Impermanence

Only the stone carcass remains of what was once a majestic Himalayan fortress that towered on a mountain spur domineering the confluence of two rivers. In two days a devastating fire tore through the timber structures while a helpless community watched and saved what precious relics they could. 

A harsh example of a theme central to Buddhist thought and spirituality, the impermanence of life.

My first encounter with impermanence from a Buddhist point of view was in Washington DC, Summer of 2008. In that year, Bhutan was the guest nation of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and all aspects of Bhutanese life, from cooking, woodworking, dancing and singing, playing and praying was rallied together in a showcase that more than delighted the visitor.

One of the activities was the creation of a mandala. Two or three monks sat around the designated area with fists clutching a few grains of coloured sand that was dexterously trickled, grain by grain, to form the intricate geometrical and pictorial designs that made up the large sacred circle. Fifteen days of patient work was needed for the assembly, after which it was proudly held up to the admiration of onlookers. A person from the crowd enquired if the artwork was for sale, and to their surprise they were informed that it wasn’t. Once completed it was to be thrown into the river: such is the way with sand mandalas. The disappointed bidder, certain of its commercial and artistic value, was astonished that such painstaking work was with one toss returned to a primordial chaotic state.

The gentle monks - if bemused they were masters of composure - explained the true nature of their creation, a metaphor for the impermanence of life, that nothing is forever and everything in nature is subject to change.

We all know about transience in our everyday lives. A flower that is picked and placed in a vase soon looses its verve, the petals start to drop or it withers and shrivels before our eyes. Our dismay at mortality is tempered simply by obtaining another flower. On a vaster scale, much less easy to elaborate, is the loss of a Bhutanese Dzong, a lamentable disaster that pierces the very heart of a society to which it represents more than just a topographical landmark, and to the occasional traveller who has seen them, a feeling of shock and distress, a sense of loss to all humanity, if Bhutanese art and architecture can be counted as one of it's most beautiful creations.

For the visitor in Bhutan the long and winding drive from the capital Thimphu towards the east presents an astonishing variety of panoramas, from the majestic views of the Himalayan peaks towards Tibet to the sub-tropical lower lands of Wangdue Phodrang where mango and banana trees grow amidst rice paddies. After the clear terse air of the higher altitudes, the warm and humid climate in this area reminds you that the hot plains of the Indian subcontinent are not too far away.

The road winds gently down along the Punatshang Chuu river reaching a corner from where the first sight of the Wangdue Dzong opens to the spectator. Strutting a narrow mountain spur it dominates the rugged mountainous terrain. One can easily understand why it was founded in 1638 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. According to legend it was named after a young boy, Wangdi, whom he met playing by the river. Its role was military and strategic in hindering invasion of from the South and controlling the routes to Punakha, Trongsa and Thimphu.

Entering into Wangdue dzong for the first time three years ago, I was immediately struck by its peculiar atmosphere, quite different from the regal Punakha Dzong or the busy administrative centre of the capital’s Trashichho Dzong. In the first large courtyard, I was greeted by silence and emptiness and the only immediate apparent life forms was a magnificent rooster and a couple of hens. It was clear that this building was much the same as it had been for many many years and the sensation of a direct contact with the past, not yet altered by restorations, gave the building a sense of charm and fascination.

The second courtyard astounded, for it showed the legendary and virtuosic craftsmanship of carpentry techniques particular to the Bhutanese. Dzongs, like many other traditional buildings, use no masterplan during the construction phase; a high lama establishes the structure and its dimensions by means of spiritual inspiration. The complex woodwork is assembled without nails, wooden beams are cut to size and interlocked to produce the sturdy structure required for protection and shelter. The dzong is then painted and decorated according to specific traditional parametres, transforming the building into a colourful statement of Buddhist symbolism.

The dzong performs a dual function in Bhutanese society. It is both the political administrative centre of a region as well as the spiritual centre. The buildings around the first courtyard are normally reserved for the town’s municipality while the inner courtyards embody the spiritual activities. It is the part which fits the description of a monastery, inhabited by monks who perform their services in its sacred temples. The silence of the dzong was broken by the occasional group of young monks who appeared in their deep red robes and added to the spectacle of colour.

On June 24^th 2012, all this disappeared in a raging fire. Two things positive eventuated, there were no victims and, thanks to the restoration work that was already in progress, most of the precious sacred objects had been stored away in safety or were able to be saved before consumed by fire.

