by Bruce Kirkby
I was vaguely aware of camera operators and producers scrambling in our periphery, but my attention was fixed on a tall figure standing a short distance up the trail, beside a crumbling chorten. He wore maroon robes and a pointed orange hat with upturned earflaps, and while I’d never seen a picture of Lama Wangyal, I knew it was him.
Christine started up the steep path with the boys in hand, and I followed, struggling with our duffels. As we neared, Lama Wangyal opened his arms and whispered hoarsely, “Jullay, jullay, jullay, jullay.”
A traditional Zanskari monk’s hat, made of felted orange wool and bearing the distinctive upturned dog-ear flaps.
Resting a large hand atop each of Bodi and Taj’s heads, he drew the boys close. I pulled a crumpled khata scarf from my pocket and clumsily placed it around the old monk’s neck. Then Lama Wangyal reached out and wrapped Christine and me in a hug. We stood in silence for some time, simply gazing at each other.
He was a tall man and powerfully built, probably in his sixties, with smooth forearms and a square chin. Every ounce of hair-growing energy appeared to have been channelled into his eyebrows, which curled upward and reminded me of a ram’s horns.I
Eventually Lama Wangyal took Bodi and Taj’s hands in his thick paws and without a word, started up toward the monastery. Christine and I followed, marvelling at the sight of our boys flanking this tall robed monk. It was unusual for them to accept a stranger so readily, especially Taj, who had remained withdrawn since the quasi-kidnapping incident at the Korean ferry terminal.
“This all gives me goosebumps,” Christine whispered.
Slowly we ascended slopes as steep as a ski run, plodding around switchbacks, gasping for breath in the thin air. After twenty minutes we reached a colossal chorten guarding the monastery entrance. A darkened tunnel led through its base, and inside, Lama Wangyal paused to spin a soot-stained prayer wheel. We followed suit. Then he led us on, toward the light.
The monastery’s courtyard was ringed by whitewashed temples whose thick mud-brick walls sloped gently inward as they rose. Silken drapery of red, yellow and blue fluttered from open windows. We paused, trying to take it all in, but Lama Wangyal was impatient and dragged us on, up pathways burnished by centuries of shuffling feet, past dormitories with hunched wooden doors and shuttered windows, past abandoned homes and chortens thick with generations of whitewash, past ornate frescoes and magnificently carved boulders, past shady willow groves where wrens hopped underfoot.
Twenty more minutes of breathless climbing brought us to a simple mud-brick home, standing alone on steep rocky slopes, near the top of the monastery complex. The front door was made from rough-hewn timber. Only a meter tall, it appeared fit for a hobbit. Using a lanyard of keys around his neck, Lama Wangyal opened a rusty padlock and ducked inside. Then his large hand reached out and pulled our boys in after him.
Stooping, Christine and I followed. Plunging into darkness, our fingers traced earthen walls down a long, narrow passageway. We passed tidy stacks of dung, a rickety ladder of twisted branches and the entrance to a small stable (actually the kitchen), before finally emerging into a sunlit chamber the size of a child’s bedroom.
Mud-plastered walls were painted lime green and adorned with faded photographs—snaps of the lama proudly posing with foreign trekkers. A squat table held a homemade prayer wheel (built inside a jam jar) and a geranium (sprouting from a rusty paint can). Wooden transportation pallets covered in red carpets ringed the walls. A bank of cracked windows offered a sweeping view across Zanskar’s central plains.
“Sitting, sitting,” Lama Wangyal waved us in. As I entered, I bonked my skull loudly on the log ceiling, and the old monk laughed. “First day, bang! Second day, bang! Third day, bang! Fourth day, no problem.”
Then he disappeared.
The boys raced in circles, bare feet raising clouds of dust. I collapsed on a pallet beside Christine, feeling a tremendous weight lift from my body.
“Wow,” Christine grinned. “Just wow.”
Wes scrambled in through the low door, bent in half at the waist and pouring sweat. “Is this where you’re gonna stay, mate?” he whispered, eyes wide.
I shrugged, uncertain.
