The Last Sermon

For days, streams of Buddhist pilgrims braving high winds and sub-zero temperatures had made their way along some of the world's tallest mountains in central Kashmir. Most came on foot, some by yak, the more affluent by treacherous day-long Jeep or bus rides. Their destination: Leh, a remote stronghold of the Tibetan culture that had been selected by the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled God-King, for a rare spiritual event.

As the week for the ceremony approached, the town became an open-air monastery. Lamas in robes of red and ocher rubbed shoulders with laymen, zealously spinning the prayer wheels that would magnify a hundredfold the effect of incantations written upon them. The Dalai Lama, followed by flocks of devotees, visited monasteries rancid with the odor of butter-oil lamps. Then, leaving the bustling tent township erected for the occasion, he retired with his chosen monks to a small pagoda on the banks of the Indus River to devote six days to prayer and penance.

Finally, last week began the Dhukor Wangchen (the sermon of the Wheel of Time), one of Buddhism's most elaborate rituals. For each of three days, the air exploded with the bellowing of conch shells and rhythmic prayer chants. Then, in the hush that followed, the Dalai Lama delivered an eight-hour discourse on tantrism, the most magical form of Mahayana Buddhism. Renunciation, enlightened motive and a correct understanding of sunyata (nothingness) are the three prerequisites for the tantric practice, he explained. Disciples were given two reeds to sleep on, one under the pillow, the other under the mattress, and instructed to remember their dreams so the Dalai Lama could interpret them during the ceremony. On the platform were two ever present reminders of tantric practice: a statue of Kay-Dor, a ferocious manifestation of the Buddha, and an elaborate mandala, a ritual design used in invocations, made out of ground precious stones and sand.

The second of the three days in Leh was an extraordinary test of devotion. No sooner had the saffron-robed speaker begun preaching from his brocade throne than a freezing downpour began, soaking the congregation of 18,000. Everyone sat silently in the rain for four hours, while the air hung heavy with the smell of incense and wet earth. "What faith they must have!" an Indian army officer marveled. "I couldn't sit there for ten minutes."

Step Toward Bliss. Such persistence is not hard to fathom. The Dalai Lama is, after all, believed to be the very reincarnation of the Buddha in Buddhism's Tibetan variant. To see him during one of his rare public appearances is a step toward bliss. To hear the Wheel of Time sermon, however, is a guaranteed shortcut to nirvana. Such a blessing is rarely available. A Dalai Lama delivers the sermon only a few times during his lifetime, six being the customary maximum. At Leh, the current Dalai Lama was delivering his sixth sermon.

It may have been not only his last such sermon, but the last Dhukor Wangchen that will ever be delivered. In Tibetan tradition, each Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of his celibate predecessor. The reincarnate leader is discovered while still a boy through divination and wondrous signs in the sky, the vegetation and the sacred lakes of Tibet. In 1959 the present Dalai Lama, then 24, became the most celebrated religious refugee to flee the reign of Mao Tse-tung. Although he said at Leh that he hopes to return one day to his flock in a liberated Tibet, this is a dying dream. Tibet's Chinese rulers have eradicated much of its vast monastic establishment. When the Dalai Lama dies, there may well be no one to search for his successor.

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