The Snow leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

  In the high sun, snows shift and flow, bathing the mind in diamond light. Tupjuk Rinpoche speaks now of the snow leopard, which he has seen often from his ledge, and has watched carefully, to judge from the accuracy of all his observations: he knows that it cries most frequently in mating time, in spring, and which caves and ledges it inhabits, and how it makes its scrape and defecation.

  Before we leave, I show him the plum pit inscribed with the sutra to Chen-resigs that was given me by Soen Roshi, and promise to send him my wicker camp stool from the tea stall on the Yamdi River. The Lama gives me a white prayer flag— lung-p'ar, he calls it, "wind pictures"—printed with both script and images from the old wood blocks at Shey; among the Buddhist symbols is an image of Nurpu Khonday Pung-jun, the great god of mountains and rivers, who was here, says the Lama, long before the B'on-pos and the Buddhists: presumably this was the god who was vanquished by Drutob Senge Yeshe and his hundred and eight snow leopards. Norpu is now a Protector of the Dharma, and his image on flags such as this one is often placed on bridges and the cairns in the high passes, as an aid to travelers. The Lama folds it with greatest concentration, and presents it with the blessing of his smile.

  The Lama of the Crystal Monastery appears to be a very happy man, and yet I wonder how he feels about his isolation in the silences of Tsakang, which he has not left in eight years now and, because of his legs, may never leave again. Since Jang-bu seems uncomfortable with the Lama or with himself or perhaps with us, I tell him not to inquire on this point if it seems to him impertinent, but after a moment Jang-bu does so. And tliis holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an infectious way at Jang-bu's question. Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, "Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice!"

  In its wholehearted acceptance of what is, this is just what Soen Roshi might have said: I feel as if he had struck me in the chest. I thank him, bow, go softly down the mountain: under my parka, the folded prayer flag glows. Butter tea and wind pictures, the Crystal Mountain, and blue sheep dancing on the snow —it's quite enough!

  Have you seen the snow leopard?

  No! Isn't that wonderful?

  NOVEMBER 15

  All morning the moon hangs frozen on the sky, and the wind-bell rings unheard on the hard east wind. The robin accentor has perished, or fled south across the mountains, since it no longer turns up in my yard. To the cook hut, in the bitter cold, comes Namu with a blanket wrapped around her head, to take a cup of tea: ordinarily, her wild black hair blows free. The days are shorter now. The sun is gone by midafternoon, when this primordial woman fills the mountain dusk with her wild cries, calling her black dzo, scaring off wolves.

  I climb early to the northwest ridge of Somdo mountain, from where I can watch all the trails, scan all the valleys of the western slopes, beyond Black River: if the snow leopard is abroad, then I may see it, and if it makes a kill, I shall see birds. GS has crossed the river early to look for more fresh signs: he tries not to let the leopard interfere with his study of blue sheep, but the great cats have a strong hold on him, and the snow leopard is the least known of them all. It is wonderful how the presence of this creature draws the whole landscape to a point, from the glint of light on the old horns of a sheep to the ring of a pebble on the frozen ground.

  Since it is too cold to sit in one position, I roam up and down the ridge, scanning the west walls every little while, and keeping an eye on the blue sheep of Somdo, which seem well behind the Tsakang herd in the progress of the rut On this slope there are many fossils, mostly spiraled ammonites, and in the river lie wild rocks of great beauty. I love wild rocks, I covet them, but they are too big to carry away over the passes. Perhaps I shall take a few shards of broken prayer stones; the river rocks will stay where they belong.

  With the wind and cold, a restlessness has come, and I find myself hoarding my last chocolate for the journey back across the mountains—forever getting-ready-for-life instead of living it each day. This restlessness is intensified by the presence of the extra sherpas, who can do little besides use up precious food; they sleep and sit around, waiting to go.

