Pasang and I were in the kitchen working on the Tibetan alphabet after breakfast when Cook came in and told him his assistance could be used at the woodpile out the back door. We peered out, and sure enough, a line of little monks with chopped wood piled high on their backs was pulling up to throw off their loads. From the rock walkway above, they’d toss their firewood down into the wood-stacking area.

Everyone was quite involved and it was obviously a community effort. Naturally, Joanna, Nate and I were eager to jump in and get our hands dirty. It’s fun how every day here brings something new, sometimes an unexpected activity or tradition. I wake up every morning with a great sense of anticipation for whatever the day might bring. I love that the Sherpa people love photos, videos, and every type of memorabilia; when I pull out my camera to capture a moment, someone always tells me to jump into the thick of the action while they film. Everyone I’ve met is so incredibly warm and inclusive – for the first time I have a nice collection of pictures that actually portray my involvement in daily life and community events!

(see photos of wood-chopping day at www.shirah.mobi)

I arrived at the monastery almost three weeks ago with many questions about Buddhism. I’d taken a World Religions course focused heavily on eastern faiths and have continued to read about the Buddhist tradition in books such as those by one of my most beloved authors, Huston Smith, but with every question these texts answered they seemed only to provoke two or three more. I was disappointed, to say the least, when upon arriving at Pema Choling I realized that no one here speaks English well enough to discuss with me the teachings of Buddha or the origin of Buddhist traditions. During my first few days, my mind formed questions at a pace so rapid I felt like the omnipresent pot of water kept over the open fire in our kitchen – bubbling faster and faster as it reaches boiling point, only to be emptied into thermos – a holding tank – and promptly refilled to boil more. Like those thermoses of tato pani that will be eventually used for tea, my questions must eventually be answered, I thought. I started to empty my questions into lists that serve as my own holding tanks. But how I need those questions answered now!

Why do you wear only red/maroon and yellow/orange – why are these the designated colors of monasticism? What place do you occupy, as a monk, in Sherpa society? Do you always chant the same words, in the same order, each time you begin puja? I felt that I could not assimilate into the community without having these questions answered or at least knowing which are the important questions – which I am asking as a result of mere cultural differences and which will uncover sensitive sacred meaning.

After four days I suddenly was not satisfied with the monks’ progress in English and threw myself wholeheartedly into learning the Nepali language. I immediately realized that, unfortunately, pure Nepali is not spoken at the monastery and many words they couldn’t even tell me when I asked.** The dialect spoken here is a mix of Nepali (the country’s official language), Sherpa (the language of this region), and Tibetan (the official and holy language of Buddhism). I’ve now learned the Tibetan alphabet and can read and write a bit, and my verbal vocabulary is a mix of all three of these languages (not that I could always tell you which word is from which language, though I do my best), but due to this unforeseen language barrier I’ve decided to turn back to the books for answers to my many questions.

My efforts have not gone to waste. I consulted several people about the books I should read, and came up with a list of at least seven. The first I downloaded onto my Kindle and read in a week. It’s called Seven Years in Tibet, a non-fiction account of German-Austrian Heinrich Harrer’s escape from a World War II detainment camp in India – his trek from India over the Himalayas, across the harsh Tibetan plateau and into Lhasa, “the forbidden city.” As the story unraveled so did my list of questions and along with it, the mental tension caused by curiosity restrained. I felt a sense of kinship with Harrer as he raised many of the same questions I had – in almost the same order – and then answered them, one by one, often with an anecdote or example to illustrate the meaning of each tradition or fact of life.***

I’m about to download the Dalai Lama’s autobiography, which I know will be equally eye-opening. I’ve also started reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – a recent variation on and addition to the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead. The author, Sogyal Rinpoche, is a highly respected figure in Tibetan Buddhism; not only have I learned a lot on the Buddhist perspective on death in the first 25 pages of this enormous tome, but I’m pretty sure I’ve earned myself some major kudos with the older monks when I whip it out to read by the kitchen fire.

