Every day, slowly-slowly, just a little bit
Editrix’ note: This blog post contains mostly religious content, concerning Tibetan Buddhism. If that isn’t your cuppa chai, or your own religious beliefs require you not read this, then feel free to skip this post for something a bit more entertaining.
“Kali-kali” is perhaps the second Tibetan phrase I ever learned. The first, of course, was “Tashi Dillek” (”Hello”). “Kali-kali” literally translates to “slowly-slowly,” and it’s one of those everyday phrases with 101 uses. When a Tibetan driver goes too fast on the mountain roads for Western sensibilities, a “kali-kali” will get him to reduce his speed. If you’re walking along a rocky mountain path to visit some of the cave nuns in retreat, they might gently encourage you with a cheerful “kali-kali” to take your time and step carefully among the stones. With our Dharma teacher Wangdor Rimpoche, “kali-kali” can have a variety of meanings, depending on the situation. Whenever he answers “kali-kali” to the question “Would you like such-and-such done?” it could mean any of the following:
- Yes, but take the time to get it done right.
- Yes, but not right now.
- Yes, but don’t trouble yourself to get it done right away; take your time.
- Doesn’t matter to me, but go ahead if it’s not too much trouble.
- No.
So you see how this simple phrase can carry a world’s worth of meaning. For the most part, though, “kali-kali” is used in the sense of “bit by bit”, or referring to something progressing in slow but steady increments. In Tso Pema, as I write this, is a massive project of Rimpoche’s that has been proceeding “kali-kali” for the last six years, and still has another year or so to go at the same pace. The purpose is to construct a Buddhist pilgrimage center, topped by an 84-foot tall statue of Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche). There’s more info about the project here.
With Indian construction methods, where everything’s done by hand, the site’s foundation alone has taken 3 years to complete. These days most of the work is focussed on the statue. A certain percentage of the work is of a religious nature, carried out by an everchanging volunteer cadre of monks, nuns, and laypeople. They are all working on preparing dzong, the holy texts that will fill the completed statue, and bring it to life.
Kali-kali…
The holy texts arrive in huge bundles. They are a variety of mantras printed on big sheets of yellow paper.
The next step is to cut the sheets into long strips containing a couple lines of mantra apiece.
The strips are rolled up, two at a time, around a short piece of incense.
The tiny package is rolled along the work surface with a block of wood to tighten the wrapping.
The ends are tapped to line up the paper edges so they’re flat.
The end of the strip is glued into place.
The “head” of each dzong is then dipped in red dye.
Some dzong are larger than others. This is the most common size. Others may be the size of a pinky finger, or even palm-sized. Bear in mind that even at the larger size, we’re still talking about making millions of dzong. It takes more than just a couple dzong to fill an 84-foot tall statue. Kali-kali. Moving on…
Yellow fabric is cut into small rectangles to be wrapped around the dzong.
Other volunteers wrap each dzong with a piece of fabric, and glue it securely.
The first stage is done. Now for some serious heavy lifting….time to take the dzong outside for putting into tsa-tsas (small religious statues)!
Groups of young men are given sticks to beat clay mix with boards, to remove any lumps that have formed. The clay is mixed up and doled out to other volunteers in several-kilo lumps.
The clay is portioned out into a lump the size of a fist, and kneaded a bit more by hand to ensure smoothness.
The lump is oiled, and then pressed into a brass tsa-tsa (religious statue) mold. The oil prevents the clay from sticking.
On the other (non-oily) side of the lump, a dzong is pressed deeply into the clay.
Then the lump is placed on a board, mold side up, and the mold pounded with another board to force the clay into all the crevices of the mold.
The mold is carefully lifted away, and any clay tag ends are trimmed off.
The finished tsa-tsa is gently moved to another board, which will be used to carry it…
…and all of its many siblings…
…into the statue.
The various mantras that power the dzong have slightly different purposes. So , the tsa-tsas are sorted into different areas of the statue (head, arms, legs, etc.) to bring it to life.
Rinse…
and repeat…
until statue is full.
The people who work on dzong tend to chant or recite mantras as they work, adding to the efficacy of the texts. Everybody and anybody willing to spend some time cutting texts, rolling dzong, glueing fabric, or molding tsa-tsas is welcome, even if it’s just for a hour or two. The construction crew at the statue has its own cook and requisite chai-wallah, serving up Tibetan tea, black tea, sweet masala chai, and gallons of thukpa and thenthuk to keep everybody going. I’ve already gone up a few times, to sit with the nuns and drink tea and roll dzong.
This is an invitation to any and all of you Buddhist practitioners out there to come out and help with the dzong over the next few months. We really need your help–we’ve got a statue to fill! No special talent or even language skills are needed. Just a willingness to roll paper, glue fabric, or stamp clay is really all that’s required. Once you’re in Tso Pema, just have any taxi or bus wallah drop you off at the path to the Guru Rimpoche statue. Smile as you enter; any number of people are sure to smile back and make a place for you.
