Rev. Danny Fisher

The Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee has apparently decided to lift their ban on entering the Mahabodhi Mahavihara, the temple erected at the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, while wearing shoes. (Though visitors must still remove their shoes within the temple’s “sanctum sanctorum.”) I feel like I should go on some “Dana Carvey as an angry old man”-style tirade here: “In my day, we wore no shoes and we walked uphill through three feet of snow to get to the Mahabodhi Temple…and we liked it!”

Me at the Mahabodhi Mahavihara in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India during the fall semester of 2006. Photo by Ian Bennett.

Not another one of these…

A Berkeley Buddhist temple is at the center of a neighborhood dispute. As Lisa Chan explains, some blame the temple for causing early morning noise and traffic, and allege it is operating without the proper city permit.