Light and Lightness

Today was our first day venturing out to visit temples—here, Gompas, Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, most of which are still very much active and full of monks of all ages studying, practicing, welcoming visitors, and doing ceremonies.

The day held multiple unforeseen and delightful surprises, including a lamp room that is usually locked with its door cracked open and a huge puja we had no idea would be happening when we visited one of Ladakh’s most treasured monasteries, Thikse. When we arrived it seemed as though an entire truck full of provisions for the kitchen had just pulled up, as everyone was moving in all directions carrying sacks of rice, oats, and sugar, as well as thermoses, new cups, and many other objects. It soon became clear that all of this bounty was headed directly for the main prayer hall—not to the kitchen after all. It was also obvious that something important was going on, as a sand mandala was on display at the front of the main hall. I asked a monk if there was going to be a puja “soon,” thinking we would come back if it was some few days from now. He responded that the puja would start “in about ten minutes.”

Amazed at our good fortune but not wanting to get in the way in the main hall, I wandered up to the roof, having heard what sounded like “practice” with the enormous horns that are played each day from the roof of the monastery. I did indeed find two teenaged monks practicing, along with a very young monk, who insisted on being allowed to have a try. The older monks let the boy have a chance, and he acquitted his tiny self surprisingly well, as his breath sent a tone echoing down the great valley before him. The entire atmosphere seemed the opposite of heavy and ceremonial. There was playfulness, informality, laughter, and joy.

When the tone of the horns shifted from experimental to somber, we knew the puja was beginning. I asked one of the older monks if we could sit behind him, and he motioned me to a row of rugs on a platform very near the sand mandala. We sat and listened to the chanting and the instruments, delighted in the young (and not so young) monks goofing around and mouthing jokes at each other, and marveled at the delicate mandala that will be destroyed later today or tomorrow as a reminder of both beauty and impermanence. It all seemed miraculous—to have arrived at just this moment, to have been welcomed, to see and feel the long history of continuous practice in this place, to watch the deeply human ways this members of this community interact with each other and practice together.

Throughout the day, though, the most powerful impression for me was that of light. Light and lightness, to be exact. Ladakh is famous for its light—the spirit expands as the Himalaya and the Karakorum create something close to a mirror echoing the light back and forth across the Indus river valley. Everywhere you go there are butter lamps, as though here we light lamps in the lightness, not in the dark. And through it all, a lightness of being, a not taking things too seriously, a ceremoniousness that is never sanctimonious.

My spirit felt something close to cleansed by all of the light.