This morning I had a good therapeutic conversation with Lynn and Mimi at breakfast. It started with Mimi talking about her family, and the topic led to how distressed I have been lately because of my verbally abusive relatives.
I told Mimi and Lynn about my mother and her siblings, and how I’m only just starting to confront the situation and try healing from my childhood, and that only in the past few years I’ve stopped being in denial about what my relatives are really like. I told them that my most poisonous relatives were victims of incest when they were children, and I described the way they ganged up on my nephew as if they were a gang of playground bullies, and I said, “Seeing them treat him that way, I realized that they have treated me like that hundreds of times. And I figured out that they pick the youngest person, because they believe that the younger you are, the more powerless and the more abused you deserve to be.”
Mimi was outraged and said, “You feel so helpless when you witness things like that.” That’s very true, and I neglected to mention that I had just done five or six weeks of intensive metta meditation before that family reunion and was therefore remarkably equanimous. We talked about healing, and I mentioned the book by Alice Miller called The Drama of the Gifted Child, which I read shortly before this trip, and Lynn is familiar with the book. They pointed out that the healing process takes a long time. Mimi said, “If even just one person begins to heal, it is healing the previous generation and the next generation.” That was very encouraging, although she also said that it’s highly unusual, very hard, to recover from child abuse.
I said, “Who knows how many generations this has been going on.”
After breakfast, we gathered into the courtyard of Cloud’s End, where some plastic patio chairs had been set up in a sort of circle. I spread out my straw mat in front of some chairs and settled down on it, taking off my boots and sitting cross-legged.
The Mindfulness Trainings Ceremony was the reason we gathered in the courtyard; it had been such an exciting and joyful experience in the Jetta Grove last year, and yet this time it seemed to me like a meaningless ceremony. During the ceremony, I was in the center back and going through the motions but lacked last year's enthusiasm. The ceremony last year had been such a great inspiration.
Stacy and I had already done the Mindfulness Training Ceremony previously, so Shantum didn’t call us up and give us the certificate, which seemed a little anti-climactic but to be expected. However, he later asked me what my dharma name was, and I told him “Fearlessness of the Source.” He seemed in a cheerful mood when he asked and even smiled at me, but I didn’t feel like smiling. I really do have to wonder if it’s possible for me to coexist with humans at all, since everywhere I turn I get rejection. A little later he gave me a fresh Mindfulness Training Certificate, and I remembered that the one from last year is slightly dog-eared.
Shortly after the ceremony, Shantum gave an instruction in mindful hugging and demonstrated with Inge, and there was hugging going around in the courtyard. I went back to writing depressive thoughts or whatever in my journal, and it looked like everyone would ignore me. But Samaya approached me and I grudgingly agreed to a mindful hug. Mimi also gave me a mindful hug and afterwards whispered to me, “You’re beautiful.”
The sangha settled back down in chairs and on the lawn to have a talk. We discussed the topics of generosity and privilege, since generosity was such a huge topic in the Dalai Lama’s teachings and so significant to issues we encountered outside the teachings, such as the decision to donate to the Tibetan Children’s Village and the Tibetan Nuns Project.
One of the things for which we should be grateful, and that came up in conversation, is the gift of nonfear: fear, fear of death, how the person who died an hour ago is gone and a new person is there. This includes your work, karma, with mind and body stream not dying but continuing beyond physical death. One can experience nonfear in facing the basic fear of death.
Mimi gave a long list of examples of privileges: she was able to get education and go through college, she has the privilege of being a woman in America, to live in a country where you can be a feminist and not be persecuted for it (which just goes to show that the Midwest isn’t part of America!), having plenty to eat, money, the ability to travel and go from place to place and do many things, being able to go, the privilege to have silence and solitude. Shantum or someone said that you can make a gratitude list comparing yourself to the rest of the world. Someone else pointed out that white skin is a privilege in racist society. That proves that privileges are not a deserved sort of thing. Someone mentioned the privilege of travel and of being here. Gary said, “The privilege of being a human being.”
On the subject of generosity: give what you can. I am not open to hugs and to showing emotion, which could be seen as a sort of generosity. But I donate money and food and things, regardless of how uncomfortable (and/or incompetent) I am about displaying emotion or showing that I have a heart. You should give of yourself; it doesn’t have to be a big thing.
The discussion also covered the subject of generosity with money: supporting causes, supporting people, supporting yourself. I do all of those things, certainly, for all my seeming worthlessness. As Gary pointed out, “Some people have huge amounts of money but are poor in their outlook;” plenty of very wealthy people don’t give to the poor. “The world has abundance. Generosity for me is about connecting with the abundance of life.”
“You can’t keep it unless you give it away,” David said.
Etiel said, “The Jewish tradition of generosity. You’re obliged to pick up and carry someone who’s ill.”
“The generosity of affection is liberating,” someone said. Great, I don’t experience much of that, and I have to accept the fact that I never will…except from cats. I can’t forget cats, but for most people they’re not enough—you need affection from your own species.
Mimi or someone also spoke of giving money and saying, “It’s not ours to keep.” We don’t own anything.
Shantum said, “Current governments have invented property to keep track of what’s there, separation into categories.”
Sheila said, “Generosity to yourself—giving yourself time, space, and quiet to help others do the same.”
In the midst of this conversation, I said nothing but wrote in my journal: “Is there such a huge difference between the street beggars in India and my begging for travel money from my dad?” At least street beggars are poor and therefore have better reason to beg. I on the other hand have begged for money from my dad for the luxury of traveling to the other side of the world. And of course it’s easier to beg from your dad (at least, if you have a dad like mine) than to beg from a stranger whose reaction could be just about anything.
We also experience generosity of the sangha with each other, often in the form of small gestures. That addition to the conversation reminded me how so many people in this sangha have, in effect, been my mother. It has reminded me of the Tibetan saying that everyone has been your mother in a previous life.
The topic of generosity next led to the support of certain organizations, in particular some of the places that the sangha visited. The group that has been traveling for over a month went to a girls’ orphanage. Of course the Tibet Nun’s Project and the Tibetan Children’s Village came up, and I definitely want to donate to the latter and possibly also the former. Mimi earlier had discussed this with me and had asked why I wanted to support the nuns but not the Children’s Village, and I had said, “Well, maybe I’ll support the Children’s Village also, but I knew about the Nuns Project beforehand and have read a lot about Buddhist nuns and how unappreciated they generally are, so it’s a topic close to my heart.” It might have been more to the point that women’s issues are invariably close to my heart. Of course, I think of peace and revolution--and therefore education that emphasizes peace, nonviolence, and good communication skills—to be close to my heart and relevant to feminism, and I have been bringing it up in petitions, surveys, and letters, even though I’m certainly not a teacher.
Shantum mentioned his volunteering with the U. N. for a dollar a year to run a whole program on his own. Self development—the U.N. didn’t get it and, didn’t appreciate his attempts to reform the system. He had mentioned this in the taxi on the way from the Norbulingka Institute, and I thought it was no wonder he had concluded that the U.N. is useless. It seems to me that although he’s been so much more distant and brusque on this trip, he has opened up about his own past more than he had on the pilgrimage. His employment is a part of practice, it’s hard to give, especially to himself.
Mimi said, “To quote Helen Boyle, ‘I love my money because I can give it away.’”
2
For lunch, we ate on the balcony at Chonor House. I picked up a Tibetan Independence Movement brochure that included a post card inside, to send to the Chinese government. I would have to hide it in my suitcase before going to Tibet and refrain from mailing it until I got back the States, because I didn’t want to get in trouble with the Chinese government until after I left Tibet. It wouldn’t do to be kicked out of the country. I hoped no authorities would notice that I have a panda bear with a Tibetan flag on its back; I hadn’t thought of that when I purchased the toy for my nephew.
Before I sat down, we saw a large, beautiful black-faced monkey in a tree by the balcony. Of course, I had to get as close as possible and watch the monkey, or specifically the Hanuman langur, climbing and swinging, before I sat down and got out my radio.
We listened to the English version of the Dalai Lama’s teachings on our radios all through lunch; I remembered to bring the radio this time. I felt nonetheless crappy and kept blowing my nose, and Stacy passed me a packet of a vitamin C and honey supplement in pink powder form; you put it in a glass (or teacup) and it fizzles and bubbles. Very interesting. It didn’t taste gross, and I drank it down quickly.
The Dalai Lama talked about generosity and altruism, different forms of enlightenment, and different forms of bodhicitta. He spoke at some length of bodhicitta, the “ultimate altruism to benefit all sentient beings.” When your everyday state is like your meditative state, you’ve reached Buddhahood. The Dalai Lama spoke about reciting a bodhicitta mantra on a daily basis; I think that’s a lot like practicing metta (lovingkindness) meditation.
I gathered up my stuff and headed for the temple shortly after two pm. I wanted to get a look at the Dalai Lama before his dishy translator’s four o’clock teaching. I got through security and moved up the steps, where Westerners stood with radios. I stood behind someone and arranged my radio. The reception, I discovered, was much better at Chonor House, and it was rather less comfy to stand there with my bag hanging from my neck rather than sit on a mat, but I didn’t mind. I did get a look at the Dalai Lama as he went by, and again I smiled back at him glowingly.
I then hung out at the temple and people watched until the translator’s teachings. It is definitely quite a place to people watch, with all the Tibetan pilgrims with different regional dress. I remembered that there wasn’t a lot of point in leaving the temple, even though I had a full hour. I first waited for the crowd to die down while I stood in the courtyard and people-watched. As there came to be more elbow room, I slowly made my way up the path to the temple, and next I stood at the front of the balcony and looked down at people. I saw an old lama blessing people by taking a large rolled-up thangka and gently touching them on the foreheads. When it was close to four o’clock, I turned and headed up to the Kalachakra Hall for the final time.
The translator talked about bodhicitta also, and he pointed out that if you want to be famous, you should be famous for being altruistic, for being like, say, Gandhi. If you try to be famous like Michael Jackson, your voice and your dance moves aren’t going to last forever.
With Mimi, Arturo, and David, I sneaked out of the hall early, so that we could pile into a taxi and get to Cloud’s End in time for the talk with the Dalai Lama’s brother. I’ve been feeling terrible—it’s a cold, I’m sure, not just allergies. By the time we gathered into the little sitting room at 5:30—actually, some of us got there earlier—I was exhausted and yawning. During the discussion, I couldn’t help yawning widely, even though I felt terribly guilty about doing it and was genuinely enjoying listening to Tenzin. Hopefully he could tell I was sick; I blew my nose enough.
We gathered into the living room at Cloud’s End to have a talk with the Dalai Lama’s brother, Tenzin Choegyal. He was also identified as a reincarnate lama at an early age, but he ditched the post because it didn’t suit him. I was one of the first people in the room, and I plopped down on the floor; I always sit on the floor because it seems to me appropriate for the youngest person in the group, and because I’m more comfortable sitting that way than sitting up in a chair and not knowing what to do with my legs. Shantum walked up to the dais in the bay window and pulled up a seat for our Tibetan visitor, but Tenzin Choegyal mischievously plopped down in the center of the couch next to David and grinned.
I looked up at Tenzin Choegyal from about three feet away and couldn’t help but stare: the Dalai Lama was in disguise! I thought he looked remarkably like the Dalai Lama, except he had short hair instead of a shaved head, and instead of red robes he wore Western pants, an oxford shirt, and a brown jacket with the message “SF San Francisco” on the upper left side. He wore squarish glasses like the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum had said something to the effect that Tenzin Choegyal isn’t very sociable and spends a lot of time in retreat, so I had visualized a crazy, stern, cave-dwelling yogi with long braided hair and traditional Tibetan clothing. In the course of the discussion, we learned that he’s sixty-one years old. He does look a lot younger than his brother and still has totally black hair.
Shantum introduced Tenzin by saying, “This is my teacher. Well, a friend.”
Tenzin said, “A friend who led him astray!” He even sounds a lot like the Dalai Lama! Well, his voice isn’t that deep, and his English is more fluent. Members of the sangha asked him questions, and he happily, eagerly, answered.
“Some people think Buddhism is pessimistic, because it talks about suffering. All spiritual traditions talk about suffering. If you mention spiritual traditions, people automatically think of fighting,” he said. He mentioned that religions become political parties, for there is tremendous division instead of uniting, and this is a big challenge we have at this age. It’s a great time to make amends, to transform. He condemned political parties as being about selfishness and imposing one’s view on others, including through money. It’s no wonder I now refuse to even try associating myself, limiting myself, to a political party.
Shantum introduced Paula as the rabbi who took the Three Refuges, and Tenzin said, “Should we throw a party?”
Tenzin Choegyal is so not a fan of blind faith, which is something people have if they don’t examine or analyze things; I think that is connected to fundamentalism.
“May I ask a question?” Richard asked.
“No, you may not,” Tenzin joked.
“Is the empowerment ceremony appropriate for householders, or just monastics?” (The Dalai Lama did the empowerment ceremony for at least a couple days, in addition to teachings.)
“The empowerment ceremony is OK for householders.”
“I’d like to ask you a personal question,” Etiel said.
“No personal questions!” Tenzin joked with a grin.
“Why didn’t you remain a monk?”
“I wasn’t up to the task. It was like wearing the skin of a tiger.”
Tenzin Choegyal told us a lot about himself, about his life, and about how different his views are from his brother’s. While he’s a big fan of nonviolence and dialogue, he’s not so serious a fan of the monastic system, which has a lot of power. While he does believe in reincarnation, he doesn’t have faith in the Rinpoche system of identifying little kids who are supposedly reincarnations of specific lamas. As he pointed out, everyone’s reincarnated, not just lamas.
“Our community still suffers from following rituals and not looking at the creed. It’s not about religion but psychology.” He mentioned that meditation is about attempting to lose negative thoughts. What a challenge, given the conditioning we grow up with!
“I have no authority except my big ego.”
“Identifying with religion gives you pressure to identify yourself,” said the David who’s from Florida.
“Labels are very misleading. If you identify with the label, attachment comes,” Tenzin Choegyal said. He talked quite a bit about labels, including money, which is just paper, but we’ve labeled it and given it the meaning of currency, so we accept it. “How do you remove the label? If you skillfully handle it, it’s OK. Nonself of the self, all names are labels. Even a label is subjective. All depends on how we handle it.” He said, “I think I’m talking like a wise person, but I’m not.” But he wasn’t done with labels yet, saying that “I” and “myself” are just labels; “it’s functional, but it lacks all substantiality.”
“We tend to return to events that are pleasant and block out unpleasant events. It goes to things not being the way we want.” I guess that’s how people are nostalgic; they remember a vacation and focus on the good parts.
He said, “I don’t like rituals…I don’t like temples.” At some point in the conversation, he said, “I’m kind of a nut, you know.”
John said, “All of us are in some continuity of mental balance.” Mine certainly is drastically off kilter.
Richard asked about depression and meditation, and Tenzin said to embrace it. “Probably it’s grounded in self-centeredness.” Tenzin experienced depression during the winter (seasonal affective disorder). Depression is physical and mental, interdependently between the physical and spiritual. He went to doctors, was diagnosed as bipolar, which is both depression and mania. A doctor treated him with lithium. “Incidentally, the greatest deposit of lithium is in Tibet.” It helped and people were encouraging. Depression is what drove him to a regular meditation practice, and he’s feeling so much better because of it. Now he’s focused on studying the dharma.
“When people are desperate, thoughts are going everywhere. Then I became interested in Buddhism and it helped. People who become depressed are undisciplined. We are meditating all the time, but not properly.” I have come to the conclusion that I shall have to leave Kansas in order to truly make progress with meditation; as long as I dwell there, I shall make one step forward to every fifty steps back.
“What if you were in that role [Rinpoche], and it was discovered you were bipolar?” someone asked.
“They’d know they made a mistake,” Tenzin replied. “We are all reincarnates from previous lives—identifying reincarnation, it only exists in Tibet, and I don’t know why—this continuity of the practice and to a particular lineage. In history, it became a problem. I personally don’t feel it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Look at me…. There are many loopholes—it is not handled properly, a tulku becomes a symbol of earthly existence. When I talk like this, people think I’m a traitor.”
“Do you discuss this with your brother?”
“He accepts.”
“There’ve been a lot of books written on mindfulness,” Richard said.
“And they made a lot of money,” Tenzin said with a grin. He encouraged us to read root text (as a Theravada practitioner, I translate that as, in particular, the Pali canon, which is more or less the words of the Buddha, passed down for centuries). He added, “We should read more deeply and study more deeply.”
Marsha said, “Your wife is a delight. How did you meet her?”
“I don’t think she’s a delight,” Tenzin said. They met in Darjeeling when she was in college, in 1964.
“Are there arranged marriages in Tibet?”
“It was self-arranged.” He added that they first met in a movie theater; the film was George Scott Flimflam Man. I’ve never heard of it.
Someone asked him about nonviolence, and Tenzin said, “Nonviolence—most people think it’s passive, but it’s active. You’ve got to have the right understanding.”
He went on to talk about attachment and emptiness, and dependent origination, not to mention impermanence and our failure to recognize things as impermanent, which leads to suffering. “If you have tremendous anger, impermanence means it’ll go away.” Rather relevant to his comments about political parties, Tenzin talked about how attachment causes “lots of arguments take place.”
“What are your views on vegetarianism?” Natalie asked.
“I’m strictly nonvegetarian.” He added, “I think it’s very desirable to be vegetarian. But you must get requirements for your body. Among Tibetans—Younger ones are becoming vegetarian, it’s becoming more common. Tibetans subsist on carbohydrates in monasteries, some have overweight, have diabetes, not enough exercise.” Tenzin said. “Three cheers for vegetarianism!”
“In attachment to the Tibetan land, is there a difference between generations?” Paula asked.
“I have walked on the soil of so-called Tibet. Yes, there is a difference. Sons and daughters have not been there, and it’s all a mind thing.”
“I think human beings are going through an evolution. I don’t think one hundred years ago people talked about this,” someone said.
“Jews did—going back to the land,” Paula said.
“Everyone in the world thinks Tibetans are perfect!” Tenzin said with a laugh. “If Tibet becomes peaceful, where spiritual pursuit is encouraged, I’d go for it. Otherwise, I’m happy elsewhere.” Someone asked him why people think Tibetans are perfect, and he said, “I think it’s because of the novel Lost Horizons by James Hilton.”
He mentioned that he thinks a family person has more compassion than a sangha member; if you’re around difficult people rather than secluded, then you have on-hands experience practicing compassion and all. This has certainly occurred to me often enough, but if you’re in such a painful situation that you’re crippled with depression all the time, you’ve got to get out of that unhealthy situation; I don’t think that meditation alone is enough, even though part of my sense of guilt and my staying in Kansas so long is because I read that an enlightened being is happy no matter where they are.
Tenzin is highly critical of the Tibetan monastic system and explained that it’s intellectual understanding rather than practice. (Well, they do practice meditation and chanting, but that’s not the same thing as experiencing equanimity when mean people are attacking you. It’s much more challenging to practice when you’re not in a monastery.) He said some people join the monastery because they get free food. Basically, there are some things he likes about Tibetan Buddhism (otherwise he wouldn’t be so into studying the dharma now), and other things he doesn’t like about Tibetan Buddhism. He would like practice to be more secular.
“Mishandling freedom is a universal problem,” Tenzin said, reminding me how unfathomably hypocritical war-mongering white male Americans are with their talk of freedom, when obviously they don’t even know what it means. “The most difficult thing to do today is how to handle freedom.”
“I can’t resist…” John said.
“Go ahead. Use your freedom,” Tenzin said.
John is critical of the level of monasticism and the Dalai Lama’s support of this. He called it “confinement of thought of the worst kind.” He said, “Isn’t this monasticism a cancer to the Tibetan cause?”
“I share your view,” Tenzin said. “In monasteries we have trouble with discipline. Are these people genuine?” John mentioned that nobody agreed with him about this, but as it turned out the Dalai Lama’s brother agrees with him.
“Shantum, why did you bring him to this kind of teaching?” Tenzin asked with a grin.
“I really know nothing,” Tenzin said. “My ignorance—I’m an exhibitionist. I like to show off. I’m quite sincere in my feeling. I try to call a spade a spade.”
Tenzin said, “The Tibetan issue—it’s a small speck.” This has occurred to me often enough, like when I’ve donated to the International Campaign to Tibet, even though I don’t think that organization is half as important as the Global Fund for Women. “The Tibetan problem comes from carelessness, not caring, so what does it say?”
“Why did the Dalai Lama mostly read from the Dhammapada?” someone asked, and several people expressed dismay that the Dalai Lama did this.
“I think we should go on strike?” Tenzin said. Someone asked if he has discussed this with his brother, but he said, “Since the teachings, I haven’t seen him. I’m a crowd-shy guy.”
He also said, “I think it’s a genuine grievance here.” For those who don’t speak Tibetan, the lack of commentary is not fair.
“He’s teaching primarily for the Tibetan community,” Shantum said. Some Tibetans are illiterate or barely literate, or otherwise have reasons why they won’t ever get a hold of the Dhammapada; Westerners on the other hand can easily get it in English at a bookstore or library.
“But that doesn’t help these people,” Tenzin said. “I’m listening at home on the FM. I thought it was odd that he didn’t explain for two days…in his commentary, tremendously powerful.”
“It’s different when we criticize, different than when you do,” Stacy said.
Tenzin said, “For people who are interested in spiritual tradition, study it, and study it in groups, with no leader.”
After a little more discussion, Tenzin asked, “Any more questions?” He looked around the room, but we were silent. “I think everyone is shocked.”
The discussion went to plans for having dinner at Kashmir Cottage. “Can someone give me a ride?” Tenzin asked.
“No, you have to walk.”
Our lively and enthusiastic discussion lasted at least two hours. Although I enjoyed it, and Natalie was also there, my cold was terrible, and I went to bed afterwards, like around eight, rather than have dinner.
People were leaving and I was in the little hallway outside the living room, where we all put on our shoes. Only a couple of other people were in the room as I slipped into my boots. Since I wasn’t up to having dinner, I said to Sheila, “If anyone asks about me, I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” She’s had the same cold (or probably the same cold) that I have and said that resting did her a lot of good, so she knew what I was going through. I was so exhausted! I went to bed at about eight o’clock, and a servant guy came with the hot water bottles when I was already in bed. I think I startled him.
“No dinner?” he asked.
“No, I’ve got a cold. I need rest,” I said, and thanked him as I took the water bottle. He apologized, and I think I might have sounded grumpy and regretted it, but I didn’t mean to sound that way. When I’m feeling ill, I say things like that and afterwards suspect I wasn’t polite—this was one of those situations.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Norbulingka Institute
Some of us climbed into the taxis but others (including moi, as Miss Piggy would say) walked to the next place: the Norbulingka Institute. It was only about a mile away. I greatly enjoyed the walk, on such a beautiful and bright sunny day. On the left side of the narrow dirt road, we passed cows standing around and chewing their cud at a barnyard. On the right side, we passed fields of yellow flowers, bright green tall grass, and some idyllic trees. John and Lynn got so far ahead of me that John became concerned and went back to make sure I didn’t get lost. I think someone else was quite a bit behind me. The view and route seemed flat compared to the valley and dizzying roads we’d been using in Dharamsala.
The Norbulingka Institute, a beautiful and idyllic place where Tibetan arts and crafts are taught and kept alive, is a registered trust under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, and it is preserving Tibetan culture. This complex includes: offices and reception, guest house, café, workshops, academy for Tibetan culture, Deden Tsukhang (the Seat of Happiness Temple), Norling Arts Shop, and the Losel Doll Museum.
At the Norbulingka Institute, we passed through a Tibetan-style gateway into a courtyard of tree-lined paths, landscaping, potted plants, ponds and waterfalls. It was like paradise—or perhaps I should say it was like Shangri-la. I noticed in the distance Shantum talking on a cell phone, and his posture and movements suggested that he was impatient. I tried to ignore this as we followed a path up to a café, where we sat at small round tables in front of a Tibetan-style building colorfully painted in flowery murals, and a couple of young Tibetans gave us menus and took our orders. I sat with Sheila, Lynn, and John, and a very friendly brown dog came along and let Sheila and me pet her.
John’s lunch came first, and it looked yummy, a stir-fry concoction, while I waited for my lunch. Maybe it was just as well I overdid the snack at the nunnery. Finally after everyone except me had lunch, the waiter came back to the table, and John reminded him that I didn’t have my lunch yet, and the waiter finally informed me that they didn’t have that particular dish; so I pointed at John’s plate and said, “I’ll have that instead.” The lunch, when it finally came, was as delicious as it had looked on John’s plate. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the company of the other people at my table, to say nothing of the dog.
On the previous day, Jagdish had handed me his cell phone, and Bina had informed me that it turns out that the travel agent hadn’t mentioned $300 that I still owed for staying in Kathmandu. Sitting at the Norbulingka café after finishing my lunch, I wrote a check and gave it to Shantum, who suddenly snapped at me. He began by saying imperiously, “Ms. Susan;” it’s odd how people most often use my name when they’re chastising me as though I were a bad little girl, an attitude that has not improved my relationship with my name—but going by a different name wouldn’t make it any better, because no doubt people would use it the same way. That might indeed be the reason why I almost never address people by their names.
In short, Shantum demanded to know why I wrote “so many checks.” I was shocked by his behavior, in part because I had already had this discussion, or rather a much more civil version of it, with Bina via e-mail, when I explained that I was concerned about checks getting lost in the mail, and she had informed me that the bank charges a fee for every check and that if the check didn’t get to them, I could cancel it. Since I was deeply shocked and hurt by Shantum’s behavior (even though it was nothing compared to the verbal attacks I have continually received from relatives ever since I moved to Kansas), I did not know what to say and spoke in a stilted voice. “I wrote this check because Bina called the other day and said I owed another three hundred dollars for Kathmandu.”
Shantum sternly explained in front of everyone why it was a nuisance to receive so many checks. The entire time he spoke, I sat slumped in my chair, staring at my lap and not seeing anything, and feeling deeply humiliated and hurt. Without even knowing what he was saying, I muttered a couple things like, “Oh, is that so,” and, “I didn’t know,” and felt too shocked and incapable of speech to actually point out to him that Bina had explained everything to me.
During last year’s pilgrimage, Shantum had seemed very nurturing and supportive and kind, and he had paid me complements (the opposite of what I am accustomed to) and had seemed to have a grasp of psychology, since he figured out that I’m shy. I had subconsciously turned him into a surrogate mother to make up for my verbally abusive relatives and for the fact that I had been bullied instead of nurtured throughout my childhood. Shantum was the second person I stupidly turned into a surrogate mother and who had rejected me. I finally figured out that the only person who can nurture me is myself.
While we still sat at the café tables, Shantum also acted impatient with Mimi for not being decisive about what she wanted to do this afternoon. I put on a cheerful façade and said, “Somebody’s a grumpy Buddha.” John and Lynn got a good laugh out of that, but it didn’t change my overwhelming sense of rejection and despair.
Another “mother” had rejected me and once again I was completely rootless. I have known since the age of five that I am on my own and that nobody is around to truly nurture me, so it is absurd for me to not be accustomed and resigned to this. If I were not still traumatized by my childhood, if I had not just been through six years of regular verbal abuse from relatives, and if I had not put Shantum up on a pedestal and turned him into a surrogate mother, I would not be hurt by his behavior.
The Norbulingka Institute is a remarkable learning center where Tibetans learn and practice woodworking, thangka painting, making appliquéd thangkas and banners, furniture building, and other crafts. We climbed precarious stairs and passed stone structures, including a wall that curved around dramatically. I should have enjoyed the tour, but the entire time I felt so humiliated and ashamed of whom I am, that it was as if a dark raincloud hovered above me and nobody else. A Tibetan boy gave us a tour of the Institute before the group went on our own, and while I should have been excited to see students painting thangkas in a studio with the Dalai Lama’s voice on the radio, and to see colorful murals on a woodworking studio’s walls while students built an embossed cabinet or wardrobe, I wanted to be invisible.
After we parted with the tour guide, we ended up in a gift shop, but I didn’t feel like buying anything and would have been very ashamed if I had done so. But really, I feel ashamed of everything I do and of being myself. I wish I could be someone else, a decent human being, someone whom people respect, but I’m stuck with being a worthless loser. Feeling miserable and dejected, I idly wandered around the shop while everyone else seemed to be eagerly chatting and looking at merchandise. I would have preferred to go to the doll museum, but it had a separate entrance fee and I didn’t think I would have enough time, for I was under the impression that we would be leaving soon.
People dispersed from the gift shop, and I overheard some people, including Paula and Richard, were going to the temple, and so I tagged along. In the center of the Norbulingka Institute is a standard Tibetan temple with a shiny gold roof and with colorful murals galore. I followed the others up the temple steps and stared around at the murals. I looked down at my feet and to my utter embarrassment saw that I was still wearing my hiking boots. I hurried back to the entrance to slip them off. I couldn’t even feel good in a Buddhist temple; the positive energy that it might have contained did not penetrate the oppressive raincloud that surrounded me.
In the taxi with Shantum and me, Etiel said something about Shantum as a tour guide, and I made a sarcastic remark in response. She said, “I think he’s doing a fabulous job! It’s hard to be a guide for so many people.” She said it plenty loud enough for Shantum to hear, and she tapped the top of his seat back.