Here are some of the most insightful passages from the beginning of the The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. These stood out to me as meaningful in both their content and the way it is presented.
All the greatest spiritual traditions of the world, including of course Christianity, have told us clearly that death is not the end. They have all handed down a vision of some sort of life to come, which infuses this life that we are leading now with sacred meaning. But despite their teachings, modern society is largely a spiritual desert where the majority imagine that this life is all that there is. (P.8)

How sad it is that most of us only begin to appreciate our life when we are on the point of dying. I often think of the words of the great Buddhist master Padmasambhava: “Those who believe they have plenty of time get ready only at the time of death. Then they are ravaged by regret. But isn’t it far too late?” What more chilling commentary on the modern world could there be than that most people die unprepared for death, as they have lived, unprepared for life? (P.10)
We can begin, here and now, to find meaning in our lives. We can make of every moment an opportunity to change and to prepare–wholeheartedly, precisely, and with peace of mind–for death and eternity.
In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. (P.11)

 

*I especially recommend the beautifully illustrated hard copy of Huston Smith’s renowned book, “World Religions” (??) as well as his autobiography, “Tales of Wonder.”
tato pani = hot water
puja = chanting
**For instance, Pasang and I were going through the colors yesterday (red=raato; blue=nilo; white=sheto, etc.) When we got to green, he scratched his head and thought for no less than an entire minute. I started laughing, thinking he was teasing me. Finally he said, “We just say ‘green’.”
“WHAT!?” I shouted in reply – “you’re kidding me; you’re totally lying.” Just then 14-year-old Pemba walked by and Pasang asked him; Pemba thought a minute then laughed and walked on – he didn’t know either. It wasn’t until evening when I asked everyone in the kitchen that some finally came up with the Nepali word for green – arroyo.
***It turns out that red was the original color denoting monasticism. Then one time during an initiation ceremony where monk students of Buddhism were given the title of Lama (teacher), there were too few red ceremonial regalia caps and it looked as though the last student would have no cap in the procession. So that this new lama wouldn’t be cap-less, the older lama in charge of giving out the caps grabbed the nearest one he could find. It happened to be yellow. The monk gratefully accepted the yellow cap and continued in the ceremony. He never (released) the yellow cap and continued to wear yellow and red his entire life. Some years later, he became a Rinpoche (a higher title meaning “Precious One” and also indicating that he’d been recognized as the incarnation of a former Buddhist master) and a well-known and reputed reformer of Buddhism, and following his example, monks everyone adopted the combination of red and yellow as the new monastic dress code.

There are many reasons why I continue to attend puja (chanting) each morning, and none of them is that I am a devout Buddhist.

I enjoy waking up early, and the 6:30 am start time gives me something to look forward to after I’ve been awake for an hour, reading and getting ready for the day.

It’s a time to practice perfect posture, which is reinforced during my after-breakfast yoga hour. I sit on the front of my pelvic bones, my legs folded under me, “Indian-style,” just like the others next to me who line the perimeter of the room on a long carpeted wooden bench. Back straight and tall, shoulders back, neck relaxed, stomach pulled in, hands resting on my knees; an hour and a half of sitting in such a position each day has helped strengthen core muscles and keep my body in alignment – despite some slips and tweaks I incurred on the steep mountain trails.

Puja is the perfect time to simply think; to let my thoughts wander and my imagination run. The voices of twenty little boys chanting in unison is soothing, and the bright colors, intricate patterns, and vivid imagery in the monastery is the impetus for wild creativity.

This morning I was sitting right in front of a hanging tapestry displaying three main gods arranged vertically in the center (two of them blue and one white with many arms) and twelve lesser gods in two columns of six on either side of the main ones. Each had its own little green halo with gold leafing around the border. Every square centimeter of unused space was filled with eccentric designs in every color imaginable – pastels, primary colors, neons, gold and silver – every color except black. Suddenly in my mind the tapestry took on the likeness of a Pokemon poster I feel like I’ve seen somewhere, and I thought it would be cool to create a video game where the Buddhist gods battled each other.

I had to try really hard to keep from giggling as I designed the whole game, including the scenes for different levels, in my head. I wondered if the little boys ever had such sacrilegious thoughts about the interesting and sometimes frankly creepy-looking gods adorning Buddhist icons.

I don’t always think about such inconsequential things, however. I’ve found puja to be a great time to reflect on anything. It’s funny: Whereas my friend and fellow volunteer Joanna makes an effort to “clear my mind and not think of anything,” I enjoy the challenge of just the opposite – trying to let myself think of anything and everything without restraint. One and a half hours is the perfect amount of time to let the mind meander without wearing oneself out or getting bored.

This morning, while sipping my milk tea (as a steaming cup of bottomless milk tea is served every morning about an hour into puja), I was also thinking of how I love the simplicity of life here. Yesterday I read Atlas Shrugged all morning, except for the hour that I spent doing gymnasti-yoga-pilates on the front lawn (which Joanna and I do together and the little boys love to gather on the level above and giggle at each others’ commentary as they peek through the railing). I wrote in my journal, read some more, ate a simple lunch of dal bhat, and then walked with Joanna down to Phakding to buy some needles and thread to mend Samten’s sweatshirt. Our friend Smile saw us and invited us in for tea, where he proudly showed us his many medals, trophies, and photos of his soccer and cross country running victories. All in all it was such a slow, simple, relaxing day.

