A lot of people find God in Prayer, meditation, asana, and service. Fair enough. I found God in dumplings. I was 23 and studying abroad in India. I’d befriended a Buddhist monk, Sonam, who was famous for two things: being relentlessly upbeat and making perfect momos, Tibetan dumplings.
By Jaimal Yogis
Missing my carb-rich, American diet, momos had become my comfort food in India, and Sonam had agreed to teach me his recipe. We met to mix the rice-flour dough on the roof of his monastery, using a sheet of plywood raised on cinder blocks as a table. I watched as Sonam rolled out a thin sheet of dough, carved sand dollar– size noodles, and filled each with a pinch of cabbage and cheese. Finally, as if swaddling a newborn, he folded each round noodle carefully into a momo.
“Now you,” Sonam said in his thickly accented broken English. I tried to copy Sonam, but all my attempts ended in messy piles of dough, cheese, and cabbage that resembled cat vomit. “Berry good, Ja-ma,” Sonam laughed. After several failed attempts, I found myself making little dough balls I hoped would taste like gnocchi. A silence passed until Sonam said, “I tink dis God. Buddha mind berry same same.”
“Really?” I said. It wasn’t that this was an uncommon topic for Sonam. When we passed a Catholic chapel in Bhagsunath, the tiny Himalayan town near Sonam’s monastery, he would often say, “I tink dis Christian religion, good religion.” But equating God with Buddha mind was new. I wanted to hear more, as one of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism is that there is no creator. I asked Sonam for clarification on his point and he patted a mound of momo dough.
“Dis God,” he said. Sonam then chopped God into squares with a butter knife. “These Christians, Hindus, wah wah wah,” he said—“wah wah wah” apparently capturing the other few billion theists around the globe. The God that was left over—the stuff between the squares—Sonam gathered up, rolled into a softball-size sphere, and tossed to me. “Dis love,” he said. I had to hand it to Sonam. If there was one thing I could imagine as all encompassing love, it was momo dough.
Sonam looked proud as he rolled out a new blob, calling it “Buddha mind,” before carving it into small circles. “Buddhists,” he said. And again, the dough that had connected the circles, Sonam balled up. “Com-pash-un,” he said, lobbing the ball to me.
I caught the compassion blob and squished it together with the love blob. They were, of course, identical. “See!” Sonam beamed. “Berry same same.”
I smiled. In theory, I agreed. But having spent months in India working as a journalist—reporting on extremist Hindus and Muslims who were skewering each other on pitchforks in Gujarat— I could see the beautiful momo-dough representations of these faiths, but they could also make me sick. I asked Sonam why—if fundamental reality was love, and if religion was a doorway to this love—so many religious people seemed so full of hate?
Sonam nodded. “I think some dumpling no turn out good,” he said. “Inside, dis same stuff good dumpling.” He moved my horrid dumplings to the same plate as his pretty ones. “Dis good religion, good teacher, show all people how find good inside. Dis bad religion say people many many different. Then people many many fight.”
I smiled. I had more questions, but part of what made Sonam such a relief to be with was his simplicity. So we moved on to a more pressing topic: how to make Sonam’s dipping sauce. We chopped chili peppers and garlic, adding them to vinegar, soy sauce, and honey. But once the dumplings were cooked, Sonam couldn’t help pointing out that the circle dumplings and square dumplings tasted “berry same same.” Sonam then tasted my ugly gnocchi piles. “Ja-ma,” he said. “I think your momo better next life.”
“Mmmm-mmm,” I said, nodding with my mouth full. But at this point, the words weren’t registering. I was full of pure love— the most delicious momos I’d ever eaten.
This article was first written in the print edition of Yoga Journal Singapore, which is now Yogahood Online.
