(I hoped to have this done for you yesterday but the ongoing-Flowing had me one day delayed. I spontaneously went on a day-trip to various monasteries and tea gardens in Himachal Pradesh. Here's the last installment of Seasick. Oh, and I have managed to finish writing another story but doubt I'll have it typed up before I leave for Germany on the 19th of April.)
Back at Snow Height 7 I ask when the gas will be delivered. Reply? 1 Hour. My estimate: 2 hours. But that's fine. I've got no where to be... anymore. I'll relax here, do some writing, gaze out my window, read some of these library books. I know! I'll test this response - it is now 1pm. I'll hang my clothes to dry, have a snack and read for an hour on the balcony (see if the gas actually arrives). After that I'll do some writing. At 2:10pm I open my journal with my itching question to the Flow of Life: "UNIVERSE WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" and hear a knock on the door. Gas Delivery. This includes not only the 5kg tank and dual-burner cook top, oh no! At Snow Height they do it up right. I also got a pot-pan hybrid, a white mug (made in India), two plastic spoons, a knife and a metal bowl. Things are set and ready for home-cooking action! My 7-11 clerk/hotel manager assumes a new role of Propane-Tank-Hooker-Uper and ensures that the cook top is attached, tested and (critically) the soon-to-be-user (Me) knows how to turn it off - in BOTH places. (thank you - I likely would have slowly gas-poisoned myself if left without instruction. Seriously. I never would have checked the second off valve. I'm not sure if I'd have been any closer to Enlightenment that way... unless someone lit a match I suppose.) His last piece of advise? My astute, multi-talented host nods at the just-delivered dishes, "I'd wash those." Check.
Apparently washing dishes was EXACTLY what I wanted to do because I felt a sudden urge to grab my shoes, reusable shopping bag and wallet and practically bowl the Gas Man over on his way out so I could purchase dish soap. As I locked the door I started my List Chant: potatoes, rice, onions, tea, milk, soap. It's best to leave the obvious one for last since I'll probably remember it no matter what. I knew it would only take about 15 minutes and it was a road I knew so no camera or other items would be necessary. Good to go. The journal remained open on the bed questioning the Universe as I rush out like a stopwatch has started.
Potatoes, onion, rice, milk, tea. Potatoes, onion, rice, milk, tea. Six items was getting a bit much to remember and I was sure I wouldn't leave without the soap.Up the Three-turn Hill chanting away (in my head of course) and by the last turn I'm breathing a bit heavy and spontaneously choosing to "just see" what this building is on the left (instead of right to the shops. This is exactly the same spot where my Lie to Happy Home dissolved into the straightforward plan of Truth Telling.) If it's something cool and this close by and I've never seen it I'd be a fool. If it's something amazing and this close by, I'll bring my camera next time.
The gate is a bit daunting, okay, really daunting, but there are other foreign-looking people going in and I see a sign that allows me to deduce I am here during "open hours" but the rest of it is in non-English: onward I go! I heard someone call it "The Temple" so maybe? Walking on I bee-line towards the next sign... with more English... about Tibet. I read it. Very informative but about a Tibetan political prisoner not about my current location. I keep walking hoping to see more signage, this time perhaps pointing me in the right direction? And I do. And it's an arrow. (How much more obvious can it get?) The text reads "Temple Entrance." Alrighty. That was clear. I walk up the plain steps and get shuffled into the Ladies line and am scanned and patted down. Happily I don't have anything in my pockets and my empty grocery bag is pretty non-threatening. I check out. I get through... to?? The Temple... courtyard. There are more, slightly more impressive, steps that I climb and in a bigger space upstairs there is a bit of a crowd gathered outside a centre-room surrounded by prayer wheels. Wondering if this is the normal crowd or a special event my awkward-politeness kicks in and I try to avoid getting in peoples' way and avoid being sacrilegious and turning my back on something sacred and avoid putting my still-shoe-clad-feet on any holy ground... mostly I just get the heck out of the way and try at assess things from the back row... where people are doing prostrations. Gak! Where can a girl just collect her bearrings here at the Temple?
