| I walk the kora, left to right. I turn the
prayer wheels clockwise, one after another. Some turn smoothly,
spinning fast, with a gentle push. Others must be pulled with
force, calling out with squeaky groans, as if begging to be
oiled. I walk the kora, left to right, touch each well worn
wooden handle, each radiating spoke. I watch the turning,
blurring motion, panels of color, red, blue, yellow, white,
violet, green. I walk with Tibetan pilgrims, in front of me,
behind me. They never stop moving their lips, saying their
mantras, rushing past me on a mission, no time to pause and
stare for long, too many circumambulations to complete.
My day's objective: get up, drink tea, eat, walk the
kora. Even if I just circle once, I need to honor, need to
pray. Need to welcome back this place: Xiahe, Labrang Monastery,
Gansu province, a poor and rugged desolate province in northwestern
China. Xiahe is a dusty town in a river valley nestled between
brown barren hills, mounds of dry cracking dirt erupting from
the earth like the rippled feet of elephants.
I stay close to the Tibetan part of town, near the monastery
and the kora, the path that circles its exterior with a steady
stream of pilgrims. The kora is lined with prayer wheels and
stupas, small white temples that represent the cosmology of
the universe. The path is dirt, the sun is bright. I wear
two shirts, one sweater, one fleece, and one down vest but
the cold still cuts to my core. It's late September
and I'm leaving China, this time for who knows how long.
Two days ago I said goodbye to my boyfriend in Chengdu. We
kept each other warm for three years, but now it is time for
me to go. I've been living too long in a city of nine
million, congested with smoke, traffic, angry people. I've
been living too long with no space to breathe in, no nature
to retreat to, no rituals but writing to help me remember
how to pray. Now, I walk alone, as I did when I first arrived
in this country. Some travel for weeks to get here; I took
a fifteen hour train from Chengdu to Lanzhou, and then an
all-day bus. Before I fly back to America, I want to ingest
these mountains again, these monks and nuns, these country
people: Tibetans. This other face of China.
Six years ago I discovered Xiahe on my first trip to this
country. I was twenty-one and wanted to see the place where
my mother was born, wanted to immerse myself in my childhood
language. But what captivated me the most was this Tibetan
land, the grandmothers whose eyes looked straight into my
own, the nomads from distant valleys, the monks in their fuchsia
robes. This culture in which a nun's pursuits are not
viewed as a frivolous departure from life, but as an essential
occupation. I wanted to walk the kora then, I even turned
a few wheels, but I felt too self-conscious. Now, today, I'm
back on this path, this path I have always traveled.
Outside of Lhasa, Xiahe is the leading Tibetan monastery
town, says my Lonely Planet guidebook. At its peak,
4,000 monks studied here, now there are around 1,700. Labrang
is one of six major monasteries of the Gelupka, or yellow
hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. This means little to me except
for the fact that it is the same sect as the Dalai Lama. His
picture is not allowed in temples, but I've seen it in the
homes of monks and villagers. The religious restrictions are
not as strict here as in Lhasa, though Tibetans have told
me that the monastery is still highly monitored by Chinese
authorities. Religious freedom looks good for tourists. See?
We allow the people to turn their prayer wheels, bow to statues,
carry forth their superstitions. The temples are being restored,
the natives are content.
I read that Labrang monastery was built in 1709. Then, like
most temples, it was all but destroyed during the Cultural
Revolution of the late sixties and 1970s. Teachers were killed
or fled to the hills, monks beaten, books burned, treasures
looted. Finally, in the eighties, after Mao had died and the
Cultural Revolution had been denounced a mistake, the slow
work of restoration began. Brick temple walls were resurrected,
painted white or warm terracotta with a strip of dark blue
on top dotted with white circles, and above the blue, a wide
swath of brown. Rows of narrow rectangular windows are also
painted with dark blue trim; above each one hangs a white
rippled cloth awning. New wooden doorways are intricately
carved with dragons, flowers, and Tibetan Buddhist symbols;
other doorways are draped with billowing cloth, bright canary
yellow or simple white adorned with more Buddhist symbols—wheels,
conch shells, fish, lotus blossoms.
