Walking around blue mountains in Drigung...
In a scene from the movie
Himalaya (a beautiful movie about salt-traders in Tibet trekking over the Himalayas to sell their salt in exchange for much needed grain to last the winter - watch it if you have not yet) Pasang was told by his grandfather that the definition of 'pilgrims' is 'religious people who walk.' Everywhere in Tibet, everyone is, by that definition, a pilgrim. Lhasa has three main circuits (Tib.
kor) walked daily, hourly by countless residents, out-of-towners, Pomeranians, tourists, school-kids, mothers, Chihuahuas, little lambs, grandfathers and grand-lamas.
These three concentric circles have the Jowo Shakyamuni image in the Jokhang Chapel as the center. Thus, the
nangkor or inner-circuit around the main shrine of the Jokhang Chapel, the
barkor, the intermediate-circuit around and outside the Jokhang Chapel filled with shops and stalls, galleries and restaurants making available all kinds of all things to all walkers and prostraters ('religious people who walk-n-prostrate)
and finally the
lingkor which goes around the entire older part of Lhasa - circumambulating important sites such as the Jokhang Chapel and Potala Palace, and the holy-hills of Chakpori, Barmari and Marpori. And of course, around every chapel, shrine, monastery, tree, mountain and river is a circuit to walk around.
Of course, we could say that we are all pilgrims - just 'religious' (ok, read: 'spiritual' if you like that word more or have an aversion for that 'r' word) in a different way, and perhaps walking in a different way. But this literal act of walking is more obvious here in Tibet than say in NATO-, G8-member, "most-powerful-nation," "bastion-of-freedom" (especially suburbia) America or for that matter in "developing-nation," ASEAN-member, non-aligned nation of Malaysia. Pilgrims walk from Eastern Tibet to Central Tibet - several months if
just walking, several years if walking and prostrating (literally, measuring/covering the entire distance with one's body). From Central Tibet, these pilgrims often go on to Mt. Kailash (Tib. Gang Rinpoche) in Western Tibet - another 2000 kilometers or so. Measuring with one's entire body can easily take seven years, one-way. Monks and nuns measure this way. Mothers and fathers measure this way too while toddlers not too infrequently measure with their tiny paces.
"We learn a place and how to visualize spatial relationships, as children, on foot and with imagination. Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities. A 'mile' was originally a Roman measure of a thousand paces. Automobile and airplane travel teaches us little that we can easily translate into a perception of space. To know that it takes six months to walk across Turtle Island/North America walking steadily but comfortably all day every day is to get some grasp of the distance." Gary Synder in
The Practice of the Wild.
We had a very full day on Thursday - the main
cham day at Drigung-til. Full of faces, full of colors, filling our imaginations, feeding our stomachs. That afternoon, we rode over to Terdrom. Since all the nuns I knew were out (some were in Lhasa while most were actually at the
cham over at Drigung-til), we did not stay long at Terdrom. I gave the nuns the offerings brought from Drigung-followers in the US and the used eyeglasses I had collected from many kind souls. Both offerings were much appreciated.
I was intent on receiving Guru Rinpoche's blessings at the famed hot-spring at Terdrom although some were not too sure since we were warned that some very well-trained and highly-qualified Western expert sometime ago determined that the hot-spring was "actually" unsanitary - might even carry horrifying diseases!
"In general, then, the way of seeing mountains and waters differs according to the type of being [that sees them]. In seeing water, there are beings who see it as a jeweled necklace. This does not mean, however, that they see a jeweled necklace as water. How, then, do we see what they consider water? Their jeweled necklace is what we see as water. Some see water as miraculous flowers, though it does not follow that they use flowers as water. Hungry ghosts see water as raging flames or as pus and blood. Dragons and fish see it as a palace or a tower, or as the seven treasures or the mani gem. [Others] see it as woods and walls, or as the dharma nature of immaculate liberation, or as the true human body, or as the physical form and mental nature. Humans see these as water. And these [different ways of seeing] are the conditions under which [water] is killed or given life." Dogen in
Mountains and Waters Sutra.
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Of course it is unsanitary. Of course it is Guru Rinpoche's blessings. I dipped myself in the warmth of the spring as I muttered under my breath the
Dusum Sangye prayer: "Guru Rinpoche, Buddha of the three times, Lord of All Accomplishments who is the one of Great Bliss, Dispeller of All Obstacles, Wrathful Tamer of Demons. I supplicate you; please grant your blessings. Grant your blessings that outer, inner and secret obstacles be pacified, that my intentions be spontaneously accomplished."
We were exhausted (and refreshed) for sure when we got back to the campsite but I needed to walk the mountain-ridge I walked last year with April, Rachel, and Joe (Ryan - were you there?). And surprisingly a few others felt the urge and answered the call. So after an earlier dinner, Bill B., Eliza, Heila, Alyk and I left camp and walked towards the self-arisen (Tib.
rangjung), sand-sculpture of Shakyamuni.
Our walking of this particular 'blue mountain' started there. It was an easy but exhilarating hike, a 40-minute walk, an ascent of perhaps a thousand feet. We reached the top before dark. Hermitages, chapels and assembly-halls of Drigung-til can be seen to the left and our blue tents down in the valley dotted the earth next to the river. I was told later that this mountain-top was another of many in the area blessed by Kyobpa Rinpoche (founder of Drigung-til in 1179). The dwarfed rhododendron bushes growing here were especially blessed. When we finally got back to camp, dusk was in the air.
We rode the bus whenever we needed to get from place to place. But I did try to have us walk as much as we could handle, and sometimes more. The morning before we left Drigung, we walked the
lingkor of Drigung-til, the circumambulation route that started in front of the main assembly-hall, circling up to the sky-burial charnel ground above the main monastery complex and finally coming back to the front of the assembly-hall. Took us maybe more than an hour. Along the
lingkor some of us even ran!
This is a short but uphill stretch after passing the sky-burial site. According to traditions, if one could run that distance with one-breath, then one would be able to repay the kindness of one's parents. We later walked the circumambulation path around Tashi Dor at Namtso. And daily in Lhasa, we walked the Barkor. We walked the several fleet of stairs in the Kyichu Hotel - a task that most of us noticed to be more difficult than the other walks - be it Drigung
lingkor, the Barkor, or the
lingkor around Tashi Dor. Maybe the stairs at Kyichu felt mundane, insignificant. Maybe not sacred enough or romantic enough...
"Dogen is not concerned with 'sacred mountains' - or pilgrimages, or spirit allies, or wilderness of some special quality. His mountains and streams are the processes of this earth, all of existence, process, essence, action, absence.... They are what we are, we are what they are. For those who see directly into essential nature, the idea of the sacred is a delusion and an obstruction: it diverts us from seeing what is before our eyes: plain thusness.... This,
thusness, is the nature of the nature of the nature.... So the blue mountains walk to the kitchen and back to the shop, to the desk and to the stove. We sit on the park bench and let the rain drench us. The blue mountains walk out to put another coin in the parking meter,and go on down to the 7-Eleven. The blue mountains march out to the sea, shoulder the sky for a while, and slip back into the waters." - Gary Snyder.
I learned sometime back that Tibet, the "Roof of the World" was once an ocean. It must have walked a long, long way up. Perhaps the stairs in the Kyichu is a
lingkor. I'll work on seeing that
thusness.
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