The Cave
I write to you today from the foot of a rugged cliff in Mustang. Our expedition has had it all — success beyond our wildest expectation as well as near tragedy.
Anil and I left our village just over two weeks ago. We had spent several days gathering the clothing and other personal belongings we’d need, mostly food from fellow trekker Lynda, village artist Sam and local farmer Jacklyn. I was impressed with how easily our expedition planning came together. We were egalitarian and democratic; each member of the team contributed according to their area of expertise. Simay built trekking frames for carrying heavy loads, Rory ensured we were well stocked with medical supplies, and local scholar Ashwin determined our route.
As house-builders, there was no direct way for Anil and I to contribute. Instead we undertook to provide a few pairs of climbing crampons to help us scale the cliff. With supplies from our ironmonger, Jibran, we worked overtime to screw ten spikes onto each foot plate, attach the heel and toe bars and thread the leather straps. We added these to our load. Uncertain about what we would encounter, I also pulled out all the stops and brought our entire supply of ritual objects: our prayer flags, six different amulets, our white offering scarves, and a supply of juniper for bsang. Still, it was not without trepidation that we ventured out.
I know others are planning on describing our trek and exciting climb in detail. I’d like instead to tell you about the heady days after we first entered the cave. Or ‘caves’ is more accurate — we found a staggering complex of rooms linked together by narrow corridors and shafts. Anil was briefly the star of the show being the only one of us small enough to squeeze into the most confined of spaces. It is unlikely he will realize anātman in the near future — all the praise swelled his head and his sense of self remains robust!
Anil is not alone — we are all likely to achieve some fame or notoriety through our association with this expedition. Our cave findings may take years to interpret and excite scholars both local and abroad. Our discovery of human bones and Bon burial relics is certainly the highlight of Anil’s trip and probably of his entire year! But to my mind, our most spectacular find is a trove of manuscripts. Written in Chinese, Tibetan and Uighur(1) on silk, birchbark, pothi leaves and hemp paper(2), these manuscripts may turn this remote hill in Mustang into a scholarly tourist attraction that rivals Dunhuang. And one small manuscript looked particularly intriguing!
There is speculation that it could be terma. Although I wrote briefly of this possibility in my last letter to you, you probably need more background in order to understand why I am so excited by a scrap of parchment. It all goes back to Padmasambhava (or Guru Rinpoche as we call him), the legendary figure that introduced Buddhism to this part of the world around 775 CE. My own particular Buddhist school, the Nyingmapa, particularly reveres Guru Rinpoche as its founder(3) and believes that he and his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, hid many ‘treasures’ (called ‘terma’) to be discovered later by ‘treasurer finders’ (or ‘tertons’)(4). We Nyingmapa have discovered many terma over the centuries.
When I use the word ‘treasure’, you probably imagine heaps of gold or precious jewels. In fact, terma are teachings. There are two types: ‘earth terma’ such as texts and artefacts; and ‘mind terma’, teachings buried in the unconscious mind of one of Guru Rinpoche’ disciples and revealed by him centuries later in a subsequent human incarnation(5). This idea may seem strange to you but it actually has a storied pedigree in Buddhism. Nāgārjuna, one of the most important Mahāyāna philosophers, received the Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) teachings as a mind terma. You may also have heard of The Tibetan Book of the Dead; I hear it was quite popular in your part of the world for a while! Its teachings were revealed in a similar way by Karma Lingpa, reincarnation of one of Guru Rinpoche’s most senior disciples and a very famous terton(6).
Our heritage contains much terma lore. Terma have been hidden at the bottom of lakes, in the pillars of temples and inside earthen jars in cliffs. They have described esoteric Tantric practices or the routes to hidden lands. Finding them can be hazardous — one terton lost a finger when a rock wall closed around a terma as he reached for it; another had a terma vanish just as it was finally within his grasp(7).
When one successfully acquires a terma a new challenge presents itself: interpretation is far from easy. Some textual terma have been written in invisible ink that appears only when heated slowly over a flame. Some are written in the secret runic script of the dakinis, khandro dayig. Almost all are full of cryptic allusions and ambiguous references. Their ultimate interpretation is the job of a merton who must sometimes meditate on it for months to uncover and proclaim its meaning(8). In this way even scrolls and artifacts can be regarded as mind terma — they act as stimuli to uncover a message that is deeply buried in the mind of the terton.
Our mysterious scrap bears some of these hallmarks — it has been hidden for centuries and is written in a script even our most adept scholars do not recognize. It looks a lot like this suspected terma held at the Oriental Institute at Oxford University.
If we want to pursue this, our next step appears to be finding a terton. We need to leave anyway. I touched on near tragedy at the beginning of this letter. Despite the herculean precautions undertaken by our ritualists to protect us, one of our expedition members, Shelby, fell from a great height while climbing. I’m unsure of her condition or prognosis. It is most definitely time to go.
