Drepung Monastery and the Jokhang Temple

My altitude sickness this time includes not only dizziness but also nausea and headache, but fortunately I took a painkiller.

I had breakfast at the rooftop restaurant, with its breathtaking view, and it was an English breakfast with tea or coffee—no bottled water to be found. I thought I had time to go up to my room, but I couldn’t get the keycard to work. This was rather unfortunate, since I hadn’t remembered to put on sunscreen before leaving the room. Afterwards, I met up with Gyantzing, and the driver took us to Drepung Monastery, the eleventh century monastery we saw while driving yesterday. “Drepung” means “rice heap.”

During the tour, I took a few notes: Sacred items that are important to a Tibetan monastery: Chortens Statues Scriptures Tsongkapa’s monastery—founded in 1416. Power—wisdom—compassion—three statues representing these three things are continually displayed together, because you can’t have one without the others. Yamunthaka—major fierce deity, protector of Yellow Hat Sect (Gelugpa). Karmapa—Black Hat Sect, Tsupu monastery, 70 km west of Lhasa. Panchen Lama = Amitabha, Buddha of the Past. The seventh Dalai Lama built the Norbulingka, the summer palace in Lhasa. Cedrundrop founded Tashilhumpo, the Panchen Lama’s monastery. Baby—deserted when robbers invaded, and he was protected by crows. (The first Dalai Lama, that is.)

At the Drepung Monastery this morning, we visited a typical Tibetan prayer hall or chanting hall, and there was a cheerful monk on a window seat to whom you were to give money if you want to take photos. Up against his side and on his robes was a fluffy brown and cream-colored cat, curled up into a ball. I placed a yuan bill in front of the monk, saw the cat, and said, “Oh, a kitty!” and smiled. Who knows if the monk or the cat understood what I said. I was tempted to pet the cat, but given its close proximity to the monk, I decided against it. It wouldn’t be the first time I nearly petted a Tibetan monk. Um, never mind.

While I was blissed out at the monastery, with the endless blue sky and stony mountains and stunning snow-capped mountains serving as a surreal backdrop, I was aware that there used to be one hundred thousand monks there before the Chinese invaded, that it used to be a much livelier place, with four universities inside it. It still contains a functioning university, but I was struck by how quiet, how almost deserted, the place seemed. The monks there now are all caretakers—they clean the place up, cook food, take money for photography, and refill the metal offering bowls with water or refill the big butter lamps. That is not deep scholarly stuff.

As a woman, I can understand seeing the Tibetan monastic system as power-tripping and elitist, but I nonetheless think it’s important to have scholars and spiritual practitioners who are doing the deep stuff. Of course, I think they should include approximately the same number of women as men. Nonetheless, I see the way the Chinese limit the monastery as also being oppressive, as intolerant of religion or more importantly spirituality. I often saw a monk or some guy whether or not he was wearing red robes, adding large chunks of yellow butter to the enormous butter lamps, two foot wide metal bowls on a pedestal in front of shrines. Or someone, who in some cases looked like a pilgrim rather than a monk, poured liquid butter into the lamp, or a monk lit the row of wicks sticking up out of the uneven butter mess. Just because we were indoors didn’t mean we were in a cozy room; some of the butter was very solid, no matter that flames burned at the top of the wicks. The rancid butter smell was rather less than pleasant; maybe that’s why my nose hasn’t noticed the aroma of unwashed pilgrims.

We climbed many stairs and wandered into many rooms, some—many—of which had amazing sculptures (what you might even call dolls) draped in colorful patchwork brocade capes and often in coral and turquoise jewelry. Some sculptures were instead studded with such jewels. Many of the statues were enormous, some as large or larger than life; some were a couple feet tall, and some very small, such as the cabinets filled with a thousand identical Shakyamuni Buddha statues. There was a lot of repetition in the subjects of the statues: we saw a great many thousand-armed and eleven-headed Avolakiteshvaras; Green Taras and White Taras; and a great many Tsong Kapas (hardly surprising, since he founded this monastery and it’s very much associated with him). Since I’m not from Tibet, Tsong Kapa isn’t that significant to me; I have a greater appreciation for compassionate bodhisattvas such as Avolakiteshvara and Tara. There were at least two sets of arhats, some fierce deities such as a huge Palden Lhamo figure—she’s a protector of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama.

In one prayer hall, alone a wall, were large likenesses of all the Dalai Lamas except the current one, which got us on the topic of the rather suspicious deaths of many Dalai Lamas when they were very young; for instance, the ninth was a little kid. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Dalai Lamas died when they were kids, likely thanks to poisoning.