Shantum said, “I am unemployable.” He added something to the effect that people have labeled him “unemployable.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, thinking nobody could be as unemployable as I, but Etiel also agreed, although it was hard for me to think of her as unemployable. Shantum proceeded to talk about some of his previous employment, how he’d get a job and try to do it his way, but his employers didn’t want him to do it his way. He worked for one dollar a year for the UN for six years, and he tried to make the program work, but the UN didn’t like the way he did things.
After a brief pause in the conversation, Shantum brought up the subject of my pilgrimage memoir, and of my including the notes I took during his storytelling. He said, “I’m not sure it’s kosher, you see. It took me twenty years of research. Penguin has a contract for me to write a book, and it’s been sitting on my desk—I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
I explained that the book is about both my path and the Buddha’s path, and that I wrote his comments in quotation marks, as dialogue. I also said that I’d go ahead and send him the current draft by snail mail, since it’s five hundred pages and would be easier to read in print rather than on a computer screen.
In the late afternoon to early evening we went to a tea plantation, or more specifically the tea plantation owner’s guesthouse, to admire the view and watch the sunset. The guesthouse included two charming white bungalows, and we went through the main building, admired the décor in the process, and went through glass doors at the back of the house to step out into the back yard. There we had a view not of tea plants as I had expected, but of what looked like a forest touching the borders of the yard, and best of all we saw the Himalayas in the distance.
We met a very friendly older man, whom I at first thought was the owner of the plantation, but he was more like the butler; he wore a business suit and a blue turban and spoke English very fluently, with more or less a British accent. He told us all about the plantation and the guesthouse. (We even saw Western guests sit out on the patio at some point in the evening).
Male servants in dark brown Nehru suits served us beverages, and they set up a table with tea and snacks, something breaded and similar to tempura vegetables, with green minty dipping sauce. I got a small plate and would have served myself a tiny portion, but Jagdish served me a generous portion of breaded veggies and sauce. He knows my gluttonous ways too well. If I had not been around people, I would have eaten nothing for the rest of the day, because I didn’t think I deserved to eat.
While those of us who had gone on this particular outing—for it was not the entire sangha—sat admiring the view and snacking, we had a discussion. Shantum reminded us that today is Thursday and we need to turn in our Mindfulness Training essays tomorrow. This led to some discussion about the Mindfulness Training, which a surprising number of people have said they wish to do, even though some of them aren’t even Buddhists. Not that I’m into labels or identification with just one religion or spiritual tradition. I much prefer the word “spirituality” to “religion,” of course.
Marsha asked about alcohol and said that she drinks wine at night. Shantum said, “You should drink mindfully and think about whether you’re causing suffering…and you might just end up swearing off alcohol.” Shantum explained that originally he only did four trainings; he didn’t drink alcohol and was at the time only interested in ganja. (I had no idea what ganja is, but since then I have looked it up and learned that it’s a Sanskrit or Hindi word for “marijuana.”)
“The Mindfulness Trainings aren’t vows, they’re just guidelines,” Shantum said. He said that at the wedding, he drank two sips of champagne, because they were doing a toast; he wasn’t going to drink, but someone put a glass in his hand. I was surprised to hear he actually drank even that much; the pilgrimage last year had seemed very anti-alcohol, and I had been comfortable with this after reading Sharon Salzburg’s remarks about alcohol and meditation being a bad mix. If you drink in front of children, Shantum said, “you’re planting the seed of alcohol in them.” (I’m glad my brother doesn’t drink in front of Malcolm.)
The topic of vegetarianism also came up. Someone said that animals feel fear, know that they’re going to be killed—on some level of consciousness, but they’re in fear when they’re about to die. Shantum said, “There are fear toxins in the meat—you’re eating fear.” (There’s another reason for me to see meat eating as unclean.) There are plenty of other reasons for being vegetarian, such as it’s much more ecological and economical to plant fields and eat the grains or produce directly rather than have animals grazing, using up the grain and causing deforestation, but I don’t think that came up in the conversation. And in my experience, taste buds are a perfectly sensible reason to be a vegetarian, even if it is self-centered and trivial compared to other reasons. I don’t need to do Mindfulness Trainings for that; laying off sweets and aspiring to use something that vaguely passes off as mindful speech are the biggest challenges for me when it comes to the Mindfulness Trainings, which I did on the pilgrimage last year.
Shantum talked a little about Indian vegetarianism and said that it is perfectly acceptable in Indian vegetarian tradition to eat eggs. Despite my overwhelming self-hate and rejection, I actually spoke up at this point. I said, “I’m not a vegan, but ninety-five percent of chickens in the United States live in inhumane conditions, packed tightly into cages and never seeing the light of day. That’s a good reason to refrain from eating eggs.” I have gotten the impression that chickens are treated the same way in Ireland; I remember eating a great many eggs there but only seeing chickens once. In India, however, it’s not unusual to see chickens and chicks running around, like so many animals in India.
Shantum, referring to his younger days, said he was “a guy with no limits, like a free bird,” only he wasn’t free because he was “trapped in samsara.” So the Mindfulness Trainings have been his guidelines.
You take refuge in the Buddha three times for these reasons: 1) the Buddha Shakyamuni, 2) your potential for awakening, and 3) your awakening. “This mindfulness practice is your refuge,” Shantum said. He also used the word “aspiration.”
We stayed at the tea plantation long enough to admire the sunset as Shantum had proposed earlier. I could see a very bright pinkish-orangey sunset between trees. We went around to the front of the house, and while people stood around talking and I didn’t feel like talking to anybody, I watched the sunset amid other trees that, since it was getting darker, looked like black silhouettes. The sunset was bright orange and very dramatic.
Here is my new insight poem:
Mindful Trek
Mindful steps over rough terrain
rocks glistening in the sun
sparrows singing and crows cawing
elk footprints and rhododendron trees
the scent of pine and cedar
hawks soaring in blueness with a backdrop
of snow-capped triangular mountains
are more spiritual to me
than any temple or ceremony.
The Norbulingka Institute, a beautiful and idyllic place where Tibetan arts and crafts are taught and kept alive, is a registered trust under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, and it is preserving Tibetan culture. This complex includes: offices and reception, guest house, café, workshops, academy for Tibetan culture, Deden Tsukhang (the Seat of Happiness Temple), Norling Arts Shop, and the Losel Doll Museum.
At the Norbulingka Institute, we passed through a Tibetan-style gateway into a courtyard of tree-lined paths, landscaping, potted plants, ponds and waterfalls. It was like paradise—or perhaps I should say it was like Shangri-la. I noticed in the distance Shantum talking on a cell phone, and his posture and movements suggested that he was impatient. I tried to ignore this as we followed a path up to a café, where we sat at small round tables in front of a Tibetan-style building colorfully painted in flowery murals, and a couple of young Tibetans gave us menus and took our orders. I sat with Sheila, Lynn, and John, and a very friendly brown dog came along and let Sheila and me pet her.
John’s lunch came first, and it looked yummy, a stir-fry concoction, while I waited for my lunch. Maybe it was just as well I overdid the snack at the nunnery. Finally after everyone except me had lunch, the waiter came back to the table, and John reminded him that I didn’t have my lunch yet, and the waiter finally informed me that they didn’t have that particular dish; so I pointed at John’s plate and said, “I’ll have that instead.” The lunch, when it finally came, was as delicious as it had looked on John’s plate. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the company of the other people at my table, to say nothing of the dog.
On the previous day, Jagdish had handed me his cell phone, and Bina had informed me that it turns out that the travel agent hadn’t mentioned $300 that I still owed for staying in Kathmandu. Sitting at the Norbulingka café after finishing my lunch, I wrote a check and gave it to Shantum, who suddenly snapped at me. He began by saying imperiously, “Ms. Susan;” it’s odd how people most often use my name when they’re chastising me as though I were a bad little girl, an attitude that has not improved my relationship with my name—but going by a different name wouldn’t make it any better, because no doubt people would use it the same way. That might indeed be the reason why I almost never address people by their names.
In short, Shantum demanded to know why I wrote “so many checks.” I was shocked by his behavior, in part because I had already had this discussion, or rather a much more civil version of it, with Bina via e-mail, when I explained that I was concerned about checks getting lost in the mail, and she had informed me that the bank charges a fee for every check and that if the check didn’t get to them, I could cancel it. Since I was deeply shocked and hurt by Shantum’s behavior (even though it was nothing compared to the verbal attacks I have continually received from relatives ever since I moved to Kansas), I did not know what to say and spoke in a stilted voice. “I wrote this check because Bina called the other day and said I owed another three hundred dollars for Kathmandu.”
Shantum sternly explained in front of everyone why it was a nuisance to receive so many checks. The entire time he spoke, I sat slumped in my chair, staring at my lap and not seeing anything, and feeling deeply humiliated and hurt. Without even knowing what he was saying, I muttered a couple things like, “Oh, is that so,” and, “I didn’t know,” and felt too shocked and incapable of speech to actually point out to him that Bina had explained everything to me.
During last year’s pilgrimage, Shantum had seemed very nurturing and supportive and kind, and he had paid me complements (the opposite of what I am accustomed to) and had seemed to have a grasp of psychology, since he figured out that I’m shy. I had subconsciously turned him into a surrogate mother to make up for my verbally abusive relatives and for the fact that I had been bullied instead of nurtured throughout my childhood. Shantum was the second person I stupidly turned into a surrogate mother and who had rejected me. I finally figured out that the only person who can nurture me is myself.
While we still sat at the café tables, Shantum also acted impatient with Mimi for not being decisive about what she wanted to do this afternoon. I put on a cheerful façade and said, “Somebody’s a grumpy Buddha.” John and Lynn got a good laugh out of that, but it didn’t change my overwhelming sense of rejection and despair.
Another “mother” had rejected me and once again I was completely rootless. I have known since the age of five that I am on my own and that nobody is around to truly nurture me, so it is absurd for me to not be accustomed and resigned to this. If I were not still traumatized by my childhood, if I had not just been through six years of regular verbal abuse from relatives, and if I had not put Shantum up on a pedestal and turned him into a surrogate mother, I would not be hurt by his behavior.
The Norbulingka Institute is a remarkable learning center where Tibetans learn and practice woodworking, thangka painting, making appliquéd thangkas and banners, furniture building, and other crafts. We climbed precarious stairs and passed stone structures, including a wall that curved around dramatically. I should have enjoyed the tour, but the entire time I felt so humiliated and ashamed of whom I am, that it was as if a dark raincloud hovered above me and nobody else. A Tibetan boy gave us a tour of the Institute before the group went on our own, and while I should have been excited to see students painting thangkas in a studio with the Dalai Lama’s voice on the radio, and to see colorful murals on a woodworking studio’s walls while students built an embossed cabinet or wardrobe, I wanted to be invisible.
After we parted with the tour guide, we ended up in a gift shop, but I didn’t feel like buying anything and would have been very ashamed if I had done so. But really, I feel ashamed of everything I do and of being myself. I wish I could be someone else, a decent human being, someone whom people respect, but I’m stuck with being a worthless loser. Feeling miserable and dejected, I idly wandered around the shop while everyone else seemed to be eagerly chatting and looking at merchandise. I would have preferred to go to the doll museum, but it had a separate entrance fee and I didn’t think I would have enough time, for I was under the impression that we would be leaving soon.
People dispersed from the gift shop, and I overheard some people, including Paula and Richard, were going to the temple, and so I tagged along. In the center of the Norbulingka Institute is a standard Tibetan temple with a shiny gold roof and with colorful murals galore. I followed the others up the temple steps and stared around at the murals. I looked down at my feet and to my utter embarrassment saw that I was still wearing my hiking boots. I hurried back to the entrance to slip them off. I couldn’t even feel good in a Buddhist temple; the positive energy that it might have contained did not penetrate the oppressive raincloud that surrounded me.
In the taxi with Shantum and me, Etiel said something about Shantum as a tour guide, and I made a sarcastic remark in response. She said, “I think he’s doing a fabulous job! It’s hard to be a guide for so many people.” She said it plenty loud enough for Shantum to hear, and she tapped the top of his seat back.
Shantum said, “I am unemployable.” He added something to the effect that people have labeled him “unemployable.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, thinking nobody could be as unemployable as I, but Etiel also agreed, although it was hard for me to think of her as unemployable. Shantum proceeded to talk about some of his previous employment, how he’d get a job and try to do it his way, but his employers didn’t want him to do it his way. He worked for one dollar a year for the UN for six years, and he tried to make the program work, but the UN didn’t like the way he did things.
After a brief pause in the conversation, Shantum brought up the subject of my pilgrimage memoir, and of my including the notes I took during his storytelling. He said, “I’m not sure it’s kosher, you see. It took me twenty years of research. Penguin has a contract for me to write a book, and it’s been sitting on my desk—I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
I explained that the book is about both my path and the Buddha’s path, and that I wrote his comments in quotation marks, as dialogue. I also said that I’d go ahead and send him the current draft by snail mail, since it’s five hundred pages and would be easier to read in print rather than on a computer screen.
In the late afternoon to early evening we went to a tea plantation, or more specifically the tea plantation owner’s guesthouse, to admire the view and watch the sunset. The guesthouse included two charming white bungalows, and we went through the main building, admired the décor in the process, and went through glass doors at the back of the house to step out into the back yard. There we had a view not of tea plants as I had expected, but of what looked like a forest touching the borders of the yard, and best of all we saw the Himalayas in the distance.
We met a very friendly older man, whom I at first thought was the owner of the plantation, but he was more like the butler; he wore a business suit and a blue turban and spoke English very fluently, with more or less a British accent. He told us all about the plantation and the guesthouse. (We even saw Western guests sit out on the patio at some point in the evening).
Male servants in dark brown Nehru suits served us beverages, and they set up a table with tea and snacks, something breaded and similar to tempura vegetables, with green minty dipping sauce. I got a small plate and would have served myself a tiny portion, but Jagdish served me a generous portion of breaded veggies and sauce. He knows my gluttonous ways too well. If I had not been around people, I would have eaten nothing for the rest of the day, because I didn’t think I deserved to eat.
While those of us who had gone on this particular outing—for it was not the entire sangha—sat admiring the view and snacking, we had a discussion. Shantum reminded us that today is Thursday and we need to turn in our Mindfulness Training essays tomorrow. This led to some discussion about the Mindfulness Training, which a surprising number of people have said they wish to do, even though some of them aren’t even Buddhists. Not that I’m into labels or identification with just one religion or spiritual tradition. I much prefer the word “spirituality” to “religion,” of course.
Marsha asked about alcohol and said that she drinks wine at night. Shantum said, “You should drink mindfully and think about whether you’re causing suffering…and you might just end up swearing off alcohol.” Shantum explained that originally he only did four trainings; he didn’t drink alcohol and was at the time only interested in ganja. (I had no idea what ganja is, but since then I have looked it up and learned that it’s a Sanskrit or Hindi word for “marijuana.”)
“The Mindfulness Trainings aren’t vows, they’re just guidelines,” Shantum said. He said that at the wedding, he drank two sips of champagne, because they were doing a toast; he wasn’t going to drink, but someone put a glass in his hand. I was surprised to hear he actually drank even that much; the pilgrimage last year had seemed very anti-alcohol, and I had been comfortable with this after reading Sharon Salzburg’s remarks about alcohol and meditation being a bad mix. If you drink in front of children, Shantum said, “you’re planting the seed of alcohol in them.” (I’m glad my brother doesn’t drink in front of Malcolm.)
The topic of vegetarianism also came up. Someone said that animals feel fear, know that they’re going to be killed—on some level of consciousness, but they’re in fear when they’re about to die. Shantum said, “There are fear toxins in the meat—you’re eating fear.” (There’s another reason for me to see meat eating as unclean.) There are plenty of other reasons for being vegetarian, such as it’s much more ecological and economical to plant fields and eat the grains or produce directly rather than have animals grazing, using up the grain and causing deforestation, but I don’t think that came up in the conversation. And in my experience, taste buds are a perfectly sensible reason to be a vegetarian, even if it is self-centered and trivial compared to other reasons. I don’t need to do Mindfulness Trainings for that; laying off sweets and aspiring to use something that vaguely passes off as mindful speech are the biggest challenges for me when it comes to the Mindfulness Trainings, which I did on the pilgrimage last year.
Shantum talked a little about Indian vegetarianism and said that it is perfectly acceptable in Indian vegetarian tradition to eat eggs. Despite my overwhelming self-hate and rejection, I actually spoke up at this point. I said, “I’m not a vegan, but ninety-five percent of chickens in the United States live in inhumane conditions, packed tightly into cages and never seeing the light of day. That’s a good reason to refrain from eating eggs.” I have gotten the impression that chickens are treated the same way in Ireland; I remember eating a great many eggs there but only seeing chickens once. In India, however, it’s not unusual to see chickens and chicks running around, like so many animals in India.
Shantum, referring to his younger days, said he was “a guy with no limits, like a free bird,” only he wasn’t free because he was “trapped in samsara.” So the Mindfulness Trainings have been his guidelines.
You take refuge in the Buddha three times for these reasons: 1) the Buddha Shakyamuni, 2) your potential for awakening, and 3) your awakening. “This mindfulness practice is your refuge,” Shantum said. He also used the word “aspiration.”
We stayed at the tea plantation long enough to admire the sunset as Shantum had proposed earlier. I could see a very bright pinkish-orangey sunset between trees. We went around to the front of the house, and while people stood around talking and I didn’t feel like talking to anybody, I watched the sunset amid other trees that, since it was getting darker, looked like black silhouettes. The sunset was bright orange and very dramatic.
Here is my new insight poem:
Mindful Trek
Mindful steps over rough terrain
rocks glistening in the sun
sparrows singing and crows cawing
elk footprints and rhododendron trees
the scent of pine and cedar
hawks soaring in blueness with a backdrop
of snow-capped triangular mountains
are more spiritual to me
than any temple or ceremony.
During our dinner conversation at Cloud’s End, I heard such unusual phrases as, “Rather dishy monk” and “I think he’s rather yummy”—the sisters Jill and Pat were commenting on the Dalai Lam’s translator. As listening to them often is, it was like being in a British sitcom. They have charming British accents and are around seventy years old. Someone asked for my opinion and I said, “Yes, I think he’s attractive.” At some point, I did add, “but he’s Tibetan, so what do you expect?” but I don’t think anyone heard me in the big echoic room with all the talking going on.
The sentence, “Shantum is angry with me,” became a sort of mantra that I repeated in my head over and over again. At some point it shifted to: “Shantum despises me.” The unkosher aspect of my book dawned on me more and more in the evening, and I felt very foolish and ashamed for not having realized it. By midnight, I became convinced that I’ve done something horrible.
I had foolishly thought that if I went back to India, I’d again experience the bliss, happiness and confidence that I had had on the pilgrimage last year; I had, in short, tried to run away from my depression. But no matter how far I travel, I can never get away from myself.
Despite this depression, I began to very dubiously think that maybe there’s a possibility that my book will be fine without the notes…but it will have to at least include summaries of why each location was important to the Buddha, and I should still send it to Shantum. From what I have read about trying to get nonfiction books published, I have the impression that no publisher would be willing to publish the stupid book unless it had Shantum’s written approval, since he was the meditation teacher and tour guide.
The Nunnery in Dharamsala
On the Internet, I had seen a headline about Clinton and Obama, and at Cloud’s End I saw a newspaper lying on a table outside my room. It was before 4 am, when I woke from a disturbing dream. In this dream, a newspaper lay on a small table in front of me. I learned that Hillary Clinton had had a bad experience with a taxi driver—I forget what the argument was about, but the driver murdered her whole family in vengeance. I was shocked and horrified with this news, such evil behavior, and suddenly I woke up.
These are photos that I took at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in Dharamsala. It's the site of the Tibetan Nuns Project, which is about educating nuns on the same level as monks, since they have been neglected in what is yet another patriarchal culture.
We took several taxi cabs to the Dolma Ling Nunnery, a large grouping of two- to three-story white and red buildings that look pretty new. The architecture was simple and streamlined, and I’m tempted to say it looks more Indian than Tibetan, but it was impressive nonetheless. We met up and a couple of young women in chupas led us in. We walked across an attractive paved courtyard with steps and bushy plants. Surrounding the courtyard were white columns forming a sort of cloister. We climbed the steps into one of the buildings and thus entered the main hall of the Dolma Ling Nunnery.
The main hall is set up like a basic traditional Tibetan prayer hall, with long red cushioned benches facing each other and running parallel to the length of the room, and with a dais at the far end of the room, facing the doors. In the center of the dais was a brocade-draped throne displaying a large framed photo of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Behind the throne was a huge, colorful appliquéd tapestry, and to either side of it were glass cabinets holding traditional manuscripts and statues. Shantum led a meditation sitting, and I felt relaxed. Then he asked one of us to read from a sutra, originally given by the Buddha’s buddy Shariputra, on ways to put away anger. It is called the Discourse On the Five Ways of Ending Anger and was originally recited in Sravasti.
Courtyard, where the debates take place.
Entrance to meditation hall
Throne in meditation hall; a photo of the Dalai Lama sits on the throne. Behind it is an appliqued wall hanging.
The Dolma Ling Tibetan Nuns Project was set up in the early 1990s when nuns started coming here. The seventh Dalai Lama set up Dolma Ling in (scribble) arts and crafts—that’s here.Some people are taking a quick trip to Norbulingka Center and going to the Dalai Lama’s teachings. The rest of us followed a couple of Tibetan women to the video room to see a film called A Day in the Life of Dolma Ling.
I wrote some notes based on the documentary. The nunnery was established in 1991: 180 nuns from Tibet, Spiti, and Ladakh. It also includes a few female laypeople. The construction was completed in 2005. The nunnery will have a solar hot water system, but it’s not constructed yet. It has a clinic and even an Internet room. The nunnery includes a staff of about two hundred, including teachers. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Nuns Project have helped to give women opportunities for study, progress, and respect—for them to obtain full ordination. They have their own cows and sheep and fields and produce a lot of their own stuff, but they don’t yet grow their own vegetables, but will at some point. They also make their own tofu.
http://www.tnp.org/ = Tibetan Nuns Project
Tibetan manuscripts (top left shelf) and statues in cabinet
Views of the appliqued wall hanging behind the throne. Sakyamuni Buddha and Green Tara.
Avalokiteshvara (Bodhisattva of Compassion) and Buddha
Sand mandala preserved under glass. Usually these are destroyed shortly after they're made, demonstrating impermanence.
View from roof (as are most of the following photos)
Water supply for the nunnery
We took a tour that included, among other places, the computer room and the library upstairs. We took our time in the library, a spacious room with many rows of glass-door bookcases, most of which had plenty of space for more books. I noticed that some books were in English. In a far corner was a wooden and glass cabinet containing a sand mandala. We stepped out onto a balcony with a stunning view of the mountains. Some of them are topped with snow in the distance, and the sky was bright blue. Someone asked why a row of trees was chopped up so much, concerned that it might be for the ironic reason that the trees obstructed the view; but no, it’s because the branches are used for firewood and they will grow back. We stood on the large balcony, which had tubular gold ornaments at the corners, and we looked out at the water system tank, which involves a tank (the water kind), a building, and big black cylindrical tubs. We went back inside, to a large room with a cabinet displaying free copies of Tibetan Nuns Project newsletters and post cards, and we helped ourselves.
Snow lion sculptures over a doorway
Back to the courtyardRinchen Kunun, a Tibetan woman in an elegant dark green chupa, is Head of the Tibetan Nuns Project, and she also runs the guesthouse Kashmir Cottage, where about half of our sangha are staying. She has worked for the Tibetan government in exile, but her pet project is the Tibetan Nuns Project. She has been the head of the Tibetan Women’s Association in the past. She also happens to be married to the Dalai Lama’s brother, Tenzin Choegyal, who was identified as a Rinpoche but stepped down because the job didn’t suit him. We had a great interview with her at a long table, where we munched on snacks and drinking tea.
I took way too many snacks, having not considered that we’d be eating lunch before terribly long. The flaky sugary cookies were irresistible, and unfortunately by the time it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have taken so many cookies, it also occurred to me that I’d better clean my plate rather than waste food. Flakes for the flakey.
Hello, Himalayas Among other things, as we neared the end of the talk, someone asked, “Are the nuns now writing commentary on texts?”
Rinchen Kunun replied, “Yes, they’re beginning to do it, and it’s so exciting to have commentary from a female point of view.”
Appliqued wall hanging with names of donors on leaves
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sister Yeshe
After the translator’s teaching, I went out into the courtyard and tied my two clusters of multicolored string to ropes in the foreigner’s section. The ropes hold up tent-like structures here and there. I went to Chonor House and wandered into the little shop just outside the restaurant and visible from the balcony where we eat lunch. I stepped outdoors and met up with the group at the balcony for dinner. Sister Yeshe is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who’s from Australia, and she joined us at dinner. She’s working with organizations that support nuns, mostly Western, and also Buddhist Dalits.
“Connecting with the energy” of nature—that’s a phrase care of Sheila. Pat and Gill (the funny British sisters) have been talking about a study showing that plants grow better if you’re nice to them. You should talk lovingly to them; plants that you swear at die. “The plant whisperer,” I said. Pat also said that plants taken care of by people who are depressive don’t grow as well as other plants. That might explain my rather bad luck with gardening in Topeka. Sheila mentioned a book called Eco-psychology; it’s an anthology, about 15 years old, that incorporates nature etc as spirituality.
When everyone finished eating and the conversation was loud, Shantum gently hit a fork against a glass, making it chime. He said, “This is the voice of the Buddha.” He explained, “The Buddha reminds you to come back to yourself,” as does the bell. “Anyway, blaah-blaah. Now we can go inside, upstairs, and blaah-blaah there.” We did just that, going upstairs to the Norbulingka Room, where we had “Strucks” with Sister Yeshe and a couple of Indian friends of hers whom I believe are Buddhist Dalits.
Although I’ve tried to suppress or ignore it, I have felt depressed since last night. It certainly hasn’t been as severe as my depression in Kansas customarily is, but I have had a sense of inferiority, a faint wish to be invisible, and a feeling of shame at being who I am. These are probably emotions that I’ve experienced all my life, but now that I’ve been meditating for several years, I’m more aware of such emotions and more inclined to observe them.
Sister Yeshe spoke to us about the Untouchable caste, because she is a member of an organization that helps the Untouchables and wants them to become Buddhists. She said, “Dalits do the worst kind of work, and atrocities happen to them every day.” She has been living in the slums, sleeping on the floor with a family of five. I was rather shocked that this still happens, especially on such a huge scale, in the twenty-first century.
“Slums and Buddhism go well together,” one of Yeshe’s friends pointed out, to our amusement.
The Untouchable, or Dalit, class is having a movement toward conversion to Buddhism, a movement that Doctor Ambeker, a contemporary of Gandhi, started more out of political than spiritual motivation. That is, Buddhism is casteless, and Ambeker came to the conclusion that in order to eliminate the Untouchable caste, Dalits had to give up Hinduism. To this day, Buddhist Dalits are trying to eliminate caste. Buddhism died out in India centuries ago, but this Dalit movement is helping to revive it, as is the large population of Tibetan refugees.
India is dominated by caste, and the information authorities have their own mindset. “It is embarrassing to some this is the state of India, especially around foreigners,” one of Yeshe’s Indian friends said.
“They’ve come a far way from where they were. The last president of India was a Dalit and was interested in Buddhism,” Shantum said.
Also, Shantum said, “They are the Indian sangha.” It seems to me like last year at Bodh Gaya he was dismissive of Dalit Buddhists, but I guess that was just some in particular, when we passed what looked like Theravada Buddhists and Shantum said that beggars can put on robes.
Tonight’s discussion really makes me want to read the book Untouchable, which I once checked out from the public library but didn’t get around to reading. Actually, I’d like to study up on Dalits in general, not necessarily just that book.
I was impressed with Yeshe and the causes that she works for: what amazing, compassionate, hard work. A self-absorbed part of my mind, however, became conscious that I am a truly useless human being. I grabbed onto that negative label and became acutely, painfully aware of being a totally useless and inadequate person. Another part of my mind harshly and scathingly chastised me for being so self-centered, so self-absorbed, as to think of such a thing. I should indeed forget about myself.
At some point far along in the discussion, we did our regular “Strucks.” Arturo said of the Children’s Village that it is a similar situation to the poverty and suffering in Spain. Someone mentioned Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Anger, which says that “the seed of violence or love and compassion is planted in children.” I scowled at the coffee table, thinking of my extremely unhappy childhood. I reminded myself that I’m in India and shouldn’t be so negative and gloomy here; I didn’t think I was capable of being depressed in India. Arturo also spoke of the impression these happy children, who have been displaced from Tibet, made. Sheila contrasted the children at the Tibetan Children’s Village with the children on the streets in Delhi.
Paula talked about the trek. She wasn’t sure she’d make it up the hill, and Jagdish had turned around and said, “Paula, stop thinking.”
Marsha turned to Yeshe and asked, “Why doesn’t India have compulsive education?”
Yeshe said, “It does. But it’s hard to keep it organized with over a billion people. There’s a baby born every two minutes. Under the circumstances, it’s amazing the country isn’t in total chaos.”
“And then there are these Australians moving into the country,” Shantum said, “adding to the population.” This was followed by much laughter.
Marsha pointed out, “She’s not having children,” which triggered more laughter.
