by Dan Simmons
“It’s part of my plan, Mr. Deacon.”
I was fighting for breath after the climb with no oxygen tanks and wasn’t part of this argument. My thoughts weren’t on the summit of Everest; they were still fixed on Babu Rita’s dead face and staring eyes.
At that moment we noticed Pemba Sherpa, traveling alone, trudging up and out of the shelf area along the marked traffic way across the North Col to our westernmost camp. No one spoke until Pemba reached us.
The news was staggering. Dzatrul Rinpoche had sent word that we were all to come to the Rongbuk Monastery the very next day, Thursday, to receive his blessing. Babu Rita’s sky burial, said Pemba, would be at sunrise on Friday, but only Babu’s immediate family would be invited to stay for that.
“God damn it!” snarled the Deacon. “The best damned weather of the entire year…we’re this close to being able to climb the mountain…in weather better than George Mallory ever had….and that damned old Buddhist abbot sends word for all of us to appear before him. To hell with it. I’m not going.”
“We’re all going,” said Reggie.
“It’s not Babu’s funeral,” insisted the Deacon. “Just another damned blessing that we’ll have to pay for—pay each Sherpa two rupees so that he can have money to pay the bloody head lama for each damned blessing—and I’ve done it twice before and I feel damned well blessed enough and I’d rather be summiting Mount Everest in this weather than sitting in that stinking monastery all day tomorrow.”
“We all have to go down,” said Reggie. She sounded almost…relieved.
“I won’t do it.” The Deacon tossed his cooking pot aside, the pan clanging on ice next to the little Unna cooker.
“You’re going to do your summit climb without any Sherpa support?” said Reggie.
“If that’s what I have to do, that’s what I’ll do,” said the Deacon. He looked at J.C. and me. “It’ll be the three of us on a rope, my friends, and we haul just oxygen sets and extra clothes and food in our pockets to Camp Five tomorrow.”
Reggie shook her head. “Not only would it be an insult to Dzatrul Rinpoche, Mr. Deacon, but your attempting the summit on the day of the holy man’s blessing would cost you the loyalty of all your Sherpas. They’ve been very patient for this blessing as it is. Snub the lama and attempt to climb the mountain without Dzatrul Rinpoche’s blessing, and many of the Sherpas will leave the expedition here and now.”
“God damn it!” said the Deacon. “Jake, Jean-Claude, you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
I knew what Jean-Claude was going to say even before he spoke. “No, Ree-shard. We are going down with Reggie and the men for the blessing and to honor Babu Rita.”
It is a perfect day as we all leave Base Camp early on Thursday morning for the 11-mile hike down the valley for the lama’s blessing. Even the frostbitten Ang Chiri and Lhakpa Yishay—since Lhakpa’s frostbite was worse than first thought, the amputations of certain toes and fingers for both Sherpas were put off for another day—are riding mules led by their friends. Dr. Pasang is riding a small pony next to Reggie’s larger one. The Deacon walks alone, easily keeping pace with the plodding ponies, his face as fiercely closed as a castle’s main door with an enemy army outside.
I kick my pony’s ribs, catch up to Reggie and Pasang, and ask about the monastery and its abbot.
“Dzatrul Rinpoche is the incarnation of Padma Sambhava,” she says. At my blank gaze she adds, “You’ve seen images of Padma Sambhava along the way across Tibet, Jake. He’s the god with nine heads.”
“Okay.”
“Rongbuk Monastery is the highest monastery in all of Tibet…in all the world, for that matter,” continues Reggie. “The faithful make pilgrimages there all the time, many of them prostrating themselves every few yards…for hundreds of miles. And the hills all around us here are filled with caves holding holy men who’ve renounced the world. Some of the lamas at the monastery say that after many years, many of these holy men—they’re all but naked through the terrible winters here—can survive on three grains of barley per day.”
I turn to Dr. Pasang beside us and say, “Do you believe all this?”
Pasang smiles slightly. “Don’t ask me, Mr. Perry. I’m a Roman Catholic. I have been since I was a child.”
He is polite enough to pretend not to notice my gawking amazement.
Reggie looks at me. “How old do you think the Rongbuk Monastery is, Jake? Take a guess.”
I remember how ancient the temple and its crumbling chortens and other shrines had looked when we’d paused there on the way to Base Camp. “A thousand years old?” I venture.
