Text by Alexis Racionero Ragué 09/06/2019
See original text
They are fulfilled 60 years of the occupation of Tibet, a mystical and sacred territory that has always fascinated everyone who visited it. For centuries it was closed to the world, preserving the most ancient legacy of oriental culture. Today there is a debate between tradition and modernity.
Tibet is one of the most beautiful spaces on the planet due to its serene immensity. The traveler believes he is in the kingdom of heaven, where the clouds can be touched and the stars shine brightly, as if they were flames of a great universal sacred fire. There is something magical that moves. Arid and lunar space, of infinite plain and powerful peaks. eternal snows, rivers of life, secret caves and monasteries of wisdom. On this plateau, to more than 3.000 metros, life acquires a dimension close to the gods and the feeling of nature. Friendly people live there, of faces weathered by the cold and the intensity of the sun.
From Beijing, The train takes two and a half days and travels through heights of more than 4.000 metros; the carriages receive additional oxygen while the traveler is hypnotized by the landscape
They make up a nomadic and rural society, of radiant souls schooled in Buddhist non-aggression and compassion for all living beings. Devout and simple people who live with the Han, the Chinese born there who integrate into the territory contributing their practical sense, commercial and modern.
Little by little, Time heals as the Chinese Government restores destroyed monasteries and creates a modern communications network to boost local and international tourism. The great work was the construction of the high-speed train that since 2006 travel the more than four thousand kilometers that connect Beijing and Lhasa. This is undoubtedly the best way to travel to Tibet, acclimatizing little by little, progressively overcoming the inconveniences of altitude sickness. The train takes two and a half days to cover the distance and, throughout some 900 kilometers, travels through heights higher than 4.000 metros. In this circumstance, the carriages receive additional oxygen while the traveler is hypnotized by a dreamlike landscape, with skies over eternal lakes and fields traveled by herds of yaks.
The first leg of the journey, touring Xining and Lanzhou, It is industrial and monotonous. Once the railway is raised to overcome the Tanggula Pass, to more than 5.000 metros, you access the Qinghai Plateau, the highest in the world. over the horizon, the Kun Lun mountain range, sacred mountains that Tibetan travelers worship by chanting the mantra om mani padme hum, that concentrates the essences of Buddhist philosophy. Mantra of the lotus jewel and compassion whose six syllables refer to the six realms of cyclic existence and the six transcendental virtues: ethics, patience, the diligence, generosity, concentration and wisdom. The train descends after crossing polar areas, places where the earth seems to fester the wounds of humanity.
The ease with which the railway reaches Tibet contrasts with the deeds of antiquity to set foot in this hidden place. Many of us met him thanks to Tintin's adventures looking for the Yeti. Others will have seen the movie Seven Years in Tibet, with Brad Pitt playing Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountaineer who escaped from a British prison camp to cross mountains and deserts on foot until he heroically reached the gates of Lhasa. There he became a teacher and mentor to the current Dalai Lama.. Of all the exploits carried out by Westerners in their adventure to reach Tibet, none can compare to that of Alexandra David Néel, French explorer and orientalist who wandered alone from India to enter Tibetan territory, posing as a local. In his long journey he learned Tibetan, He tanned his skin and sculpted his soul by living in caves for years, before transmitting the foundations of Buddhism and the indigenous Bon religion, in works such as Magicians and mystics of Tibet. Throughout his intense life he wrote more than 30 books about eastern religions. In a letter to her husband, shortly after entering Tibet, I told him. “From the top of the monastery terrace I look at the surrounding mountains, the forests that winter has turned yellow and copper and, higher up, the immaculate snows that shine in the sun. The desire to escape invades me. Despite the distance, I am still too tied by the thread that unites me to the world, to civilization, to their conventions, to their ways of being. I still woke up a little from the bad dream, from the overwhelming dream of individual existence, and even in my yogi cave my spirit remains that of a Parisian philosopher, artist and dilettante. Escape, free yourself from yourself and the world we carry within us. Be what the Buddhas have been…”.
