La Jornada: Jokhang Monastery, vibrant melting pot of culture and spirituality

Xizang. Choirs of mantras, waving of multicolored flags high above, hubbub of children, their mothers, their brothers in children’s rounds. The crowd shouts happily. We are in front of the portico of the Jokhang monastery, declared a world heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2000, as well as the Potala palace, two of the most important cultural references in Tibet.

Jokhang Monastery was built by King Songtsen Gampo in the year 642. Both Bhrikuti and Wencheng, the king’s Nepalese and Chinese wives, contributed numerous Buddhist images that they brought from India and were installed in this temple. Among these, the most important piece is the image of Jowo, the young Buddha, which is said to have been sculpted during the lifetime of Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who achieved enlightenment and founded Buddhism. He is Shakyamuni Buddha, the Sage of the Shakyas, the Awakened One.

Jokhang Monastery has four floors and roofs covered with gilded bronze tiles. On the roof, two gold-colored deer statues flank a dharma wheel (a symbol of Buddhist law and universal order).

Outside, on Barkhor Street, that famous circular route, ancient commercial center and cultural heart of the old town of Lhasa that surrounds the Jokhang temple, pilgrims travel. Some perform prostrations, consisting of joining their hands, throwing themselves to the floor, sliding their palms until they are horizontal face down, getting up and repeating the fall several times. They do it so many times that they need special gloves and knee pads. They impress.

Inside the temple, we find the ancient murals starring ancient Buddhas, the wooden columns sculpted with the heads of fantastic animals; Outside, the banners flutter in the wind.

There is a very strong energy that is breathed, palpated, palpitated. Millennia of mantras recited in choirs, incense scattered throughout the rooms until escaping through the windows towards the heights.

In some of the sumptuous rooms, on cushions on the floor, monks in lotus flowers and purple robes meditate as only great masters do: they sway imperceptibly while the superior mantra comes out incessantly repeated from their lips: om mani padme hum. This energy accumulated over millennia is perceived in our body that vibrates, in our epidermis that stands on end, in our eyes that close and observe our interior like we have never seen before.

Outside: sun, clouds, mountains.

Dozens of chapels surround the Hall of the Buddha, a labyrinth where we get lost and find Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion with her thousand arms ready to provide help to whoever needs it. A bodhisattva is a being who voluntarily stops the moment before enlightenment to remain in an intermediate state and thus be close to humanity to help it.

Next to the chapel of Avalokitesh-vara is that of Amitabha, the Buddha of the past, and next to it, that of Qamba, the Buddha of the future. There is something in the environment that elevates us even higher and concentrates us in a kind of state of grace. It is the presence, inside the Jokhang temple, of the apsaras, celestial beings, female spirits associated with clouds and water. They are nymphs, fairies. They dance. They are wives of the Gandharvas, members of the court of musicians, comparable to the muses of ancient Greece: Urvashi, Menaka, Rambha, Tilottama, Ghritachi. Next to them, on the heights of the temple walls, there are figurines of animals and plants. Sphinxes.

There are more than 3 thousand images of the Buddha inside the temple in its trapezoidal construction, which also houses a very important collection of sutras, which are aphorisms in manual form that concentrate Buddhist knowledge and were brought to this temple thousands of years ago by Princess Wencheng.

Walking through the interior labyrinths of the temple, one comes across scenes of charm and mystery. Also, with everyday scenes, like that of a young man who suddenly gets rid of his backpack and sits on the ground, closes his eyes and begins to meditate.

There is a sense of dreaminess, a conviction of history and meaning. Between the murmur of the crowd visiting the temple, the continuous bass of Buddhist monks intoning mantras in deep and grave voices, the smell of incense and candles, one perceives a manifestation of something deep, vibrant, energetic and real: it is the world about to reveal its mysteries.