Spinning Prayer Wheels in the Himalayas
A prayer lesson from a Buddhist monk
Time for more travel reflections. The following is about a trip I took some years ago to Ladakh, in the Indian Himalayas, and a particular experience one morning at a Buddhist monastery. The prayer I write about is centered on a desire to awaken compassion for all beings, so perhaps it’s a nice antidote to the news headlines that now inundate us every day.
The Indian Himalayas
The heavens were colored a passionate blue and the earth below was draped in a jagged blanket of white. We were in the midst of one of the world’s most breathtaking plane flights and I lost track of time as we glided in a dream world through shimmering skies above the snow-capped Himalayas.
I snapped out of my trance when our aircraft rolled to the right, banking around a stony peak that seemed close enough to touch, then emerged into a valley and began a precipitous descent. Almost before we had a chance to prepare ourselves for a landing, we abruptly tapped the ground and skated to a stop on the runway of the Leh airport, the gateway to the Ladakh region of northern India.
Back on terra firma, we stepped off the plane and into the sun-soaked but oxygen-deprived air of Ladakh, at almost 12,000 feet. The airport consisted of a landing strip and a small building, just large enough to handle two arrivals and departures per day. After collecting our luggage and hiring a taxi, a quick 15 minutes later we were checking into a hotel on Old Leh Road.
“Julé!” said the desk clerk, mouthing the all-encompassing Ladakhi greeting that can mean hello, good-bye, thank you or please. “Welcome to Ladakh.”
I looked around in mild wonder. The hotel was only a few blocks from the center of Leh, Ladakh’s biggest city, but it was bordered by trees and had a flower-lined terrace with a clear view to snowy mountaintops in the distance. Our flight here had not been a long one, but compared to the India of Calcutta, Varanasi, and Delhi that we’d just trekked through, we might as well have landed on a different planet.
Ladakh, in fact, is a Tibetan Buddhist culture in the Indus River Valley, on the western edge of the Himalayas, and is strikingly different from other regions of India. As we walked around Leh in the days ahead, we saw, for instance, that the colorful saris worn by women elsewhere in the country had been replaced by long dresses, shawls and woolen caps. In restaurants, the rice, lentils, curries, chutneys, and tandoori roasted chicken of India had given way to Tibetan dumplings, noodles, stews, beef, and mutton. And the streets were lined with Tibetan craft markets and galleries devoted to Himalayan and Buddhist art.
In short, Ladakh has more in common with the mountainous Buddhist cultures of Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan than to the rest of the Indian subcontinent. The area was once on the crossroads of the overland trading route that linked Lhasa and Kathmandu with the cities of Central Asia. Ladakh today is sometimes referred to as “Little Tibet.”
That night, sitting on the terrace of our hotel, I sipped some masala tea while staring at the black Himalayan sky, filled with more stars than I ever knew existed. And I mused about the many cultures that share this planet.
Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh
The opportunity to explore the Tibetan Buddhist culture, even briefly, is what drew us to Ladakh. But of our various experiences in the region, one encounter in particular would linger in my mind.
It was before sunrise a few days later when we arose and stumbled into the chilly morning air to meet a driver who would take us Thiksey Gompa, one of several Buddhist temples and monasteries that are strewn throughout the region. This monastery allows visitors to observe monks performing their morning puja (prayer ritual), which begins at dawn.
Once there, we took a seat on the cold stone floor of a dimly lit room. Dozens of saffron-robed monks sat on low benches and chanted, some of them rocking meditatively to the murmur of morning prayers. The chants were occasionally coupled with musical notes when one of the monks would crash a cymbal or blow a horn. At periodic intervals, the younger men of the monastery dutifully rose and fetched containers of butter tea, which they poured into ceramic cups for other monks.
Outside, daylight crept over the snow-capped peaks and illuminated the village below. The chanted prayers seemed to float away through the open door on a light breeze, drifting over the valley and river to the distant mountains, where they joined the sun in greeting another day.
When the prayers were finished, we strolled quietly through the rest of the gompa and stopped along a pathway to gaze at a row of prayer wheels — metal cylinders that contain rolls of thin paper coiled around an axle (see top photo). The paper is printed with copies of a sacred prayer and the wheel is meant to be spun whenever someone walks by. As it spins, the prayer is released to the universe, which is supposed to have the same effect as if it were recited. It’s also meant to symbolize the turning of the wheel of the dharma, or the setting of the Buddha’s teachings in motion.
Spinning Prayer Wheels
An elderly monk ambled over to where we stood, slowly spinning the wheels and chanting words under his breath. He stopped in front of us and smiled. The man appeared to be in his 70s, with a thin head of gray hair and a circle of wrinkles on a weathered but radiant face.
“Om mani padme hum,” he said, in a soft, slow cadence.
I looked back at him with a questioning gaze. He repeated the words, carefully enunciating each syllable.
“Ohm mah-nee pahd-may hoom.”
He nodded to us to repeat after him.
“Ohm mah-nee pahd-may hoom.”
He corrected my pronunciation of the last consonant, which seemed to be an impossible combination of an ‘m’ and an ‘ng.’ I’m not sure I ever said it exactly right, but he smiled, spun one of the wheels and then gestured for us to do the same.
“Om mani padme hum,” he whispered. “Om mani padme hum.”
It was our own private lesson in Buddhism, though we didn’t grasp it all until later. This chant is an important Buddhist mantra and is meant to invoke the blessing of the bodhisattva of compassion. The meaning is not easily conveyed, but some have translated it in English as, “Praise to the jewel in the lotus.” It is said to refer to the awakening of the spark of divinity within each person, resulting in compassion for the welfare of all beings.
The Dalai Lama, who himself is believed to be an incarnation of the bodhisattva of compassion, has written that the meaning of the mantra “is great and vast.” At least in part, it signifies that with the correct intention, practice and wisdom, “you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure body, speech and mind of a Buddha.”
That’s a lot of meaning for six syllables. Although part of me wished I had the words and the opportunity to discuss the prayer with this monk, I also realized that any conversation would have distorted the beauty and simplicity of the moment. So I focused on the mantra.
“Om mani padme hum,” the monk said, one more time.
Then, apparently satisfied that we had memorized it, he smiled serenely and wandered away, gently spinning the prayer wheels and chanting as he disappeared into the distance.