Journey to Bodhgaya: Garden of the Enlightenment
An audience with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Middlebury College, VT. Members of Milarepa Buddhist Meditation Center, Barnet, Vt. are invited to discuss new building and garden designs proposed for 270 acres of meadows and woodlands overlooking the Connecticut River Valley.
As designer, I speak about historical precedents, symbolic references bridging philosophy and design, architecture and gardens as expressions of Buddhist practice, the environmental setting and feng-shui and earth energies to set the project on the land. Following my carefully prepared presentation, His Holiness succinctly asks: "What is the basis for this design?" Regardless of my extensive research, my response was shallow. He kindly accepted my sophomoric answer.
Following the audience, his question didn't go away, nor did my dissatisfaction with my response. For years afterwards, I mentally offered answers in hindsight, always insufficient. My intent as a landscape architect to design gardens for meditation and healing required firm foundation. To promote design principles strengthening physical, mental and spiritual health in a balanced and harmonious relationship with the natural and social environment required suitable grounding.
But, where to find such a foundation and grounding? While classical texts on garden-making suggest studying works of accomplished garden masters, I was particularly drawn to those also distinguished as spiritual teachers.
According to Buddhist discourses on the awakened teacher's relationship with the landscape: a) gardens designed by these teachers were as much part of them as their own skin and bones, part and parcel of their own purified five aggregates, distinguished by imputation alone; b) the beauty produced through their artistic endeavors were expressions of Buddha-nature, enlightenment itself - the seed of every sentient being. Not only would their gardens be sources of inspiration, their teachings would reveal the profound spiritual paths showing how they learned to do what they did.
With that in mind, I began to see how His Holiness' question demonstrated the importance of Buddhist inquiry and practice as foundation for designing gardens, just as designing gardens would be integral to my spiritual path. This led to my journey to Bodhgaya: the garden where Buddha Shakyamuni attained enlightenment over 2500 years ago. With strong and sincere conviction, I would be confident in stating: What other place could serve as reliable an example!
Sacred texts strongly recommend a journey to the Buddhist sacred landscapes. Not only does the pilgrim cultivate positive karmic tendencies, becoming familiar with the teachings and practices in the arena where the Buddha himself taught, it enables individuals to cultivate the seed of the Buddha - the tathagatagarbha - within the mind stream. Cultivating this seed gives individuals greater strength to overcome afflictive emotions, engage in compassionate thoughts and actions, and more clearly investigate the meaning of the sacred garden.
A most important annotation directing my inquiry -- according to Mahayana Buddhist traditions, Buddha Shakyamuni actually had attained enlightenment in the Akanisa Pure Land some incomprehensible time before his rebirth as Prince Siddhartha Gautama and taught there until it was time to make an appearance on earth, when future disciples cultivated the collective karma to receive and record his teachings in person.
As an emanation of the perfect Body of Truth, the Dharmakaya, all the Buddha's physical, verbal and mental activities were expressions of perfected awareness. All there was to know about the past, present and future of all beings … the Buddha knew. All beings' relationships with one another … the Buddha knew. Their relationship to the environment … the Buddha knew, as well. And the Buddha knew all there was to know about natural process and its making of the landscape - the operations of evolving and dissolving solids, liquids, heat, wind and space: the interaction of all materials and processes over periods of time
Hence, all thoughts and actions of the Buddha were deliberately intentional. Having overcome all delusions and karmic tendencies, nothing he did nor any place he went was a result of accident, circumstance, nor coincidence. Therefore, his appearance as a prince, as an ascetic and as the enlightened Buddha of this era was essentially a performance to show the process an individual can follow, the difficulties an individual can experience, and the lessons an individual can expect to learn on the enlightenment path.
