62 P E T E R M A T T H I E S S E N existence in this way is to be the Buddha. Even the brilliant "white light" that may accompany mystical experience (the lnner light" attested to by Eskimo shamans) might be per- ceived as a primordial memory Of Creation. is the mat- ter Of the cosmos, contemplating itself," a modern astronomer has said ・ 27 another points out that each breath we take con- tains hundreds Of thousands Of the inert, pervasive argon atoms that were actually breathed in his lifetime by the Bud- dha, and indeed contain parts of the "snorts, sighs, bellows, shrieks"28 Of all creatures that ever existed, or 、 Mill ever exist. These atoms flow backward and forward in such useful but ar- tificial constructs as time and space, in the same universal rhythms, umversal breath as the tides and stars, joming both the living and the dead in that energy which animates the unlverse. What is changeless and immortal iS not individual body-mind but, rather, that Mind which is shared with all of exlstence, that stillness, that inciplence which never ceases be- cause it never becomes but simply IS. This teaching, still manl- fest in the Hindu and Buddhist religions, goes back at least as far as the doctrine Of Maya that emerges in the Vedic civiliza- t10ns and may ℃Ⅱ derive from much 1 れ ore anclent cultures; Maya is Time, the illusion of the ego, the stuff of individual ex1Stence, the dream that separates us from a true perception Of the whole. lt is often likened to a sealed glass vessel that sepa- rates the air within from the clear and unconfined air all around, or water from the all-encompassing sea. Yet the vessel itself is not different from the sea, and tO shatter or dissolve it brings about the reunion with all universal life that mystics seek, the homegoing, the return tO the lost paradise Of our true nature. Today science is telling us what the Vedas have taught mankind for three thousand years, that we dO not see the unl- verse as it is. What we see is Maya, or lllusion, the "magic show" Of Nature, a collective hallucination of that part of our consclousness WhiCh iS shared With all Of our 0 、 kind, and which gives a C01 れ mon ground, a continuity, tO the life experl- ence. According t0 Buddhists (but not Hindus), this world per- ceived by the senses, this relative but not absolute reality, this

T H E S N 0 ′ L E 0 PA D 61 The anclent intultion that all matter, all "reality," is energy, that all phenomena, including tlme and space, are mere crystal- lizations Of mind, is an idea with which few physicists have quarreled since the theory of relativity first called into question the separate identities Of energy and matter. TOday most scien- tists would agree 、 Mith the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form; that matter is insubstantial in origln, a temporary aggregate Of the pervasive energy that animates the electron. And what is this infinitesi- mal non-thing—to a speck 0f dust what the dust speck is to the whole earth?"Do we really know what electricity is? By know- ing the laws according t0 which it acts and by making use 0f them, we still dO not know the origin or the real nature Of this force, which ultimately may be the very source oflife, and con- ” 25 sclousness, the divine power and mover Of all that exists. The cosmic radiation that is thought tO come from the explO- SIOn Of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directlons, which suggests either that the earth is at the center Of the umverse, as our lnnocence we once supposed, or that the known umverse has no center. Such an idea hOldS no terror for mystics ; in the mystical vision , the universe, lts center, and its are simultaneous, all around us, all With111 us, and all One. I am every 、 vhere and in everything: I am the sun and stars. I am time and space and I am He.When I am every 、 vhere, where can I move ~ ・ when there is no pa st and no future, and I am eternal eXIStence, then 、 vhere iS time?26 ln the Book of Job, the Lord demands, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hath understanding! ・市 0 laid the cornerstones thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 0f G0d shouted for joy?" "l was there! "—surely that is the answer tO GOd's question. For no matter hOW the unrverse came 1ntO being, most Of the atoms in these fleeting assemblies that we think Of as our bOd- ies have been in exrstence SInce the beginning. ・ What the Bud- dha perceived was his identity with the Universe; tO expenence

