Travels to Jambudvīpa

Thamel

2010-08-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

Over a chain linked fence on one of the many winding streets a sign reads, “Thamel: To / Homely / Atmosphere / and More / Enjoyable / Living. This is district of Katmandu known for everything tourist, backpackers, arms dealers, drug addicts and prostitutes, and some of best cuisine and nightlife Katmandu has to offer. The past weekend a dozen or more students met at a quite guesthouse restaurant called Café Mitra where we ate and drank in an open air garden complete with lotus pond, creeper vines and carved statuary. Eventually we made our way to the New Orleans Jazz club where Americans and Europeans were interspersed with Nepalese, Sherpas, and Tibetans watching a wayward hippy couple sing “We Shall Overcome” in cracked voices with guitar and harmonica accompaniment. The man, a thirty something struck me as strung too tight for this place. He emanated a tense enthusiasm as he encouraged the noncommittal crowd to chorus to “We will rock you.” Walter and I happily obliged in the fullest, most red blooded American hollering we could manage.

Just before midnight we moved down the street to another night club as taxies filled the streets in a midnight traffic jam and Thamel began to empty. Curfews are loosely enforced and armed police stand at every intersection directing the flood of cabs for the exodus. At the middle of an intersection a large officer, a hefty billy club in his right hand, puts a firm hand against a pale faced and gaunt European directing him off into more suitable corners of the city. All around us the formality and expected modesty of Nepal is lost in a sea of miniskirts, stiletto heels, and low cut blouses. The youth of Nepal fall against each other and in side streets and alleys old men escort stumbling and incoherent young girls through antique wooden doorways into narrow halls and dark rooms. And all around there is raucous laughter, Christmas lights, and blaring horns. Inside the Dragon’s Eye night club people cluster, dancing round a large Buddha head that stands at the front of a long empty wading pool. Cheap electric lights flash and outdated house music throbs at a decibel high enough to drown out any superfluous conversation.

There is a sort of beauty in the madness, the unrelenting rush of emotion and the complete absence that breaks from every pore, attended by smoke and alcohol. On the dance floor Padampa whirls round, his head wrapped haphazardly by a white bandana. Padampa is an unusual young man, probably twenty two with an indistinct accent, partly Russian partly English. Most days he is dressed in monks robes with a cleanly shaved head and endearing smile. His very presence exudes an infectious charisma. The rumor mill has spun a story, perpetuated either by Padampa himself or others, that he is the incarnation of the great Maha-Siddha of India, Padampa Sangye, progenitor of the Chod or Kusali practice (I will explain this further in a forthcoming blog). Now, in the heart of Thamel, sans robes, Padampa is thrown here and there amongst a mass of sweat and breath as though propelled by some hellish and beautiful wind. Part of me thinks this is freedom and wants to become part of it, to abandon myself and give away all control to the incessant heartbeat of everything that swims inside this haze. But this sort of abandonment is not freedom, it is a drug of choice, a temporary suspension of self. And besides that, I’m not much of a dancer.

Many Buddhist practitioners and seekers end up in Thamel and later justify recklessness or random choices as the purification of karma or transcendence of duality. For the most part this is of course complete bullshit. We arrive at such places through impulse or a lack of judgment the only practice involved is to see how we negotiate the pitfalls of every second step we take. As Chokyi Nyima observed, “Westerners love Vajrayana and tantra.” We have this insatiable desire, myself included, to experience the unusual and often perverse worlds of the great Indian Maha-Siddhas like Padampa Sangye or Virupa. The latter a mad saint who captured a loose ray of the sun and kept it from setting for days till the king paid his bar tab. Maybe we want magic and enlightenment and the enjoyment of every passion without question and without discipline or maybe we just want a quick ticket out of samsara. The magic of Thamel is that is shoves the impermanence and tedious balance of life right up in your face. As we leave Thamel the streets are nearly deserted except for a pack of Nepalese police on bicycles. In Bouda I walk the empty and silent circle round the stupa with Aksel, Walter, and Asha, the unsleeping eyes of the Buddha staring out into darkness. Loosing oneself in Tamal is nothing and those of us who come out maintained have accomplished only a little more.