So the grassy woodland on the banks of the Nairanjana River was not merely an unimportant, inconsequential background for the scene of the enlightenment. Nor were the scriptural descriptions of the landscape embellishment, mere academic technicalities to the subtle details of the exalted event. The Buddha purposefully sited and designed this garden landscape, inseparable and integral to his presentation of the discourse on the path to enlightenment, blessed with qualities in which to most effectively present these teachings. Because of that, the garden of the enlightenment provides clues to the artistic expressions produced by the fully awakened mind.
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Bodhgaya: Two years after my audience with the Dalai Lama, I followed the footsteps of Buddha Shakyamuni to discover the qualities and the characteristics of the landscapes in which he taught - I felt his presence. Overwhelmed and humbled, I walked and meditated in the settings where events of the Buddha's life took place.
When Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who was to become the enlightened Buddha, came across the region of Uruvela (now western Bihar State) he was struck by its beauty and peaceful setting. He took pleasure in the pure clear waters of the Nairanjana River, flowing gently between grassy banks, and by glimpses into the neighboring hamlets, sited neither too far nor too near the river. He was delighted by the seclusion and remote distance of the verdant woods from turmoil. Seeing all this, his mind became exceedingly calm --- certainly a place to attain enlightenment.
Here he showed that austere and uncompromising living habits, subsisting on one grain each of jujube, sesame and rice a day for a period of six years was not a reasonable approach to attain enlightenment. He decided to accept the care and hospitality offered by Sujata. History called her the maiden daughter of the local village chief; Mahayana saw her as a bodhisattva, an emanation from the Pure Land, arriving with the Buddha as supporting cast for the performance called the enlightenment. Siddhartha drank the broth of milk and golden honey she prepared and ate from the plates of rice and cakes. Beginning to eat a more balanced diet, the Prince shed his emaciated appearance and returned to good health.
He then set out for the crest of Pragbodhi Mountain, along the Nairanjana River several miles to the northeast. There he decided to seek enlightenment. Descending from the mountain ridge, he discovered a cave halfway down the slope. Entering the room-like cave, he sat down in the dark, facing the cave opening to the west, and said to himself: "If I am to attain enlightenment, let there be some spiritual manifestation."
Immediately and without warning, the earth around him shook and, much to his surprise, he heard a voice speaking clearly from within: "This is not the place where any Buddha of the past has become enlightened. Nor is it the place where any Buddha of the future will attain enlightenment either.”
Sitting in that cave 2500 years later, I also asked myself: “What wasn't right?” Geological ages ago, when the Indian subcontinent and the Asian plates collided, the Pragbodhi Mountain was thrust up and turned around almost ninety degrees, vertically into the air. It caused layers of rock to list precipitously off balance. Subsequent earthquakes heaved the highly unstable stones and boulders down the mountainside. The Pragbodhi Mountain then took the form of a huge serpent lying across the landscape, its head bowing down to the southwest in the direction of Bodhgaya, its shoulders and back arching up into the sky. It's tail whipped about to the northwest, partially encircling a valley below the cave. Except for the small grounds covered by grasses and trees fed by a spring below the cave, the land was desolate and barren of vegetation.
The cave, opening from a point in the serpent's loins, faced the setting sun in the west. When the Chinese pilgrim Shih Fa-hien made his visit to Pragbodhi in the 5th century CE, he wrote his impressions, emphasizing the westerly direction that Siddhartha faced. His comment on the direction of the cave in the landscape was made in accord with the practice of feng-shui, already codified in writing for 700 years. Pragbodhi exhibited a few, not unimportant, inauspicious characteristics.
Feng-shui is based on the proposition that the balance and harmony characterizing the operation of the cosmos is expressed through the interaction of shapes and patterns in the landscape. An activity properly sited assures greater potential for harmony between the attributes of the landscape with people on the land. Why? Simply because proper siting integrates human life with the natural and cosmic process. At the same time, certain sites are considered more suitable for an intended use than others. Facing the setting sun would have corresponded more closely with the end of day, going to sleep rather than the act of spiritual awakening. Instead, feng-shui would prescribe a place for spiritual awakening to face east to greet the morning sun, or south for spiritual cultivation to absorb vital energies throughout the day, the orientation of most monasteries and temples.
