Travelin Tibet

Tibet was long the impossible goal for those who wandered the world. In the mid 1980's the Chinese opened the door slightly to tourism. What they got, instead of the wealthy and easily controlled tour groups they expected, was a sudden influx of backpack travelers, hippies, and spiritual pilgrims crossing the mountains from Kathmandu with far too little money and far too much sympathy for the Tibetan people. I was one of the last to slip through.....



On my first day in Tibet I met a British couple and together we hitched a ride on a truck up a spectacular gorge to Nylam, a small village on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Much of the countryside, indeed much of Tibet, resembles the American Southwest. It's arid and mountainous, nothing really notable, until you remember that all but the highest of the Rockies are lower than the valleys of Tibet.



I climbed the surrounding hills, had several wonderful evenings with the Tibetans at a small, smoky tea house, but there was something special near Nylam. A few miles away was the cave where Milirepa, one of Tibet's greatest teachers, had lived many centuries ago.

Milirepa, as a young man, was persuaded by his mother to seek revenge on some relatives who had stolen her inheritance. After some training in the black arts Milirepa was able to cause the collapse of a house in which fifty people were killed.

Free of his mother's vendetta but deeply troubled, Milirepa wandered until he found a well known holy man, Marpa. Marpa agreed to teach him but first asked Milirepa to build a small house of stone, giving him a number of specific instructions as to how it should be built.



Milirepa labored for many weeks, but when the house was nearly complete Marpa appeared and insisted he had asked Milirepa to build a large round house, not a small square one. Milirepa had to replace each stone where he had found it and start anew. Months later, as the second house was nearly finished, Marpa appeared again and was furious that Milirepa was building a round house instead of the larger rectangular house he had asked for. This went on for many years, each house larger and more complex than the last. Finally with Milirepa near death from exhaustion and despair, Marpa released Milirepa from his tasks and initiated him. It is said that the last and grandest of Milirepa's stone houses still stands in SE Tibet near Bhutan.

(Tantric teachers often use a difficult task to claim the attention and effort of their student. With this distraction in place the teacher alters the student on higher levels without the student's notice or resistance. When the student is finally given the "secret teaching" the veil is simply removed from what has slowly been achieved.)