Impermanence implies a cycle of creation and destruction, life and death. Surely the end of things leave their mark in our hearts and memories, but we turn the page and look forward to the renewal of that which is lost. 

Restoration work, January 2012

© photos by Aaron Carpene

Storytime

The story of Acis and Galatea is one of the many episodes from the poetic masterpiece Metamorphoses. It was completed in AD 8 by the poet Ovid and is a description of the world from the creation to the deification of Julius Caesar. It's recurrent and constant theme is Love, in all its manifestations. 

The touching account of Acis and Galatea's doomed love is related by Galatea herself, and we the readers are eavesdroppers as she confides in her best friend, Scylla ... the future monster of the strait of Messina!

Enjoy the passage from Book XIII in the translation by Anthony S. Kline.

Bk XIII:738-788 Acis and Galatea

Scylla combs Galatea's hair while she tells her moving story.
Salomon-Solis Illustration Cycles 1557-1591

    Once while Galatea let Scylla comb her hair, she addressed these words to her, sighing often: ‘At least, O virgin Scylla, you are not wooed by a relentless breed of men: and you can reject them without fear, as you do. But I, whose father is Nereus, and whose mother is sea-green Doris, I, though protected by a crowd of sisters, was not allowed to flee the love of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, except through sorrow’, and tears stopped the sound of her voice. When the girl had wiped away the tears with her white fingers, and the goddess was comforted, she said: ‘Tell me, O dearest one: do not hide the cause of your sadness (I can be so trusted)’ The Nereid answered Crateis’s daughter in these words: ‘Acis was the son of Faunus and the nymph Symaethis, a great delight to his father and mother, but more so even to me, since he and I alone were united. He was handsome, and having marked his sixteenth birthday, a faint down covered his tender cheeks. I sought him, the Cyclops sought me, endlessly. If you asked, I could not say which was stronger in me, hatred of Cyclops, or love of Acis, both of them were equally strong.

    Oh! Gentle Venus, how powerful your rule is over us! How that ruthless creature, terrifying even to the woods themselves, whom no stranger has ever seen with impunity, who scorns mighty Olympus and its gods, how he feels what love is, and, on fire, captured by powerful desire, forgets his flocks and caves. Now Polyphemus, you care for your appearance, and are anxious to please, now you comb your bristling hair with a rake, and are pleased to cut your shaggy beard with a reaping hook, and to gaze at your savage face in the water and compose its expression. Your love of killing, your fierceness, and your huge thirst for blood, end, and the ships come and go in safety.

    Meanwhile, Telemus the augur, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no flight of birds could deceive, came to Sicilian Mount Aetna, addressed grim Polyphemus, and said: “Ulysses will take from you, that single eye in the middle of your forehead.” He laughed, and answered: “O most foolish of seers, you are wrong, another, a girl, has already taken it.” So he scorned the true warning, given in vain, and weighed the coast down, walking with giant tread, or returned weary to his dark cave.

    A wedge-shaped hillside, ending in a long spur, projects into the sea (the waves of the ocean wash round it on both sides). The fierce Cyclops climbed to it, and sat at its apex, and his woolly flocks, shepherd-less, followed. Then laying at his feet the pine trunk he used as a staff, fit to carry a ship’s rigging, he lifted his panpipes made of a hundred reeds. The whole mountain felt the pastoral notes, and the waves felt them too. Hidden by a rock, I was lying in my Acis’s arms, and my ears caught these words, and, having heard them, I remembered:’

Bk XIII:789-869 The song of Polyphemus

    ‘Galatea, whiter than the snowy privet petals, 
     taller than slim alder, more flowery than the meadows,
     friskier than a tender kid, more radiant than crystal,
     smoother than shells, polished, by the endless tides;
     more welcome than the summer shade, or the sun in winter, 
     showier than the tall plane-tree, fleeter than the hind;  
     more than ice sparkling, sweeter than grapes ripening,
     softer than the swan’s-down, or the milk when curdled,
     lovelier, if you did not flee, than a watered garden.
    Galatea, likewise, wilder than an untamed heifer,
    harder than an ancient oak, trickier than the sea;
    tougher than the willow-twigs, or the white vine branches,
    firmer than these cliffs, more turbulent than a river,
    vainer than the vaunted peacock, fiercer than the fire; 
    more truculent than a pregnant bear, pricklier than thistles,
    deafer than the waters, crueller than a trodden snake;
    and, what I wish I could alter in you, most of all, is this:
    that you are swifter than the deer, driven by loud barking,
    swifter even than the winds, and the passing breeze.