Lama Wangyal returned with a biscuit tin, which Bodi and Taj rushed to investigate. After pouring cups of sweet black tea for family and TV crew alike, the old monk plopped down between Christine and me, and with a broad smile, stuck out his tongue—a greeting once common throughout Tibet, meant to demonstrate one was not a black-tongued demon.
* * *
A guest house had recently been constructed at the base of the cliffs, below the monastery. Funded by a French benefactor and operated by the monks, it offered passing tourists a place to stay while providing a new source of income for the monastery. After tea, Sonam suggested we stroll down to take a peek.
“Maybe guest house better for family?” he whispered with Lama Wangyal out of earshot. “Maybe nicer.”
Built from concrete blocks, the square structure held six bedrooms, a porcelain-tiled kitchen and a spacious common room. While clean and modern, it was also devoid of spirit. The sterile environment held no interest for me.
“What do you think?” I asked, pulling Christine aside, conscious of her need for space and privacy. We were careful not to let Bodi hear our discussion, for if he knew there was a choice in lodging, he would undoubtedly voice a strong opinion, and invariably it would be different than ours.
“I’m not sure. I feel a bit rushed,” she admitted. “This place is nice enough. And the lama’s house feels cramped. But I think it would be crazy not to live up in the monastery. I mean we’ve come so far.”
Just then I was summoned outside, where Sonam and Lama Wangyal sat cross-legged, engaged in a heated discussion. For some time the men yelled back and forth in Zanskari, ignoring my presence, and as I waited, I felt sheepish for understanding nothing of the local tongue.
Eventually, Sonam turned to me and declared, “Better you staying at guest house. Now special celebration time for harvest. No one allowed staying at gompa. Besides, guest house more better. More clean.”
My face must have betrayed a whisper of disappointment, because Lama Wangyal and Sonam immediately dove back into their animated debate. Eventually Sonam stood and brushed his hands. “Okay. We going Lama Wangyal’s now.”
Assuming he meant to retrieve our duffel bags, I suggested dashing uphill myself to save our boys the climb.
“No, no. Everyone,” Sonam said impatiently. “Family living upside. With lama.”
I was taken off guard, feeling simultaneously pleased and concerned. Was Lama Wangyal breaking monastery protocol because he felt pressured? Or had Sonam been trying to steer us toward the guest house in his belief the modern facility would suit a Canadian family better? I tried to ask, but both men walked away.
I never learned what transpired between Sonam and Lama Wangyal that day, and as with so much we experienced in Zanskar, I suspect the truth lay masked beneath layers of language, culture and tradition.
* * *
Later that afternoon, the television crew organized a final round of interviews. I offered a few summary thoughts about the journey behind us and the experience ahead. Both boys said a few cute things about being happy with their new home. Then we sat on boulders and watched as Christine lined up before the cameras, a reflective panel lighting her face.
Wes began by asking why she wanted to take this trip.
“I feel kids can only benefit from an experience like this,” she started. “The opportunity, to live with people who are so different, and less fortunate, it just feels so precious…” Emotions welled that went beyond words, and Christine’s voice wavered. As Wes asked question after question, tears spilled down her cheeks.
“The lesson I want to impart to my kids is that it’s not about the stuff. It’s more about being solid within yourself.”
After what seemed like an eternity, Wes called, “Cut.”
“Damn
it, Wes,” Christine sniffed, rubbing her reddened eyes. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry. But you made me!”
Then she wrapped her arms around the beaming Aussie, who we’d both grown so fond of.
Despite the inevitable tensions and frustrations of any journey—particularly given the nature of our relationship of documentarian and subjects—special bonds had formed between the crew and our family. Wes had even floated the idea of staying at the monastery for a few weeks and crafting a final episode about our time at Zanskar. But the presence of cameras would undermine any chance of our family quietly fitting in, so without malice I refused.
Now, as the crew prepared to bid a final farewell, we pressed gifts of turquoise into their palms. More bittersweet tears flowed. Then the audio technicians, camera operators and producers who had travelled alongside us since departing from our home in Canada three months earlier disappeared down the trail, dust rising from their vanishing feet.
They left in their wake an oceanic stillness, a sense of quiet and profound relief broken only by the occasional bawling of a calf and cries of village children far below.
