New Article in Perceptive Travel

March 1st, 2006 | By Joshua | 3 Comments »

Please enjoy my spankin’ fresh essay in the new issue of Perceptive Travel:

Nothing to Achieve: In the Place of Enlightenment, Joshua Berman learns that being a pilgrim in the Mahabodhi Temple is about more than mere religion.
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So long, and thanks for all the dahl!

November 25th, 2005 | By Joshua | 1 Comment »

Our last few days in India rush up to us in a flurry of night trains, rickshaw haggles, and last-minute site-seeing in Agra where we squeeze in a few sublime hours at the Taj before pushing on. Exhausted and exhilarated, trying not to look backward or forward too much, half-heartedly picking out highs and lows, we pull into Delhi at 11 p.m. for our final 24 hours.
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The sun softly rises: Maa Ganga awakes

November 24th, 2005 | By Joshua | 1 Comment »

The pre-dawn boat trip on the Ganges is an obvious once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we do not neglect. The most difficult part is not waking up on time, since the ancient energy of Varanasi fills us with restless wonder; nay, the hardest thing is enjoying the experience without a bulking camera stuck between my face and the awesome spectacle surrounding me.
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Varanasi: Beyond words

November 22nd, 2005 | By Joshua | 1 Comment »

“Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” That is how Mark Twain described Varanasi. Peter Matthiessen goes deeper: “…in Varanasi there is hope of life that has been abandoned in such cities as Calcutta, which seems resigned to the dead and dying in its gutters. Shiva dances in the spicy foods, in the exhilarated bells of the swarming bicycles, the angry bus horns, the chatter of the temple monkeys, the vermillion dot on the women’s foreheads, even in the scent of charred flesh that pervades the ghats.”
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The Oldest City: Varanasi

November 21st, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

A cold, pre-dawn train – the Doon Express – carries us from Gaya to the Cantonment Station in Varanasi, where we steel ourselves for the assault of humanity about which our guidebook and fellow travelers have warned us. Saddled with packs on chests and backs, Tay and I push onto the platform with the crowd, expecting an army of beggars, touts, con-artists, and pickpockets to mob these weighed-down foreigners and take them for all they are worth.
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Sunrise in Bodhgaya

November 19th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

On the last two mornings of our meditation retreat, Tay and I broke the rules and met each other at 6:00 a.m. on the roof of my dorm to watch the sunrise. Actually, we behaved ourselves, and (mostly) maintained our silence. I just needed to show her my discovery — that the sun rises almost right behind the giant Japanese Buddha statue, just east of the Root Institute compound.
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Traveling Mindfully: Root Institute, Bodhgaya

November 18th, 2005 | By Joshua | 4 Comments »

The name of the course is “Yoga and Meditation: Journey to Awareness,” and it is exactly what we were looking for, but did not find, in Rishikesh so many months ago. In one sense, this ten-day retreat at the Root Institute for Wisdom Culture in Bodhgaya, the place of Buddha’s enlightenment, is the kind of romantically spiritual immersion which Westerners have associated with India since the hippies and the Beatles came here in the 1960s; and, in fact, our 18 fellow participants are nearly all from Europe, Australia, or North America, as are our two instructors (though they both have extensive Eastern training). This originally gave us pause (a yoga teacher named “Jean-Claude” in India?); but the Root Institute’s reputation is outstanding and, after visiting its immaculate, lush, and peaceful grounds, we were sold.
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While my sitar gently weeps

November 16th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

I never did get to hear Sarmishtha play her sitar.
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Map: Darjeeling to Delhi

November 16th, 2005 | By Joshua | 1 Comment »

Since we orginally opted for a domestic flight from Delhi to Calcutta (back in August), our current westbound journey by rail and bus completes our bragging rights to a subcontinental overland crossing — from Pakistan’s Hunza Valley to the Bhutan border.
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Tuning Out and Tuning In: The Root Institute for Wisdom Culture

November 9th, 2005 | By Joshua | 4 Comments »

The last Buddhist teaching I received was in Kalimpong, in the tiny “Road to Lhasa” eatery, whose Tibetan owner, Ola, espoused the Buddha’s teachings while Tay and I dined on momos, thukpa, and Sikkim rum. Buddhism is about recognizing suffering, trying to overcome it, and calming the mind, said Ola, as he shifted excitedly from foot to foot. Before that, my learning was equally informal: reading books, occasionally trying to meditate regularly, and once, participating in a winter weekend retreat at Northern California’s Shasta Abbey.
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