  Like heralds of the outside world, Tukten and Gyaltsen arrived with the full moon. Now the moon is waning, and the fine lunar clarity of life at Shey swiftly diminishes. Exciting days have occurred since their arrival, and yet a kind of power is winding down, a spell is broken.

  And so I, too, prepare to go, though I try hard to remain. The part of me that is bothered by the unopened letters in my rucksack, that longs to see my children, to drink wine, make love, be clean and comfortable again—that part is already facing south, over the mountains. This makes me sad, and so I stare about me, trying to etch into this journal the sense of Shey that is so precious, aware that all such effort is in vain; the beauty of this place must be cheerfully abandoned, like the wild rocks in the bright water of its streams. Frustration at the paltriness of words drives me to write, but there is more of Shey in a single sheep hair, in one withered sprig of everlasting, than in all these notes; to strive for permanence in what I think I have perceived is to miss the point.

  Near my lookout, I find a place to meditate, out of the wind, a hollow on the ridge where snow has melted. My brain soon clears in the cold mountain air, and I feel better. Wind, blowing grasses, sun; the dying grass, the notes of southbound birds in the mountain sky are no more fleeting than the rock itself, no more so and no less—all is the same. The mountain withdraws into its stillness, my body dissolves into the sunlight, tears fall that have nothing to do with "I." What it is that brings them on, I do not know.

  In other days, I understood mountains differently, seeing in them something that abides. Even when approached respectfully (to challenge peaks as mountaineers do is another matter) they appalled me with their "permanence," with that awful and irrefutable rock-ness that seemed to intensify my sense of my own transience. Perhaps this dread of transience explains our greed for the few gobbets of raw experience in modern life, why violence is libidinous, why lust devours us, why soldiers choose not to forget their days of horror: we cling to such extreme moments, in which we seem to die, yet are reborn. In sexual abandon as in danger we are impelled, however briefly, into that vital present in which we do not stand apart from life, we are life, our being fills us; in ecstasy with another being, loneliness falls away into eternity. But in other days, such union was attainable through simple awe. My foot slips on a narrow ledge: in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which, finding themselves at the center of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us, what one lama refers to as "the precision and openness and intelligence of the present"19 The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. To be anywhere else is "to paint eyeballs on chaos."20 When I watch blue sheep, I must watch blue sheep, not be thinking about sex, danger, or the present, for this present—even while I think of it—is gone.

  NOVEMBER 16

  The snow leopard has been hunting in the night, for part of the Tsakang herd has fled off toward the north, taking shelter in the yard of Dolma-jang, and the rest have crossed the ridges to the west; from Somdo, a calligraphic track up Crystal Mountain can be seen that disappears at the white rim, into blue sky. Having dispersed the Tsakang herds, the leopard crossed over the Black River—or perhaps a second leopard h
as arrived—for here on Somdo, the big herd is also scattered, with males and females reverting to their separate bands. As we climb the broad mountainsides above the village, a lone band of nine male animals is in sight.

  Not a thousand feet above our tents at Shey, on the path that I walked yesterday, a leopard has made its scrape right in my boot print, as if in sign that I am not to leave. The leopard may still be present on this slope, for the rams are skittish. Even so, the rut is near, activity is constant, and GS scribbles in his notebook. "Oh, there's a penis-lick!" he cries. "A beauty!" The onanism is mingled here and there with fighting, especially among the older rams, which rear repeatedly on their hind legs; remarkably, another rears at the same instant, and the two run forward like trained partners, coming down together with a crash of heads. For most creatures, such an encounter would be fatal, but bharal are equipped with some two inches of parietal bone between the horns, together with a cushion of air space in the sinuses, thick woolly head hair, and strong necks to absorb the shock, and the horns themselves, on the impact side, are very thick and heavy. Why nature should devote so many centuries—thousands, probably—to the natural selection of these characters that favor head-on collisions over brains is a good question, although speaking for myself in these searching days, less brains and a good head-on collision might be just the answer.

