I wonder if today’s Lhasa is the city that Tsering dreamed of so many years ago. I once
told Tsering that when Lhasa was transformed into a modern city with the most up-todate
conveniences, he too would be nostalgic for the past.
“Possibly,” he said, and shrugged.
I saw Lhasa as a place outside time, a place where I could hold on to the past. But
whenever I return, I find a changed city. I remember once more that the true city I am
looking for is actually the one of the fantasy novels and video games. And even that
Lhasa is the ideal of an ideal. There is nothing to hold on to. The scent of my
grandmother’s skin, the shine of chestnuts on an autumn day, a first kiss in a cemetery—
they are but disappearing memories.
The only permanence is the permanence that I cling to in my mind: my ideals of how to
live; how to be happy; how to raise my children; how to furnish my home; how to better
the world; how to fill my time. And these ideals are just as insubstantial as my memory
of Tibet.
I know that the Tibet of my imagination has never existed. I know the past is not a place I
can return to. But in my memory I keep circling Jokhang Temple on a cold winter
morning before sunrise, listening to the hum of monks starting the day with prayer.
A thousand years ago, the Tibetan mystic and poet Milarepa hit upon the paradox that
even the Buddhist ideals he preached were no more than the grasping of his mind. In
one of his songs, “The Understanding of Reality,” Milarepa preaches the Buddhist path
to a group of dakinis, or sky spirits:
. .
A thousand years ago, the Tibetan mystic and poet Milarepa hit upon the paradox that
even the Buddhist ideals he preached were no more than the grasping of his mind. In
one of his songs, “The Understanding of Reality,” Milarepa preaches the Buddhist path
to a group of dakinis, or sky spirits:
. . .in [the realm] of absolute truth
Buddha himself does not exist;
There are no practices nor practitioners,
No Path, no Realization, and no Stages,
No Buddha Bodies and no Wisdom.
There is no Nirvana,
For these are merely names and thoughts.
Matter and beings in the Universe
Are non-existent from the start;
They have never come to be.
There is no Truth, no Innate-Born Wisdom,
No Karma, and no effect therefrom;
Samsara even has no name,
Such is Absolute Truth.