We probably could have gotten through the tour faster if I didn’t talk so much, believe it or not. I even mentioned Dharamsala sometimes, and Gyantzing said, “That must seem more like Tibet than here,” and I agreed. He was in Dharamsala six years ago, so he’s not brainwashed as I had feared. He’s not squeamish about discussing things that I expected to be taboo, such as the controversy over the current Panchen Lama. I was probably pushing it when he explained the stacks of manuscripts in a glass case and I said that we saw many manuscripts at the exile library in Dharamsala, and as we walked toward a doorway, I said, “And we even met the Prime Minister.” Not exactly a safe topic! There were indeed people around, and I’ve read that even people who look like monks could be spies.

To my surprise, we toured the kitchen. It has a very high ceiling like most of the rooms, but it doesn’t have the colorful murals covering the walls and columns that the prayer halls and other rooms have; the kitchen was all painted a dark brown and was quite dark, although traditional wooden cabinets were painted red and yellow and with a floral pattern. There were gigantic metal pots for feeding large numbers of people, and there were rows and rows of large teapots like the ones the monks carried during the Dalai Lama’s teachings, but these teapots were bigger.

As soon as we entered the kitchen, I heard a cat meowing! There was a grey and white cat walking around, and it was very vocal, friendly, and purred enthusiastically while I petted it. A monk had just cooked little beige potatoes; Gyantzing offered me a couple, and they were very hot and tasty, boiled and salted. The cat may have been hoping to get a potato, too. It had to settle for Gyantzing and I petting it and my taking a couple pictures of it.

Oh yeah, there’s more about the Drepung Monastery that I have to mention! It includes an upper section that was the Dalai Lama’s living quarters—like the second through fourth Dalai Lamas—before the Potala was built. It was much like I believe the Dalai Lama’s rooms look like at the Potala, which I’ll get to visit tomorrow. There was an Audience Chamber, red-painted furniture and a tall throne where the Dalai Lama sat while regular people came in and talked to him or at least bowed to him. There was a very old yellow brocade cape set up on the throne, next to which was a display case; I’m thinking it contained a statue and offerings, but that may have been another similar room. Next door was an audience chamber where the Dalai Lama talked with politicians, and connected to that was a room full of beautiful red-painted, carved furniture: cabinets on the sides, a bench facing the door, a couple of small, low cabinets in front of the bench. The walls of the Audience Chamber or one of the other rooms were painted with murals that told stories.

I was a little surprised at the murals in one small room, a simple room with a staircase leading upstairs. The room contained no furniture and was like a hall that led to the outdoors and that was one of the last places we went. It had not only murals of various figures on a black background, but above that was a border displaying animal and human skins hanging. There were also some skulls painted here and there. It was quite tantric, and quite gruesome. 2 During my lunch break, I wandered down the street and went into the first noodle shop I came to. The young women behind the counter didn’t understand English and so I pointed at a picture of something that looked vegetarian. It turned out to have a small pile of yak meat, ground up, placed on the center top. Gross! I ate the noodles and peanuts and chives around the meat and was careful not to even touch it with my chopsticks, while I more or less read an article in the Buddhist magazine Tricycle but paid more attention to my surroundings than to the magazine.

While I was at this noodle stop, a total of three beggars approached me. Despite Shantum’s talk about not giving to beggars because that’s perpetuating their lifestyle and thereby disempowering them, I gave a small bill to each beggar. I sat in a far corner and simply couldn’t refuse—they walked up to me while I sat in a corner, so it wasn’t like when beggars are on the street and you’re walking past them. I remembered the Jataka tale about the Bodhisattva, a previous life of the Buddha, giving to beggars no matter what and even letting people steal from him. The first beggar in the noodle shop was a filthy little girl, who pressed her palms together and looked at me with big eyes. She had wandered in silently, unaccompanied by any adult. The second beggar was a dirty young woman in a chupa and with a baby on her back. The third beggar was an old woman, also in traditional dress, who walked with a cane and had a circular, lined face. Given the individual circumstances, it seemed appropriate to give money to each of them. It was certainly a firsthand exposure to the feminization of poverty, since they were each female and I might even go so far as to say they were like a Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone, because they covered different stages of our lifespan. Who knows, maybe they were all dakinis in disguise.

From what I’ve read about visiting Tibet, you’re kind of expected to leave food in your bowl so that monks, nuns, or beggars can eat the leftovers (as long as they don’t mind your germs, of which I doubt they’ve ever heard). I thought of that when a couple of nuns showed up. No beggar was waiting for me to finish eating, but I left the bowl half full, with all the yak meat and the noodles and chives directly underneath it.

Kathmandu was gloomy, but there’s something stirring in my soul at sight of the snow-capped mountains and gliding hawks and wind-beaten banners and prayer flags, and the Potala looming so high in the brilliant blue sky full of fluffy white clouds. It’s all so breathtaking and awe-inspiring, and it’s so easy to forget my neurotic troubles.

Today when I cleaned out my passport bag during my lunch break, I found a Kit Kat bar, which I thought was from Jagdish. I later looked at it lying on the nightstand, and I wondered: when am I going to stop looking for a surrogate mother? It is a futile search. I need to nurture myself, to be my own mother.

I think rapid heartbeat—as in high blood pressure—must be one of the symptoms of altitude sickness. Same goes for dehydration, which causes diarrhea. On the other hand, it would be more accurate to say that high blood pressure is a reaction to the high altitude, and the dehydration quite likely comes from the fact that I have to go out and buy bottles of water to drink.

I also have strangely discovered that the same Germans who sat with me on the plane are staying at the Yak Hotel; I met them at breakfast. We also ran into each other again at Drepung Monastery. As one of them said, “The world gets smaller when you’re in Tibet.”

3

After lunch, Gyantzing and I met up again at the hotel lobby, and we walked to the shop that sold bottled water, where I stocked up on four more bottles. (I just can’t get enough water, and I’m still having diarrhea as of seven pm today.)

We then walked to the Jokhang Temple. In front of the temple is a huge expanse of pavement—actually, it’s rectangular slabs of what might be slate rather than ordinary cement blocks—a courtyard ahead of the Jokhang Temple, quite the happening place. Pilgrims circumambulated and prostrated before the Jokhang, and some people were out shopping. You can get both your spiritual and material needs (or wants) in the same place, the Barkhor, the walkway around the Jokhang. I saw people in clothing from different regions of Tibet and a variety of prayer wheels twirling in pilgrim’s hands. There was a stupa-shaped stove where people burned offerings of juniper in the morning, as we had seen when we arrived at the Drepung Monastery early enough to see people pick up the green branches and place them in a stove in front of the monastery.
Inside the Jokhang, I’m thinking that the row of Dalai Lama sculptures (all up to the Thirteenth) that I previously described were at the Jokhang, not Drepung. I also saw many photos of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and at least two were painted. East or West, people sometimes painted photos in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Jokhang’s exterior primarily dates from the seventeenth century, and you have to go inside to see seventh century woodwork, for the Jokhang dates back to when Buddhism was first introduced to Tibet. Originally Buddhism in Tibet involved just the Jokhang Temple and some lay practitioners, but eventually there were seven monks. That is why temples and monasteries often have carvings of seven critters, mainly snow lions, on the façade, running horizontally over the doorways. When we entered the front door, instantly we were surrounded by seventh century woodwork in a narrow corridor—the doors and doorframes were very dark wood, and the walls were painted dark yellow and red. In an alcove were walls with old bodhisattva murals and in front of them were large-as-life papier-mâché figures that replace the originals after the so-called Cultural Revolution. Most of the sculptures were destroyed in the 1950s and 60s.

Inside the big main temple now, there stands an enormous Avalokiteshvara statue in the center facing the entrance, and in front of it are many long red banners, like any Tibetan prayer hall, but unlike at Drepung Monastery, this hall was clearly put to use and alive. Many dark red capes sat in rows on the low red benches, and in the center of the room were musical instruments, such as an enormous drum. On the outer walls were small, bright murals telling stories: in particular, the story of the building of the Jokhang, complete with a stupa in the center. According to this legend, the first Buddhist king threw a ring to indicate where the temple would be built and it landed in the lake. The illustration showed that wooden boards were cut and carried and set up across the lake.

Around the perimeters of the room are display cases full of statues and some documents of the seventeenth century made of that dark wood with reliefs that have been worn down over the years. Some shrine rooms had large dark wooden double doors that are chained and padlocked; they’d be open in the morning, when a big crowd is inside. These are special shrines, labeled over the doorway, and they contain a special theme, such as the Tsongkapa shrine, or the Avalokiteshvara shrine. Each shrine that we entered contains large and elaborate gold Tibetan sculptures wearing brocade.

At some point, I saw a skinny little grey cat walking in the aisle, and it leaped onto the wooden fence or bench that’s around the central prayer hall. Then the cat leaped up on a high Buddha throne. A cat can look at a Buddha. I’m delighted to see cats in Tibet; strangely, in India stray dogs are all over the place, but you rarely see a cat. Maybe that’s because dogs are on average so much more outgoing and needier than cats.

A particularly festive shrine is a big room with a large Avalokiteshvara. It was approximately three or four feet just seated. This Avalokiteshvara was originally a plain sculpture but over time received donations of gold, turquoise, and coral, with the result that elaborate decoration was piled on and it now has an excessively ornate crown of gold, turquoise, and coral, with big hanging earrings and a collar to match. A bodhisattva stepping in style. Even in traditions other than Tibetan, bodhisattvas are often depicted wearing a great deal of jewelry and crowns and flowing silk sashes, showing that they are more worldly than full-blown Buddhas, since they choose to stay in this world in order to help those who are unenlightened. The sculpture also wears a colorful, patchwork or appliquéd brocade robe, like those worn by so many sculptures. Around the sides of the room are tall standing life-size bodhisattvas, of course painted gold with blue hair, and wearing patchwork brocade robes with long silk fringe.

We climbed up on the flat rooftop of the Jokhang and looked out over the crowd that is continually circling around the temple. We had an excellent view of the entire square, so we watched not only pilgrims circumambulating the temple and in some cases spinning prayer wheels, but we also saw the merchandise booths in two long rows on either side of the square, where many people haggled. Also in front of the temple is a little space inside a stone wall containing a very old tombstone-like stone sticking up with a message carved into it. Gyantzing mentioned that it basically says that China will never invade Tibet, and I laughed and commented on the irony. I was a bit surprised that he brought it up.

Gyantzing said, “Many, many people circle around the temple.” Just as he said this I saw a fluffy white little dog on a leash, and I said, “Not to mention the occasional dog.”

We got back down the treacherous ladder-like stairs and parted in front of the Jokhang, where Gyantzing said I’m welcome to circumambulate the temple. I was happy to do so, having read so much about it. I walked slowly and steadily, at the same pace as the pilgrims in front of me. It was a walking meditation, so I was mindful of my steps at the same time that I was gawking at my fascinating surroundings. I was moving like this through a vast crowd, in lanes lined with shops and merchandise stalls.

Some merchants sold mundane things like plastic toys and flashlights, which you could get just about anywhere in the world. Others sold pictures of the Panchen Lama and other religious figures; Tibetan Buddhist statues and ritual tools; coral, silver, and turquoise jewelry; musical instruments for rituals; ordinary clothing such as t-shirts with the message “Yak yak yak Tibet;” and ready-made traditional Tibetan clothing such as elegant black chupas. I noticed a fabric store that contained brocade and thought I might shop there sometime, but right now I just enjoyed the walk.

Of course, I had a lot more to look at than merchandise. Beyond the stalls and salespeople were the tall stone Tibetan buildings with shops on the main floor and perhaps apartments up above. Some of the people in the crowd were red-clad monks, and others were pilgrims who in many cases wore traditional dress, such as rough-looking heavy wool robes. When I reached the front of the Jokhang, its beautiful façade was a welcome sight, and rows of pilgrims dramatically prostrated before it. I only went around twice because halfway round the second time, I noticed that I was dizzy and nauseous again, so I headed back to my hotel room. Unlike in Dharamsala, where the altitude is low compared to Lhasa, I experienced two days of altitude sickness.
I only saw a total of five white people all day, and three of them were the Germans staying at this hotel. While circumambulating the Jokhang, I had just been thinking I was the only non-Asian in the whole crowd, when I briefly noticed a pair of Brits.

10:20 pm—I’ve taken some labels off water bottles as cheap souvenirs; I think it’s sad that the labels are in Chinese, not Tibetan. It’s also sad that this major street is called Beijing Road, the most prominent street in Lhasa, and that it’s lined with Chinese-looking shops. It’s not till you get to this neighborhood, the Old Tibetan Neighborhood (like a historic landmark, something from the past), that the shops all have signs in Tibetan, in addition to Chinese. It’s not unusual to see Tibetan, Chinese, and English—for the shops around the Jokhang in particular, this is standard. It struck me as ironic to see a store that’s called “Ethnic Clothing Shop” when the “ethnic” clothing is Tibetan and is basically what you see many women wearing, in particular chupas and striped aprons.