Mountain Lamp Sangha Pilgrimage
4th November to 18th November 2014 (15 days)
Agra Option: November 18 to November 19, 2014 (1 day)
Caves Option: November 20 to November 22, 2014 (3 days)

For futher information & registration please contact us at info@buddhapath.com

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Mountain Lamp Sangha Pilgrimage November 2014 in India and Nepal with Shantum Seth, Eileen Kiera and Jack Duffy

Mountain Lamp Community is pleased to invite you to join Jack Duffy, Roshi, and Eileen Kiera, Dharmacharya, on a pilgrimage to India.  We’ll be accompanied and guided by Shantum Seth, Dharmacharya, in the Footsteps of the Buddha.  

We set forth with the aspiration to meet our original teacher in his homeland, and to find his insight as our own, in our own hearts. We’ll travel together as a Sangha in India, walking the paths, climbing the mountains, and sitting in the forests where the Buddha lived and taught.   Through Dharma talks with Eileen, Jack and Shantum, we’ll experience the cultural and physical context and places of the Buddha’s life and teachings, and we’ll meet the men and women of the Sangha who practiced, and embodied the Ancient Path alongside the Buddha. 

We will return home, having experienced the wisdom of an ancient tradition as a living basis for our own practice of meditation and mindfulness, seeing our practice with new eyes and bringing the light of awakening back to our home, our town, our friends and beloved ones.

Please join us for this most remarkable pilgrimage with three respected teachers.

4th to 18th November, 2014

This journey will begin in New Delhi on the 4th of November 2014 at 11:30am. After some Delhi exploration we will take an evening flight to Varanasi.  Thereafter we travel by our own private coach to Bodh Gaya, Nalanda/Rajgir, Vaishali, Kushinagar, Lumbini, Kapilavastu and Sravasti.  From Sravasti we go to Lucknow and fly to Delhi. We will be back in Delhi in the evening of the 18th of November 2014, where the tour ends. You should book your departure flight for either late night of 18th November or early morning of 19th November 2014.

For those who take the Agra option, we travel by a day train from Lucknow to Agra on the 18th of November to visit the Taj Mahal. We will spend one night in Agra and will return to Delhi at 10:30pm on the 19th of November. You should book your departure flight for either late night of 19th November or early morning of 20th November 2014.

For those who take the Caves option, we fly from Delhi to Aurangabad in the morning of November 20th. We will spend two nights in Aurangabad visiting Ajanta and Ellora and will return to Delhi in the evening of November 22nd. You should book your departure flight for either late night of 22nd November or early morning of 23rd November 2014.

In Delhi, we will visit the place where Mahatma Gandhi, the father of India, lived and died. This is a wonderful place to begin the pilgrimage. Gandhi personified a unique way of politics where it became an exercise of ethical living. He was a man open to all cultures and religions but with deep faith in his own.

Our journey will take us across the plains of the River Ganges to Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, and the Deer Park at Sarnath, where he gave his first teachings.  We will visit his favorite meditation places such as Vulture Peak in Rajgir, the Jeta Grove at Sravasti (where he spent 24 rainy season retreats), and Kushinagar, where he passed away.  We will also visit Lumbini, where he was born, and the palace at Kapilavastu, where hespent his childhood. Aside from visiting the places where the Buddha lived, we will visit monasteries, temples and shrines.  The trip includes visits to homes of locals in cities and villages, a gentle 8-kilometer walk to the Dungasiri Mountain (Mahakala Cave) where the Buddha practiced his austerities.  We would meet environmental and social activists and visit the homes of both the homes of the poor and the privileged to get a sense of contemporary India. We would combine this with the underpinnings of the Buddha's teachings, and some of the places he lived and visited so we can examine what we are witnessing and experiencing both from an external and internal perspective.

In Varanasi we will also take a boat ride on the Ganges at sunrise.

The pilgrimage is an unforgettable opportunity to explore areas that few tourists visit and to see and experience aspects of contemporary Indian life that, in many ways, have not changed since the time of the Buddha.  We invite you to join other practitioners on a transformative journey that will allow you to touch an ancient culture and civilization, and experience the life of the Buddha through the places he lived and taught.  Join us on this journey through a fascinating and mysterious India – as we walk in the footsteps of the Buddha.

India is very diverse in culture, language and environment.  The Buddha lived and traveled along the Indo-Gangetic plains in Northern India.  Besides New Delhi, the pilgrimage visits two states of northern India, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

India’s cities stand in large contrast to her villages and have their own interesting (if seemingly chaotic) lifestyle.  Varanasi and Bodh Gaya are both significant pilgrimage sites, having their own distinct character and personality.  In these places we get a closer view of how modern and traditional India co-exist.  Kushinagar, Sravasti and Rajgir are smaller towns and relatively quiet, giving the pilgrims the opportunity to absorb the nuances of the local culture and society.

Led by: Dharmacharya Shantum Seth, Eileen Kiera and Jack Duffy

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