Pokhara, Nepal
September 2
Afternoon
Entirely ragged, out of sorts from any semblance of routine and not yet striving to re-instate one, I set out to meet a newly-acquired friend. Her name was Pip – a derivation of Philippa, a name which she actively loathed – and I liked her immediately, for she understood the value of time and was not reckless with her own share.
She walked briskly, in keeping with this mentality. A peculiar thing to admire, perhaps, but when you spend so much time on the road bumping into a plethora of different souls, finding a fellow traveller who matches your pace is a welcome discovery.
I was to meet her at a Tibetan refugee camp. She’d caught wind of reports there were festivities and celebrations planned for today. Today was, after all, Tibetan Democracy Day: a historic date marking the anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s efforts to transform Tibetan society into a democracy.
On arriving to the camp, I found it sectioned-off from the congested city-street by a large metal gate, with a small doorway melded into its face, open for anyone to freely enter. It was all too easy to pass by without noticing. The threshold guardian in question happened to be a plump middle-aged man, squat on a stool outside, idly running string between his fingers. On odd occasion, his peace would be disrupted by a sudden rise of phlegm in his throat – which he would suitably cough up and smite to the floor.
At his nod, I passed through the doorway and into the camp: a rather uninviting sight, a couple of blocks of ugly stone apartments overlooking a field beaten into muddy submission by local foot traffic. There was barely a person around. A wicked coupling of elderly ladies gossiped under a sheet of corrugated metal, a neck-stringed goat stared me down – quite belligerently, I couldn’t help but feel - and a small group of young girls played cards outside their home, next to the sleeping body of (what-I-presumed-to-be) the family-owned sheep.
One of these girls, at the coercion of the others, pulled herself to her feet and bounded towards me. It was apparent this was not a place accustomed to many outsiders. Moreover, it was abundantly clear there were no festivities being carried out here today – nor was there any sign of my friend ever having been there. Not for the first time in my life, a familiar mind-story resurfaced, eager to remark that I had misfired, as was my tendency, and found myself in the wrong place once again.
The young girl tugged at my wrist, indicating that I should follow her, and apparently capable of eavesdropping within the hushed board-room of my skull, she warmly assured me: ‘there is no such thing as the wrong place, no such thing as the wrong place, no such thing at all.’
An old man hobbled out of a doorway nearby, beaming at the sight of me as I approached, his toothless grin pleating a face well-worn with decades-upon-decades of laughter-lines. The girl vanished as soon as I reached him. Without word or question, I followed him into his home – a movement as natural as a stream trickling into a river’s expanse.
The insides of his home were in direct contrast to the sparse outside. Vibrant cushions and seats were covered in thick plastic sheeting, the walls were painted a garish lime-green, and covering the majority of the space hung many a thanka (Tibetan Buddhist paintings) and photographs of the Dalai Lama, alongside various other high-ranking lamas.
The old man’s name was Samdup, whose meaning is ‘the fulfilment of wishes.’
Samdup told me he had taken this meaning as a description of the role he was to literally embody in this life. One of his many purposes was to work diligently in the service of others – whether friends, family or strangers – and wherever possible, wherever truly helpful to the individual, fulfil their utmost needs and wishes.
Not such a bad way to live, I decided, certain that such noble philosophy was in no small part responsible for his many laughter lines. I did not choose to make any wild or large requests. Call it one part scepticism – there always seemed to be some catch involved when dealing with genies – and call it one part lived experience; by my reckoning, human beings hold fairly poor track records of knowing what they truly need or desire – myself being no exception.
I told him that I would be quite content and in need of nothing more than an explanation of the altar that occupied a central position against the main wall of his living room. This was an ornate, hand-made cabinet filled with Buddhist images and writings. On the head of the cabinet, a sculpture of a gold-painted Buddha was centrally placed, whilst two goblet-candles burned on either side. In front of them, arranged in a row, precisely spaced an inch apart from another, were seven metal bowls near-filled to the brim with water.
Samdup told me to regard this area as one of prayer and meditation, his own personal shrine in which he would carry out his daily worship and dedications. The candles - he corrected me – were actually butter lamps, which he kept burning through day and night.
The lamps helped to focus his mind and aid his meditation. Their glow, he told me, represented the pursuit of enlightenment. Where the physical darkness surrounding the lamps symbolised ignorance, their flames symbolised the light of wisdom and knowledge. That the candles would flicker on occasion was a testament to life’s precariousness and the many difficulties that beset all living beings.
That the flame was undying, that it would not be snuffed out despite such hardships, he took as a symbol of his own devotion.
As for the water, this was the daily act of offering something without expecting anything in return – the cultivation of a genuine spirit of generosity. Samdup, in attending to this ritual, was prescribing his own antidote to attachment and greed.
All religious ceremony aside, it occurred to me that Samdup, in effect, was waking each day and priming his brain towards the mode of selflessness; repeatedly instilling a mental attitude that would be a boon to fellow humanity – rather than a hindrance. Such little things, I surmised, might just be the daily minute actions of the actual superheroes operating in our real world.
In parting, I gave Samdup some money for a two bracelets he had hand-made. He gave me a third for nothing in return. Perhaps there’s a rule written somewhere that we shouldn’t have favourite, but I do.
My favourite bracelet of the three holds twenty-seven beads. Each bead is painted with the six syllable-characters of a mantra. You can finger each bead every time you utter the mantra, and move through the whole bracelet a total of four times. After these four cycles are complete, you will have chanted the mantra a total of one-hundred and eight times in total. This is the magic number. *
As for the mantra itself, it is one that Samdup would chant whilst filling his bowls of water in the morning. It is one of the mantras most widely recited by Buddhists across Tibet, Nepal and India– and I suspect ever further still, wherever Buddhism has taken root. It is a mantra that you cannot avoid for trying, and one that, for some reason, I keep stumbling into, all under the guise of accident.
OM MANI PADME HUM
At the Dalai Lama’s insistence, we should not only recite this mantra but contemplate its meaning ‘for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast.’ There are many interpretations to be made when contemplating this mantra – I will be making a further examination sometime later here – but for now, consider this:
That the mantra ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’ means
the jewel is in the lotus.
Which is another way of saying that ‘the jewel’ of enlightenment is within you. That the properties to attain Buddhahood are contained within, and not without. You will not find what you are truly searching for outside of you. You are the lotus. Though you dwell in the mire of human existence – bound to the karmic wheel of suffering, of cyclic death and rebirth – just as the lotus is born out of the mud, you are imbued with the seed of purity.
You are a flower with the ability to bloom, to fully unfold,
and to shed all traces of the impurities and delusions which bind you.
Read the second half here.
*I will shorty look into the significance of 108 as it pertains to the number of times mantras are generally repeated, as well as the deeper meanings and interpretations of ‘om mani padme hum’.
Watch this space.
Om shanti shanti shanti
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