The World and the Bo TreeDuke University Press, 1991 - 211 pages "Each time I leave home I seem to go in search of something--call it a bo tree, or Shangri-La, or paradise--which is only another name for peace itself and these days decidedly a fool's errand." So writes Helen Bevington in The World and the Bo Tree, a book that describes her travels taken amid the turbulence of the 1980s. The "world" of the title is the one everybody knows, a fairly troubled, even threatening place to inhabit these days. The bo tree, which has flourished for centuries in India and Asia, is itself a meaningful symbol of peace, since under it the Buddha sat when he gained enlightenment and sought thereafter to share it with the world. The book fashions a delightful fabric, a weave of exotic journeys and chaotic recent history. While we travel with Bevington to and from various destinations in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, China, and elsewhere, we are conscious of the look of the world at home in striking contrast to the serenity occasionally glimpsed in distant places. At home she reminds us of such global disturbances as the demise of the Equal Rights Amendment, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and the possible destruction of the planet. Abroad, on some quest of their own, we may encounter such fascinating passersby as Mark Twain in Bangkok, Lord Byron in Italy, Goethe in Sicily, Marco Polo in China, Isak Dinesen in Africa, and Gladstone in the Blue Grotto of Capri. Against the backdrop of the world, Bevington discovers moments of peace in unexpected and unlikely places--visible, she says, in Tibet or on the road to Mandalay, in the look of the midnight sun, or in the silence of Africa. Fleeting and elusive though these moments are, they are real and in themselves strangely enlightening. |
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Africa airport asked beside bo tree Buddha Buddhist Burma called cave century Chengdu child China Chinese climbed Dalai Lama dance death died E. B. White Effie Effie Gray El Greco elephant English face father four Geoffrey girl gold Günter Grass happy heaven Helen hill Hong Kong hundred journey Ke-ping Kenya Kikuyu laughed Lhasa lions live looked Machu Picchu Madrid Mandalay married Masai miles morning Mount Kenya mountain murdered Nairobi never night pagodas painted palace Park peace plane poet Reagan River road rock Ruskin safari Saint Sicily Spain stared stayed stopped streets T. S. Eliot talk temple thousand Tibet Tibetan told took tour tourists town trip Vernette village W. H. Auden walked wall wife woman women wonder wrote
Popular passages
Page 23 - One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pinetrees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter...
Page 196 - Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay: Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin
Page 49 - The English burying-place is a green slope near the walls, under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To see the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the, trees which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women...
Page 179 - It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
Page 46 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 141 - This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
Page 169 - He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not Be noble to myself; but hark thee, Charmian. [Whispers CHARMIAN. Iras. Finish, good lady ; the bright day is done, And we are for the dark.
Page 3 - Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.
Page 150 - ... be it pleasant, be it painful, be it neither pleasant nor painful, that also is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you that it is burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with (the anxieties of) birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.
Page 23 - The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind...