I was in Lhasa on Tibet Uprising Day

Immediately after I got home from a trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet, I turned on my computer, typed up the following eyewitness account, and sent it to the International Campaign for Tibet and various news media. I ultimately also sent it to the president of China and to Amnesty International, and perhaps a few other organizations. The Olympics in China are coming up, and currently the International Campaign for Tibet's website has a letter that you can send to Bush, because he's going to visit Beijing. (I could make a snide remark about how I'm sure someone who's literate will read the letter to him, but I'll refrain.)

Today is March 10, 2008, and I am writing by the light from a hotel room window, since the power is out, as it has been all afternoon, evening, and night. I have spent a week in Tibet, and this is the only day that there has been a power outage, quite unlike Kathmandu, Nepal, where power outages happen at least once a day and last for hours. I suspect that the authorities deliberately turned the electricity off in at least part of Lhasa, just because today is Tibet Uprising Day, when protests against the Chinese occupation are most likely to occur. On this day in 1959, the current Dalai Lama sneaked out of his summer palace, the Norbulingka, and began a long journey to exile in India; two days later, the Chinese bombed the palace and still thought he was inside.

This morning as I equanimously lived in the present moment, practicing my walking meditation around the Potala, the Dalai Lama’s palace which is perched high on a mountain. I occasionally spun big gold prayer wheels set in wooden frames while I observed the pilgrims around me, some of whom greeted me with the words, “Tashe delek,” or “Hello!” I didn’t think much about the fact that today was Tibet Uprising Day. I was the only Westerner in sight, but I wore a Tibetan-style chupa, or dress, like so many of the pilgrims. Some of them wore contemporary clothes, and I saw many women wearing sunhats, but other pilgrims who had traveled far away wore traditional clothing that was often somewhat ragged, and they carried prayer wheels and often had coral and turquoise beads braided in their black or grey hair. I could see different styles of chupas from different Tibetan regions, for pilgrims walked great distances to reach Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. During one of my perambulations, when I reached the back wall below the Potala, I was startled by the sight of a white police vehicle something like an extra large golf cart filled with six cops in formal uniforms as if they had dressed up to join a parade.
I walked around the palace only once before I crossed the street and stood in the center of the drab concrete-paved square, where I took a dead center picture of the Potala, a beautiful sprawling red and white building with flat roofs and Buddhist banners; at the very top, there are ornate pointed gold roofs over the tombs of the Dalai Lamas. Most of the present palace dates to the seventeenth century, and it is all in traditional Tibetan style, with walls slanting inward and with black-framed glass-less windows. The building is thirteen stories high, and earlier on my vacation I had enjoyed a tour and climbed many stairs. I had stood in the courtyard, looked up at the Dalai Lama’s look-out window, and imagined a much younger Fourteenth Dalai Lama looking down upon the courtyard, as he had before he went into exile in India.

Strangely, after my camera snapped a picture of the Potala, a cop seemed to yell at me from some distance, but I didn’t understand what he said. I looked at him for a moment, but he stood perfectly still in the square, so I shrugged, turned around, and took another picture of the Potala, to see what he would do. He didn’t do anything. Since I wore Tibetan clothing, perhaps he had at first mistaken me for a Tibetan. I soon crossed the street and happily circumambulated the Potala three more times. I remained equanimous even when I reached the left side of the building and megaphones blared out music from a shop and advertisements from a cart full of merchandise. I did not feel annoyed when I was at the back of the Potala and could hear pop music blaring from the park that includes the Naga Temple. Under the circumstances, I would have preferred to listen to Tibetan Buddhist monks or nuns chanting.

I was ready to head out toward the Jokhang Temple, when I noticed numerous blue uniforms standing around the street corner, so I jaywalked and moved on. I headed for the vicinity of the Barkhor, an alley or path that circles the Jokhang Temple, the most significant Buddhist temple in Tibet. I had lunch at a café near the temple and went to my hotel room to write in my journal and take a nap.

Around 4:30, I returned to the Barkhor and began a walking meditation around the Jokhang Temple. I was in basically the same mental state I had experienced while circumambulating the Potala. So much walking meditation, perhaps combined with the thin air, is enough to put me in a calm, content, and peaceful mood. In the past week, I’ve walked around the Jokhang and stood on its roof, and this was the first time I noticed police standing around the Barkhor, the paved and crowded circumambulation route for the Jokhang, where pilgrims from all over Tibet walk around and around, much as they do around the Potala. Espying the police reminded me what day it was, but I remained equanimous and continued my walking meditation while out of curiosity keeping an eye out for cops.

Some of the police wore navy blue uniforms: badges, caps, and all, like airline pilots. At first, those were the only police I noticed. I decided to circumambulate six times rather than only three. Next time around, I noticed not only several uniforms but also cops wearing navy blue, with navy blue windbreakers. Both kinds of police either stood around watching the steadily moving crowd or sat on stools or benches around the Barkhor. After that, I started noticing what I suspected were undercover cops, and one of them said, “Hello!” to me like anyone else. I am so sick of that word, which almost every Tibetan apparently knows, but I smiled faintly and said, “Hi.” I only saw three other Westerners the whole time I was circumambulating, and they all looked to be cheerfully shopping.

When I had walked around six times, I was about to depart through the large paved square in front of the Jokhang, when a police siren jolted me out of my walking meditation. A small police van drove onto the square, which is normally reserved only for pedestrians. Like many others, I stopped to gawk, as I noticed two white cop cars and a huge crowd of police in navy blue uniforms standing, many of them forming a wall facing the temple. Brimming with curiosity, I joined the growing crowd, in which I was the only Westerner. This would have been a great time to be fluent in Tibetan, so that I could have understood what people around me said. To the right was a white vehicle and a large number of people gathered; many blocked my view, but it looked like most of that crowd was young, perhaps teenagers, and they were just standing around staring. In front of them stood cops in full uniform.

My first thought was that a political demonstration had begun, even though I had assumed that nobody would demonstrate unless they were suicidal. But as I observed the crowd of cops in the center, most of whom from what I could see formed a line, I thought maybe they were attempting to incite the crowd to riot so that they would have an excuse to get ugly with the crowd. Finally, I came to the much more likely conclusion that this was all a power-tripping display. Nonetheless, putting on this display is just the thing that could encourage Tibetans who believe in freedom and who are loyal to the Dalai Lama to put on a political and hopefully nonviolent protest.

Twice while I was part of this gawking crowd, a cop approached the cluster of people around me and yelled something while holding up his arms as if to push the people in front, and the crowd started to back away and disperse, but other people walked up and took the place of those who walked away. I finally decided that standing around and gawking like this was silly, so I turned away and continued circumambulating the temple and observing the police.

I have to admit that at this stage I was feeling rather less equanimous and was more interested in observing the police than in mindfully walking. Cops still stood or sat here and there around the Barkhor. Walking around the left front side of the Jokhang, I saw a cop standing on a wooden bench and holding onto the roof of a merchant’s booth. Eventually I heard a siren again, but this time I was not in front of the temple but rather surrounded by booths and shops behind the temple. A white police van with a blaring siren moved toward the crowd, counterclockwise, same as the golf cart-like vehicle I had seen while circumambulating the Potala. I have no doubt that this is deliberate, since Buddhists traditionally circumambulate temples clockwise. The crowd stepped out of the way of the police van and gawked. I kept looking back at the van, and it turned around behind me. This senseless driving around with a siren when there was no emergency struck me as ridiculous, and again the phrase “power-tripping display” came to my mind.

On another round, I saw a couple of young monks and maybe two other people standing in front of a wide and colorfully painted gateway, like the driveways to hotel courtyards in Lhasa. I stopped next to the monks and was quite astonished at what I saw. On the other side of the gateway, two white vehicles were parked with their right sides facing the entrance. A couple of little kids in pale blue school uniforms stood in front of the headlights, and next to them stood a military officer in a green uniform. Facing the children and the officer were at least four rows of green-clad soldiers, all squatting close to the ground, as if frozen in that position, and wearing helmets like motorcycle helmets but apparently used for riot gear. This was too bizarre! Nobody was rioting, and I had yet to even see a single protester. After gawking with my mouth hanging open, I looked up in search of a sign over the gateway and soon spotted a little square one overhead. It said “Police Station” in three languages.

I circumambulated a total of twelve times, not stopping till it was about seven in the evening and merchants had begun to take down their merchandise from the booths. I truly did not expect a demonstration to take place and therefore decided I had seen enough. I assumed that the rest of the evening would look much the same: the police and soldiers would continue their power-tripping nonsense, while the crowd would merely gawk and keep walking rather than protest or riot.

2
Today is the day after Tibet Uprising Day, and I have returned to Kathmandu, where the power is of course out; if the power were more reliable, I would go to the Cybercafé, type up my eyewitness account, and e-mail it to the International Campaign for Tibet and anyone else. Under the circumstances, I shall have to wait a few days, till I have returned to the United States.

In the morning, I was in the jeep with the driver and my tour guide on the way to the airport. Along the main drag, Beijing Road, we saw many green military trucks and green-clad soldiers, some still wearing riot gear helmets. The guide told me that monks at Drepung Monastery (which we had wandered around earlier in the week) fought with the military, and laymen joined in. The same thing happened at the Jokhang, perhaps only shortly after I left the Barkhor. I said, “I left the Jokhang around seven.” My guide also said that Drepung is now closed to tourists. On the outskirts of Lhasa, a military convoy was coming out of a base and we passed some of the vehicles; I counted at least nine trucks.

At the airport, a friendly guy in a uniform was stamping my passport and asked, “Was this your first visit to China?” I found the question startling, since I wasn’t in China, but I didn’t see any point in arguing and replied in the affirmative. He then asked, “Did you enjoy your first visit to China?”

I said, “Yes, it’s gorgeous! Maybe next time I’ll learn the language first.” I felt slightly ashamed of not arguing, of not righteously correcting him by pointing out that I haven’t visited China yet. But I do not like confrontation and did not know how to articulate such words. I had to be content with writing my eyewitness account and sending it to the media and to such organizations as the International Campaign for Tibet. It was a small bit of activism, but it was much more useful than arguing at the airport.

More on the Grand Day Out in California

Last night we went to Val's insight meditation center, and we had a 45 minute sitting followed by the dharma talk from the above-mentioned Sri Lankan monk. He wore brown robes instead of orange, but he had a charming smile. And his voice reminded me of Mukesh--people from Sri Lanka, surprise, talk like people from India. I'm sure the language is very very similar. Anyway, he told us stories about the Buddha that I wasn't familiar with, like the one about a monk who decided to go ask for alms in the evening because that's when people take the time to make rich food. The Buddha didn't argue with him, even though this was against their vows, and when the monk got a bowl full of rich food, someone dumped dirty dish water on him, and some of the water got in the food and ruined it. The visiting monk also talked about his childhood and his dysfunctional family, during a question and answer session, since someone asked about behaving compassionately with her teenage kid. And after all this, we each went up to the monk and he tied a multicolored blessed three jewels ribbon around our right wrist. He had knotted the string by hand, rather like a crochet chain. It reminded me of Sarnath.

Oh, yes, also Val introduced me to a couple people who went on Shantum's pilgrimage previously. And they knew some of the people who I met on the Dharamsala trip--in particular Paula and Richard, Manny, and Kathy. It was one of those "it's a small world" moments. And of course Val and I talked about the pilgrimage and India quite a bit. She and her husband and the couple I met at the meditation center are all going trekking in Bhutan and Nepal, and it turns out that in Kathmandu they'll be staying at the Vaishali Hotel, the one where I stayed.

Greetings from California!

I'm visiting Val right now, in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA. She took me on a tour of a Tibetan monastic community called the Medicine Buddha, which was pretty much out in the woods (like redwoods), with winding paths and prayer wheels and a temple with a big gold Buddha and murals telling the life of the Buddha and children rehearsing for a play. And there are seven special places where there's a wooden sign in front of a bench, and the sign has dharma quotes from a book by the Dalai Lama called Lojong something something. There was also a little pond containing timid little coi.

Then we stopped at a little cafe and got snacks and beverages and took them to the beach, where the water was very blue with white waves along the sand, and we were actually on a cliff overlooking all this, and there was a concrete ship rotting away in view of us, just off a pier. Not a safe place to climb on anymore, rather like a condemned building. I rather enjoyed seeing seagulls and watching doggies playing in the waves.

We went to an idyllic place that's actually a nursery, and it's called the Bamboo Forest (I kept thinking the Bamboo Grove, because that's a place we visited in India, an early monastery of the Buddha's). It had a shop where you can buy bamboo mats and pottery and bamboo fences. There were also paths into the bamboo woods, with a wide range of bamboo--I had no idea it came in so many thicknesses and colors. There was a pond with a waterfall and a gazebo, and in the pond grew what looked remarkably like lotuses. They may have been water lilies, but they sure looked like the lotuses we saw in India.

Tonight I'm going with Val to her sangha, Vipassana Santa CruBhante Seelagawessi who's from Sri Lanka. This is so exciting!

Tomorrow I'll be driving to the Los Angeles area and visiting my cousin Teddi, before I head for Phoenix the next day.

Last Morning in Kathmandu

It’s a bit after 10 am, and Naresh called me from the lobby to say that the flight has been delayed one and a half hours. Maybe I should run over to the Internet café and send a message about the delay, although I’ve already checked out and my luggage is at the front door. I went ahead and checked out because when he called my room, I figured this time he was an hour early, like yesterday’s driver with the red car. Oh, yeah, it also turned out that his boss sent a message, saying he’s sorry about the dinner engagement. Whew, I’m glad. I said, “It’s OK—I wasn’t crazy about being out after dark. It’s fine with a tour group, but alone it’d be kind of scary.”

Before that, I had a delicious breakfast (except there was no rice, and the fried bread was overdone and crumbled), went back up to my room to brush my teeth, and set out to wander the streets and possibly do last minute shopping. I used up the last of my 1000 Nepalese rupee bills. Shameless. The Horizon Bookshop was still closed, so I went past them. I picked up a Ganesh and Sarasvati at one stand—they were both very very tiny but with lots of detail. I had told the pushy (male, of course) merchant that I was looking for a Bodhisattva statue, particularly Avalokiteshvara, and he insisted in trying to sell me a Shakyamuni Buddha, and I was refusing, when I caught sight of the two little Hindu deities and said I’d like to get them; he still tried to sell me a Buddha also (and I think he was weirded out that I’d be interested in Hindu deities), but I stuck with my choice, despite the pressure to buy something else (something more expensive).

I spotted Barnes and Noble Booksellers—of all places! It was a tiny store that looked very Kathmandu, not very Barnes and Noble; two sides were open to the narrow hectic street, no doubt with roll-up garage doors, and it was a tiny little shop with many piles of English-language coffee table books on a couple of big tables in the center, and with many books and postcards along the walls. I crossed the gutter and went in because this store had the Dalai Lama postcards I was looking for, so I got them and a couple of extras, but then—naughty me—I started browsing in the books, because a coffee table book about Nepal attracted my attention. Next thing you know, I picked out not only the Dalai Lama post cards, but also the book on Nepal and a big coffee table book on Indian embroidery. Naughty, very naughty.

After that, I headed back toward the Vaishali Hotel, turned, and headed back toward the shop where I bought the two Naga statues, because I really wanted an Avalokiteshvara statue, at least for Elaine, if not for me. After being accosted countless times by wallahs and shoe shiners and a little beggar and before this onslaught continued (I swear salespeople in Nepal are truly pushier than in India), I came to the shop, where a smaller Naga was in the place of the large one I got for Elaine. I went inside and saw two Avalokiteshvara statues with a thousand arms and eleven heads each, and they were about the same size as the big Naga. So I got one for Elaine, and one for me. I definitely have done enough shopping and don’t need to do any in Delhi!
Actually, when I get to Delhi, I won’t have time for shopping and just want to relax at the guesthouse. I get the impression that it has good ambiance and I’ll be happy to hang out there. I also have in mind using the last three or four photos in my second disposable camera.
I’ve gone to the cybercafé and sent a message to the guesthouse, and now I’m back to writing in the hotel lobby. It’s about 11 am.

I have little time to dilly dally in Delhi. Actually, I’ll just hang out in the guest house and get some sleep and a shower. I’ll need these things before experiencing many hours of flights and airports.

Incidentally, I had trouble understanding Naresh’s English (that always embarrasses me), and he was a bit…overfriendly, I thought. I realize that when guys in India or Nepal ask, “Are you married?” it doesn’t automatically mean that they’re flirting, but I was still suspicious. Such as when we were leaving the airport and he had his arm draped across the back seat behind me—little things like that. That was his typical way of sitting in the back seat with me, with his arm draped along the back, and I rather wished he’d sit in the front with the driver. In order to get me to look out the window at something, he would tap me on the shoulder; once he reached over and almost touched my hand in my lap, and I quickly moved my hand away. I think that by the time I left Kathmandu the final time, he knew I didn’t like overly familiar behavior. I hope he’s married and has kids, especially since he has my e-mail address.

Later--
Things went comparatively smoothly at the Tribhuven Airport, or whatever it’s called, in Kathmandu. One of the guys working there asked me how long was my stay in Nepal, and I made the mistake of saying, “Two days,” when really I should have said, “Four days.”
“Why so short?” he asked.

“Oh, I was here for a couple more days, before I went to Tibet,” I said, which really didn’t make it any better. That’s like saying I wouldn’t have gone to Kathmandu if I didn’t have to in order to enter Tibet. So much for my diplomacy. Another male employee asked me if I’d been to Nepal before, and I said yes, and he was happy with that and asked if I speak Newali! He probably wasn’t the one who was suspicious of my tubular rolled up thangka.

Sera Monastery

As we rode to the Sera Monastery, which is on the outskirts of Lhasa, Gyantzing told me that it housed five thousand monks before the Chinese invasion, and now it only has eight hundred monks. To me, that still seems like an awfully big number, but at the same time I don’t think it’s appropriate for the colonial government to limit the number of people who want a spiritual and communal life (or at least supposedly spiritual—not all monks are good, and because of the occupation, monks and nuns aren’t allowed to study as deeply as they should, and as they do in Dharamsala). Gyantzing explained that boys have to be at least sixteen years old to become monks now, and the Chinese authorities look at their background first, to make sure they have no relatives in India or relatives who are political protesters. I think that generally boys who become monks when they’re only five years old aren’t old enough to know whether that really is their calling, but on the other hand I’ve read that there’s so much for them to learn that they have to start at such a very early age. The part about the authorities checking potential monks’ backgrounds strikes me as much more oppressive and intrusive than the part about making them wait till they’re sixteen. Strangely, I didn’t think to ask how old girls had to be to become nuns, but I guess it didn’t occur to me because we were at an all-male monastery.

The Chinese destroyed the statue of Padmasambhava in front of Mount Kailash, huge statue, right after it was built. Power tripping much? They did the same with another statue—this is recent stuff if the Chinese government doesn’t approve of a public statue—like they’d approve of something Buddhist anyway!—then they tear it down. As I pointed out, it’s power-tripping politicians. But China’s not the only country that has power-tripping politicians—the USA has a blatantly power-tripping Whiteboyworld ungovernable government.

We were on the road to the monastery, when I spotted yaks for the first time, standing around amid small bare trees that I hesitate to call a forest. The narrow road was lined with merchants who had simple little booths. They didn’t look like they made a good living, with their dingy clothing and unkempt hair. The road leads directly to the monastery, where you buy tickets as though the monastery was an amusement park. That’s how the Chinese treat Buddhism in Tibet.

At the end of this road was the looming whitewashed monastery, such a different world from the Chinese streets of Lhasa. After we got out of the car and Gyantzing got the tickets, we walked up steps at a dramatic slant. I saw whitewashed buildings to my left and to my right.

The first place we visited was the printing press, a room that has traditionally been used as a printing press I’m thinking for centuries. The walls were lined with shelves and shelves full of carved wooden blocks. Some shelves contained modern books in Tibetan but I also saw stacks of the long, slender pages of Tibetan traditional scriptures, not only on shelves but also on the floor.

There were low glass cabinets forming a square in the center of the room, like in a shop. On top of the back glass cabinet were stacked black-printed banners on yellow fabric lying stacked on top of the glass cabinet. Gyantzing explained to me that these are pinned onto a door for good luck, and I decided to purchase a banner for me and another for my brother. The banners I purchased are quite different: the one with Manjushri at the top protects you from illness, and the one that I got for myself is a mandala. At some point while I wandered around this fascinating room, I noticed a couple of monks staring at me. They were doing it the same way as villagers visiting the Potala had stared at me, but it was disconcerting to be stared at by monks.

In more or less the center of the monastery is a shell of a building that was bombed after the Chinese invasion (supposedly during the Cultural Revolution, but in fact the Chinese started bombing Lhasa in 1959). One wall facing the entrance stood, still white stone blocks with black-framed windows, and it was disconcerting to see weeds growing out of the windows. Weirder still was looking through the windows and seeing the sky and the hill slanting upward, instead of seeing the interior of a building with brocade banners and gold Buddha statues. I walked around the corner, and there was very little of the opposite wall or side walls remained. It looked like an ancient ruin, and yet it had been intact before the late nineteen-fifties. It is a great shame that the Chinese won’t even admit that this sort of thing happened before the Cultural Revolution. Liars. Oh, yeah, we can’t let honesty get in the way of ideology.

We took a walk through the main part of Sera Monastery, with a functioning prayer hall and little rooms containing statues of Shakyamuni, Tsongkapa, and the like. After our visits to Ganden Monastery, the Potala, and the Jokhang Temple, the art and décor in Sera Monastery’s temples and shrine rooms seemed redundant, though nonetheless beautiful and stirring. There were a few other tourists, particularly a group of Germans. Most of the tourists in Tibet are Chinese, and this is only March, so the tourist season won’t actually begin for a couple months.

Large red double doors lead into a courtyard surrounded by a whitewashed stone wall. Inside the courtyard are some trees, and when Gyantzing and I entered it, the courtyard was also full of red-clad monks, most of whom looked between the ages of sixteen and forty. They were practicing the traditional Tibetan debating, which to an outsider looks quite comical. They split into twos, and one monk stands before the other and asks a question, stretching out his arms and slapping his palms together. The other answers, and as he finishes his answer, he stretches out his arms and slaps his palms together. This is often done with smiles and laughter. Sometimes one monk questions a group of four monks. After watching this for about half an hour, we wandered into another section of courtyard, where middle-aged monks debated in a much quieter and gentler manner, while sitting cross-legged on the ground. That wasn’t nearly as interesting to watch.

Between three and five in the afternoon, monks entertain tourists at Sera Monastery by practicing their traditional debating (Michael Palin calls it kung fu debating) in the monastery’s courtyard. Before I left on this trip, I read an online report presented by the International Campaign for Tibet; it was specifically for people who were about to be tourists in Tibet, and among other things it explained the monks at Sera Monastery still debate as they had in the past, but now it entertains tourists and the topics of their debates are much simpler than they were before the Chinese invasion. They aren’t allowed to study as much, and they are not allowed to study Tibetan Buddhism with the depth that previous generations studied and practiced. The gurus, the Rimpoches, are in exile and teaching practitioners outside of Tibet, not in it.

We walked slowly up a path that went up, up the mountain. The mountain itself was a light brown color and crumbly with rocks, some of which were quite large. Not much plant life grew high on the mountain; that’s a clue that we’re at a high elevation. Above, I gazed at bright and colorful pictures of bodhisattvas painted on rocks, some of which were very high up. I imagined robed painters climbing up to precarious locations just so they could paint Buddhas and bodhisattvas on mountain rocks.

In the distance is a yellow-painted stone temple that Gyantzing explained is in front of Tsongkapa’s favorite meditation cave. I remembered the small Tibetan temple in front of the Buddha’s austerities cave near Bodh Gaya, India. During Tsongkapa’s time, the meditation cave would have been a simple cave without any ornate temple in front of it.

We climbed up and got closer to huge painted rocks and to a tall skinny empty tower from which a huge thangka is hung on Losar. It was very narrow, with slightly slanting walls and the obligatory black-framed windows, but Gyantzing explained that inside the tower is empty; there’s a staircase but no furniture or artwork. Of course, the building’s sole purpose is to display the giant thangka.

In front of the tower was a plateau, and I stepped near the edge, amid the shrubbery, and standing at this lookout point, I gazed at the distant Potala. One of the enormous, flattish stones next to the tower was covered with several bright Green Taras. We turned to head back toward the lively monastery, and I noticed a woman sitting on the ground and wearing a brimmed hat and colorful striped shawl, and I thought she looked Peruvian.

I’m hearing a yowling tomcat out in the parking lot or some such place, somewhere outside my window. I think I heard him last night, too. He probably smells me and thinks I’m a female cat.

Boudhanath Stupa

In the morning Naresh and the driver first took me to the Boudhanath Stupa, which Samaya had told me is “full of spiritual energy.” It is indeed, although I feel a difference between going to Buddhist temples with Shantum and a sangha I’ve gotten close to and going to temples with a Hindu travel agent who’s just doing his job and doesn’t speak English clearly. There I go, griping again—but overall, I really enjoyed it and sensed the energy that Samaya had mentioned, though I would have preferred live chanting to the recorded New Age-ish “Om mani padme hum” chant that I could hear presumably coming from a merchant’s booth or shop.

After the car stopped, we walked past many tall buildings and many people and under a colorful, elaborate gate reminiscent of the gate to a Shiva temple in India, or of the Chinatown gate in San Francisco. Straight ahead was the Boudhanath Stupa, which is surrounded by shop faces that could have fit in a German or Swiss city, though the merchandise was primarily related to Tibetan Buddhism, such as ritual tools, prayer flags, statues, and thangkas. It was all like a colorful and lively square around the stupa.

The sky was blue at last and the sun was shining! Under this bright blue sky, the stupa’s most noticeable feature, seen from a distance, is the huge whitewashed dome, upon which sits a square structure with big Buddha eyes gazing in all directions, and above that a pointy roof. Colorful Tibetan prayer flags are strung around the stupa. I’ve read that Kathmandu has many Tibetan exiles, and indeed I saw some, particularly women in dark chupas and spinning prayer wheels as they circled the stupa.

While we circumambulated the temple, a young woman in a sari and carrying a baby approached me and begged for milk for her baby. One of the Garys in Dharamsala had talked about a scam artist who begged for milk for a baby in hopes that someone would get the milk at a specific store, so that the beggar could return the milk for money; in other words, this was a scam. What would the beggar use the money for—drugs? I remembered that situation but I also remembered the woman I had given money to in Dharamsala, and so I went ahead and gave this woman a one dollar bill so that she could go buy the child milk. She reluctantly took the money and continued to indicate the grocery store where she wanted me to get her a package of milk, but I kept circumambulating and thought she gave up with me.

We went around the Boudhanath Stupa three times total and came across a staircase leading to the first roof; the higher levels had stairs blocked by potted plants and bilingual signs saying “No entrance.” But before we got up there, I started turning rows of prayer wheels set into rectangular niches in the whitewashed outer wall; the wheels were about six in a row and a gold-black color and some one foot high. Naresh said, “Faster,” and demonstrated a quicker way to spin the wheels and get them really going. I got the hang of it, until I came to larger and heavier prayer wheels and decided against trying to spin them so fast.

At a Hindu shrine that is part of the outside wall of Boudhanath, Naresh stopped to put his palms together and put a red mark on his forehead. He explained that the stupa was for both Buddhists and Hindus. I rather like that, the tolerance and the mixture and all; and Buddhism originally branched off of Hinduism.

Still on the ground level, we stepped through an entrance and saw a mixture of both Buddhist and Hindu shrines. A wall was awash with red paint and ancient-looking carved stone artwork. To the left was a room filled almost entirely with a huge prayer wheel, which I walked around and spun. I stepped back out and looked at a brightly painted wall. We went back through the doorway, and on the outer white walls of the stupa, not only were there many prayer wheels but also very small niches containing little Buddha reliefs. At least one person was going around and painting these little niches, so that before my eyes a little Buddha went from a terra cotta color to pure white.

I liked walking around on what was sort of the roof, where we were on a more or less flat whitewashed surface and circled around, looking at prayer flags and at the steps covered with potted plants and flanked by grand elephant sculptures. I saw a few people prostrating, Tibetan style, on a nearby roof. I saw many pigeons flying or walking around. I saw a mound of red, yellow, white, blue and green prayer flags on top of a little roof to the my left, as I walked slowly and took in my surroundings and continued listening to the recorded chant. The temple is beautiful and peaceful, and I smiled gently as I walked.

Perhaps part of my reluctance to shop comes from shame: the shame of having materialistic values, combined with a general sense of being ashamed of myself, a feeling I usually only have in Kansas. At Boudhanath, I briefly looked at the many little shops around the stupa, where you can buy thangkas, malas, etc, but while I was in a better mood I certainly wasn’t in the mood to shop. I can get Elaine a statue after I get back to Kathmandu from Tibet. I’d also like to get some other gifts—I saw Dalai Lama postcards, a shop that sells Tibetan women’s paper crafts, and countless shops that sell statues, all in the Thamel neighborhood, a short walk from the hotel. I think I could get to like the Thamel neighborhood, though it would have been more fun to travel with Cara, or it would’ve been great if Etiel had decided to come instead of staying in Dharamsala; I hope I didn’t make a bad impression and scare her off. I have a knack for making bad impressions, except on cats.

Amid the many shops surrounding the stupa, we saw a typical Tibetan temple, reminiscent of those I’d seen in Dharamsala, with steps leading up to a rectangular red building with a gold roof.

While Naresh and I headed back to the car, the beggar who had accosted me earlier returned, with her baby (surely that kid was getting heavy), and she again begged me to buy milk at that particular store. She tried to guilt trip me by asking, “Don’t you care if my baby wants milk?” She also tried to give me back the one dollar bill that I had given her earlier, and she claimed, “I don’t want your money” and insisted that she wanted the milk instead. The driver opened the car door for me and I got in quickly, and he closed the door on the woman. This situation was not a stellar moment in my spirituality; I felt very embarrassed and helpless and incompetent, under the circumstances, rather than blissed out from circumambulating the temple. But at least I was mindfully embarrassed, helpless, uncomfortable, and incompetent.

As I told Naresh in the car, “Now I kind of wish I hadn’t given her the money,” and went on to say that I’d totally forgotten that this wasn’t like India, that I was in Nepal and that this country strongly discourages giving money to beggars. It’s all rather frustrating—it’s so tempting to give money to beggars. Naresh said that the beggar woman is from India; I didn’t ask how he could tell and wondered if he was just prejudiced, assuming that since she was begging surely she wasn’t from Nepal.