Feast of the Black Mother

2010-07-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

By the time you reach the steps to Dakshinkali with their green canopy that stretches down to the ravine below, the sound of clanging bells fills the air. The ravine is verdant. At its base are the convoluted remnants of what will be a river again soon, if the monsoon persists. The lower reaches of the stream is filled with refuse and thousands of Himalayan crows dig their hooked beaks through the debris. Aksel and I join the crowds crossing a concrete bridge to the temple proper. Young Nepalis snap photos along the guard rail. To our left is a slaughter house where the headless carcasses of goats and chickens are cleaned, skinned and plucked. Under a tall oak a Shaivite sadhu with orange bands of string is blessing a family and tying the strings round their necks and arms to seal the blessing of the mother goddess Kali Ma. The goddess herself sits inside a small open air temple, a small deity of black stone no more than eighteen inches tall. All around her the floor is streaked red with blood and bells reverberate in our heads, a dizzying cacophony. Everywhere the air is filled with the iron sent of death.

The day before, Aksel and I arrived in Parping. A hill town with fewer tourists than monks and monasteries. We immediately set out for the hilltop overlooking the valley. Up top we hung prayer flags and wandered the random pathways that run through the green forests above Parping proper. Besides piles of trash and strew paper prayer cards, we discovered a funky old Shiva shrine with a rusted trident, diminutive lingam, and a rasping bell. On our decent in search of a self manifesting image of the Goddess Tara we had the good fortune to encounter one of the caves of Guru Rinpoche. It was late afternoon and no one was about, a seeming rarity for sites like this. The cave is a narrow dark space glowing with the light and heat of butter lamps and humming with the sound of buried wasps. In the furthest recess, carved in the smoke black rock is a fearsome likeness of Guru Rinpoche, holding a skull cup and flanked by guardian deities. The cave has the ability to tear the breath from your lungs and reverberates with a tremendous presence I have not experienced here in Nepal or perhaps at any other place I have visited. The little room of the Guru inspires a sense of awe which combines the affect of standing alone before the stain glass windows of Saint Chapelle and watching the Atlantic thunder before an approaching hurricane.

Such an experience could only lead to heavy drinking. That evening we sat in an open air bar downing liters of Carlsberg in front of a full size confederate flag tacked to the wall that gave endless entertainment. Meandering the blacked out streets Aksel offered prostrations in total earnest before the only illuminated object in town, a golden statue of Padmasambhava. The statue stands fifteen feet high above its throne, towering above the main street with a Hello Kitty offering plate sitting at its feet. Despite the rumors of the violent alcohol induced fits of Nepalese men we only met one person as drunk as us. He was thrilled to meet us.
"You American!?" he shouted clasping our hands.
"Yes!"
"America is great!"
"Yeah!"

The next morning came far too quickly and after another jaunt to the cave we slogged the monsoon soaked corn fields to the stairs of Dakshinkali. Saturday is the big day for sacrifice, the objective being to make the river junction below the temple run red with blood. We were only witness to the death of one goat that was pacing the inner enclosure round the altar as we arrived. A narrow pathway runs round the inner sanctum where the goddess sits and rows of bells are hung across from a sign that reads, “Watch Out for Pick-Pockets.” Next to the bells is a low wall covered in butter lamps, the customary offering for Buddhists. Aksel and I wedged ourselves into the throng beside these lamps where we had a clear view. He began saying prayers for the goat. I just watched.
In short order the officiates of the event began rounding the goat towards the gate directly across from the alter and flicked scented water on its head. Meanwhile two young Tibetan girls lit butter lamps and a monk tapped their heads with a traditional Tibetan text and chanted mantras. This was presumably for the sake of the goats soul since the worst death a being can have is one filled with fear and suffering. Buddhists believe that a traumatic transition into the next life leads to grim conditions for future rebirths. For this reason Buddhists will often ransom livestock at such temples to ensure their reprieve. Our particular goat was not so lucky.

