PALI PAN
by KEITH D LESLIE
The Little Buddha of Bara
A young Tamang boy reaches the highest sacred realms of life
From Issue #281 (2006-01-13 - 2006-01-19) | TABLE OF CONTENT
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At first, I was skeptical about going to receive darshan from Ram Bahadur Bomzon, ‘The Little Buddha of Bara’. I didn’t want to be part of a human circus. I felt this young man was showing us the way each of us should practice our own dharma in search of greater good, devotion or sanctity—not racing off to see someone else practice theirs. Still, I was intrigued.
So, with friends, we drove over the Tribhuban Rajpath amidst the spectacular backdrop of the Central Himalaya. We first passed an RNA check point in Palung then below Daman drove by young well-armed Maoists chopping down trees. A night-stop at the Avocado Motel in Hetauda, then early next morning we drove to Bara. As we woke, I recalled that exactly one year ago on 2 January I had watched the sun rise driving back to Bangkok after the cremation of our friend, Robin Needham, the former CARE Nepal Director. Now the sun was rising anew with the miracle of life full circle as we were off to see a young boy seeking inspiration and salvation in the jungles of Nepal.
A bit past Patlaiya, we knew we had arrived when we saw Buddhist prayer flags whispering and floating in the trees above. Signs in Nepali asked pilgrims to maintain their silence and take off leather shoes as they approached the sacred mandala where young Ram Bahadur Bomzon was sitting.
There was a profound air of peacefulness and quietude with only about 20 people standing, praying or peering into the enclosure. Rather than feeling like I was violating someone else’s personal space, I felt a sense of the divine nearby, the deep elemental awe we experience when words or language cannot do justice to the reality we are experiencing. Maybe it was simply a profound respect for the sight of that young boy, encrusted with dust and dirt, his hair and fingernails grown out, his head slightly askew, sitting, as he has for nearly eight months, under that magnificent tree protected on both sides by wings of the trunk enclosing him in a tender embrace.
The local committee that manages the site to protect their childhood friend permitted us to go to the inner enclosure, some 15m. from the figure of the young boy. There, we peered more closely. We placed a khada and pashmina shawl to a nearby tree as an offering. Each on our own way, we stood in silent respect for this fellow human’s fundamental quest for moksha or simply a purer understanding of the nature of what it means to be alive. In a world of often unmitigated venality and greed, here was a young Tamang boy who sought with simple courage to reach the highest sacred realms of life in the raw, wild nature of Earth’s open jungle.
In the West, there is a belief that when revolution is in the air, false messiahs arise to lead people to more distant religious thoughts. We say ’false’ because one never knows if they are really sacred individuals or merely faint hopes of a weary and disillusioned people. Yet, there have always have been prophets who arise during times of political trouble.
For us, who live in Nepal and have reason to doubt the integrity or sincerity of our national leaders, the simple and individual aspiration of a young boy like Ram Bahadur Bomzon reaches deep into our consciousness and psyche as a vision of sanctity. He continues to sit whether we come or not. He has said that he hopes to sit for six years.
or me, the question is not whether he eats or not or if he is a reincarnation of a historical Buddha. Those are rational conceptions superimposed upon our observations. Instead, what I found so moving was the sacred space that he has created in his silent sitting. We seek sacred spaces in mandirs, in temples, in love, in friendship. Without a touch of the sacred all of our lives are lessened and diminished. As individuals, a society or culture, we all need to touch the divine within ourselves and among ourselves. Otherwise, we are liable to treat others as mere objects. It’s so easy to do. War and revolution in fact allow us to do so on a large and tragic national scale.
That morning darshan in the jungle of Bara was a moment of grace, a few hours of tranquility in a jarring world of noise, ego and self- promotion. One needn’t go to Bara to find peace. However, it is humbling to be near a child seeking with all of his soul to reach the divine. Such humility is a fine reminder of our own limits, frailty and mortality.
Keith D Leslie cultivates bamboo and live with his children Joshua, Ezra and Leah Prajna Rose outside Kathmandu.
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