It is morning and the power is still out. I’m tempted to ask if this happens every March 10.
2
In the morning, I was in the jeep with the driver and my tour guide on the way to the airport. Driving along Beijing Road, we saw many green military trucks and green-clad soldiers, some still wearing riot gear helmets. Gyantzing told me that monks at Drepung Monastery (which we had wandered around earlier in the week) fought with the military, and laymen joined in. The same thing happened at the Jokhang. I had told Gyantzing about my circumambulating the Potala and how many times I circumambulated the Jokhang yesterday, and now I told him that it was around seven in the evening when I headed back to the hotel, so the protest must have started after that. He also said, “Drepung is now closed to tourists.” Wow—that’s the monastery we visited on the first morning.
On the outskirts of Lhasa: a military convoy of at least nine trucks is coming out of the military base.
We passed a rocky mountain, and on one lower corner was a portion of a carved Buddha figure; most of it had broken off the mountain. I wonder if it used to be brightly painted like the others, perhaps decades ago or centuries ago. I wonder if the Chinese blew it up in the 1950s or 60s.
We passed the big Buddha carved and painted on the rocks, right after passing the little summer houses; they certainly have a great view of the Buddha, but I’m not impressed with the choice of making realistic goose sculptures along the edge of the pond, when there are real live geese just like that a few yards away. The real ones are quite enough.
3
I’m at Gate 2, at the airport, and actually eager to go back to Kathmandu, despite how gloomy it was. I’m eager to use the Internet (for obvious reasons, namely my eyewitness account!) and to get a souvenir for Elaine. After several years of eagerly researching Tibet and finding the culture so fascinating, and at least two years of hoping that someday I’d visit Tibet, it is ironic that I’m now so eager to get out of Tibet and back to Kathmandu.
The view at the terminal is gorgeous, through a long, tall glass window. The view is of sharp pointy brown mountains and a bright blue sky. The sky is so big and bright blue in Tibet generally.
The terminal has a little shop, and it includes some books, including The Search for Shangri-La by Charles Allen. Gyantzing had mentioned the book to me, and I said that I’ve heard of it—I think I have a copy of it, but significantly the subtitle is completely different in the American edition than in the version available in Tibet. The subtitle here says something about Western China, whereas the American edition uses the phrase “Tibetan history” rather than pretending as if Tibet were part of China. I spotted a book called Tibetan Stories, which as I expected has folk stories and mythology, but it also has ridiculous anti-Dalai Lama propaganda, very stupid and childish stuff, and as is the Maoist custom calls him “Dalai” instead of “Dalai Lama,” as if he weren’t a teacher. The word “lama” means “teacher.” In my opinion, he’s much more a monk and spiritual leader rather than a politician, and he prefers it that way.
When the customs guy looked over my passport and boarding pass, he chatted with me cheerfully, and I was cheerful too, but I was weirded out when he asked, “Was this your first visit to China?” My first thought was: But I haven’t been to China!
Rather than argue, I said, “Yes.”
“Did you enjoy your first visit to China?”
“Yes, it’s gorgeous!” I said, no longer so shocked. When he encouraged me to “return to China,” I said, “Maybe next time I’ll study the language first!”
I kept it vague, not specifying whether I meant Tibetan or Manchurian Chinese. Who knows, maybe I will take that course on Chinese and go to Beijing some day. But I don’t like mean boys in uniforms, and I don’t like megaphones. I’m sure the Dalai Lama would disapprove of the wagons with megaphones blaring out recorded ads for merchandise, and I rather suspect he’d also not be keen on shops blaring out music, like the same song over and over again in particular.
Maybe the next country I visit will be Thailand. Or maybe I’ll go to Morocco, so I can ride a camel, since I’ve ridden an elephant in India and a yak in Tibet.
In hindsight, it’s too bad I didn’t ask Gyantzing some questions about nuns. The tour was all about boys, boys, and boys—like in Kathmandu women and girls were so much in the background while I wished they’d step into the foreground. Yes, I know, patriarchy is a polluting cloud that’s suffocating most of the world, but in some places it’s more blatant than others, particularly in the extremes of misogyny. Somehow in the USA, patriarchy seems slightly less subtle because it comes not in the way you see people on the street but in the form of such things as nuclear weapons and having a Whiteboyworld government that acts like the world’s bully and that, along with their misogynistic supporters, are doing their damndest to impede women’s reproductive freedom not only in the USA but also globally, what with the evil Global Gag Rule.
Anyway, what I was going to say is that it’s too bad that, when Gyantzing told me boys had to be sixteen before they could become monks, I didn’t ask what age nuns had to be. Also, I should have asked if the nunnery that I’ve read was close to the Potala is open to visitors or at least contains a temple that’s open to visitors. I wish I had thought of that on my free day; I could have taken my Lhasa map with me and walked to the nunnery, and I could have walked up to the Naga Temple, or at least close to it, in the park. Gee, I’ll just have to visit Tibet again someday… I’m more likely to stick to armchair traveling, since I have plenty of books on Tibet, including some books on Tibetan women and the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism.
