A Time Of Renewal
It was about a week into her pilgrimage to the Beyul of Sikkim that Khema came across a small Tibetan village, half the size of her own. A fresh faced, young monk greeted her where her path crossed the main road to the village centre. He inquired as to her purposes, especially as an older woman, travelling alone. When she told him her objective and a bit of her personal history involving her initiation and training with the Lama the young monk became excited and insisted Khema come and visit his monastery for some tea. Khema obliged, and on the walk toward the monastery the young monk asked her if she knew what day it was. Khema knew she had been walking the path for about 7 nights, and the day she left she was pretty sure it had been the 20th day of the last month in the lunar year. The young monk started skipping down the road next to her exclaiming it is nearing the end of the month and Losar preparations are almost complete! He was certain that her arrival in the town was a good omen for the townsfolk and for her own journey.
At the time of Losar the end of the old year as well as the beginning of the new year is acknowledged in celebrations and ceremonies by monastics and lay people alike. Many households will anticipate the new year by acquiring new clothes and furniture and repainting their houses interior or exteriors (each family doing what they can afford). In homes at private altars and in public at monastery altars offerings of khapse (sometimes salty, sometimes sweet pastries) will be made. The khapse is offered in piles as high as possible and surrounded colourful torma, paper flowers, and bright green barley grass. Families will also have fun finding their fortunes for the new year in Guthuk, dumpling soup in which the dumplings contain either foods symbolising fortunes or actual peices of paper with fortunes written on them. The monastics and other specially trained people form the community will partake in ceremonial dance and prayers for the releasing of evil or ill deeds in the past year and triumph of the forces of good in the year to come. In total the Losar festival carries on for 15 days.
It being the 27th day of the 12th month the monks of the village had just completed their local reenactment of the Sera Phurbu ceremony. Annually, in Lhasa, this magical, ritual dagger (phurbu) which is believed to be an ancient artifact that miraculously made its way from India to the Sera valley is venerated by the Dalai Lama and the highest monastic authorities. In this tiny village, thousands of miles from Lhasa and the Dalai Lama, the community officials reenact the Sera Phurbu using their own replica of the phurbu, in procession they carry the replica dagger to their community stupa (which takes the place of the Dalai Lama) where they perform the ritual offering. For this community Phurbu Sera commences the Tibetan New Year (Losar) festival.
Two days following will be the cham (Tantric dances) for Tse Gutur, the years-end ceremony. In larger communities like her own many monks, novice boys and Zimchongpa (soldiers in ceremonial uniform) are well practised in the performance of this elaborate dance which represents the overcoming of evil. The dances, while still modest in comparison to those performed for the Dalai Lama at Namgye Tatsang, are accompanied by music and chants from robed monks and nuns: conches, thigh bone horns, and cymbals are played. The main event of the cham along with the ornately costumed and masked dancers is the effigy corpse which is decapitated to represent the dispersal of accumulated sins.
Khema was invited to spend a few nights in the home of a local woman so that she could partake in the community’s Losar celebrations, but she declined the offer. She was devoted to her pilgrimage and felt that in a way her decision to go on pilgrimage during Losar was representative of the ultimate penetration of ignorance and would thusly be that much more powerful. Before she carried on her way the monks asked her if she would assist in the making of some torma for the monastery altar and if she wouldn’t mind performing a smoke blessing for prosperity and well being of the community in the new year. Khema was happy to do so. When she departed some villagers packed her khapse and guthok, others gave her woollen socks, a shawl and an extra water vessel. The young monk gave her incense to light when she arrived at the Beyul. With that she was off again.
Khema was in good spirits as she left the small village. Her belly was warm with po cha (Tibetan salty butter tea) and she was still on course and within the timeframe she had hoped to make. The villagers had confirmed that the stupa she seeking, where the Lama years ago had initiated her into his lineage of ritualist masters, was only 3 days walking. The gateway to the Beyul was just another day’s walk beyond that. The food she had been left with by the villagers would nourish her through those few days, upon entering the Beyul she planned to fast while remaining in a deep meditative state. She had heard it been said that those who enter the Beyul of Sikkim with the correct frame of mind, focused on spiritual pursuits, leaving behind the mundane and physical would acheive in a very short period what some masters acheive in a lifetime. When Khema saw the Lama in her dream state he had affirmed she had the proper skills and wisdom to acheive all of this. She had worried that perhaps because she was female bodied she would fall short, but the Lama reinforced that she had the correct mentality which took her beyond her physical form, it did not matter what body she had, man or woman, she was indeed spiritually heightened and capable of mastering the legendary achievements within the Beyul. She kept this in mind for any moments when she questioned herself on her journey, it gave her the confidence to keep going.
