lntroduction LA D D R S T 0 T H E R 0 0 F T わ S れ 0 ル Leo 々 4 卍 begins, as many scientific logs do, with a map, and it ends with a set Of scholarly notes and an index. lt describes an expedition high intO the almost unvisited land Of lnner Dolpo, led by the eminent field biologist George Schaller, in search of the habits of the わあ al. , or rare Himalayan blue sheep. lts author, Peter Matthiessen, a "naturalist, explorer," as his biography has it, takes pains tO notice every "cocoa-coloured wood frog" the travelers pass along the way, t0 record the "pale lavender-blue winged blossoms of the orchid tree ( Ba 〃んの . " When they pass human habitations, what he sees, typically, are "vacant children, listless adults, bent dogs and thin chickens in a litter of sagging shacks and rubble, mud, weeds, stagnant ditches . Yet even as the reader feels every pebble on the journey, and takes in every precisely recorded altitude and temperature, she catches, perhaps, the sound 0f a different kind 0f journey be- ginning t0 unfold just beneath the surface. "l climb on through grey daybreak worlds towards the light," Matthiessen writes at one moment, and a little later he is in the realm Of "snow and silence, wind and blue. " The journey seems increasingly t0 be tO places not on any map, even as the team climbs and climbs toward its final way station, at 18 , 000 feet, near the Crystal Mountain. By the time the travelers get there, in fact, it is not the 、 vriter whO is speaking to us so much as the sharpened skies, the deep blue silences, the startling clarity of a world of snow and rock. "AII is moving, full of power, full oflight. " lt is as if the authorship of the book is distributed among many beings, starting with the one in the foreground whO is

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T H E S N 0 W L E 0 PA D 209 near asphyxiated by my small wick candle in its flask of kerosene, then lie still for a long time in the very heart 0f the earth silence, exhilarated and excited as a child. I have yet to use the large packet 0f Ca 〃れ 4 ん s that I gathered at Yamarkhar and dried along the way, t0 see me through long lightless evenings on this journey: I am high enough. "Regard as one, this life, the next life, and the life between," wrote Milarepa. And sometimes I wonder into which life I have wandered, so still are the long nights here, and so cold.

OCTOBER 25 We must leave Ring-mo before word comes from Dunahi that we must not. But still these B'on-pos yell and shout about their loads until Jang-bu takes cord thongs from their boots, mixes them up, and lays one on every basket, givrng each man the load on which his cord is laid. The B'on-pos accept this way of dispensing Justice with much grumbling Gloomy and restless, I set out ahead, and am some little way along the lake ledge when the rest catch up. Parts of the ledge have fallen away, and the gaps are bridged by flimsy scaffold- lngs Of saplings. Certain sections are SO narrow and precarrous that more than once my legs refuse tO move, and my heart beats so that I feel sick. One horrid stretch, lacking the smallest handhold in the wall, rounds a windy point of cliff that is one hundred feet or more above the rocks at lake edge, and this I navigate on hands and knees, arriving a lifetime later—but stlll in my old life, alas—at one of the few points in that whole first mile where one can lean far enough intO the cliff tO let another man squeeze by. Gasping for breath, I let the expedition pass ・ For some time now, the chattering, laughing vorces of the B'on-pos have been commg up behind. At that dangerous point of cliff, an extraordinary thing happens. Not yet in view, the nine fall silent in the sudden way that birds are stilled by the shadow of a hawk, or tree frogs cease their shrilling, leaving a ringmg silence in the silence. Then, one by one, the nine figures round the point of rock in silhouette, unreal beneath big bulky loads that threaten each second to bump the cliff and nudge them over the precipice. On they come, staring straight ahead, as steadily and certainly as ants, yet seeming tO glide with an

70 P E T E R M AT T H I E S S E N swift, fitful weather, and when it is reached, it is only the por- tal to a higher valley, with yet another V at its far end. ln the wet snow, the narrow path traversing the steep slopes is hard tO trace, and treacherous. Phu-Tsering and Dawa have mountain bOOts inherited from past expeditions, but most Of the Tamangs go barefoot so that the sneakers provided for them may be sold another day in Kathmandu. Even so, they keep up better than bow-legged old Bimbahadur, who starts off ahead of the others every morning and by evening has fallen far behind. Due tO bOOt blisters, I am wearlng sneakers, and my wet feet are numb. Dawa, clumping steadily along with the basket of camp cooking gear, overtakes me as I near the pass, at 13 , 400 feet. Here, the clouds have thickened so that we can scarcely see each other; there is strong wind and light snow. From behind and below, in the Phagune Gorge, rumbling rockslides are fol- lowed by deep silence. Uneasy, Dawa sets his basket down and works back a little way to whistle to Phu-Tsering and the others. I wait, facing the north; instinct tells me tO stand absolutely still. Cloud mist, snow, and utter silence, utter solitude: extinc- tion. Then, in the great hush, the clouds draw apart, revealing the vast Dhaulagiri snowfields. I breathe, mists swirl, and all has vanished—nothing! I make a small, involuntary bow. A downward path is forged through the wet snows, striking a tree line of dwarfed cedar six hundred feet below, and emerg- ing at dusk on a saddleback ridge 0f alpine tundra where it is flat enough to pitch a tent. Here Tukten and GS catch up with us. Just at darkness, the clouds lift: at 12 , 500 feet, the campsite is surrounded by bright glaciers. The five peaks 0f Dhaulagiri shine in the black firmament, and over all this whiteness rings a silver moon, the full moon of October, when the lotus blooms.