Showing posts with label Dalai Lama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dalai Lama. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Dalai Lama's Palace
It’s evening and I just munched on dried fruit and hazelnuts that I packed….but before eating I checked all my paperwork, and it looks suspiciously like I don’t actually have a reservation for a flight at 10:40 am on March 11. Could this be true?! It looks suspiciously like I’ll promptly get to the China Airways website and hopefully make a reservation. Eek—I’m feeling uneasy about this situation.
It is time that I describe the visit to the Potala, which incidentally is named after the Potalaka, rocky mountain that legend has it the bodhisattva of compassion lives on, whether you call that bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig, Quan Yin, or Kannon.
When we entered the Potala and were ascending a flight of steps, where one look at a window—very deep, like the walls must be about two feet thick—and there’s a wooden frame with no glass. I kind of doubt traditional Tibetan windows used glass—they can always close the shutters, and this isn’t mosquito country. However, it’s such a cold climate, and they have dust storms, so you’d think they’d have windows.
Anyway, on the steps, a group of three little novice monks giggled at me. They had to be younger than sixteen—like about eight or ten—but I’m thinking parents probably get them dressed up as monks in anticipation of their becoming monks at sixteen. No doubt the Chinese government doesn’t mind if this deceives tourists.
There was much climbing of stairs and you couldn’t take pictures in most places, though there were a couple places I did take pictures before noticing the sign with the No Photos symbol on it—a red circle with a line through it, in front of a black camera. This is kind of scary, since there were green uniformed Chinese soldiers all over the place. In any case, we were not at the very top roof, since it has become off limits, but we were on a roof, an area where I took some pictures of the breathtaking view. It’s usually fine to take pictures outdoors but not in. On that one occasion, a boy in a green uniform objected.
The Potala has a large courtyard where operas used to be performed with dancers wearing masks and colorful brocade costumes. High up on a balcony the Dalai Lama used to watch through a sheen red curtain. His living quarters—consisting of audience rooms, study room, libraries, meditation room and bedroom—was high up and the top of a tall and formidable whitewashed structure facing the courtyard. From the courtyard, I looked up and imagined the young Dalai Lama up there, looking down upon the courtyard. Oddly, the courtyard reminded me of the courtyard at Neuschwanstein Castle, which is a Germanic fairy tale castle King Ludwig II had built in the nineteenth century and therefore from a very different place and culture than the Potala.
We did go up and see some of the Dalai Lama’s rooms, though his bedroom is behind a closed door; presumably it still has the same furnishings as when he lived there. The “Watching room” as the balcony is called, is connected to the Audience Chamber, and it has a bright red and ornately carved stepping stool that the Dalai Lama and anyone else used in order to enter the Waiting Room. The room otherwise has the usual sumptuous brocade banners and draperies, in addition to a yellow brocade-draped wooden throne to the left, along the same wall as the stepping stool. There are long cushy-looking benches covered with patterned red, white, and yellow rugs, and some brightly painted tables in front of them.
The various Dalai Lamas didn’t all use the exact same rooms. Different Dalai Lamas had different suites, not entirely surprising given how big the place is. The seventh Dalai Lama had his own little meditation room in which a couple of the walls were mostly glass, with some red- and gold-painted carved wood around the glass. In the room, along the short wall on the right, is his meditation bench, and above it hangs a thangka. Along the long back wall is a cabinet containing gold statues, and the wall facing the bench is covered with brocade draperies.
I experienced sensory overload on a large scale at the Potala and now don’t know quite where to take this next. Oh, yes, we entered a huge prayer hall that doesn’t have the rows of red mattresses you usually see, because as my guide pointed out, “The Potala is now like a museum.” This prayer hall is on display for tourists and is no longer functional, so no monks sit on red benches to chant or play music.
I’m not sure—I think it was a different prayer hall, because I remember a bunch of people were around, but at one point I saw a monk on a bench working on something, and right behind him was a grey and orange cat,. The cat got up and scurried across the path and disappeared—clearly it wasn’t crazy about having so many people around.
We explored many rooms that contained rows and rows of gold statues, in some cases very large ones, bigger than life-size. One enormous tall-ceilinged room contained huge gold stupas covered with jewels; these were the tombs of the Dalai Lamas. Mixed in with the stupas were gold statues and little gold three-dimensional mandalas. When you see photos of the Potala’s façade, the gold roofs mark the location of the Dalai Lamas’ tombs.