“The current head abbot, Dzatrul Rinpoche, started building the place just twenty-four years ago,” says Reggie. “He was thirty-five years old, and his name then was Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. He managed to get the patronage of traders in Tingri and of the Sherpas living and teaching across the Nangpa La and other passes in Solu Khumbu in Nepal. Some here called him Sangye Buddha, the Buddha of Rongbuk. The name he’s settled on is Dzatrul Rinpoche, a living embodiment of the legendary Guru Rinpoche—the Great Teacher—and a spiritual master of chöd.”
I have to ask. “What’s chöd?”
“It’s a Buddhist spiritual practice,” replies Reggie. “In literal terms it means the ‘cutting through’ of attachment to this illusion that is the world. Chöd was first practiced here in the Rongbuk Valley by Machig Labdrön, an eleventh-century yogini…a sort of tantric wizard. Machig Labdrön was known as a leading Buddhist scholar by the time she was seven years old, and she dedicated the rest of her life to freeing her mind of all intellect.”
“Sometimes I feel that I’ve been doing the same thing,” I say. The guilt in my gut about Babu’s death, not to mention Ang’s and Lhakpa’s imminent amputations, all due to J.C.’s and my poor shepherding skills, grows stronger by the hour.
Reggie glances sharply at me. “Machig Labdrön came to Rongbuk nine hundred years ago to shatter all orthodoxy with her chöd techniques,” she says. “She taught that only in such fearful, inhuman places as Rongbuk and its frozen hills—or in the haunted wildness of charnel grounds, cemeteries, sky burial sites—the foulest and most ragged and exposed of environments, could the catalyst for true spiritual transformation be found.”
I bounce along on my tiny pony and think about this. The low rooftops of Rongbuk Monastery are just now visible above and ahead of us.
Pasang says, “Machig Labdrön once wrote, Unless all reality is made worse, one cannot attain liberation.…So wander in grisly places and mountain retreats…do not get distracted by doctrines and books…just get real experiences…in the horrid and desolate.”
“In other words,” I say, “face your demons.”
“Exactly,” says Reggie. “Make a gift of your body to the demons of the mountains and wilderness. It’s the best way to destroy the last vestiges of one’s vanity and pride.”
“I can vouch for that,” I say.
“As chöd spiritual master of Rongbuk,” says Pasang, “Dzatrul Rinpoche has dispatched more than a thousand seekers of wisdom into the mountains here to confront demons. Most never return and are assumed to have achieved enlightenment in their caves and high places.”
“I guess we can add four more names to that list,” I mumble. I’m thinking of Mallory, Irvine, Bromley, and now Babu Rita. More loudly, I ask, “Does Dzatrul Rinpoche give any advice on how to deal with yetis?”
Reggie grins. “As a matter of fact, one young would-be ascetic did once ask the Rinpoche what he should do if a yeti appeared at his cave. The master responded, Why, invite him in to tea, of course!”
With that image fresh, we fall silent for the rest of our approach to Rongbuk Monastery.
We’re kept waiting in a downstairs antechamber for about ninety minutes, but the lama’s high priests bring us a lunch of yogurt and rice and the very thick, almost nauseating butter tea they drink. The wooden bowls are clean, but the chopsticks have been nibbled down to sharp points by countless
teeth other than our own. They also serve us radishes dipped in hot black pepper; these make my eyes water and my nose run.
Eventually we’re shown up the stairway, our Sherpas following us with heads bowed, to a sort of half-enclosed veranda on the rooftop, where Dzatrul Rinpoche awaits us on a metal throne that looks for all the world like a red iron bedstead. We sahibs and Pasang are ushered in to sit on elaborately upholstered benches on either side of the alcove, but most of our Sherpas go onto all fours on the cold stone, their gazes and faces downcast. I begin to understand that it’s not the proper thing to look into the eyes of a man-god.
But I stare anyway.
My first impression of Dzatrul Rinpoche, the incarnation of the man-god Padma Sambhava, is that his head is weirdly large, and is shaped rather like a huge, squat pumpkin. The Deacon has told me that what he remembered of the Holy Lama was his wide, engaging, delightful smile. The god-man’s smile is still very broad in that far-too-wide face, but it looks as if he’s lost some major teeth since the Deacon saw him last.
