Part 2

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

(Page 2 of 2)

"Because," Tenzin continues, grabbing back the verbal baton, "I'm going up there with a very clear purpose. I want to plant a specific prayer in the mind-stream of the planet, to get us beyond this moment of impending doom. For one reason or another I've been prevented from doing this earlier. Nena and I were close severaltimes, but now it looks like the time is finally right for a pilgrimage, to make offerings and meditate upon a solution for a world that has very nearly blown it." He examines my face carefully before continuing. "These days the Chinese have been upgrading their equipment at the borders. If my passport number goes into a computer I may not get through at all. Or they could follow us . . . it could get a little rough and you could end up leading the expedition!" He laughs, muttering, "Heaven forbid."

"Heaven forbid is right," echoes Nena. Then, in a more conciliatory tone, she begins one of her favorite sentences: "I have a favor to ask of you, Tad."

Years ago I gave the Thurmans a capstone left over from one of my masonry jobs to serve as the hearth beneath a woodstove. The woodstove has since been removed and Nena now wants to use the stone as a bridge at the front of the property. I rouse the youngest son, Mipam, from his science-fiction novel for help. Together we carry out the monster and stand it up next to a huge, curvaceous wall I built five years ago. Mipam starts philosophizing, as Thurmans will, while I make a few preparations, and - singlehandedly - lay the stone across the gurgling brook. It's solid. The Thurmans are delighted. Inconsequential as this may sound, it is an extremely important moment for me, harking back to the complicated relationship between Tibet's most famous saint, Milarepa, and his guru, the translator Marpa.

The eleventh-century Milarepa was the son of a prosperous Tibetan whose early death reversed his family's fortunes. The executor of the will was the dead man's brother, Mila's uncle, who reduced the widow and two children to maids and stableboy in their own mansion. After suffering beatings and humiliations at the hands of his own relatives, Mila apprenticed himself to a local warlock of great power in pursuit of vengeance. Bringing a sorceror's curse upon the farm of the usurpers, Mila created a hailstorm that blew down their house, killing thirty-five people. With the locals up in arms, Mila fled.

Searching for a teacher and for atonement for this profound crime, Mila encounters Marpa the translator and his wise and loving wife, Damema.

Marpa drinks wine and treats Mila like a serf. Though Damema tries to intervene, the relationship deteriorates. Marpa tells Mila to build a huge stone tower of a certain shape, and Milarepa accomplishes this feat, only to hear that the tower must be dismantled and rebuilt in another shape. Uncomplainingly Mila resets every stone, but not without bruising himself. Marpa tells him to rebuild it again, and upon completing it, to rebuild it again, until it has been rebuilt a total of four times. By now Mila is a broken mass of blisters and bruises. Withdrawing into seclusion, running away, coming back, and finally resolving to commit suicide, he is at last summoned by Marpa, initiated, and made his adopted son. Armed with strong teachings, Milarepa is instructed by Marpa to search out a deserted cave, to give up associations with men and women and to dedicate his life to meditation for the good of all sentient beings. Overcoming numerous hardships both natural and supernatural, the spiritual progress of this onet ime warlock is so momentous as to propel him into buddhahood in a single lifetime.

Like several other resonances in our relationship, my relocating the hearthstone recalls the Milarepa-Marpa archetype. To me it seems like an obvious joke.

"Good," Nena says, smiling approvingly at the new bridge. "You've become quite strong. If Tenzin has a heart attack, you can carry him off the mountain." Through much resulting laughter she insists: "You will, in fact, promise to do precisely this, if need be!"

There's no turning back. I'm committed, with only a few short weeks to prepare for the trip of a lifetime. I help Cynthia and the baby move to a charming apartment in Portland, Maine. I reassure my ten-year-old daughter, Riley, who lives with her mother in Woodstock, that I'll send postcards at every opportunity. I send a similar message to my son in London. I lay a few stone walls for a few bucks and read everything on Tibet and Mt. Kailash that Tenzin recommends.

The trek itself will take between twenty-five and twenty-eight days, depending on whether we fly to Lhasa from Kathmandu and drive west straight across the Tibetan Plateau, or if, road conditions permitting, we drive overland straight from Kathmandu north through the Himalayas, swerving east and then west to Kailash. In either case we'll be on the road four or five days. The trip around Kailash itself takes about the same. Then we'll visit holy Lake Manasarovar, drive south to the Tibetan border and hike out through the Nepali Himalayas to Simikot.

Day by day I work at making it happen. Passports, visas, reservations, money, physical conditioning, attempts at spiritual practice. I journey to the holy mountain predisposed to a Buddhist point of view but not made much happier by it. I falter on the central tenet of "selflessness" since, like many committed to the arts, I suffer from an enlarged sense of self-importance. Some might say I am not a Buddhist at all, simply a huge admirer of buddhas.

Once I begin to research Mt. Kailash I soon realize it is, indeed, the most astounding place. Prophecies are heard there and it is said to be protected even from nuclear war. The Hopis acknowledge it as the other end of the world backbone that sticks up as their Black Mesa. But Kailash, the eastern spine-tip, is better protected, sublimely worshiped, and the most divinely ornamented place on Earth. It is called Mt. Kailash by Europeans; Kang Rinpoche, or Snow Jewel, by Tibetans; Mt. Meru by Indians. It is the spiritual crown of the planet, atop the very northernmost sector of the Himalayas, in the most remote region of Tibet.

The first European to see it and live to tell was a mad Swedish explorer named Sven Hedin. Early this century he came back to the Swedish academy affirming the ancient myths that tell of an ice-encased, perfect four-sided pyramid, at whose foot nestles the highest lake in the world and the source of all the major rivers of Asia. He said Kailash is this jewel mountain, which pilgrims of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain faiths spend years journeying to, through all sorts of weather, in order to walk clockwise around the thing, never attempting the peak.

When people ask me about my impending journey to Tibet, I explode with all this. Heads nod and mouths mutter appreciations. Sometimes I feel the glow of good fortune, sometimes, a shadow of dread. I shouldn't talk about it anymore, I realize. There are hundreds of preparations to make.

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.