Canyon Reflections: Starting Up Again

Emerging from the warm pile of sleeping blankets, I quickly pull on my rain pants and a wind shirt under my down coat. The wind shirt, while unnecessary for any movement of the air, since all is deeply still and silent, adds a layer of insulation by holding in a bit longer the meager heat my body produces. I crawl out of my tent, which by auspicious accident, faces east, up the canyon, towards the gap in the long, red, rock walls where the first hint of dawn glows softly with an incandescent light. Above me, early morning stars are sprinkled across the fading night’s velvet tapestry. The walls of the canyon and the looming spire of Spider Rock hold the darkness like an ancient mystery. Their presences are tangible, living things, like the inverted surface of a garnet moon. 

There is only silence as the glow in the east brightens imperceptibly and night turns into dawn without any single moment signaling the change. It suddenly, silently, and simply is. I stand to face the dawn, the light, feeling the dark slide back down off my head and shoulders, disappearing down the meandering canyon floor that slopes imperceptibly to the west. One by one, the stars vanish into the light. A light breeze stirs the narrow, pale green leaves of the olive trees whose branches curl protectively over my tent. Nothing stands still. All is living, moving ever so silently and slowly, but changing, flowing, nonetheless. A centerless, fluid realization of a fullness that can only be taken in whole when mind surrenders both its content and its edges long enough to briefly glimpse the richness that is our lives.

 Sitting under the huge, grandmother cottonwood tree that has become our practice space in the still indistinct light of early morning, I let myself drop into the theatre of self-offering we have come to perform four times daily – dawn, mid-morning, afternoon, and evening – the stage of non-attachment and surrender of self-grasping enacted in that third space, both sensed and sensing, a vast, crystalline expanse where energies coalesce and dissolve. I let the sound of damaru and bell shatter the habit of efforting the visualizations in which we offer up our bodies to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the demons of our self-grasping and emotional afflictions, and to all those with whom we have karmic debt that has not yet been paid in full.

 Without effort, such visualizations unfold themselves like clouds building and dissolving in the sky and the ordinary appearances of the world are overlaid with wild energy in the form of dancing dakinis and boiling skull cups of amrita. It is theatre as access point for truth and a profound letting go of resistance to the difficult that we each carry, embedded in our karmic genes. In our community, we encourage all practitioners to have a shadow practice, by which I mean, a practice that takes us into the difficult places inside ourselves. A practice that grants us access to those parts of ourselves that hold us back, that most hinder us from openness and gentleness towards ourselves and others. But access that includes an infrastructure within which to approach, befriend, and reconfigure our relationships to the places that scare us, deep inside. 

 This practice, the one we engage beneath the glittering leaves of the ancient cottonwood tree, at the foot of the towering spire of primordial red rock that marks the access point to the Navajo Nation’s other worlds, is both dramatic and gentle, outrageous and profoundly kind. It shatters the conceptual mind’s efforts to contain and understand it, especially blended, as it is, into the wilderness of both mind and nature’s unlocked energies. Caught up into the seamless interface between sound, music, chanting, visualization, and the dancing, shifting presencing of the canyon’s various features beneath the sky’s unbroken space, is wholeness that is not oneness, not permanent, not independent, not singular, but unbound and vast.

 The dawn practice comes to an end in waves of compassion, the unbroken mixture of empty fullness and gentleness, and the canyon valley vibrates with satisfaction, its demons and lonely spirits satiated. I walk back to my tent across the sandy canyon floor in a winding pattern of avoidance of the many sharp and spiky thorns almost every plant seems to bear, from the low, clustered prickly cactus to the bee balm hovering at knee height and dappled with bright yellow flowers. After a week down here my feet and legs have finally adjusted to walking in the sand, the necessary movements to accommodate a shifting, sliding ground more naturally occurring without so much need for my attention. High overhead, the first ravens and vultures take to the air, their dark forms sliding like sharp, minute shadows through the azure space.

 The sun’s rays strike fire against the canyon’s western walls and the air is filled with an imperceptible tinge of red. In silence, we each ignite our small camp stoves and perform whatever breakfast preparations interest us. Silence is part of the practice, the willingness to open oneself to communication that is larger than that which we ordinarily practice, communication for which words are nearly useless, but attention is essential. It is only through a receptivity that grows as silence deepens that it is possible to hear the ancient ones speak – to hear grandmother Spider’s voice in the susserations of wind through the needles of stunted pine and tamarack; to feel the warmth of the Buddhas’ glow in the heat shimmering into the air off the surface of the sandstone canyon walls; to feel the engulfing waves of the lineage blessings in the impenetrable expanse of Arizona’s dark blue sky.

Knowing wilderness is key to knowing wildness of both body and mind, of heart and being. A retreat that uses the natural world as its temple isn’t about just using the natural world as a substitute meditation space, but about accessing an opening into the non-conceptual space of our own being – a space wild, untamed - unknowable in ordinary conceptual terms – a place of radical being.

Living in the Waterfall

Living in the Waterfall

It’s been so long since I had the space of mind to write anything for this blog and it’s hard to believe that in a couple of days, I will have only one month remaining in this country I have come to love so much. Outside my window the rain comes down through the mountain valley in long white sheets that blanket us in continuous waterfalls of sound. The rain thunders over the tin roofs and breaks down through thousands of leaves. The rivers swell and roar on either side of our small apartment so that finally I feel we are living inside of a world of falling water and green leaflight. Something there is in such a rush of sound and water that steals away my sense of purpose until I find myself watching those long veils of water from a distance. I am deeply saddened by the reality of having leave Bhutan and even more saddened that I did not keep up my postings to remind myself of the adventures that have carried me along this journey. But, it is not too late.