But I am not interested in the temples. I've been inside
my share already, sat in darkened corners of musty halls that
smell like burning yak butter, trying to be inconspicuous
as I listen to young whispering monks, some distracted by
my presence. I've cringed when other tourists have entered
the halls in the middle of a prayer session—a Chinese
woman talking loudly to her companion, high heels clicking
behind her, or two gangly Europeans, cameras slung around
their necks, hovering in the shadows. I know I am an outsider
just like them but I cannot help but see their foreignness
from a distance, feel annoyed by their gawking pleasure, their
awe of the "exotic."
I don't want to observe, I want to participate. Today, I
walk the kora. Shadowed under wooden awnings, the prayer wheels
come in rows, one after another. Each one is the size of a
big conga drum, some are shaped like hexagons. Each is painted
with bright colors, symbols, mantras, probably om mani
padme hum, the mantra of compassion. Inside the temples,
the walls are painted with wheels of life, hungry ghosts stuck
in hell, human meat devoured by vultures, gods with gnashing
teeth and necklaces made of skulls. Tibetans are not Zen Buddhists.
Intricate blueprints for the soul, rituals, cosmology, scores
of gods and goddesses—they are interesting to comprehend,
but for me they are distracting. I prefer my Buddhism clean
and simple: awareness of impermanence, compassion for all
beings.
The Buddha taught that life is full of suffering, a truth
that is not hard to grasp. But he went further to explain
how we create and perpetuate our suffering through the mind's
anxious grasping; regret for the past or longing for the future,
we feed our worries and self-doubt with endless loops of fearful
thinking. We live in our mind, cut off from our heart, body,
senses. Stuck in our own particular stories, we are isolated
from each other.
A small alcove appears before me, I step inside the darkened
room. Two wheels frame each side of the entrance and a giant
wheel, perhaps eight feet tall, rests in the middle. A circular
handle runs around its base, one continuous metal grip. I
grab hold and lean my body into the spin, walking, left to
right. With each rotation a bell rings at the top. I wonder
if this is a particularly auspicious prayer wheel, if size
makes a difference. Perhaps there's a particularly powerful
prayer written and rolled on a scroll tucked inside.
I step back out into daylight, cross the dirt road that runs
through town and divides the monastery in half, then continue
to walk the kora on the other side. There are no wheels along
this part, only temple walls and tall wooden doorways. Beneath
my feet, the path is littered with garbage: plastic bags,
wrappers, bits of string. To the north, across the icy river,
a road heads out of town, and behind the road are more barren
hills. Near the base of one hill lies a narrow patch of green,
the only trees for miles it seems—new growth, probably
juniper, which is burned in vats around the temples. Breathing
in, I taste its sweet smoky scent; soothing, like campfire
smoke or incense, forest and church all mixed in one.
I slow to let a trail of pilgrims pass. I try not stare too
hard, but nor do I look away. An old woman walks in a green
knit cap and a long black chuba, a thick traditional
Tibetan robe; two young men in dirty sports coats and baseball
caps saunter by; a young woman, her neck loaded with chunks
of turquoise, coral and amber, pulls the hand of a child behind
her. They walk faster than I do, speed past holding strands
of prayer beads, their dry cracked lips mouthing om mani
padme hum as they rub each one. I wonder if they have
committed to a certain number of circumambulations in one
day or week, and are in quest of a specific answer to a prayer.
Or maybe this is an annual pilgrimage, demonstration of devotion.
I try to not get in their way. Don't mind me, I'm just turning
your wheels, making my own ritual. Yes, I am Buddhist, I might
answer if you ask, because I am, just not like you. It's easier
to say yes than try to explain my hesitation. I'd rather acknowledge
unity than get stuck on details.
Left to right, left to right, I don't know why left to right,
I just know my right arm is working overtime, wheel after
wheel…I spy two foreigners from the corner of my eye
taking pictures of the kora, and I wonder if they think I'm
stupid for walking in these circles. Maybe they are whispering
and pointing at me as I pass, look at that American girl,
who does she think she is, pretending she's a Tibetan Buddhist…
Now, here comes the giant stupa with its blackened spots
where Tibetan pilgrims touch their heads. I circle the stupa,
but I don't lean over to touch my head, because I don't
know what that's for. I'll just skip this part,
my ritual is not the same as theirs, even though I am turning
their wheels.
