Three Things, an Excerpt from Radio Shangri-La
—Lisa Napoli

The approach to the most sacred monastery in the King- dom of Bhutan is steep and winding and, especially as you near the top, treacherous. You are sure with one false step you’ll plummet off the edge. Had I been here during certain times over the last few years, I might have hoped I would. It is a cold winter’s Saturday, dark and overcast. Misty gray clouds, pregnant with snow, hug the mountains.

My companions are several of the twenty-somethings who staff the new radio station in Bhutan’s capital city, where I’ve come to volunteer. Kuzoo FM 90: The voice of the youth. Pema is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and flat white dress shoes, the kind you might put on with a demure frock for a tea party. Ngawang’s wearing the same stuff on top, but she’s got sneakers on her feet. Each woman carries a satchel stuffed with her kira, the official national dress, requisite attire for Bhutanese who reach the summit. Kesang is already wearing his gho, the male equivalent. Over it, he’s carrying a backpack filled with ten pounds of oil to fuel dozens of butter lamps, of- ferings to be left for the gods. Me, I’m twenty years older, and practicality reigns: I’ve got on my thick-soled boots, an ugly long black down coat with a hood, and six layers of clothing underneath.

So much for the strength I’ve gained from my daily swim- ming regime; I am huffing and puffing against the altitude and the intensity of the climb. My new friends modulate their sprints to let me keep up.

Bhutanese are hearty in many matters—they are used to living off the land, the hard lives of farmers—but they are par- ticularly strong when it involves making the trek to this place called Takshang, built on a sheer cliff that soars ten thousand feet into the sky. The depth of their devotion becomes abun- dantly clear when, out of nowhere, a radiant twelve-year-old boy scurries down past us, stark naked, completely unaffected by the temperature and the incline. He’s trailed by a solemn entourage of grown men. Not one of them misses a step. Later, we learn this beatific adolescent is a reincarnated lama on pil- grimage from the remote eastern reaches of this tiny country.

A pilgrimage to Takshang is the highlight of a trip to Bhu- tan, but it is commonplace for the Bhutanese. They are carried here from babyhood. Slight, frail seniors navigate the twists and turns and inclines deftly from memory, in a fraction of the time it takes foreigners half their age. Tales are told of people with physical disabilities who labor for twelve hours so they might reach the top, where a cluster of temples awaits. The most sacred of the altar rooms there is open to the general pub- lic only once a year.

It is believed that meditating for just one minute at Tak- shang will bring you exponentially greater blessings than meditating for months at any other sacred site. If you travel here on a day the calendars deem to be auspicious, the merit you accumulate will be even more abundant. Ngawang tells us that the first time she remembers visiting was two decades ago, when she was four years old; her mother had died and the monks sent her here to pray.

What Takshang promises all who visit is cleansing and re- newal. Into this valley in the eighth century a sage named Guru Rinpoche rode in on the back of a tigress. Then he re- treated to a cave for three months and, with the most powerful weapon there is—his mind—swashbuckled away evil spirits. In so doing, he persuaded the Bhutanese to adopt Buddhism as their guiding light. Hundreds of years later, to mark the feat, a colony of structures was built in this precarious location— testament to how the people of Bhutan have long revered him, this being they consider the Second Buddha.

As we climb higher and higher, and as the gold-topped Takshang comes into view, I can feel Guru Rinpoche’s strength bolstering my own, diminishing demons, softening my heart.

This is the story of my midlife crisis—and how I wrestled with and then transcended it, thanks to a chance encounter that led me to a mysterious kingdom in Asia few have visited. In the march of years leading up to my fortieth birthday, and on the rapid ascent into that menacing decade, I’d found my- self Monday-morning quarterbacking every step of my life, haunted by the revisionist history of regret. A near-continuous looping chorus of “what ifs” and “if onlys” became my soundtrack:

Why had I failed to have a family with a man I loved? Why had I squandered my youth so haphazardly?

Why had I stuck with a profession that infuriated me so intensely?

What could I do with the second half of my life to make it more meaningful than the first?

How was I going to grow old gracefully?

Inhaling the cold, clear air on that trek up to Takshang, on the other side of the world from home, the pain and noise of those questions began, finally, to melt away. To morph into a sense of acceptance and peace. No longer did I feel stuck on a treadmill of emptiness; now my life story read as full, exciting, wondrous—with limitless possibilities for the future.

And we hadn’t even reached the most sacred spot on the mountain.

Radio Shangri-La: What I Discovered on my Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth
—Lisa Napoli