Swayambhunath

The Swayambhunath Temple is way up on a hill or very small mountain, and guards in uniforms stood under a dark red archway reminiscent of the archways to Hindu temples in India. After Naresh and I passed through the archway, straight in front of me was a round artificial pool, currently empty of water, above the center of which stood a gold Buddha statue. I turned to the right to approach the temple itself, which is extremely elaborate, with if possible more little reliquary stupas than the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya. The small reliquaries are mostly dark old stupas in rows, some with red coloring (probably the kind of powder paint used for the third eye chakra or for throwing on people during the festival of Holi), and some with flower offerings. Here and there beyond these small stupas stand medium-sized whitewashed stupas, like at Boudhanath.

It was sunny while I was at the temples, and my mood was much better than the day before. I felt so much better at these Buddhist temples than in the rainy streets of the Thamel or at the airport. There is indeed spiritual energy at these temples, and I could have put some more effort at tuning into it.

The temple complex contains several buildings, including a festive red, yellow, and gold Tibetan temple decorated with gold Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Some buildings were small rectangular one-story structures that seem simple at a glance, but up close the detail on these buildings is breathtaking. Columns and doors are elaborately carved of wood, and windows are covered with hand carved wooden trelliswork. One little red brick building displayed a wooden door flanked by red snake reliefs, probably representing either Nagas (snake spirits) or the snake that according to myth protected Siddhartha Gautama during a rainstorm. Both Boudhanath and Swayambhunath have countless colorful prayer flags blowing in the breeze; but you generally see prayer flags billowing in Kathmandu. The center of Swayambhunath Temple is a large white dome, the main stupa. We circumambulated it, and I’m tempted to say some devout monkeys did the same.

Near the center of the temple is a Hindu shrine where many visitors prayed and delivered flower offerings and rang a metal bell, and where photography was not permitted. The shrine in question stood to the left of the door to a formidable stone square structure covered with elaborate carvings. I gazed at this structure and peeked into the dark interior through a latticework window.

During my circumambulations, I stepped inside a one-room museum full of stone Buddhist and in some cases Hindu artwork. Statues and plaques lined the walls on simple wooden shelves, and mostly these ancient works of art had paper labels that looked like they had been written a hundred years ago; the English was in old-fashioned script.

Something I found disturbing at Swayambhunath, despite all of the above positive comments, was not the quantity of scruffy stray dogs, but the condition of one of the dogs. I suddenly heard very loud and suffering whimpering and howling coming from a lookout point, a balcony overlooking Kathmandu. I turned to look and watched, to my horror, a large scruffy dirty black dog that was walking very slowly and awkwardly away from the lookout point. It kept howling in agony, and nobody seemed to care. It moved slowly, slowly, toward a downward flight of steps and started getting a little quieter, then loud again as it went down the steps. I wondered whether it had rabies or was wounded, and although I was horrified by its pain, I didn’t want to get anywhere near it. If it had rabies or some other disease, staying away from it was a good idea. I walked well around the dog and headed for the lookout point, where indeed I had a fine view of Kathmandu. I still thought of the dog as its whimpering died down and I felt helpless. The suffering this dog experienced and my inability to help and everyone’s apparent indifference did not sit well with me.

The rather amusing aspect of Swayambhunath Temple is the monkeys, monkeys, and monkeys. They run around freely, climb on the little stupas and the big stupa and the walls and window frames, and you should really be careful not to stand below a monkey while it’s pooping. I was just about to get closer to the big stupa, and thought better of it as I warily eyed a monkey. I encountered families of monkeys while climbing the steps, and that’s the point at which I started taking pictures of them. Near the large stupa is a lotus pedestal of several feet around, on top of which lies an enormous gold dorje or thunderbolt; it was probably about six inches long, lying from side to side, and a large monkey climbed up it and sat in the center. I can never get tired of monkeys. Oh, yes, they’re the pink butt kind, not the black-faced lemurs.

Another disconcerting thing at the temple is all the merchants. They’re right there amid the little stupas, occupying sacred space. Sure, they’re selling Buddhist and Hindu items, mostly statues, incense, and malas, but it seems like an odd spot for shopping and I still was not in the shopping mood. Worse, as you start going back down the stairs to leave, there’s a little café labeled “Fast Food” where you can get packaged food and cold beverages. I went in and got a big bottle of water, despite my apprehensions. Outside the café are a couple of very old and beautiful three-foot-tall black reliquary stupas, like the ones around the large stupa. Propped up in front of one of these stupas was a sign with an arrow saying “Fast Food.” Tacky much?

I wasn’t sure whether I should be appalled or amused, but I took a picture of them—I’m not avoiding the ugly bits completely even with the camera. Perhaps I am being too harsh by judging the “Fast Food” sign as irrelevant; after all, in my house Buddha statues sit in front of fantasy novels on bookcases. I believe in mixing art into everyday life, so who’s to say it isn’t appropriate to mix spiritual things with everyday things? Nepal is like India and London; everything is crowded together in riotous chaos, and it’s best to go with the flow. For that matter, I probably shouldn’t be critical of the merchants around the stupa, either; they need the money.

Naresh led me toward the stairs leading down the mountain. Indeed, from the top of the steep stairs, it didn’t look like a hill anymore but rather a genuine mountain, although I’m sure it’s very short by Himalayan standards. As we headed down the stairs, an orange-clad Theravada monk stood silently, sideways in relation to the steps, and he held a large silver begging bowl. I recalled that people put food in the Buddha’s bowl rather than money, and the only food I had with me was dried candied ginger in a plastic bag. In hindsight, it occurred to me that I really could have put money in his bowl, but by the time that occurred to me, we were far below the monk on the steps.