* * *
Bodi wanted to visit an enormous brass prayer wheel he’d spotted near the monastery entrance, so I took him and watched as he ran in dizzying circles, spinning the drum faster and faster. With every rotation, a nail driven into the upper rim crashed against a bell, announcing to all within earshot that merit was being accrued.
We returned to find Christine in the dim kitchen, working under the supervision of Lama Wangyal. He was teaching her to cook dal, or curried lentils, in a pressure cooker atop a single-burner propane stove.II My job in the months ahead, he explained, would be to supply the household with tea, and he demonstrated precisely how much water, loose tea, masala spice and sugar he wanted in each pot.
Afterward, we ate together in our room, sitting on pallets. Lama Wangyal was curious about everything in our duffels: toothbrushes, Lego, camera, journal, deodorant. Christine was pulling cotton pyjamas onto Taj, when she addressed him by the familial nickname, “Taji.”
The old monk froze, looking perplexed. He pointed at Taj in disbelief. “Tashi?”
“No.” Christine explained that Taji was a nickname, but Lama Wangyal waved her off.
“Tsering Tashi,” he repeated, pointing at Taj. Eventually it dawned on me he was bestowing Taj with a Tibetan name.
Next, Lama Wangyal turned his attention to Bodi, closing his eyes and placing a hand atop Bodi’s knee. Was he searching his memory for someone Bodi reminded him of? Or waiting for an appropriate name to enter the stillness of his mind? Assigning Tibetan names wasn’t new for Lama Wangyal, for senior monks routinely rename the novices in their care.
“Norbu,” Lama Wangyal finally declared, opening his eyes. “Tsering Norbu.”
“Tsering?” I asked.
“Very sorry. Tsering no good name.” Lama Wangyal grimaced, raising his shoulders in mock helplessness. “Old person name.”
His full name was Tsering Wangyal, and by sharing it, in the same manner a guru names a student, he was placing our boys under his umbrella of care.
Lama Wangyal then pointed at Christine, declaring she would hereafter be known as Angmo. Months earlier, at a public teaching in Leh, the Dalai Lama had suggested that the traditional Zanskari name Angmo could benefit from more use. Lama Wangyal was now doing his part.
Christine tried saying the unfamiliar name a few times, and Lama Wangyal beamed. “Good, Angmo, good.”
Finally, the lama turned to me, and declared after a pause, “Mortub!”
What? I’d never heard the name Mortub (pronounced More-Toob) before, and felt a momentary flush of disappointment. With so many fond and familiar Tibetan names to choose from—Kami, Nima, Purbu, Tenzing—why had I been given a title that sounded like a dark wizard from Harry Potter?
Pragmatically, I knew it would be easier for locals to remember Tibetan names instead of our unfamiliar Western ones, but the deeper truth was that I felt honoured. Something rare and enchanting occurs when one is bestowed with a local name in a foreign land.
I’d experienced the phenomenon decades earlier, when Bedu companions in Arabia named me Saleh. Until that moment, I had assumed I would never be anyone but Bruce. Initially Saleh sounded strange, its usage forced, but within days I found myself responding to even a whisper of the name. In conversations between Canadian teammates, we soon referred to each other by Arabic names. The Bedu knew us by no other. Ultimately, Saleh came to represent who I was during those seventy days in the desert.
So here amongst the monks of Karsha Gompa, we became Tashi, Norbu, Angmo and Mortub.
* * *
Later that evening, as I rinsed dinner bowls in a dented pewter basin outside the hobbit door, a full moon appeared in the east. Climbing free of tangled peaks, it drifted skyward like an enormous yellow balloon.
We had arrived, I realized, on an auspicious day, for Buddhists hold the full moon in highest regard. According to legend, every important event in Siddhartha Gautama’s life transpired on a full moon: his birth, his renunciation of earthly desires, his enlightenment, his first sermon and his eventual passing into nirvana.
Back inside, I found the boys sleeping soundly. Christine had arranged our sleeping bags atop the pallets—head to toe, head to toe—so the family slept in a continuous loop, ringing the room. My bag was pressed up against the bank of windows.
I crawled in and was about to start reading when Lama Wangyal appeared, carrying a candle. After gazing at the sleeping children, he sat beside me, placing a hand on my sleeping bag while quietly muttering, “Om mani padme hum,” over and over.
