december 2017 / january 2018yogajournal.com.sgLove in a
dumpling By Jaimal Yogis
A LOT OF PEOPLE FIND GOD IN PRAYER,
meditation, asana, and service. Fair enough.
I found God in dumplings.
I was 23 and studying abroad in India.
I’d befriended a Buddhist monk, Sonam,
who was famous for two things: being
relentlessly upbeat and making perfect
momos, Tibetan dumplings.
Missing my carb-rich, American diet,
momos had become my comfort food in
India, and Sonam had agreed to teach me
his recipe. We met to mix the rice-flour
dough on the roof of his monastery, using
a sheet of plywood raised on cinder blocks
as a table. I watched as Sonam rolled out
a thin sheet of dough, carved sand dollar–
size noodles, and filled each with a pinch of
cabbage and cheese. Finally, as if swaddling
a newborn, he folded each round noodle
carefully into a momo.
“Now you,” Sonam said in his thickly
accented broken English. I tried to copy
Sonam, but all my attempts ended in
messy piles of dough, cheese, and cab-
bage that resembled cat vomit. “Berry
good, Ja-ma,” Sonam laughed. After several
failed attempts, I found myself making
little dough balls I hoped would taste like
gnocchi. A silence passed until Sonam said,
“I tink dis God. Buddha mind berry same
same.”
“Really?” I said.
It wasn’t that this was an uncommon
topic for Sonam. When we passed a
Catholic chapel in Bhagsunath, the tiny
Himalayan town near Sonam’s monastery,
he would often say, “I tink dis Christian
religion, good religion.” But equating God
with Buddha mind was new. I wanted to
hear more, as one of the fundamental
tenets of Buddhism is that there is no
creator. I asked Sonam for clarification on
his point and he patted a mound of momo
dough.
“Dis God,” he said.
Sonam then chopped God into squares
with a butter knife. “These Christians,
Hindus, wah wah wah,” he said—“wah wah
wah” apparently capturing the other few
billion theists around the globe. The God
that was left over—the stuff between the
squares—Sonam gathered up, rolled into a
softball-size sphere, and tossed to me.
“Dis love,” he said.
I had to hand it to Sonam. If there
was one thing I could imagine as all-
encompassing love, it was momo dough.
Sonam looked proud as he rolled out a
new blob, calling it “Buddha mind,” before
carving it into small circles. “Buddhists,”
he said. And again, the dough that had
connected the circles, Sonam balled up.
“Com-pash-un,” he said, lobbing the ball
to me.
I caught the compassion blob and
squished it together with the love blob.
They were, of course, identical. “See!”
Sonam beamed. “Berry same same.”
I smiled. In theory, I agreed. But having
spent months in India working as a
journalist—reporting on extremist Hindus
and Muslims who were skewering each
other on pitchforks in Gujarat—I could see the beautiful momo-dough
representations of these faiths, but they
could also make me sick. I asked Sonam
why—if fundamental reality was love, and
if religion was a doorway to this love—so
many religious people seemed so full of
hate?
Sonam nodded. “I think some dumpling
no turn out good,” he said. “Inside, dis
same stuff good dumpling.” He moved
my horrid dumplings to the same plate as
his pretty ones. “Dis good religion, good
teacher, show all people how find good
inside. Dis bad religion say people many
many different. Then people many many
fight.”
I smiled. I had more questions, but part
of what made Sonam such a relief to be
with was his simplicity. So we moved on
to a more pressing topic: how to make
Sonam’s dipping sauce. We chopped
chili peppers and garlic, adding them to
vinegar, soy sauce, and honey. But once the
dumplings were cooked, Sonam couldn’t
help pointing out that the circle dumplings
and square dumplings tasted “berry same
same.” Sonam then tasted my ugly gnocchi
piles. “Ja-ma,” he said. “I think your momo
better next life.”
“Mmmm-mmm,” I said, nodding with
my mouth full. But at this point, the words
weren’t registering. I was full of pure love—
the most delicious momos I’d ever eaten.From the book All Our Waves Are Water: Stumbling
toward Enlightenment and the Perfect Ride by Jaimal
Yogis. © 2017 by Jaimal Yogis. Reprinted by permission
of Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.