When it was Inge’s turn, she said she was upset about “people sending their children away, until Paula said that’s what Jews did during the Holocaust.” The room was dead silent.
Etiel said, “Ever since I got into a plane to come here, I haven’t heard a child cry. I’ve seen many children all over.”
Stacy said, “You weren’t on my plane.”
Richard said that Shantum’s younger daughter was on the pilgrimage for the first ten days, and she never cried. I remembered the Dalit child crying in the dig, after we had stepped out of the Oracle’s temple. That may be the only time I’ve seen a child crying in India.
Mimi said, “The trek was about mindfulness, being in the present moment.” (I could have said the same thing). She “finally felt at home,” in part because she had a lack of fear.
I looked down at the coffee table and said, “During the trek, I didn’t use a mantra, but it was like meditation. You can’t be spacing off or daydreaming, when you’re carefully stepping on a bumpy rocky path or moving along a very narrow ledge of a mountain. The scenery was beautiful, and I remembered something I’d read about Shambhala, that it’s not a stereotypical paradise but rather it’s about being challenged and transformed…um, I thought the Oracle was bizarre—it was about ceremony and was just weird. And a cow steadily pushing past me reminded me of being in a crowd of monks, it was a gentle push.”
“A groovy group of people,” Yeshe said after we each spoke.
Sister Yeshe, a Western monastic herself, also works to help Western monastics, who come to India and are not supported and can’t stay in Tibetan monasteries. They often disrobe because of this lack of encouragement. Unlike Tibetans, they are not supported by the government, so they are in need of support. Yeshe told us that if a Westerner goes to a Tibetan monastery, they’re told, “Sorry, no accommodation, but you’re welcome to sponsor us.”
“Please leave your wallet. We’ll teach you about impermanence,” Gary said.
Richard sees the Dalai Lama’s teachings as esoteric, and not a lot of political struggle seems to be coming from his teachings. But, as Yeshe and Gary pointed out, he’s the most popular and successful refugee and has gotten people to notice Tibet and help refugees. Richard or someone spoke of organized religion as elaborate rather than meaningful; I could have added that power-tripping males use their organized religions as a tool to oppress others.
“What does karma mean? It means your life is in your hands,” Yeshe said. Theravada monks from Sri Lanka are the ones teaching Dalits, who want to go with the Theravada tradition, which is much like the Buddha’s own practice. It’s therefore the tradition that they’re into.
I’ve seen many ex-patriots in India. Last night there was the British young woman Richard was talking with at the restaurant about her activism with victims of torture. Then there was Yeshe tonight with her activism for Dalits and for Western monastics. Richard talked about this a bit during “Strucks”—some Westerners go and stay abroad for spiritual reasons, some for a political movement.
Part of my mind is full of the wonderful impression I get from the work people like Sister Yeshe are doing, and another part of my mind is disgusted with myself, my worthlessness and inadequacy, my utter dysfunction in human society. These are self-centered, selfish thoughts or feelings, but the truth is I have them, and rather than try to block them out, I should look at them straight in the eye and poke them with my foot. But I have my writing, and that is something that can help to change the world. I have nothing to offer except my art, my writing, and perhaps that is trivial, but whether or not it is, I should do what I can to get people to read my writings.
I also sense—certainly not for the first time—that I’m stupid and shallow and not very spiritual. So what if I can make Tibetan-style clothing? That’s no way to reach Enlightenment! On the other hand, I have to create art, including clothing as an art form; it’s what I’m capable of doing competently and compelled to do….even if I’ve had instructors who might disagree.
I’ve got a sore throat and had a cough yesterday; I definitely have a cold, which may be affecting my mood. Enid said this cold is because of the pollution in Delhi. I’m not the only one in our sangha who’s congested. Here there’s gasoline, probably diesel trucks, and open fires, but I don’t think Dharamsala has enough pollution to cause this congestion. But we were in Delhi for a day, and stuff gets into the respiratory system and takes a bit of time to be noticeable.
“Connecting with the energy” of nature—that’s a phrase care of Sheila. Pat and Gill (the funny British sisters) have been talking about a study showing that plants grow better if you’re nice to them. You should talk lovingly to them; plants that you swear at die. “The plant whisperer,” I said. Pat also said that plants taken care of by people who are depressive don’t grow as well as other plants. That might explain my rather bad luck with gardening in Topeka. Sheila mentioned a book called Eco-psychology; it’s an anthology, about 15 years old, that incorporates nature etc as spirituality.
When everyone finished eating and the conversation was loud, Shantum gently hit a fork against a glass, making it chime. He said, “This is the voice of the Buddha.” He explained, “The Buddha reminds you to come back to yourself,” as does the bell. “Anyway, blaah-blaah. Now we can go inside, upstairs, and blaah-blaah there.” We did just that, going upstairs to the Norbulingka Room, where we had “Strucks” with Sister Yeshe and a couple of Indian friends of hers whom I believe are Buddhist Dalits.
Although I’ve tried to suppress or ignore it, I have felt depressed since last night. It certainly hasn’t been as severe as my depression in Kansas customarily is, but I have had a sense of inferiority, a faint wish to be invisible, and a feeling of shame at being who I am. These are probably emotions that I’ve experienced all my life, but now that I’ve been meditating for several years, I’m more aware of such emotions and more inclined to observe them.
Sister Yeshe spoke to us about the Untouchable caste, because she is a member of an organization that helps the Untouchables and wants them to become Buddhists. She said, “Dalits do the worst kind of work, and atrocities happen to them every day.” She has been living in the slums, sleeping on the floor with a family of five. I was rather shocked that this still happens, especially on such a huge scale, in the twenty-first century.
“Slums and Buddhism go well together,” one of Yeshe’s friends pointed out, to our amusement.
The Untouchable, or Dalit, class is having a movement toward conversion to Buddhism, a movement that Doctor Ambeker, a contemporary of Gandhi, started more out of political than spiritual motivation. That is, Buddhism is casteless, and Ambeker came to the conclusion that in order to eliminate the Untouchable caste, Dalits had to give up Hinduism. To this day, Buddhist Dalits are trying to eliminate caste. Buddhism died out in India centuries ago, but this Dalit movement is helping to revive it, as is the large population of Tibetan refugees.
India is dominated by caste, and the information authorities have their own mindset. “It is embarrassing to some this is the state of India, especially around foreigners,” one of Yeshe’s Indian friends said.
“They’ve come a far way from where they were. The last president of India was a Dalit and was interested in Buddhism,” Shantum said.
Also, Shantum said, “They are the Indian sangha.” It seems to me like last year at Bodh Gaya he was dismissive of Dalit Buddhists, but I guess that was just some in particular, when we passed what looked like Theravada Buddhists and Shantum said that beggars can put on robes.
Tonight’s discussion really makes me want to read the book Untouchable, which I once checked out from the public library but didn’t get around to reading. Actually, I’d like to study up on Dalits in general, not necessarily just that book.
I was impressed with Yeshe and the causes that she works for: what amazing, compassionate, hard work. A self-absorbed part of my mind, however, became conscious that I am a truly useless human being. I grabbed onto that negative label and became acutely, painfully aware of being a totally useless and inadequate person. Another part of my mind harshly and scathingly chastised me for being so self-centered, so self-absorbed, as to think of such a thing. I should indeed forget about myself.
At some point far along in the discussion, we did our regular “Strucks.” Arturo said of the Children’s Village that it is a similar situation to the poverty and suffering in Spain. Someone mentioned Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Anger, which says that “the seed of violence or love and compassion is planted in children.” I scowled at the coffee table, thinking of my extremely unhappy childhood. I reminded myself that I’m in India and shouldn’t be so negative and gloomy here; I didn’t think I was capable of being depressed in India. Arturo also spoke of the impression these happy children, who have been displaced from Tibet, made. Sheila contrasted the children at the Tibetan Children’s Village with the children on the streets in Delhi.
Paula talked about the trek. She wasn’t sure she’d make it up the hill, and Jagdish had turned around and said, “Paula, stop thinking.”
Marsha turned to Yeshe and asked, “Why doesn’t India have compulsive education?”
Yeshe said, “It does. But it’s hard to keep it organized with over a billion people. There’s a baby born every two minutes. Under the circumstances, it’s amazing the country isn’t in total chaos.”
“And then there are these Australians moving into the country,” Shantum said, “adding to the population.” This was followed by much laughter.
Marsha pointed out, “She’s not having children,” which triggered more laughter.
When it was Inge’s turn, she said she was upset about “people sending their children away, until Paula said that’s what Jews did during the Holocaust.” The room was dead silent.
Etiel said, “Ever since I got into a plane to come here, I haven’t heard a child cry. I’ve seen many children all over.”
Stacy said, “You weren’t on my plane.”
Richard said that Shantum’s younger daughter was on the pilgrimage for the first ten days, and she never cried. I remembered the Dalit child crying in the dig, after we had stepped out of the Oracle’s temple. That may be the only time I’ve seen a child crying in India.
Mimi said, “The trek was about mindfulness, being in the present moment.” (I could have said the same thing). She “finally felt at home,” in part because she had a lack of fear.
I looked down at the coffee table and said, “During the trek, I didn’t use a mantra, but it was like meditation. You can’t be spacing off or daydreaming, when you’re carefully stepping on a bumpy rocky path or moving along a very narrow ledge of a mountain. The scenery was beautiful, and I remembered something I’d read about Shambhala, that it’s not a stereotypical paradise but rather it’s about being challenged and transformed…um, I thought the Oracle was bizarre—it was about ceremony and was just weird. And a cow steadily pushing past me reminded me of being in a crowd of monks, it was a gentle push.”
“A groovy group of people,” Yeshe said after we each spoke.
Sister Yeshe, a Western monastic herself, also works to help Western monastics, who come to India and are not supported and can’t stay in Tibetan monasteries. They often disrobe because of this lack of encouragement. Unlike Tibetans, they are not supported by the government, so they are in need of support. Yeshe told us that if a Westerner goes to a Tibetan monastery, they’re told, “Sorry, no accommodation, but you’re welcome to sponsor us.”