Today began as usual with the birds beginning to sing at about 4:30am. By the time I arose, the clouds had parted above the highest peaks and a blue sky, ragged with strips of white capped the dark green slopes. Within the hour, the clouds had closed back in and by the time I was ready to begin my daily drive down the mountain to Thimphu to continue translating Drukpa Kunley’s biography, the rain was beginning again. Before I had even left the driveway, my phone rang. Chris, who had left to “invigilate” for the first day of exams at Royal Thimphu College, was on the line. He informed me that exams had been cancelled due to the suicide of a student during the night. I turned off the engine and sat stunned in the car.

According to what could be determined, the student, a young man, killed himself after hearing that he would not be allowed to sit for his exams due to his lack of class attendance. But the truth is that no one will ever really know just why this person no longer felt capable of bearing his own existence. And the terribly sad fact is that he obviously felt he had nowhere to turn to, or no one to turn to, for help. In a society that appears to be so tightly interwoven, to the extent that even kinship terms lose the kind of solid and definitive meanings assigned to them in other cultures, it is provocative to realize that there are perhaps many people who feel deeply and painfully alone. Even more thought provoking is to consider this fact together with the basic truth that we are all deeply and powerfully alone, no matter how many friends or lovers or connections we may appear to have on the surface. Suicide is a rare event in Bhutan, where most people are Buddhist and where extended family relationships seem to ensure that almost no one becomes isolated within their own suffering to such a powerful extent.

Buddhism itself considers the act of suicide to be the deliberate rejection of the most precious of births in the cycle of samsara. To attain a human body is to be placed in the position of being able to achieve enlightenment. One’s suffering and pleasure are balanced to the exact degree necessary to incite the disciple to renounce both desire and aversion and to work to attain the stability and equanimity of mind necessary to experience a reality beyond conceptual thought. But the question arises, in a country that has been catapulted from medieval times straight into the twenty-first century within a sixty to seventy year period, how much did Buddhist values influence this young man’s life? Nominally? Profoundly? How can anyone predict the kinds of transformations that will take place on every level of human experience—emotional, psychological, physical, etc., when modernization occurs so quickly and powerfully.

While this young man never knew a world that did not include television and internet, Facebook and UTube, his grandparents watched the building of the first roads, the advent of the first motorized vehicles, of electricity, of running water, of airplanes, of cell phones and computers. They saw journeys that took them four days by foot and on horseback shortened to a few hours drive over winding roads. They saw the advent of an entire educational system. But can these kinds of larger cultural, historical, and political movements gain any traction in helping to make sense of a young person’s decision to take his own life? Or can his decision be attributed to the enormous pressure faced by the youthful population of Bhutan to “make it” in this life? We will never know.

From the earliest days of their education, Bhutanese students embark on a series of examinations that determine who proceeds and how. Straight up to the final civil service exam taken about eight months after graduation from college, students face test after test. Some make it through to that final examination and perhaps to the attainment of the coveted goal of the civil service job, complete with perks. Others do not. But the pressure to succeed in this one way is indelibly inscribed into the hearts and minds of every student. As more and more young people enter the higher educational system, the number of civil service jobs available cannot keep up. With the private sector just beginning to take root here, there are still few alternatives, although this will likely and hopefully change with time.
But, ultimately, it is impossible to say how many of these factors may or may not have influenced the student to take his life. Young people commit suicide in countries all over the world every day for reasons that we all continue to try to understand. It was perhaps no more and no less than a moment in time of intense suffering in which a decision is made that cannot be revoked, in which one intensification of pain for one person multiplies exponentially into thousands of broken shards of pain for all those who loved and befriended him. Today’s veils of falling rain seem deeply appropriate as we all pray that some peace has come to this young man. 

Hidden Lands of Drukpa Kunley

Rinzin Dorji arrives at 7pm on November 8, 2012 in Lobeysa. Over dinner, he presents me with a worksheet including dates, activities, places, and names of persons to be met or interviewed over the next two days during our pilot fieldwork excursion in the Punakha valley as we initiate the recording and gathering of oral stories and folklore of Lam Drukpa Kunley. Rinzin’s paperwork designates me as the “researcher” and Rinzin himself as the “local consultant.”

Dasho, Me, and Rinzin (my fabulous consultant) in front of Chimme Lhakang

The next morning, Nov. 9^th, 2012, we meet at 8am at the Pema Restaurant in Metsina. After a breakfast of omelets and tea, we drive back to pick up Dasho Kencho Tshering, a 73 year-old retired government minister living in Wangdi with his wife, Am. Dasho’s wife is the second daughter of the old koe-nyer (caretaker) of the Chhime Lhakang in Lobeysa, the main site sacred to Drukpa Kunley in Bhutan. Dasho himself, while retired, still serves many important functions in the local communities of the Wangdi/Punakha valley, including that of mediator, judge, and consultant for village communities. As a result, he knows and is known by nearly everybody. In addition, he is a long-time good friend of Rinzin, the two of them having worked together on numerous projects to benefit the local communities. They have known each other for at least 35-40 years. Dasho’s influence and help turn out to be invaluable to our fieldwork experience. 

