I keep wondering, as I sit, how you actually pronounce Om mani padme hum. I am saying it out loud as I write, and I wish I knew if my pronunciation is at all close to what it should be. Does Buddha mind if one of us in the chorus screws up? I never could carry a tune. According to some Tibetan Buddhists, all of Buddhism is contained in the six syllables of the mantra. If you ask me, I think that claim is hyperbole. I do picture the words as Chenrezig might say them, high on that red escarpment of Darpoche, close to Kailash. I see him looking straight out onto what I think is the Western Valley, but I’m not sure. I’ve only seen pictures of the place on the Internet. We are supposed to go there in a few days. The words in the mantra mean, literally, “Bless the jewel in the lotus.” The first syllable is an expression of where we are, our suffering-burdened selves—like me sitting here, looking at canisters (of something deadly, I suspect). The last syllable is the release of all that separates a person from her true self—like fear and worry. When you attain that state—which you are supposed to be able to do through the chanting over a course of a lifetime, I might add—you are free from suffering. I like the way the words sound; if only I knew if I were making them sound right. Wind kicks up, God, it’s cold, and the dust clobbers me now and then.

I feel so out of sync, and yet, oddly calm. The excitement of actually being in Tibet has not abated, even in this dismal place. Thank God I have my journal to write these notes in. I have told no one where I was going, and from the look of the sun, I have been gone a long time. Maybe you don’t tell the time by the sun here. I shiver, and cold makes me tremble, just the same as fear. Om mani padme hum. An old story about the Dalai Lama’s first trip to the West comes back to me. He said he thought that maybe the birds flew backward in the West. He was relieved to find that the nature of things governed the East as well as the West with equanimity. I patted the ground just now. Well, if I am going to die or be imprisoned by my own stupidity, at least I will have done it by following monks in Tibet. That makes me feel smarter. The thought of anything at this moment making me feel at all smart makes me laugh. Stephanie would be laughing to see me lost, sitting here on this stupid rock. I feel so hungry.