The Rinpoche’s voice is very low and rough, as if grown hoarse from endless hours of chanting, and I suddenly realize that he’s not chanting some prayer now but asking a question of either the Deacon or Reggie or both. In any case, Reggie translates the query: “Dzatrul Rinpoche would like to know why we are again trying to climb Cho-mo-lung-ma after the deaths of so many earlier sahib explorers and Sherpas.”
“You could tell him…‘because it’s there,’” the Deacon suggests to Reggie. Our English friend’s face is still grim and tight.
“I could,” said Reggie, “but I don’t think I shall. Any other answer you want to give him before I create my own?”
“Go ahead,” growls the Deacon.
Reggie turns back to the Holy Lama, bows, and speaks in rapid, melodic Tibetan. The Rinpoche smiles even more broadly and bows his head slightly.
“You just told him that we’re here to find and honor the body of your cousin, Percival,” accuses the Deacon.
Reggie flashes him a look. “I’m aware, Mr. Deacon, that you know some Tibetan. If you don’t want me answering, go ahead and talk to His Holiness without my translations.”
The Deacon merely shakes his head and looks even more dour than before.
The Rinpoche speaks again. Reggie nods to him and translates for the Deacon, J.C., and me. “His Holiness reminds us that the high places of Cho-mo-lung-ma are very cold and filled with forces dangerous to those who do not follow the Path. There is nothing of value to be done up there, he tells us, except for the practice of dharma.”
“Humbly ask for his blessing and protection,” says the Deacon. “And assure His Holiness that we will kill no animals during our stay on Rongbuk Glacier.”
Reggie does so. The Rinpoche nods as if satisfied and then asks a question. Without conferring with the Deacon, Reggie answers it. The head lama nods again.
“I didn’t catch that,” whispers the Deacon.
“His Holiness says that he and the other monks are doing a very powerful ritual of sanctification here at the monastery over the next two weeks and warns us that such a ritual always stirs up the demons and angry deities of the mountain.”
“Please thank him for the warning,” says the Deacon.
Reggie conveys this to the Rinpoche, who speaks at length. Reggie listens, bows her head low, and answers the Holy Lama with a short burst of almost musical Tibetan.
“What?” says the Deacon.
“His Holiness has praised me,” says Reggie. “He says that each time he meets me, he is more certain that I am the reincarnation of the eleventh-century tantric sorceress Machig Labdrön, and he says that if I were to perfect my chöd, I could be the master-mistress of Cho-mo-lung-ma and all of its adjacent mountains and valleys.”
“What was your response?” asks the Deacon. “I only understood the Tibetan word for ‘unworthy.’”
“Yes, I said that I was unworthy of such a comparison,” Reggie says. “But I admitted that the discipline of chöd was very attractive to me right now, since, as I’ve said before, at the present the world is too much with me.”
“May I ask a question?” whispers Jean-Claude.
“Just one, I think,” says Reggie. “We need to get on with the blessing ceremony if we’re to get back to Base Camp by suppertime.”
“I just wondered,” whispers J.C., “if this Cho-mo-lung-ma really means ‘Goddess Mother of the World’ the way Colonel Norton and the others said it did.”
Reggie smiles and passes the question along to the Rinpoche with the huge head. The old man—he’s in his sixties but seems older—smiles again and answers in his melodic prayer-rumble.
“Not really, according to Rinpoche,” says Reggie. “And His Holiness thanks you for asking. He says that the sahibs tend to take the translation they like for the names of sacred places here and ignore the places’ true names. The name Cho-mo-lung-ma, he says, can be twisted to mean ‘Goddess Mother of the World,’ but for those like us, he says, who live near it, he says, the more common name for the mountain in Tibetan is Kang Chomolung, which means something more akin to ‘The Snow of Bird Land.’
“But he says that this translation of the Tibetan name for our Mount Everest is also too simplistic,” continues Reggie. “A better translation for Cho-mo-lung-ma, says His Holiness, is ‘the tall peak you can see from nine directions at once, with a summit you cannot see as you draw near, the mountain so high that all birds flying over the peak instantly become blind.’”
Jean-Claude and I look at one another. I think we both believe that His Holiness is having us on.
