In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, I met up with my tour guide Gyantzing and the driver a little early, like around 9:15, and we headed off to the Potala!  Oh, where to begin.  The Dalai Lama’s palace, which he hasn’t lived in since 1959 due to the Chinese invasion and his subsequent exile, is a beautiful looming fortress that dominated Lhasa’s scenery until recently, when the Chinese started building tall skyscrapers.  The Potala has a thousand rooms and is thirteen stories tall; we couldn’t go into all the rooms, but it seemed like we climbed all the stairs.

The Potala is named after the Potalaka, a rocky mountain that legend has it the bodhisattva of compassion lives on, whether you call that bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig, Quan Yin, or Kannon. The name and gender change from one culture to another.  To Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara.

When we entered the Potala and were ascending a flight of steps, I paused to look at a window that was very deep, showing that the walls must be about two feet thick.  I noticed that in addition to narrow wooden bars, the window has a wooden frame with no glass.  I doubt traditional Tibetan windows used glass; they can always close the shutters, and this isn’t mosquito country.  However, it’s such a cold climate, and they have dust storms, so you’d think they’d have glass windows. 

On the steps, a group of three little novice monks giggled at me.  They had to be younger than sixteen, the age that the Chinese government allows Tibetan boys to become monks, in contrast with their tradition of starting around age five.  These boys looked to be only about eight or ten, but I’m thinking parents probably get them dressed up as monks in eager anticipation of their becoming monks at sixteen.  No doubt the Chinese government doesn’t mind if this deceives tourists.

There was much climbing of stairs and tourists aren’t allowed to take pictures in most places, though there were a couple places I did take pictures before noticing the sign with the No Photos symbol on it—a red circle with a line through it, in front of a black camera.  This is kind of scary, since green uniformed Chinese soldiers were all over the place.  We were on a roof, although not the very top roof since it’s off limits, when I took some pictures of the breathtaking view.  It’s usually fine to take pictures outdoors but not in.  On that one occasion, a boy in a green uniform objected.

The Potala has a large courtyard where dancers wearing masks and colorful brocade costumes formerly performed operas.  High up on a balcony the Dalai Lama used to watch through a sheen red curtain.  His living quarters—consisting of audience rooms, study room, libraries, meditation room and bedroom—were high up at the top of a tall and formidable whitewashed structure facing the courtyard.  From the courtyard, I looked up and imagined the young Dalai Lama up there, looking down upon the people below.  Oddly, the courtyard reminded me of the one at Neuschwanstein Castle, which is a Germanic fairy tale castle King Ludwig II had built in the nineteenth century and therefore from a very different place and culture than the Potala.

We went up and saw some of the Dalai Lama’s rooms, though his bedroom is behind a closed door; presumably it still has the same furnishings as when he lived there.  The “Watching room” as the balcony is called, is connected to the Audience Chamber, and it has a bright red and ornately carved stepping stool that the Dalai Lama and anyone else used in order to enter the Watching Room.  The Audience Chamber otherwise has the usual sumptuous brocade banners and draperies, in addition to a yellow brocade-draped wooden throne to the left, along the same wall as the stepping stool.  There are long cushy-looking benches covered with patterned red, white, and yellow rugs, and some brightly painted tables in front of them.

The various Dalai Lamas didn’t all use the exact same rooms.  Different Dalai Lamas had different suites, not entirely surprising given how big the place is.  The seventh Dalai Lama had his own little meditation room in which a couple of the walls were mostly glass, with some red- and gold-painted carved wood around the glass.  In the room, along the short wall on the right, is his meditation bench, and above it hangs a thangka.  Along the long back wall is a cabinet containing gold statues, and the wall facing the bench is covered with brocade draperies.

I experienced sensory overload on a large scale at the Potala and now don’t know quite where to take this next.  Oh, yes, we entered a huge prayer hall that doesn’t have the rows of red mattresses one usually sees, because as my guide pointed out, “The Potala is now like a museum.”  This prayer hall is on display for tourists and is no longer functional, so no monks sit on red benches to chant or play music.

I’m not sure—I think it was a different prayer hall, because I remember a bunch of people were around, but at one point I saw a monk on a bench working on something, and right behind him was a grey and orange cat,.  The cat got up and scurried across the path and disappeared—clearly it wasn’t crazy about having so many people around. 

