Chapter 4 - Kachenla, the fatherly friend and mentor

Whenever I happened to wake up during the night I beheld the benign features of Buddha Maitréya's golden face, which seemed to float high above the shadowy forms that filled the temple in the dim light of the Eternal Lamp. And in the golden, softly radiating face the large deep blue eyes seemed to be filled with supernatural life, and I felt their glance resting upon me with infinite tenderness.

Sometimes in the middle of the night a strange shuffling sound awoke me, accompanied by what appeared to be the sound of heavy breathing. As the nights were very cold and I was well wrapped up, it took me some time before I could make up my mind to raise myself up and to look around. But the knowledge that the temple was closed at night, and that there was no living soul in it except myself, aroused my curiosity.

And then I saw the slowly moving dark figure of an old man in the open space before the altar, raising his joined hands above his head, going down upon his knees and hands, and then stretching himself out upon the floor in his full length, after which he would again get up and repeat the same exercise over and over again, until his breath was heavy with exertion. After that he moved silently along the walls, bowing before each of the images and touching the lower rows of the sacred books and the feet of Maitréya reverently with his forehead. He moved in a clockwise direction, and when coming back along the right wall towards my corner, I recognised him as the venerable old monk who lived in a small room flanking the porch that formed the entrance of the temple.

It was easy to recognise him because of his slightly bent figure and his long beard, which is comparatively rare among Tibetans. He was the oldest monk in the monastery and hailed from Shigatse. In his younger days he had been one of the personal attendants of the Tashi Lama (or Panchen Rimpoché, as he is known in Tibet) from whom he still received a small pension which, as I found out later, he mainly used for the improvement and beautification of the temple, while he himself lived like the poorest and humblest of monks at the temple door with no other personal possessions than his sitting-mat and his monastic robes. He was bent not so much from age, perhaps, as from sitting for years and years in the posture of meditation, and, in fact, his whole life seemed to be a continuous Sādhanā (religious practice).

But this did not preclude him from playing occasionally with the children who ran about in the courtyard of the monastery and sometimes invaded the temple in order to tease old Kachenla, who good-naturedly would pretend to chase them among the low benches and the little tea-tables of the temple hall. His friendly little eyes would twinkle in such a way that even his most threatening gestures could not frighten the smallest of the little urchins, who would pull his flapping robes and scream with pleasure when die old man made an attempt to catch him.

In spite of his old age I never saw Kachenla unoccupied: whether he would glide about the temple on two square pieces of felt, in order to keep the floor polished, or whether he would attend to the hundreds of butter-lamps, water-bowls, and other altar-vessels, which had to be kept clean and shining and filled with their various ingredients---ever was he busy in the service of the temple or in the performance of his spiritual duties: reading the sacred texts, reciting prayers for the welfare of all living beings, and performing the daily rituals for their protection and well. being. On special occasions he would be making small clay images of great beauty, and I was fascinated to see how every phase of the work, from the mixing and kneading of the clay, the modelling or pressing into forms, to the drying or baking in the charcoal fire and the subsequent gilding or painting (or both) of the delicate details, every process was accompanied by mantras and prayers, invoking the blessings of the Enlightened Ones and the beneficent forces of the universe, present in earth and air, water and fire, i.e. in all the elements which support our life and serve win the accomplishment of our work. Thus even a manual occupation was turned into a ritual of profound meaning and an act of devotion and meditation, whose forces would saturate even the material objects created in this way.

What Kachenla taught me in his humble way was more than I shall ever be able to convey in words. His devotion and his utter humility prepared my mind for the meeting with my Guru---in fact, he was part and parcel of the Guru who was ever present in his mind and so inseparably united with him that the gratitude and veneration which I feel towards my Guru includes Kachenla. He looked after my welfare as if I was his own son. He taught me the first words of Tibetan by pointing at things and pronouncing their names. In the morning he would bring me warm water---a luxury in which he himself would not indulge and which none of the other monks could afford---and while doing so he would say chu tsawo. He would share with me his beloved sö-cha (Tibetan butter-tea), which was simmering the whole day long on his little charcoal stove behind which he had his seat. That I relished this strange concoction of Chinese tea, slightly `matured' butter, soda, and salt---which few non-Tibetans seem to be able to stomach---must have been due to Kachenla's overwhelming kindness. And how important it was to get accustomed to this indispensable and nourishing drink I realised in my later wanderings on the frozen highlands of Tibet.

Before enjoying his morning tea Kachenla would take a pinchful of black seeds, arrange them on the palm of his left hand in the form of a scorpion, and while reciting the mantra for protection from all evils, he would drop them into the charcoal fire. On other occasions he would crinkle some incense upon the charcoal and describe with various beautiful gestures (mudra) of his hands a variety of symbolical gifts which he offered to the Buddhas, at the same time pronouncing a formula of dedication for each of them. This was done in such perfect and naturally flowing movements that I could almost see the various objects appearing before my eyes and that I had no doubt of the sincerity with which they were given. There was nothing theatrical or pompous or artificial in these little rituals. They seemed to be the natural expression of the man's inner life, as natural as the breathing of his lungs or the beating of his heart. He moved among the multitude of enlightened beings as well as among gods and demons, as naturally as among humans and animals, giving to each of them the recognition or attention due to them. In the evenings Kachenla would generally come into my quiet corner in the temple with a lit butter-lamp, sit down before me on the floor, and motion me to take out paper and pencil; and with infinite patience he would recite and dictate one prayer after another and make me repeat it until I caught the right pronunciation and intonation. It never bothered him that I could not understand a single word in the beginning, though he pointed out the image of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas concerned, so that I was not left entirely without guidance and could connect the words with a definite mental picture.

He seemed to be confident that he transmitted to me something that was of infinite value, whether I knew it or not; and to say the truth I experienced a similar satisfaction, because I was convinced that a gift given with such infinite love and devotion was valuable through this very fact, and, indeed, I felt that something was streaming over from the old man to me that filled me with happiness, though I could find no reasonable explanation for it. It was the first time that---without knowing it---I experienced power of mantra, of sacred speech, in which the transcendental sound of the spirit that dwells in the human heart is perceived. And because it is the sound of the heart it cannot be heard by the ear or understood by the brain. But this I did not know yet, though I began to experience it.

Later on I was able to understand the contents and the meaning of those prayers, but this knowledge did not surpass the initial benefit I had derived from them, and now I know that more important than the intellectual meaning of the words were the circumstances under which they were transmitted and the spiritual purity and conviction of the transmitter.