As the girls light their lamps, one man takes the goat by the head another clutches its hoofs and pulls its body taught. The man with the blade then unceremoniously cuts the head clear off. The body is then lade on the stone floor to bleed and shake spasmodically as blood is collected and pored across the alter of the goddess, appeasing her thirst. The goats head is set upright and burnt offerings placed on its crown. Then business returns to usual. Mops are brought and the pools of blood are channeled into drains that run out to the river. An elderly woman walks up t the goddess and wipes her clean. The goat's carcass is taken to the adjacent butcher and presumably the meat returned to the family who made the offering. So the goddess is fed and the family as well and I can reflect on the merits of vegetarianism.

Devotion, etc. (Part II)

2010-07-04T05:54:00.000-07:00

The White Gompa is where Rangjung Yeshe Institute for Language and Buddhist studies is located and the following is interpreted from a talk Chokyi Nyima gave there on June 26^th. I decided to post the highlights of this talk as a matter of potential interest for those of you curious about or affiliated with the Buddhist community.

The talk referenced the work of Atisha (982-1054), a legendary philosopher of Northern India who traveled across Asia and wrote numerous treatises on Buddhist practice. Atisha was the abbot of Vikramashila Monastic College and is considered significantly responsible for initiating the Buddhist revival of Tibet in the eleventh century. Atisha wrote eight points on the fundamentals of the Buddha’s teaching and the following is a brief explanation of those points as taught by Chokyi Nyima.

A Buddhist, by Rinpoche's definition, is a person who first, contemplates unceasingly the impermanence of all relative existence and the inevitability of death. Secondly he or she, “Continually looks at their own mind with the desire to become more giving, calm, loving, compassionate, and wise. That is a practitioner.” Atisha/Nyima summarizes the fundamental points to be considered by such a practitioner as follows:

1) The pinnacle of learning is the realization of selflessness. This is a foundational Buddhist teaching, the absence of any inherent self-existence to any and all phenomena, from the smallest atom to the most complicated multi-cellular organism. Sentient beings are said to traverse the realms of samsara (perpetual birth, decay, and death) eternally, due to a basic ignorance of this reality. Consequently all are bound to an un-satisfactory state of being, characterized by the afflictive emotions anger, craving, and ignorance. These mask the enlightened nature. Seeing through these afflictions and realizing the selflessness of all arisen things is what Atisha calls the pinnacle of learning.

2) The Buddha taught that one should be disciplined in matters of action, speech, and thought. Yet the highest form of discipline is the taming of the mind. Shantideva compares the nature of mind to an enraged elephant that careens here and there, completely beyond control. Taming of the mind then is likened to tethering the elephant, bringing it under control so that one speaks and acts with cognizance.

3) There are three personal qualities. First, the intrinsic qualities or the “trainings of the past.” These are individual, natural gifts that are said to be resultant from positive developments from past lives. The second is “training,” which includes intensive studies and beneficial habits developed over the course of one’s current existence. The third quality is “training in meditation” that also applies to one’s present life but is specific to spiritual developments. However, above and beyond all these qualities, the most prized is the genuine desire to benefit all living beings. This pertains to the Bodhisattva vow in which one vows to place the welfare of all other sentient beings before one’s own.

4) “The body is the retreat hut and the mind is the retreatant.” Practice is not so much a matter of where one is but how one engages the mind. As such, the supreme oral instruction is one that always directs one to looking inward, toward uncovering the true reality of mind.

5) The Buddha’s teachings are often referred to as medicine. Atisha therefore speaks of the ultimate remedy, which, echoing his first point states: Nothing whatever has any inherent existence. Such realization is believed to be a cure for the kleshas, “disruptive emotions.”

