Blessing Ceremony in McLeod Ganj, India (12/30/09)

Allie and I walked down the temple road before dawn. A few people were on the road. Some walked slow others faster, all moved towards the complex where we could hear the deep rumble of voices chanting. At the bottom of Temple Road sits the Tsuklakhang of McLeod Ganj, the temple complex and residency of H.H. the Dalai Lama. From outside the structure is unremarkable. Its walls are painted cement with no windows at ground level. There are taxis outside. People are buying chai and sweets. Even at 6:30am a crowd begins to converge on the temple. We go through the gates where the sadhus and beggars fix themselves along the walkway during business hours. The narrow walkways run like alleys through the temple complex, the main walk steeply rising to the guard post outside the courtyard interior. We had visited the day before. Just as we left a security guard said “the Dalai Lama will be here tomorrow.” We responded, “the Dalai Lama” as though there might be more than one.

Past the guardpost on the left is a museum in honor of the Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima. The ceremony was, from what I could tell, largely in his honor. He was disappeared by the Chinese government fifteen years ago after being confirmed as tulku (a reincarnate lama). To our right wide stairs lead to the balcony where people circumambulate the main shrine room. The sky is black turning slowly to deep blue.

Mats are arranged everywhere outside the shrine. Monks sit chanting. Occasionally horns and cymbals reverberate. At the center of the main shrine is the gilded Buddha. He sits 6-8 feet high. He is the Jowo Shakyamuni in exile, for those who cannot go to Lhasa to visit him. Exiles and pilgrims alike earn their merit here, on the other side of the vast stone walls that are the Himalayas, separating India from the Tibetan plateau. The Dharamsala Jowo wears the inevitable half smile, not joy and not its opposite. The antithesis of suffering, which in Tibetan means both enjoyment and sorrow.

Allie and I take our seats just outside the shrine hall and sit listening to the monks while people continue to file in. By 7:30 the balcony is full and the monks are still chanting. We are surrounded by burgundy robes, monks, nuns, people from Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj and who knows where else. Butter tea and brown bread are served. A nun motions for us not to eat yet until the blessing has been performed. Not knowing exactly when that will be we follow her lead. Near us a young westerner with dreadlocks reaching halfway down his back devours his bread and takes a pass on the butter tea. Along with the dozen or so European and American faces we are the few westerners here in the midst of hundreds of Tibetans.

Around 8am horns blare through below us. They get closer and closer till they are behind us in the courtyard. Many people stand up and rush to where the stairs reach the balcony on our left. The sound of the horns precedes the entourage up the stairs. A troupe of trumpeters and monks burst onto the landing followed by an enormous parasol of gold and red and green and white. Under the mobile canopy a hunched over man in monks robes rushes quickly along. Many Tibetans fall to the ground in prostration. We all raise our hands in reverence as the Dalai Lama makes his way to the throne inside the shrine room just below the Buddha. For the next two hours the elaborate ceremony unfolds. The crowd gathered together white silk blessing scarves and cast them towards the Dalai Lama. These were now tied randomly to columns here and there and stuffed under the cushions where His Holiness was sitting. It is understood that through this offering, blessings are conveyed back to the giver. I still do not fully comprehend what we saw that day although I managed to smuggle a prayer-book back. Near the end of the ceremony a long line formed. People with texts, textiles, bronze and silver statues of Buddhas and Dharma Wheels. The sacred images carried reverently by young girls in dragon brocaded silks, men and women in neat Tibetan dress, and some in carefully pressed suits. Every object was brought forward and blessed. One after the other the Dalai Lama placed the icons to his forehead. When this was done monks opened three enormous pallets of food and passed out a liberal supply of sweets, biscuits, and fruit, as well as the obligatory butter tea.