May 27th

There is so much to tell you all! Today was a mini Buddhist trek
around the world. We spent the day in Sarnath -- the site where the
Buddha first taught after reaching enlightenment -- so there are
Buddhist temples there representing many different countries. Besides
the main temple, I went in ones representing communities from Tibet,
Japan, China, Burma, Thailand... I think that's it. In any case,
each place had its own character, own monks, own breath. I think I
liked the Japanese and Tibetan ones best.

There was an interesting phenomena on the grounds of the Thai temple
though: they are in the process of building a humongous Buddha statue
from blocks of stone, but at the moment it is mostly unassembled. So
there is a huge head (maybe 12 ft tall?), and a huge pair of feet,
then there are scattered blocks with miscellaneous body parts strewn
all across a field. I thought it was great -- seeing the Buddha all
mixed up in pieces...

Yesterday was the birthday of the Ganges. There were huge
celebrations by the river (an especially fancy puja), but I decided to
stay in, as the crowds started to overwhelm me. I'm taking it easy,
as daily life here is stimulation enough!

My very own set of tablas came a couple days ago, so I've been
breaking them in, enjoying the luxury of practicing back at the guest
house. It's nice not to have to walk to Assi ghat in the heat of the
day and practice when there's no power at my guru's shop (I never
thought I would wait with such anticipation for the moment I could
turn on a ceiling fan). The heat has been consistently in the 100s,
and we're constantly drenched in sweat. Even the wind is hot.

There's always more to say, but the girls I'm with have been waiting
patiently for ages now so I have to sign off.

Much love to all of you,

Eleanor