Sangha Sharing

A Losar Memory – Tibetans and Westerners Join Together in One Voice

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Tibetan villagers young and old began arriving at the gate of Menri Monastery in first light of Losar after hiking the steep slope from their homes in the valley below. Carrying khatas and dressed in their finest traditional outfits of the brightest reds, azures, turquoises, and yellows, they gathered within the courtyard in front of the gompa as giant plumes arose from a smoke offering in their midst.

I joined other villagers and monks circumambulating the gompa, grateful to be sharing in an ages-old connection to the Bon tradition on this special day. Within no time the scattering of walkers became a major procession. A handful of us students of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche had converged here in India for this first Ligmincha Losar retreat. We felt welcomed by monks and villagers alike, and their excitement about our presence there was palpable.

As I walked along silently reciting the Tu-Ti-Su mantra, I recalled how Rinpoche had first introduced this mantra to me five years earlier, before he’d had a chance to include it in any formal teachings in the West. He and I were in Richmond, Virginia, painting the walls of a room in a friend’s house that Rinpoche had just chosen to become the first headquarters for his new Ligmincha Institute. As we applied the paint, Rinpoche began softly singing a beautiful Tibetan melody. I was intrigued, and he suggested that I simply sing along. I was soon in love with the melody and comfortable with the Tibetan syllables, so as we painted, I casually asked him what it was we were singing. He smiled and said simply that “it brings good energy to the room,” and that “it's like a folk song to Tibetan Bonpos,” meaning that everyone knows it. Little did I know, then, the true depth and power of that mantra. I simply sang!

Surrounded now by Bonpo monks and villagers as we all circumambulated the gompa, venerating this wonderful connection to the Bon lineage, I tempted fate and began to softly sing aloud the Tu-Ti-Su mantra amidst this silent procession. The young children who had attached themselves to me immediately grew wide-eyed and began singing along, and quickly the chorus grew to include everyone walking within earshot. Soon children were clutching my hands and my sleeves as we all, villagers, Westerners, and monks, sang in one unified voice, sounding a prayer for a New Year of happiness and prosperity for all sentient beings, with the wish that the Bon tradition and its teachers be blessed to flourish forever into the future.

A KAR A ME TU TI SO NAG PO SHI SHI MAL MAL SOHA

— Written by senior student and VOCL co-editor Jeff Fisher while on retreat in India following the Losar celebration at Menri Monastery, 1995. Photographs by Stephen Ledyard, taken during a 2007 pilgrimage to Tibet.