~Suren Upreti~
My name is Pemba . I was very excited to go on an educational tour with my class to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha who is also called Siddhartha Gautam. Lumbini is situated in the western part of Nepal, a part of Nepal I had never been to before. I had a very good image of Buddha as I had heard many good things about him from different people. Lord Buddha was a very kind-hearted and intelligent man. He was born almost 2560 years ago in a royal family of a small state named Kapilbastu in Nepal. My parents used to tell me amazing things about Lord Buddha and his contribution to preventing violence against creatures. After hearing great things about Lord Buddha, I was eager to discover the birthplace of Buddha that is in Lumbini.
It took two days of bus ride to Lumbini from our school. Two classes, grade 6 and 7, had planned to go to Lumbini together. I just could not wait for that day to come and kept counting the hours and minutes. I started packing my personal items to go on the tour and could not sleep the night before our trip because of the excitement. When I was trying to pull a sleeping bag out of the cupboard at 2 am in the morning, a heavy metal object dropped on the floor making a loud noise. My mother woke up with that sound and came to my room to check that everything was all right with me. I did not want to disturb her so I pretended like I was sleeping when she came to my room. She saw my backpack, sleeping bag and all other prepared items for the trip in my room and slowly put the palm of her hand on my forehead. This time I could not pretend like I was sleeping anymore and burst out laughing. She comforted me with hugs and asked me to go to sleep right away. She told me I would be very sick if I did not go to bed soon and said she would help me in the morning with the rest of my packing .
The next morning, mom called me for breakfast. It was almost seven thirty in the morning. Our school bus would leave at nine o’clock from our school. The school was about half an hour away by bus . from my house. I took a shower and got ready very quickly as my mom had prepared everything else for me already. I completed the checklists that were provided by my teacher. I took the school bus and arrived at school. Our teacher read the rules and regulations of the trip that included general rules, such as, asking for permission to leave the bus, remain seated while the bus is moving, and so on. All the students in the bus were divided into four groups. Each group included twelve students and I was a team leader of my group.
It took us almost nine hours to reach Lumbini by bus. While we were on the bus, some of the students were looking outside of the bus and taking pictures and some fell asleep. I was sitting right beside the driver’s seat. I had an opportunity to ask the driver about the places and the new routes. We finally reached the hotel that we had booked in Lumbini. We were exhausted due to the long drive and hot weather. We went to bed early that evening. While I was in my bed, I thought about the statue of Buddha, the Peace lamp,and the Ashok pillar ,which is alos called Ashok Stambha . Next morning our teacher woke us up for early breakfast. We went to the Buddha Monastery from the bus. There was a Peace flames, which burns all the time. There was a very nice canal that goes all the way down towards the main building of the Buddha Monastery. We walked to see the birthplace of Buddha. There was a tree and at the base of the tree was a statue of baby Buddha and his mother, Maya Devi. There was a pond with many lotus flowers and many ducks were swimming and playing in it. Some people were boating. Beside the Ashok Pillar, there was a tree and on the bottom of the tree was a small statue of Maya Devi. Maya Devi had a small statue of baby Buddha in her lap. Near this tree, there was another small deep pond. Behind the Ashok pillar, there was the main building of the Buddha Monastery. There were many idols of Buddha in different sizes and shapes. Buddhist monks were meditating and chanting. The sound of drums and other instruments made an amazing meditation sound. Next we had planned to enter the prayer hall that was very close to the building. When we entered the prayer hall, many visitors were rotating the praying wheels. The hall was covered with a great smell of burning scented wood. There were many ancient construction scenes of Buddha as well interesting old bricks, potteries, stones and artifacts.
All of sudden, my friend named, Rom, pulled me in the corner of the Monastery and told me about his misunderstanding about the birthplace of Buddha. Almost two years ago, he had gone to visit his dad, who had been working in the Indian Army for a long time. His father took him to Kapilbastu in India, and many things that Rom had seen in Kapilbastu were similar to Lumbini, so he had thought the actual birthplace of Buddha was in India. Rom had also believed this was right because in one of the Indian history course books it was written that the birthplace of Buddha was India. It was clearly a big misunderstanding and the book had wrong information about Lord Buddha’s birthplace. It was clearly Nepal and not India. Soon after Rom found the real story, he called his dad in India and informed him about his discovery. I took a lot of pictures of the birthplace of Buddha and the amazing views of Lumbini. Also, there were many Gumbas , the Nepali word for monastery,built in Lumbini by different countries such as Japan, China, Srilanka, Myanmar and Germany.
Gautama Buddha has given a broad knowledge of peace to the entire world. His motives included; be truthful, do not harm others, respect seniors and love juniors, respect yourself and the world. What a great thought and inspiration. I wonder how beautiful and peaceful our world would be, if everyone followed and had similar thoughts to Buddha. There would be no war in this world. Everyone would live a happy life. My trip to Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini, was so informative and amusing that I would go back again and again and would never get tired of it.
