Every Step

You don't have to crawl around a holy mountain (although that's wonderful). You might just drive the kids to school or your parent to the doctor. For me, it might be driving past farms in Skagit County.
Gone, gone, gone beyond...
The Peace Room is Everywhere!

TAKING THE PEACE ROOM PROJECT FLAG TO MOUNT KAILASH, TIBET

By Jerilyn Munyon, Executive Director of Open Gate Sangha

Last New Year’s Eve, I sat down to set my intention for the coming year. Though I have been a longtime student and practitioner of peace through various teachings and disciplines, I felt that 2017 called loudly for an even deeper understanding of how to “live peace.” This inquiry appeared: Is there a way to move from and towards peace each moment, each day? Is there a forward and backward step to the heart of peace?

Right about this time, I began preparing for a pilgrimage around Mount Kailash in Tibet. We had been planning for a couple of years to drive in from Kathmandu and then trek the 32 miles around Kailash. When the Tibetan border near Kathmandu remained closed to driving traffic from the 2015 earthquake, it became clear our pilgrimage would no longer be the 32-mile kora (“circumambulation”) around the sacred mountain.

Our only option would be walking from Nepal into Tibet, circling Mount Kailash, and walking back out some 200 miles through the Himalayas. We would travel at altitudes of 12,000 to 19,000 feet along the way. My 70-year-old jaw dropped, as suddenly, the pilgrimage in my mind faded to black and the actual pilgrimage I would be taking became a reality. As our Nepali guide, Prem Dorchi, told us on our very first day in the mountains, “Itinerary always subject to reality.”

I carried our Peace Room Project Flag through Nepal in my backpack, dedicating my walk to peace. I knew the destination for our peace flag was Mount Kailash, honored by so many: Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, Bon practitioners, Jains. But the journey in front of me was the journey that would be taken, our flag tucked in my pack waiting for its final home. Each day we chanted the Heart Sutra in Japanese and in English (translated from the Tibetan), which ends with the line, “Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi soha!”—"Gone, gone, gone beyond, fully exposed, awake, so be it!"

The trekking was physically challenging, far beyond the ability I came with, though we had trained for months before. The instruction to take tiny, tiny steps faded quickly as we met rocky slopes and steep climbs that only a fully stretched stride could manage. As the altitude rose quickly, the degree of difficulty seemed to match each gain, the air so thin each step became the entire journey.

As I paused to gather strength in the inward breath, I could feel my resistance and the effort it took to maintain that resistance. An odd sort of math came about in my high-altitude mind, with the question: “Do you really want to go there? Why waste your energy on resisting, when you know you have no other choice but to take the next step?”

Breathing in, I focused on the absence of resistance—"letting go into peace." Breathing out,  I focused on the presence of “peace in action.” Step by step, this became my mantra for the pilgrimage: each breath, each moment, each day.

As we hiked through snow, high altitude, and freezing cold around Mount Kailash, it was exhilarating beyond imagination. The Tibetan pilgrims all cheered us along with their greeting, “Tashi delek, tashi delek!”—"Blessings and greetings!"

On our final day of the kora, we reached the eastern side of the mountain. We were invited to sit in Milarepa’s cave. The feeling of Milarepa’s infinite peace surrounded us like a soft rain. The sense that he had vanquished his demons, step by step, facing them squarely, transformed our own inner conflicts. The message I received from Milarepa was “Go beyond your own concerns and regrets to the compassion that heals all.”

We were still in tears as we left the cave and moved down along the mountain. We came upon a shining blue glacial stream where many prayer flags were strung from a bridge. The Peace Room Project Flag found its home there, flying for and from peace. The knowledge that peace is in every step, every breath, each moment, each day, came clearly into my heart.

Let’s walk together in peace. One step, around the block, across a high plateau . . .

Photography courtesy of Jerilyn Munyon, Jesse Burgess, and Prem Dorchi. Copyright © 2017.