I walk around the centre square room and turn the prayer wheels to calm my mind and try to figure out if I should stay or if I should I go (singing a -surely inappropriate -chorus of The Clash's song in a similar vein). I opt for the former and stay. The crowd it building and it seems like the-place-to-be. I make my final clockwise turn (the auspicious way to walk around Buddhist temples and stupas etc.) and a security-looking guy swoops in and asks me (kindly) to keep moving. This particular quite corner is quite for a reason. A reason I also do not understand but I won't let that stop me.
On my first awkward walk in the crowd I remember seeing a stack of sitting-cushions near the prostrate-ers. I head back over there and re-assess. First of all, the crowd has doubled since when I was there last and I crane my neck to find the attraction. The shrine? The monks? The chanting? All awesome, yes, but for over 100 people and growing? Most of which are seated uncomfortably on concrete (they didn't assess long enough to find the sitting cushions!) The vast majority are chatting under the silence-please sign and not doing anything close to chanting or praying or prostrations so they can't be here for a religious experience, can they? I sit down (on an already-empty cushion) and wait. Listen. Meditate.
As the crowd grows people are shifting or congregating on the left of the open door. To heighten the suspense I am feeling ever more, I am seated on the right. I see nothing. Well, that's not true. I see a monk beating a drum. I see the bottom half of a huge shrine. I see the other monk with a huge yellow hat giving offerings to said shrine. That's cool don't get me wrong. But clearly no one is looking at that... Whatever, I'm waiting it out. I am starting to feel that this chant IS the main event and if so I wish more people would observe the Silence, please.
Beside me an Australian woman with a mala is not observing the silence and when her friend joins her (led by a Buddhist nun) she responds, "oh wow, really?" when the other laywoman excitedly hisses, "I saw!" Jeez! This is like a nasty trick. Now I KNOW there's something great and have no idea what's going on. But it's something. They continue to chat but get back into the volume of silence making my eavesdropping extremely difficult. All of a sudden I get what I need. The non-mala woman whispers, "blah blah blah...so great to just be able to see the Dalai Lama like that." AH HA! SWEET! That's it! I didn't think he was in India right now. I guess that was wrong. He's here. He's the main attraction. But those women only say him because they were with the nun. Am I going to be the only sucker who didn't know where to go to see the Dalai Lama? Another woman to my other side is writing in a journal (a kindred soul) I ask her "can you just... my shoes? I'm just going to..." and point over to the left corner of the door were 20 people are standing in the space for 3. She smiles accommodatingly and understandingly. Yes! I'm going to see the Dalai Lama!
I make my way over to the corner and squeeze through a bit and am headed off by some monks/nuns. Well, shoot. They definitely get presidence. I am NOT pushing a nun in temple. So I Flow in on the Tide and go back out. After creeping back to my inauspicious shoes on my sitting cushion with an inauspicious view I kindly, silently thank my co-journal-writer for her watchful eye. Back to waiting. Maybe he'll exit out this front door? Maybe he'll talk? Actually this crowd is DEFINITELY not big enough for a talk. I listen to the chantings. 3 minutes, 5 minutes. It's really quite lovely.
Then it stops. People of the crowd are now, actually, silent. Shifting and shuffling the crowd swells with an orderly control. It is 3:20pm. Monks begin to file out and pick up their shoes off the holding racks. Bodyguards assume their positions. Then His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama comes right out the door and is only 8 feet in front of me. Honestly I felt a new kind of wave - a wave of spiritual-ness and fancy Buddhist energy. It nearly rocked my poor seasick cells sick. And I was in awe. Really. It was just so cool! I just HAPPENED to be in Dharmsala, just HAPPENED to be in the home-temple of His Holiness where he JUST HAPPENED to be presiding over the afternoon ceremonies.
Sure it might seem like a minor thing - it's not like we had tea but there is NO way I could have planned something like that. Or if I had I would have been stressed out for at least 48 hours trying to make it all work out. I strolled out of the complex with the masses feeling energized and grateful. Instead of getting silly or teary-eyed I glanced at the board outside and read the next Public Appearances of His Holiness - in two days he'll be gone again. His next stop? Ireland.
