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A Journey In Ladakh
Journey in Ladakh, A
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First published January 1, 1983
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Andrew Harvey
220 books91 followersAndrew Harvey is an author, religious scholar and teacher of mystic traditions, known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes, beginning with his 1983 A Journey in Ladakh.
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November 24, 2012
Ladakh is a windswept mountainous region of Jammu and Kashmir, bordered by the Himalayan Mountains to the South and the Kunlun Mountains to the North. Although Ladakh formerly was a thriving trading crossroads, with the Chinese government’s closing of borders to Tibet and Central Asia, it declined in prominence. From that point on, it has been known primarily as one of the centers of Tibetan Buddhism, due to its proximity to Tibet and its substantial Tibetan population. As pictures reveal, Ladakh is beautiful in a harsh way, with rugged mountains, desert regions, and bursts of wildflowers where one might least expect them. {For some especially beautiful photographs, see http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2... }
Ladakh
Leh, Ladakh
With the collapse of the old trade routes running through Ladakh, tourism has been the main focus of the economy for decades now. Tourists, especially from the West, come to Ladakh in search of Tibetan Buddhism. They are driven by different motivations for their journey -- bragging rights over visiting a region that is off the beaten path; a trip back in time to Tibet before the Chinese takeover; an “authentic” spiritual experience -- based on whatever unspoken standards they may have for spiritual authenticity. In many cases, tourists seem to be searching for a past, preserved in amber, that may only have existed in the imaginations of other disaffected Westerners.
[image error]
Monastery, Leh, Ladakh
Andrew Harvey's book is much more a spiritual memoir than a traditional travel book. In three sections, he recounts a trip he took to Ladakh, a region in India close to Tibet in which Tibetan Buddhism was still flourishing. He had been drawn to the idea of visiting Ladakh for many years. An Englishman who lived in India during his childhood, but who was writing as a poet in Oxford at the time of his trip in the summer of 1979, Harvey described himself as a man who was so frightened of following through on his pilgrimage for spiritual insight that he almost talked himself out of using his plane ticket that summer. He was not a practicing Buddhist, but he felt drawn to the spirituality of the religion, the combination of pragmatism and wisdom, which he found in his studies.
As he enters Ladakh by bus, Harvey first is struck by the beauty and majesty of the mountains:
Nothing I had read or imagined prepared me for the splendour and majesty of the mountains that day; that was the first gift Ladakh gave me, a silence before that phantasmagoria of stone, those vast wind-palaces of red and ochre and purple rock, those rock faces the wind and snow had worked over thousands of years into shapes so unexpected and fantastical the eye could hardly believe them, a silence so truly stunned and wondering that words of description emerge from it very slowly, and at first only in broken images -- a river glimpsed there, a thousand feet below the road, its waters sparkling in the shifting storm-light, the path below on the bare rocky surface moving with sheep whose wool glittered in the sunlight, small flowers nodding in the crevasses of the vast rocks that lined the road, rocks tortured in as many thousand ways as the mountains they are torn from, sudden glimpses of ravines pierced and shattered by the light that broke down from the mountains, of the far peaks of the mountains themselves, secreted in shadow, or illumined suddenly, blindingly, by passing winds of light.
Harvey gives himself over to the landscape, to the mountains, as he turns his back on his Western heritage and prepares to open himself to Ladakhi society and spirituality.
Mountains with Prayer Flags
The central theme of Harvey's book is the limits of the Western perspectives on religion and spirituality, which he describes throughout as being too divorced from everyday life, too sterile and isolated. The beauty he finds in Ladakh's Buddhist communities comes not only from the power he perceived in the Rinpoches and monks whom he meets, but more in the profound connection between spiritual practice and everyday life. Rituals make way for children's laughter as well as for the awkward late entry of a group of tourists -- a disruption that annoys Harvey, but that the monks greet with gentle laughter:
We walked up the steps to the main shrine. There, too, everything had changed, The first time that I had seen it, it had been empty except for two short lines of monks, the Rinpoche, and a handful of flickering lamps; it had been hard to make out anything more than a few dream-like faces of Buddhas on the walls. Everything, that evening, had seemed ghostly and hieratic, a trance of ritual I could be moved by but not enter. Now, the room was flooded with morning light. From all sides, the brilliant reds and greens of Buddhas in meditation shone at me and I could see plainly their quiet faces, raised hands, haloes of green and red and yellow light. On the far walls huge whirling mandalas flanked two large wooden structures, full of holes for books, whose silk bindings shone in the gleam of a thousand butter lamps and the sunlight from open windows in the roof. And this time, too, the building was full, so full I could hardly find a place to sit down, full of Ladakhis, at least three hundred of them, mothers and small children, old men, young men, the whole of Shey and its surrounding villages, talking and praying and singing and whirling prayer wheels and walking up and down greeting each other. And at the centre of all this brilliant, noisy, exuberant life was the Rinpoche, seated cross-legged on a small throne.
Enlightenment can be found just as easily in a westernized coffee shop or a muddy ditch as in a gompa. Harvey makes a strong case for Tibetan Buddhism as a spiritual path that requires true immersion in the world -- instead of walling themselves off from material temptations, Tibetan Buddhists choose to walk in the world, to serve people in their local communities, and while doing so to resist the hollow call of material possessions and wealth. At the same time, there is great power associated with Tibetan rituals and practices -- Harvey devotes some passages to eerie descriptions of an oracle’s possession, as well as of the power he sees exhibited by rinpoches during monastic rituals.
Ladakh Monastery
Monks at Hemis Gompa, Ladakh
Harvey devotes the third section of the book to a description of his studies with Thuksey Rinpoche toward the end of his visit. In the Rinpoche, Harvey finds the Master for whom he had been searching, sometimes fearfully. Harvey is especially clear and detailed in his discussion of the barriers he has erected against spiritual change, including fear and distrust. In a conversation with Harvey, the Rinpoche provides insight into the value of spiritually enlightened people still living in the world, rather than secluding themselves in monasteries:
'The man who really helps is the man who is in the world but not of it, who loves the world but is not attached to it, who lives in the world but is not stained by it. A lotus arises from mud, doesn't it? But it is not made of mud and it has no mud on its bud or petals. A lotus arises from water, but it arises above the water. If it flowered under the water, no one could see it and get pleasure from it. A man who is suffering can have compassion, can be intelligent and humane--but he will not have the power to help others. It is necessary not merely to feel for others, not merely to win a certain kind of wisdom from the trials of living, but also to live the life necessary to acquire the good powers, the healing powers, that can save created beings from torment.'
Although Harvey includes some moving and detailed passages outlining his conversations with the Rinpoche, he learns as much from some of his fellow travelers. An Indian couple introduces him to the Rinpoche, and also provides him with two very different perspectives on the value of a spiritual quest. A Swiss Buddhist who at first seems pedantic opens up to Harvey and provides him with a perspective on how Buddhism can be practiced in the West. Harvey’s descriptions of his discussions with his varied spiritual guides provides the book with its sense of movement -- his most important journeys are deep into himself, rather than to farflung areas of Ladakh.
Thuksey Rinpoche
Shey Monastery, Ladakh, where Harvey met Thuksey Rinpoche
Drukchen Rinpoche, whom Harvey also meets at Shey Monastery
Harvey concludes his book with some preachy, albeit heartfelt, passages on the ways in which Buddhism can be adapted in the West. As a whole, though, his writing throughout the book is moving, heartfelt, and honest. He uses his talents as a poet to draw evocative pictures of the landscape and the people of Ladakh. He doesn’t describe his journey as one that led to a final destination, but as one that opened up a new spiritual practice, one that he has adapted throughout his life.
