Free So Close to Heaven by Barbara Crossette Page B

scurry along the unpaved footpaths or dawdle in groups to talk with acquaintances. I asked directions of a veryearnest American woman, struggling up a grade in rubber sandals and a rather unorthodox set of maroon robes; other pilgrims were speaking French. As evening approached, the familiar drones of lessons being read and prayers said rose to the accompaniment of blasts from monotonal monastic trumpets and the rhythmic beat of drums.
    So far, nothing would disturb the soothing vision of Buddhism that its impassioned advocates promote, except for the green-and-white Pakistan International Airlines Airbus nosing its way into the valley to land over the hill at Kathmandu’s international airport. The problem is underfoot. The once-gentle mountain meadows on which these
gompas
—monasteries—stand are strewn with garbage, trash, and human waste. Pink and green plastic bags take the place of spring flowers among tufts of grass where scrawny dogs root for rotting scraps of food. At the approach to the Shechen monastery, the large welcoming sign painted on the main staircase tells us in a couple of languages not to urinate on the walls. (The monks doing so are around the side of the building out of sight of the sign.) Someone on orange roller skates zips across the main courtyard, a rectangular space, perhaps a city block long and half as wide, enclosed by monastery offices and the cells of monks. The monastery temple—an arresting gold-trimmed, deep red building several stories high—occupies the center of the courtyard, its triple-tiered pagoda roof rising above an ornate portico held up by slender pillars whose capitals are lavishly painted in religious motifs. The temple’s stone steps are littered with plastic sandals and running shoes, not the soft velvet-thonged slippers of Burmese monks. Inside the monastic walls almost no vegetation has survived the human traffic. Is this a life of peace in natural harmony with the environment, which every Buddhist has a duty to protect? How far had I come from the monasteries of Bhutan?
    To travel through the peaks and valleys of Himalayan Buddhism is to become a collector of fragmented images and a teasing array of sense impressions, many of them bound to counter the stereotypes of simplicity and serenity that we expect to define a Buddhist universe. At the end of the journey, the traveler assembles these sense fragments into an individualistic understanding of what has been seen and experienced. Maybe that’s the way it should be, since Buddhism itself teaches us that each person must seek his own way to knowledge and enlightenment in this life or some other. Furthermore, in the Himalayan kingdoms, past and present, there has always been diversity of practice, if not belief. Localdeities elbow into the theology of textbooks. Natural landmarks may be sacred only to those in their neighborhoods. Certain mythological characters or
bodhisattvas
—deferred Buddhas who play the role of saints—are more highly venerated in one place than another. In Buddhism, there is no Rome, no Mecca, no Jerusalem, no single book of rules for all. Even in the golden age of Tibetan monastic life, each gompa was likely to follow only one school, sect, or famous lama. In short, what we conveniently label Tibetan or Himalayan Buddhism is at grassroots level a riotous assortment of rituals and superstitions, icons and symbols, folklore and creed. In a few far corners of this earthy faith, animal sacrifice persists, lamas work magic, and drunken monks have been known to brawl. There is nothing Zen-like about this branch of Lord Buddha’s clan.
    Maybe geography has more than a little to do with the uncommon vitality of Himalayan Buddhism. To be born in this environment—where the body is strained to its limits while the soul is freed to soar above nature at its most magnificent—is to live a daily life of extremes. You awake in the morning more often than not cramped by the misty chill that comes with