That reflection led to another thought: I bet my mom never guessed, when she was teaching her restless little nine-year-old girl to sew, that one day I’d be using those same basic sewing skills to mend a pile of little Sherpa monks’ clothing. Or that that one week of one-on-one tailoring instruction could be such a blessing to a community of people across the globe who are lucky if they have more than one change of clothes.

The first thing we heard yesterday upon our return from trekking yesterday is that “Jing Mai was killed by a tiger!”
Jing Mai – one of the monastery’s four dogs – is nowhere to be found. After some loud noises the night before, she was suddenly gone. Nawang adds clout to his tiger explanation by noting: “Baloo (the alpha dog) was so scared by the tiger incident that every time he hears us call Jing Mai’s name, he gets really nervous again and starts looking around everywhere.”

I laugh, thinking about the first day I arrived here and saw the HUGE y-shaped bone hanging in the kitchen and was told it was from a cow that was killed by a tiger just days earlier. They’re pretty big on tigers here.

UPDATE 18.June.2012: Last night Nate ran into the kitchen saying, “Hey! They’re headed out on a tiger hunt tonight! Nawang’s leading it!” We spent the rest of the night laughing and joking about what they’d take with them. The final verdict was that Nate – at 6’2″ and about a whole foot taller than all the Sherpas – would be the one to wrestle the tiger. Dorjee picked up a four-foot long iron pole and armed Nate, who also picked up the kitchen cleaver. So funny.

Several of my little monks have received new names!
After the Nyune festival last week, celebrating Buddha’s birthday, one of the Rinpoches gave some of the little guys new Buddhist names in a sort of rite of passage. Two days prior, the ones to receive new names had their heads shaved – all except for a tiny tuft of silky black hair at the very crown of their heads. My first introduction to the naming ceremony was the reply when I returned home from Nyune and asked about the new hair styles.

The little guys are so proud of their new names and adorable seven-year-old Pemba insists that I call him Ngawang Ludup.

Speaking of names, I’ve received a few new ones myself. The first Nepali I was given, in Kathmandu, was Sita. But when I got to the monastery Pasang told me, “No, no, not Sita – Sila. Sila is beautiful lotus flower.” Sita, a popular Nepali girl’s name, is the name of a Hindu goddess. I can see why the Buddhists wanted to rename me. So I’ve been responding to every variation of Sira-Sita-Sila until yesterday, when Cook – who is the biggest joker of them all and constantly singing as he meanders about the kitchen refilling mugs of milk tea – greeted me as “Bipana.”
“Ho!...Bipana!!”
“What? Bipana? Me?” I pointed to myself.
“Yeah- Sapana, Bipana” he grinned, pointing to the other volunteer, Sapana, and then to me. Apparently the song he’s always singing about Sapana (which means ‘dream’ in Nepali) has a line about “sapana, bipana,” bipana meaning “awake.” So that’s that; add another name to the list! It’s kind of cute, though, how he takes care of us and gives us little nicknames, so I don’t really mind.

Cook is really a good guy. The first week I was here, I ran out of balance on my pre-paid cell phone. I ran next door to the house that has a little store, but it was padlocked – the owners were out. He approached me as I was walking back, asking what I needed.
“Recharge card,” I said, pointing to my phone, “Ncell recharge.”
“Oh, store closed now, maybe buy Phakding later.”
Ok, I guess I’ll be making a trip down to the little village of Phakding tomorrow, I thought to myself, secretly dreading the 40-minute walk back up the giant mountain I’d come to find myself living on.

About two hours later Cook comes into the school house while I’m teaching English. I thought he was just curious; between meals he doesn’t have all that much to do and if there’s no one lounging in the kitchen it could be quite boring. But after a few minutes he came up and handed me a recharge card worth 500 Rs. (rupees) – about $6. He must have gone down to Phakding for supplies and remembered me; it was such a sweet gesture.