A final, personal note: I picked up this book (electronically) yesterday when I was feeling restless and worried, unable to focus on anything for very long. I was captivated by Harvey's prose. There are lovely passages in which he is describing the scenes around him, or focusing on a few insights he has gained. Reading those passages gave me some moments of tranquility when I most needed them. I also appreciated his humanity, his clear-eyed view of his own limitations, and his ability to describe his spiritual transformation in a way that seemed honest as opposed to saccharine. I'm grateful that I picked up this book when I needed it.
Monks Creating a Mandala
Ladakh
Leh, Ladakh
With the collapse of the old trade routes running through Ladakh, tourism has been the main focus of the economy for decades now. Tourists, especially from the West, come to Ladakh in search of Tibetan Buddhism. They are driven by different motivations for their journey -- bragging rights over visiting a region that is off the beaten path; a trip back in time to Tibet before the Chinese takeover; an “authentic” spiritual experience -- based on whatever unspoken standards they may have for spiritual authenticity. In many cases, tourists seem to be searching for a past, preserved in amber, that may only have existed in the imaginations of other disaffected Westerners.
[image error]
Monastery, Leh, Ladakh
Andrew Harvey's book is much more a spiritual memoir than a traditional travel book. In three sections, he recounts a trip he took to Ladakh, a region in India close to Tibet in which Tibetan Buddhism was still flourishing. He had been drawn to the idea of visiting Ladakh for many years. An Englishman who lived in India during his childhood, but who was writing as a poet in Oxford at the time of his trip in the summer of 1979, Harvey described himself as a man who was so frightened of following through on his pilgrimage for spiritual insight that he almost talked himself out of using his plane ticket that summer. He was not a practicing Buddhist, but he felt drawn to the spirituality of the religion, the combination of pragmatism and wisdom, which he found in his studies.
As he enters Ladakh by bus, Harvey first is struck by the beauty and majesty of the mountains:
Nothing I had read or imagined prepared me for the splendour and majesty of the mountains that day; that was the first gift Ladakh gave me, a silence before that phantasmagoria of stone, those vast wind-palaces of red and ochre and purple rock, those rock faces the wind and snow had worked over thousands of years into shapes so unexpected and fantastical the eye could hardly believe them, a silence so truly stunned and wondering that words of description emerge from it very slowly, and at first only in broken images -- a river glimpsed there, a thousand feet below the road, its waters sparkling in the shifting storm-light, the path below on the bare rocky surface moving with sheep whose wool glittered in the sunlight, small flowers nodding in the crevasses of the vast rocks that lined the road, rocks tortured in as many thousand ways as the mountains they are torn from, sudden glimpses of ravines pierced and shattered by the light that broke down from the mountains, of the far peaks of the mountains themselves, secreted in shadow, or illumined suddenly, blindingly, by passing winds of light.
Harvey gives himself over to the landscape, to the mountains, as he turns his back on his Western heritage and prepares to open himself to Ladakhi society and spirituality.
Mountains with Prayer Flags
The central theme of Harvey's book is the limits of the Western perspectives on religion and spirituality, which he describes throughout as being too divorced from everyday life, too sterile and isolated. The beauty he finds in Ladakh's Buddhist communities comes not only from the power he perceived in the Rinpoches and monks whom he meets, but more in the profound connection between spiritual practice and everyday life. Rituals make way for children's laughter as well as for the awkward late entry of a group of tourists -- a disruption that annoys Harvey, but that the monks greet with gentle laughter:
We walked up the steps to the main shrine. There, too, everything had changed, The first time that I had seen it, it had been empty except for two short lines of monks, the Rinpoche, and a handful of flickering lamps; it had been hard to make out anything more than a few dream-like faces of Buddhas on the walls. Everything, that evening, had seemed ghostly and hieratic, a trance of ritual I could be moved by but not enter. Now, the room was flooded with morning light. From all sides, the brilliant reds and greens of Buddhas in meditation shone at me and I could see plainly their quiet faces, raised hands, haloes of green and red and yellow light. On the far walls huge whirling mandalas flanked two large wooden structures, full of holes for books, whose silk bindings shone in the gleam of a thousand butter lamps and the sunlight from open windows in the roof. And this time, too, the building was full, so full I could hardly find a place to sit down, full of Ladakhis, at least three hundred of them, mothers and small children, old men, young men, the whole of Shey and its surrounding villages, talking and praying and singing and whirling prayer wheels and walking up and down greeting each other. And at the centre of all this brilliant, noisy, exuberant life was the Rinpoche, seated cross-legged on a small throne.
Enlightenment can be found just as easily in a westernized coffee shop or a muddy ditch as in a gompa. Harvey makes a strong case for Tibetan Buddhism as a spiritual path that requires true immersion in the world -- instead of walling themselves off from material temptations, Tibetan Buddhists choose to walk in the world, to serve people in their local communities, and while doing so to resist the hollow call of material possessions and wealth. At the same time, there is great power associated with Tibetan rituals and practices -- Harvey devotes some passages to eerie descriptions of an oracle’s possession, as well as of the power he sees exhibited by rinpoches during monastic rituals.
Ladakh Monastery
Monks at Hemis Gompa, Ladakh
Harvey devotes the third section of the book to a description of his studies with Thuksey Rinpoche toward the end of his visit. In the Rinpoche, Harvey finds the Master for whom he had been searching, sometimes fearfully. Harvey is especially clear and detailed in his discussion of the barriers he has erected against spiritual change, including fear and distrust. In a conversation with Harvey, the Rinpoche provides insight into the value of spiritually enlightened people still living in the world, rather than secluding themselves in monasteries:
'The man who really helps is the man who is in the world but not of it, who loves the world but is not attached to it, who lives in the world but is not stained by it. A lotus arises from mud, doesn't it? But it is not made of mud and it has no mud on its bud or petals. A lotus arises from water, but it arises above the water. If it flowered under the water, no one could see it and get pleasure from it. A man who is suffering can have compassion, can be intelligent and humane--but he will not have the power to help others. It is necessary not merely to feel for others, not merely to win a certain kind of wisdom from the trials of living, but also to live the life necessary to acquire the good powers, the healing powers, that can save created beings from torment.'
Although Harvey includes some moving and detailed passages outlining his conversations with the Rinpoche, he learns as much from some of his fellow travelers. An Indian couple introduces him to the Rinpoche, and also provides him with two very different perspectives on the value of a spiritual quest. A Swiss Buddhist who at first seems pedantic opens up to Harvey and provides him with a perspective on how Buddhism can be practiced in the West. Harvey’s descriptions of his discussions with his varied spiritual guides provides the book with its sense of movement -- his most important journeys are deep into himself, rather than to farflung areas of Ladakh.
Thuksey Rinpoche
Shey Monastery, Ladakh, where Harvey met Thuksey Rinpoche
Drukchen Rinpoche, whom Harvey also meets at Shey Monastery
Harvey concludes his book with some preachy, albeit heartfelt, passages on the ways in which Buddhism can be adapted in the West. As a whole, though, his writing throughout the book is moving, heartfelt, and honest. He uses his talents as a poet to draw evocative pictures of the landscape and the people of Ladakh. He doesn’t describe his journey as one that led to a final destination, but as one that opened up a new spiritual practice, one that he has adapted throughout his life.
A final, personal note: I picked up this book (electronically) yesterday when I was feeling restless and worried, unable to focus on anything for very long. I was captivated by Harvey's prose. There are lovely passages in which he is describing the scenes around him, or focusing on a few insights he has gained. Reading those passages gave me some moments of tranquility when I most needed them. I also appreciated his humanity, his clear-eyed view of his own limitations, and his ability to describe his spiritual transformation in a way that seemed honest as opposed to saccharine. I'm grateful that I picked up this book when I needed it.
Monks Creating a Mandala
May 22, 2011
I'm going there! It's super Buddhist! And this book is a delightful account of his time there. Two quotes:
After five days alone in nature: "I need to be taught how to work with what I have begun to know here; I need to find a man or woman who has learnt the language whose first, simplest, words I am stammering"
Talking to Jam Yang, a friend of a friend:
"You must write and I must be a guide. It is our svaha, our nature. Perhaps next time we will be luckier, less condemned to our different vanities. I will talk less and you will carry no big black notebooks, full of illegible writing."