Pragbodhi Mountain could not be the place to attain enlightenment. So Siddhartha left the cave, and walked in the direction of Bodhgaya through the groves of trees and forests. Scriptures say that Sixteen Guardian Deities of the Diamond Throne planted seven rows of palm trees for 80 miles, adorned with a profusion of precious gems and garlands of bells and golden flowers. In all the surrounding mountains, crowns of forest trees bent in the direction of the Bodhi Tree, an expression of the most profound spiritual power, visible only to those endowed with a vast storehouse of virtue.
After bathing in the Nairanjana River, Siddhartha waded to an island strip of land between the braiding Nairanjana River and a finger of the braid flowing on the opposite, west side of the land. He climbed up the bank, swept and cleaned by the deities of the winds and clouds, sprinkled with fragrant waters and flowers, and came to the spot where the Bodhi Tree stood.
To the eyes of Siddhartha, the trunk of the Tree was composed of diamond; to the devas, perhaps as silver or crystal, according to their spiritual disposition. Its branches were made of lapis lazuli, its twigs of precious elements. Leaves spread in all directions and afforded shade like the cauliflower-like cumulus clouds above. The entire Tree emanated a luminous radiant light all colours of the rainbow. A terrace of very fine grass surrounded the Tree, as fine as a layer of smoothly spread sand, as brilliant as a silver plate. Behind the Tree on the west, a four-meter ridge, the spine of the land, rose just high enough to protect the base of the Tree from hot westerly winds. A tributary of the river left a pool to the south. It was as Siddhartha Gautama had once thought in a previous life:
"This is the place where all the Buddhas have overcome all obstacles to complete enlightenment, and beyond this none can pass."
Now, on which side under the Tree to sit? He walked around the Tree in a clock-wise direction and stopped at each of the cardinal directions. Standing to the north, south and west of the Tree, he felt the earth tremble. Signs that they certainly were not the directions in which to sit and face.
He walked to the east side of the Tree and all remained still. He circled the Tree three times in honour of the three previous Buddhas, then spreading a bundle of kusa grass at the base, he slowly let himself down, facing the east and the long vista through an avenue of Sal trees that led to the glistening beach of the crystal river. With the Bodhi Tree at his back, he sat upon the Bodhimanda - the firm indestructible Diamond Throne. Having appeared at the beginning of the Fortunate Aeon of the 1000 Buddhas, this Diamond Throne was the place where all Buddhas were to attain enlightenment. Were the world completely destroyed, the Bodhimanda alone would remain because its essence, undefiled by delusions of sentient beings, was the pure fully awakened mind.
“Here at the Bodhi Tree I made an end of the jungle and thicket of the round of rebirth and death …..” Mahavastu
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Lunch with Tara Rinpoche, Toronto: Three years later, I asked Rinpoche: “Why did the Buddha choose Bodhgaya for these epiphanies? What visual and subtle qualities did the landscape of Bodhgaya possess that other places did not?” At that time Tara Rinpoche was Abbot of the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery of Bodhgaya, and could certainly shed light on these questions.
“Bodhgaya, and the other gardens where the Buddha taught,” Tara Rinpoche replied, “were certainly not ordinary landscapes to begin with. Previous Buddhas had already taught at these particular landscapes; disciples had cultivated positive karmic potentials to receive teachings there: they were now invested with sacred attributes. Perhaps Buddha Shakyamuni saw fit to continue the tradition. Why the Buddha chose these particular landscapes? We can only make assumptions because we don't have the ability to know what the Buddha thought.”
Scriptures tell the stories about the Buddhas' previous connections to this sacred place. The Kalinga-Bodha Jataka's: "This is the place …” mentioned a few paragraphs back.
