On
our first day out of Padum, Mum and I marched along a dirt road while other
trekkers zoomed past in their sparkly white jeeps; as more road is laid it is
becoming common for people to drive the paved parts of the journey.
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| Along the road from Padum |
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| Changing terrain as we enter a new valley - leaving Zanskar behind |
The distance was shorter than expected and we were taken by surprise
when the first village we came across was Pishu, our destination for the night.
It was only lunchtime and so we decided to follow the advice of a sign, which
read something like:
Pishu Nuns welcome you to visit
our gonpa
Behind Pishu village
Donations welcome
We walked up through the village,
noticing that the irrigation channels had all dried up and the crops looked
stunted in growth. We later heard that the river bringing water into Pishu had
run dry the previous September and the whole village was living off one small
spring a twenty-minute walk from town. It seemed to us as though it was only a
matter of time before the people of Pishu would have to move on.
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| There are lots of quirky old stickers like this one plastering weathered windows and walls |
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| The Man with the Prayer Book. He sat carving stones with mantra symbols for hours on end. |
Passing through a pea field we
came across an old lady and her six-month-old granddaughter, sitting on a
blanket playing with faded toys and eating peas from tiny pea pods. The woman
laughed when she saw us and gestured for us to pick some for ourselves.
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| Grandma and little one soaking up the afternoon sun |
Behind the town stood a compound
bordered by a tumbledown white wall. An old palm tree grew from within. From up
close the place looked abandoned. We pushed through the broken gate and entered
into what might have one day been a beautiful and well-kept gonpa.
It was odd to enter a silent
gonpa; crowds of cheeky kids and friendly monks have greeted me on every other
occasion. We walked around the empty mud brick residence buildings, wondering
where all the nuns had gone, when we heard a couple of low voices. Approaching
them we found two village women dressed in their farming clothes and speaking
by the wall. They looked to be checking on the compound and smiled, gesturing
that we were welcome to explore.
On the dusty ground before a
small mud brick room at the back of the compound we came across a nun. She was wrapped
in layers of orange and magenta robes, wore a triangular orange beanie on her
head and spun a prayer wheel as she chanted a mantra under her breath.
om ah hung benza guru pema siddhi hung
She was old, her face weathered
and traced with laughter. Spinning a khor (prayer wheel) and chanting a mantra
under her breath, she sat with her eyes closed, face tilted up to the afternoon
sun. After a minute or so she stopped, opened her eyes and grinned at us.
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| The Laughing Nun from Pishu Monastery and her Khor |
The nun chatted to us in Ladakhi,
laughing and seemingly delighted to have guests. She showed us the khor she was
spinning. Its wooden handle worn into a smooth imprint of her hand, it looked
to be older than her.
She gestured to her feet, which
were encased in hard, pod-like leather booties that she had laced tightly over
a pair of old worn socks. She then pointed at our own feet. After a few repeats
we realised she was asking us if we could give her our socks. It seemed as
though she only had one pair.
Over our trek it became clear
that monasteries for nuns receive less visitation and less funding by the local
community than those that are for monks. Monks most commonly live in
comfortable conditions; the community donates food and money, the compounds are
kept looking bright and colourful, gonpas are maintained and tourism provides
another source of funding.
The nunneries are a different
story. I do not know all the reasons behind this but it is in part due to
gender inequality and the sexism that is ingrained in the Buddhist tradition.
Nuns are most often subservient to monks, are less respected by society and not
guaranteed the same level of education given to monks. Having a monk in the family
is more respectable and more like an investment and therefore society has more
incentives to contribute to their monasteries.
The disparity was clear in the
living conditions of the Pishu nuns and the state of their gonpa. After some
time with the Laughing Nun she called a slightly younger nun to show us the gonpa.
Unlocking it, the woman ushered us into a dark, old room of musty scents and
peeling paint. It was small and so were the deities. These factors were not
diminishing and I felt a strong sense of spirituality entering that room.
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| Up the steps to the gonpa |
The nun sat Mum and me down
before a shrine and handed us each a biscuit from the altar. She gestured we
stay seated and began to chant. The Laughing Nun joined us and soon Mum and I were
repeating the mantra with them. They found it hilarious and for the next half
hour we sat in the candle-lit gonpa being guided through each word of Padmasambhava’s
mantra:
om ah hung benza guru pema siddhi hung
I was later told that the Vajra Guru mantra
is used for healing.
It was evening before we headed
back over the pea paddies to our camp by the river. The younger nun didn’t want
me to go and by the end she was jokingly holding onto me and gesturing that Mum
should leave me with her. For a moment I pictured myself living a life of
sockless solitude out there with those two laughing nuns. Then I was back at
camp, preparing for a big day of climbing ahead.
As we left the next morning we
gave one of our only pairs of woollen hiking socks to a villager. He promised
to see them safely to the gonpa when he went for prayer.
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| I wonder if our pair of woolly socks now sit snugly under those booties... |
*Updated title - due to an unintentionally irreverent nickname I gave to the nuns in the first post
