ASHES TO KAILASH by Joan Halifax, 1999

The five of us were sitting quietly around a small formica table. It was tea time and a visit between Daku Tenzing Norgay and me was long overdue. We had hiked to the base camp of Kachenchunga in 198? and during that journey had discovered a strong friendship on the trail. One night, after a severe snow storm in the high altitudes of Sikkim, I told her of my commitment to make the Kailash perikerama.

Now that promise was being fulfilled. Daku wanted to join our party but was not able to because she could not obtain a visa. It was even more important for her to go now as she wanted to leave her husbands ashes on the Drolma Pass of this sacred Mountain. Her husband, Tenzing Norgay, was the first man to attain the summit of Mt Everest. His life since that moment had taken on superhuman dimensions of both suffering and glory. To bring his ashes to Kailash would insure an auspicious rebirth.

In the middle of the small pink shiny table beside the teapot were two tsetsak, small painted chorten-like figures which contained the partial remains of her husband. Would I take them to Kailash on her behalf? I carefully wrapped the testsak in red cloth and put them in my bag with the promise that her request would be fulfilled.

And so began two months of travel, through rain and mud, across great and spacious landscapes, through lifeways of soldiers and nomads that brought our little party of four friends to the sacred mountain of the four directions. What follows is a brief account of this pilgrimage, a journey of trials and humor, irony and the sacred. Each of the four of us tells the story from a different perspective, like the four faces of Kailash, a mountain of pyramidal shape. This is my version, in brief, and some of the images that burned themselves not only into my camera but also appeared within me as well.

Pilgrimage has been for me, and many others, a form of inquiry in action. Although there is usually a particular destination to go to when on pilgrimage, it is the journey itself that is the thing. One time, in interview with a Zen Master, I asked the following question: " 'Going to the the temple, you take the path. Entering the temple you leave the path.' What does this mean?" Without a pause, the response was "Joan, the path is the temple."

People have travelled over this earth with a heart of inquiry for millenia. They have sung through the land as a living being, offered themselves, their steps, their voices and prayers as acts of purification that open one to an experience of connectedness. Whether it is Huichol Peoples of Mexico who annually journey to Wirikuta, their paradise where the sacred peyote grows, or Australian Aborigines whose songlines connect dreamings across thousands of miles, or Hindu pilgrims making their way to the Mother Ganges or Siva's Abode, or Buddhist pilgrims who reconstitute the life of the Buddha by visiting the groves and mountains, towns and villages where his birth, realizations, teachings and passing occured, pilgrimage is a re-membering in the passing through of sacred time and sacred space.

Four of us were to make this journey together, two couples. We were a study in contrast: one woman, a hearth keeper, artist and mother of mormon background who had never travelled; the two men were experienced travellers, but one was a pseudo-saddhu of great humor and some charm who managed to be a pilgrim for over twenty years without ever having had to wear a backpack; the other man, my partner, had spent the past 20 years travelling as a self-contained, self-made unit of fierceness and independence. And then there was me.

We left Kathmandu Valley at the beginnning of August and travelled north to the end of the road where scores of porters surrounded us. We picked four to help us with our packs. We were lightly geared for two months of travel - food, shelter and clothing - no more than 40 pounds a piece. The point was not to take the West with us but to leave as much behind as possible. Between the heat of the summer and the wild rains of the monsoon, roads had vanished along this winding rivers course, cutting off the flow of vehicular traffic between Nepal and Tibet. It took four days of foot travel to make our way into Tibet. We stumbled through living mudslides, dodged falling rocks as cliffs were blasted to open new roads and made our way with a stream of humanity northward. This was the summer of '87 and people of every description were drawn to Tibet for a taste of liberation that was to last for only an instant.

Even before we had departed Nepal, as we with great difficulty made our way toward the border, I had begun to question my sanity and good judgement in undertaking this endeavor. I noticed that those few Westerners who were on the trail were in their twenties, and I began to think that I had exceeded the age limit. But the ashes in my pack became a companion for me when my will would collapse and on we pressed.