"What will we do without our vanities?"
"We will drink. We will see visions. We will heal the sick and bring love and calm to the mad and evil. We will play cards all night and not need to sleep. We will walk on water in front of a hundred thousand cameras, to refute all materialists for ever."
After five days alone in nature: "I need to be taught how to work with what I have begun to know here; I need to find a man or woman who has learnt the language whose first, simplest, words I am stammering"
Talking to Jam Yang, a friend of a friend:
"You must write and I must be a guide. It is our svaha, our nature. Perhaps next time we will be luckier, less condemned to our different vanities. I will talk less and you will carry no big black notebooks, full of illegible writing."
"What will we do without our vanities?"
"We will drink. We will see visions. We will heal the sick and bring love and calm to the mad and evil. We will play cards all night and not need to sleep. We will walk on water in front of a hundred thousand cameras, to refute all materialists for ever."
July 23, 2017
Most likely I will never visit Ladakh. The next best thing is to vicariously read about it in "A Journey in Ladakh" by Andrew Harvey. The book was first published in 1983. The paperback copy I read included an Afterword written in 1999. Harvey’s visit was in the summer 1979. Nearly four decades later, I suspect much has and has not changed in Ladakh, if I were to visit.
This is because Ladakh, a region in the Himalayas in the Jammu and Kashmir State in northernmost India, is inaccessible for one-half of the year because of snow. But it’s more than just that. At the best of times, Ladakh is difficult and potentially dangerous to visit. Difficult because of limited access. It’s in the Himalayas. Dangerous because it’s proximity to Pakistan and Tibet, which means China. There’s a drawing of the Ladakh region in the book. I pour over the map reading such place names as Basgo, Go-Tsang, Purig, and Sankar. The map’s charm and exotic names, and mountain peaks and valleys, conjure images of another world. Which is exactly what we felt when my partner and I got as close to Ladakh during our last visit to India. Our few days in Shimla, and driving three hours north further into the foothills of the Himalayas, in Himachal Pradesh, gave us the privileged feeling of otherworldliness.
Harvey’s personal journey and his actual journey to Ladakh are inextricably interwoven throughout. A student from Oxford who is trying to find meaning in his life. The book’s journey is largely getting there, being there, and meeting a Buddhist Rinpoche (roughly speaking a spiritual leader or “precious one”).
Harvey’s writing style is well-paced. Everything is described with just enough detail. Clearly not as good as going there but I took away both a sense of the place and its impact on the author. For example:
"As the bus creaked and wheezed its way slowly up that vast winding pass of Zoji-La, I found my mind falling silent, becoming as large and as empty as the spaces between the mountain faces, as wide as the skies above the peaks of the mountains; for long moments I felt as if everything that happened, the passage of a lonely bird across a ravine, the glint of sudden sunlight on spray-shined boulders far below, a wash of wind through a field of small purpose flowers on a ledge below, happened within me also, within my mind that had become as large as the landscape, as airy, as silent." (P. 15)
This is because Ladakh, a region in the Himalayas in the Jammu and Kashmir State in northernmost India, is inaccessible for one-half of the year because of snow. But it’s more than just that. At the best of times, Ladakh is difficult and potentially dangerous to visit. Difficult because of limited access. It’s in the Himalayas. Dangerous because it’s proximity to Pakistan and Tibet, which means China. There’s a drawing of the Ladakh region in the book. I pour over the map reading such place names as Basgo, Go-Tsang, Purig, and Sankar. The map’s charm and exotic names, and mountain peaks and valleys, conjure images of another world. Which is exactly what we felt when my partner and I got as close to Ladakh during our last visit to India. Our few days in Shimla, and driving three hours north further into the foothills of the Himalayas, in Himachal Pradesh, gave us the privileged feeling of otherworldliness.
Harvey’s personal journey and his actual journey to Ladakh are inextricably interwoven throughout. A student from Oxford who is trying to find meaning in his life. The book’s journey is largely getting there, being there, and meeting a Buddhist Rinpoche (roughly speaking a spiritual leader or “precious one”).
Harvey’s writing style is well-paced. Everything is described with just enough detail. Clearly not as good as going there but I took away both a sense of the place and its impact on the author. For example:
"As the bus creaked and wheezed its way slowly up that vast winding pass of Zoji-La, I found my mind falling silent, becoming as large and as empty as the spaces between the mountain faces, as wide as the skies above the peaks of the mountains; for long moments I felt as if everything that happened, the passage of a lonely bird across a ravine, the glint of sudden sunlight on spray-shined boulders far below, a wash of wind through a field of small purpose flowers on a ledge below, happened within me also, within my mind that had become as large as the landscape, as airy, as silent." (P. 15)
September 12, 2018
ladakh is the land of the high passes...so start this amazing travel book which brings you to other reLms of reality
June 4, 2018
For me this was an extremely important book, certainly among the top ten I have read in terms of its impact on my life and spirituality. It may not be the same for you, and that’s fine. Such things are, I believe, a function of the unique details of our own journeys. The thing is that I cannot put into words why this is so. The greatest insights are often like that, in my experience.
April 29, 2024
Andrew Harvey - Journey in Ladakh
Perhaps it is fitting that I read the bulk of this huddled in my sleeping bag in a tent in the Rincon Mountains of Saguaro National park.
Harvey has a beautiful way of describing what he sees. He is observant and lyrical, appreciating his limitations and the beauty of the world. This is an excellent travelogue.
Some ideas from the book that stuck with me:
Tibetan Buddhism’s belief in the power of humans to achieve perfection
The beauty of travel, of learning through experience, of facing your unknowns and fears
Can Tibetan Buddhism survive the fall of Tibet? Well, it may be a good thing for Tibetan Buddhism to no longer be limited to Tibet
I will end with a quote from Charles that resonated with me: ‘It is hard to leave a place where you can believe that anything is possible. But that is why one must leave. To see if you were right, to see if your insights can be lived in a different air, at a lower level.”
Of travel
Then he asked me what I knew of Buddhism. ‘I have read a lot,’ I said, ‘but is that knowledge?’ ‘No. But it is a beginning.’ ‘A beginning of what?’ ‘How can I say? When you are ready, it will happen. But you must want to be ready; you must put yourself patiently, again and again, in a position for it to happen. You must study, and meditate, and travel, above all perhaps travel, so that you will meet someone who can give you what I can only tell you about.’ ‘Did you travel a great deal when you were young?’ ‘Yes. As much as I could. I travelled all over the East—China, Indonesia, Malaya, Burma . . . And I went to Tibet. That changed my life.’
‘Ever since I have known you you have talked of wanting to go to Ladakh, of your long fascination for Tibet and Tibetan philosophy. Why do you never go?’ ‘I still feel so ignorant. I still know so little.’ ‘That is not the real reason.’ ‘No. I am frightened.’ ‘Frightened? Why? What have you to fear?’ ‘Disappointment. Change. Both possibilities are frightening. We imagine we want to transform ourselves and our lives, but do we really? Do I? I am not sure.’
I had friendships to re-establish that I had let slide over years of frenetic traveling.
There is nothing whatever to do. That is Leh’s charm. There is a cinema, but it is down the hill, about a mile away, and shows nothing worth seeing; there is a Gompa, but once you’ve walked round it, making all the prayer-cylinders round its walls shake and whirr, you’ve seen it—there are no ancient frescoes, no old sculptures to be seen inside; there is a Cultural Academy but nothing happens at it, no Dance Meetings, no Evenings of Ladakhi Songs, no displays of tankas, or half-learned talks on Buddhas and Bodhisatvas; there is a market in the evening of fruit and vegetables along the main street, and another market all day in a side street, where bells and tankas and turquoises are sold, along with cheap sweaters and sleeping-bags and pots and calendars, but neither are so arresting and colourful that you long to return to them. There is nothing to do but to slow down, relax, laze, to become one vast transparent eye.
