Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/24995
the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre are all occurring in the next several weeks; troops are on fu ll alert in Lhasa. There is a silver lining in this dark cloud of political intrigue-we are permitted to proceed to Kailas. MAY 17, MUNCHU We are granted an audience with Pema Rigtsel Rinpoche, a Gelug-pa monk, and learn that he is trying to ra ise capital from the Beijing govern ment to rebuild a very old monastery for which he holds spiritual responsi bility. Called Shemba ling, the monastery is located near Taklakot, or Purang, just across the border in Tibet. Pema Rigtsel has never been granted permission by the Chinese authorities to visit its ruins. MAY 21, PURANG This is a thoroughly wretched place, like other Tibetan towns where the Chinese have garrisoned their mili tar y When Up a trail, at the mouth of a small cave dug into the crum bling walls of the cliff, I encounter an old man whose eyes are glazed over with milky cataracts, so prevalent in this part of the world due to the ubiquitous yak-dung cooking fires. As he spins his copper prayer wheel, I speak to him in English, sensing somehow that he can comprehend the emotion in my voice. I tell him how I have just scaled the ladders at Tsegu, crossed a catwalk to a tiny chapel exca vated from the solid mountain wall and knelt beside the hundred thousand teachings-strips of hand-printed paper neatly bound and stacked into an alcove. There, before statuary of the Tantric trinity of Chenrezig, Jambayang and Changna Dorje, I felt my heart rip open. MAY 21, SHEMBALING On a ridge above Purang, about a kilometer to the north and close to fifteen thousand feet above sea level, lies what remains of Shembaling monastery, the place Pema Rigtsel Rinpoche has never been permitted to see. Once an enormous structure where thousands of monks studied and meditated upon the sutras, Shembaling appears to have been deserted for at least half a millennium. In fact, it was not destroyed until after 1966, during one of the blackest horror shows of recorded history-Mao Tse-Tu.ng's mid-after- our cara n arrives at the i I g rim s ' we clue. We were informed this mornin that the border crossing from Hu has been closed. Our group is appa ently the last to be allowed through To make our situation even more ten uous, an unnamed authority in Beijin has forbidden us to ' proceed Gyantse, Shigatse and Lhasa planned, and there is much specula tion about the reason: the anniversa of the "peaceful liberation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, t Buddhist festival of Saga Dawa an rete bove our on con- blocks the garbage-choked stream flowing through the bleak village. I can no longer contain myself and climb ninety minutes to a ridge well over sixteen thousand feet, obsessed with a desire to watch sunset on the south face of Khang Rinpoche [Kailasl. Finally, after ,years of fantasy and impossible anticipation, pumped full of adrena line from the strenuous ascent, I cast unobstructed eyes upon the golden Throne of Shiva, MAY 23, SILUNG A plume of snow avalanches from the long vertical cleft in the mountain's south face, known as the "Stai rway to Heaven" long before Led Zeppelin was a gleam in the eye of the universe. It was carved-so the legend goes-by the sorcerer Naro Bon Chun as he fell from Kailas' summit after losing a psychic duel with the Buddhist saint Milarepa, reputedly the only human being ever to stand on the mountain's peak, But Milarepa did not climb to the continued page 130