Ups and downs of the Buddha dharma

Hello!
I've been in Varanasi for 4 days now, but before I get into that I'll update you on Bodhagaya!

So Bodhagaya is a fairly small city, probably no bigger than 20,000. About 100,000 people come to listen to the Dalai Lama's teachings. So you can imagine it was rather crowded. It's also impossible to bargain since all the shops know that the next tourist will pay their overly inflated price. But anyway, expensive in India is still cheap compared to the US so I'm not complaining.

The teachings themselves were great...unfortunately the translator wasn't fantastic but I still got a lot out of them. If you've ever seen 'I Heart Huckabees' that's a really accurate representation of what it's like to be taught the Buddha dharma. You talk about emptiness and how everything is suffering but hopefully in a couple of eons (an eon is thousands of millions of billions of years) you can attain enlightenment and be able to love everyone and have true happiness free from attachment for everything in samsara. If you meditate on some things for enough time it really does feel like the fabric of the universe is coming apart and nothing is connected (so why does any of it matter??) but then you remember love and even though you know that any love you have is tainted by attachment it's a wonderful beautiful thing and if you focus on that then you'll be okay despite the sufferings of samsara.

Hahha sorry that's a long ramble and I don't know if it makes any sense to someone that hasn't studied Buddhism!!

Anyway. Varanasi. It's still a big city but we got a hotel in the same alleyway as this wonderful yoga studio (Yoga Training Centre) and I'm taking 4 hours of yoga a day. That's right, 4 hours. You want to know how much it costs to take 4 hours of good quality yoga class with a maximum of 8 students in India? 8 bucks. I'm getting to be really strong and really bendy!! I'll just have to work extra hard to keep it up. Tomorrow I start the 2 day Reiki level one initiation. I'll be officially certified to practice Reiki and balance the 7 chakras. Our yoga instructor balanced all of our chakras this morning, and it felt so powerful. I had so much more energy and flexibility for the afternoon class and my stomach feels worlds better (apparently my second chakra was screwy which has been making it difficult to eat much of anything).

That's it for now I suppose. Next I might be going to south India or Thailand...I am more than ready for some warm weather.