6) The supreme form of conduct for Atisha is to act in discord with worldly beings. Buddhism characterizes humans as bound by the eight worldly dharmas: desire for praise, gain, renown, and pleasure; desire to avoid blame, loss, disrepute, and pain. As such Buddhist practitioners should remain aloof to such concerns, should pay attention without distraction, and should not be lazy or careless. In excellent, slightly broken English, Chokyi Nyigma described television, entertainment, and alcohol as forms of distraction. Speaking of alcohol, “People don’t care about taste,” he said, “people want drunk!” He laughed, “I not understand.”

7) The supreme siddhi, “power,” is the lessening of negative emotions. There are many magical powers spoken of in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, such as the ability to levitate, cover immense distances in seconds, manifest physical objects and otherwise control the natural world. It is my person view that Buddhism developed such concepts as a response to popular trends in religion and in order to survive as a religious institution. There is still a self consciousness of this in the fact that the supreme siddhi has nothing to do with magic but is control of one’s own consciousness, a remarkable feat in and of itself.

8) Atisha’s eighth and final point is that the highest sign of accomplishment the dissolution of desire. This again refers to the eight worldly dharmas but is intended to encompass all experience up to and including the desire for higher states of meditative concentration. The sign of accomplishment as a practitioner is effectively to have genuinely renounced all desires. As to what that looks at I will judiciously (or more accurately due to personal ignorance) refrain from comment.

Devotion, etc. (Part I)

2010-07-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

When the monsoon arrives it delivers enough force to reduce an umbrella to a tattered web of cloth and aluminum. The torrential outbursts produce flowing rivers through my favorite Bouda café, Flavors, where I write. Tonight the storm has abated just in time to allow the neighborhood to gather inside a concrete fenced yard. On a building wall people wrestle tack white sheets of plastic. They set up a projector and speakers and presto! Germany vs. Argentina, live from the BBC. Samten and I heckle each other back and forth as I route for Germany and he for Argentina. Almost a month into the trip, language study and the World Cup aside, there is the persistent desire to take in the religious experiences that surround one here, which are varied, vivid, stained with smoke and turmeric paste, and entirely irresistible.
It is possible to differentiate the moments of mundane life in Bouda from the periods of focused devotion, but the lines between the two are hazy and any clear demarcation remains an enigma. It is as likely one will see two housewives bustling round the stupa hashing out the day to day as it is to witness a twenty something Tibetan, his hair slicked with gel, wearing the latest Rolex knockoff with hands palm to palm in prayer, his face etched with devotion.
I have a sort of awkward devotion myself. Enough skepticism in my blood to prevent encompassing humility before any of the myriad sacred edifices. Yesterday after hearing the story of Swayambhu Stupa, which is said to have self arisen from a great lake which filled the Katmandu Valley, a young classmate said, “They don’t really believe that right?”
I looked at him intently and said, “What?! You don’t?” Everybody laughed.

While many of us as members of a post-modern industrial nation smile at such fantastical notions, I find it intriguing and instructive to think about how people order their lives. Somehow the devotion and belief which is directed towards these sacred structures seems more complicated than a matter of simple belief or incredulity. However, in the west we often think in terms of historical realities. If you believe that Jesus walked on water then it means at a certain specified time and place a man named Jesus of Nazareth took a stroll across the Galilee. But here, as in India, time is less static as is the space which occupies the temporal plane. People appear nonchalant about jeweled lakes and magic temples, flying yogis and statues that eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are a matter of fact to the extent that they order the practice of faith, but their lives and myths are not fixed in stone, though they may be carved in granite. These icons shift and change with the needs of people and their stories are as varied as the sands of the Ganga.

Back to spiritual calisthenics. I have made every attempt thus far to immerse myself in Buddhist devotionalism, this week receiving a protection ceremony from Lama Wangdu. Such ceremonies are something many western seekers as well as Tibetans have performed regularly by the old rolly polly, Tantric Chӧd master. Then, aside from accidentally trespassing through a Hindu sanctum, I have had the opportunity to attend two weekly talks by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, the abbot of the White Gompa, before he left for Europe and the States.