And ever since day one, when I explained to him that I can eat everything made of rice, but nothing with anta – wheat flour – he’s made sure to always have a meal for me. Usually if everyone’s having noodles for breakfast he’ll make me fried rice; if they’re having tsampa (barley flour that you pour tea over in your own bowl and mix up into a thick paste), then I’ll get beaten rice cereal – kind of like rice crispies but flat and really hard and tastes like cardboard. But if you add enough sweet milk tea it’s alright. He makes light, puffy, steamed ti-mo-mos out of rice flour, and even started making his thick, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth homemade noodles out of rice flour. Chapati, a flat Nepali bread that is thicker than the Indian naan, is usually made of wheat flour, but yesterday I walked into the kitchen and they were making them of rice flour. We had chapati filled with fried potatoes for dinner – out first taste of potato since they’re just now coming into season – and it was absolutely delicious!

My heart was melted yesterday when I walked into the kitchen in the morning after being sick all day the day before. Cook was nowhere to be found, but Pemba (12) and Kagi (14) were boiling a huge pot of water. Pemba greeted me and then poured some batter into a giant frying pan. He flashed me a huge grin, “Your breakfast,” he pointed to the pan, obviously proud to be the big guy in charge, taking care of everyone.
“Pancakes! Yay!” My favorite breakfast here are the rice flour pancakes that Cook started making for me on random special days. Kagi was unwrapping about 50 packages of Wai-Wai Noodles (like instant ramen noodles), so I knew that Cook had left the boys specific and pretty easy instructions for breakfast while he was gone for the morning. I was so impressed and thankful that he thought of me and even had the boys make my favorite breakfast! Despite the fact that I haven’t had a shower in a week and sleep with giant insects every night, I feel spoiled here. Compared to everyone I know in the US, these boys have practically nothing and yet they not only share everything they have, but they reserve the best for their guests and always present it with the biggest smile.

The Nyune Festival took place at the monastery just a few days after we arrived. Everything was abuzz. The eight older monks (age 20+) ran around like crazy making preparations for the three Rinpoches (high lamas) who were to arrive at any time (the exact day and time was impossible to estimate as one can only travel by foot in this region and can never guess what social obligations may arise while walking through the endless string of villages). The nineteen younger boys basked in the excitement and just added to the chaos with all their eagerness to help. Nyune is a festival marking the beginnng of a one-to-two-month-long celebration of Buddha’s birthday.

Once the Rinpoches arrived (2 days and 4 hours later than first expected), the festival launched into full swing with 3 days of puja (chanting). Puja started at 4am on the first and second day, and at 3am on the third day. After a giant lunch on the first day, fasting began, continuing through the second day and ending the morning of the third day with bottomless rice pudding for breakfast at 6am. Devout worshippers who had come up to the gumba (monastery) – a 40 minute walk straight uphill from the nearest village – brought sleeping mats and were given blankets as they set up beds for the nights in the gumba’s upper room and in makeshift shanties outside. After puja ended at 6am on the third day, everyone went home or to relatives’ houses, dressed up, and came back around 4pm for the big performance.

I started out with the best of intentions and got myself up at 3:30am the first day, walked up to the smaller monastery above ours (10 minutes up the mountain) by 4am and earned a front-row seat in the monastery. I was under the impression that the morning session would be four hours long, and mentally prepared myself to sit cross-legged for that long without squirming, as stretching one’s legs out during puja is insulting. I had been given some bad information, however, because the morning session lasted until noon...EIGHT hours of chanting. I was exhausted and went home to sleep after a lunch of dal bhat (lentils with rice).

That night, sitting around the kitchen fire, I was excited and relieved when Pasang, one of the monks my age, asked if I would like to help him with decorations the next morning. I desperately wanted to be involved with the community event, but unlike the two other volunteers, Jenny & Joanna, I’m not Buddhist – so though it was interesting to see how the first few hours of puja went, I didn’t ask for prayer beads and wasn’t interested in chanting “Om-Mani-Pad-Meh-Hom” for two more days. Plus, someone had directed me to a conspicuous seat in the front row, and though this isn’t a problem in and of itself, one of the older monks gave me the evil eye when I didn’t join in the prostrations before the golden Buddha statue. I stood, out of respect for everyone and their tradition, and I know that overall my own faith is respected here, but it just happened to be unlucky that my location in the monastery put my different faith in the spotlight. I knew that I would feel much more comfortable hanging out with the monks upstairs and decorating.

It turned out to be so much fun! I turned out to be a big hit with the locals, probably due to my curiosity to see and learn how to do everything, and I became a sort of unorthodox novelty – a female doing the work of male monks – with unrestricted access to their sacred rituals and traditions. Perhaps it’s because I realized what I privilege and opportunity I had been given and treated it as such, that no one objected and even the stodgiest old men were gracious and friendly towards me. It was a beautiful experience!

