India nodded sagely and said nothing. The treaties expired. Rajiv Gandhi closed thirteen of India’s fifteen border crossings with Nepal and raised the import taxes on Nepali goods thirtyfold. He then sent inspectors to Nepal’s shipping docks at the Port of Calcutta. The facilities were deemed unsafe, and padlocks snapped into place.
It was as if New Delhi had clamped a pillow over Nepal’s face. Medicines vanished from the Kathmandu pharmacies. Gasoline was rationed to a trickle. Manufacturers could no longer get the materials they needed, and production on everything in the kingdom, from jewelry to hydroelectric dams, ground to a halt. Fruits and vegetables instantly quadrupled in price. An Indian merchant whose stall was located in an alley just off Kalimati announced an extortionate price for spinach. Less fortunate than this afternoon’s eggplant wallah, he was beaten to death by an angry mob.
I’D COME TO Kathmandu five months ago, in the fall of 1989, finishing up a book. As the mess with India heated up, I started reporting on the crisis for the San Francisco Examiner. Even now, things were in steady decline. The conflict with India was still unresolved. Gasoline and medicines remained scarce, although the moneyed few (and all foreigners, of course) could tap into the black market. For the majority of Nepal’s population, though, the crisis was intolerable. Rice and rubber, cookware and cloth—anything Indian, which was pretty much everything—had soared in price.
Something was happening, unique in the kingdom’s long history: The Nepali people were getting fed up. Not just grumbling and mumbling fed up, but angry and dangerous fed up. Nepal was a kingdom on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The ministers didn’t care; they were too busy draining aid money into their own pockets and feathering their own nests. India didn’t care; Rajiv Gandhi wasn’t going to budge until his adversary cried “uncle.” As for the king himself, well, no one dared guess what Sri Panch Maharaja Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was thinking. He seemed to pass the days in a royal coma, spouting empty epithets in The Rising Nepal and remaining majestically aloof.
No one was minding the store. And as Nepal’s people absorbed this fact, so too did they become aware of recent events in the Philippines, Soviet Union, and especially Romania—where a similarly clueless leader had lately been perforated by his subjects. Tired of spending five hours waiting in line for a jerry can of kerosene, sick of the crazy inflation that had pushed the price of a kilo of sugar to a full day’s wages, students, merchants, housewives, schoolteachers, and even government workers were beginning to speak the unspeakable.
Did I want to go back to America? The truth was, I was ready for a break. I’d been in Nepal for more than 150 days and missed the small comforts of central heating, California wine, and potable tap water. I was tired of showering with a snorkel. March 6 would be my thirty-sixth birthday, and my girlfriend—a term that seemed more theoretical with every passing week and increasingly lukewarm letter—had expressed her intention to wait until that day, and not a day longer, for my return.
But revolution was in the air. The fever had a grip on me. January and February had seen a continual series of protests and strikes, each one larger and more passionate than the last. They were the growing expressions of Jana Andolan: a People’s Movement that had begun with student uprisings almost one year ago. At any moment, the deesha could hit the fan. And I’d be here when it did, filing front-page stories.
I FINISHED MY tea and paid the sauni. Outside, the glare off the asphalt clenched my pupils down to dots. Kalimati’s baseline cacophony was matched by the ululating shriek of a car alarm (issuing, I noticed, from a moving vehicle; the driver looked pleased). Traffic, courtesy of the black market in petrol, had stabilized at about 50 percent. It was hard to imagine where the missing half, when it showed up, would fit.
I reached into my jacket pocket and was momentarily puzzled when my hand found a small, round object: a tangerine I’d picked up on my way out of the vegetable seller’s alley. It looked okay, despite a spate of recent abuse. I cupped it in my right hand and flagged a cab with my left.
I was staying, then. Here for the duration. It wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t be pretty. There would be some nasty scenes: broken windows, cracked ribs, maybe worse. And even if the Nepalis took to the streets en masse, demanding self-determination, there were no guarantees. The kids in Tiananmen Square knew all about that.