Some Tibetans spend up to two months traveling enormous distances by prostrating themselves on the ground., believing that this way they will cleanse their karma
Probably, Tibet remains that, the opportunity to escape from oneself and the world around us even if only for a few days, entering a place where the sacred takes on an existential dimension. Upon arrival in Lhasa, the traveler is greeted by the cold modernity of a train station and a large hard concrete plaza at the foot of the Potala Palace. It is not until reaching Dhurbar Square, in front of the Jokhang monastery, when you feel you have reached the roots of spiritual Tibet.
Thousands of pilgrims circumambulate its enclosure in a kora that lasts throughout the day to end up prostrating themselves countless times on the temple's façade., before entering it and paying tribute to the Jowo or image of the young Buddha, sculpted in the time of Siddhartha Gautama. Incense floats in the air.
The tourist must be respectful, keep silent, do not smoke or take photos in an insolent manner. Some Tibetans spend up to two months traveling enormous distances by prostrating themselves on the ground., believing that this way they will cleanse their karma. In addition, You have to take altitude sickness into account and rest for the first few days.. You have to protect yourself from the intense sun with long clothes and reserve your strength.. This is a good time to taste delicious Tibetan cuisine, with excellent artisanal pasta dishes and that yak butter tea that fills the atmosphere with its sweet aroma, rancid, clingy.
To visit the Potala it is best to visit the first hours of the day, when the sun still doesn't burn. The staircase is endless, and its whitewashed walls of red and white, imposing. This large monumental complex houses the white palace where the Dalai Lama resided and the red one where the monks lived., as well as libraries, shrines and chapels or jewels such as the golden stupa of the eighth Dalai Lama.
In Lhasa you have to let yourself be carried away by the energy of the people moving between temples and markets. The human flood penetrates a great prayer wheel, rotating between guttural sounds and drum beats. Not everything is light in Tibet, There is also a lot of darkness and that magic that comes from shamanic and ancestral times..
On the outskirts you can visit Nechung, the temple of the old oracle which, like Deprung, is a place inhabited by monsters and demons represented in its apocalyptic wall paintings. There are also happier and more vital temples, like Sera's, which concentrates tourists witnessing the curious debate between gestures that conclude with a clap. The different schools of monks meet every day in the so-called debate patio. Around the monastery there are different caves and hermitages to visit of great interest..
At the dawn of the 21st century, Tibet continues to preserve all its magic and the incandescence of being one of the cultural beacons of antiquity
Beyond the Lhasa area there is the option of taking a two or three-day road route that crosses the lake Yamdok, with an extension of 638 square kilometers. It is an arid territory, among the snows and with stairs painted on the rocks that indicate the path where the deceased live. From the lake you descend, after crossing the Kharola pass, a glacier at five thousand five hundred meters, to the pretty village of Gyantse, with the beautiful kumbum, or great stupa of the many gates of Palkor monastery.
This building rises like a three-dimensional mandala of countless interior chapels that contain beautiful wall paintings.. The Dzong fortress is preserved on the hill, the city of the heroes of the Tibetan resistance who were defeated in the year 1904 by the two thousand British soldiers led by Francis Younghusband, in what was the first occupation of Tibet.
The road route ends in the city of Shigatse, which houses the monastic complex of Thasulimpo, where the Panchen lama resided. Today the venue still maintains a busy activity., with monks who live and walk its whitewashed streets, between facades of multiple and intense colors.
For the most adventurous there is the pilgrimage to Kailash, the great sacred mountain from which three of the longest rivers in Asia originate. Abode of the Hindu god Shiva and home of Demchok Buddha; revered by various religions. You are not promoted as a form of respect, circumambulates on an intense one-day tour in search of good fortune. The area is also the cradle of the primitive Bon religion, the one to which David Néel attributed magical powers.
At the dawn of the 21st century, Tibet continues to preserve all its magic and the incandescence of being one of the cultural beacons of antiquity.
When dying, at the age of one hundred and one years, Alexandra David Néel had made the words of the wise poet Milarepa her own: “My religion is to live and die without regret”.