(see www.shirah.mobi for photos!)

“If it doesn’t bite, don’t bother.”

Anyone who knew me when I was a kid and witnessed one of my hysterical reactions to a large flying bug might be hard pressed to believe this, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I can’t be bothered to run, swat, kill, or even care about the moths, beetles, mosquitoes, and spiders which plague every living thing here. I’m completely outnumbered; I’d be incredibly stressed out if I allowed myself to fear them, and I’m not willing to let this stupid aversion to insects affect the only eight weeks of relaxation I foresee in the next two years. After my second night in Kathmandu I woke up in my bed in the hostel with a huge cockroach on my chest, and after my second night at Pema Choling I woke up with a giant spider (3 inches in diameter) in my bed. Every night I hear the pitter-patter of insect legs on my down sleeping bag, and if I turn on my Kindle for some late night reading I’ll have summoned in thirty seconds a collection of the region’s arthropods which only a biologist would envy. The first (and only) night I tried reading late without illuminating -in addition to my Kindle light – the bare light bulb adorning my ceiling, I was fighting a flock of moths circling my head when, to my horror, a long line of mini-cockroach-beetle-looking things emerged from a hole in the wooden shelf built into the side of my bed, climbing out quickly in an orderly fashion and then spilling onto my neatly-folded pile of clothes. I didn’t want to squash bug guts into all of my clothes and had no more energy to chase them back into their hole, and I knew deep down that any efforts to exterminate them would only result in more appearing the next morning and that a vicious cycle of frustration would ensue, so in a moment of brilliance I chose the Buddhist thing to do – accept my suffering for what it is. I closed up my Kindle, bugs and all, pushed it onto the shelf, carefully avoided poking any of the long, skinny, multi-legged insects wallowing around next to my pillow, and retreated into my sleeping bag, zipping it all the way up and pulling the drawstring really tight. I pulled the little tiny hole left at the top down to my mouth level so as to prevent suffocation, and then, curled up in the dark with only two layers of fabric to protect me from the creepy crawlies of Sherpa land, my only thought was how my dad always told me that if I wasn’t happy and wanted to change my attitude, the best way to do it is to just start smiling. And that’s how I fell asleep: happy, smiling, and even laughing a little as I rolled over a few times and felt the muted crunch of the unlucky invertebrates who interrupted my late night reading session. Every structure here is built from either stone, wood, or some combination of the two. The long building of rooms in which I live is completely made from wooden slats. When we returned from trekking last week one of the other volunteers had left, so I moved into her abandoned bed, mostly because the nun who lived above my old room had a habit of mopping her floor in the morning and the water would drip right through the slots in her wood floor that doubled as my ceiling. No more waking up to dirty rain now, but there was a trade off to be made — 14-year-old Pasang, who lives above my new room, wakes up at 5 AM to start his chanting and seems to like to stomp around a little first thing in the morning, starting the incessant shower of dust and dead bugs that assaults my bed all day. I’ve given up trying to keep anything clean, and plan on either throwing away or heavily sterilizing all garments upon my return to the modern world. Overall, though, I really have learned that it’s rather pleasant to not worry about the little things crawling all over. Plus, Cook told me that nothing in this region will kill if it bites, so there’s not even a legitimate reason to fret.

“The Rinpoches are coming! The Rinpoches are coming!”
That’s not what they were saying, but I likened the monks’ excited conversation and incessant runnings around to the American colonists’ excitement when Paul Revere rode through Concord announcing the arrival of the British.

I was handed three katas – Buddhist prayers scarves – and told I should roll up 50 or 100 rupees in each. I went to my room and fished some local currency out of my money pouch – not because I believed the blessing of the Rimpoches (supposed incarnations of gods) would bring me a lifetime of good luck, but because it seemed like the culturally sensitive thing to do, and because $3 USD wouldn’t break my budget. I then watched as a procession of monks in their “Sunday best” – really not a relevant term here as Sunday is just another work day in Nepal and holds no religious significance – paraded through the monastery, the finery of their ceremonial regalia indicating the significance of their visitors. Some oboe-clarinet-looking instruments, outfitted with segments of plastic straws for reeds, and the loud ringing of gongs and bells heralded the arrival of the three Rinpoches.

The Tibetan term Rinpoche means “Precious One” or “Treasured One” and is the title given to those who have been recognized as incarnations of great lamas (teachers). As I would learn first hand, Rinpoches are lauded by Buddhists and treated like kings by both the monks and lay people alike.

(see www.shirah.mobi for photos)