The first night we spent in Tibet we were taken by a Chinese matron to a low stone building complete with padlock and bars. There was one bed 15 feet wide and 6 feet long. We sank into this unusual set up with gratitude inspite of the feeling that we were in prison. We talked about going straight to Kailash, our destination, and not going to Lhasa and all seemed commited to this plan. Late in the evening, Brother John produced a pipe with special herb in it. We smoked in celebration of our safe though exhausting entry. Within minutes the sound of rough shouting, a dog barking and our door burst open. I had visions of jail dancing in my head as Chinese soldiers, male and female, burst through the door. Brother John, dressed in his usual somewhat religious get-up, looking like a cross between John the Baptist, Coyote and a down and out Hindu sage, with beard and hair flying, leaped up with Tiger Balm on finger, and asked if he could be of assistance in his most amused and elegant English. Our friend, Cary, who spoke Chinese, translated. The officials departed after having made their point that the Chinese were in charge here.

The next day we travelled by bus to Nyalam, where again we were in the presence of the Chinese army, but these poor soldiers disappeared as the dusk light igniting the north side of Mt Everest. And the ? Valley, with spectral ruins turning purple in the waning light with the ? River shining in a everdarkening landscape kept me company as I sat alone on the cold ground of Tibet. (altitude sickness and some bon history here)

In the freezing predawn, still aching with altitude sickness, I piled again into the bus, and hoped that the sun would soon rise to reveal the expanse of country through which we were passing. We had climbed by foot and vehicle close to ten thousand feet in these past few days and the world of familiar sights and sounds, the world of western things and thoughts was just beginning to loose itself from my presence.

We found ourselves later that day in Lhatese, a small village near the Brahmaputra - Lhatse, a crossroad between the north of Lhasa and the west of Kailash. It was here that we would be told that we needed official permission to travel to western Tibet and so we awaited a ride to Shigatse where this could be obtained. Later that afternoon, we went out for a walk and came upon one dog eating the carcas of another. My companion's comment that "it's a dog eat dog world" reminded us of both what we had left behind but also what we were still carrying.

By this time, the atmosphere between some of the four of us was difficult. The strain of these days had brought me again to a point of giving up. There was little to nothing to eat. The Chinese were hostile or robotic and the conditions of travel in our weakened state did nothing to enhance our interpersonal dynamics. Something inside of me moved out of the difficult social atmosphere to an inner territory and outer landscape where light and space were the main qualities. Often I felt like two separate people, one living and suffering in the dark drama of the road and relationship, the other saturated with space and light.

So North we went to Shigatse, and easily obtained all visas. Leaping out of the jaws of hungry dogs, we circumambulated the great monastery of the Panchen Lama, and on full moon in August witnessed the most spectacular display of lightening I have ever seen. There is nothing in central and westerns Tibet's nature that I could call mediated. Everything seems to strike directly - the penetrating and pervasive light, the relentless wind, the sand from her high deserts that blasts away skin, the great rivers that source in her and flood and feed the plains of India and China, the people of the far west whose directness and humor sweep away one's disquietude, the slap of monks' hands as they triumph in debate, and the odd and cold cruelty of many of the colonists who regard Tibet as a savage hell.

In the field of this unmediated atmosphere, small groups of young intrepid westerners from New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Spain and Argentina and a scattering from the US of A find themselves as holy and unholy, mostly very unwashed pilgrims during a moment in the history of Tibet when a big friendly breath was being taken. And the encounter with the sky and land and her peoples for probably most of us would carve out a space within our psyches that cannot be replicated or elicited by any other place.

And one can see why the religions of the shamans of the high altitudes invented a book of the dead that became a map for buddhists who were to arrive later. And one knows why oracles and trance mediums found fertile ground in this barren land. And one understands why the Mountain of Kailash was holy not only to those who practice the religion of Bon but also to Hindus and Buddhists. For even in the days before the Chinese army made entry and exit to this land difficult, if not impossible, only those with will and good fortune made it through the obstacles preventing access to this aspect of earth and the mind that it evokes. For obsiously, the experience is not to be easily had.