I watched as the old monk kneaded a rosary of mala beads through his fingers. Noting my curiosity, he plucked another set from a nail on the wall and held them toward me as a gift. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. He showed me how to advance a bead at a time, rolling each between thumb and forefinger, prompting me to chant as I went. Feeling like an imposter, I began. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
A set of mala or prayer beads. The Tibetan rosary comprises 108 beads, and is used to count mantra recitations during meditation. Beads on two smaller strings are used to record rotations of the primary rosary.
“No, Mortub.” Lama Wangyal gently corrected my pronunciation of the final syllable. “Om mani padme HEUNG! In Zanskar, all people saying HEUNG.”
I continued while Lama Wangyal drifted to an adjoining puja (prayer) room, no larger than a walk-in closet, where a small altar held seven small silver bowls filled with water. One by one, Lama Wangyal emptied these into a bucket. Then he lit a multitude of yak-butter candles, illuminating three brass statues: Buddha, flanked by his famous Tibetan disciples, Guru RinpocheIII and Je Tsongkhapa.IV
Christine glanced up from the book she was reading by headlamp. “He gave me a set of mala beads earlier. I love them.”
Eventually Lama Wangyal emerged from the altar room carrying a single candle, still chanting. I listened as his footsteps faded up the twisted ladder in the passageway outside. We were left alone in darkness.
Christine was soon breathing rhythmically. I could feel Taj’s warmth on my feet, and somewhere above my head, Bodi rustled. Cool air cascaded down the windows, and I pulled my sleeping bag tight, gazing out at the broad valley silhouetted in milky moonlight. I was drifting toward sleep when a faint scratching caught my attention. It sounded like hundreds of tiny claws and came from the ceiling overhead.
Mice? A rat? Did I hear purring? A cat?
On and on these peculiar sounds went, building to a crescendo then falling away, again and again. Eventually I surmised a colony of bats were roosting in the ceiling. As they clawed their way through the thatch, struggling to emerge into the moonlight, their wings whirred like a moth held in cupped hands.
I. Lama Wangyal had retired from his Head Lama position two years before our arrival, but remained a respected senior member of the monastic community.
II. Pressure cookers are ubiquitous across the Himalaya, where water boils at markedly lower temperatures because of thinner air.
III. Guru Rinpoche, also known as Padmasambhava, “the Lotus Born,” was an eighth-century master widely credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet.
IV. Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) was a prominent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism who founded the “Yellow Hat” or Gelugpa lineage, to which Karsha Gompa belongs.
6 TOUCHING DOWN
The sharp note of a chime woke me. My cheek was pressed against a chill window. Outside, glaciated peaks smouldered in the sun’s crimson rays. From upstairs came the sound of shuffling feet. Then chanting.
I sat up slowly, careful not to rustle my sleeping bag, for Christine and the boys still slept. A dog-eared copy of Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard lay beside my pallet, where I’d dropped it the night before, but I wasn’t in the mood for reading. Instead, I reached for the mala beads, gently passing the polished spheres between my thumb and forefinger. At home I would have recoiled at the thought of passing time in such a way, but here, surrender came more easily.
I had completed three rotations of the rosary when footsteps padded into the nearby kitchen. The click of the gas stove was followed by a jangle of pots. Lama Wangyal soon appeared, chanting as he placed a thermos of sweet black tea on the table before me, indicating I should pour myself a cup. Then he disappeared down the passageway and out the hobbit door.
Not long after, horns echoed across the mountainside.
Christine moaned; she was too exhausted to rise. Taj remained motionless. But Bodi sat bolt upright. I told him I was going to investigate, and to my surprise, he asked if he could tag along.
Every morning, a pair of rag-dung, short Tibetan brass horns, called the monks of Karsha Gompa to puja, or ritual prayers.
Hand in hand we climbed rocky trails, winding between whitewashed buildings, seeking the source of the racket. Maroon-robed monks floated up the paths around us, some swinging bare arms to stay warm, others hunched and muttering, hands clasped behind backs. Most ignored our presence, but a gaggle of curious novices dropped in behind us, whispering excitedly.