And so I took Wangchuk, and for that day he was my companion. I still tired easily at that height, and he was patient with me, looking at me often to see if I was tiring, and sitting down first on a rock on a patch of moss, tactfully. That was gentle of him—not to mock me for my European lack of fitness but to sit first and save my face. He carried a bag of tsampa with him, and at noon, when we reached the shepherd’s hut, he divided it with me equally. Tsampa is ground cooked barley. I offered to pay him for my share. He would not hear of it. We ate in the warm shadows of the hut. Every time I looked up he was looking at me, with his deep intent eyes, crouched like a large kind animal in the corner. His eyes had no judgment in them; they were as deep and still as a deer’s.
‘Do you have children?’ he asked me. ‘No.’ ‘Do you have a wife?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then you must be very lonely.’ ‘I have friends. I have my work.’ ‘You talk like a monk.’ ‘I am far from being a monk.’ ‘What do you believe?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I do not know.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘What I say. I am in the dark. I am waiting.’ ‘What are you waiting for?’ ‘How can I know? If I knew what I was waiting for, I would make a move towards it.’ ‘Perhaps being here is your move towards it.’ ‘I hope so.’ As we parted, he hugged me and said, ‘You smile a great deal and you listen well, but I see that somewhere you are sad. I see that nothing has satisfied you . . .’ I started to protest. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing has satisfied you, not your work, not your friendships, not all your learning and travelling. And that is good. You are ready to learn something new. Your sadness has made you empty; your sadness has made you open!’ I said, ‘Jam Yang, you are kind. But I do not feel open.’ Jam Yang smiled. ‘You, my friend, are far more open than you know.’
‘We were in Shey monastery. One of the group started taking photographs of the monks. The monks do not mind. They think, if these people have come so far to be in Ladakh, why shouldn’t they take photographs if that gives them pleasure? Besides, many of the monks are like children: they love to be photographed. Well, one of the women in the group got very angry at the man who was taking photographs. She called him an exploiter, a voyeur, a male chauvinist fool, and everything else you can imagine. I took her to one side and said to her, “Don’t you think you might be angry because he is doing openly what you are doing secretly?” She looked at me as if I was mad. “What do you mean? I never take photographs.” “I mean,” I said, “that everyone here, including myself, is hoarding something, storing something of what we see and feel here. We are all, whether we like it or not, taking photographs, inward photographs . . . We are all guilty. As long as we do not perceive things purely we are guilty. And who perceives things purely, as they are, without desire or judgment, except the Enlightened? Only they are never ‘taking photographs’; only they do not hoard and appropriate. Only they do not ‘possess’ in any way.” That made her angry. She was angry at the thought that she herself might not already be perfect. ”In a way,” I went on, ”the Kashmiris are better than all of us. They are honest. They are honest about their greed. They do not pretend to be holy or cultured or purified. They want money and they say so. Who is more guilty, the tourist who wants a little illegal tanka, or the Kashmiri who sells it to him or her for an extortionate price?” ”Well,” she said, ”I do not want a tanka. I do not want anything.” ”Are you sure?” I said. ”Only yesterday you said you were looking for something to fill your life. You told me in the bus that you were unhappy and that you were looking for a new direction to your life. Isn’t that wanting something? Don’t you secretly want Ladakh to give you a Great Experience? Don’t you want Ladakh to transform you? Why have you come all this way if you do not want something, and feel that you can find it here? Maybe this wanting is more dangerous, more corrupt, than the simple desire for a bronze Bodhisatva, a piece of old flaking paint . . .” She walked away. She did not want to hear what I was saying.’
I had not minded waiting, walking up and down the monastery walls, round the Great White Stupa to the left of the main building, watching all the subtle stages of the valley’s folding into night. Slowly, the lights in the farms below were coming on, small fiery signs in a gathering darkness. It has always been the happiest part of the day for me, the moment when the lamps are lit. Standing on Shey, I remembered all the other places where I had been delighted by the first lighting of the lamps—in childhood at my grandmother’s house in Coimbatore, the white curtains dissolving in the light, an old servant moving in the shadows, only his face illuminated; in Venice, ten years ago, on a brilliant frosty winter evening, standing on the Accademia Bridge, alone, with only the steadily darkening water for company; in Oxford a hundred times, with the day’s work over.
The young Rinpoche’s jeep had crawled, its prayer flags flapping in the wind, half-way up the hill. Every yard of its slow progress was impeded by cheering and shouting Ladakhis. Drukchen got out of the car. He stood, looking up at the monastery’s door. I could see very little of him from this distance, except that he was thin, but strong-armed, and wore black glasses, like Nawang. He was shading his eyes to see more clearly. Then he started to stride up the hill. He did not use the winding path, but went straight up, skipping from boulder to boulder like a child. Then he broke into what was almost a run. Nawang said, ‘Drukchen loves to run. He hates being locked up in a monastery. He loves to ride too.’ Drukchen Rinpoche was now half-running up the hill, with a posse of young Ladakhis running with him. His people might believe Drukchen to be an incarnation of Naropa—but they felt no distance from him. He was their Prince, their high-priest, but he was also their brother, their son . . . Nothing separated him from them, no official protocol, no squadron of dark-glassed secret policemen. He laughed as he ran, and the people with him held out their hands to him, and he took them, one by one. The Old Rinpoche was waiting for him in the crumbling monastery door. He wore a gold cloak and leant on a stick tipped with a large silver dragon’s head. Old Tibet was waiting to greet young Ladakh. For a moment it was as if Tibet had not fallen, as if Ladakh were not threatened from within and without, as if all the long continuities of a sacred tradition were not menaced with destruction. The trumpets sounded. The two men touched hands, the young man gathered into the gold bulk of the old. The crowd fell silent.
Of the people of Ladakh and Tibet
‘My research takes me every day to a new village to interview someone, to talk with a family. And I have seen people of nearly every kind now. I have been to the most remote villages, I have talked with lamas and Westernised Ladakhis and old women and young shepherds. I ask all sorts of questions. It is strange for a cynical psychologist to spend every day with people that seem, as far as I can judge, to have little interest in deceiving or impressing you . . . And it is strange for me too to be among people who for the most part are happy. Don’t get me wrong—this is a harsh land, It is hard to get the crops to grow here on the rocky mountainsides, it is hard to survive the solitudes of the winter and the lonely places . . . In Zangskar I met a woman with no teeth, with dugs as long and withered as any Calcutta beggar, who had lost all her children, all her money, and who lived alone and raving in a small hut outside the village . . . But most of these people live simply and unsentimentally, they live with few needs, few prides, few vanities. They are tolerant to their old people, to their children, to each other. You know what they are taught by their priests? They are taught that every living thing has been their mother in a previous incarnation, and so they must respect it as their mother. I have seen very little cruelty. Once I saw a child tormenting a dog. That’s about all—in three years.
