We went to see the Seeker in her monastery again, this time with an ulterior motive: we had been told on our last visit that these few days there was great festivities in the monastery for the birthday of the Guru Padmasambhava and we should drop by if we could. So we did, and arrived at Bairoling Monastery, in its busy urban – but heavily Tibetan – surroundings at around noon. For once the gates were wide open, Tibetan music, with its usual cataclysmic horns, was playing, and there was a masked dance going on, in bright Tibetan colours under the bright blue sky. One could well imagine it in the mountains rather than in the crowded, dusty environs of Bairoling. Then it broke for lunch and we popped by the Seeker’s room, finding her outside, her bone-white skin burning in the sun. We persuaded her into the shade but between her blindness, deafness and inability to walk, it left us all shaken, and she herself was upset at her condition. We went away for a quick lunch and then the afternoon’s events began with a procession of boddhisatvas (I think), a series of beings coming to pay homage, and of course a set of fools. In one corner of the monastery is a most magnificent costume room and we managed to peep into it. The court of Boodhisatvas assembled in the monastery courtyard, the celestrial beings approached, and then were followed by the human devotees who laid their offerings at the Buddha’s feet. It was all very beautiful and made me realise how the vivid jangling colours and symbols of Tibet make sense under the sun, under a blue sky, in the open.
Towards the end, we returned to the Seeker whom we spied through her window unattended, fumbling hopelessly around, dragging herself in seeming search of soemthing. It turned out she was lost inside her room, and had eaten some lotion by mistake and needed to rinse out her mouth. My long carer training took over and I led her to the bathroom and helped her wash out her mouth and then took her outside to sit in the shade. She now seemed to recognise me, which she had never done before, so I hope that she did not mind. May I never grow that old.