“Please leave your wallet. We’ll teach you about impermanence,” Gary said.
Richard sees the Dalai Lama’s teachings as esoteric, and not a lot of political struggle seems to be coming from his teachings. But, as Yeshe and Gary pointed out, he’s the most popular and successful refugee and has gotten people to notice Tibet and help refugees. Richard or someone spoke of organized religion as elaborate rather than meaningful; I could have added that power-tripping males use their organized religions as a tool to oppress others.
“What does karma mean? It means your life is in your hands,” Yeshe said. Theravada monks from Sri Lanka are the ones teaching Dalits, who want to go with the Theravada tradition, which is much like the Buddha’s own practice. It’s therefore the tradition that they’re into.
I’ve seen many ex-patriots in India. Last night there was the British young woman Richard was talking with at the restaurant about her activism with victims of torture. Then there was Yeshe tonight with her activism for Dalits and for Western monastics. Richard talked about this a bit during “Strucks”—some Westerners go and stay abroad for spiritual reasons, some for a political movement.
Part of my mind is full of the wonderful impression I get from the work people like Sister Yeshe are doing, and another part of my mind is disgusted with myself, my worthlessness and inadequacy, my utter dysfunction in human society. These are self-centered, selfish thoughts or feelings, but the truth is I have them, and rather than try to block them out, I should look at them straight in the eye and poke them with my foot. But I have my writing, and that is something that can help to change the world. I have nothing to offer except my art, my writing, and perhaps that is trivial, but whether or not it is, I should do what I can to get people to read my writings.
I also sense—certainly not for the first time—that I’m stupid and shallow and not very spiritual. So what if I can make Tibetan-style clothing? That’s no way to reach Enlightenment! On the other hand, I have to create art, including clothing as an art form; it’s what I’m capable of doing competently and compelled to do….even if I’ve had instructors who might disagree.
I’ve got a sore throat and had a cough yesterday; I definitely have a cold, which may be affecting my mood. Enid said this cold is because of the pollution in Delhi. I’m not the only one in our sangha who’s congested. Here there’s gasoline, probably diesel trucks, and open fires, but I don’t think Dharamsala has enough pollution to cause this congestion. But we were in Delhi for a day, and stuff gets into the respiratory system and takes a bit of time to be noticeable.
The Streets of Dharamsala
The main square of DharamsalaHere are some images of Dharamsala, India, a major Tibetan exile community, where the Dalai Lama lives.
The building centered in this picture is Mc'llo's, popular hang-out for Westerners
A shop catering to tourists
See the monkeys on the roof!
Monks and motor rickshaw in the main square
Outside the Dalai Lama's temple
The courtyard of the Dalai Lama's temple, after his talk. Notice the stray puppy in the center of the picture.
The veranda of the Dalai Lama's temple. The thing draped in yellow fabric is the Dalai Lama's throne, where he sits during his teachings.
Ordinary street scene
Back to the central square--you could never get tired of that lively place.
A Free Tibet demonstration was going on in the main square.
The big white building on the right, down below, is a monastery.
Path from the Dalai Lama's temple
The Tibet Children's Village
We rode straight from the church to the Tibetan Children’s Village, which struck me as a place to get a better education than the school I attended, even though by American standards Morgan Township High School was considered above average. We walked through a large paved area surrounded by buildings that were part of the school. The main office was in a building at the top of a grassy slope, on which were large rocks painted with curled up deer, presumably a reference to Deer Park in Sarnath. The buildings looked more or less like modern variations on Himalayan architecture.
Door to the girls' dorm
Entrance hall to the dorms
Baby room
This ferocious beast attempted to scare me off, but I was fearless.
This is the entrance to a classroom, where teenagers were taking a math class in English.
Stones on the hillside were painted with curled up deer.
Monks lining up in the street, to enter the Dalai Lama's temple for his teachings
Veranda in the back of Chonor House
View from Chonor House. The big white building in the center is a monastery on the hillside.
Back on the street, after lunch
The guide, an adult male who had a high position working for the Village, took us to a dorm for little kids. The front room included a couple of wooden cabinets topped with some toy animals and below a row of colorful thangkas, and on either side wall was a door, one leading to the boys’ dorm room and the other, almost completely covered with stuffed toy animals, lead to the girls’ room. As we stood inside the boy’s dorm, the guide explained that it accommodates twenty-four kids: it includes seven bunk beds, fourteen beds, and two kids sleep on the bottom bunk. The rooms were clean and neat and I’m sure that even if it seems crowded by American standards, the living conditions are very good. Maybe if the school had more funding, it would have more space.
Door to the girls' dorm
Entrance hall to the dorms
We afterwards visited the baby room, which I thought was pretty. The cribs, under a slanting roof, were all painted bright blue, and an aisle went down the center of the room. The little room had dormer windows and a tall window at the far end, across from the door where we entered. Nearby was a spotless restroom with white porcelain fixtures, and to my amusement there were several squatting toilets in a row. I recall that the house where I live originally had just an outhouse, and it had two seats next to each other; my mother came from a family with ten children, so no doubt it was convenient, but so much for privacy.
Baby room
The guide explained that there are several locations for the Tibetan Children’s School. Ladakh--seven schools (does this note mean there are seven of these schools just in Ladakh?)We met a little girl who walked across the plateau with her little brother on her back, but her parents are still in Tibet. Tibetans come to India, all illegal in transit. This is a school exclusively for children coming from Tibet, ages ten to seventeen. Seventeen is about the top age, but a few are twenty. The school does include an eleven month old girl; her mother left her behind because she had to return to Tibet.
Our guide explained that the main purpose of the Tibet Children’s Village is preserving a separate Tibetan identity. Nehru asked what help the Dalai Lama wanted, and he replied that he wanted schools for the children, to keep a separate identify and keep their culture alive. Nehru said, “Sure.”
This school teaches both in Tibetan and English up to the fifth year, then Tibetan is the main subject and language. From the sixth year, they learn more English. Sixth through eighth years, they learn Hindi too. Up to Class twelve, they learn Tibetan and English. There’s no compulsory Hindi, but from class nine they study the Hindi language.
Richard asked, “Do most of the boys become monks?” The guide said that a few become monks. He didn’t want to tell the percentage, because more and more monks become laymen nowadays.
This ferocious beast attempted to scare me off, but I was fearless.
Parents don’t support the school because they can’t, but they give to His Holiness. The distance between here and Tibet is about one hundred miles as the crow flies (rather shorter than I thought). Mann is a village on the border, and it’s closer to Tibet than to Delhi. Kids go to monastery school up to age six; Shantum said that’s typical in India. After that, they have ordinary schooling. It was weird to hear about parents coming to Dharamsala and dropping off their children before returning to Tibet, thus abandoning their children, and some members of the sangha expressed concern about this. But parents return to Tibet because the Chinese authorities hold their families hostage when they take this trip. It’s too expensive to get an education in Tibet, and it’d be Chinese anyway. I kind of think it’s amazing the Chinese authorities even let the parents take their kids to Dharamsala for an education; you’d think the authorities would be more inclined to let the kids remain illiterate. Still, they’re a bunch of bullies.
We were walking around at the Children’s Village, along a path with Tibetan-ish bungalows on our right, when we passed by a group of Westerners standing around talking, and I looked at each of them, and then I made eye contact with an Indian guy who looked like he could have been Shah Rukh Kahn’s brother. The resemblance was quite startling, and he even had the same eyebrows. We made eye contact and exchanged a smile. I didn’t mean to be flirty. I guess that’s called accidental flirtation.
Some of our group (including me) sneaked into the back of a math class for teenagers. Surprisingly, the class was entirely in English. Gee, it’s convenient to have a first language that’s so popular; it seems like people speak English almost anywhere.
This is the entrance to a classroom, where teenagers were taking a math class in English.
Stones on the hillside were painted with curled up deer.After we left the children's village, we went to the city center to have lunch at Chonor House, the restaraunt where we almost always had lunch.
Now it occurs to me that I should go ahead and snail mail Shantum a printed copy of the manuscript, since he doesn’t keep up with e-mails all the time, and since it’s a five hundred page manuscript. The printed copy would be much easier to read than if he tried reading it on a computer. I’ll mention that before we part. I’m hoping he’ll enjoy and appreciate the book—I’m really hoping he enjoys it and thinks it’s well written. I’ve gotten for the most part positive feedback about the quality of my travel writing.
Monks lining up in the street, to enter the Dalai Lama's temple for his teachings
By the time we got to the town center, it was past 12:30, and monks were lining up in the street to go to the temple. After we parked and started moving up the slanted pavement to Chonor House, I stopped and turned to get a picture of monks in line; usually I don’t have my camera with me when we see them. I went a little further up and took a picture from above, because there was a mass of red-clad monks and slowly moving white taxis. Quite a view.
Veranda in the back of Chonor HouseWe had a delicious buffet lunch on the customary balcony. We had a mushroom stir fry and a broccoli and cauliflower stir fry, and I just barely remembered to refrain from putting milk in my tea. Last night I realized that my stomach was upset because I had consumed so many milk products throughout the day.
View from Chonor House. The big white building in the center is a monastery on the hillside.I hadn’t realized we’d spent that much time at the Children’s Village—for the first time we were hearing the Dalai Lama’s deep and musical voice from the balcony of Chonor House. I had left the radio behind in the room, taking it out of my bag when I found out that we would be going to the Children’s Village; I had wanted to lighten my load, but I should have known better! About half our sangha has been listening to the radios, and I’ve been writing in my journal and listening to crows. We’re supposed to meet up here again at six, which gives me time to use the Internet and attend the four o’clock teaching. That gives me plenty of time, and some time to wander, too. I’m going to go off in just a moment, after I use the restroom, since this restaurant has two that are nice. I’ve also been listening to and imitating the crows. A pair of them seemed to say, “Uh-oh! Uh-oh!”
Back on the street, after lunch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