The temple, where the talks were held, is a rectangular structure with benches running lengthwise where monks sit to perform puja (ritual acts of offering) and meditation. At the head of the temple behind where the Rinpoche sits, three fifteen foot high golden statues are stationed behind panes of glass. The central figure is Shakyamuni Buddha (the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama); to his right is Padmasambhava, the Indian Tantrika of the eighth century who Tibetans considered the progenitor of Buddhism in Tibet. Padmasambhava is depicted with piercing eyes a thin curling mustache (which in any other circumstance would appear comical in the extreme), a skull cup filled with offerings, and the katvanga, a long spear holding various symbolic objects. To the left of these two figures sits Yeshe Tsongyal the consort of Padmasambhava. She was a critical force in the development of Tibetan Buddhism. A proselytizer of the Buddhist teachings and seen by Tibetans as the incarnation of the goddess Vajra Yogini. The 19th century prophetic visionary Jigme Lingpa is said to have had a vision of Tsongyal at our very stupa, just down the road from the monastery.

Rinpoche’s talk follows in the next blog…

Patan

2010-06-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

The first explosion of the monsoon has come to Bouda. The streets and alleys have been washed and we have running water more regularly. This will be a brief entry, a conduit for showing you pictures from the beautiful city of Patan, the medieval capitol of Gujarat. First, in other news, the first week of class has begun and I have moved in with my Tibetan family, Samten and Choedon. They escaped from Amdo, the eastern most region of Tibet, and were recently married seven months ago here in Nepal. Choedon works at a local shop and is studying English, so we manage broken conversations regularly. Samten works as a Thangka painter who is quite skilled in his trade and clearly brings in most of the family's income. He and I don't converse much due to the language barrier but Choedon acts on occasion as our translator. They are fascinated and enamored of America and my less than convicted attitude, as to our country's innate virtue and magnificence, does not dissuade their enthusiasm. Much of the time we have brief conversations interspersed with the World Cup, which blares from every flat (with a TV) day and night. Finally, as a matter of complete trivia, Crocs are the official apparel of the Tibetan monks. Enlightenment not guaranteed unfortunately!

Our guide through Patan, south of central Katmandu, was a jovial Nepalese artisan, educated in engineering in the states. He led us through the North of Patan beginning with nearly fifty of us in an narrow street adjacent to the bridge over the Bagmati River where we left our tour buses. The temples, he explains were constructed by the artisan guilds that continue their craft to this day. While India and Nepal are full of the gaudy new cement temples so prevalent in India, the old Newari style remains vital by necessity, Nepal being an active earthquake zone. Temples have been leveled and swiftly recreated throughout history due to the continued flourishing of these artisan guilds. Every temple depicts a montage of ages, a large archway of hammered bronze may have been fitted several hundred years prior to the carved wooden struts supporting the temple roof.

First Days

2010-06-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

4:30 am is what Matt, the young Brit in the room next to mine, calls monk-o’clock. First are the deep rumbling sounds of chanting voices then slow drum beats begin followed by a crescendo of blaring horns and symbols smashing together. I lucked into staying at one of the nicest joints in Boudha outside the high-end budget traveler’s lodges. Tharlam Guest House is swanky for a monastery, with 24/7 hot water and consistent internet access. The guest house is less than a quarter mile walk to the Boudnath Stupa (left) and just around the corner from the Garden Kitchen. The one place in town with truly reliable meat dishes and a good cup of “filtered coffee” (i.e. not Nescafe).

