Into The Tiger’s Nest – Bhutan Day 6

Today is the day. The epic trek to the famous cliffside monastery, Tiger’s Nest.

I should be completely excited.

But I’m not.

I’m actually in a pretty crappy mood. A series of unfortunate events at the hotel last night left me frustrated, disappointed and basically burst my Bhutan bubble. I’m trying to shake it off because we’ve got big things to do today and it’s about a two-hour uphill hike to get to the monastery. It’s peak tourism season in Bhutan so we decide to leave early to beat the crowds. Thinley notices that I’m different today and I tell him about last night. He’s quiet and just listens. He says, sometimes these things happen to teach us something we need to see. I know I say, but still grouchy. I’ve got nothing but time ahead of us today to figure out the lesson. Anyway, we keep driving and finally get to the trailhead. And then I get my first glimpse of Tiger’s Nest, way up on the mountainside and there is a sense of awe…and my mood starts to soften.

Why put a monastery on the side of a cliff like that? Bored monastics? Feeling like a challenge? Well, not exactly. 

You see apparently the face of Guru Rinpoche is in the rockface of the cliff. 

And that’s as much of a sign as you need to build a monastery.

Halfway up the trek there’s a café and we stop so I can get some milk tea because no experience in Bhutan is complete without a little milk tea and the crowds are starting to form. We head out as soon as possible to stay ahead of the crowd and a few minutes later we see a royal procession on the trail ahead of us. Thinley can tell it is an older monk that must be very respected because he is being carried up by younger monks and the group of maybe thirty in total has flags and incense at the beginning and end. It is absolutely surreal to watch and wonder. T starts chatting with the locals we meet trying to figure out who this guy is and finds out it is Namkha Drimed Rinpoche (or as the web describes him: His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche is the supreme head of the Ripa lineage of Nyingma Vajrayana Buddhism and a living Tertön. Ok, roger that. Translated by me he’s a very respected monk who practiced at Tiger’s Nest many years ago who I’ll refer to as NDR for short. While recently meditating he received a divine prayer and teaching which has never been spoken before and he is coming to Tiger’s Nest today to offer the prayer and teaching. This is a big deal, and we’re going to be there just in time.

So the hustle begins. Thinley decides I need to get my beads blessed by NDR so I’ll have a Rinpoche trifecta of blessings.

As we’re making our way up the trail an elder monk we pass asks me where I’m from. When I tell him Texas he tells me his son went to UTEP. Such a small world! And when I mention Texas another voice pops up behind this monk’s entourage. ‘Texas?’ ‘I’m from Arkansas.’ And enter Drew from Arkansas. Drew is a dentist on a solo tour too who lived in Austin before meeting his wife and moving to Arkansas. Drew is a really nice guy who is just as excited about being here as me and we share about our incredible experiences here as we make the final stretch to Tiger’s Nest. Mood is improving a little more.

And then you get to Tiger’s Nest and it just seems impossible. Thinley says it is, after all Guru Rinpoche got here by riding on the back of a flying tigress. Me, good old one step at a time.

There are steep stairs everywhere and more rooms with tales of incarnations and visions and gurus than I could ever remember. Thinley doesn’t spend a lot of time explaining each room because I think he’s more excited about hearing NDR’s teaching and prayer than me and wants us to get a seat as soon as we can.

Now I find a lack of proper words to describe the depth and detail inside the rooms of the monastery, but I would like to try to describe what it’s like to sit in on a teaching by a visiting monk in Bhutan.

First you pick one of the smallest rooms in the monastery because it is the room with the most revered statue and then you try to triple the capacity of the room. Out of respect you sit as close to each other as possible to make as much room as possible, your knees are on your neighbor’s legs and the guy in front of you is almost on top of you and there are people on balconies and you are crammed in as tight as possible, not an extra inch anywhere, but at the same time you have all the space you need. You can feel the excited reverence in the air. Then a sweet guy next to you offers you persimmon and won’t take thank you but no for an answer. And you eat your first persimmon and realize that eating persimmon is a real experience – kind of like eating glue and your mouth starts going a little numb and you wonder if this is a good thing or a really bad thing but you just go with it and look at Thinley kind of confused and he laughs and says it’s weird right? And you survive and when the sweet man offers a second piece you have to say yes and repeat the whole thing all over again. But that’s the Bhutanese. They want to share everything. And as I’m the only westerner in the packed crowd I guess I looked like I needed a little extra love, or just a piece of persimmon. 

So you’ve got this extremely packed little room with all these people who want to see the monk and hear the teaching but you still have to maintain a pathway for the tourists to come and see the religious statues of Guru Rinpoche in the room. I say to Thinley this is crazy, why don’t they close this room to tourists until the teaching is over, and he offers a classic Bhutanese response. You see all these tourists have come to Bhutan to see Tiger’s Nest and they’ve paid to come in and they deserve to see the statues and receive the blessings too. And so all the Bhutanese crammed into this little room to see a religious master continue to make sure there is room for the tourists to pop in and get a look. 

And then the monk arrives and somehow from my little spot in a corner in front of the balcony I can see the monk. And I see the monk holding this tiny little microphone. And I can hear absolutely nothing. I see him talking but can’t hear a thing. And then it’s over and everyone starts chanting prayers. And someone comes out with a plastic bag and everyone puts their prayer beads in the bag and the monk takes them to get blessed and comes back and hands the prayer beads back out. (Raise your hand when you see yours). Thinley explains that it doesn’t matter if you could hear the teaching or not, you were present and your heart was open and you received the blessings just for being present. Cool, that was easy. And you end by getting a direct blessing from the NDR which, being my first direct blessing from a high Buddhist master was a new experience. Basically, I stand in line and move forward until I’m standing in front of the master. Then I bow and wait for what seems like forever, but was probably about two seconds, and I’m not sure what is supposed to happen and so I start to wonder if I’m missing a step and start to come out of the bow when all of a sudden I get lightly bopped on the head by a holy cloth thing and bam, just like, blessing complete. Thinley can’t believe our luck. Three Rinpoche’s. Three blessings. One unforgettable day at Tiger’s Nest. 

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The day ends in Paro with Thinley and me on a needle in a haystack hunt for a souvenir Bhutan dish towel. Which does not exist in Bhutan, so he decides we should improvise and if we can just find a normal towel we can get it embroidered at the tailor shop. While this seems like a lot more work than I expected we’ve got some time to kill before dinner and it does seem like an interesting challenge. About thirty local shops later and digging through bins and bins of textiles in shops that all look the same I ask Thinley where all the textiles come from. He says everywhere. Bangkok, India, China, Bangladesh. They just keep coming and Bhutan keeps trying to dig their way out. Everything seemed to cost about $1.10USD and eventually we did find a towel and a patch and my first DIY souvenir dish towel souvenir was created. For our last dinner Thinley takes me to the Mountain Café, the most western café in all of Paro as he thinks I’ve had enough traditional Bhutanese food for the week and perhaps I want something different like pizza or a burger. I don’t really but he’s really excited about me trying this café and so we compromise.

An Ema Datshi pizza.  

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Love,

rk