Dasho Kencho Tshering

Dasho is a handsome man with distinctive features and long, almond-shaped eyes. He is fit and healthy, clearly a person who spends much of his time outside. In fact, we learn that he has just finished harvesting his own paddy fields the day before. We pick him up at his house, a large, traditional-style Bhutanese home tucked into the curve of the newly paved road to Wangdi. He wears an orange-checked gho, brown shoes, and the usual knee-high socks. A golf cap sits smartly on his head. Since Dasho speaks no English, he and Rinzin sit in the back seat while Chris drives and I sit sideways to try to converse with both of them. The day is mild, with a hazy blue sky into which the mountain ridges seamlessly merge. 

Wangdi-Punakha Valley

The valley floor is a mosaic of autumn colors—the brown of the newly harvested paddy fields rimmed with bright green from the weeds and growth along the edges, the gold of the rice stalks laid flat on the fields to dry in the sun before being beaten and packaged. I learn that the Punakha/Wangdi valley used to be the breadbasket of Bhutan. Because of its low altitude, it is well suited to the growing of two crops of rice per year. On our way to the Chhime Lhakang, Rinzin explains my project to Dasho. The two of them have an ease of communication that clearly only comes from years of friendship. We weave our way along a long dirt road through the small villages clustered around the base of the hill upon which the Chhime Lhakang perches, its gold roof glittering in the early morning sunlight. Reaching the end of the road, we disembark and hike up the rest of the way.

Chimme Lhakang

 As we hike, Rinzin pauses often to point out certain landmarks to me. First he points across the valley to the mountainside to our north where the old man named Ap Tenzin meditated using a mantra given to him by Drukpa Kunley until he achieved rainbow body (‘ja’ lus). Apparently, there is a chorten there, which marks the place where he meditated. I cannot actually see any chorten, and as we discover later in the day, the chorten is likely covered over with summer growth. Rinzin also describes to me the story of Am Chos Skyim, the protectress of the Chhime Lhakang, who was at one time a dangerous demoness. Apparently, she was so uncontrollable that Drukpa Kunley was forced to take her a consort in order to subdue her. At that point, she promised to do no harm and took refuge in the Dharma. Currently, she is the protector of the gsung (spoken and written teachings) and of the lhakang itself. The story goes that she openly displayed her private parts in order to trap Drukpa Kunley, who was having none of it on her terms, but who, by making love to her himself, subdued her.

Chimme Lhakang Bodhi Tree

 As we approach the top of the hill, there is a large prayer wheel on the right. Above that is the small plateau upon which rests the lhakang itself, a huge Bodhi tree, and the few buildings of the small monastic school, the lopdra, of the Chhime Lhakang. I am informed the courtyard of the Chhime Lhakang is traditionally kept completely clear. There are no buildings other than those mentioned above. This is due to the fact that DK gave Dharma discourses here to many people and the place should be kept open in memory of those teachings. We walk around the lhakang to the entrance, keeping the building itself always on our right sides, as is traditional with walking around any sacred Buddhist structure. Once inside the inner-courtyard, we can hear the sounds of chanting and monastic music—drums, horns, and bells. Rinzin tells me that there is a ceremony being done inside for a recently deceased villager. He goes inside the main temple to see how crowded it is. While he is inside, we watch a group of young monks begin to enter the small classroom across from the main lhakang. They are gathering for their morning lessons. I reflect that it must be difficult for them to learn very much when so many tourists are always passing through right outside their glassless windows. Since we are so early, not many tourists have yet arrived, but given that this is the height of the tourist season, it is only a matter of a couple of hours before they begin.

Me and Lam of Chimme Lhakang

 Dasho goes into a side room and returns with the new, young Lam of the lhakang. Since the old lam has recently retired (the story being that he has gone into lifetime retreat at the nearby Nalanda monastery), the new Lam has taken over his official duties. The new Lam, Samdrup Norbu, is a 35 year-old monk, who recently finished his three-year retreat at Tashigang Monastery above Hongtso. He has an unlined face with clear, kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. He leads us inside the lhakang. I have been to the Chhime Lhakang three previous times, but without any ability to find or speak to the Lam. Since this new Lam has only been officiating since July, I realize that I probably came during times when there was actually no one there besides the younger monks and their one teacher. However, this new Lam clearly knows Dasho and is happy to engage us in conversation. Inside the lhakang, the noise alternates between the steady hum of the monks chanting and the louder, echoing music of the monastic instruments. It is hard to hear the Lam at times and I worry that my recorder will miss most of his comments. I’d prefer a quieter environment, but there isn’t much choice.