T H E S N OW L E 0 PA R D 161 is striking: the stream by my tent is clogged by whereas lizards lie sunning on the rock slope above camp where I climb up tO get warm and write these notes. ln early afternoon the sun touches my tent and is quickly gone; a cold wind 0ff Kanjiroba scours the canyon. lt is t00 chilly t0 sit still in one place, and I go down the ravine a little distance t0 a P01nt where the high glacier and great icefalls can be seen. The wind blows snow from pristine points that glisten in the light, and there are magic colors ⅲ the clouds that sail across the peaks on high blue journeys. Once again, I am struck by the yin-yang 0f these nvers—the one slope white, right down t0 the water, and the other dark' yet with a snow patch on the dark side and a dark rock on the white, each side containing the seed Of its own opposite. The balance 0f cosmic principles, positive (yang) and negative (yin)' as taught in the ancient "B00k 0f Changes" (the I Ching)' seems tO foretell the electron theory Of energy as matter, and is also a wonderful emblem of the flow, the interpenetration of all existence, for which the usual Tantric symbol is the わツ川 0f sexual union. ln Tantra, the pessimistic fear Of desire and plea- sure that characterized early Buddhism was seen as but another form of bondage, and emphasis was placed on being-in-life 、 Mithout suppresslon Of life forces but alSO without clinging or craving. Tantra concerned itself with the totality Of existence, the apprehension 0f the whole universe within man's being. AII thoughts and acts, including the sex energies were channeled intO spiritual growth, with the transcendence Of all opposites the goal; in the communion Of and feastinB the illu- S10n 0f separate identity might be lost' so long as a detached perspective was retained. All things and acts were equal' inter- woven, from the "lowliest" physical functions t0 the "highest" spiritual yearning, and even consumption Of dead human flesh and filth was recommended as an ultimate embrace Of all exis- tence. Thus, Tantra might be interpreted30 as the practice Of mankind's earliest religious intuitlon: that bOdy, mind, and na- ture are all one. But decadence weakened all the Tantric sectS' especially the Old Sect, or Nyingma, and in the sixteenth cen- tury a reformation was begun by the new Gelug-pa sect led bY

T H E S N 0 ′ L E 0 PA R D 119 bears ( Ursus 4 s ) on the south side 0f the Himalaya, where both black bear and langur are well known and unmistakable. Bears hibernate ln 、 M1nter, When yet1S are 1 れ OSt Often seen (in lean times, they appear tO scavenge near monasteries and Vil- lages), and most yeti tracks are much t00 large t0 be made by monkeys, even ln melting sno 、 M. Langurs are rarely seen snow, or yetis either, if it comes tO that: while the yeti may cross the snows on foragrng excurslons tO higher elevations or 1ntO the next valley, its primary habitat must be the cloud forest of the myriad deep Himalayan canyons, which are exception- ally inhospitable t0 man. From a biologist's point 0f view, in fact, most Of the Himalayan reg10n is still じ og れ″ 4. As GS says, almost nothing is known 0f the natural history 0f the snow leopard, and we are walking a long way indeed t0 find out some basic information about the relatively accessible Hi- malayan bharal. One evening last month in Kathmandu, a young biologist in charge 0f a field project in the Arun Valley 0f eastern Nepal set down on our dinner table a big primate footprint in white plas- ter; this cast had been made in the snow outside his tent six months before. 15 The tracks had led down across steep snow- fields into valley forest; he and his colleagues were not able t0 fo Ⅱ ow. plainly the creature being spoken 0f was the "abom- inable sno 、Ⅵ nan , ” and I waited for GS tO express skepticism. But he merely nodded, picking up the cast with care, turning it over, and setting it down again, his face frowmng and intent; what interested him most, he said at last, was the similarity Of this yeti print to that 0f the mountain gorilla. And later he told me that he was not being polite, that there was no doubt in his mind that a creature not yet scientifically described had made this print. Despite the scoffing 0f his peers, GS has believed in the existence Of thiS creature ever S1nce the EriC Shipton t00k the first clear photographs of yeti prints on Ever- est in 19 51. least ninety-five percent Of the yeti material is nonsense," GS said, "but l'm convinced, on the basis Of the Shipton photographs and some other evidence, that an animal unkno 、Ⅵ1 tO science occurs here. " ()e still has doubts about the sasquatch, the existence 0f which has been accepted bY nÖ less

