morning prayer

at the buddhist temple complex where the dalai lama arrived today...and where a sweet looking old monk kicked me on the ankle...

joined with the crowds to see the dalai lama drive by in the middle of a convoy. but a large portion of the town were there also it seemed.

and it seems odd to me here, in this place, that the monks should be so unfriendly, or so it seems in these past days. there seems this innate ability not to see you, tis strange. but the place has a certain charm and, just off the main street on the bhagsa road it's possible to find a 50 rupee thali...so the extortionate prices can also be avoided.

again i have no idea what i expected to find here; possibly some quietude and tolerance but these seem in short supply. there's too much seeking after karmic credit, too fixed a vision on another world. another viewpoint for sure and no less valid than mine, but i keep coming back to the Presbyterian here, there'll be cake in the next world...

and then i think again. on the elder folk here, refugees all. and the younger who have never known tibet. refugees. of how it might feel to know that you could never go home, that what remains of that place is contained only in your memories; that time has passed there also, that nothing has remained as you last saw it.. and maybe this is part of the odd feeling; that those of my ilk have chosen to come here, possibly attracted by the strange romance of exile...maybe this colours their view of us?

and the landscape is gorgeous, as the heat gathers upon the plains below; the south a hazed possiblity of hills and flatlands and the clouds offering glimpses of the bare rock of the himalya beyond. surely not so difficult to smile here..