Kham adventure

Ganzi...a meeting place for the prefecture..in a high valley..11,300 ft, surrounded by 20,000 ft sharp jagged mountains. The monastery overlooks the town and the confluence of two rivers. From the monastery, the town, mostly adobe looks cozy and tucked up against the ridge on which it sits. We want to learn more about this yellow hat school of Tibetan Buddhism and Lee, our guide , finds a tibetan girl who speaks Tibetan and Chinese to interpret for us. Soon we are looking at tankas (scroll paintings) depicting protectors of the monastery, protectors of the faithful and the good sensible life. In some of the depictions of hell, explicit erotic images illustrate transgression and its punishment.
We saw the meditation hall empty and could take pictures, and later listened to the noonday prayers and observed the meal..not only was there the sound of the chanting, but the very pleasing thud thud thud of the running younger monks as they scurried to serve tea and rice to the seated monks. We then had an audience with a more senior monk and asked questions about the monastery and its practices..they do help couples in trouble by drawing on a number of books that outline the good married life and there is skill involved in picking the appropriate stories.
When asked about the nature of the Buddha, we got the expected answer: the equivalent of 'those that know, don't speak and those that speak do not know" He is in his 40's and became a monk at 18 to avoid physical work to find that studying was hard work (laughing)

On the streets of Ganzi, we are always surrounded by happy laughing people.They are absolutely enthralled with the image of themselves that they can see on the little monitor on the back of the camera...even the shyest person wants to see themselves...it is absolutely irresistible and they react as if it is magic..which was the point of Clark's ( of 2001 fame) observation that anyone confronted with a technology they don't understand attibutes the effect to magic.

The culture is amazing for the high good spirits we feel on all sides..no wonder it has its champions, Pam Logan for one. I keep running an internal check to see if this some kind of projection of mine along the old 'noble savage' idea we have of Native Americans..there is no doubt that their faces and humor are so Navaho, or Hopi or Zuni that I am strongly predisposed..they love comic pantomine..so when we wave our arms, make faces, imitate ourselves in our pursuit of a photo..they laugh and laugh and give us thumbs up...

Tomorrow we head for Dege..

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