Vanessa martin quintana

Once you walk past the Lower Mustang, the traveler enters the world of the Lo-pa; taller, stronger-built people with darker skin and high cheekbones. Men and women usually wear turquoise and coral jewelry, sometimes have a gold tooth too. It is not difficult to imagine why in countries such as Mongolia, they used to think Tibetans were powerful sorcerers.

One of every seven districts enjoys electricity from solar panels, but in 2019, the shutdown of a recent Chinese solar power project due to the weather forced all the inhabitants to rely exclusively on their traditional resources; saplings of brushwood piled on the flat roof and cow dung pasted on one of the external walls. A brass teapot is always on, and from time to time, the householder opens the wood stove to add pieces of egg cartons to the fire. The smoke meets the last rays of light from the only window, always placed on the west wall to get the late sun in. The smell of juniper and the Tibetan figures moving in the semi-dark may alter the tired traveler's visions.

There is no road beyond Lo Manthang, the capital. Everything is transported in the back of mules, yaks, or dzos, and people and goods take days to reach the next hamlet. On the way from Yara to Ghuma Tanti, the mules have to pass through the Kali Gandaki empty riverbed, with the deepest gorge in the world towering on both sides. The traveler may spend days walking without finding anyone.

Lo-pa people believe Tibetan demons created the eerie rock formations and dyed the mountains with their blood, but the layers of light blue, ochre, and red are the sediments of the primitive Tethys Sea. Trekking through 5,000 m high mountain passes, the landscape turns into an alpine scenery of snow-capped peaks in the Damodar Himal, a famous pilgrimage for Hindus. Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, and shamanistic beliefs called Dhom blend in a syncretic religion the traveler can sense on every step.

In 2006, the Chinese started constructing a road to connect India to China, but what could be a blessing to the isolated region is turning into a problem. Each traveler pays a $50 fee a day as a means for conservation, and Nepal Tourist Ministry makes it difficult for any independent traveler to enter without an organized trekking group. In 2001, however, the Youth Society wanted to bar the entry if the government didn't allocate 60% of these revenues to their well-being. There are 5,000 inhabitants in Upper Mustang, but no hospitals and no government-funded schools. Chinese plastic products and the lack of waste management is threatening an already fragile ecosystem. Cheap Chinese rice ruins farmers' efforts who tamed a harsh-windy land to grow barley and wheat by carefully using wall stones around their crops. Trucks emblazoned with the slogan "Chinese Tibet for a Better Nepal" are an example of the increasing Chinese influence to a land known for people's intimate connection to the environment.

Upper Mustang culturally and geographically belonged to Tibet, although the Kingdom annexed to Nepal in 1795 to fight on the Nepalese side during the Sino-Nepalese War. However, caravans continued to join the livestock that nomads took from the rainshadow country to greener pastures in springtime. Salt from Tibet and spices from India were exchanged, and Thakali people preferred women from the Tibetan plateau to marry. The region remained an independent Kingdom until Nepal claimed it in 2008 when the monarchy was abolished to become a Federal Democratic Republic. Nowadays, not wars, but climate change has become a thread to this Tibetan enclave. Whitewashed houses with flat roofs allowed snow to accumulate in winter and keep meat refrigerated. Livestock has been drastically reduced. Water sources dry up, and the fast melting season of glaciers causes flash floods, which damage the canals used to irrigate the hamlets.

To reach this place between Yara and Tangye, where Mt. Dhaulagiri towers to the left and snow-covered peaks overlap the blue mountains. The sandstone-coned pinnacles and the multicolored rocks mean you are going farther when most travelers had already turned back.

Far away from Jomsom, where motorcyclists hit the dirt road, and passed the Gokyo Lake, travelers and stupas are placed in the middle of hamlet alleys so you walk through their gate and be blessed. Once you have visited all the gompas signaled with the colors of the Sakya tradition, you must hike below the vultures coming from their sky burial at sunset in Syangboche, and pass the Luri Gompa in which a giant stupa stands inside a cave. Then, climb down the treacherous narrow paths of mixed rock, sand and scree in Yara to descend to this place on the way to Chuksang. It is a solitary 10-hour walk against the desert wind.

Polyandry, the marriage of a woman to several brothers, was a common practice in the northern Nepal region bordering Tibet. Although only 4 percent of the new generations practice it nowadays, it is still common to meet polyandrous families in Upper Mustang among people over 50 years old. Reasons for polyandry are avoiding fragmentation of the precious and scarce cropping land, the sustainability of traditions, and the protection of women and children in remote mountain areas. Traders leave the house for long periods, and monks from the Sakya and Nyingma traditions; who are not celibate, are allowed to share wives with brothers while living in the monasteries. Thus, families ensure there are always men in the house to share their household duties and help with the cattle and crops. Conservation of a fragile environment is another reason to choose this way of life. They believe a child’s conception results from accumulative sexual intercourse, which creates a stronger bond between children and their multiple fathers.

The second son's fate in each family used to be to become a monk after the first one had inherited the land. Today, Lo Manthang has 1,100 Lo-pas living in 180 mud houses, but they prefer to send their children to study to Kathmandu or India. Seventy novices live in the only monastic school funded by The American Himalayan Foundation. It is part of the Choede monastery, in which monks perform mask dances during the annual Tiji ceremony. A novice may guide the traveler inside the three 15th-century temples from which Jampa Gompa is the oldest. However, the real Mustangi temples are the sky caves, which were used as burial chambers in which mummies rest surrounded by stupas, frescoes, and shamanic Bon scriptures. It is a mysterious alternative to the Tibetan sky burials in which corpses are used to feed the vultures due to the impossibility to dig below the frozen topsoil in high altitude.

With the new road, the old merchants who controlled the main Asian salt route are becoming business owners with stores that offer both trekking equipment and Buddhist trinkets. Now the locals combine the traditional Chuba, worn with an apron, with North Face trekking clothing. Coral, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and amber came through the Silk Roads, and they are ubiquitous for they embody together with the white, the five Dhyani Buddhas, essential to Mahayana Buddhism and whose colors are represented in jewelry and the prayer flags. One year after the 2015 earthquake, chalk circles still signaled the scratches that the earthquake had caused in the 15-century frescoes of these Buddhas in the Jampa Gompa, and the Lo-pa believe the flat-braided Kali Gandaki river; named after the goddess for its black waters, saved Upper Mustang from further damage. The bright colors contrast with the chiaroscuros inside their houses, the whitewashed walls outside, and the arid desert.

Most women spin wool from yaks and Himalayan sheep to make yarn for rugs used not only to decorate the houses but also for blankets, horse saddles, car seats, and clothing. It is common to see women sit together cross-legged in their walled patios using rudimentary hand cranks on yarn spindles and combs. They are also in Lo Manthang’s labyrinthine narrow passages and its central square. The Lo-pa wash and dye the textiles outside sometimes while chanting Tibetan prayers.

Unlike the intricately patterned carpets from Central Asia, the Tibetan carpets often show a monochrome background in which mythical and religious patterns are woven. Mountain traders transport the precious Tibetan wool and rugs through the same ancient trails of pilgrims and merchants. The tradition is dying but having one of these traditional carpets from Upper Mustang means to ensure that cheap prepared textiles from India and China or child labor from the Kathmandu valley are not involved in the making.

Women in the Upper Mustang are doubly marginalized both for being women and for being mountain people. With almost no rain, the region depends on the snow levels to irrigate the soils. The few parches of fertile land shielded with stone walls from the strong wind to cultivate apples, wheat, and barley in such a barren landscape is a precious asset in families, and when men are forced to search for a more profitable job, it is women who take care of the land and animals. The feminization of agriculture in the Himalayas, the third pole, is incredibly harsh as this is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to climate change.

Having a child out of wedlock is also a considerable burden in which boys, called Ngyalus, can at least migrate to get a better job, while girls, or Ngyalmos, will be trapped without waiting for help from the father's family or the freedom to travel alone. Currently, 70% of adult women are illiterate; however, tourism is empowering women who become hostesses turning their family houses into guest houses or selling food and the clothes they wave along the hiking trails.

Since the war ended in 2006, the Indigenous population, the Janapati, have struggled to turn their country into a federal state. There are more than 100 ethnic groups and 91 languages. The Bahuns, Newars, and Chhetris dominate the Kathmandu valley and the political sphere while the Hill tribes from where the Gurung, Tamang, Magar, and Sherpa come from constitute 50% of the population with the Madhesi from the Terai plains bordering India as the most discriminated. Besides, there is a caste system, which even the Buddhists follow. After the 2015 earthquake, the pressure to have laws that had taken nine years to be written intensified, and in September, the new constitution was adopted. Women and outcasts attained more representation and rights, but many considered it regressive to the Janapati. On my first journey to Upper Mustang in 2016, I asked Kebi Gurung, in the picture, about the fight that broke out in Nepal’s parliament when the deadline was approaching. He answered, “We do not have a democracy; we have a demon-crazy.”