Through Rinzin (since the Lam does not speak English), I learn that the central figure in the chos sham is Drukpa Kunley (this is obvious as the figure holds a bow and arrow, and there is even a small representation of his hunting dog by his side). To his right is a large statue of his brother, Ngawang Choegyal. For all Bhutanese, there is no controversy concerning whether or not Drukpa Kunley had a brother. From the point of view of scholarship on Drukpa Kunley, this is a contested issue. Some accounts suggest that DK has two brothers, others that he had only one, and others that he had none at all and that Ngawang Choegyal was actually a cousin or relative. Given the ease with which most Bhutanese and Tibetans call relatives “brother” or “sister” even when they do not share the same mother or father, this issue will likely never be clearly resolved. In any event, Ngawang Choegyal is well known in Bhutan. The story about the Chhime Lhakang is that it was built by Ngawang Choegyal, but he was unable to subdue the evil spirits and demons that obstructed its completion until he called in his brother, Drukpa Kunley. Drukpa Kunley accomplished what he brother could not and the temple name derives from the transformation of one particularly problematic demoness into a dog, who Drukpa Kunley then buried beneath a chorten directly outside the lhakang. Thus the name of the temple, “Chhime” (Tib. krhi med), means “without dog” temple. To Drukpa Kunley’s left is a large silver chorten. This chorten is said to have been made by Drukpa Kunley himself to house the remains (mala, rice bowl, and cup) of the old man, Ap Tenzin, who achieved rainbow body while reciting the mantra given to him by Drukpa Kunley. There is a large Chenrezig statue to the far left of the main chos sham. As the Lam describes the items on the shrine to us, more and more tourists are arriving. They are slightly taken aback by the puja being performed and appear somewhat confused. I can’t help wondering what most people think when they encounter this kind of thing. Since they are not Buddhist, does it make any sense?

Chimme Lhakang Lam and Chorten with Demoness

 The Lam brings over the items by which all people who visit the Chhime Lhakang are blessed—two carved phalluses and a bow and arrow. He explains that the first phallus, carved of wood, is said to come from the sacred gnas of Tsari in Tibet. It is the “original” but it is not clear if it was actually carved by DK himself or not. The second phallus is made of ivory, from an elephant tusk, and is said to have been brought by the Third King of Bhutan to the Chhime Lhakang. The bow and arrow are replicas of the Drukpa Kunley’s original bow and arrow. They were made during the time of Desi Tenzin Rabgye—the original bow and arrow are housed at Tango Monastery in Thimphu. I am surprised by this information, since I have visited Tango many times without having seen or even been told about this. I must remember to ask my friend, Tulku Ngawang. Drukpa Kunley is primarily represented in the same posture as the Drukpa Kagyu saint, Milarepa, with his right hand cupped behind his ear. Unlike Milarepa, Drukpa Kunley holds a bow and arrow in his left hand and is generally shown with his hunting dog at his side. The cupped hand behind the ear signifies the lama’s ability to sing spontaneous songs (Tib. mgur) appropriate to the state of mind of his disciples. These songs are not composed prior to meeting with the disciple, but arise out of the quality of the meeting between master and disciple.

Drukpa Kunley Ear-cupping Mudra

 Along the wall to the right as one enters the main lhakang is an extensive mural depicting scenes from the life of Drukpa Kunley as it is understood in Bhutan. The Lam provides a detailed description of one scene—that of Drukpa Kunley writing a letter to the Lord of Death concerning the catching and eating of fish by a local village. This story seems to be both an oral tale and one of the stories found in the Four-part Namthar that I am translating. But most of the representations on the wall depict stories from the more modern collection of tales about Drukpa Kunley found in the biography compiled by Je Gendun Rinchen. Since these are the stories that primarily animate the tradition of DK in Bhutan, I am only mildly surprised. When I ask the Lam if he has read the chos skad rnam thar he says that while he has a copy, he hasn’t been able to read much of it since it is so difficult to read. I reflect on my incredible good fortune to have found Lopen Chorten, without whom I too would be unable to read the namthar.

Lotus Flower in Pond Outside Chimme Lhakang

 After we finish inside the lhakang, we all go outside. The Lam wants to offer us tea, so we sit in the cool shade of the huge Bodhi tree and sip our milky tea. While we sit, I ask the lam questions about his position and his life. He tells us that he entered the monastery at the age of 11. He himself attended the lopdra at the Chhime lhakang before entering the shes dra in Punakha. He then completed his lo gsum chos gsum at Tashigang Monastery in Hongtso before returning to teach at the lopdra at the Chhime Lhakang. He has been chosen by the previous Lam of the Chhime Lhakang to take over the duties of Lam. However, he is “on probation” until he is officially blessed by the current Je Khenpo as the replacement of the Chhime Lhakang Lam. The appointment is usually for five years, but can be extended as and if the current person wishes to extend. Ultimately, there is no time limit. We ask him what his vision is for the Chhime Lhakang and for himself. He says that he hopes to expand and develop the lopdra, and to build a trail up the lhakang that is safer than the current mud path, which often becomes quite treacherous during the wet season. He tells us that there are currently 43 monks studying at the Chhime Lhakang and one teacher. The monks are educated up the 8^th standard before they must leave for the shes dra. The lopdra has been running for the past eleven years. In general, he feels that he has been blessed by the previous Lam, since he chose him to be his successor. He feels that he has found his path in life and he doesn’t really feel there is any other path for him. As he speaks the shadows cast by the moving leaves of the Bodhi tree play across his face. Various people gather around to listen to him and to stare at us. I can’t help but like him immensely. He has a very kind and gentle energy and he seems quite sincere. Rinzin offers to have business cards made for him in Thimphu, so we take a number of pictures of him in his formal dress standing in front of the lhakang and the large chorten under which the demoness is said to be buried by Drukpa Kunley. After a long series of goodbyes, we leave him to his duties and depart into the bright sunlight back down the hill.

