A gong under my ear woke me: the service was starting. We went down into the temple and sat on the floor among the monks. The sutras went on for hours: shifting rhythms, swaying bodies, dim light, incense. We were in no hurry and expected nothing. Thoughts drifted somewhere far away, to the back, and emptiness came in their place.
Then the debate began: a monk in the centre, the others coming at him one after another with a question and a loud clap of the hands; the answer had to come before the clap. One little monk, whenever his teacher turned away, pulled out an ordinary plastic toy car and drove it in front of him, then hid it again in his robe. Childhood cannot be replaced by Buddhism. The boy next to him wrote something on a scrap of paper, tore it up and ate it.
When the meal came round I met the teacher’s eyes and felt that now they would bring us tea. They did. Once again I saw that in Tibet everything is understood without words.
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