T H を S N 0 ′ L E 0 PA R D 99 fear of demons, and is frightened by the dark. Walking behind GS one night in eastern Nepal, he chanted this mantra SO inces- santly that GS longed to throw him off the cliff. But the faith- ful believe that the invocation of any deity by his mantra will draw benevolent attention, and since OM MANI PADME HUM IS dedicated tO the Great Compassionate Chen-resigs, it is found lnscribed on prayer stones, prayer wheels, prayer flags, and wild rocks throughout the Buddhist Himalaya. pronounced in Tibet A 〃川一ノ Ma - ー Pa - 川 4 アー H 〃れ & this mantra may be translated: 〇川 ! The Jewel in the Heart 0f the Lotus! H 〃川 ! The deep, resonant Om is all sound and silence throughout time, the roar Of eternity and alSO the great stillness Of pure being; when intoned 、 the prescribed vibrations, it invokes the All that is otherwise inexpressible. The 川 4 れ ~ is the "adamantine diamond" 0f the V0id—the primordial, pure, and indestructible essence Of existence beyond all matter or even antimatter, all phenomena, all change, and all becoming ・ padme—in the lotus—is the world Of phenomena, samsara, unfolding with spiritual progress t0 reveal beneath the leaves 0f delusion the 川 4 れ ewel 0f nirvana, that lies not apart from daily life but at its heart. } イ〃川 has no literal meamng, and is variously interpreted ()s is all 0f this great mantra, about which whole vol- umes have been written ). Perhap s it is simply a rhythmic exhor- tation, completlng the mantra and inspring the chanter, a declaration of being, of ls-ness, symbolized by the Buddha's ges- ture Of touching the earth at the moment Of Enlightenment. 〃 is! exists! All that is or was or will ever be is right here in this moment! . 忖 0 ノ ! I go down along the canyon rim and sit still against a rock. Northward, a snow cone rises on the sky, and snowfields roll over the high horizon into the deepening blue. Where the Saure plunges intO lts a sheer and awesome wall writhes with weird patterns Of snow and shadow. The emptiness and silence

T H E S N 0 W L E 0 P A R D 59 before sprritualist foolishness at the end Of the last century con- fused mysticism with "the occult" and tarnished both, William James wrote a master work Of metaphysics; Emerson spoke Of "the 、 vise silence, the umversal beauty, tO which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal One . ・ Melville re- ferred to "that profound silence, that only voice of God" ・ Walt Whitman celebrated the most ancient secret, that no God could be found "more divine than yourself. ' And then, almost every- where, a clear and subtle illumination that lent magnificence to life and peace to death was overwhelmed in the hard glare of technology. Yet that light is always present, like the stars of noon. Man must perceive it if he is tO transcend his fear Of meanlng- less, for no amount Of "progress" can take its place.We have outsmarted ourselves, like greedy monkeys, and now we are full of dread. NOt long ago in the Western world, the argument was whether sun or earth lay at the center Of the Universe. Even in this century it was believed that ours was the only galaxy, whereas Asian sages long before the time 0f Christ had intuited correctly that the galaxies numbered in the billions, and that universal time was beyond all apprehension: more than four billion years was but one day in the existence Of their Creator, and His night was of equal length, and all of this was no more than "a twinkling 0f the eye of the immutable, immortal, be- ginningless Lord, the god 0f the Universe. ” ln the Rig Veda, an oscillating universe IS conceived tO be expanding fror れ a center—this is conslstent with the "Big Bang" theory, which only in the last decade has met general acceptance among as- tronomers. ln a Hindu myth, the "Fire-Mist," like a sea 0f milk, is churned by the Creator, and out of this churning come the solidifying forms of stars and planets—in effect, the nebu- lar theory Of modern astronomy, with the Fire-Mist composed of the primordial hydrogen atoms from which all matter is thought t0 derive. "Nothing eXIStS but atoms and the void"—so 、 vrote Democr1- tus. And it is 。 VOid " that underlies the Ea sterp teachings—not emptiness or absence, but the Uncreated that preceded all cre- ation, the beginningless potential 0f all things.