Dasho leads us away from the main trail across the brown fields to show us the sacred spring of Drukpa Kunley below the Lhakang. When he was young and had just married his wife, the second daughter of the then koe nyer (caretaker) of the Chhime Lhakang, he often worked to carry water up to the Lhakang from the spring. He even had a donkey that he used to bring water. His wife too, was often employed in this work. Given that the spring lies a fair distance down the hillside, such work would likely have taken up a substantial part of anyone’s day. We meander down through paddies until we come to a small, oasis-like patch of land tucked under the hillside. A small house is there with a huge, black pig snoring in the sunlight in front. I mark my steps around him quietly, not wanting to wake him. 

Drup Chu Pig

A few more rough steps through mud and under green, sparkling bamboo trees brings us to the spring, which I learn is named Trim Ser Chuu, or “Water From the Sand.” True to its name, the water seems to issue out through a sandy channel. Dasho tells us that when he carried water from the spring, if some unclean or polluted person had come into contact with the water, it would be possible to find small bits of coal in the water. Sometimes, the water source would actually move from spot to spot if it became polluted. The water is known for being cold in the summer and warm in the winter. And indeed, when I crouch down before the spout, the water feels warm to my hands. I splash my hands and face, fill a small water bottle, and sip a bit of the clear water. Two women, who live in the little house with the pig in front, tell us that tourists almost never come to see the spring. As we leave, two small children, a boy and a girl, approach me, each holding a beautiful orange and yellow-colored iris. They both hold out the flowers to me. I feel so touched. The flowers are beautiful and it appears that the children thought to give them to me entirely on their own. I smile and say “flower” in Dzongkha to them and take the flowers.

Me with Flowers

 Our next stop is a chorten at the turn of the road from Lobesa heading up the Punakha valley to the Dzong. Here we stop and look down to the where the Mo Chu/Pho Chu river meets up with a small tributary river bubbling over the rocks. The pale green of the larger river is unaffected by the water of the small stream coming down from the valleys of the Dochu-Lha pass. This confluence is the site where Drukpa Kunley is said to have subdued the Rolung demoness—hence the name of the smaller tributary river is “Rolung Chuu.” The idea is that the V-shape formed by the intersection of the two rivers serves to restrain the demoness. This is a theme I am beginning to note, but did not ask specifically about—the fact that the shape of the triangle is thought to be particularly potent in subduing demonic forces or evil spirits. Rinzin tells how, as a child back in the days when there weren’t any roads, he walked the mule track that can still be seen alongside the Pho Chuu/Mo Chuu river up from Wangdi to Lobesa and then up the Dochu-Lha pass. He notes that he and his friends were always frightened at this spot, since there is an ongoing feeling that this demoness can still cause problems.

River Conjunction where demoness was subdued

I am beginning to realize that Bhutanese live in a world that is populated by all sorts of different kinds of beings, from animals and birds, to local spirits, demons, evil spirits, and ghosts. Even at RTC, according to some friends who have spent a fair amount of time having tea with their students, the students are terrified of staying in the dormitories since they believe that they are all haunted. Every night, apparently, there are “possessions.” And indeed, last year one female student was “possessed” to such an extent that she passed out in class. Various ritual experts were required to restore her to herself. It’s not clear whether the students were worried before this event, but certainly since it occurred there is an ongoing fear and even and ongoing experience of supernatural intervention. I noticed too, as Rinzin was telling me about this or that location, that he often mentioned his fear as a child of demons and spirits. On holidays, it is very common to see Bhutanese flocking to temples and monasteries to make offerings and say prayers that they will not be harmed or affected adversely by the many beings surrounding them in the environment. I conclude that what I see when I look out my window or hike up in the mountains is definitely not what they are seeing. 

Fire Trees in the Forest

While a forest, high up in the mountains where the trees are garlanded with strings of dark moss and the shadows play across the steep slopes, appears to me as a place of profound beauty and peace, to most Bhutanese it is a place where spirits come and go, a haunted and unsafe place through which they pass with great apprehension. Just the other day, while hiking to a monastery on one Buddhist holiday, Chris and I were regaled with stories by two young girls also hiking concerning their fears about the ghosts and demons in the forest through which we passed. It is becoming clear that one of the reasons that DK is such a popular figure in Bhutan has to do with the many, many stories about him that detail his skill in taming demons and demonesses and turning them into protectors of the Dharma. Chris and I have speculated that perhaps this pervasive sense of the real presence of such beings comes from living in a country which until quite recently had no electricity or communicative devices of any kind. Once darkness falls in these steep mountain valleys, no source of light, other than that made by fire, would have been available. Sounds, sights, and events occurring without being seen could and would be interpreted in numerous ways. I am in no way wanting to discount the truth of what people say. In fact, I am most fascinated by the fact that Bhutan is still a place alive with energies that most other places discount. Personally, I would quite like to see the actions of such beings and to find new ways to experience a reality that my own culture has nearly completely discounted. 