Still, I worry I appear less devout. I worry that others
by my side will see straight through my purple vest and denim
jeans to my mind of contradiction. Contradiction between the
part of me that wants to honor my Buddhist path, this lineage
of wisdom, and the other part of me that resists and defies
all attempts at classification. God is too big for one religion,
one name, much less one sex, a he or she. God is even too
big for my darling Buddhist concepts, like impermanence, interdependence,
and the practice of living in the here and now. There are
times when all concepts lose their meaning, times when silent
meditation or words in a book do not satisfy my desire to
call out, sing, dance, pray—honor this life in a way
that is expressive. I am in your hands, oh sweet One.
I know You are listening. I am listening, You are listening.
We are listening to each other's prayers.
To my right is the wall behind the monastery, to my left
is the edge of a mountain. Another empty part of the kora,
an empty path behind the monastery we walk until the next
set of wheels comes along. I take it all in: air, mountain,
footsteps, body, moving forward, squeezing gently past the
slowpokes, trying to give elders their due space. A woman
with long graying braids smiles as I approach her side. She
wears a dusty olive green chuba lined with wool and
trimmed with colorful striped cloth. A pink sash is tied around
her waist; on her feet are worn canvas sneakers, dirty white
with a stripe of red. Taking my arm, she nods and smiles a
toothy grin, giving me a thumbs up. We walk together, nodding,
smiling. I'm not sure if she knows I'm a foreigner; it's possible
she thinks I'm Chinese. But what does it matter, she is welcoming
me, nodding, telling me it's good that I am here.
We walk behind the monastery in silence. Up ahead, a young
woman lies stretched across the ground, prostrating. Wooden
blocks are tied to her knees and to the palms of her hands
with strips of white tattered cloth. We step around her. I
turn my head to look closer. A spot on her forehead has been
rubbed bloody and raw. Now it is scabbing, this place where
she touches her head to the earth, over and over, head to
earth. She seems unaware of our presence, immersed in her
prostrations, an expression of fervent anguish on her face—or
is it devotion? Every step, she rises, brings her palms together,
raises them to her head, her throat, her heart, knees dropping
to the ground, body stretching out, and up again: one prostration.
How many did it take her to get here? I've seen people
on a road in Tibet in the middle of nowhere walking to somewhere,
like that. Who would choose to go that route? Only the most
devoted, or the most desperate and afraid? Desperate for some
kind of healing, desperate for a miracle.
I cannot imagine prostrating like she does, yet I am drawn
to her devotion. I long to offer my life, my being, this walk,
the intention of this day to something greater than my own
tired story. I inhale into the place in my chest from where
I've cried so many tears. Tears of sorrow and of joy, tears
of love—and the ache of letting go. I breathe in and
feel my senses ripen; I exhale, grateful to be alive. Alive,
alive, I am alive. I trust that I am guided yet I
know I guide myself. Gravel presses indents into the soles
of my shoes. Air brushes tiny secrets across the surface of
my cheeks.
Kan! Yi ge laowai! "Look! A foreigner!" From the
edge of my vision, I see two Chinese men standing on the hillside
to my left, cameras slung around their necks, pointing my
way. I don't acknowledge that I understand them. One cries
to his companion with slight tone of mockery, "The laowai
has come to turn the prayer wheels! Hah-low! Haah-low!"
he calls with exaggeration. I pretend I do not hear. Can't
they see I'm praying? Or trying to, learning to. Join mind,
body, breath—heart source, heart prayer. But now they
are disturbing me, calling me out my reverie, questioning
my place here when I have finally been able to explain it
to myself.
I ignore them and keep walking. They drift into the distance.
Yes, I am turning the prayer wheels today. I am joining the
pilgrims at Labrang who cannot imagine the world I come from:
the Westerners who flock in droves to see the Dalai Lama,
the concepts of God I hold in my head, the loneliness of our
people, the wealth of our homes. I know my reasons for
being here are so different than your own, and yet, I long
to walk by your side. To look into your eyes without shield
or guard, to smile at you with unembarrassed love, to know
that beyond all thought and language there is a space we understand.
I touch these wooden handles, the ones that so many have
touched before. Hand breath heart wheel body spinning:
one continuous motion.
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