So far my days consist of walking tours around the Katmandu Valley. Day 1 walked across town to Kopan Monastery. Stopped at a nearby tea stall and talked to some of the locals about politics regarding potential fracturing of Nepal into numerous Nepalese states, there is currently anxiety about a Federalist move to split the country and even more concern that such a divide would occur along ethnic lines. We also discussed America and the great king of Nepal who brought the country to new prosperity two hundred some years ago. Day 2 walked the Gokarna circuit, which runs through the frantic streets around central Bouda to the town of Gokarna and then through the blessedly tranquil hills overlooking the Katmandu valley. The route climaxes along a bamboo lined track below the Kopan and Pulahari Monasteries and finally returns to the little island of Bouda. Gokarna is home to an old Newari style pagoda temple (above) reverencing Lord Shiva’s incarnation as Mahadeva (lit. Great God). I have come to expect that such temples are never as the guidebook portrays. They generally offend the old Anglo sensibility of “preservation as a virtue” and hold rather to the modo, “all things must pass, decay and generally fester.” Despite this, the architecture is stunning and the metalwork simply brilliant. A yogi sits in an alcove by the temple amidst a jumble of offering bowls, ritual substances and objects. By him stands a bronze lock box suggesting donations in Nepalese and English. An adjacent shrine holds the footprint of Lord Vishnu, embedded in some doubtlessly dramatic decent to earth.

Thanks to India most of the false mystique of Asia has been drained from my imagination. Consequently, Nepal comes through more vividly, a rich mixture of intense devotion, mild fatalism, unabashed capitalist tendencies, relentless pre-monsoon heat, and a maze of cultural diversity. Yesterday (Tuesday, June 15^th), I met a group of fellow students who will attend Rangjung Yeshe this summer in Sanskrit, Tibetan, or Buddhist Studies. We walked out to Pashupatinath, a vast Shaivite temple complex on the banks of the Bagmati river (above). Chris, our guidebook, took us along a side route that among other things avoids the 500 rupee entrance fee. Our first stop, a magnificent three foot orange shiva lingam. These protruding rocks are occasionally painted (as in this case) with vivid colors and graphitied with Sanskrit characters. The lingam represents the power and virility of Lord Shiva and is worshiped as the tangible manifestation of the Godhead. In this small section of the complex, isolated from the larger structures that run along the Bagmati, a kind faced priest officiates, walking here and there amongst visiting devotees with a constant gentle smile radiating from his taut, narrow face.

We meander our way down to the main complex past a deer park enclosure, along the centuries old stone steps to the river. Sadhus (Hindu renunciates or spiritual entrepreneurs in some cases) recline against small shrines, “Hello! Photo!” they call out. Sadhu photos generally run 100+ rupees. We pause by the bridge running across to the large, Hindus only, pagoda temple. To the east, burning ghats (below center) stand above the Bagmati. These ghats are the classic disposal method of the Hindus of India and apparently Nepal as well. Large piles of timber are stacked carefully on top of the square stone platform. The body is laid on the timber and a tepee shaped bundle of dry hay is placed over the corpse. At the time of our arrival a cremation was nearly concluding, a pile of smoldering ash all that was left. From the mourner’s balcony an elderly man gazed down fixedly, though too far away to disclose any emotion. Beside the ghat a man with a ten foot long steel pole beat the remaining ash and a young boy enthusiastically bundled water from the green Bagmati and hurled bucket loads across the steaming stone. Just up the banks of the river stands the hospice, alleviating any doubts for its guests of what the future holds.

Malinowski classified societies between two poles, those who seek through funerary rights to preserve the corporeal form and those who desire its annihilation. Psychologically, Malinowski believed we produce elaborate funeral rituals and corresponding belief structures (specifically those of immortality) to counteract our deep seated fear of death and an insatiable desire for life. Despite witnessing just the tail end of the cremation process, the nonchalance and general resignation, the lack of pomp and ceremony seems to suggest more complexity than obliteration, fear and trembling.

Moving on from this bit of tangential self-indulgence. We walked from the ghats up to the supposed caves of the great Buddhist Saints Naropa and his Teacher Tilopa. Monkeys cannonball off the stonework structures along the Bagmati and the stench of the river rises to the nostrils. We’re at the end of the dry season with the monsoon rains just about to set in to wash the ash and filth from the beleaguered river. Two gaudy painted caves surrounded by ragged sadhus signified arrival at the site of holy pilgrimage. By a raught iron gate barring Tilopa’s cave stands a militant looking sadhu, dreadlocks stretched round his shoulders in a dingy brown shirt and camouflage pants. As I take a picture of the brilliant orange cave he stairs at me exuding a emotion halfway between disgust and fascination. I can’t help wonder, would it mean something to him if I asked to take his picture rather than clicking a shot of this misplaced cave. Perhaps the whole dynamic strikes us both with simultaneous revulsion and curiosity. Below us in the Bagmati a half naked renunciate pounds his shirt on a river rock spreading thin white veins of soap into the dark green water.

