“The Monk and the Mountain”
A Story of One Quiet Day in the Himalayas
The sky was still dark when Tenzin opened his eyes. He didn’t need a clock. He never had. The cold stone beneath his bedding and the soft hush of wind outside the temple told him it was just before dawn. A single candle flickered beside a tiny wooden window, and outside, the snow-covered peaks waited patiently for the sun.
Tenzin was a monk, thirty-eight winters old, living in a monastery tucked into a Himalayan ledge above a deep pine valley. He rose without a sound, folded his woolen blanket, and stepped onto the frozen floor barefoot. Silence was his companion — not the silence of emptiness, but the silence of awareness.
He walked into the prayer room and sat cross-legged, spine tall as a cedar. The air was sharp and thin. He began to breathe. Just breathe. Slowly, evenly. In and out. One breath at a time, the world dissolved into stillness.
By the time the sun tipped gold onto the snowy peaks, the other monks had awakened. Together, they lit butter lamps before the statues of Buddha, reciting morning chants in low, vibrating tones that seemed to blend with the hum of the mountain itself. The incense curled into the air, and the rising smoke was like a bridge between earth and sky.
After prayers, Tenzin joined the others for breakfast — a warm bowl of tsampa (roasted barley flour mixed with tea) and salty butter tea, creamy and strange to strangers, but comforting to those who knew the cold.
He ate slowly, mindfully, each bite a thank-you to the land, the hands that grew the barley, the yak that gave the butter, and the body that accepted the gift.
Later, in the light of the sun, he sat with old scrolls. The script was ancient, but the meaning was fresh. Today’s verse spoke of impermanence: “Like clouds drifting across the moon, all things pass.” He closed the scroll and smiled. The truth needed no decoration.
Tenzin spent the morning mending prayer flags and sweeping the stone courtyard. Every act was done with care — not because someone was watching, but because it was a chance to keep the world a little more beautiful.
At noon, he stepped outside the monastery gates. He often took walks into the forest. The wind rustled the tall Himalayan pines. A hawk circled high above. He paused at a rock that overlooked the valley and sat.
Down below, tiny dots of color marked distant villages. Smoke curled from their chimneys. Life moved slowly there, as it did here. “The same breath,” he thought, “fills them and me.”
In the afternoon, some villagers climbed up to the monastery. A mother with her child. An old man with questions about death. Tenzin offered tea and gentle words — not as answers, but as mirrors. He never claimed to know everything. He only offered what he had learned from stillness.
As the sun dipped behind the peaks, bells rang again. Evening prayers. Tenzin joined the circle of monks. Their voices rose and fell like a river. Outside, the last light of day brushed the snow in gold and then slipped away quietly.
After supper — just a little rice and stew — Tenzin sat once more in meditation. The night air was cold, but inside, warmth blossomed. He thought of nothing. He held nothing. Just presence. Just peace.
Later, wrapped in wool and peace, Tenzin lay on his mat. Through the window, stars blinked above the black silhouette of the Himalayas.
The mountains did not speak.
But they were never silent.
Tenzin closed his eyes and smiled.
Tomorrow would come.
And it would begin, as always, with breath.