Wolakha Paddy Fields

Wolakha

After lunch in the rather uninspiring town of Kuruthang, where we eat at a hotel of Dasho’s choosing (it’s not clear whether he chooses this restaurant because he knows it caters to chillips or whether he really likes it), we head out to look for the village of Wolakha, the place where the old man, Ap Tenzin lived and where he achieved enlightenment by meditating on the mantra given to him by Drukpa Kunley. Lunch takes a long time, interrupted by the arrival of a huge group of tourists who gather hungrily around the buffet tables and talk loudly. There is something about these tourist trains that I find rather sad and ugly. They seems utterly divorced from the real world of Bhutan and Bhutanese people, sailing through on their coaster buses from one site to another, eating the “tourist food buffets” and staying in bland hotels constructed just for them. I feel grateful to be sitting with Dasho and Rinzin, even though our food takes a very long time to arrive and we are forced to sit through the noise and clatter of the tourists’ luncheon.

Paddy Field Puzzles

After lunch we drive up the road that passes by Zangtro Pelri, one of the most well known hotels in the Punakha valley. A side road down to the left turns out to be our destination, but since the road is quite rough and appears to drop off a cliff, we park the car by the side of the main road and proceed on foot. Dasho leads us down into a small village where a group of dogs bark noisily at us until we exit out the other side into the paddy fields. One dog decides to be our guide and trots along behind, in front, and beside us. The fields, which are mostly, but not completely, harvested, are spread out like a large, golden amphitheater in the warm afternoon light. We walk precariously along the narrow tracks that skirt the edges of the fields. It is necessary to watch one’s step at all times, since the tracks are rough, narrow and a misstep will clearly pitch one over the edge down into the next paddy field, a fall of about four to five feet. In fact, Chris, who has been designated as the official photographer, and who is following behind, does just this, a fact I learn only when he catches up and can be seen to be covered in mud from the knees down, his only school shoes now a pale shade of brown. I hustle to follow Rinzin and Dasho as they move with the ease of many years through the rough terrain. The famous Wangdi valley wind is beginning to pick up and the long stalks of the uncut rice ripple like golden waves. Below us dark green pines trees and a fence surround a small lhakang. It’s golden roof glitters in the sunlight. It’s solitary location; halfway between the two small villages is ideal for the gathering of people from both areas. Seen this time of day, in the wind and the afternoon light, with the long, fertile valley extending both up and down, this place is almost unbearably lovely. I can well understand why Drukpa Kunley spent a lot of his time here.

Wolakha Lhakang

 Our first mission is to try to find the chorten that we glimpsed from the trail up to the Chhime Lhakang, where the old man, Ap Tenzin, is said to have achieved rainbow body. Dasho and Rinzin push through the thick growth, climb under barbed wire fences, ending up covered in burrs, with no sign of the small chorten. We turn back the second village we have come through, the village where Ap Tenzin’s house is still standing. After a bit of wandering about (even though there are only three or four houses in the village) we find an old man named Rinchen, who turns out to be the koe nyer of the house. He also claims to be of Ap Tenzin’s lineage—or at least—his wife claims her descent from Ap Tenzin. Rinchen himself is from the Wangdi area. Although he is only 65 years old, his eyes are tinted with cataracts and he appears far older. He wears a woven black and white hat and old, stained sweat pants. 

Rinchen

The wind is now whipping up the valley, so we stand in the lee side of the house to interview him. He describes how he used to be in the army and due to that role, he learned how to read and write. This enabled him to become the mchod pa for the house of Ap Tenzin. It is slightly unclear how and when he served in this role, which includes arranging for ceremonies and taking care of all the offerings that might come to the place. The house itself is being rebuilt. Rinchen shows us another chorten that marks the first place Ap Tenzin’s family insisted he stay when his chanting of the mantra disturbed the other family members with its vulgarity. Drukpa Kunley had instructed him to chant the mantra more and more loudly the more relatives were about. Finally, out of embarrassment, his daughters moved him outside to a shed, and then even more distantly, to a small straw hut. One day, when they did not hear him, the youngest daughter went to the hut. As she entered, a large HUM shot into the sky in a burst of rainbow light. There was no sign of her father. Rinchen tells us his version of this story in his local dialect. I record him, but at that point am unclear exactly what he says. His wife’s name turns out to be Nasemo. When I ask if we might interview her (both since she is considered the actual relative of Ap Tenzin and because I would very much like to get some stories from women), it is clear that Rinchen isn’t keen to involve her. He rather reluctantly attempts to find her, without success. Rinzin tells me that she may very well have disappeared when we showed up, since many villagers are reluctant to talk to strangers. I’m disappointed, but can only push the issue so far. Rinchen clearly knows and trusts Dasho, and without Dasho, I imagine he might not have talked to us at all.

Researching with Chimme Lhakang in Distance

 After finishing interviewing him, we make our way back through the terraced paddy fields with our doggy friend accompanying us all the way back to the car. He curls up in the sun by the side of the road as we leave. Along the way back, we stop by the side of the road below Wolakha and try to hike up through the thick brush to the chorten we could not find from above. Again, we are turned back by a tightly strung barbed wire fence and thick bush. We agree to return to this spot in the winter/spring, when most of the undergrowth will have diminished, including the burr bushes that seem to be working themselves deeper and deeper into our socks and shoes.