SEPTEMBER 29 A luminous mountain morning. MiSt and fire smoke, sun shafts and dark ravines: a peak of Annapurna P01ses on soft clouds. ln fresh light, to the peeping of baby chickens, we take break- fast in the village tea house, and are under way well before seven. A child dragging bent useless legs is crawling up the hill out- side the village. Nose to the stones, goat dung, and muddy trickles, she pulls herself along like a broken cricket. We falter, ashamed Of our strong step, and noticing this, she gazes up, clear-eyed, without resentment—it seems much worse that she is pretty. ln Bengal, GS says stiffly, beggars will break their chil- dren's knees tO achieve this pitiable effect for business pur- poses: this is his way 0f expressing his distress. But the child that lies here at our bOOts is not a beggar; she is merely a child staring in curiosity at tall, white strangers. I long tO give her something—a new life?—yet am afraid tO tamper with such dignity. And so I smile as best I can, and say 。。 Na 川 45- ! " "Good morning! ' How absurd! And her voice follows as we go a 、 a small clear smiling voice——". N4″24S-惚! Sanskrit word for greeting and parting that means, "I salute you. We are subdued by this reminder of mortality. I think of the corpse in Gorkha Country, borne on thin shoulders in the mountain rain, the black cloths blowing; I see the ancient dying man outside P0khara; I hear agaln my own wife's final breath. Such sights caused Sakyamuni to forsake Lumbini and go in search Of the secret Of existence that would free men from the pain Of this sensory 、 Morld, kno 、 as samsara.

60 P T E R M AT T H I S S E N Before heaven and earth 、 something nebulOLlS silent isolated unchanging and alone eternal the Mother of AII Things I dO not know its name I call it Ta022 Darkness there was, 、 vrapped in yet more Darkness.... The in- cipient lay covered by the V0id. That One Thing ... was born through the power 0f heat from its austerity.. Where this Cre- ation came from, He wh0 has ordained it from the highest 23 heaven, He indeed knows; or He kno 、 not. The mystical perception (which is only "mystical" if reality is limited tO what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places, East and ・ West, a point that has not been ignored by modern SC1ence. The physicist seeks tO understand reality, while the mystic is trained tO experience it directly. BOth agree that human mechanisms Of perception, stunted as they are by screens Of social training that close out all but the practical elements in the sensory barrage, glve a very limited picture Of existence, which certainly tran- scends mere physical evidence. Furthermore, b0th groups agree that appearances are illusory. A great physicist extends this idea: "&fodern sclence classifies the world . . not intO differ- ent groups Of objects but intO different groups Of connec- tions.... The world thus appears tO be a complicated tissue Of events, in 、 Mhich connections Of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture Of the , hOle. " 24 AII phenomena are processes, connections, all iS in flux, and at moments this flux is actually visible: one has only tO open the mind in meditation or have the mind screens knocked awry by drugs or dreams tO see that there is no real edge tO anything, that in the endless interpenetration Of the umverse, a molecular flO 、 a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh.

O C T O B E R 9 This morning the rain is lighter, with long lulls, but we are stuck another day. At least we know that planes cannot fly the moun- tains in this weather; had we counted on comlng tO Dhorpatan by air, we would still be languishing in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, the season and the snows are gaimng, and the new porters, such as they are, are getting restive: Jang-bu, the head Sherpa, fears that if the rain persists another day, they may drift away. They are in here now, hefting the baskets under the whimsical gaze of Phu-Tsering, who pantomimes them comically, taking no trouble tO conceal his view that they are 10W fellows, and light fingered. Phu-Tsering accompanied GS last spring on the first blue-sheep expedition, and it was his high-spirits, rather more than his cursine, that recommended him for this one. Our speculations about the Crystal Monastery have led in- evitably t0 talk of Buddhism and Zen. Last year, as a way 0f alerting GS tO my unscientific preoccupations, I sent him a small book entitled Z れ Mind, B ビ g れ ' Mind. Very politely, he had written, "Many thanks for the Zen book, which Kay brought with her t0 pakistan. l've only browsed a bit so far. A 10t Of it seems most sensible, some Of it less SO, but I have tO ponder things some more. ' GS refuses tO believe that theWest- ern mind can truly absorb nonlinear Eastern perceptions; he shares the view Of many in theWest that Eastern thought evades "reality" and therefore lacks the courage Of existence. But the courage-to-be, right here and now and nowhere else, is precisely what Zen, at least, demands: eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep! Zen has no patlence with "mysticism," far less the occult, although its emphasis on the enlightenment experience (called

