Do you know anyone who wants to become a wise old woman?  Not me, baby.

The energy level at the Tiger’s Nest is palpable.  It hits you like a blow when you come over the ridge and begin the last heart-stopping descent.  Although I’ve been at the top of sheer drops before, I had to stop a few times to get my bearings and overcome vertigo.  The main force to be overcome is the sense of energy radiating out from the temple.  For me, at least, it got a little easier when the path dropped down below the level of the temple itself (you climb back up to the gate).

The drop at the side of the path is about three thousand feet; the stone steps go right along the edge and there is usually no railing.  Lots of people have done this, I kept telling myself, which is true.  It’s a fairly wide path, with only a few loose stones.  You do have to be motivated, and like much of Bhutan, what is sacred is protected by layers which both exclude those without desire and prepare those who go forward. 

The main thing I got from being at Tiger’s Nest was being there -- no lesson.  The two memories I have is that I have to stop apologizing -- difficult -- and a conversation with a pair of eyes in a painting in one of the altar rooms. 

Tiger’s Nest has two major altar rooms, one above the other.  The lower has a solid stone floor, cut from the mountainside.  The upper has wide mellowed wooden boards.   I did a meditation sitting on the stone floor (I don’t really know how to meditate in the usual sense, but I did what I do, which is mostly nothing and I gather that’s fine).

In the upper room, which is more comfortable and less intense -- less remote, I guess at least to me -- I did another sitting meditation.  Lots of chance to practice people-as-trees because although we were alone in the stone room, in the wood room we were joined by a couple and their guide and though they talked low, they did talk.  People-as-trees worked really well.  I just made them a part of the room and a part of my meditation and of course they were part of what the altar room was about -- people. 

As I was meditating, I met the gaze of one of the deities which was in front and of course somewhat above me.  The eyes were very expressive and I decided to receive whatever the message was I seemed to be getting.  They were very wonderful eyes, the kind you can’t imagine or predict but there they are.  They said:  “After all the centuries of work we’ve done to get to today, to survive, you’re not going to let us down, are you?” 

I believe that there are Christian images with the same expression, probably the same expression in many traditions.  It’s not hard to imagine ranks upon ranks of those who have served us as religious leaders in the past, all watching us today with a mixture of hope and concern, as they have watched at other times, but this is our time.

I do not welcome responsibility when I can get out of it.  I had the feeling that something was being asked of me (as of many) and I felt extremely resistant and wary.  The answer I got from my friend The Eyes to my please-don’t-make-me-grow-spiritually moment did make me smile --

“What have you got to lose?”