The religion of the Ladakhi people is practical, down-to-earth—it has very little to do with the complex refinements of the lamas. One of the questions I asked in that questionnaire was, “Is it a good thing to have pride?” Everyone answered “No”, without fail, and many added that pride was the root of all evil. Nowhere, in any of the replies to any of the questions I asked, was there a suggestion that competition and struggle were central to life, that one man should win out at the expense of another. A boy of ten will tell you seriously that it is wrong to hurt anyone or anything, and that if you do you will pay for it, in one life or another. An old woman who has been a wife and a farmer all her life will say to you, “Everything is empty, everything has only a relative meaning. Why then hurt anyone?” And yet this fear of pride, this absence of any sense of competition, has not made the Ladakhis soft, or inefficient—you have only to look across the valley from this window, at all the fields scraped from the rock, to realise how hard they work . . . ‘The Ladakhis are linked together by their faith in their Rinpoches, their head lamas. It is easy to look at this faith and say, it is superstitious, it absolves them from all the responsibilities of thought. But they do believe in the power of their holy men, and not only in a supernatural sense. They will go to the Rinpoche when they are sick, when they have family disputes, when they are arguing over a field—and they will accept his decision, which, in all the cases I’ve been able to judge, is usually a wise enough one. And this belief gives them peace. It is hard to say “And this belief gives them peace” without being either patronising or sceptical . . . but when you see and feel this peace, this dignity, day after day in the most ordinary situations, in the way in which an old woman will make you tea, in the way she smiles at you from the fields, in the frankness of her answers to your questions . . .’ He waved his hands in the air and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not understand it but I am moved by it.’ We sat in silence. Then Hans said, ‘I am aware that whatever “answers” there are going to be, if any, to the strife and terror of our industrial society, are not likely to come from the very different problems of an idyllic rural one, protected for centuries from the modern world. But there is a beauty of life here, and perhaps some people will derive faith in the West from seeing that people can live sanely. I love these people. I want to commemorate something I have seen and felt in them. I don’t know whether that can help anyone, even myself. I don’t know whether it will help them in their fight, either, against a world that threatens their identity, their existence. Perhaps the Ladakhis cannot survive as they are, perhaps they will have to perish as an ancient Buddhist culture and just accept the fragmentations and competitiveness of the modern world they are being propelled into . . .’He looked away sadly.
‘The Ladakhis are a shrewd, practical people,’ Hans said. ‘They have to be, living as they do; they value awareness, the kind of awareness that knows when to sow a field, how to conserve water, how to tell the quality of a sheep or a shawl; they are tolerant of weakness, but they call it by its true name.
‘Moneesha says that all this soul-baring is just an excuse to talk about ourselves. All this talk about getting rid of the Ego is just another chance for the Ego to go on about itself . . . Once I was sitting with an old sadhu in our home outside Pune and Moneesha came in. “What are you talking about?” “We are talking about the soul.” “Oh my god, what are you talking about that for?” The sadhu got angry and gave her a stern lecture on how sometimes certain kinds of talk could lead the spirit to greater understanding, and that anyway she should listen to her husband. Moneesha said, “If I listened to my husband I would fall ill with boredom. What does he know anyway, my husband? He is just a man. Men can go on talking about business, or politics, or God . . . we have to keep the house together. That is much more serious.”
‘The Tibetans were always a tough people,’ Hans said; ‘they had to be to survive in their high cold world; and now, in exile, they continue to survive and adapt. Why shouldn’t the boys wear sneakers and want to go to America? It’s a sad dream but to them technology still seems miraculous . . .’ He added, ‘But the old Tibet is still here: it is in some of the monks, some of the families; it is in the children, in the mountains, in the old women . . . Ladakh holds fragments of it in its old hand.’
‘I met the girl in my village near Dharamsala. She was older than me. At first it was very sexy. I used just to go and spend the night with her. You look surprised . . . We Tibetans, you know, are very free about sex, especially where I come from, Kham . . . There is a tradition, you know, about sleeping with members of other families when the husband is away . . . I used to go on expeditions with friends. One would say, “So-and-so is away! Let us see if his wife will let me in,” and he would crawl in through the bedroom window. Nearly always the wife said yes. Sometimes the husband did come back suddenly, of course, but he was very rarely angry. The most anyone got was a beating. Sometimes, of course, the husband had been doing exactly the same thing himself. Once I was with a friend. He went through the window to another friend’s wife, and came out beaming. Then he went to the house of yet another friend, who was away. At that friend’s window he met the husband of the first woman he had had that night. How we laughed!
He paused. ‘I am sheltered from too many things by being a Rinpoche. Sometimes it angers me. I do not want to be treated differently from anyone else. I do not want to be shut away from the world. What is the point of compassion unless it is exercised in experience, at the heart of things, and not from some privileged position? I do not want to be treated as a God; I want to be useful. And to be useful you must have lived variously, complexly; you must have been allowed to feel and see many things.
Charles looked one last time across the valley to the mountains. ‘It is hard to leave a place where you can believe that anything is possible. But that is why one must leave. To see if you were right, to see if your insights can be lived in a different air, at a lower level.”
Of history and politics...
Perhaps it is fitting that I read the bulk of this huddled in my sleeping bag in a tent in the Rincon Mountains of Saguaro National park.
Harvey has a beautiful way of describing what he sees. He is observant and lyrical, appreciating his limitations and the beauty of the world. This is an excellent travelogue.
Some ideas from the book that stuck with me:
Tibetan Buddhism’s belief in the power of humans to achieve perfection
The beauty of travel, of learning through experience, of facing your unknowns and fears
Can Tibetan Buddhism survive the fall of Tibet? Well, it may be a good thing for Tibetan Buddhism to no longer be limited to Tibet
I will end with a quote from Charles that resonated with me: ‘It is hard to leave a place where you can believe that anything is possible. But that is why one must leave. To see if you were right, to see if your insights can be lived in a different air, at a lower level.”
Of travel
Then he asked me what I knew of Buddhism. ‘I have read a lot,’ I said, ‘but is that knowledge?’ ‘No. But it is a beginning.’ ‘A beginning of what?’ ‘How can I say? When you are ready, it will happen. But you must want to be ready; you must put yourself patiently, again and again, in a position for it to happen. You must study, and meditate, and travel, above all perhaps travel, so that you will meet someone who can give you what I can only tell you about.’ ‘Did you travel a great deal when you were young?’ ‘Yes. As much as I could. I travelled all over the East—China, Indonesia, Malaya, Burma . . . And I went to Tibet. That changed my life.’
‘Ever since I have known you you have talked of wanting to go to Ladakh, of your long fascination for Tibet and Tibetan philosophy. Why do you never go?’ ‘I still feel so ignorant. I still know so little.’ ‘That is not the real reason.’ ‘No. I am frightened.’ ‘Frightened? Why? What have you to fear?’ ‘Disappointment. Change. Both possibilities are frightening. We imagine we want to transform ourselves and our lives, but do we really? Do I? I am not sure.’
I had friendships to re-establish that I had let slide over years of frenetic traveling.
There is nothing whatever to do. That is Leh’s charm. There is a cinema, but it is down the hill, about a mile away, and shows nothing worth seeing; there is a Gompa, but once you’ve walked round it, making all the prayer-cylinders round its walls shake and whirr, you’ve seen it—there are no ancient frescoes, no old sculptures to be seen inside; there is a Cultural Academy but nothing happens at it, no Dance Meetings, no Evenings of Ladakhi Songs, no displays of tankas, or half-learned talks on Buddhas and Bodhisatvas; there is a market in the evening of fruit and vegetables along the main street, and another market all day in a side street, where bells and tankas and turquoises are sold, along with cheap sweaters and sleeping-bags and pots and calendars, but neither are so arresting and colourful that you long to return to them. There is nothing to do but to slow down, relax, laze, to become one vast transparent eye.
And so I took Wangchuk, and for that day he was my companion. I still tired easily at that height, and he was patient with me, looking at me often to see if I was tiring, and sitting down first on a rock on a patch of moss, tactfully. That was gentle of him—not to mock me for my European lack of fitness but to sit first and save my face. He carried a bag of tsampa with him, and at noon, when we reached the shepherd’s hut, he divided it with me equally. Tsampa is ground cooked barley. I offered to pay him for my share. He would not hear of it. We ate in the warm shadows of the hut. Every time I looked up he was looking at me, with his deep intent eyes, crouched like a large kind animal in the corner. His eyes had no judgment in them; they were as deep and still as a deer’s.
