27 July 2011, Wednesday
Lamayuru was so beautiful we decided to stay a few nights, take it easy and wander ‘round. There’s not much to it aside from the magnificent monastery (which is more than enough), but the atmosphere is such that just being here satisfies.
We traipsed up the hill to the gompa in early afternoon. The path held wind-blown houses and wooden prayer wheels, decayed beyond recognition by weather and fervent use. The carvings had long since disappeared; stacks of paper prayers reading OM MANI PADE HUNG peek out of cracks in the wheel. The gompa’s white-walled, red-framed buildings sit high on the mountainside, held a lot by pinnacles of eroded rock. Along the eastern edge of the grounds are walls of prayer wheels, more recently restored.
Inside the main gompa the floors are laid out tile-like – worn to a well-loved softness by the feet of monks over 11 centuries. Long, low tables run along either side of the room where the monks study their texts, red carpets lining the spaces in between. At the front an alter drums, oil lamps, images and offerings: money, biscuits, and dough sculptures: intricate and colorful, symbolic of life’s impermanence. Along the eastern and northern walls are glass cases in which statues and images of previous Dalai Lamas and emanations of the Buddha had been placed. One window holds a bookshelf of Tibetan texts. In the typical Tibetan style, they’re loose-leaf, in foot-long rectangular shape, and rather than being bound, are held together by wood slats, wrapped in orange cloth. Another window looks into a cave where Naropa – a human embodiment of the Buddha in the 11th century – had meditated in the Tantric tradition. Tantra – a tradition I’m only just beginning to learn about – is not some sort of sex cult. The explicit images found in the Buddhist Tantra tradition, represent the union of wisdom and method, or of great bliss and emptiness (emptiness being the unity of all things). Tantra, in fact, is about subduing the ego through transmutation of desire into spiritual energy, and in Buddhism at least, sexual union is only used in the rarest and highest of practices.
From the rooftop we could see the valley below and the mountains stretching out in all directions. It is a desolate, dry landscape, that forces one to dive inward. In such a place it becomes clear why the great lamas and yogis choose these high, harsh environments for years of isolated meditation. The sun was low on the horizon casting everything in a golden hue. I took my time circumambulating the wall of prayer wheels, turning each as I went. In most instances of the past prayers I’ve made have been for the benefit of myself or my family and friends. A faint flash passed my mind that rather than praying for those dearest to me, perhaps I should simply send out a positive feeling with each turn. I walked slowly, mindfully, breathing with each flick of the wrist that spun the ancient wheels. The ritual turned from an act of selfish desire into an act of meditation, leaving my mind calm, purified…and the sensation that the answer to our prayers lies not out there with a more powerful force, but solely in our pure awareness.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