From Lhatse to Lhasa, again on a bus, over snowy passes, and down roads torn apart with the hard winter. In the lower Valleys of central Tibet the barley glistening, in the high reaches, snow and yak. And into Lhasa. I desert my crew and check into the Lhasa Hotel, which has enough comfort to revive me out of what seemed to be terminal discouragement. There I discover that the Western dealers of the world have arrived. From pashmina wool to Buddhist and Bon antiguities, Westerners seem to be madly on the make in the freedom pause between suffering. I feel like an anthropologist in my own transplanted culture and after four days of quiet observation and hours spent in the Jo Khang, we, our party comes together into council to decide if we are to go on and if so, do we go together.

At three the next morning, in driving rain, we four squeeze into a bus and retrace our way back to Lhatse. This is again the gateway, the breakoff point, the place of no-return. Once we cross the Brahmaputra, there is no turning back. For one thing, we would discover, there is almost no one coming back,...or going for that matter. Before leaing Kathmandu, we learn that this part of the trip is about "sheer survival", to quote our western informant who had made the journey one and a half times. I thought we had already been through that part but I was definitely wrong.

Again, Brother John comes to the rescue. He goes the house of a Lhatse local and manages through dictionary and gesture to persuade his new found friend to make a horse and cart available to us so that we can cover the 12 miles to the river more efficiently. Inside of me I am praising to the skies. The landscape is passing slowly by us as we ride in this toylike vehicle with the little pony trotting confidently with his load. The quality of dreaming is very strong for me at this time, since no physical effort is needed to protect my body from the lurching and bouncing of travel by bus or truck and no social effort is required as my companions too seem to have withdrawn into their own worlds or have flowed out into the bright stony landscape of the high plateau.

The Brahmaputra ...

We arrive on the rugged south bank of the Bhahmappputra and unload our gear. I notice a landrover with Chinese man in long coat with long gun. With him is a laughing gentleman and a somewhat toothy woman of the same race. The ferry that transports trucks, cars, creatures and people is a barge that rides on a crude pulley system across the raging river. Prayer flags on the other shore invite us to make the journey and as I step onto the barge, the Chinese man and I connect. I see myself for an instant reflected in the flatness of his tinted glasses and then I see him seeing me. We stand there in front of each other, he with cigarette holder in hand, and I clasping my camera. We calm our nerves in different ways yet are caught in this moment like a freeze frame in a documentary film.

Later, on the other side of the river, after discovering that it really is illegal for us to hitchhike in Tibet as drivers shoo us away from their trucks, we join first a smoked crew of old gnarled men and women who are gambling by the wayside. Then later we drift to sit in the shade of a sign and entertain local types with song. In the midst of all this, including a twinge of discouragement that we might again be at the end of our road, a man in blue cotton coat indicates that Chinese man with cigarette holder has made arrangements for us to travel with his party.

The next ferry yields an old Chinese truck with young driver that accepts the two women into the cab and the men in the back. So my companion and Brother John ride large red radishes like bucking broncos hundreds of miles across a Tibet that few westerners have traversed. The whole scene was quite mad for the four of us. I in short shrift was covered with bruises and contusions from the relentless crashing down the road. Lola played nurse. The two men, dressed in huge green rubber Chinese raincoats, with bandanas covering their mouths as protection against the dust, and hats pushed over their ears, were flung about like expendible cargo. Although it felt like a four day car accident, the landscape continued to unfold with mineral lakes of many colors, skies that went from cobalt to black, rainbows and eternal dusks, as the sun sets way over the edge of the horizon of the Tibetan plateau. Nomads and monks, children and road workers all seemed to enjoy the same smile and open face. "Where is there such a world?"I kept asking myself.