228 P E T E R M ATT H I E S S N a start, and my sudden jump flares the dark bird, causmg it t0 take four deep SIOW strokes—the only movement Of the wings that I was ever tO observe in this great sailer that sweeps up and down the HimaIayan canyons, the cold air ringing in its golden head. Dark, light, dark: a raptor, scimitar-winged, under the sun peak—l know, I know. ln such a light, one might hope t0 see the shadow of that bird upon the sky. The ground whirls with its own energy, not in an alarming way but in SIOW spiral, and at these altitudes, in this vast space and silence, that energy pours through me, J01ning my body with the sun until small silver breaths Of cold, clear air, no longer mme, are lOSt in the mineral breathing Of the mountain. A white down feather, sun-filled, dances before me on the wind: alighting nowhere, it balances on a shining thorn, goes spinning on. Between this white feather, sheep dung, light, and the fleeting aggregate Of atoms that is 、 'l," there is no particle of difference. There is a mountain opposite, but this "I" is op- posite nothing, opposed t0 nothing. I grow intO these mountains like a moss. I am bewitched. The blinding snow peaks and the clarion air, the sound of earth and heaven in the silence, the requiem birds, the mythic beasts, the flags, great horns, and 01d carved stones, the rough-hewn Tartars in their braids and homespun bOOts, the silver ice in the black river, the Kang, the Crystal Mountain. Also, I love the com- mon miracles—the murmur Of my friends at evening, the clay fires of smudgy juniper, the coarse dull food, the hardship and simplicity, the contentment Of dOing one thing at time: when I take my blue tin cup into my hand, that is all I d0. We have had no news Of modern tlmes since late September, and will have none until December, and gradually my mind has cleared itself, and wind and sun pour through my head, as through a bell. Though we talk little here, I am never lonely; I am returned into myself. Having got here at last, I d0 not wish t0 leave the Crystal Mountain. I am ln pain about it, truly, SO much SO that I have to smile, or I might weep. I think 0f D and how she would smile, t00. ln another life—this isn't what I know, but how I

T 日 E S N 0 ′ L E 0 PA R D 101 On Saturday evenlng, 、 I returned tO where we 、 vere stay- ing, she opened the door for me; she was smiling, and looked extremely pretty in a new brown dress. But perhaps because I had been in meditation since before daybreak and my mind was clear, I saw at once that she was dying, and the certainty Of this clairvoyance was so shocking that I had to feign emergency and push rudely into the bathroom, to get hold of myself so that I could speak. Before dawn on Sunday, during morning service, D chanced t0 sit directly opposite my own place in the two long facing lines of Buddha figures—an unlikely event that I now see as no coincidence. Upset by what I had perceived the night before, by pity and concern that this day might be t00 much for her, I chanted the Kannon Sutra with such fury that I "lost" myself, forgot the self—a purpose of the sutra, which is chanted in Japanese, over and over, with mounting intensity. At the end, the Sangha gives a mighty shout that corresponds to OM!— this followed instantly by sudden silence, as if the universe had stopped tO listen. And on that morning, in the near darkness— the altar candle was the only light in the long room—in the dead hush, like the hush in these snow mountains, the silence swelled with the intake Of my breath intO a Presence Of vast benevolence of which ール as 4 々 4 た in my journal for that day, seeking in vain to find words for what had happened, I called it the "SmiIe. " The Smile seemed to grow out of me, filling all space above and behind like a huge shadow of my own Buddha form, which was minuscule now and without weight, borne up on the uprasied palm 0f this Buddha-Being, this eternal ampli- fication 0f myself. For it was ー wh0 smiled; the Smile was Me. I did not breathe, I did not need to ok ; for it was Everywhere. Nor was there terror in my awe: I felt "good," like a "good child," entirely safe. Wounds, ragged edges, hollow places were all gone, all had been healed; my heart lay at the heart of all Creation. Then I let my breath go, and gave myself up to de- lighted immersron in this Presence, to a peaceful わ 0 れ g g so overwhelming that tears of relief poured from my eyes, SO over- whelming that even now, struggling tO find a better term than

O C T O B E R 21 We leave Rohagaon as the first light tints the snow peaks to the south. Outside the village, two little girls in W001 boots and bead necklaces, carrylng water, tarry on a corner of the trail to watch us go; minutes later, 1 100k back, and still they stand there, little ragged stumps on the daybreak sky. AII around, the sun fires the summits, yet these steep valleys are so shut away from light that on this trail above the SuIi Gad we walk for two hours in dim daybreak shadow. Here and there wild roses gather in clear pale-yellow b100m , and a flight 0f snow pigeons wheels up and down over the canyon far be- 10W ; we 100k in vain for tahr or Other creatures on the slopes across the valley. Wildlife has been scarce all along the way, with no sign at all Of exotic animals such as the moon bear and red panda. The trail meets the SuIi Gad high up the valley, in grottoes of bronze-lichened boulders and a shady riverside of pine and walnut and warm banks of fern. ・ Where morning sun lights the red leaves and dark still conifers, the river sparkles in the forest shadow; turquorse and white, it thunders past spray-shined boulders, foaming P001S , in a long rocky chute of broken rapids. ln the cold breath 0f the torrent, the dry air is softened by mist; under last night's stars this water trickled through the snows. At the head of the waterfall, downstream, its sparkle leaps intO the air, leaps at the sun, and sun rays are tumbled in the waves that dance against the snows Of distant mountains. Upstream, in the inner canyon, dark silences are deepened by the roar Of stones. something is listening, and I listen, t00 : who