Abstract
On July 26, 2006, I left Ladakh, the highest altitude plateau region of India, which crosses part of the Himalayas and is situated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (see Rizvi, 1996). This region is also known as “Little Tibet” because of the close geographic and cultural proximity between Tibet and Ladakh. Accordingly, many Ladakhis study and practice, to more or lesser extent, Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism. For two months, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork on everyday interactions in a Buddhist monastery here, living for part of the time with monks in the remote monastery of Rizong, participating in their life, and increasingly experiencing my mind as traveling within itself. What follows is my poetic account of this experience, drawing on field notes, diary entries, and several recorded conversations with teachers and monks.
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