But what if they did pull it off? What would follow centuries of absolute rule and decades of wholesale corruption? Democracy, one hoped. Prosperity. Liberation! Because that, presumably, is what bardos, including the Bardo, are all about. At the end of its painful journey, if the soul plays its cards right, there’s a payoff: the chance to leap off one’s rusted, creaking cart and fire up the warp engines.
No one could say where Nepal was going, but it was bound to be an interesting ride.
I peeled the tangerine, and tossed the rind to a waiting cow.
2
Fear of Shoes
IN CHAPTER 9 of Cosmos, Carl Sagan describes the end of the world. A two-page spread, accompanying the text, reproduces a series of four paintings. Each illustrates a phase of the Earth’s annihilation, due to the inexorable heat-death of the sun.
Of all these images, the first is the most eerie and disturbing. The painting portrays an idyllic, sun-washed coastline, ripe with trees. The sky is peppered with clouds, and islands dot a perfectly blue sea. Several billion years from now, the caption reads, there will be a last perfect day.
For the Kingdom of Nepal—and for myself, for strangely similar reasons—February 17, 1990, was one of those last, perfect days. Pilgrims and children crowded the entrance to the Chabahil Ganesh shrine, tossing rice at the brass image of the elephant god. Men strolled down Mahankhal, their arms linked. Dogs nosed lazily through wrappers and rinds, somehow aware of the rhythms of a Saturday. Strains of Bryan Ferry’s Bête Noire pulled like an undertow beneath the soundtrack from Coolie, blaring from households on opposite sides of the street.
I walked my rented bicycle through the gate to the Boudhnath stupa, turned left, then rode clockwise around the massive white dome. A plastic bag of tangerines dangled from my handlebars, jerking as the bike bounced along the cobblestone road. The wide, circular path surrounding the shrine was an important kora: a devotional path, followed clockwise around a holy mountain or Buddhist monument. The ancient white dome of Boudha itself—symbolic of a lotus, an egg, and/or Buddha’s overturned begging bowl—rests upon a three-tiered plinth. The entire site, viewed from above, is revealed as a giant earthwork: an elaborate geometric mandala.
There were constant distractions. The route circling Boudha has evolved into a hodgepodge flea market, an open-air bazaar crowded with statues and textiles, incense and conch-shell horns, Tibetan bells, Amitabh Bachchan posters, antique beads, army boots, and porcelain dishware. Beggars lean against the stupa’s circular outer wall, waving wasted limbs beneath long rows of prayer wheels. Mendicants recite sutras from tattered manuscripts, nodding like Hassids. Here is samsara, the earthly realm, in microcosm: an infinite tattoo of pain and color, spread out beneath the four pairs of Buddha-eyes that gaze down, as colorful as a child’s finger painting, from the golden square finial atop the high, white dome.
Overwhelming as the scene was, it was just warming up. Lhosar, the Tibetan New Year, was only eight days away.
I veered away from the kora, made my way down a muddy lane slick with banana peels, and arrived at the entrance to the Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling Monastery. The abbot of the monastery, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche (rinpoche being an honorific title meaning “precious gem”), gave public talks about Buddhism every Saturday morning. They were scheduled for 10 a.m.; I was about ten minutes late.
No big deal, I figured; if the place operated on Tibetan time, I was still comfortably early. But after climbing the three flights of stairs leading to the lama’s chambers, I saw that the waiting area was empty. Everyone was already inside. Against all odds, the Saturday teaching had begun on time.
/>
There was something intimidating about the sneakers and flip-flops and hiking boots piled to the right of the heavy maroon curtain that served as a door to the meditation room. I could see Dr. Dan’s black motorcycle boots, placed neatly against the wall, but most of the footwear was unfamiliar. The men and women who owned it were presumably regulars, earnest practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. They were students who knew Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche intimately, and guarded their insider status.
But the fact of an ally in the room was comforting. My visit, after all, had been Dr. Dan’s idea. An internist from Miami, Daniel Kauff had moved to Nepal in 1983 to volunteer with the Himalayan Rescue Association. When his tour with the HRA ended he’d organized Kathmandu’s first Western-style clinic and published several papers on the etiology of bacterial dysentery. His involvement with Buddhism began three years ago, when he set up a free weekend clinic for Tibetan monks. This had involved working closely with Chokyi Nyima. Although Dan initially had little interest in the dharma, he’d found himself drawn in by the young Rinpoche’s humor and insight.
