Orange Dust

It’s quite difficult to say exactly what this book is about, because it doesn’t fit neatly into any publishers’ category. It’s about (a non-Buddhist) looking for – journeying in search of, teasing out the traces of – the Buddha, in the four principal places where the Buddha lived, i.e., Lumbini where he was born, Bodhgaya where he achieved enlightenment, Sarnath where he set the dharma wheel in motion and Kushinagar where he died. As well as travel and meditation there is a good deal of meeting people who embody “Buddha aspects”. Central to the story is the 1998 WCCM Way of Peace pilgrimage to India. That pilgrimage brought together in Bodhgaya approximately 100 mostly Western Christians with about an equal number of Buddhists. Several days were spent there in respectful dialogue co-led by the Dalai Lama and Fr. Laurence Freeman and in daily periods of prayer and meditation. In welcoming the WCCM pilgrims there, His Holiness said that to the best of his knowledge it was the first time that a group of Christians came to Bodhgaya not as tourists or missionaries but as pilgrims to join with their Buddhist brothers and sisters in prayer and meditation under the Sacred Bodhi Tree. He referred to the event as “truly historic”. Kenneth Wilson has variously been a town planner, a property developer and a Church of England Vicar. He is the founder of Soul of India Tours and has led many groups of travelers and pilgrims to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Tibet, including three WCCM pilgrimages to India in 1998, 2005 and 2007. As the Dalai Lama writes in the Foreword; “I am sure Christians, Buddhists, and indeed anyone who seeks to cultivate a good heart, will enjoy reading this inspirational, uplifting book”.