    But if you knew me well, you would regret your flight, and you would condemn your own efforts yourself, and hold to me: half of the mountain is mine, and the deep caves in the natural rock, where winter is not felt nor the midsummer sun. There are apples that weigh down the branches, golden and purple grapes on the trailing vines. Those, and these, I keep for you. You will pick ripe strawberries born in the woodland shadows, in autumn cherries and plums, not just the juicy blue-purples, but also the large yellow ones, the colour of fresh bees’-wax. There will be no lack of fruit from the wild strawberry trees, nor from the tall chestnuts: every tree will be there to serve you.

    This whole flock is mine, and many are wandering the valleys as well, many hidden by the woods, many penned in the caves. If you asked me I could not tell you how many there are: a poor man counts his flocks. You can see, you need not merely believe me, how they can hardly move their legs with their full udders. There are newborn lambs in the warn sheepfolds, and kids too, of the same age, in other pens, and I always have snow-white milk: some of it kept for drinking, and some with rennet added to curdle it.

    You will not have vulgar gifts or easily found pleasures, such as leverets, or does, or kids, or paired doves, or a nest from the treetops. I came upon twin cubs of a shaggy bear that you can play with: so alike you can hardly separate them. I came upon them and I said: “I shall keep these for my mistress.”

    Now Galatea, only lift your shining head from the dark blue sea: come, do not scorn my gifts. Lately, I examined myself, it’s true, and looked at my reflection in the clear water, and, seeing my self, it pleased me. Look how large I am: Jupiter, in the sky, since you are accustomed to saying some Jove or other rules there, has no bigger a body. Luxuriant hair hangs over my face, and shades my shoulders like a grove. And do not consider it ugly for my whole body to be bristling with thick prickly hair. A tree is ugly without its leaves: a horse is ugly unless a golden mane covers its neck: feathers hide the birds: their wool becomes the sheep: a beard and shaggy hair befits a man’s body. I only have one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is as big as a large shield. Well? Does great Sol not see all this from the sky? Yet Sol’s orb is unique.

    Added to that my father, Neptune, rules over your waters: I give you him as a father-in-law. Only have pity, and listen to my humble prayers! I, who scorn Jove and his heaven and his piercing lightning bolt, submit to you alone: I fear you, Nereid: your anger is fiercer than lightning. And I could bear this contempt of yours more patiently, if you fled from everyone. But why, rejecting Cyclops, love Acis, and prefer Acis’s embrace to mine? Though he is pleased with himself, and, what I dislike, pleases you too, Galatea, let me just have a chance at him. Then he will know I am as strong as I am big! I’ll tear out his entrails while he lives, rend his limbs and scatter them over the fields, and over your ocean, (so he can join you!) For I am on fire, and, wounded, I burn with a fiercer flame, and I seem to bear Aetna with all his violent powers sunk in my breast, yet you, Galatea, are unmoved.’

Bk XIII:870-897 Acis is turned into a river-god

    ‘With such useless complaints he rose (for I saw it all) and as a bull that cannot stay still, furious when the cow is taken from it, he wanders through the woods and glades. Not anticipating such a thing, without my knowing, he saw me, and saw Acis. “I see you,” he cried, “and I’ll make this the last celebration of your love.” His voice was as loud as an angry Cyclops’s voice must be: Aetna shook with the noise. And I, terrified, plunged into the nearby waters. My hero, son of Symaethis, had turned his back, and ran, crying: “Help me, I beg you, Galatea! Forefathers, help me, admit me to your kingdom or I die!”

    Cyclops followed him and hurled a rock wrenched from the mountain, and though only the farthest corner of the stone reached him, it still completely buried Acis. Then I, doing the only thing that fate allowed me, caused Acis to assume his ancestral powers. From the rock, crimson blood seeped out, and in a little while its redness began to fade, became the colour of a river at first swollen by rain, gradually clearing. Then the rock, that Polyphemus had hurled, cracked open, and a tall green reed sprang from the fissure, and the mouth of a chamber in the rock echoed with leaping waters, and (a marvel) suddenly a youth stood, waist-deep in the water, his fresh horns wreathed with rushes. It was Acis, except that he was larger, and his face dark blue: yet it was still Acis, changed to a river-god, and his waters still retain his former name.