That night, at midnight, in the freezing dark, we rolled out of our moving torture chamber and into a dinner of fresh rabbit stew prepared by Lochin, our host, the man with the cigarette holder. Who was he anyway? We shared no spoken language but the sense of mutual enjoyment increased as we rolled along. He was most generous with us, inviting us to share old, verky old eggs, pickled garlic and the like. It was mana as far as we were concerned and the atmosphere was good.

Finally, at Gerze early in the morning he and his friends left before our arising. I was dumbfounded, felt as if we had been abandoned and could barely move anyway. My back was so many sores that appeared in response to days of violent rubbing against the unpadded truck seat. My shins looked like I had played bad hockey for a week. I could not, quite frankly, find any spiritual value in this experience. But, to use a well worn sentence, "There was no going back now."

Unbeknownst to us, somewhere in the dead of night, three carloads of Germans had pulled in. They too were on the way to Kailash and when we discovered their presence, a ray of hope entered our world - or at least mine. Again Brother John, full of charm, managed to wangle me a ride - for a price, of course, and my companion found a seat in another car and off we went. Lola and BJ kindly took compassion on me and decided to roll with the luck of the road.

So again we found ourselves moving across Tibet, this time for 24 hours we went in style. The head of the tour was flabberghasted when he learned that I was carrying the ashes of Tenzing Norgay in my pack. He proceeded to produce a picture of himself with Tenzing and Heinrich Harrer taken in 1983 as they were one of the first Western groups to enter Tibet. Somehow this meeting seemed like part of the "Big Plan" and all were content - except, of course, the Chinese drivers, who were not only greedy for money, but just didn't seem to like us anyway.

We camped that night along a most beautiful river which cleansed us body and soul. It was a perfectly magical place, with small birds and delicate insects enjoying the freshness of the cold stream in thte high desert. Overhead eagles flew and when night fell, the whole sky glowed with stars as there was barely a moon.

The next morning, the Chinese drivers went on strike. They refused to drive on unless we paid more $. It was quite a scene with three landroverloads of Germans sitting in the early morning mists and going nowhere. And their trip had to happen all in 28 days, including Lhasa and the perikerama. Finally, we paid up and off we went, but the light dimmed a little for all of us.

Later that day we arrived in ? and stayed at the one and only hotel for folks like us who are transitting. The Germans were housed in rooms with tvs that had no programs, toilets with no water. We were put up in a quite different situation, more like youth hostel, with honey buckets full to the brim along the hall and the latrine a long, long walk. By this time, my GI track was in full revolt. Not from what one usually gets in Asia but the rancid oil used in the local cooking had finally done me in. I realized that I could only eat my own cooking. And so began the endless preparation of one soup in a thousand flavors. Flesh was falling off me fast and in some way, I celebrated my disappearance.

It was not long before our friends appeared. They seemed to have had quite a good adventure with their truck which broke down constantly giving them time to enjoy the landscape and company. We were to spend some days here looking again for transportation to Kailash. We discovered that a bus would leave at in the near future and so made plans to depart with it.

Shortly before leaving, Lochin appeared out of nowhere. He seemed overjoyed to find us here and through an interpreter we learned that he had lived in Tibet for 27 years as Director ofIndustry. He helped carry our bags to the bus and wept tears as we departed. All of our ideas about the heartless Chinese dissolved as we left him with wet cheeks and cigarette holder in hand.

Turning away from Lochin and looking around, I discovered that we were travelling with Chinese solders and Tibetans, mostly Khampas from the east, a strange and high contrast company. It is said that Khampa nomads and warrior types are feared by the Chinese. Khampa resistance to the Chinese takeover has been consistant since it accelerated in the fifties. These independent and attractive men and women move about Tibet with their fierceness and pride quite in tact. The atmosphere in the bus as it plied its way over rough track was merry onthe Tibetan side and somber on the Chinese. The families from Kham, with old folks and babies, were on the way to Kailash to make the holy perikerama. This way, the old ones would have an auspicious rebirth and the young ones a good life.