75% of children from ages 10 to 19 leave Upper Mustang to study in lower Mustang; Phokara or Jomsom or even further in Kathmandu or India. ONGs help those children to find family sponsors, but the pressure to finish their studies alone and the separation becomes a painful burden for families. This large percentage in children outmigration has only occurred in the past in countries with an indigenous population, such as North America or Australia in which the governments forcefully separated their children from their parents.

Rarely, those teenagers will come back because finding a job in Upper Mustang that fit their skills is impossible. Many also suffer rejection from their community as they can’t speak their dialect fluently and see coming back as a failure. The lack of labor-power in the new generations turns agricultural fields barren. Eventually, the elders must also migrate to cities to be taken care of by their children.

Lopas sit at Lo Manthang’s main square. On the wall, the name of Jigme Palbar Bista, the last King of Upper Mustang who died in 2016 after spending his final years trying to fight climate change. Next, in green letters, drawings of trees and a call to vote shows the importance of keeping the climate in the first elections' agenda after Bista's death. Bista was already the king during the stationing in Mustang of Chushi Gangdruk, the Tibetan Resistance Army. The Khampa tribe guerrillas hid in the mountains from 1961 until 1974 and fought to free Tibet from the Maoist. Bista lost his title after the monarchy was abolished in 2008 in the aftermath of Nepal's Maoist insurgency. But locals continued considering him their political and spiritual leader.

A decade ago, the adjacent Samzong village was the source of water for several villages, now water scarcity has prompted the settlement to relocate during the summer months, and men search for employment away. The entire hamlet is run by women who need water for household activities. In Yara, women have to walk for hours to use the only available water taps. Nearby the people from Dhye are recognized as Nepal's first climate refugees.

Large families confined in close quarters and unemployment, insecurity, and poverty, have rapidly increased violence against women. Nepalese emigrants come back home jobless, very often after contracting traveling debts they can’t repay. Girls who stay at home now will have fewer possibilities to go back to school than boys, and many of them will have to adopt the traditional role of caretakers for those with health conditions who had been denied access to hospitals, children that are suffering from contagious diseases due to lack of vaccination this year or those recovering from Covid-19.

Nepal is the third country in Asia with the highest rate of child marriage after Bangladesh and India. After the 2015 earthquake, the numbers skyrocketed, and this new crisis is feared to increase forced marriages even more. Besides, the number of births in hospital centers has halved, and crowded quarantined centers are unsafe for women coming back home from abroad.

The UN Women agency warns about this shadow pandemic that can revert all the past decade's progress.

Monks in Buddhist monasteries around Nepal could lead their everyday life in retreat and complete their exams in August during the heavy monsoon season. The Bodhisattva vow from the Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes compassion for all living creatures. Monks have approached the tasks of alleviating pain during the pandemic through rituals and mantras based on Bon animistic practices to dispel obstacles and a more practical approach in which many young monks participate in food distribution.

After breakfast and morning prayers, monks dispute the Buddhist philosophy every morning in the gompa’s courtyard when the weather allows. Passion and even fights among monks are common. The questioner, mala in hand, stomps on the ground, shouts, and claps with his hands in a dance-like trance to encourage the defendant seated cross-legged to answer whether accepting or refuting his argument. This tradition comes from the Indian style debates, which started in Vihara, Nalanda, in the 5th century CE. It was one of the first attempts at an organized center of knowledge during the Silk Road period in which sage philosophers such as Nagarjuna and Asanga taught.

The relationship between the Shanga, the monastic community, and lay people is essential as Theravadins consider that only a monk can attain enlightenment. Therefore, lay people seek to gain merit by giving alms, food, and medicine, and in return, monks provide spiritual support, blessings, and prayers so the villagers can be reborn to become ordained monks and attain liberation. The center of the doctrine is The Fourth Noble Truths, established to understand the causes of suffering and eradicate them.

