Lighting Lamps for the Border: A Prayer After the Flood

By Tsering — Founder of Tibet Jewels

I had planned to write to you this week from the trail. Instead, I want to set my own small journey aside and speak about something far heavier.

You may have seen the news. In late August, high in the Himalayas, a great mass of ice and rock broke loose above the Lhende River and came down upon the border between Nepal and Tibet, near the Gyirong — or Rasuwagadhi — crossing. It dammed the river, and when the water finally broke through, a wall of mud and stone swept down through the valleys below. Homes, bridges, and whole stretches of road were gone in minutes.

This is not a far-away place to us. This border is one of the old doorways between Nepal and Tibet — a road walked for centuries by traders and by pilgrims, many of them on their way to and from the very mountains I have been writing to you about.

When the news reached us, our hearts stopped. We have friends who were near the crossing that day — people we love. For a while, we could not reach them, and those were long and frightening hours. I am deeply grateful to tell you that, one by one, word has come back. All of our friends have been found. All of them are safe.

But many families are still waiting for news that may never come. So many people were swept away — Nepali villagers, Tibetan neighbors, and travelers from many countries who had come only to see these mountains. Some have been found. Many are still missing. Too many are gone.

So this week, we are not selling anything, and we are not telling a happy story. We are lighting lamps.

In our tradition, when we lose someone, we light butter lamps — small flames offered so that those who have passed may find their way through the dark, and so the living are not left alone in their grief. Tonight I lit lamps in our workshop: for those who were lost, that they may find peace and a gentle passage onward; for those still missing, that they may yet be found; and for the families who wait, that they may somehow be held through the hardest days of their lives.

I hold in my heart, too, the rescue workers on both sides of the border, climbing into broken and dangerous ground to search for strangers they have never met. That is its own kind of prayer — the kind made with the hands.

The mountains we love are beautiful, and they are not gentle. They give, and sometimes they take. All any of us can do is meet that truth with open hearts, care for one another, and keep a little light burning in the dark.

If you feel moved to, please hold the people of this border region in your thoughts today — in whatever way you pray. And if you are able, please consider giving to a trusted relief organization working on the ground in Nepal and Tibet.

We will return to the trail, and to our story, next week. This week belongs to them.

May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings find peace.

From my homeland, to your hands.