When Mountains Move

I spent many months on end in the mountains just south of Mount Everest in the late 1980s and remember well, that there were several earthquakes during the time when i stayed just below the towering summit of Kumbila, the peak which is revered as the 'protector' of the region by the local Buddhist folk who reside there. Each quake was accompanied by landslides on the neighboring mountain slopes. Each quake was a sobering reminder of just how fragile life is.

At that time, i stayed in a tiny wooden hut that clung to the side of the mountain. From this perch, at 12,000 feet, whenever i looked out of my window, i felt as though i were looking out the window of an airplane.

In the 1990s under the guidance of the Tibetan Dzogchen Master, Chadral Rinpoche, i spent numerous summers camped out in a tent in the mountainous regions north of Kathmandu in an area now completely decimated by the impact a series of devastating earthquakes which hit Nepal in 2015. This area is known as Sindupalchowk. Rinpoche had several retreat centers dotted around the precipitous slopes of this mountainous region.

By the time i started to make the pilgrimage up there each year, he was already well into his eighties and no longer able to make the long and arduous climb up into the mountains by foot. However, he would come via helicopter, stay a few days or weeks, instruct those undergoing their long retreats and the few of us stragglers who had come to spend the summer months in the high alpine pastures far from the crowded, noisy and polluted marketplaces and valleys of Kathmandu.

It has been a dramatic and unnerving time watching the effects of the recent massive quakes, in two areas that i had come to know and love well.

Through the ages, since time immemorial, massive cataclysmic events have taken place on our planet yet when measured next to the span of our human lives, they seem far and widely spread apart. We measure our lives by the days, weeks, months and years that we witness passing by. Our tunnel vision gives us a feeling of continuity and safety even as we live and move within the tremendous and ever-shifting forces of the natural world which surrounds us.

The concept of the Earth as our 'Mother' is not by any means a new one. Since time immemorial people have felt that this earth upon which we 'live, move and have our being,' is in some profound and absolutely fundamental way connected to, not only our physical existence but also our emotional and mental well being.

Yet despite this ancient and known interconnection, we are now, perhaps more than ever, sadly disconnected from our 'Mother' Bhumi, routinely treating her with disregard and disrespect.

When the earth wakes up, stretches. When the earth sighs and heaves; all life upon it must take heed.

When mountains move, the very foundation and stability of all that we may have associated with steadiness and continuity comes into question. We are thrown back into ourselves, to find there, the truth of Who and What we REALLY are...

The Guru of Impermanence

Our lives are as fleeting as a cloud...

On the 25th of April at 4.45 am, my long time winged friend, a species of dark iridescent blue bird found in the Himalayan foothills, landed with a thud on the tin roof of my tiny hut.

This had become a familiar sound to me over the years. My eyes popped open in time to see one black eye peering over the side of the awning into my loft. She was letting me know that it was time for me to get up.

I took a little longer to heed her call that morning and paid the price as she jumped up and down at 5 minute intervals, reminding me, like a snooze alarm that she was waiting for me to put out her cheese.

This had been our little ritual over a good many years. Despite the fact that I had been away for two long years, she had not forgotten and no sooner had I resettled back into my 'tin palace' at Das Mile Retreat Center, than she resumed her old habit of waking me up in the mornings.

I was reluctant and slow to get going that particular morning.

No sooner had I taken my first gulp of Darjeeling tea than a furry head appeared at the little side window. Shortly after that there was an almighty crash on the tin roof, as a large simian male jumped from the tree above the hut onto the corrugated iron sheets.

It was not a promising beginning to my day!

This was followed by various annoying and inconvenient visitations from hairy and hungry monkeys of all sizes and generations hailing from a large group that have been roaming about these forested hills for the past few years.

Joining in the fray were three excited dogs, frantically enjoying the chase as they tore in and out of the bamboo railings of my fence and dashed about among the trees while the monkeys taunted and teased them from the safety of the branches above.

By 11 am I was worn out with trying to keep vigil on my little stock of food and remaining pot plants and stay sane. All possibility of meditation and prayers at the shrine in my loft had shot out the window the minute these visitors arrived.

Despite threateningly dangling my slingshot at the monkeys who were by now making a sport of leaping from the trees onto my roof making the loudest crash possible, there was little I could do to keep the group at bay, so I just got on as well I could with my usual daily routines.

Around midday I had no sooner sat down and taken a couple of mouthfuls of my midday repast, than there was a strange tremor and creak. My first thought was, 'monkey'. But then the tremor continued and increased, the hut began to sway and wooden beams made strange creaking, groaning sounds. Soon I heard an eerie rumbling sound. I quickly tried to stand up and noticed the water in the small pond outside splashing back and forth. It was a big quake accompanied by all of the unsettling emotions of surprise, alarm, shock and fear.

Cries soon started up from the villages on either side of our forested ridge and also from below. people were running in all directions in a bid to flee their houses.

Read More in Masters, Mice and Men

Volume Three in the series, Shades of Awareness