Theravadins accept as the Buddha word only what was collected in the Tipitaka; 3 books collected in Sri Lanka around the 3thd century BCE and written in Pali language. Their sectarian lineage traces back to the Elders who followed in the tradition of the senior monks of the first Buddhist Shanga. The Buddha himself called the religion he founded Dhamma-Vinaya, "doctrine and discipline", in reference to the two fundamental aspects of the system of ethical and spiritual training he taught.

“I take refuge in the three jewels; the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha,” a samanera vows in their initiation ceremony after having his head and eyebrows shaved before the full moon, and removing his clothes in renunciation.

Children can already be introduced into the Shanga at the age of 7, counted from the time of their conception. It is not a practice unique to Buddhism. In former times, large poor catholic families used to consecrate one of their teenage children to their faith in the hope of a better education.

The life of a samanera, meaning “Going forth”, is the one of an ascetic. They must wake up at 4 am to pray and meditate, they have household duties to keep the temples in order, and must refrain from eating after noon time. Visits from family are scarce, but after having an education, novices' second main reason to stay is called Thodtan Bounkhun, gratitude to parents.

Theravadins profoundly revere the historical Buddha as a perfected master, but do not pay homage to the numerous buddhas and bodhisattvas worshiped in the Mahayana, or Northern Buddhism of China, Japan, Korean, and Tibet.

But despite the austerity, the Theravada lineage is not free from syncretism. Animist beliefs called Phi; the spirit in Laos, blend with Buddhism. Monks are trained in The Sak Yant, the protective tattoos, using spell mantras and written in Pali or Khmer, which vary from granting compassion to conquering enemies. Sacred animals and cosmology, such as the nine peaks of the mythical Mount Meru, are also common. The monks use a bamboo needle and ink blended with snake venom and other ingredients considered magical, and tattoos are chosen according to what monks perceive in the other one.

The Theravada Tradition, or Southern Buddhism, attributes to the Buddha several stories in which he warns of women as they elicit desire. A woman cannot attain nirvana, but historians claim that the lineage of nuns goes back to the first shangas created by the Buddha and was banned around the 12th-century a.D.

In Thailand, a Buddhist imposition of 1928 allows women to be samaneris, but they cannot be ordained as that would empower them to transmit teachings and ordain other nuns. During ceremonies, the most veteran novice must sit behind a child newly arrived at the shanga, their tasks are relegated to cleaning, and their vows are double and include submission to the monks. Therefore, many women defy the system by traveling to Sri Lanka or India to return as ordained nuns and live in monasteries not recognized by the Tradition.

Food plays an important ritual role in the monks’ life. Buddha’s first speech teaches the concept of The Middle Way, stating that one who wants to attain enlightenment must avoid the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification to remain focused and strong. To show discipline, the young novices must fast most of the day. Previously, the Tak Bak, or alms ceremony, provides them with a first meal made of balls of sticky rice molded by villagers with their fingers and deposited on the bowl each monk carries on their shoulders. In the procession, children go first in line, and the locals wait for them in the street kneeled or seated in a low stool. There is no eye contact or exchange of words. It is a barefoot walking meditation around Luang Prabang at dawn.

This ceremony strengthens the union between the shanga and the community. The locals create good karma, and the monks pray for them in gratitude and assist in giving them advice based on Buddhist precepts. However, this ancient ceremony has been threatened in the last years as many tourists gather to take photos without any respect or understanding and stopping and touching the monks.

Wat Manorom, built in the 14th century, is one of the oldest temples in Luang Prabang in Laos, and one of the most beautiful ones in which paintings, gold carved doors, and giant statues meet. Most experts agree that the monastery is located on one of the earliest Khmer Buddhist missions to the area, although its style belongs to the Sukhothai rather than Khmer. It is well- known for hosting in its nave a 6-meter-high bronze Buddha touching the Earth, which marks the moment that Buddha attained Nirvana. The other sculptures and paintings combine Jatakas, episodes of Buddha’s life, with mythical divine creatures of Indian origin, such as water Nagas and female sky dancers.

This Wat also holds the most significant number of monks and novices in Luang Prabang. They wander in groups around the stupas, shrines, and their dormitories or sit together in the drum and bell tower used to call to a prayer or study time.