Funny, mine too. (kinda)
 |
| First Pictures of that Excursion |
Back at Snow Height 7 I ask when the gas will be delivered. Reply? 1 Hour. My estimate: 2 hours. But that's fine. I've got no where to be... anymore. I'll relax here, do some writing, gaze out my window, read some of these library books. I know! I'll test this response - it is now 1pm. I'll hang my clothes to dry, have a snack and read for an hour on the balcony (see if the gas actually arrives). After that I'll do some writing. At 2:10pm I open my journal with my itching question to the Flow of Life: "UNIVERSE WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" and hear a knock on the door. Gas Delivery. This includes not only the 5kg tank and dual-burner cook top, oh no! At Snow Height they do it up right. I also got a pot-pan hybrid, a white mug (made in India), two plastic spoons, a knife and a metal bowl. Things are set and ready for home-cooking action! My 7-11 clerk/hotel manager assumes a new role of Propane-Tank-Hooker-Uper and ensures that the cook top is attached, tested and (critically) the soon-to-be-user (Me) knows how to turn it off - in BOTH places. (thank you - I likely would have slowly gas-poisoned myself if left without instruction. Seriously. I never would have checked the second off valve. I'm not sure if I'd have been any closer to Enlightenment that way... unless someone lit a match I suppose.) His last piece of advise? My astute, multi-talented host nods at the just-delivered dishes, "I'd wash those." Check.
Apparently washing dishes was EXACTLY what I wanted to do because I felt a sudden urge to grab my shoes, reusable shopping bag and wallet and practically bowl the Gas Man over on his way out so I could purchase dish soap. As I locked the door I started my List Chant: potatoes, rice, onions, tea, milk, soap. It's best to leave the obvious one for last since I'll probably remember it no matter what. I knew it would only take about 15 minutes and it was a road I knew so no camera or other items would be necessary. Good to go. The journal remained open on the bed questioning the Universe as I rush out like a stopwatch has started.
Potatoes, onion, rice, milk, tea. Potatoes, onion, rice, milk, tea. Six items was getting a bit much to remember and I was sure I wouldn't leave without the soap.Up the Three-turn Hill chanting away (in my head of course) and by the last turn I'm breathing a bit heavy and spontaneously choosing to "just see" what this building is on the left (instead of right to the shops. This is exactly the same spot where my Lie to Happy Home dissolved into the straightforward plan of Truth Telling.) If it's something cool and this close by and I've never seen it I'd be a fool. If it's something amazing and this close by, I'll bring my camera next time.
The gate is a bit daunting, okay, really daunting, but there are other foreign-looking people going in and I see a sign that allows me to deduce I am here during "open hours" but the rest of it is in non-English: onward I go! I heard someone call it "The Temple" so maybe? Walking on I bee-line towards the next sign... with more English... about Tibet. I read it. Very informative but about a Tibetan political prisoner not about my current location. I keep walking hoping to see more signage, this time perhaps pointing me in the right direction? And I do. And it's an arrow. (How much more obvious can it get?) The text reads "Temple Entrance." Alrighty. That was clear. I walk up the plain steps and get shuffled into the Ladies line and am scanned and patted down. Happily I don't have anything in my pockets and my empty grocery bag is pretty non-threatening. I check out. I get through... to?? The Temple... courtyard. There are more, slightly more impressive, steps that I climb and in a bigger space upstairs there is a bit of a crowd gathered outside a centre-room surrounded by prayer wheels. Wondering if this is the normal crowd or a special event my awkward-politeness kicks in and I try to avoid getting in peoples' way and avoid being sacrilegious and turning my back on something sacred and avoid putting my still-shoe-clad-feet on any holy ground... mostly I just get the heck out of the way and try at assess things from the back row... where people are doing prostrations. Gak! Where can a girl just collect her bearrings here at the Temple?
