Going to the Mountain

Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas
by Robert Thurman, Tad Wise

In the tradition of The Snow Leopard, Circling the Sacred Mountain is a remarkable account of spiritual adventure through the magical and forbidding landscape of remote western Tibet. A promise of spiritual transformation inspired Robert Thurman-renowned Buddhist scholar, teacher, and close friend of the Dalai Lama-to take a group of trekkers to Mount Kailash, the holiest of Himalayan mountains, and teach them an accelerated path of Tibetan Buddhism. Among the group was a former student and longtime friend, Tad Wise, who struggles with Thurman's teachings as much as with the rigors of high altitude. Together, they take us through an ominous border crossing to sites few Westerners have seen: sacred graveyards, majestic monasteries, and the meditation caves of ancient masters. Chronicling the inner as well as the outer journey, confrontations both physical and metaphysical, Circling the Sacred Mountain is an exciting account of a challenging journey towards enlightenment.

Chapter 1

At the center of the earth, there stands a great mountain, Lord of Snows, majestic, rooted in the sea, its summit wreathed in clouds, a measuring rod for all creation.

- Kalidasa (4th Century CE)

Tad

It's the end of May 1995, a week after my thirty-ninth birthday. I'm the proud father and Cynthia the proud mother of new-baby Anna on display at a Woodstock breakfast spot. We're gaily jabbering away, drinking far too much coffee, as beneath this "happy family" the ground rumbles. Cynthia wants out of Woodstock. As usual, I'm not sure what I want.

Through the screen door I hear high, imperious European tones, looking up I find Tenzin and Nena Thurman - that larger-than-life royal couple of Tibetan Buddhism - totally filling the door. I've known the Thurmans since I was seventeen, having been off and on friend, student, house sitter, stonemason, and jester to the court. But I haven't seen them in a year or two; they've never met Cynthia or, obviously, Anna. There are hugs, introductions, congratulations; pancakes are ordered, and more coffee.

Tenzin means simply Upholder of Teaching in Tibetan. That's what he was called when Nena met him, because that's what he was. He was the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, though his teacher, Geshe Wangyal, privately counseled him not to take full vows of celibacy, even while introducing him to His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama. It was as if the old Mongolian lama knew this "white monk" would also be first to ask to be released from monastic vows. His Holiness was younger then, and gave Thurman whatever he requested, along with his religious name. Tenzin is what his friends and family still call him.

When we first met I didn't know what to call him. My stepfather introduced me to Bob Thurman, who'd built one of the domes featured in Woodstock Handmade Houses. Bob had tall, beautiful children with strange names, who looked like they'd been sculpted from marzipan. The entire family was other-worldly and proved a great comfort to me at uptight Amherst College, where Bob had become Professor Thurman. This really complicated matters, for though I was coming down with a clear case of hero worship, I still wondered what to call this glass-eyed giant, who had lost one eye in his youth, at the start of his road to wisdom.

Twenty years later this academic who cleared his own land, built his own house, and roughhoused three sons into manhood has become the American firebrand of Buddhism. Under thirty pounds of restaurant-food roll, he's solidly muscled and not in the least bit shy about putting you in a headlock to prove it. With a voice that pinches with a nasal insistence like Dudley Do-Right, then thunders like Richard Burton, Robert Tenzin Thurman is a combination of opposites: an apostle of peace who grapples in debate like the hockey player in a clinch that he was when he played for Exeter in high school.

Our breakfast nook soon takes on the air of an Irish pub at last call, with gesture, laughter, and language lashed together in happy storm. Tenzin is pounding the tabletop, Nena howling like a tea kettle, Cynthia and Anna gurgling brooks of laughter. "Now tell us, Tenzin," I inquire, "are you going to Tibet again soon?"

"Absolutely!" he thunders. "Next fall in all likelihood. An expedition to Kailash, the holy mountain, the center of the universe. In October, I wish it could be sooner, I'm off to most remote Western Tibet - quite high up and an ordeal in itself just to get there. Incredibly powerful place. Really the most powerful place. I've been trying to get there for years!"

At the sound of the word "Kailash" a bell goes off in my head, and at the end of this speech I hear my own voice blurt back: "I'm coming with you." If I'm shocked, Cynthia must be reeling. A knowing glance is exchanged between Tenzin and Nena. As I would later learn, acquaintances were constantly asking for a place on the Kailash trip, then backing out again.

"Really? How interesting," Tenzin responds politely, his huge, handsome face glowing like a jack-o'-lantern, one eye following me, the other, glass, staying put. "Well, it's only nine thousand dollars to go. Come up with that and we'd love to have you along."

My mind doesn't register the cost. I'm somewhere else; swirling in snow and wind. Looking around the table I drink inthe sight of Cynthia and Anna with a mixture of joy and grief. I'm leaving them. No one else realizes it yet, but I'm already ten thousand miles away. For some inexplicable reason, the instant I hear "Kailash" I know exactly where I'm bound.

Though impressed with my audacity, this incredibly over-scheduled scholar of Tibet is still a bit leery of my sudden Buddhist resolve. I've been a slapdash disciple, in and out of favor for years. The next weekend I drive up to the tumbledown Dharma castle to talk about the trip. Both Nena and Tenzin speak in high voices and peer at me through narrowed eyes; there is an air of audition to the visit. Unintimidated, I ask more about what will happen.

"I give Dharma talks on these trips," Tenzin says, seated at his rough-hewn desk-throne. "Really an A-to-Z primer on Tibetan Buddhism and the path to enlightenment. Between your personal odyssey, the mind-crunching altitude, and the unfamiliar terrain and climate, you'll be quite overwhelmed, I think. You'll be facing the throne of Shiva, the destroyer, confronting death every step ofthe way. No breaks for wine, women, and song."

"That's right, Tad," Nena chimes in from the next room, reclining, as usual, on the broken-down velvet couch with a view of the back side of Meads Mountain through a huge circular window. "This is a remarkable opportunity for you. To really get it - and not play the Artful Dodger yet again!"

Copyright © 2000 by Robert Thurman and Tad Wise.

About the Author

Robert Thurman, acclaimed translator of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and author of Inner Revolution, heads the Department of Religion at Columbia University and is the director of the Center for Buddhist Studies. He is a friend of the Dalai Lama's, president of Tibet House in New York City, and one of the most visible and respected Buddhist scholars and thinkers in the West.

Tad Wise, the author of the biographical novel Tesla, lives in Woodstock, New York.