The Snow Leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

The emptiness and silence of snow mountains quickly bring about the states of consciousness that occur in the mind-emptying of meditation, and no doubt high altitude has an effect, for my eye perceives the world as fixed or fluid, as it wishes.

And another day, she asked me shyly what would happen if she should have a miraculous recovery—would we love each other still, and stay together, or would the old problems rise again to spoil things as before?

“The mountains had been a natural field of activity where, playing on the frontiers of life and death, we had found the freedom for which we were blindly groping and which was as necessary to us as breath.”

compounded by the fact that everywhere, and almost from the start, Buddhists have adapted and adopted local deities rather than eradicate the old religions,

Then, in the first centuries after Sakyamuni’s death, certain yoga teachings of Vedic origin became systematized in esoteric treatises, called Tantras (it is sometimes claimed that they are the Fifth Veda) and the Tantric influences of these yoga cults brought about the creation of female wisdom principles, or prajnas, for each of the already numerous demons and divinities.

Tantric worship of female energies was dominant in both Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, and it was the Tantric form of Buddhism that was carried north into Tibet.

Zen makes bold use of contradictions, humour, and irreverence, applauding the monk who burned up the wood altar Buddha to keep warm.

Tibetan Buddhism, on the other hand, having incorporated the Hindu pantheon as well as B’on, must pay homage to a multitude of Buddha aspects and manifestations, with varying orders of precedence and emphasis according to the sect.

The stupa is a monument, shrine, and reliquary that traditionally derives from the Buddha’s tomb, but has come to symbolize existence.

Though these journals remind me of the date, I have long since lost track of the day of the week, and the great events that must be taking place in the world we left behind are as illusory as events from a future century. It is not so much that we are going back in time as that time seems circular, and past and future have lost meaning, I understand much better now Einstein’s remark that the only real time is that of the observer, who carries with him his own time and space. In these mountains, we have fallen behind history.

“All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. . . .”

The reversed swastika is also here, in sign of the B’on religion, still prevalent in old corners of these mountains;

B’on has degenerated into a regressive sect of Buddhism and is so regarded, here at least, by its own practitioners. As one of the townsmen says, a little sheepishly, “I am Buddhist, but I walk around the prayer stones the wrong way.”

Yesterday I wrote letters to send off with Tukten, and the writing depressed me, stirring up longings, and worries about the children, and bringing me down from the mountain high. The effort to find ordinary words for what I have seen in this extraordinary

This is a fine chance to let go, to “win my life by losing it”, which means not recklessness but acceptance, not passivity but non-attachment.

Tantric discipline called lung-gom,22 which permits the adept to glide along with uncanny swiftness and certainty, even at night. “The walker must neither speak, nor look from side to side. He must keep his eyes fixed on a single distant object and never allow his attention to be attracted by anything else.

high-altitude irritability that has ruined so many mountain expeditions.

from Mount Kailas, four great rivers—the Karnali, the Indus, the Sutlej, and the Brahmaputra—flow down in a great mandala to the Indian seas.

The Kagyu sect was established by the great Lama Marpa, the “Translator”, who made three trips to India to study with a famous teacher called Naropa. When Marpa returned to Tibet, he transmitted the Dharma to Milarepa.

Gelung-pa reforms since the sixteenth century have not changed the nature of Karma-Kagyu, or not, at least, in such far places as the Crystal Mountain. In its ascetic disciplines and spare teachings, which discourage metaphysical speculation in favour of prolonged and solitary meditation, Karma-pa practice is almost identical to that of Zen,

It seems to me wonderful karma that the Crystal Monastery belongs to this “Zen” sect, and that the Lama of Shey is a notable tulku, or incarnate lama, revered throughout the Land of Dolpo as the present reincarnation of the Lama Marpa.

Each morning before daybreak, I drag my down parka into my sleeping bag, to warm it, then sit up in meditation posture and perform a sutra chanting service for perhaps forty-five minutes, including the sutra dedicated to Kannon or Avalokita, and the Heart Sutra (the “heart” of the mighty Prahja Paramita Sutra that lies at the base of Mahayana Buddhism).

The mountains have no “meaning”, they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round.

I read until near asphyxiated by my small wick candle in its flask of paraffin, then lie still for a long time in the very heart of the earth silence, exhilarated and excited as a child. I have yet to use the large packet of Cannabis that I gathered at Yamarkhar and dried along the way, to see me through long lightless evenings on this journey: I am high enough.

In the Asan Bazaar I found the green bronze Akshobhya Buddha that became the centre of a small altar in D’s last room;

Unlike the wolves, the leopard cannot eat everything at once, and may remain in the vicinity of its kill for several days. Therefore our best hope is to see the griffons gather, and the choughs and ravens, and the lammergeier.

There is also a custom called “air burial”, in which the body of the deceased is set out on a wild crag such as this one, to be rended and devoured by the wild beasts; when only the bones are left, these are broken and ground down to powder, then mixed into lumps of dough, to be set out again for passing birds. Thus all is returned into the elements, death into life.

he has chosen a hermit’s life of solitary meditation, which being the “Short Path” to true knowledge is therefore the supreme form of existence. But to renounce the world in this way requires the ultimate discipline, as well as exceptional power and inner resources, and my admiration is mingled with regret that, by comparison, my own dedication is halfhearted and too late.

If the snow leopard should manifest itself, then I am ready to see the snow leopard. If not, then somehow (and I don’t understand this instinct, even now) I am not ready to perceive it, in the same way that I am not ready to resolve my koan; and in the not-seeing, I am content. I think I must be disappointed, having come so far, and yet I do not feel that way. I am disappointed, and also, I am not disappointed. That the snow leopard is, that it is here, that its frosty eyes watch us from the mountain—that is enough.