I walk around the centre square room and turn the prayer wheels to calm my mind and try to figure out if I should stay or if I should I go (singing a -surely inappropriate -chorus of The Clash's song in a similar vein). I opt for the former and stay. The crowd it building and it seems like the-place-to-be. I make my final clockwise turn (the auspicious way to walk around Buddhist temples and stupas etc.) and a security-looking guy swoops in and asks me (kindly) to keep moving. This particular quite corner is quite for a reason. A reason I also do not understand but I won't let that stop me.
On my first awkward walk in the crowd I remember seeing a stack of sitting-cushions near the prostrate-ers. I head back over there and re-assess. First of all, the crowd has doubled since when I was there last and I crane my neck to find the attraction. The shrine? The monks? The chanting? All awesome, yes, but for over 100 people and growing? Most of which are seated uncomfortably on concrete (they didn't assess long enough to find the sitting cushions!) The vast majority are chatting under the silence-please sign and not doing anything close to chanting or praying or prostrations so they can't be here for a religious experience, can they? I sit down (on an already-empty cushion) and wait. Listen. Meditate.
As the crowd grows people are shifting or congregating on the left of the open door. To heighten the suspense I am feeling ever more, I am seated on the right. I see nothing. Well, that's not true. I see a monk beating a drum. I see the bottom half of a huge shrine. I see the other monk with a huge yellow hat giving offerings to said shrine. That's cool don't get me wrong. But clearly no one is looking at that... Whatever, I'm waiting it out. I am starting to feel that this chant IS the main event and if so I wish more people would observe the Silence, please.
Beside me an Australian woman with a mala is not observing the silence and when her friend joins her (led by a Buddhist nun) she responds, "oh wow, really?" when the other laywoman excitedly hisses, "I saw!" Jeez! This is like a nasty trick. Now I KNOW there's something great and have no idea what's going on. But it's something. They continue to chat but get back into the volume of silence making my eavesdropping extremely difficult. All of a sudden I get what I need. The non-mala woman whispers, "blah blah blah...so great to just be able to see the Dalai Lama like that." AH HA! SWEET! That's it! I didn't think he was in India right now. I guess that was wrong. He's here. He's the main attraction. But those women only say him because they were with the nun. Am I going to be the only sucker who didn't know where to go to see the Dalai Lama? Another woman to my other side is writing in a journal (a kindred soul) I ask her "can you just... my shoes? I'm just going to..." and point over to the left corner of the door were 20 people are standing in the space for 3. She smiles accommodatingly and understandingly. Yes! I'm going to see the Dalai Lama!
I make my way over to the corner and squeeze through a bit and am headed off by some monks/nuns. Well, shoot. They definitely get presidence. I am NOT pushing a nun in temple. So I Flow in on the Tide and go back out. After creeping back to my inauspicious shoes on my sitting cushion with an inauspicious view I kindly, silently thank my co-journal-writer for her watchful eye. Back to waiting. Maybe he'll exit out this front door? Maybe he'll talk? Actually this crowd is DEFINITELY not big enough for a talk. I listen to the chantings. 3 minutes, 5 minutes. It's really quite lovely.
Then it stops. People of the crowd are now, actually, silent. Shifting and shuffling the crowd swells with an orderly control. It is 3:20pm. Monks begin to file out and pick up their shoes off the holding racks. Bodyguards assume their positions. Then His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama comes right out the door and is only 8 feet in front of me. Honestly I felt a new kind of wave - a wave of spiritual-ness and fancy Buddhist energy. It nearly rocked my poor seasick cells sick. And I was in awe. Really. It was just so cool! I just HAPPENED to be in Dharmsala, just HAPPENED to be in the home-temple of His Holiness where he JUST HAPPENED to be presiding over the afternoon ceremonies.
Sure it might seem like a minor thing - it's not like we had tea but there is NO way I could have planned something like that. Or if I had I would have been stressed out for at least 48 hours trying to make it all work out. I strolled out of the complex with the masses feeling energized and grateful. Instead of getting silly or teary-eyed I glanced at the board outside and read the next Public Appearances of His Holiness - in two days he'll be gone again. His next stop? Ireland.
Funny, mine too. (kinda)
by LyndiaP April 2011
