A Whisper

I have been in Lhasa for three weeks by now, and have not once gone far from it. I am too content to leave anyway. I am even too content to leave Barkor Circuit, the pilgrimage route around Jokhang Temple. From morning to night, with pilgrims and tourists, I circle clockwise with a Tibetan textbook in my hand, or scholarly books about Buddhism. Have I circled more than 200 ¨kora¨ by now?

Around Barkor Circuit, I have pockets of Tibetan friends here and there, and would drop by their places punctually every day.

Dusk, I spend it in a quiet alley where the cloth makers do their works, while I sit on the doorstep, sip my yak butter tea and chitchat using scraps of my Tibetan, and their non-existent Mandarin.

Near the end of my Tibetan book are mantras and prayers. We make it a habit of reciting some of them together. Today, I inadvertently flipped the page to the Prayer to T**n G**so (not typing his name to evade the all-watching eyes, but you know who I am talking about). I was ruffled. I knew how sensitive this prayer was. But right there, instinctively, we recited it together with a quality of sincerity that only our hearts could manage.

Then a strange silence took over us. It was a sense of complicity that just emerged among us --- so many things were not said, but felt.

Mischievously, I held my index finger on my lips: ¨shhh¨, while I feigned a cautious gaze that meant ¨let´s keep it among us¨.

I sensed it was time that I should leave. I packed my bag. One of them said ¨Come back tomorrow!¨ He said it so gently that made my heart reciprocate: ¨Yes I will¨, I paused before my slow Tibetan added, ¨I really like it here¨.

I left the alley, and let myself swept again by the circulating pilgrims, feeling blessed to know that there were alleys around this sacred Circuit that would be happy to have me back.

Some photos around Barkor Circuit (more photos are in this post): 








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