Dzatrul Rinpoche rumbles his bass tones again. Reggie translates: “His Holiness has decided that our dead man, Babu Rita, will receive a sky burial tomorrow at dawn. The Holy Lama asks if there are any members of Babu Rita’s immediate family here who might wish to stay for the ceremony.”
Reggie translates the question into Nepalese, but the Sherpas continue to look down. Evidently none of them count Babu as family.
Without conferring, or even looking at one another, Jean-Claude and I both stand and step forward, our heads lowered in respect. “Please,” I say, “my friend and I would like to be considered Babu Rita’s family and would be honored to stay for his funeral rites in the morning.”
I can hear the Deacon hiss through his teeth. I can almost hear his thoughts. Another lost morning and day for the climbing effort. I don’t care and I’m sure that J.C. doesn’t either. Babu’s needless death has shaken me to the core.
Reggie translates, and His Holiness grants permission. Then Reggie instructs Norbu Chedi, who speaks some Tibetan as well as some English, to stay with us tonight in order to help interpret.
Dzatrul Rinpoche nods, rumbles again, and Reggie says, “It is time for the blessing.”
The actual individual blessings for all of us, sahibs and Sherpas combined, take less than forty-five minutes. Dzatrul Rinpoche rumbles melodically—I never can tell if he is speaking in sentences or chanting (or both)—and then one of the head lamas gestures the soon-to-be-blessed to step forward to receive his or her blessing. Both Reggie and the Deacon are called forward at the same time, and the Holy Lama gestures for gifts to be given to them: an image of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and a piece of silk for each, the silk too short to be used as a scarf. Both Reggie and the Deacon bow deeply, but I notice that they don’t go to their knees the way the Sherpas have. Reggie claps her hands, and four of the Sherpas bring in her gift for the Rinpoche: four bags of ready-mix cement. Dzatrul Rinpoche again smiles broadly, and I realize that the cement will go far toward mending the chorten and other relatively new structures on the monastery grounds that are falling apart because they’d been built with little more than mud, rock, spit, and good intentions. The four bags had been an entire mule load during the trek in—yet another source of conflict between the Deacon and Reggie—but to judge from the happy response from His Holiness and his high priests, it is a much-valued gift.
&n
bsp; When I’m gestured forward, I bow deeply as the Rinpoche touches my head with what looks like a white metal pepper pot, but which J.C. has told me is yet another form of prayer wheel. Soon we sahibs are all properly blessed and it is time for the Sherpas to receive their blessings. This takes a while longer since each man prostrates himself on the cold stone floor and worms his way closer to the Rinpoche, without raising his head or meeting the holy man’s gaze, to receive his blessing.
The only one who seems to have the attitude that he’ll be damned if he’ll be blessed this day is Pasang, who watches everything with a smiling, faintly amused yet respectful countenance, but who is not gestured forward by the monks and who obviously has turned down this offer of a blessing before. Dzatrul Rinpoche doesn’t seem to mind a bit.
Finally the ritual blessings are over, the Sherpas file out—never turning their backs on the Rinpoche or the high priests—and Dzatrul Rinpoche says as Reggie interprets, “Those of the dead man’s family may stay behind for tomorrow morning’s sky burial.” Then His Holiness also leaves.
J.C. and I step outside the main monastery building to say good-bye to Reggie, Pasang, and the Deacon. The Sherpas have already begun their long trek back to Base Camp.
“You may be sorry that you chose to stay for the sky burial,” is all that the Deacon has to say.
I ask why we’d be sorry, but he ignores me and prods his little pony into a semblance of a canter, moving quickly to catch up to the Sherpas.
“Tell us about this Padma Sambhava that the current Rinpoche is supposed to be a reincarnation of,” Jean-Claude says to our tall doctor. “Was he a man or a god?”
“He was both,” says Pasang.
“In the eighth century, Padma Sambhava brought Buddhism to all of Tibet,” adds Reggie. “He overpowered Cho-mo-lung-ma with Buddha-truth and then defeated the evil power of all the mountain demons and gods and goddesses, turning them all into dharma protectors. The darkest and most powerful of all the demon-goddesses, the queen of the dakini sky dancers, was turned into the pure white peak Cho-mo-lung-ma, her skirts reaching here to the Rongbuk Valley itself. The first temple built in this region was constructed on her left breast. Beneath her vulva was buried a white conch shell from which all dharma doctrine and Buddha-wisdom flow to this day.”