During my time in Nepal I hiked all over the middle and upper ranges of the Himalayas, flirting with Tibetan culture, mantras, classic Buddhist monastic concepts etc. but felt I had made little real progress.

As I was exiting Nepal (my four-month home) for nearby India I decided to pay the birthplace of Buddha a visit. I had been told that there was not much to see at Lumbini but an Ashokan proclamation pillar and a now dismantled shrine. What I found there was a buzz of activity as just south of the archelogical area, in the farmlands streching through this Muslim Nepali area, every major Buddhist country in the world (some of them not even countries anymore) built their temple, meditation center, symbol or shrine in what the UNESCO planners call the "Meditation Park."

It was there that stopping in to see the Panditarama center, a retreat center built by the now exiled elected government of Burma, I met the nun Baddha Monika and decided to stay for a bit.

I stayed for only four days (but had planned on only two days) but these four days stand as the period of strongest spiritual and mental progress of my entire journey until then.

Read on and discover why:

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