The woes of the road seemed minor the closer we came to the Mountain. We stopped the night in a Chinese outpost, again no food or water, and a miserable room but Kailash breathed through all the travellers, the mountain was so near.

The next day in the late morning, the Mountain appeared from behind boiling clouds. The old bus stopped its tortured movement disgorging almost all of us. There we stood on the wrinkled ground of a dry riverbed to see the white head of the mountain appear. One could never confuse Kailash with any other mountain. Shaped like a pyramid, its flanks shimmering with snow, it looks from certain angles like a sphinx, silent and mysterious. From its north side, faces appear on its flanks, like guardians, old men or ancestors. Its west face seems to invite one in and the eastern face is hidden.

Finally we arrivee in Darchen, a small settlemet on the south side of Kailash. We began to set up camp in the midst of winds coming in every direction. The atmosphere seemed filled with charged particles and each thought, each action felt amplified. An argument broke out between me and my companion; the tension between us over these months in Asia, the months of trying to understand how the questions were there to guide us not confuse us, this sense of not knowing, not understanding blew our sense away. In the midst of this I remember I am in Tibet. Who are the Chinese anyway? Who is the enemy anyway? Nearby are lama and bonpo priest, herder and mother, soldier and tourist. Who are we anyway? What's the big deal? We seem so small in this landscape. A dark blue sky above and an endless horizon.

I stay alone in my tent by the river. Upriver laundry is being washed and animals guts cleaned out. The freezing water rushing past my tent seems pure inspite of the filth it carries along. Yak seem to be circumambulating my sleeping place. I remember the tales of bandits in this region but one is so exposed here that protection other than the spiritual kind is all but useless. Kailash, Shivas abode, Buddhas abode, is sheltering all of us, who are sleeping and waking in the shadow of a mountain.

It is too early to begin our circumbulation. Full moon is several weeks away. Spiritual atheletes of every color are doing "dog koras", one day shots around the mountain. Most are going in the "Dalai Lama" direction, clockwise. But some go in the "bon" direction, counterclockwise. Judging by the number of Tibetans going in the shaman's direction, I have a hunch that the old Bonpo tradition is gaining in strength. Bonpo would make it possible for a believer to work with the difficult circumstances in Tibet through the spirit realm, through magic. Although Tantrayana is probably one of the most interesting traditions for working with negative forces, the Bon tradition has old, old roots, much older than Buddhism. These years of suffering and oppression that Tibetan people have had to endure in relation to the Chinese could well be the ground where the dormant seeds of the Bon tradition have and will come to life. Certainly, there is evidence of increasing strength in the Bon tradition among Tibetans living in Kathmandu.

(more on Manas_ )

South of Kailash is Lake Manasorovar. Its name means "created from itself' or self created. Although we have thought only about the Mountain, something in our company moves us south to the lake to await the increase of the moon. Wee drop 500 feet to 15,000 as we approach the lake. Its perimeter is ? km. We arrive at Chu? gompa, past the gold mines on the ? river that connects the waters of Manasorovar with Lake Rakshatal. The latter is the dark lunar brother to Manasorvar.

The waters of the Manas Lake seem to cleanse whatever is offered to them. Clothes, dinner dishes or us, inside and out. I have finally gone into partial seclusion in a meditation cave high up a cliff on the north side of Manas. From my perch I see storms making and unmaking themselves. Light and darkness move in and out of each other as day passes into night. The great massif, Gurla Mandhata, glistens like a huge white body across the face of the lake. And raven floats below my cave as I hang in the air onthe tiny stone terrace made years ago by the hands of some brave pilgrim. On the blackened ceiling on my cell are daubed the constellation in tsampa. A small stone box lined with freshwater sea weed is my bed. The small altar above my head holds a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. My companion is in another cave down the beach. And our friends have set up a friendly base camp in a rock shelter at shores heigth. Here all passersby join them for tea.

