My Life in a Monastery - 3. Chapter 3 Sheep herding

Tending the Sheep

Just in the morning, Gyalo awoke me to go soon for herding the sheep. It was still dark outside and we did our morning prayers in a short flash. He had made a small fire to heat some water, we washed our faces a little with our wet fingers and muttered our after washing mantras. Then we did our breakfast of crisp bread with some slices of lard. We had them taking small sips of warm water with a pinch of salt. For from these mountains we get not salt and we can get sick after a time.

After the breakfast we get out of the hut and it was very cold. We went to the pen, milked the sheep, and drove them to the meadows of the day. There is a need of driving the sheep from a place to another. Neither of us said a word about the mysteries of the night. In any case, I was not sure of what happened and it was out of question to ask anything to my dear Gyalo. He would not be able to put three words together into a sentence for he was nearly unable to speak. Perhaps, he did not do anything at all during the night. Perhaps all these feelings were like tricks of my senses or only delusions of my mind.

We were all day tending the sheep from this part of the mountain to the other. We were eating at noon our daily bread and lard, drinking cold water on the springs, eating some berries that were unripe, tart and small, but felt good to eat them. Then we continued with our duty during all day. We barely had time to say a word for we were often at a distance. Even if we were together for a while this event could not produce any kind of chat with him. I had to do all the chat by myself.

Gyalo was a guy that can utter a word or two but just in cases that are necessary. He did not waste his words. Most of his utterances were just cries with a singing intonation, like all shepherds use to do. He also liked to produce some whistles to call me instead of crying my name. When we were near each other he kept staring at my face for a long time without telling a word. Sometimes we were looking at each other’s eyes at a very short distance. In such cases I felt that his eyes were kind of loving and had a glitter that made me feel I loved him. Sometimes I glanced at his tunic to see if anything was protruding there but I could see nothing, for a tunic could be hiding any longing whatever we had. Sometimes he seemed to be aware of my glances but said nothing. Instead he used to hold my upper body with his arm and pressed me against him. I was very grateful for this, for being so far from home I had a great need for affection. He was to me like an older bother or a loving cousin. Perhaps more.

The cold wind was blowing for some days and we kept sleeping very close inside the hut. We started always with the same position facing each other and it was later that I turned to let him sleep on my back. Every night he was holding me tight and I became fast sleep in a moment. During these days I was not awaking during the nights, but sometimes I had weird dreams. In them I was having a feeling that something hot was pressing on my rear and I had also the queer sense that something was entering in me. These dreams were rather pleasant and I wanted this feeling to last longer. But once I had awakened the memory of all this was soon wiped off my mind. So if this was a real dream I had not committed any sin at all for this happening was not real. When I waked up in the morning I felt like a gentle sore down there and a little wetness. I thought so much going up and down the slopes could cause this sore, for we were all day running after the sheep.

Once a week, a messenger was coming up from the monastery with a fresh load of bread, lard and a small bag with yak’s butter for each herder. Others were carrying daily the cans of milk down to the monastery to make cheese. This was indeed a very heavy duty. I heard to say that people that work so hard in life is increasing much his “karma” for my future afterlife. As we were always walking up and down the mountains I was feeling stronger each day. I was having an easier breathing when hiking uphill and my legs and my rear muscles were becoming stronger. That is why Gyalo sometimes used to squeeze up my rear cheeks with his strong hand stammering out “you’r… strong… here”. In those cases we both giggled.

I am remembering about a day of hot weather. It was very unusual and we had to take off our woolen undershirts. So we were wearing our red tunics only. Even with the tunics on we were feeling hot. An hour or two after noon the weather was so hot that we were feeling lazy and sweating. Even the sheep were a little lazy this day and most of the animals were lying on the grass chewing the cud. Gyalo and I were also lazy and lying on the grass at the shade of a big rock that was keeping us cool. Then he began to play tricks on me. He was poking at my sides with his fingers and I had started to wriggle feeling ticklish. Then I started also to tickle him and we were giggling madly because of the heat.

There is a saying about this weather, some people become mad with the heat and often do evil things. We were tickling each other and there was a moment in which Gyalo was lying over me. We were face to face looking at our eyes. Then I began to feel his weight over me and I was flooded with a sense that something was going on inside my body. I felt an uncertain surge into it and something was stirring down there. Then I began to feel a pressing effect over me that I thought it could be this part of him that had become hard. We remained this way for some time, unable to do anything but be quiet. We were not uttering a word. Something inside my body was growing on and getting hard but I was unable to say what was. There was a moment in which I felt a longing to take off my tunic and I had imagined that Gyalo was also naked over me. This way the skin of our bodies would be rubbing. This idea brought me a pleasant memory of a time when I had such experiences. I was then a younger boy. We have been taught that we had to oppose our will to the calling of pleasant desires. Sometimes I had practiced this exercise a little, delaying for a time to eat or to pee. But another older boy told me that all this refusing of our desires were only meant for the monks. All of us had learned this idea of restrain very well. So we remained quiet for a long time. We were doing nothing but opposing an iron will against our mad cravings. We could have taken the easy path and we could have separated our bodies from the first minute. But we remained close together refusing to do anything further. And by these exercises of restrain we were making our will stronger. This is a more sure way of fighting the evils of pleasure than to flight at once when a temptation appears.

After a while in this position, we felt rather hot and had to separate from each other becoming asleep over the grass. We both awoke some time later and had to run up and down after the sheep for they had dispersed in groups for the mountain. The heat was less intense for a little breeze from the south was blowing and this was a welcomed bless while we were running after the sheep.

Some days later the herd was on another place and we had to sleep in a cave that was under an outcrop of rocks. The place was a little colder during the nights and the cave was not deep but the weather was milder now. At the time of going to sleep we were faking not to be aware of our feelings for each other. Sometimes in the night I felt like awaken and Gyalo was behind me rolling up my tunic and pulling down my English briefs. I faked to be sleeping and said not a word. He then was playing with me for a time. He slid his thing into me and moved in a to and fro way. I was feeling some pleasure but I enjoyed most to be certain that he was delighting in this play. But, looking at this in a different light we can say we have done nothing wrong. I say this because our senses often play tricks with our mind, they fool us, so we are bound to feel or to know for certain what are only figments of a fake knowledge. These figments are worth much less than the mantra papers that English tourists threw away when they shit in their way to the sacred mountains. They are littering our sacred mountain paths with these mantra flags.

Neither of us can be sure of anything, we cannot be clever enough to be sure what our senses were telling us it was anything real. In fact, the surest thing is that nothing is sure but the dhamma.

End of the Part 3