Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 DA R K A N G E L 06wound about with the mala beads they also wear on their wrists. Theonly Tibetan monk I can remember seeing without sneakers on is theDalai Lama, who wears sensible-looking brown leather shoes.It was the Dalai Lama who was responsible for the busloads ofTibetans being at Nalanda. Every winter he gives an empowerment atone of the Indian holy sites, and they were there to attend the next one.They would have come from the Tibetan refugee settlements, now allover India, or from Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan in the Himalayas. Theywere combining the two-week empowerment with the opportunity tomake a pilgrimage to the holy sites. For Tibetan Buddhists, like the Chinese,any pilgrimage had to include visiting Nalanda, as it was fromNalanda that many of their teachings originally came.Monks such as Hsuan Tsaing travelled to India not just as a pilgrimagebut also to study at Nalanda and elsewhere and to return home with religiousscriptures. The journey was a very dangerous one, throughunknown lands, across the Gobi Desert, and traversing high Himalayanpasses. From accounts in the Chinese chronicles, it is estimated that of allthe pilgrims known to have left for India only forty-two are known to havereturned in four centuries. Hsuan Tsaing was captured and nearly killedby pirates. The account of his journey makes much of his fearlessness andunwavering resolution, but personally I find the account of I-Tsing,another Chinese pilgrim, more moving—he seemed more human in hisreactions. He came forty years later and was attacked while crossingthrough the hills of Bihar. Suffering from “an illness of the season,” he hadbeenforcedtodropbehindthelargecompanyhehadbeentravellingwith,and “late in the day, when the sun was about to set, some mountain brigandsmade their appearance.” They robbed him of everything, includinghis clothes, and left him very frightened. It was then that he recalled arumourthatinIndia“whentheytookawhiteman,theykilledhimtooffera sacrifice to heaven. When I thought of this tale, my dismay grew twiceas much. Thereupon I entered into a muddy hole and besmeared all mybody with mud. I covered myself with leaves, and supporting myself on2 1 1