TRAVELMAN NEPAL: A Thangka Artist Teaches Travelman About the Wheel of Life in KTM

The new year is here, the old is gone, nothing lasts forever, everything is impermanent...

“It’s okay, they’ll be happy to talk to you. They like to teach and talk.” Matrika assured me.

“Yeah, but I’ll still feel bad not buying anything.” I said. Matrika had offered to take me to talk to a guy about Buddhism in a thangka shop at the Boudhanath.

“It’s okay. If you want to buy, maybe you buy. You may pay too much here, so you should look around. If you then, still, want to return to buy you can come back.” He said. This reassured me that Matrika didn’t take all his volunteers there in order to get a secret commission from the thangka guy.

****——All of the close up photos are from different Thangka shops. I have yet to get a decent shot of the Wheel. It’s always behind glass and gets a glare.—-****

We walked in the shop, we stood and looked at the tangkhas on the wall. I followed Matrika’s lead. Within seconds, a tangka guy asked me if I liked the works. I said yes.

****——Not the same shop——****

“Do you have an interest in a mandela?” Said the tangka guy.

As I was thinking of how to respond, Matrika said, “He doesn’t know much about Buddhism. He’s curious.”

***—-Not his shop——****

“Would you like to learn about how we make these?” Said the tangka guy.

“Yeah!” I said.

****——Stiill not his shop——****

“Okay, follow.” He walked toward a staircase and motioned to follow. I followed him and Matrika up the stairs.

***——Thangka guy’s shop, took pic in a great rush—-****

An artist sat on the floor working on a thangka. He used a pinpoint paintbrush. Thangka guy showed me a blank canvas.

Thangka guy explained that it was not actually canvas. They made the paper from cotton and clay, a long process of stretching packing, drying, and repeating. The end product was a pristine, white, poster-board like painting surface.

****——————-****

He then explained that the artists must apprentice for years. The artists must strictly follow the designs from the book of mandelas. “Do you know mandela?” He asked. This questioning revealed itself to be a repeated refrain in his teaching style. “Do you know cotton? Cot-ton?” And I would nod my head in the negative or affirmative.

He showed me the work of a master thangka artist compared to that of an apprentice and an intermediate. The tiny lines of deviation were sharp in the master paintings.

****——Wheel in another shop——****

As he spoke, a feeling of peace grew inside of me, as though I was in the right place at the right time receiving what I needed. It could’ve been my brain adjusting to the thin air of KTM and the intensity with which the artist spoke, but it felt necessary for me to learn.

He walked Matrika and I over to an example of the Wheel of Life sitting on an easel. He’d given this lecture in this manner many times before.

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he led me through the meanings within the wheel in a way that made me feel infused with an unnameable emotion. As he made points about what drove human beings, the pitfalls we encountered, the manner in which good leads to bad, bad to good, death to birth, the cycle, the wheel, I felt like I was finally getting an exlplanation of human existence that I could accept. It felt in line with my life experiences.

Briefly (I’m by no means an expert, just a taste of what I learned), the wheel is in the grips of the wrathful demon-god Yama. He symbolizes the impermanence of everything. The beings in the wheel are trapped in eternal suffering, trapped in ignorance... It’s not bad, it’s just the nature of the universe.

The center of wheel holds the three poison (the three fires). The pig represents ignorance, the snake hatred/anger, and the bird (rooster) desire/greed. These are what drive and shape our lives.

The second layer, the ring that encircles the three fires represents positive and negative actions we take. Your karma depends on whether your actions are positive or negative.

The third layer contains the six realms, three of the realms are the lower realms (hungry ghosts, hell beings, and animals), and three of the realms are the higher (human, Demi-god, god).

****——Lower Realms——****

The next layer is the twelve stages of dependent origination, each stage leads to the next stage. For example, ignorance leads to willed action, leads to conditioned consciousness... - Again, I’m not a wheel of life expert and teacher, this is just a primer of a few of the things I learned. I refer you to google and books to find out more.

****——yeah, the glare sucks. Do you know snake? You must let go of snake.——****

No matter what, it’s all suffering, again and again, over and over unless we escape the wheel through gaining enlightenment and thus reach nirvana. The Buddha up in the right hand corner of some of the wheels points to nirvana, indicating there is a path.

I felt like I was on a mind expanding drug as I listened to all the different meanings, the stories behind each depiction. I wished that I was a smarter man so that I could retain the mountain of information. I suppose I retained enough. Nothing last forever. If and when we accept that, we’ll have an easier time of it.

After the lecture he took me in the next room to try and sell me some thangkas. After his spiel, Matrika broke it to him that I would not be buying anything today and he’d merely brought me here to get some teaching. Mild perturbation and disappointment flashed across thangka guy’s face. But he of all people in the room knew that he must be accepting and let go of his desire to make a sale. He nodded, we said “namaste” to one another and Matrika and I went on our way.

It was a cool experience. I felt like I was on psychedelic drugs the remainder of the day. I’m now in Pokhara, Nepal. I see the Himalayas towering above the town as I walk up the street from the lake. I feel small and I feel lucky.

Travelman log, day 181...
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