Boy's pilgrimage to Lhasa stays true to tradition
Updated: 2007-12-20 10:39
"I hope Goinbo can become a Zhaba in his teen years (the name for a young Lama) to lead a monastic and erudite life," said Rigba, who recalled the dozen years he spent in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.
The pair started their journey with three female relatives on February 19, the first day of the Tibetan calendar New Year - the same day as the Chinese Lunar New Year by coincidence. They walked for eight months to Guanyin Bridge (Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy) in Sichuan Province, a sacred place where they began to crawl and kowtow.
With protocol untouched, clapping hands, reciting mantras, raising them above their head and then lowering them to the chest, believers repeat three times before crawling full body on the ground. They then make a mark, stand up, walk to the mark and bow again.
Each day, Goinbo and his uncle rise at dawn, marching forward in this particular way. At noon, they drink buttered tea, eat roasted barley mixed with butter and hard wheat cake. Sometimes they stop for a while to listen to the daily news on the radio.
"A pilgrim's life is easier now," said Rigba. They used to use a trolley, but now they have a diesel-run motor tricycle. It is packed with their camping canvas, bedrolls, dry wood sticks, an energy-efficient light, portable solar panel and other necessities.
He explained that they usually rode 500 meters or more, stopped the trike, then walked back and began to crawl and kowtow on the same road.
Far away in the distance was range upon range of the snow-swept peaks of the Que'er Mountain. This was the greatest challenge of the Sichuan-Tibet route where the altitude averaged about 5,000 meters. Goinbo and his uncle would have to cross over it in a few days.
"We feel no fear. Loneliness and pain is the pilgrim's road to winning divine favor and building an afterlife," said Rigba, a glow of satisfaction on his face.
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