Limitless: Lessons from Tsum Valley

A trekking pilgrimage in Nepal's sacred Tsum Valley becomes a journey beyond the stories we tell ourselves.

What exactly is the problem?

This is the question I’m asking myself, stopped momentarily on a thin dirt trail snaking up past 11,800 feet up the Ganesh Himal range in Nepal’s Tsum Valley. It’s been a tough day of hiking, the one with the “shark’s tooth” climb. Sharp up, sharp down. This is part of a longer pilgrimage I joined for reasons physical, psychological, and spiritual.

All of which escape me now, stalled out, a wave of diarrhea threatening, the other hikers well ahead of me. I feel a bit sorry for myself, actually, and some old timey laments arise from the depth of my psyche.

Not good enough. Don’t belong. Left behind.

The very shit I came here to release. I just didn’t think it would be so literal.

So what exactly is the problem? I do a scan. My breathing, despite the altitude, is fine. Sure, my legs ache but why wouldn’t they after hours of walking uphill. A guide waits discreetly just ahead. Not abandoned after all.

Tears come. Messy, snotty. Yes, yes, let it go, let it all go. That’s what I’m here for. When the sorrow subsides, I look around. Way down below, a river fills the air with its flow. Mountains surround me. It feels like an embrace. I start up again.

Nothing is wrong. Except the story in my head.

Easy fix. Tell a new story.

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At 63, what was my potential? That was the story I was looking to edit on this trip. Narratives of aging had been seeping into my mind. Lost bone density, lost strength. Diminishment unto death. Or its popular opposite, the do not go gentle option, in which our hero dukes it out in a gladiatorial battle against time’s ravages, one well-timed vitamin from defeating death for good.

Perhaps because of the unabashed goodness of my life, neither storyline suited me.

I live on a high plateau in Mani, a wild and beautiful part of Greece. In the Instagram version, you’ll see the amazing food my darling husband cooked, the feral cats (and kittens!) we look after, the sea swimming. There I am at my desk, writing, producing Certain Age. Now I’m meditating. It’s a damn good situation.

And yet. Something was missing. Even in the midst of this blessed life, I saw the subtle ways I pulled my own punch. Doing good enough, and knowing that it wasn’t. My true capability shrouded. I wanted to see it, to touch it – to unleash it.

A trekking pilgrimage in Nepal seemed a good start. But not just any trek. Tsum Valley is a protected area, consecrated by Padmasambhava – Guru Rinpoche himself – in the 8^th century as a “beyul,” a hidden, sacred refuge. For the last 100 years, the area has enforced an official policy of non-violence. No animals are killed here for food. Even keeping beehives for honey is forbidden due to the harm it could cause the bees. It is also the home ground of Geshe Tenzin Zopa, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and teacher I have followed for several years.

Combining humor with embodied fluency in Buddhist wisdom, Geshe Tenzin Zopa has that rare gift shared by the best teachers – the ability to make the complex seem simple, obvious, and completely doable. During a course last year in India, he  shared stories of his childhood in Tsum. Family life was hard, and from a very young age he took literal refuge in the meditation cave of Geshe Lama Konchog, who became his long time guru. It’s a story begun in the film Unmistaken Child, which documents Geshe-la’s search for the reincarnation of his late master, and continued in Rice and Sugar, not yet released, which we were fortunate to view during the course.

As I watched it, a desire grew in me. Those mountains – I had longed to see them since I was a child. Juxtaposed against that demanding environment was the tenderness with which Geshe-la talked his life. Even the hard parts. Especially those. Somehow this place had contributed to his gifts, and before the film was over, I knew I had to go.

The invitation arrived from an unlikely source: an Instagram post.

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Dr. Miles Neale is a psychotherapist by training. He found the Dharma in college during a stay at Bodhgaya, India, where Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree. Nowadays, he and his family are based in Bali, where he writes, teaches, and leads pilgrimages as part of his Gradual Path organization. His deep connection to Geshe-la was formed two decades ago at the famed November course at Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, where Geshe-la gave a teaching.

“The next morning,” Miles tells me, “I cut class and went to where Geshe-la lived. I showed up there every day after that. We’d talk or he’d send me away, but I kept coming back. I knew there was something there for me.” Also at the residence was the little tulku Phuntsok Rinpoch, just a child then. He is the recognized reincarnation of Geshe-la's master, and Miles would read to him and they'd play games.

One day, however, the tulku yelled at Miles in broken English. “Go home, you go home,” he said. Dejected, Miles walked back to Kopan, where he had a message to call his family. His father was in surgery for pancreatic cancer, the disease that would take his father's life. Suddenly the words shifted from bewildering harshness to compassionate clairvoyance. Miles returned to Bodhgaya and did Medicine Buddha practice for his father, but an unbreakable bond had formed with Geshe Tenzin Zopa.

