I'm All Alone - Xining

lindn has added a photo to the pool:

This is Dorje, a monk and the lone caretaker of the small, cliff-side Baima Temple near Xining, in Qinghai Province.

I followed him as his frail, matchstick legs took him to the edge of the cliff.

"Look!' he exclaimed, "All these buildings. Small ones and big ones. Long pipes with smoke coming out. Roads going nowhere." When he was younger (he has no idea of his exact age and doesn't, as with many Tibetans, know his birth date), he explained, all he could see was forest and grassland, and beautiful pristine streams giving life to fish and birds and deer.

"Times have changed, this isn't Tibet now, it's China, you know!" he laughed, and then sighed.

As I stepped back to take the photo, I wondered what kind of beautiful memories he must have, and what awful memories he must also hold. I asked him what his greatest wish for the planet was.

"Whether we like it or not," he said, "we are only here for a while. There'll be a time when no one remembers our name, when all our dreams and hopes and memories vanish into nothingness - but it doesn't matter. It's happened to everyone and it'll happen to you. For this planet, I wish that all beings would just love and respect each other - having not even one atom of hate or anger in us - that should be our goal..."

How I so wish his dream to come true.

Matt

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