some of us were able to get into it (others not so much). We received Buddhist teachings from an Australian monk named David. He taught us that Buddhism is all about achieving inner happiness and enlightenment. We learned about Karma and about how everything you do whether it be good or bad has an effect on your Karma in future lives. We learned that Buddhists don't believe in a creator God and that they don't believe that there was ever a beginning to life. The depth of Buddhism was astounding and we all left with much better insight into what went into being a devout Buddhist. We ended the day with another meditation session where more people were able to meditate. The last day in Bodhgaya we went to a couple of caves where the Buddha spent extended time in mediation. It was at these caves that The Buddha realized that you could not achieve happiness or enlightenment by fasting. We relaxed in the afternoon after having a full past few days and hopped on the night train to Calcutta where we currently reside. Everyone is excited about heading to the mountains and cooler weather in five days. That's all for now. Hope everything is going smoothly for everyone back in the states.
Namaste,
Alex