Pakche Namkha Dem's House

 Our final stop of the day is the Pakche Lhakang, the home of the most beautiful consort of Drukpa Kunley, a woman named Pakche Namkha Dem in the village of Pakchekha. By this time of day, the light has begun to fade and the colors of the surrounding mountains turn to soft pastels of blue, pink, and green. The wind begins to die down and a chill creeps up the valley floor. The lhakang is located down in the valley by the river, though high enough that one can easily see both up and down the long valley. There is a small house next to the lhakang. The lhakang itself used to be the house of the consort. Here, the story goes, Drukpa Kunley arrived and Pakche Namkha Dem tried to serve him tea. In those days, there was no real tea, but only unprocessed leaves. Into this, people would melt large chunks of butter. Apparently, Drukpa Kunley did not care for the butter, thinking that it was rancid and therefore threw his cup of tea against the wall, splattering it. Wherever the tea went, the wall turned to gold. Because the Lam of the lhakang has just left for Thimphu, we are unable to meet him. This is unfortunate, because the koe nyer, his uncle, is quite old and seems unable to say very much about the lhakang. He does bring us into the main temple room and we see a statue that was made of the consort as well as a statue of Drukpa Kunley. The statue of the consort was made to represent the lady only recently and is supposed to show her great beauty. 

Pakche Namkha Dem

The caretaker tells us that the inner chos sham has not been touched, only the outer one. He also points out the wall upon which DK threw the tea. Chris takes a picture of it and, oddly enough, although the wall looks dark and mottled to the ordinary eye, in the picture it appears to be splashed with gold! We are all quite amazed by this. I tape the caretaker, but am unsure what he actually tells us. Rinzin also tells me that the lineage of this lady has prospered in Bhutan—that her descendants are quite well off now. Since this is a private lhakang, it receives no government sponsoring. As a result, the Lam is paid by the Dasho who renovated and built the lhakang, a man named Dasho Pap Kesang (not sure how to spell this). The current lam has only been in residence for about six years. As we depart, the chill of late autumn has descended on the valley that now lies folded in dark purple and blue shadow. There is something in the colors of the coming night and in the feel of the autumn air that gives me a sense of what Drukpa Kunley’s most beautiful consort must have looked like.

Changdana

The next morning we again meet for breakfast over omletes, momos, and tea at what has become our new favorite local restaurant. A few people come in with the apparent motivation simply to stare at us. One man drinks three bottles of extra-strong Druk 1100 beer in liter-sized bottles. He does not appear to eat anything, just drinks down glass after glass of the most popular Bhutanese beer. Soon after, we depart to begin the drive back up the road to the Dochu-la. Today we are visiting a place known as Toeb Changdana where we hope to find the house containing the ladder into which Drukpa Kunley is known to have shot an arrow from Tibet at the command of a dakini holding a flaming sword and wearing a yellow skirt. According to the story, Drukpa Kunley lived in this house with the owner’s wife, a beautiful woman named Pelzang Bhuti, fathering upon her a son whose lineage in Bhutan is famous to this day. All this occurred after Drukpa Kunley tied the husband’s sword into a knot when he protested the loss of his young wife! While living in Toeb Changdana, Drukpa Kunley subdued numerous demons and demonesses, farmed paddy fields, and taught the Buddhist teachings to anyone who was interested.

Veggie Sellers

After about 15 kilometers, Rinzin pulls off to the side of the road with us close behind him. Questioning a couple of vegetable sellers sitting on the roadside, he informs us that the Lam of Toeb Changdana was just here, selling his own vegetable to the roadside ladies. We will find him on our way down to the river bottom. Just then, one of the women calls Rinzin back over and tells him that she has just called the Lam, who has agreed to wait for us. We pile back into our car and take a long gravel road down to the right off the main road. We quickly overtake the Lam, who climbs in the back smelling strongly of doma. In one of those odd, but very common Bhutanese coincidences, the Lam turns out to have been one of Rinzin’s students in the primary school where Rinzin was teaching in Wangdi nearly thirty years before. They are both delighted to reforge their connection and chat animatedly in Dzong kha as we descend the rocky road.

Lam Drukpa Kunley Shooting His Arrow into Bhutan

At the bottom of the mountainside we park the car by some paddy fields and set off after the Lam towards a house that can be seen across the valley on the side of the opposite slope. The day is mild with a soft breeze whispering over the uncut rice plants and through the swaying fronds of bamboo and bananas trees. We wind our way through the paddies and across a river surging down through a tunnel of dark green oaks. Halfway up the opposite mountain slope, the Lam stops and points to the paddy fields below us. Rinzin translates his words for me, telling me that we are looking at the paddy fields that Drukpa Kunley is said to have carved out in unusual shapes. One is shaped like a large circle representing the moon, while another is formed in the shape of a triangle to represent the sun. In Tibetan Buddhism, fire is often represented by the shape of a triangle. 

Lam Drukpa Kunley's Paddy Fields

Soon we approach the house, a large, well-maintained structure I am told used to be five stories high, but was reduced to three. The original walls are three to five feet thick. Behind the house, a small lhakang perches as the edge of the lawn surrounded by brilliant marigolds. The Lam, whose name is Khandu, shows us into a sitting room where we sit in silence with the breeze lifting the white curtains and the scarlet faces of poinsettia flowers nodding. It is one of the most peaceful places I can remember being. There is something about the light, the air, the colors of the garden, flowers, trees, the golden rice stalks lying like a complex jigsaw puzzle beneath the warm sunlight, the rows of slices of cut pear, apple, and squash that works its way under my skin. The longer we sit in that room, the less I want to leave.

