Our first excursion in Varanasi was to a part of the city known as Sarnath. I considered not joining the crowd that day after such an exhausting bus ride, but something made me go. And I was so glad that I hadn’t chosen to sleep in instead.

There was something very magical about Sarnath. You could feel the energy of the place. It felt holier than the more revered Mahabodhi Temple and Bodhi trees. The place made me, a non-Buddhist, misty eyed and emotional. Some burst out into tears. This was the place that Buddha first turned the wheel of the dharma. That is, this is the first place that he began to share his enlightenment, to teach his wisdom.

It wasn’t because the place was grand and magnificent. It was a small simple temple. There was a large gold Buddha statue seated at the end of one long room. The ceilings were high and the walls were all murals painted by a famous female Japanese artist. On one wall was the Buddha as a baby. On another, he was seated crossed-legged as an adult, emanating light. The third wall was Buddha reposed in death, surrounded by grieving devotees.

After laying katas before the Buddha, the pilgrims seated themselves on the floor and began to chant. I didn’t feel like joining them. Instead, I bought a sandalwood mala. It seemed like a good idea to do so in a place that had moved me so much. I had considered buying one in Bodhgaya, but it never felt quite right. Then I went to the front of the chanters and took a few photographs. I imagined a couple of looks thrown my way as if I were being disrespectful, but I saw Suzanne doing the same from behind the Buddha statue, although less obviously.

After the chanting, prayers and prostrations, everyone went single file in a line behind the great Buddha. A monk was standing there, and he held in his hands a basket covered with cloth. As the pilgrims went past him, he touched the basket to the tops of their heads. My new friends were insistent that I play follow the leader, especially Steve, who pulled me into the line in front of him at the very last of it. Steve had been a Buddhist for about thirty years and was married to a Japanese wife that he described as a saint for putting up with him for so long. He was a good man, kind and generous. I had liked him immediately. And so we went together at the end of the procession. After the monk touched the basket to my head with blessing, I turned around to watch something very strange. The monk had taken Steve in his arms and was giving him a huge hug, like family he had not seen for a long time. Both men, strangers, were in tears as they embraced. It was very moving. Later I was told that this monk had recognized our Steve as someone he was very close to in a previous life. He said they would be brothers in the next.

I was told that our group was very special to have been blessed by the basket. It isn’t offered to very many people who come to the temple. Inside the basket is said to be a relic from 2500 years ago – a piece of the great Buddha, Buddha’s tooth.

Outside the temple Kelley, or Tashi (which means good in Tibetan), and I went barefoot clockwise around for the kora. He said the magic number was three – like the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha. So, we walked around it three times in reverent silence. While he was mouthing mantras, I began to think about my morning with Charlotte, the RN who had turned acupuncturist. A plain but very pretty woman from her inner glow, she was in her forties and was headed back to New Zealand to live again after a recent divorce from her American husband. He wanted a more spiritual life and felt that if he was in a relationship he could not completely devote himself to a spiritual path. She had shared the story with me in the rickshaw that morning as we had gone down to the markets by the ghats together to do some shopping. We also talked about the leprosy and the polio in India and how sad it was. Leprosy is an infection that is treatable. So many people shouldn’t be losing their fingers and their feet. And polio is preventable with immunizations. How much money would you give to take the knowledge that we have and prevent one child from being crippled so horribly? She was very interested in doing some charity medical work. We began to discuss setting up a camp in Bodhgaya to treat these two conditions. Well, that was my idea. She very much wanted to volunteer her acupuncture services. And she would need at least four weeks for any effective course of therapy. But she would help out with immunizations and was very enthusiastic about the project. Later in the day I mentioned it to Mary Lou, a widowed labor and delivery nurse on the journey, and she was interested in helping out also. But she said she would need a year or two at least to come up with vacation time again and the money for another India adventure. But Kelley had said the magic number was three – maybe it should take three years to manifest. So the seeds of a perhaps implausible plan were planted in my consciousness that day. And that was what I was thinking as I made the triplicate kora. And as I did so I began to tingle from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet for several seconds. And, in my weirdest of imaginations, I felt like I had been truly touched by the Buddha.