Our presentations and dialogs finished, we became tourists, and were taken an hour or so out of Yogya to the single most visited site in Indonesia, Borobudur. This 9th century Buddhist monument, located in Central Java, is a true place of pilgrimage. One begins at the base of the monument and follows a path circumambulating it and ascending through three levels: the world of desire, the world of forms, and the world of formlessness. All along the walls are narrative stone panels telling the story of Buddha’s life and teachings. Perhaps it was not surprising that on the second level, the world of forms, we got a cell phone call saying I had to hurry back to Yogyakarta because my return flight to the USA (taking off that very evening) had been canceled. And so we never reached the top, but perhaps that is for my second trip to this beautiful, inspiring and complex country. May it be so!
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