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Remakable meetings in Ladakh


I read Andrew Harvey's 'A Journey in Ladakh' at university, which is a while ago now, and, even though I have used stories and images from it subsequently, I was astonished on re-reading it both how much I in fact remembered and how beautiful it is. Why had I not re-read it since?

First, it's beauty. Geoffrey Moorhouse is quoted on the front of my copy as describing it as a 'book of ecstasy as well as travel' and this it is. 

Within a skillfully crafted unfolding set of narratives and observations, we observe the initial draw of the place, a draw that has the unsettling quality of either offering more than it can deliver or, paradoxically, the opposite of actually delivering more than can be withstood, assimilated. We are offered sketches of its radiant physical beauty, the charm of its people and their shadows, and its complex modern situation of a minority, indigenous culture administered by a different, and mostly indifferent, majority. 

Slowly we are led, as the author is led, into the heart of the place and its culture, that of Tibetan Buddhism represented by one of its most remarkable adepts, Thuksey Rinpoche, a lama, originally from Tibet. The book evolves into a study of sainthood and its remarkable feature is that it allows Thuksey Rinpoche to emerge wholly real from this encounter with hagiography which is a testimony to Harvey's skill as an author and the openness and vulnerability he shows in approaching his subject. He captures beautifully the unnerving quality of the saint that you do not know when you encounter one, whether you simply want to fall into their welcoming arms, forgiven and awaiting transformation,  or run away and hide in fear feeling that every failing is now exposed to view, hanging out around you, seen by everyone.  

Usually, if you are fortunate, you manage to do both, and the latter - the fear - can be utilized to remind you of the actual need of the former - the compassionate, transforming care. 

All of this unfolds within an admirably concise accounting of some of the essentials of Buddhism and takes nothing away from the travel narrative either indeed Harvey comes to realize how conducive this kind of landscape, place, and especially it's extraordinary light, that penetrates and gives life to everything, has been so conducive as a crucible to the development of this form of Buddhism, accompanied by realizing that as it travels to the 'West' it will inevitably change. But then all is changeable flux.

Second, why had I not re-read it? Partly I think because of Harvey's subsequent career that I am, probably unjustly, hesitant about as a Californian 'guru-like' figure of a multi-dimensional fusion of spiritualities - though my only communication with him was a delightful note I received on reading a subsequent novel of his. 

But mainly I think because it is, I realize, extraordinarily uncompromising - saints have fierce aspects - and though here you only see Rinpoche's warmth and humor, his short 'sermon' on the essentials of Buddhism is magnificently and challengingly austere. The world is permeated by suffering, literally, in the words of the Buddha, 'on fire' and the only ladder out and through the fire is to learn to love wholly disinterestedly and only after that dedicate your life(s) to rescuing others. Nothing could be further from the contemporary landscape of 'mindfulness' and calming apps! Perhaps it is that uncompromising note, I needed to re-hear and wonder whether you move in towards it or go and hide!

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