Top Left: Butter lamps
at a farmhouse altar in
the village of Shari.
Top Right: Prayer flags
near the Six Senses
Paro.
Bottom Left: Punakha
Dzong, “the palace
of great happiness,”
was built in the 17th
century.
Bottom Right: A monk
at Gangtey monastery
wears a medallion
necklace depicting
8th-century Buddhist
master Guru Rinpoche.
In a private home we visited for lunch, a local monk was at work.
He gently took my hands and dipped my fingers into several bowls to let
me feel the butter he was painting on a ritual cake that, from what I could
feel, was half my size. This was a spiritual service for our host family.
The offering would bring prosperity and more good luck. Smaller cakes
would also be left on the roof for the crows to take to the gods. It seems
that, in Bhutan, wellness comes from giving your cake away, not having it
and eating it, too.
Six Senses Punakha is quite literally a flying farmhouse. Overlooking
a warm valley cleaved by two rivers called the mother and the father, the
resort’s main building is ingeniously engineered to hover over an expanse
of rice paddies. Angled steps surprised me as I walked. Climbing the land
around us was an entirely different collection of angled steps. These were the
terraces on which farmers grew wheat and more rice. In walking the steps of
our new stay, my feet were feeling a small likeness of the landscape around us.
The Punakha area is perhaps most famously known for its ubiquitous
depictions of male genitalia. Punakha is where Drukpa Kunley, the Di-
vine Madman, first arrived from Tibet in the 15th century with his brand
of sexy, drunken, bacchanalian Buddhism, and his legacy persists! A
road sign might replace an arrow with a penis. Phalluses frame archways
and adorn everything from doors to keychains. In a small souvenir shop,
Tracy placed a clay statue in my hands. It had veins and a smiley face.
Resting on every shelf I touched was an object that seemed happy to see
me. Some were hairy and woolen, some cast in bronze, eternally erect.
It was like being surrounded by the enthusiasm of exclamation marks.M
y focus was elsewhere. Chorten Ningpo is a Buddhist
monastery about a two-and-a-half-hour hike from
the Punakha farmhouse. Many tourists visit Bhutan
specifically for a hike like this. Given the thin air and
potential altitude sickness, choosing to hike is a serious
commitment. So we drove, with Yountin at the wheel. Also, Tracy
is afraid of heights. When Yountin parked the car on the cliff ’s edge
by the monastery gates, it made her scream. My wellness was intact.
Blindness has advantages.
Yountin guided us among the 16th-century stone buildings and
described to me their architecture and art, at one point guiding my
fingers over an embossed gold depiction of a dragon. We were in the
land of the Thunderdragon.
Yountin led us up a ladder into a room where three monks were
in prayer with a bereaved woman. We sat quietly near the wall and
listened to their rumbling incantations. They were the expressive,
guttural tones I associate with throat singing. We’d heard other monks
in other rooms before, including a group who rang bells and chanted,
some holding skulls while others played flutes fashioned, I was told,
from human thigh bones. To be present for so much ritual, from the
prayer flags to the stupas to the cakes to these monks, made me realize
how little of the sacred I had in my own life. All these experiences sug-
gested the shape of a hole, but I had no idea what I would fit in there.
“Give me your hands,” Yountin whispered.
He quickly arranged my palms into a bowl and explained that thehead monk was coming around.
The man in the red robe had
agreed to Yountin’s request that
we also receive a blessing of
holy water. I was instructed to
drink most of it, which would
cure whatever in me needed
curing, then to press the
remainder to my forehead for
clarity of mind. Finally, a cure
other than jokes.
The holy water arrived
without a word, its trickle
collecting in my cupped hands.
Then, as I raised it to my lips,
it dribbled through my fingers,
gone. Goddamnit. My one shot
at holy water and I fumble it. I
didn’t feel I could ask for more,
either. I’d be Bhutan’s Oliver
Twist: “Please, sir, I want some
more.” Maybe all my jokes were
coming back to teach me a
lesson. I pressed what moisture
was left to my forehead and had
the clarity of mind to know I’m
an idiot.
Outside, we snacked on
apples and listened to the
sound of boys training to be
monks. They were in a room on
the second floor, its windows
open, and, I was told, would
occasionally peek their shaved
heads out to get a look at us. I
was heartened to hear them
laugh as a few of them clubbed
each other with their prayer
books. Kids will be kids, even if
they will grow up to be monks.
Jokes before prayers. Maybe, in
fact, there is a place for humor.
“I’m curious,” I said to
Yountin, “do the monasteries
have televisions?”
“Oh, for sure,” he said. “They
love TV.”
“So what do monks like to
watch? The Simpsons?”
“Soccer,” he said. “They love
soccer. Big Manchester United
fans. It’s the red uniforms.
Monks wear red, too.”SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 AFAR 105