The Gompa in Upper Pisang stands ancient and guarded along 100,000 stone steps lined with ripe purple ganja bushes, impeccable stone walls partitioning pastureland, buckwheat, barley, mokay (corn), wheat for the buffalo. A woman washes clothes, a baby plays with a plastic bottlecap, prayer flags bellow endlessly in the mountain roar. Inside, a pastel mosaic of interlocking cubes and gently swooping images of the celestial world form a halop around astonishingly intricate, yet invariably human thankga style depictions of each of the lineages of the Mahayana (great vehicle) tradition. Graceful gold Sakyamuni sits silently behind glass, traced by miraculous green vines of wood. We marvel at the richness of the paintings, wondering what stories are encoded in this endlessly corroborated, exquisitely rare rendering of the archetypal world.
I return later with Kenpo, a lama living in Kathmandu and our friend Matt, more reverent and yet playful, and sit for a while, open breathlessly to some familiar but unnamed terror, a deep and abiding apology to my loved ones, shame for my petty and selfish commitment to my ‘path’. Our meditation is rudely, delightfully interrupted by the 8 young monks who live at the Gompa laughing uproariously trying to balance on tables and chairs to change the compact fluorescent light bulbs that are used to illuminate the temple at night. We laugh with them and content ourselves with snapping photos dressed up in the heavy maroon blankets the monks use to chant through the mountain winter. I play recorder on the steps in the evening out orange of Annapurna IV. down the hill, men are hoisting rolls of grass to feed the buffalo. Annapurna means bring of wheat. 