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 See Carole on KARE11's
Morning Show
10a-11a
Next Appearance
March 16, 2010
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As anyone knows whose studied Feng Shui, if your space is sacred, then it’s that much easier to bring sacredness into your inner life. It’s easy to feel this blessedness in a temple or a church, for example. But in the middle of a freeway it takes a great deal of intention. However, whether its working a job or re-arranging furniture as we often do in Feng Shui, or whether its traveling, the deeper the intention the more sacred it becomes.
In November, I joined 60+ other pilgrims and we set off for Taiwan, Nepal and India for two weeks. Our purpose was to visit Tibetan Buddhist monasteries of the Bon religion. This trip was being led by Professor Thomas Lin Yun, Feng Shui master, teacher and Buddhist llama.
This wasn’t a trip of my dreams. I had never held
a fantasy about jetting off to Katmandu or toTaiwan. And India? Well, it rankedup there with root canals. Yet suddenly I found myself lured on this trip. Part of it was being able to travel with Professor Lin. Part of it was the synchronicity with which the trip came to me. Nevertheless, I got the required shots and visas and left my home, my husband and my cats.
After forty-three-and-a-half hours of travel and lay-over time, we landed in Kathmandu. Maybe I was overly exhausted from all the airports I’d been in, but the airport in Kathmandu looked like a decrepit, dirty torture chamber for luggage not to
mention travelers. It was a stretch to put sacredness into this picture.
Countless times throughout the trip I had to remind myself that my intention could make anything sacred. Every experience is purposeful and that no encounter is without meaning. I had some difficult moments remembering this when driving through the squalor and poverty, breathing the thick brown pollution and enduring hours on a bus that magnetically gravitated toward every pot-hole in the narrow roads.
Still one set of events that happened throughout the trip defies explanation. It’s sacredness eludes me to date. I can only hope that in sharing the story, I will eventually understand its significance and its sacredness to me.
The first full day in Katmandu, Nepal, we visited a shrine in the morning. My group was being led by an English speaking guide, but another group was also being led by a different guide speaking a different language at the same time. I couldn’t help but notice trailing near the end of the group an unusual person----in fact, I couldn’t even discern whether we were talking male or female here. His (her) head was shaved and he/she was dressed in a gray lab coat, white sox and sandals. The person was only about four feet tall with small child-like bone structure and features, but a face indicative of advanced age. She/he also had an exaggerated over-bite, exposing over-sized upper teeth.
After lunch we visited another site---a stupa called Bouddhanath. There was this strange little person again. In my mind I decided she was female, simply based on size. Later in the afternoon, another temple, another site, much to my surprise I saw her again.
The second day in Katmandu we took a bus to Bachtenpur, an hour-and-a-half away, to visit several sites and temples there. It was almost unsettling to find her at every site we went to. We never made eye contact so I wasn’t sure she had noticed the synchronicity of our schedules.
The third day we went to another stupa before leaving Katmandu. We walked the circumference of the stupa as is the tradition, turning the prayer wheels. There were vendors galore at this stupa, requiring a lot o energy on our part to fight them off. They would stick some cheap trinket in your face and yell "Only ten dollah!" I’m trying to find the sacred in this particular moment when I saw her again. This is getting so weird that I finally point her out to a fellow traveler to see if she’s noticed her at all. She assured me she’d never seen her before.
That afternoon we began our trek into India. We took a plane from Katmandu to Delhi, then a bus from Delhi to Agra. This took two days before we were settled in Agra. The first morning in Agra we, of course, had to visit the Taj Mahal. There were only a million tourists at the Taj by 9 AM. Specific directions and great care were give to all of us from our tour guides with regard to where and when we’d all meet back to leave. With these crowds, it would be easy to lose someone. I wasn’t feeling well that day, so I opted to find a bench to sit for most of the time. I had a great view and through the smog I could tell there was sun somewhere. I gazed over the throngs of people and my eyes landed on her again. I couldn’t tell if my chills were from not feeling well or from the shock of seeing her again. Later on at the Amber Fort in Agra, she was there again.
The following day we went to Jaipur. Again. On the bus from Jaipur back to Delhi, we made a bathroom stop. There was a gift store. Once again.
I never saw her after that bathroom stop somewhere between Jaipur and Delhi. But I did get another piece to the puzzle at the Delhi airport as we were about to leave. I saw three women in the same gray lab coats, white sox and sandals. When I asked the tour guide, he told me they were nuns from Korea.
I have yet to discover the intention behind these encounters or why she even made such an impact on me. I remember that no encounter is without meaning. There were too many incidences to be simply coincidental. It seems strange
that having been on the other side of the world, I didn’t write about the monasteries, the monks, the mountains, but instead I was struck by a Korean nun who, as far as I know, doesn’t know I exist. As I write about her she seems so close. It’s funny what strikes us as sacred sometimes, but we find the sacred where we can.
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