yogah citta vrtti nirodhah

With a tired puff of exhaust, the mini-bus jolted to a welcome stop at the end of a nine-hour jaunt through the winding roads of the Himalayan Mountains. Sarah and I glanced at each other with unconcealed delight and a smattering of anxiety as we leapt from our seats and into the throng of commotion in the main tourist entry to Mcleodganj, most well-known of Tibetan settlements in Dharmasala. A crowd of dreadlocked and harem-panted backpackers nonchalantly waited for the chai-wallah to pour cupfuls of spiced tea from his silver cauldron into Styrofoam containers, as a spotted cow with large, gentle eyes mournfully nosed my hand as she passed by. Meanwhile, the traffic conditions in the square were worsening to complete gridlock as we stood frozen in complete amazement at the myriad sights before us. Autorickshaw drivers shouted at us to get out of the way, and we quickly scrambled aside to avoid the impatient onslaught of cars that narrowly missed us. As we pleaded with our travel-stiffened joints to carry us up the steps to our hotel, the sunset in the Himalayas – an intricate medley of silver clouds against a backdrop of purples, blues, golds, and pinks – brought our ascent to a halt as we stared and stared, greedily drinking in the otherworldly sight before us.

Calm, soothing sunlight streaming in through the windows woke us the next morning. We wandered our way to the Dalai Lama’s temple complex, crossing through a wooden and shaky metal detector, undergoing a search by security guards, and then taking in His Holiness’ residence, in front of which were parked a slew of TV station minivans for reporters interviewing the Dalai Lama in honor of his seventy-fifth birthday – the reason it was impossible to obtain a private audience with him while we were in town. I entered the simple temple in the complex, remembering what I’d heard about the Dalai Lama seeing temple builders adding ornate flourishes to the windows and personally asking for the windows to remain simply square and undecorated, as he had believed then that their return to Tibet was imminent. Before me, in a deserted corner of the temple, a lone Tibetan middle-aged woman with crinkly eyes and a round, kind face reverently bowed before a many-faced deity. “Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion,” read the placard before the golden-hued god. Coming from a scientific background and a culture that highly values rational thinking of the mind, I was touched by the woman’s simple faith and lack of embarrassment before the popular Buddhist deity.

“It’s her again!” my companion, Sarah, gasped with recognition at the peddler outside the restaurant. My deliciously filling lunch of cheese momos (Tibetan dumplings) hardly finished settling in my stomach before Sarah quickly dragged me in the direction of the no-nonsense woman regally selling multi-hued pashmina shawls. She was the same one that we’d encountered at the temple complex, whose devotion had so touched us, and drew us to her now.