T H 見 S N 0 、 V L E 0 PA R D 113 and the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, are commonly por- trayed, and the ch'an or Zen sect particular has cut away most iconography, in keeping with its spare, clear, simple style; in its efforts tO avoid religiosity, tO encourage free-thinking and doubt, Zen makes bOld use Of contradictions, humor, and ir- reverence, applauding the monk who burned up the wood altar Buddha to keep warm. Tibetan Buddhism, on the other hand, having incorporated the Hindu pantheon as well as B'on, must pay homage t0 a multitude 0f Buddha aspects and manifesta- tions, with varying orders Of precedence and emphasis accord- ing tO the sect. ln such remote corners Of the Himalaya as Tichu-Rong, the people still favor the Nyingma with its ves- tiges 0f B'on; here the B'on sky divinity wh0 became king on earth lends his celestial colors of sky-blue and snow-white to Buddhist prayer flags. ln the Tarak0t stupa, Samantabhadra and Padma Sambhava, the traditional founder 0f Nyingma, are given precedence over the Buddha Sakyamuni. The stupa is a monument, shrine, and reliquary that tradi- tionally derives from the Buddha's tomb, but has come to sym- bOlize existence. On a square red base (signifying earth) sits a large white dome (water) with a sort 0f spire (fire) crowned with a lunar crescent (air) and a SOlar diSC (space); such struc- tures guard the approaches t0 towns and villages throughout the Buddhist Himalaya. Larger stupas may enclose a room dec- orated with mandalas and iconographic paintings: the inner west wall 0f the Tarak0t stupa, for example, portrays three Bodhisattvas, while on the east wall are three Buddhas. One is a Buddha of past ages (the light-giver, Dipankara), another the historical Buddha (Sakyamuni), the third the Buddha-to-come (Maitreya, whO exists at present as a Bodhisattva but will be reborn as the Buddha in a future age) ・ Tarakot's Tibetan-speaking people are not Bhotes but Magars who made their way up the river valleys long ago and later adopted Buddhism; or perhaps they were refugees from the Mus- lim holy wars that eradicated Buddhism from lndia in the twelfth century. The town itself is flat-roofed, built 0f stone, each building a several-storied fortress topped by prayer flags. The

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 ′ L E 0 PA R D ing the futility Of carnal existence, with its endless thirsting, drinking, quenching, and thirsting anew ・ ln case I should need them, instructions for passage through the Bardo are contained in the Tibetan "Book of the Dead ” which I carry with me—a guide for the living, actually, since it teaches that a man's last thoughts will determine the quality of his reincarnation. Therefore, every moment Of life is tO be lived calmly, mindfully, as if it were the last, to insure that the most is made Of the precious human state—the only one in which en- lightenment is possible. And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest Of us, the memories Of past exis- tences are but glints 0f light, twinges oflonging, passing shad- ows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage 0f that silver bird on Dhaulagiri. Thus one must seek tO "regard as one this life, the next life, and the life between, in the Bardo. ' This was a last message to his disciples of Tibet's great poet-saint the Lama Milarepa, born in the tenth century, in the 、 lale Water-Dragon Year, tO a woman known as "the White Garland of the Nyang. ' Mi- larepa is called Mila Repa because as a great yogin and master of "mystical heat" he wore only a simple white cloth, or 印 4 , even in deepest 、 Minter: hiS "songs" or hortatory verses, as tran- scribed by his disciples, are still beloved in Tibet. Like Sakya- muni, he iS said tO have attained nirvana ln a single lifetime, and his teaching as he prepared for death might have been ut- tered by the Buddha: AII worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable and inevitable end, WhiCh iS sorrow: acqtllsitlons end in dispersion; buildings, in destructlon; meetings, ln separation; births, in death. Knowrng this, one should from the very first renounce acquisition and heaping-up, and building and meeting, and ・ . set about realiz- . Life is short, and the time Of death is uncer- ing the Truth. tain; SO apply yourselves tO meditation.. Meditation has nothing to do with contemplation Of eternal questions, or Of one'S 0 、 fOlly, or even Of navel, al- though a clearer V1ew on all 0f these enigmas may result. lt has 3