The Lake, like Kailash, is a place where circumambulation is also made. We had intended to do this but I am too weak from loss of weight and the strains of the journey to make the trip. We also are almost out of food. And a local lama who has lived in a nearly cave for three years has given us tsampa, flour and rice to help tide us over. This is supplemented with nettle collected for soup. The Tibetan diet is pretty simple, at this level anyway, and I can relate to Milarepas cave practice without too much difficulty. At last so I seem to be out of earshot of the neurobabble of western culture. I am convinced that it is the altitude, but one morning I recognize that my receiver is down for this type of transmission, and sitting in the cave, I at last know what it is to be stoned, to move at a rate of speed like that of rocks, stones and mountains. Things are going very slowly.

Full moon is less than a week away and so we leave Manasorovar for Kailash. Back in Darchen, we wander among the camped nomads buying a bit of yak butter, tsampa and sweets. The next morning, early before leaving I prepare 44 chapatis, 11 for each of us along the way. Cooking the tsampa and flour chapatis in the tiny pantop, one by one, brings me completely into the present moment. This done, we depart with a minimum of gear.

Within a few steps, it is clear to me that I need to find my own way and my own stride. At first I am behind the others then with a burst of energy, I am flying down the trail, leaving behind the sense of the personal. Suddenly, I am at ? chorten, turning the southwest corner to enter the west valley. I look south an see see Gurla Mandhata and Rakastal beneath and am reminded of the purifying days at Manas. I turn my back on this scene, and walking past piles of carved stones and dedicated yak skulls with prayer flags beating in the wind, I head north.

The green valley with a fine stream meandering through thick mounds of grassy earth is cushion for a least a dozen pilgrim families. Old men and women, newborns and all generations laze in the warm summer sun, having tea, laughing and celebrating the commencement of the formal part of the kora. I am invited as I move along to join this one and that for the inevitable cup of yak butter tea. Warmed by good company, laughter, and nourishment, I move down the trail like a spirit with no sense of hinderance. The great ? draws me to it like an a moth to flame. I am completely amazed at the beauty of this monument. It points to the heavens and is flying with flags in the colors of the five buddha families. Yak hair and other objects are tied to the stringers that anchor the pole to earth.

At a distance, I have seen three women in dark garb seemingly blowing in a circle around this place, and I follow in their footsteps. My gaze is constantly being drawn to the centerpole and toward the heavens where the sky shows itself as a dark and intense blue space. Each year,...

My compantions of the roads do not appear and so on I fly. A wild sense of joy beats on the ground as each step takes me northward. The sky is turning darker and a decision is made that I will stay apart from my companions. I watch the ridges of the western range etch themselves in black on Kailash's west face. The evening light is unearthly and I walk on to see where I will sleep for the night.

At dark, I come upon a most unusual boulder. Around it are many offerings and it is shiny with dedicated yak butter. This is...And so I carefully lay out my sleeping bag so my head is toward the huge stone and the holy mountain is guarding my feet. Later tonight the moon will rise almost full over this place and I want to follow its light until dawn.

As it turns out, I have bedded down on the trail. All through the night pilgrims pass by me and I follow them in my dream. Goat, sheep and yak wander past me just after dark and before rising. I seem to go with them in as many destinations. Again the utter joy of being in this place sends me shaking. Before the moon comes, the sky is white with stars. After the moon comes, the sky is white with its light. I feel like a weathered bone or stone, white with years of stillness, motionless from ages of silence, and appearing everywhere.

And then I go. A small crystal is left as a sign that a clear night was passed here and again I am flying. Maybe the altitude is 16,500 but there is no shortness of breath. I reach the northend of the west valley, and the sun greets me. Time for a bath. The ground is thawing and so am I. Off come the jeans and long underwear and in I go. What an ecstacy, this is beyond cold. My skin comes alive, every hair stands on end to celebrate.