Chokyi Nyima, for his part, was fascinated by the empirical diligence of Western medicine, and by the fact that a professional caregiver from one of the wealthiest countries in the world could also be quite neurotic. The two men became friends. Over the course of just a few months, their meetings evolved into spiritual Q&A sessions.
“It was such a unique and unlikely friendship,” Dan confessed, “that I considered writing a book about it: The Rinp and I.” As time passed, though, and Dan’s respect for the lama increased, he abandoned his thoughts of turning their rapport into a vehicle for comedy.
Dan had prevailed upon me to visit Chokyi Nyima several weeks earlier, after reading the manuscript for a book I was writing about Buddhist art.
“You talk the talk,” he observed, “but when are you going to walk the walk? No offense, but your writing would be far more credible if you had a broader understanding of the dharma.” I couldn’t argue. Though I felt an intuitive understanding of Buddhism and comprehended the basics (I knew, for example, that dharma literally meant the “law,” or practice, of Buddhism), I’d seldom attended any formal teachings.
COGNIZANT OF THE requisite formalities, I carried a few small gifts for the Rinpoche: a bag of tangerines, purchased outside the Boudha entrance gate, and a kata, the traditional silk scarf that one presents to high lamas and other respected personages. Possession of these props would be enough, I hoped, to place me a notch above the lowest stratum of curiosity seekers.
My Reeboks joined the pile of shoes by the door. I parted the woolen curtain and stepped into the meditation room.
The light was marvelous. It filtered through the yellow curtains hanging over the windows, giving the broad, rectangular space a buttery warmth. There were about thirty-five Westerners inside. They sat attentively on the round cushions and thick Tibetan carpets covering the floor. A low sofa rested against the wall below the yellow curtains. Against the facing wall stood a huge wooden altar, a sort of high hutch with glass doors and shelves. It contained dozens of small statues, all flanking a golden Shakyamuni Buddha with sly, almost mischievous eyes. Among the smaller statues I recognized Tara, the goddess of compassion; Padmasambhava, the saucer-eyed wizard who had brought Buddhism from India to Tibet; and Manjushri, master of discriminating wisdom, with his flaming sword poised in the air.
Chokyi Nyima sat on a comfortable cushion on a slightly raised platform. He wore a dark maroon robe, which passed over his left shoulder. A red silk vest and yellow undershirt were visible beneath the robe’s swoop. His head, I noticed immediately, had an unusual shape. It was somewhat oblate, flattened out at the top and bottom, like an ostrich egg on its side. On a small table before him sat a Tibetan bell, a silver altar-box, a dorje, and a pile of red blessing cords, which he knotted as he spoke.
When he noticed a stranger had entered, Chokyi Nyima stopped speaking and fixed me with an appraising eye. As if on cue, every other eye in the room turned to regard me as well. I stood very still, feeling like someone who intended to steal a honeycomb and had just been noticed by the bees. My kata hung over my slightly outstretched hands; the bag of tangerines dangled from my forearm.
Serious dharma students, I knew, prostrated themselves three times before approaching a high lama. This I could not do. I could never reconcile such an action with the images I’d absorbed in Hebrew school: heroic Jews forfeiting their lives by refusing to bow, for any reason, to a mortal king.
The Rinpoche studied me for a moment, smiled, and beckoned me forward with a staccato of nods. I walked forward resolutely. But as I approached the dais I realized that I was towering above him. This didn’t seem appropriate, either. So I dropped to my knees, set down the tangerines, and—before he could resist—draped the silk kata around Chokyi Nyima’s neck.
There was muffled laughter from the assembly. I remained calm, folding my hands in my lap as Chokyi Nyima regarded me with a highly amused expression.
“Do I know you?” His voice was frank with a high, slightly comedic pitch.
“No, Rinpoche. We haven’t met.”
“I see.” More tittering from the audience. He reached into the bag of fruit and handed me one of my own tangerines. “You can sit down now,” he said.
