HuffPo: Following the Footsteps of the Buddha Across North East India

By Jim Luce
James Jay Dudley Luce Foundation
Posted: 1/10/12 06:00 PM ET

Americans have been flocking to India in search of enlightenment since before America was founded. Europeans, too, the conscientious objector E.M. Forster and psychoanalytic Herman Hesse among them. So my trip -- my pilgrimage -- to follow in the footsteps of Buddha across Northeastern India is nothing new. Except that it promises to be transformational to one person: me.

For on this trip I wish to re-examine my core values, founded in Judeo-Christianity but tempered by Buddhism, and confirm that the path that I have chosen for the second half of my life is moving me toward my desired destination before my demise. This deeply personal journey will allow me to reflect on my mother and brother's deaths the same week, just months before 9/11, my own vow of poverty and the nature of human suffering in the context of my humble attempts to help alleviate a small part of it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-luce/pilgrimage-to-the-bodhi-tree_b_1193161.html

There are some very nice photographs that accompany this post.