‘Do you have children?’ he asked me. ‘No.’ ‘Do you have a wife?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then you must be very lonely.’ ‘I have friends. I have my work.’ ‘You talk like a monk.’ ‘I am far from being a monk.’ ‘What do you believe?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I do not know.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘What I say. I am in the dark. I am waiting.’ ‘What are you waiting for?’ ‘How can I know? If I knew what I was waiting for, I would make a move towards it.’ ‘Perhaps being here is your move towards it.’ ‘I hope so.’ As we parted, he hugged me and said, ‘You smile a great deal and you listen well, but I see that somewhere you are sad. I see that nothing has satisfied you . . .’ I started to protest. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing has satisfied you, not your work, not your friendships, not all your learning and travelling. And that is good. You are ready to learn something new. Your sadness has made you empty; your sadness has made you open!’ I said, ‘Jam Yang, you are kind. But I do not feel open.’ Jam Yang smiled. ‘You, my friend, are far more open than you know.’
‘We were in Shey monastery. One of the group started taking photographs of the monks. The monks do not mind. They think, if these people have come so far to be in Ladakh, why shouldn’t they take photographs if that gives them pleasure? Besides, many of the monks are like children: they love to be photographed. Well, one of the women in the group got very angry at the man who was taking photographs. She called him an exploiter, a voyeur, a male chauvinist fool, and everything else you can imagine. I took her to one side and said to her, “Don’t you think you might be angry because he is doing openly what you are doing secretly?” She looked at me as if I was mad. “What do you mean? I never take photographs.” “I mean,” I said, “that everyone here, including myself, is hoarding something, storing something of what we see and feel here. We are all, whether we like it or not, taking photographs, inward photographs . . . We are all guilty. As long as we do not perceive things purely we are guilty. And who perceives things purely, as they are, without desire or judgment, except the Enlightened? Only they are never ‘taking photographs’; only they do not hoard and appropriate. Only they do not ‘possess’ in any way.” That made her angry. She was angry at the thought that she herself might not already be perfect. ”In a way,” I went on, ”the Kashmiris are better than all of us. They are honest. They are honest about their greed. They do not pretend to be holy or cultured or purified. They want money and they say so. Who is more guilty, the tourist who wants a little illegal tanka, or the Kashmiri who sells it to him or her for an extortionate price?” ”Well,” she said, ”I do not want a tanka. I do not want anything.” ”Are you sure?” I said. ”Only yesterday you said you were looking for something to fill your life. You told me in the bus that you were unhappy and that you were looking for a new direction to your life. Isn’t that wanting something? Don’t you secretly want Ladakh to give you a Great Experience? Don’t you want Ladakh to transform you? Why have you come all this way if you do not want something, and feel that you can find it here? Maybe this wanting is more dangerous, more corrupt, than the simple desire for a bronze Bodhisatva, a piece of old flaking paint . . .” She walked away. She did not want to hear what I was saying.’
I had not minded waiting, walking up and down the monastery walls, round the Great White Stupa to the left of the main building, watching all the subtle stages of the valley’s folding into night. Slowly, the lights in the farms below were coming on, small fiery signs in a gathering darkness. It has always been the happiest part of the day for me, the moment when the lamps are lit. Standing on Shey, I remembered all the other places where I had been delighted by the first lighting of the lamps—in childhood at my grandmother’s house in Coimbatore, the white curtains dissolving in the light, an old servant moving in the shadows, only his face illuminated; in Venice, ten years ago, on a brilliant frosty winter evening, standing on the Accademia Bridge, alone, with only the steadily darkening water for company; in Oxford a hundred times, with the day’s work over.
The young Rinpoche’s jeep had crawled, its prayer flags flapping in the wind, half-way up the hill. Every yard of its slow progress was impeded by cheering and shouting Ladakhis. Drukchen got out of the car. He stood, looking up at the monastery’s door. I could see very little of him from this distance, except that he was thin, but strong-armed, and wore black glasses, like Nawang. He was shading his eyes to see more clearly. Then he started to stride up the hill. He did not use the winding path, but went straight up, skipping from boulder to boulder like a child. Then he broke into what was almost a run. Nawang said, ‘Drukchen loves to run. He hates being locked up in a monastery. He loves to ride too.’ Drukchen Rinpoche was now half-running up the hill, with a posse of young Ladakhis running with him. His people might believe Drukchen to be an incarnation of Naropa—but they felt no distance from him. He was their Prince, their high-priest, but he was also their brother, their son . . . Nothing separated him from them, no official protocol, no squadron of dark-glassed secret policemen. He laughed as he ran, and the people with him held out their hands to him, and he took them, one by one. The Old Rinpoche was waiting for him in the crumbling monastery door. He wore a gold cloak and leant on a stick tipped with a large silver dragon’s head. Old Tibet was waiting to greet young Ladakh. For a moment it was as if Tibet had not fallen, as if Ladakh were not threatened from within and without, as if all the long continuities of a sacred tradition were not menaced with destruction. The trumpets sounded. The two men touched hands, the young man gathered into the gold bulk of the old. The crowd fell silent.
Of the people of Ladakh and Tibet
‘My research takes me every day to a new village to interview someone, to talk with a family. And I have seen people of nearly every kind now. I have been to the most remote villages, I have talked with lamas and Westernised Ladakhis and old women and young shepherds. I ask all sorts of questions. It is strange for a cynical psychologist to spend every day with people that seem, as far as I can judge, to have little interest in deceiving or impressing you . . . And it is strange for me too to be among people who for the most part are happy. Don’t get me wrong—this is a harsh land, It is hard to get the crops to grow here on the rocky mountainsides, it is hard to survive the solitudes of the winter and the lonely places . . . In Zangskar I met a woman with no teeth, with dugs as long and withered as any Calcutta beggar, who had lost all her children, all her money, and who lived alone and raving in a small hut outside the village . . . But most of these people live simply and unsentimentally, they live with few needs, few prides, few vanities. They are tolerant to their old people, to their children, to each other. You know what they are taught by their priests? They are taught that every living thing has been their mother in a previous incarnation, and so they must respect it as their mother. I have seen very little cruelty. Once I saw a child tormenting a dog. That’s about all—in three years.
The religion of the Ladakhi people is practical, down-to-earth—it has very little to do with the complex refinements of the lamas. One of the questions I asked in that questionnaire was, “Is it a good thing to have pride?” Everyone answered “No”, without fail, and many added that pride was the root of all evil. Nowhere, in any of the replies to any of the questions I asked, was there a suggestion that competition and struggle were central to life, that one man should win out at the expense of another. A boy of ten will tell you seriously that it is wrong to hurt anyone or anything, and that if you do you will pay for it, in one life or another. An old woman who has been a wife and a farmer all her life will say to you, “Everything is empty, everything has only a relative meaning. Why then hurt anyone?” And yet this fear of pride, this absence of any sense of competition, has not made the Ladakhis soft, or inefficient—you have only to look across the valley from this window, at all the fields scraped from the rock, to realise how hard they work . . . ‘The Ladakhis are linked together by their faith in their Rinpoches, their head lamas. It is easy to look at this faith and say, it is superstitious, it absolves them from all the responsibilities of thought. But they do believe in the power of their holy men, and not only in a supernatural sense. They will go to the Rinpoche when they are sick, when they have family disputes, when they are arguing over a field—and they will accept his decision, which, in all the cases I’ve been able to judge, is usually a wise enough one. And this belief gives them peace. It is hard to say “And this belief gives them peace” without being either patronising or sceptical . . . but when you see and feel this peace, this dignity, day after day in the most ordinary situations, in the way in which an old woman will make you tea, in the way she smiles at you from the fields, in the frankness of her answers to your questions . . .’ He waved his hands in the air and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not understand it but I am moved by it.’ We sat in silence. Then Hans said, ‘I am aware that whatever “answers” there are going to be, if any, to the strife and terror of our industrial society, are not likely to come from the very different problems of an idyllic rural one, protected for centuries from the modern world. But there is a beauty of life here, and perhaps some people will derive faith in the West from seeing that people can live sanely. I love these people. I want to commemorate something I have seen and felt in them. I don’t know whether that can help anyone, even myself. I don’t know whether it will help them in their fight, either, against a world that threatens their identity, their existence. Perhaps the Ladakhis cannot survive as they are, perhaps they will have to perish as an ancient Buddhist culture and just accept the fragmentations and competitiveness of the modern world they are being propelled into . . .’He looked away sadly.