Toeb Pelzang Bhuti's House

Khandu soon returns with milk tea and biscuits. He has changed into his gho, but his feet are bare and his large, sturdy hands dark with earth from the vegetables he harvested this morning. I ask him if he would be willing to share his story and his thoughts on Drukpa Kunley. He takes some time to compose himself and again we all sit silently while the sun sends shadows leaping over the walls. I tape him when he speaks and Rinzin translates for me. Khandu and his elder sister, Zam, are the only caretakers of this house and the lhakang. The lhakang is private, but has been set aside as a sacred site by the first king of Bhutan, Urgyen Wangchuk who had taken Khandu’s great, great grandmother as his consort. 

Khandu and Zam

Both Khandu and Zam are direct descendants of Pelzang Bhuti. Khandu tells us that although he has been encouraged to take a wife, he cannot bring himself to leave this place. He says that whenever he does leave, the ladder and the statue of Drukpa Kunley in the main shrine room haunt his memory and he has to return. He isn’t worried about the succession of his line, but feels that Drukpa Kunley will provide when the time is right. He receives no funding to maintain the site and the temple, but does all he can by selling vegetables and by using the money left as donation by the pilgrims who come from all over Bhutan to pay their respects to the saint. He tells us that the lhakang has existed from the time of Drukpa Kunley, who built it to counteract the influence of a large demon lying above the house location. Looking up from the house, the demon’s two knees can be seen, with his head behind them. It is as if he is lying on his back with his knees raised and his private parts pointing directly at house. This is a particularly inauspicious configuration, and Drukpa Kunley’s building of the lhakang is said to completely reverse the negative influences.

The Demon's Knees from the door of the Lhakang

When he has finished speaking, Khandu takes us through the house. As promised, the walls are indeed somewhere between three and four feet thick, while the floorboards consist of a very hard, dark, sturdy wood known in Bhutanese as tsen dey—the most long-lasting wood. The main shrine room has a large cho sham, or altar, to the right of which we see the ladder itself. Khandu tells us that up until about five years ago, the ladder was out in the open for anyone to touch or see. But since so many pilgrims were coming and some were beginning to chip away pieces of the ladder to take home with them, it was decided to encase it glass behind the altar. It is still clearly visible, fashioned out of the same dark wood as the floors. Khandu allows us to take pictures of it. 

Drukpa Kunley's Meditation Seat

He then leads us outside and into the small lhakang. Again, I am struck by the silence and peaceful of this place within which color and light dances and plays. I can’t help feeling that I have tapped into a wellspring of Drukpa Kunley’s mind, a feeling corroborated by my sense of him when I read and translate his autobiography. Inside the lhakang are statues of Drukpa Kunley and a large, fairly new wall mural depicting the story of his life. I am delighted when Khandu allows me to photograph it. 

Drukpa Kunley and Pelzang Bhuti

He shows us how the original lhakang was far smaller than the current one, which, while still quite small, is about three times the size of the original. The original is evident from the older style and very faded representations of Drukpa Kunley and other bodhisattvas painted on the inner walls.  I just want to sit down here for a long time. But of course, we soon have to leave. I learn that on the 25^th day of the first month of the Bhutanese calendar, there is a sku mchod of Drukpa Kunley held in this lhakang for which people come from all over Bhutan. A sku mchod is a kind of remembering ritual for the saint during which all his stories, biographies, and praises are chanted throughout the day in a continuous manner. The idea is that by listening to and chanting these stories, one enters into the mind of the teacher and receives blessing from that encounter. I have seen this kind of ceremony performed in the USA by the Shambhala Buddhist community on their annual “Milarepa Day.”

Toeb Changdana Lhakang

Reluctantly, we make our way back across the paddy fields in the golden afternoon sunlight. I can’t help feeling as if I am traveling through time back into the 21^st century from some timeless places of light, color, and sound. The noise and rush of the modern world is far removed from this little oasis of peace and warmth. Chris and I vow to return and spend more time here. I think to myself that each encounter with a new place associated with Drukpa Kunley has brought me deeper and deeper into a Bhutan that lies just beneath the surface of the modernization that has only very recently begun to reshape the surface of the country. But underneath, I am learning that a whole way of thinking, feeling, and living still plays a dominant role in the lives of most Bhutanese besides those who have been seduced by the lure of materialism and the flash and brilliance of modern life in the capital. I realize that I know nothing whatsoever about this world I am slowly entering and at the same time I feel entirely at home in it, much like I felt when I was immersed in practicing and studying Buddhism before I returned to graduate school. I am beginning to understand on a very visceral level why and how Bhutan was traditionally classified as a bey yul or “hidden land” from the Himalayan Buddhist point of view. For those who have no knowledge of or who have never practiced within the Buddhist tradition, this might be quite hard to understand, since it requires the willingness to believe that reality is malleable to the degree that our own minds are malleable and that a mind at peace with itself is in harmony with the ways things actually are. But this kind of experience is embedded in the Bhutanese landscape. I feel it every time I encounter a sacred spot in Bhutan, or merely when I wander through the land itself. Wandering back across the paddy fields to where we left the car, I feel infinitely grateful for this experience—an experience that has awoken in me what in Tibetan is known as mos gus, “longing,” or “devotion.” Besides the love I feel for my family and friends, this is the most powerful emotion I’ve ever known. Finding it again lights up my mind with joy.

Lam Drukpa Kunley