The Sacred And The Mundane: one and the same
On our walk along one of the paths to the monastery, we encounter mama monkey and several babies on the steps. We decide not to try to cross past her in case she might feel the need to defend her children, and begin to turn back. Coming down the steps where we just were are two young Indian women. They invite us to follow them, since they’re not afraid of the monkeys, “more afraid of people” offers one of them, wisely. We follow and walk past mama and children uneventfully.
Day in and day out
monkeys and dogs play chase games
neither wants to win
Important business ahead at the monastery coffee shop for my Americano
and a piece of just-out-of-the-oven hot lemon cake as it turns out, before heading to the now externally completed Chenrezig Mandala, still under construction three years ago. We were told by Tsultrim that the shrine room is not yet completed, and so not really open to the public.
Go for being inspired
we all need to do something
nada to be saved
Some moments boredom comes by; so much space and so much time, how to fill it all? Allowing this passing feeling in the midst of all that time and space, nothing else to do about it. Soon enough the awareness of the sacred essence of all that time and space returns, including the boredom, including everything, nothing outside of that.
Another visit, another walk, another sit, another meal, another blog post, another kora, another…………….or some new adventure, like arranging with the monastery main office and Lama Jigme there for us to light 108 butter lamps for prayers of benefit to loved ones; or a first Tibetan language lesson with Nancy’s new tutor, the multi-lingual 10 year old Tenzin Choesang, under the newly completed covered patio.
Everything blends together within the matrix of Sherabling, of India, of the Himalayan foothills, of cultures that make very little distinction between daily life and sacred life. Or that have made very little distinction historically. Of course all is in flux, and even remote rural Himalayan India is influenced by the West. And out in the larger world, like even in Bir for example, which has burgeoned into a discomfortingly bustling little metropolis of one single-lane through road and crowds of Indian tourists and gliders and cafes and restaurants and guest houses and motorbike rentals and waiting taxis and foreigners, and the ongoing Indian miracle of cars being able to somehow pass each other on that jammed single lane road, only in the last 7 years let’s say, since we first returned in 2015, and now most especially in the post covid explosion of pent up energy and hunger and activity, the sacred and the profane are perhaps more intentionally distinguished and separated.
The day disappears,
what did I set out to do?
Watch mountains, stay still
So easy to be grateful here, where the power and immediacy of prayer is in no doubt; where walking around with mala beads hanging from the hand, or mumbling incantations, is normal; where the sense of one’s true identity permeates the air and the ground and the mind; where ordinary perspective is large, timeless, inclusive; ahh…. where each single breath is without limits, all encompassing. Thank you.
Om……ah……hung