‘The Ladakhis are a shrewd, practical people,’ Hans said. ‘They have to be, living as they do; they value awareness, the kind of awareness that knows when to sow a field, how to conserve water, how to tell the quality of a sheep or a shawl; they are tolerant of weakness, but they call it by its true name.
‘Moneesha says that all this soul-baring is just an excuse to talk about ourselves. All this talk about getting rid of the Ego is just another chance for the Ego to go on about itself . . . Once I was sitting with an old sadhu in our home outside Pune and Moneesha came in. “What are you talking about?” “We are talking about the soul.” “Oh my god, what are you talking about that for?” The sadhu got angry and gave her a stern lecture on how sometimes certain kinds of talk could lead the spirit to greater understanding, and that anyway she should listen to her husband. Moneesha said, “If I listened to my husband I would fall ill with boredom. What does he know anyway, my husband? He is just a man. Men can go on talking about business, or politics, or God . . . we have to keep the house together. That is much more serious.”
‘The Tibetans were always a tough people,’ Hans said; ‘they had to be to survive in their high cold world; and now, in exile, they continue to survive and adapt. Why shouldn’t the boys wear sneakers and want to go to America? It’s a sad dream but to them technology still seems miraculous . . .’ He added, ‘But the old Tibet is still here: it is in some of the monks, some of the families; it is in the children, in the mountains, in the old women . . . Ladakh holds fragments of it in its old hand.’
‘I met the girl in my village near Dharamsala. She was older than me. At first it was very sexy. I used just to go and spend the night with her. You look surprised . . . We Tibetans, you know, are very free about sex, especially where I come from, Kham . . . There is a tradition, you know, about sleeping with members of other families when the husband is away . . . I used to go on expeditions with friends. One would say, “So-and-so is away! Let us see if his wife will let me in,” and he would crawl in through the bedroom window. Nearly always the wife said yes. Sometimes the husband did come back suddenly, of course, but he was very rarely angry. The most anyone got was a beating. Sometimes, of course, the husband had been doing exactly the same thing himself. Once I was with a friend. He went through the window to another friend’s wife, and came out beaming. Then he went to the house of yet another friend, who was away. At that friend’s window he met the husband of the first woman he had had that night. How we laughed!
He paused. ‘I am sheltered from too many things by being a Rinpoche. Sometimes it angers me. I do not want to be treated differently from anyone else. I do not want to be shut away from the world. What is the point of compassion unless it is exercised in experience, at the heart of things, and not from some privileged position? I do not want to be treated as a God; I want to be useful. And to be useful you must have lived variously, complexly; you must have been allowed to feel and see many things.
Charles looked one last time across the valley to the mountains. ‘It is hard to leave a place where you can believe that anything is possible. But that is why one must leave. To see if you were right, to see if your insights can be lived in a different air, at a lower level.”
Of history and politics...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2018
This book and I travelled Ladakh together. There were so many remarkable coincidences. I read about Alchi the same day that I was there...Shey Palace and Lamayuru Monastery likewise. A wise and inciteful book.
November 5, 2023
In 1981 Andrew Harvey travelled to Ladakh in order to study the Tibetan Buddhist society there. He found a fascinating community of gentle people beginning to collide with Western values but retaining a deep, sincere belief in their Buddhist culture. Part spiritual journey, part guide to Ladakh, this book has been a favourite of mine for twenty years and the dog-eared, tatty copy on my bookshelf was a major reason for my travelling there myself.
April 2, 2018
An outstanding book, an exemplary book. Less a journey into Ladakh, more a journey into the heart of Buddhism, written with both knowledge and wisdom of Buddhism in all its complex simplicities. The interviews with the Rinpoches, and the author's own observations, make this a key text in any travel or religious library.
April 12, 2015
More a spiritual than a travelogue
This book is more about the author's spiritual growth than a description of the flora and fauna of Ladakh. It only gives a cursory description of the culture but it is a great foundation for Buddhist studies.
This book is more about the author's spiritual growth than a description of the flora and fauna of Ladakh. It only gives a cursory description of the culture but it is a great foundation for Buddhist studies.
January 11, 2008
Inspired me to go to Ladakh
March 2, 2013
Great experiences shared, but it was more like reading a slow moving journal than a captivating narrative.
September 29, 2012
Mostly dull with very few engaging pieces.
December 18, 2019
This was such a trip down memory lane. I picked up this book without knowing anything about the author and being not at all interested in his spiritual quest--but got it because I wanted to think and re-live a bit of my own trip to Ladakh not long after the author traveled there--maybe I was there not even ten years later in 1990. Indeed, everything he wrote was so reminiscent of my own trip. His descriptions of the two day drive from Srinigar to Leh along "that road" was wonderful and his Kargil interlude hilarious. He spoke a bit about how cosmopolitan Leh once was --along the old silk road--but almost immediately upon arrival, the book became less of a travel essay and more of his spiritual quest. I suppose I have never been one to feel interest in spiritual going-it-on-your-own stories and this kind of spiritual tourism is not my thing--but that said, much to my surprise I found myself absolutely fascinated by everything he wrote. Moved too.
I really had wanted to read about the town of Leh and as much as possible about the art of Alchi, but I quickly realized things were taking a very inward turn.... this was not a fast read for me, since it is old school, but also that relentless self-focus of the book was not interesting to me, though I have to say I actually cried a bit at the end when he parted from his beloved teacher. I have read other accounts of the guru phenomenon, where someone almost falls in love with the teacher and through them experiences something very powerful (love?)... and the teacher was elderly and growing frail.
It moved me much more than I expected.
I also loved his descriptions of a painting at Stakna--which I could not find online--so really had to stick with how I imagined them based on his writing. The paintings was of a Rinpoche who came to ladakh from Bhutan and I think he might have founded the monastery. Harvey described it as being as powerful as Piero della Francesca's Resurrection (which happens to be my favorite picture in the world so I was so interested in this part).
The murals at Alchi, along with Piero's Resurrection and the True Cross Cycle, were the most deeply moving and affecting works of art I have ever seen. I hope to see Alchi again someday. I also realized thanks to this book, that I missed not just the portrait of the rinpoche at Stakna but also the painting of Arya Avalokiteshvara at Stakna-- this alone is reason to try and make the trip again... somehow. It was so grueling when I was 19. How could I ever manage now? Maybe I will fly next time.
Ladakh is generally known as Western Tibet, but I never realized that Buddhism first arrived in Ladakh from India. For many centuries it was Ladakh was a place of Theravada--only later becoming Tibetan style.
One other thing about Harvey--this was his first book. He was young and seemed rather self-absorbed (as are all youths?) and yet he wrote beautifully about his rinpoche--this important man who became so significant in his life:
'The man who really helps is the man who is in the world but not of it, who loves the world but is not attached to it, who lives in the world but is not stained by it. A lotus arises from mud, doesn't it? But it is not made of mud and it has no mud on its bud or petals. A lotus arises from water, but it arises above the water. If it flowered under the water, no one could see it and get pleasure from it. A man who is suffering can have compassion, can be intelligent and humane--but he will not have the power to help others. It is necessary not merely to feel for others, not merely to win a certain kind of wisdom from the trials of living, but also to live the life necessary to acquire the good powers, the healing powers, that can save created beings from torment.'
I really had wanted to read about the town of Leh and as much as possible about the art of Alchi, but I quickly realized things were taking a very inward turn.... this was not a fast read for me, since it is old school, but also that relentless self-focus of the book was not interesting to me, though I have to say I actually cried a bit at the end when he parted from his beloved teacher. I have read other accounts of the guru phenomenon, where someone almost falls in love with the teacher and through them experiences something very powerful (love?)... and the teacher was elderly and growing frail.