Non-Dualism in Old Town Harappa

2010-06-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

There is a backwoods Buddhist legend about the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. On a visit to India he went on a walking tour of the streets of Delhi. His entourage was an eclectic band of monks and disciples. At some point in this expedition the Karmapa asked to borrow a bowl from a monk. Taking the offering bowl in his hand he proceeded to bend down and reach into a storm drain. There he retrieved a healthy portion of fouled water. The Karmapa held this out to his disciples and said, “Whoever would drink from this bowl, drinks the nectar of my enlightenment.”

This morning, at the end of semester, I am sitting at our dining room table with fresh black coffee and a warm homemade apricot pastry. The pastry is flawless, a

delicate butter crust rolled in cane sugar that has perfectly caramelized under a custard topping made from raw vanilla bean. On the very top sits half of a freshly poached apricot. The whole thing looks like a fried egg sunny side up, but as sweet and buttery as baklava with enough tart to entice the palate. This is the world I love to live in, creature comfort surrounded by thoughts and language and occasional rock-climbing. A dualistic world. A world that has clearly defined the sacred and profane. This is not the world the Karmapa pointed at. That is a world I have not clearly known, beyond the point of exoticness, at arms length.

It was our second day in Mandi, an ancient city of the long deceased Harappan Empire in Northern India. Four hours by car south of Dharamsala. We went to the ATM early that morning to get rupees for our taxi to Rewalsar and the return trip up the Kangra Valley to Bir. Down a side street, groups of venders were setting up. Phosphorescent diesel trucks out of the 1940s and 50s had arrived with shipments of produce and were unloading bushels of radishes, onions, potatoes, and peppers. We walked across Indira Gandhi Square to the little alcove with the ubiquitous blue and white sign, glowing with the proclamation ‘State Bank of India.’ Allie, stepped into the small security booth and pulled the thin glass door shut behind her. I waited outside and listened to sounds of rickshaws down the alleys and watched the crowds of young men as they began to form around the square. One nearby cadre kept their eyes keenly on us, analyzing our gestures, posture, trying to divine our patterns of speech. All in the same manner we would watch them but without our mannerly and awkward self-consciousness.

Distracted, my eyes fall on a storm drain a few feet away. Its grate sunk deep into the cracked cement, surrounded by dust, old newspaper, and snack food wrappings, I peered down into the recess. The water was a sickly grey and brown, a cross between wet mud and rotting flesh. Indistinct bulbous chunks protruded from the thick muck, which really could no longer be classified as ‘water.’ I immediately saw the Karmapa, a worn offering bowl in his outstretched hand. “This is amrita!” he exclaimed, “the nectar of my enlightenment. Who will drink it?” My stomach made summersaults. I tried to imagine what it would be to drink this substance below my feet. My mind would have none of it. The interior defense of separation that lives inside all of us, that sets our boundaries, firmly proclaimed, “this is the point you do not go to.” But then that is the point of Tantric Buddhism, to collapse boundaries. Looking through that storm drain I thought, if one had the capacity to disrupt the part of the self that qualifies and distinguishes all the instances of experience into good (an irresistible pastry), bad (septic water), or inconsequential (blogs), what kind of person would that be?

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

2010-05-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

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.

The Destination (FYI)

2010-04-29T04:12:00.000-07:00

From Rangjung Yeshe's Website:

Rangjung Yeshe Institute provides people from diverse cultural backgrounds with an environment for cultivating and disseminating Buddhist knowledge through teaching, translation, practice, research, and publication. Founded by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche as an institution of learning for those wishing to deepen their understanding of Buddhist philosophy and practice, the Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI) has conducted seminars and study programs in Nepal for more than twenty-five years.