The monks' dormitories surround the temple complex, and teenagers share their space with the smaller children to be responsible for them. The bedrooms' decoration is frugal. There are beds with thin mattresses and sheets folded with tight hospital corners, a shelf with saffron robes on top, a fan, ubiquitous in Laos, and a small table to place the notebooks, and the alms bowl. The rest of their belongings are collected in a plastic bag hanging on the wall.

The small town of Luang Prabang has 34 pagodas, which makes it the spiritual center of Laos and a UNESCO world heritage landmark. The bond created between the oldest and youngest novices is evident, and it is usual to see them in town, walking around the Colonial French architecture and the markets or doing somersaults in the Mekong river where they bathe with their robes on. Outside their dormitories, among the palm trees, the bright saffron robes hung extended in clothing lines to dry, and the feral cats get into the temple complex looking for cuddles from the boys who are taught compassion to all living creatures.

The ordination ceremony is a rite of passage that almost every boy in Laos will undertake at some point in his life. The bond between the family, the child, and the shanga can be seen in the role parents adopt for the three-day rituals. Parents cut their son's hair letting the locks fall on a large lotus leaves that the boy holds on his lap. The lotus is a primordial symbol of purity in all forms of Buddhism, and the hair is a former symbol of royalty, which reminds the legendary origins of the Buddha as a prince who left luxury behind. The same happens with the feast parents prepare, which the boy will not share, resisting the temptation. The boy will also throw coins over his shoulders, representing he leaves the material world behind him.

The next day the boy will go to the temple with his family, all dressed in white. After the Pali chants and repeating the precepts with the pagoda's abbot, the child will ask for forgiveness to his parents for all the suffering and trouble they had caused them. Then, parents will give the child three saffron robes and an alms bowl as his only possessions.

Theravada Buddhism is the school that has better preserved the traditions of early Buddhism; one of them is the strong connection between the shangha and nature. The first Buddhist monks were wandering mendicants who only stop traveling during the monsoon season. They would retreat to a forest grove where they would intensify their meditative practice. Today, the time a monk spends in a monastery are counted in the number of Vassas, the Rains retreats, from July to October.

Thailand and Laos deforestation is only surpassed by the tragic amount of forest loss in Borneo. The eco-monks from Thailand started their protests performing rituals in which they ordained trees in ceremonies signaled them by tying a piece of a saffron robe around the tree. They have influenced environmental activism in Laos. Engaged Buddhism is a concept that began in the ’60s and was linked to antiwar protests and leaders like the Vietnamese Thich Nhat Hanh, who used the idea of Karma, meaning action, to demonstrate to a whole generation of Theravada monks that actions are our only true belongings and a monk must engage in activism.

Although part of the status of the shanga comes from the detachment from the mundane, their continuity and immunity to change, in recent years, monasteries are reorienting their efforts to reframe the active role the monks have in their community. Buddhism's greatest goal is to eliminate suffering, and socially engaged Buddhism helps monks serve laypeople better using their experience and training to assist in issues such as drug prevention or providing relief to terminal patients. For instance, The Metta-Thamma HIV/AIDS project results from international cooperation with UNICEF, one of the organizations that assists and promotes the change in the Lao monastic mentality.

Literacy, art, rural construction, preparation of rituals and seasonal festivals, births, and funerals or mediating in family disputes are traditional activities that made the monastic community necessary. Throughout history, the French colonies, the Pateth Lao regime, and even the CIA used the shangha to be a political instrument. But now, for the first time, activism is developed to help novices integrate into society whether they become fully ordained or leave after completing their studies.

Dharma, sometimes translated as “The Truth,” teaches an elaborate code of ethics that will accompany the young person throughout his life, even if he leaves. From that moment, the title Tit diminutive of Bhundit, an educated man, will be added to his name.

At the age of twenty, the novice is prepared and will decide if he wants to stay, accept the 227 rules of the Patimokkha code, and be fully ordained. He will become a Bhikkhu, a mendicant, or according to The Dammaphada, a person who sees danger in the cycle of reincarnations. To be fully present, vigilance and perseverance will be his best qualities. His goal will be to become an Arhat, or a perfect being, someone who has attained enlightenment for his own merits.

In the Theravada Tradition, the idea of the Arhat contrasts with the figure of the Bodhisattva from the Mahayana tradition, the School of Buddhism, of which Tibet is representative. In Mahayana, those who attain enlightenment should come back again and again as masters until the last living creature on Earth has been freed from suffering.