After the temples, we got back to the hotel, and Naresh told me that my visa, etc, would be ready at five pm. I was happy to hear it, after all the waiting. I wanted to part with him then, but we walked back to his office, Blue Bird Travel, and I still wasn’t entirely sure that I’d be able to find it for myself, so he said that he’d go to the hotel rather than let me get lost looking for his office. He didn’t phrase it that eloquently, but that was the gist of it.

I’m in the hotel restaurant for lunch. I ordered something experimental and, as it turns out, very delicious: dumplings made from vegetables and nuts and in a sauce that is reminiscent of hummus but more watery and hot, and cilantro floats in it. Also, I had two pieces of roti, which I broke up and dipped in the sauce. The server brought me a glass of water, but it was hot water in a little juice glass. I had asked for water because I wanted to conserve my big bottle of water so that it would last till the morning (which it did).

Only two other patrons occupy the restaurant. One speaks fluent British English and the other one isn’t so coherent; the older one with the fluent English does most of the talking and expresses a very anti-polyandry stance and criticism of women who sleep with more than one man, but oddly he doesn’t say anything against polygamy or male promiscuity. Double standard much? He mentioned Elizabeth Taylor saying that she only has sex with men to whom she’s married, and says she slept with a lot of men, but she was also, I might mention, married to a lot of men. At some point in the conversation I heard him say, “You can criticize America,” and I got a sense that he believes promiscuity to be typical of American women but doesn’t care whether or not it’s typical of American men. At least Americans typically only have one partner at a time.

2
After lunch, I briefly attempted to take a nap up in my room, but after fifteen minutes I decided to get up and go to the cyber café while it’s sunny and the electricity is working. Impermanence.
I walked to an Internet café very close to the hotel, and the connection is unbelievably slow. It’s been ten minutes and I haven’t even logged onto AOL…OK, I got logged on and was selecting addresses and was having some trouble getting it to cooperate—I don’t have everyone’s address memorized, of course, and at first typing the first letter was enough, but then that stopped working. And then the screen went blank—the power is out, like yesterday. If it’s anything like yesterday, it won’t be back on for a long time. Soon I was the last person in the café, and I approached the boy who worked there, but he didn’t understand what I meant when I asked how much I owe, and he didn’t want me to pay, which was a relief since I didn’t get anything accomplished.

I wandered the streets of Thamel and tried not to get lost this time. The shops did not put me into a shopping mood, just a gawking mood. I quickly dodged crazy noisy motorcycles that came zooming along; too bad the streets of Thamel don’t have any sidewalks. I wandered the narrow streets for a while—probably not more than half an hour.

It rained lightly and I heard thunder before I went back to the hotel room and made another futile attempt at a nap. The thunder and lack of electricity certainly motivated me to be lazy. That and having a cold and being somewhat discombobulated again. But at least I meditated while lying down. The Buddha said there are four positions for meditation; they include not only sitting but also standing, walking, or lying down. While I lay in bed doing a reclining Buddha meditation, the thunder got loud, and at about four fifty I went down to the lobby to wait for the travel agent and felt bad that I was making him go out in the comparatively heavy rain for my sake. With all the power outages, it’s a good thing the hotel room contained candles and matches. I relaxed in my room with my journal while I listened to the rain pouring down.

Naresh was supposed to meet up with me at five. At five twenty I lost patience and put my bag in my coat, zipped up, put the hood up and tied it, and went out… and met up with Naresh on the street. It turned out that he brought my paperwork with him, so we went back to the hotel and I didn’t have to go back out in the rain again—I stayed in the rest of the evening. As I came through the door, the very young doorboy’s jaw dropped, I guess because I returned so soon after going out, or perhaps because the travel agent was sharing his umbrella with me. Scandalous. From what I understand, sharing an umbrella has a compromising connotation in Japan; maybe Nepal has the same attitude. Anyway, Naresh gave me my tickets, Chinese visa and a photocopy of the visa, my itinerary, and a business-sized envelope containing an itinerary and U. S. dollars for the Tibetan tour guide, whom he explained I’d be meeting at the airport.
I was cheered up since I had all this official stuff settled, and I skipped back up the stairs. I took a shower and lay down and this time did fall asleep, while it was pouring out. When I woke up, it was after 10 pm, and I wrote in my journal for a while. My cold is definitely fading away, which shouldn’t be surprising given how much I’ve rested.

I’m thinking I don’t recommend traveling to Kathmandu by yourself, even though I’m a loner and like to think of myself as a free spirit, I’m really an introverted Virgo personality type who’s mentally unhinged. Of course, since I am a loner it should theoretically be excessively appropriate for me to go places on my own—and really it was no big deal when it was San Francisco or Washington DC—or London, though technically I was with my sister.
My head is spinning like a prayer wheel.

I again went to bed very early; I’ve been doing this ever since the cold set in, and I suspect that the air in Tibet is a lot cleaner and will therefore take away my illness. I rather think the worst is over: I’ve had scarcely any yellow phlegm, and I feel more human than I did yesterday.