  Watching blue sheep in the sun and windlessness is pleasant, and reminds us that this pleasantness must end. We discuss logistics briefly, and also the implications of our journey, and our great good fortune. Last night at supper, GS remarked that this was one of the best trips he had ever made, "tough enough so that we feel we have really accomplished something, but not so tough that it wiped us out entirely." I feel the same.

  This morning, expressing his relief that such good bharal data have come in, GS refers again to his dread of failure, of the satisfaction that his peers might take in his first mistake, and after two months I feel I know him well enough to point out how often this refrain occurs in his conversation, and how baseless his apprehension seems to be: no matter how badly he might fail on any expedition, his abilities and good reputation are beyond dispute. GS recognizes his mild paranoia, and discusses it quite frankly as he stands there, observing the blue sheep's world through his faithful spotting scope; he is more open and relaxed each day. When I say so, he looks doubtful, and I quote his remark about the snow leopard: "Maybe it's better if there are some things that we don't see." He nods grudgingly, as if in disapproval, but later he resists the implications of his repeated observation at Tsakang that mountains move. "Well," he mutters, "from a certain point of view, I mean, geologically, of course, the Himalaya is still rising, and then there is a downward movement due to erosion— "I interrupt him. "That's not what you meant," I say. "Not at Tsakang." Still squinting into the telescope, my partner grins.

  GS feels that our journey has had the quality of adventure because we depend entirely on ourselves; that this is an old-fashioned expedition in the sense that we are completely out of touch with our own world, with our own century, for that matter—no vehicles, no doctor, and no radio, far less airdrops or support teams or other such accoutrements of the modern "expedition." "This is the way I like it," GS says. "You haven't got the whole goddamned society backing you up, you're on your own: you have to take responsibility for your mistakes, you can't blame the organization. And inevitably, you make mistakes—you just hope they aren't too serious." I like it, too, for the same reasons, and also because the penalty for error makes me mindful as I walk among these mountains, heeding the echo of my step on the frozen earth.

  At midmorning, when the blue sheep have settled for their rest, we walk a long eastward traverse, then west again, hoping to jump the leopard from a gully. On the stony ground, the few prints are indistinct, with nothing fresh enough to indicate where the creature might be lying. If this is the Tsakang cat, then it is hungry, and there is a chance that it will kill tonight. Since it will stay close enough to guard its kill from the lammergeiers and griffons, this is my last hope of seeing it.

  With the herds scattered, it appears unlikely that full rut will get under way in the next fortnight; if the leopard is gone, it is not apt to return again in the next week. And so I have put aside my doubts about departing here the day after tomorrow, and have asked Tukten to obtain stores and a few utensils from Phu-Tsering for the outward journey. We can take little, for the camp is running short; in Saldang, perhaps, some tsampa and potatoes can be obtained.

  GS feels that I make too much of Tukten's spiritual propensities and, like Jang-bu, warns me to beware of him. On both points he is probably right. Still, I am glad that Tukten will be with me, for unlike all but the head sherpa, he anticipates problems and deals with them unasked. Gyaltsen has no wish to travel on in life with Tukten, preferring to remain at Shey with Jang-bu; Dawa will go out with us instead. Dawa's morale has been uncertain since his two bouts of snow blindness, and as a rule he appears happiest when by himself: I hear him singing every time he passes my stone wall, bound down to the White River to fetch water. He rarely joins the other sherpas at the fire, preferring to sit back in the shadows by the wall; though they like him, the others tease him and order him about, and he smiles shyly, as if grateful that they don't pretend he isn't there.