It moved me much more than I expected.
I also loved his descriptions of a painting at Stakna--which I could not find online--so really had to stick with how I imagined them based on his writing. The paintings was of a Rinpoche who came to ladakh from Bhutan and I think he might have founded the monastery. Harvey described it as being as powerful as Piero della Francesca's Resurrection (which happens to be my favorite picture in the world so I was so interested in this part).
The murals at Alchi, along with Piero's Resurrection and the True Cross Cycle, were the most deeply moving and affecting works of art I have ever seen. I hope to see Alchi again someday. I also realized thanks to this book, that I missed not just the portrait of the rinpoche at Stakna but also the painting of Arya Avalokiteshvara at Stakna-- this alone is reason to try and make the trip again... somehow. It was so grueling when I was 19. How could I ever manage now? Maybe I will fly next time.
Ladakh is generally known as Western Tibet, but I never realized that Buddhism first arrived in Ladakh from India. For many centuries it was Ladakh was a place of Theravada--only later becoming Tibetan style.
One other thing about Harvey--this was his first book. He was young and seemed rather self-absorbed (as are all youths?) and yet he wrote beautifully about his rinpoche--this important man who became so significant in his life:
'The man who really helps is the man who is in the world but not of it, who loves the world but is not attached to it, who lives in the world but is not stained by it. A lotus arises from mud, doesn't it? But it is not made of mud and it has no mud on its bud or petals. A lotus arises from water, but it arises above the water. If it flowered under the water, no one could see it and get pleasure from it. A man who is suffering can have compassion, can be intelligent and humane--but he will not have the power to help others. It is necessary not merely to feel for others, not merely to win a certain kind of wisdom from the trials of living, but also to live the life necessary to acquire the good powers, the healing powers, that can save created beings from torment.'
October 20, 2023
I have to admit that I struggled to get to the end of this book. It is not, in my opinion, a travel book as so many of the distinguished reviewers judge it to be and embellish their thoughts on the back cover. It may be seen rather as a journey towards enlightenment, something which I feel is a very personnel thing and perhaps it was difficult for me to feel in any sense the uplifting experience generated within the author. It is not that it is a badly written book and he does make great efforts to explain all he senses and feels so perhaps it is just that I am too insensitive to appreciate what he was describing. This took me longer than usual to complete a novel.
August 18, 2024
This was a lovely book to read both as a travelog as well as a glimpse into what it might feel like to seriously contemplate the trade-offs necessary for a spiritual life.
In my case, I read it on my way to a short holiday in ladakh, so it provided some contextual appreciation for what I saw there. Even though of course I'm visiting the place 40 odd years after the book was written.
I found the notes about the place as well as Tibetan Buddhism from the Western perspective to be insightful.
It's a place and a book that I imagine. I will revisit again in the future.
In my case, I read it on my way to a short holiday in ladakh, so it provided some contextual appreciation for what I saw there. Even though of course I'm visiting the place 40 odd years after the book was written.
I found the notes about the place as well as Tibetan Buddhism from the Western perspective to be insightful.
It's a place and a book that I imagine. I will revisit again in the future.
September 21, 2024
"There is a tradition, you know, about sleeping with members of other families when the husband is away . . . I used to go on expeditions with friends. One would say, "so-and-so is away! Let us see if his wife will let me in, "and he would crawl in through the bedroom window. Nearly always the wife said yes. Sometimes the husband did come back suddenly, of course, but he was very rarely angry. The most anyone got was a beating. Sometimes, of course, the husband had been doing exactly the same thing himself."
January 19, 2018
On the negative side, if you're expecting a travel book about the region, this is more about Buddhism than it is about Ladakh. More of a spiritual journey than a physical one (perhaps I should have twigged that it's a journey IN not TO Ladakh).
On the plus side, it's less annoying than "The Snow Leopard". At least Andrew Harvey doesn't insist on calling Buddha by a special name just to show how much he knows and doesn't bang on about the joys of LSD.
On the plus side, it's less annoying than "The Snow Leopard". At least Andrew Harvey doesn't insist on calling Buddha by a special name just to show how much he knows and doesn't bang on about the joys of LSD.
January 13, 2019
One of the classics that brought Tibetan Buddhism to the West. A book I thought I'd read but hadn't. One I'm happy to have caught up with after years of practicing in this wonderful tradition. Many beautiful insights and teachings. A book I highly recommend for anyone lucky enough to be curious about Tibetan Buddhism. Andrew Harvey wrote of his journey in a very open, clear way. Lovely.
June 23, 2025
“The mind’s terror of boredom is the more acute because the mind suspects that through boredom, through its extreme experience, another reality might be reached that would threaten its pretensions, and perhaps even dissolve them altogether.”
June 25, 2020
Picked this up while in Nepal over 20 years ago...it was moving and powerful....
picking it up again...looking forward to the reconnection!
picking it up again...looking forward to the reconnection!
December 16, 2022
Wisdom bathed me in ancient light
April 2, 2023
I expected more of a detailed history and analysis of Tantaric Buddhism, but it is mere a compilation of author's own experiences and understanding of Ladakh's buddhism
January 8, 2024
Good ending, little slow to get through, but enjoyable and interesting.
February 19, 2014
this book brought up a lot of memories from my stay in Ladakh (3 times) i could see and even smell again this fantastic region .. before i arrived in Ladakh the first time in June 1994 there was an overnight stop in the not so funky town called Kargil and during diner to Tibetian guides told me when one visit Ladakh one will make a chance in his life .. and indeed they were so right !!! .. after a hallucinating 2 day busdrive we arrived in Leh and had the most wonderful encounters with Ladahki people and also tourists who seemed to be more open in this neighborhood .. of course as stated in the book the Kashmiri traders are sometimes a pain in the ass with their inexhaustible trading plans .. i also began to embrace Tibetian Buddhism because i also had a very strong mystical experience near by Lamayuru monastery .. so this book is more then ok
October 5, 2014
This is a hard book to rate. He is a wonderful writer with a talent for sensitive descriptions. He also explicates many Buddhist teachings very clearly. But I'm not entirely sure how people without an interest in either Ladakh or Buddhism will take to it. I read it several years ago, before I visited Lakadh and retained basically nothing. It took me a while to realize that I actually had read it before. I think that this time around, I will remember it, primarily because now I can picture the country, the monasteries, even some of the rinpoches. Definitely, the book had more meaning for me this time after my experiences there.
Want to read
August 31, 2010Author bio on "The Red Books" talks at the Rubin Museum of Art www.rmanyc.org: "Andrew Harvey is an author and scholar, known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes. He was born in southern India in 1952 and moved to England at the age of nine. He went on to study at Oxford. In 1977 he returned to India for the first time since his childhood and underwent several mystical experiences that began a series of initiations into different mystical traditions. Harvey has lectured internationally and is the author of more than 25 books."
September 5, 2016
the writing at times was a bit too 'flowy' and descriptive for my tastes. Besides that, a really well written book I thoroughly enjoyed. It makes me want to go back to Ladakh even though I just went in July.
January 4, 2009
Although categorized under travel writing, this book transcends the genre as it is commonly understood. It details the travels of Andrew Harvey to the remote areas of India where he seeks to understand and practice Tibetan Buddhism. The narrator is honest and sincere in his approach and allows the reader experience the delights and discoveries of Buddhism with him. It makes you rethink your spirituality, the way you live, and the world around you.
June 21, 2011
Harvey brings lively, honest words to the complexity of the insider/outsider authenticity dilemma that faces each Westerner who considers Tibetan Buddhism. His prose does justice to a landscape that is hard to describe even when standing with a 360 degree view of it. He even manages to avoid Orientalism without wasting words on blatant PC compliance. A beautiful, genuine recounting of one man's experience with a very unique people.
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