Ashes to Kailash, 1999

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.

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