We explored many rooms that contained rows and rows of gold statues, in some cases very large ones, bigger than life-size.  One enormous tall-ceilinged room contained huge gold stupas covered with jewels; these were the tombs of the Dalai Lamas.  Mixed in with the stupas were gold statues and little gold three-dimensional mandalas.  When you see photos of the Potala’s façade, the gold roofs mark the location of the Dalai Lamas’ tombs.

At some point in the tour, we passed a closed red door a couple feet from a series of five closed red doors in a row, with the usual big round knockers; these were doors to the fifth Dalai Lama’s tomb, which are all only opened on Losar, the Tibetan New Year, when countless Tibetans line up to go through the Potala.  A long line of pilgrims, whom Gyantzing explained all come from the same village, entered the corridor at about the same time we did.  I watched as a couple people stepped out of the line in order to peak through the red double doors that were open a crack.  One guy followed them and actually pushed the door slightly more open.  Several pilgrims were excited by this and quickly moved toward the door.  They all came across as simple and harmless country people. 

The pilgrim’s overzealous curiosity inspired the ire of an authority figure, a guy in black plain clothes, who marched up to the crowd and shooed them away from the door.  He was followed by a mean boy in a green uniform who barked at the crowd and ushered them forward, and even took off a glove and slapped a pilgrim’s shoulder with it.  Although that was nothing compared to the torture that I’ve read Tibetans experience, it was still shocking enough to leave me staring with my mouth hanging open.  I rather suspect sheer power-tripping malice is the primary reason the authorities don’t want pilgrims to enter certain parts of the Potala, including the very top of the roof.  I can understand not wanting people to take photos because the camera flash over time damages artwork.

Finally, we entered the fifth Dalai Lama’s tomb through a different door.  The statues were enormous—the usual bodhisattvas and Shakyamuni statues.  The stupa itself is covered with ornament and contains the fifth Dalai Lama’s ashes and relics.  It was absolutely enormous, like a stupa that you expect to see outdoors, but it was gold encrusted with jewels rather than made of whitewashed earth.  Typical Tibetan style, the big bulbous part had a curved window with a very old statue behind it, and another and much smaller Buddha statue sat in a niche in the base.

At some point, we passed through a corridor with, on our left, a glass-walled room with excessively long cabinets containing small Buddhist statues, not only from Tibet but from several countries, including Nepal, India, and Thailand.  One of the cabinets contained numerous little reliquary stupas from Thailand.  Most of the statues in this room were small, like those anyone might have at home.  Some were six hundred years old.

We walked down a dark corridor, and around a corner, on the left, was a meditation cave that belonged to an early Dalai Lama; I’m tempted to say the first, but more likely the fifth or seventh.  It had statues, very big statues, of Tsongkapa and his Chinese and Nepalese wives, the two princesses responsible for bringing Buddhism to Tibet.  The walls were dark grey and, since it was a cave, uneven and bumpy.  The room also housed various bodhisattvas, such as Manjushri.  At some point, the room was, oddly, used as a kitchen, and there’s a circular metal stove to the right, in front of the statues.  The cooks had thought it was auspicious to cook there.

When we stepped outdoors into the sunlight, we were at the back of the Potala and had many stairs to gradually climb down.  The stairs were white and fortunately included a low wall to the right, low enough that I could rest my arm on it and admire the scenery frequently.  The walls of this part of the Potala were white.  From the stairs, I occasionally stopped to admire the view and usually took a picture.  The sky was a vast and extremely bright blue.  I could hear surreal music that sounded rather like New Age music sung by a woman, and I thought it added a dreaminess to the atmosphere.

Looking around, I asked, “Is there a concert?”

Gyantzing said, “It’s music for people who are exercising.” 

            I looked down below and could see a park in which people were indeed exercising, and at least one of them was spinning a large strange white disk.  A few feet further away, I noticed a lake, and in the center of it was an island with a small square temple with an elaborate curving roof.  Gyantzing explained that this was the Naga Temple in Lukhang Lake, which is inside Lukhang Park and behind the Potala.  The island struck me as a very appropriate location for a Naga Temple, since nagas are snake deities.