I stood up and turned around. Everyone seemed amused, but I read no malice on their faces. I spotted Dan, who tapped a place next to himself on the low sofa. As I sat, tucking my legs into a sort of trampled lotus posture, an attendant monk placed a porcelain cup on the carved wooden table in front of me.
“It’s tea,” Dan whispered. I nodded, letting it cool.
“Don’t you like tea?” Chokyi Nyima called out, still attending my every move.
“I love tea,” I replied, sipping from the fragile cup and burning my tongue. “Mmmm. Very fine tea. Very fragrant. Thank you.”
Chokyi Nyima nodded, and seemed satisfied enough with my well-being to return his attention to the room at large. But his cell phone rang; the lama plucked a handset from his robe, pushed a button, nodded, and spoke in rapid Tibetan into the receiver.
Dan leaned toward me. “Do you know why everyone was laughing?”
“I did something stupid?”
“I wouldn’t say stupid. Different. Charming, actually. You put the kata around Chokyi Nyima’s neck.”
“And?”
“That’s wrong. You’re supposed to hand the kata to the rinpoche. He blesses the scarf and puts it around your neck. That’s the way it’s done. So, basically, it was like you were giving him a blessing.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “He wasn’t insulted?”
“Not at all.” Dan leaned in closer, placed a hand on my shoulder. “And I’m pretty sure you made an impression.”
I GLANCED BACK toward the head of the room. Chokyi Nyima had concluded his telephone conversation and was sorting through a pile of papers on a lacquered tray. He was humming softly and had tucked the ends of my kata scarf into the V-neck of his yellow undershirt.
“So,” he said, slapping his palm on the stack of paperwork and looking up abruptly at the assembled group. “Where were we?”
“Buddhism,” someone volunteered. It must have been a joke, though no one laughed.
“Ah yes. Buddhism!” The Rinpoche scanned the room with a droll countenance. “Always Buddhism! Never talk less than Buddhism here. Only Buddhism! Such high mind! Such great mind! Oooooo! Very, very good!” He adjusted his robe with a practiced gesture and smiled winningly.
“So. What is Buddhism? First, here’s what I’d like to say: In this world, there are many types of religion. On the one hand, Buddha dharma is a religion. But Buddha dharma is not the same as other religions. We shouldn’t include it in the religion section! Understand?” There were many nods, and a few affirmative grunts.
“What I think—and also true!—is that religion is on one side, and science, physics, chemistry, on another side. Buddha dharma is in the middle! Buddhism
is a religion, but Buddhism is not really a religion. Buddhism is a science, but Buddhism is not really a science.
“So what is Buddha dharma? Hmmm?” The Rinpoche lowered his voice and spoke slowly. “Buddha dharma is common sense: Truth.
“Other religions are also searching for Truth. Science, also, is searching for Truth. Each has a different way of searching, and each has a different idea of what makes Truth.
“Now, one problem is God. Some people are sure there’s a God. Hundred percent sure! Some people say no, there’s no God; believing in God is wrong. This is not a small contradiction! What I think is, there’s no need to contradict. But first we must ask, what means ‘God’? Hmmm?” He cupped his ear expectantly.
Hands were raised, and opinions offered. God is energy; God is love; God is Jesus Christ. God created the Universe. God is dead. God is that which protects us. God is an old man with a white beard, wrathful but just. God is George Burns. The group broke into laughter and scattered conversations.
“Okay.” Chokyi Nyima raised his hand for silence. “If you believe God means something solid, powerful, permanent, controlling the universe, then it’s a little strange. Who made him? Why does he behave as he does? When he’s happy, he helps; when he is not happy, he punishes. He’s sort of a nasty man! If, on the other hand, God is a kind of truth—a kindness, a peace, existing beyond ideas—perfect! Then there’s nothing wrong! If you understand that way, it makes more sense, and it’s also quite logical.
“A different way of believing,” the Rinpoche continued, “makes a different way of understanding. And the best understanding is the most logical understanding. When something is logical, we have no choice but to believe. So: Logic is the best religion. Do you understand? If an argument can be defeated, it is not the best! If you cannot defeat it, then . . . what? Automatically, without choice, it’s the best. Okay? Make sense?”
Snake Lake Page 2