The First Avalokita Sutra in the Mahavastu: "From the moment that bodhisattvas become completely endowed with steadfast activities of body, speech and mind they go to that spot of earth where they sit to overcome all hindrances...That spot of earth (the Diamond Throne) where bodhisattvas go to overcome all hindrances has sixteen characteristics."
"When speaking about these characteristics," Rinpoche continued, "there must be flexibility in their explanation - these are all interpretive teachings and are meant to be questioned and analyzed. In fact, some texts suggest that Bodhgaya may not necessarily be the physical place of the enlightenment - the Diamond Throne could be anywhere. Even if sentient beings had been present in the midst of the Bodhi Tree, they would not have been able to witness the profound and subtle unfolding of the sacred landscape at that time if they had not cultivated the positive potentials.
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Bodhgaya: Looking with critical eye to strengthen grounding for my work, I ask myself this question: would the present landscape of Bodhgaya still be considered a physical expression of the Buddha's enlightenment?
The sacred landscape indeed has changed - a human-modified landscape has replaced a natural one. Barely 200 years after the Buddha's enlightenment, King Asoka cut down and burned the trunk of the Bodhi Tree only to find a double tree appear from the flames. Astounded by this miracle and deeply sorry for his deed, Asoka bathed the roots in perfumed milk and found a tree sprout where the Bodhi Tree had stood. To protect the new Tree from further harm, the king constructed a 20-foot high wall around the entire site. The wall radically altered the topography. It eliminated the gentle slope from the ridge behind the Bodhi Tree, and hampered the natural ecological and morphological interactions of the garden with the river, the blowing sand dunes, the forests and the climate.
In front of the Bodhi Tree, King Asoka constructed an open pavilion supported by four pillars. By the time Hsuan-tsang visited Bodhgaya over 800 years later, a great temple 160 feet high had replaced the king's pavilion. That temple has since deteriorated, been restored and rebuilt many times. Upon the grounds surrounding the temple within the perimeter of the wall, shrines and stupas were built to commemorate the blessed events of the Buddha's enlightenment and his presence there during the following seven weeks.
The river today is much further away from the site of the Bodhi Tree, and the strip of land is firmly connected to the mainland by a bridge. Teashops, tourist shops, residences and temples have been constructed and expanded all around the sacred precincts. They sit above ruins of the ancient temples, completely covered by centuries of wind-blown sand and silt. Pilgrims now have to step down into an excavated pit. The Buddha did not have to do that to get to the Tree.
I sense that something else here is not right -- the temple is not built in the right place. Although the Mahabodhi Temple marks the location of the original Bodhi Tree and the Diamond Throne, and is the most important of all Buddhist places of pilgrimage, I find myself cut off from the surrounding landscape. With all due respect, the spirit of the sacred garden of the enlightenment was not enhanced when the temple was built. It cut off from view the dramatic link between the Bodhi tree and the east, where the sun rises over the Nairanjana River in the morning, one of the most important components of the garden produced by the Buddha when he sat down beneath the Bodhi Tree.
Regardless, Bodhgaya is not an ordinary garden. Four-thirty in the morning, hundreds of pilgrims are doing full prostrations, circumambulating the temple, reciting sutra and mantras, lighting candles and incense, chanting the mantras of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Many people have come to be in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, filling this sacred landscape with the energy of their devotion, prayers and blessings.
Entering the sacred precincts again, as I did the first time, I take pause. Circumambulating the Mahabodhi Temple, reciting the mantra of Buddha Shakyamuni, my head fills as the power of this garden absorbs into me, seemingly reconstituting the molecular structure of my body. I sit at the base of the railing around the Bodhi Tree, barely touching it and feel a charge of electricity. The stone feels warm and comforting. This offspring of the original Tree, brought from Sri Lanka, might as well have been the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha sat, for the devotion paid to it is as strong as if it had been the Tree itself. Unexpectedly, a gift from the Bodhi Tree -- a leaf dropped upon my lap, inspiring me to continue my journey, designing gardens on my spiritual path.
2:2001