When Miles announced this pilgrimage to Tsum on Instagram, with the chance to receive teachings from Geshe-la in the place that formed him, it was as if the stars had finally aligned.  

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“Pilgrimage is a medium for transformation,” Miles tells me during one of our wide-ranging conversations, and as the days pass, I ponder this. In what ways am I changing? Though I’m not all the way recovered, my gastric distress has eased. And my legs are definitely stronger. Now the walking has become its own kind of meditation. Sometimes I recite mantra. Other times I make up little ditties to remind myself which muscles to use. Use your glutes, use your glutes, use your cute little glutes, one of them goes.

The story I’m telling myself has shifted, too, from “this is hard,” to “this is amazing.”

There are nine of us—seven women and two men, including a father-and-son duo who had already been trekking before joining us. Our destination is Rachen Nunnery, which will be our base for the teachings. The rest of the group, including Geshe-la, will join us there by helicopter.

But until then, we walk. Up and up and up. Past humble devotional stupas made of stone slabs, mantra carved into the rock. Farmers plough the ground with yak teams, planting barley, the area’s main crop. Monkeys – long tailed langurs – watch us from the bushes, and on distant hills we spy Himalayan tahr, wild goats still wearing shaggy winter coats.

A rhythm of camaraderie emerges. Kindness prevails. We share snacks and medications and insights along the trail. Or we walk in silence.

Up, up and up.

On the final day of trekking, before we arrive at Rachen Nunnery and meet the heli group, we’re spread out on the narrow trail. By now, we know each other’s pace and preferences, who likes a good chat and who needs solitude. I’m on my own, in my groove, mentally cataloging the scents – like pine needles and dung from the many donkeys traversing it, an earthy fragrance with a top note of hay.

One foot in front of the other. Step by step. The trail, the climb, endless it seems. But that’s ok. I’m content to be held by mountains.

Then, before I realize it, I’ve crested the top. No more climbing to do. I can’t quite believe it. But I did it. I made it. The tears come again, and again, I let them. Happy tears. I made it. I walk on to the clearing where my companions cheer me in.

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“Compassion is like water,” Geshe-la says one night over dinner after we’ve arrived at the nunnery. “It is the softest thing, and the strongest. It can go anywhere, take any shape, soft soft, but with time it can cut through stone. Compassion is that strong, that soft.”

Nestled on the valley floor where the Ganesh Himal and Sringi Himal come together, the nunnery is a large compound with two temple halls, called gompas – and the not quite finished World Peace Stupa, all 80 feet of it, rising in its center. Prayer flags flutter from nearby hills. Yaks graze outside the walls. Nuns have been here for nearly a century, many on years long, even decades long retreat. There is real spiritual power here, and its signature is joy.   

Since its founding, the nuns at Rachen have maintained an unbroken chain of daily Tara practice, honoring the feminine manifestation of Buddha’s compassion in the world. Each morning at six, they gather to chant the puja. I get lost in the river of sound. Sometimes like the hum of insects, other times like wind. The words wash over me, through me.

One morning Geshe-la joins. He calls up the pilgrims and leads the nuns in offering extensive prayers for us. Kindness and compassion and deep devotion and blessing surround us. We are so loved, held in the invisible embrace of this boundless generosity.

I cry again, but this time the tears rinse me clean.

 “What we identify with most of the time,” Geshe-la says during one of his final talks. “Our ego self – that is just one tiny dot. But our true nature is,” here he gestures, opening his fingers to the sky, “indestructible.” 

He is quiet, eyes shut in contemplation. We’re in the old gompa, with its low roof, dark walls, and gold statues gleaming at us. “Our potential as humans,” he says at last, “is limitless.”

And there it is. In that magical way of the best teachings, he has answered my question without knowing I was asking it. I’m stronger than I know. I’ve been leaving so much on the table, the best bits of myself unused. I can see that now.

I see too that I’m asking the wrong question. If our potential is limitless, the more interesting question is, what will we do with it?

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If you're wondering what you're still leaving on the table — there may be a place for you at our retreat this September in the Mani, where I live in Greece. Five days of yoga, meditation, guided writing, and three genuine physical challenges, at an extraordinary retreat property on in the Peloponnese. Small group (no more than 12) by design. Fun will be had.

Interested? Learn more and join the waitlist. I'll be in touch directly.

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Jean Shields Fleming is founder and editor-in-chief of Certain Age. She is the author of the novel Air Burial. Read an excerpt from her new book, All the Reasons Why.

Photos courtesy of the author.