DIVINATION BY DICE

LAMA NGAKPA AND ME

 LAMA NGAKPA

Keeping an open mind, I decide that my mind would be open to having my immediate kismet – if fate has an intermediate stage – foretold by a lama.  The idea of rolling the dice, reading the tarot, seeing angels in tea leaves, stirring the entrails of a dead goat, laying silver on the palm of a chiromancer or allying the state of one’s being to the configuration or disfiguration of the planets used to be a no no.

But as there is a limit to our knowledge in an infinite world of possibilities; and there is a diminishing amount of time during which to discover just that little bit more, if not about the world then about oneself, I decide to give it a go.  By trying to be realistic one can become too cynical:  so I’m willing to open myself to the experience of having my fortune/misfortune told.  As Dawa, my daughter, says, It should be fun.

The Lama’s room is next to a Buddhist clinic a few minutes from the main Stupa at Boudha. I must have passed it hundreds of times but for some reason never noticed. This is typical of the area.  There are always nooks and crannies, lanes and narrow gullies that are missed no matter how many time you might pass them by.

When I enter the room, there are several other clients waiting and the Lama is reciting some prayers with that machine-gun speed that always amazes me.  He is unusual in that he has long hair tied back and a rather scanty beard and moustache.

After some time, he finishes and a woman from a remote village asks him about accommodation she is having a problem with.  After the advice is given, she hands him an airmail envelope containing some money wrapped in a kata (Tibetan scarf). 

My sister-in-law is next.  She asks about a pain in her knees, although I’m not sure what his answer is as he talks to her Hyolmu, a Tibetan dialect. 

Then it’s Fulmaya’s turn.  She’s been wondering about returning to Scotland:  will she be able to settle back into her routine?  What about the weather, the house, the work, the food, the expenses?

My question is also about our return to Scotland:  should we rent or buy another property as our house is currently being let for an indefinite period while we gallivant around the world?

He opens a little six-sided silver box, intricately tooled with a filigree design, and takes out what I presume to be dice, although I never quite see them.  After a few shakes, he says a mantra and blows on them, reconsiders and shakes and blows again.  This routine is repeated a few times then he tells me that I should either look for another house to buy, but not immediately; rather, consider a few offers of places I would like to stay and if the price is right, buy.  Otherwise, he says, Look for a place to rent and be prepared to stay there but not for more than two-years. 

I give him an airmail envelope containing NRs505 wrapped in a kata and he gives me some kind of blessing.   (Apparently, according to the culture, one should not give a round figure as an offering, thus the extra five-rupees.)

                           

             

SHAKING THE DICE

The advice sounds sound and we leave feeling happier.  I don’t suppose we have been told anything we couldn’t think of ourselves, but the conviction with which we've been counselled does give us a certain feeling of elation – or are we kidding ourselves?  Nevertheless, a little bit of paranormal experience has done no harm and, after all, Lama Ngakpa is a really affable man and seems to have an inner peace and happiness that is communicable to all who meet him.  My maxim now...

"There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

A TRIP TO A HYOLMU VILLAGE

ROLL OF A DICE

To leave the house and travel around the city bodes an unpredictable day.  A magnum of strength is needed to duck and dive through traffic swarming without rules, past pavement sellers and pedestrians – lots of bottle needed.   You become like a fish swimming through the flotsam of a shipwreck.  There is no separation of people, motorbikes, cars, temples…

This morning Fulmaya left the city behind.  She is travelling with some family in a jeep to Milarepa’s Cave somewhere in Helambu to the north of Kathmnandu.  The journey is rough as some of the travelling is along dry river beds with some of the boulders removed to the side to allow progress.  The ascent is from K’du Valley at over 1,200 metres (4000 ft) to over 2,700 metres (9,000 feet) – over 6-7 hours.

Suffice it to say, I’ve been left behind in Kathmandu and finding work in the ghost-writing industry, pamphlets, articles and forms.  I remember trekking this route before they had a “road” and it took several days to reach Tarkye Gyang.  I was stopped at checkpost by some very surprised policemen.   

They were there more to check Nepalese travellers who may have been carrying arms from Pakistan or opium from Baglung to the north rather than a lone trourist.  They recovered sufficiently to check my trekking permit and stamp it with a government seal.

This was February, the time of Lohsar, the Tibetan New Year, and by the time I reached T G the snow was knee deep in the drifts.  On a meadow at the centre of the village, men and women were lined up facing each other and dancing with syncopated rhythm, the men moving forward and singing in Hyolmu and the women replying in their high voices.

I was offered a room in a house which I took and the singing and dancing lasted all night.  When I woke in the morning, the beautiful Hyolmu Sherpa girl said something in Nepali which I understood and it sounded like, You have to have sex for three days to please the deity.  I don’t know if that was an invitation to a few nights of pleasure or a Nepali kukri across my throat.

No regrets, but if I could have bothered, I would be visiting Milarepa’s Cave with the others.  He’s my favourite guy amongst all the other semi-legendary characters who no doubt lived some time

from the middle of the 11^th century to 1135.  His life in Western Tibet began as a sorcerer and after killing 35 people with a giant hailstorm over an inheritance dispute, he was tutored by Marpa, the translator of various sacred texts, probably from Pali into Tibetan.

I guess what I like about him is the fact that he wrote what is now known as The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa.  This compilation is an epic poem that was inspired by his realisation of the dharma.   

There are lots of legends about the poet sage, but mostly, I like the way he’s depicted with a hand to the ear as listening to an inner spirit that guides him.  Peculiarly, he is usually portrayed in green as he subsisted on nettles.

There are several Milarepa Caves in Nepal, which one they’re going to will have the footprints and hand prints left in stone from the time of his retreat in the cave.