  NOVEMBER 17

  Last night, the snow leopard left tracks just outside the monastery, on the Saldang path that I shall take tomorrow; like the scrape found yesterday over my footprint, it is hard not to read this as a sign. Then the cat recrossed the Black River—either that, or there are two leopards in the region, as we think. Followed or preceded by a solitary wolf—perhaps the same elusive beast that circled the prayer wall here last week—this leopard or another has prowled the Tsakang trail, and on my last day here, as the sun rises from the ice horizon, we climb the westward slopes in hopes of locating a kill. Part of the main bharal herd has come back across the snows to graze—warily just above Tsakang, and another band—many animals are still missing—steps daintily along the ledges of the cliff below the hermitage, the sunrise bright on their white knees. The only other time the bharal have been seen on the steep cliff face was the morning they were chased there by the wolves, but they may have come here of their own accord, since a few are licking alkali salts from the icicles in the small caves, and others are nibbling at stunted barberry in the crannies.

  A young ram tries halfheartedly to mount a ewe, but it now appears that it will be the first days of December before the females come fully into estrus and the height of the rut occurs. After all these weeks of itch and foreplay, only a few dominant males will take part in copulation, which will last but a few seconds at each encounter.

  GS is satisfied that the bharal is neither sheep nor goat but a creature perhaps very close to the ancestral goatlike animal of about twenty million years ago from which Ovis and Capra evolved. ("The behavioral evidence," he wrote later, "confirms the morphological evidence that bharal are basically goats. Many of the sheep-like traits of bharal can be ascribed to convergent evolution, the result of the species having settled in a habitat which is usually occupied by sheep. . . . The species has straddled an evolutionary fence, and if it had to make a choice of whether to become an Ovis or a Capra it could become either with only minor alterations. Like the aoudad, the bharal probably split early from the ancestral goat stock. If I had to design a hypothetical precursor from which the sheep and goat lines diverged, it would in many ways resemble a bharal in appearance and behavior."21)

  GS continues up the valley to the herd near snow line, while I return slowly down the ridges, wishing to spend most of this last day on the home mountain. At each stupa on the canyon points, the prayer stones are lit by fire-colored lichens; in the shine of thorn and old carved stones, the print of leopard and thick scent of juniper, I am filled with longing. I turn to look back at Tsakang, at the precipices and deep shadows of Black Canyon, at the dark mountain that presides over Samling, which I shall never see. Ab
ove the snowfields to the west, the Crystal Mountain thrusts bare rock into the blue; to the south is the sinuous black torrent that comes down from Kang La, the Pass of Snows. And there on the low cliff above the rivers, silhouetted on the snow, is the village that its own people call Somdo, white prayer flags flying black on the morning sun.

  On the river islands, winter ice has stilled the prayer wheels, but under the bridge the water is deep, gray, and swift, hurrying away west to the great Karnali. On the bluff, I pay my last respects to the white stupas and make a bow to bright-blue Dorje-Chang. I would enter and give the mani wheels a spin, and send OM MANI PADME HUM to the ten directions, but Ongdi the Trader has turned up again and locked the doors, in the hope of realizing a small gain by charging us admission. Accompanying Ongdi on this trip is the owner of the yard where my tent is pitched; he has no wish to charge me rent, merely goes about the walls adjusting prayer stones, in dour sign that I must treat his dung heaps with respect. This dung extends from one wall to the other, my tent is pitched in it, for all I know it may be centuries deep. Yet the householder points at a stone-like coprolith frozen in the dung in the yard corner, and I am existentially embarrassed: there is no way to explain that this phenomenon of dung-on-dung occurred but once, in dire straits of night emergency and bitter cold. No, really, I am mortally offended, with no earthly target for my wrath: what has this dismal lump to do with those transparent states high on the mountain?

  The stranger and I stand shoulder to shoulder, glaring downward in the wind and silence, as if the dorje lay before us, the adamantine diamond, ready to deliver up some Tantric teaching:Take care, O Pilgrim, lest you discriminate against the so-called lower functions, for these, too, contain the inherent miracle of being. Did not one of the great masters attain enlightenment upon hearing the splash of his own turd into the water? Even transparency, O Pilgrim, may be a hindrance if one clings to it. One must not linger on the Crystal Mountain —