At some point, we passed a closed red door a couple feet from a series of five closed red doors in a row, with the usual big round knockers; these were doors to the fifth Dalai Lama’s tomb, which are only opened on Losar, the Tibetan New Year, when countless Tibetans line up to go through the Potala. A long line of pilgrims, whom Gyantzing explained all come from the same village, entered the corridor at about the same time we did. I watched as a couple people stepped out of the line in order to peak through the red double doors that were open a crack. One guy followed them and actually pushed the door slightly more open. Several pilgrims were excited by this and moved toward the door; they all came across as simple and harmless country people.
The pilgrim’s overzealous curiosity inspired the ire of an authority figure, a guy in plain clothes, who marched up to the crowd and shooed them away from the door. He was followed by a mean boy in a green uniform who barked at the crowd and ushered them forward, and even took off a glove and slapped a pilgrim’s shoulder with it. Although that was nothing compared to the torture that I’ve read Tibetans experience, it was still shocking enough to leave me staring with my mouth hanging open. I rather suspect sheer power-tripping malice is the primary reason the authorities don’t want pilgrims to enter certain parts of the Potala, including the very top of the roof. I can understand not wanting people to take photos because the camera flash over time damages artwork.
Finally, we entered the fifth Dalai Lama’s tomb through a different door. The statues were enormous—the usual bodhisattvas and Shakyamuni statues. The stupa itself is covered with ornament and contains the fifth Dalai Lama’s ashes and relics. It was absolutely enormous, like a stupa that you expect to see outdoors, but it was gold encrusted with jewels rather than made of whitewashed earth. Typical Tibetan style, the big bulbous part had a curved window with a very old statue behind it, and another and much smaller Buddha statue sat in a niche in the base.
At some point, we passed through a corridor with, on our left, a glass-walled room with excessively long cabinets containing Buddhist statues not only from Tibet but from several countries, including Nepal, India, and Thailand. One of the cabinets contained a bunch of little reliquary stupas from Thailand. Most of the statues in this room were small, like those anyone might have at home. Some were six hundred years old.
We walked down a dark corridor, and around a corner, on the left, was a meditation cave that belonged to an early Dalai Lama—I’m tempted to say the first, but more likely the fifth or seventh. It had statues—big statues—of Tsongkapa and his Chinese and Nepalese wives, the two princesses responsible for bringing Buddhism to Tibet. The walls were dark grey and, since it was a cave, uneven and bumpy. The room also housed various bodhisattvas, such as Manjushri. At some point, the room was (oddly) used as a kitchen, and there’s a circular metal stove to the right, in front of the statues. The cooks had thought it was auspicious to cook there.
When we stepped outdoors into the sunlight, we were at the back of the Potala and had many stairs to gradually climb down. The stairs were white and fortunately included a low wall to the right, low enough that you could rest your arm on it and admire the scenery. The walls of this part of the Potala were white. From the stairs, I occasionally stopped to admire the view and usually took a picture. The sky was a vast and extremely bright blue. I could hear surreal music that sounded rather like New Age music sung by a woman, and I thought it added a dreaminess to the atmosphere.
I asked, “Is there a concert?” Gyantzing said, “It’s music for people who are exercising.”
I looked down below and could see a park in which there were indeed people exercising, and at least one of them was spinning a large strange white disk. A few feet further away, I noticed a lake, and in the center of it was an island with a small square temple with an elaborate curving roof. Gyantzing explained that this was the Naga Temple in Lukhang Lake, which is inside Lukhang Park and behind the Potala. The island struck me as a very appropriate location for a Naga Temple, since nagas are snake deities.
2
2
We parted at the hotel for a lunch break. From the hotel, I went to the little shop that sells bottled water, and I bought four more bottles (two of which I’ve already finished—it’s 8:25 am as I’m writing this). I took the bottles, along with the bag of postcards and a little book that I picked up at the Potala, up to my hotel room and dropped some stuff off. I also removed my extra shirt and used the bathroom. I walked from the hotel down the street in the direction of the Jokhang and turned left at the first corner. If I had been headed for the Jokhang, I would have turned right. The narrow street contained many little shops and merchant’s booths and in some cases wagons containing bananas that a merchant was selling, but I wasn’t seeing restaurants.
I saw a woman with a long table on which she served ramen noodles from a heaping huge bowl. In Tibet, Muslim women wear black snoods, and this ramen chef wore such a black lace snood under a sunhat. I walked up to her table and pointed to first the bowl of noodles and then the jar of red chili. She took a little bowl, plopped a heaping serving of noodles into it, then mixed in soy sauce and chili sauce and handed it to me, along with packaged wooden chopsticks. I sat down, opened up the chopsticks and started eating under the fascinated and amused eyes of three children who’d sat down on the bench by me. If nothing else, my eating left-handed may have fascinated them.
The cook wasn’t impressed with my method of scooping up noodles that were covered with the hot sauce and then scooping up dry noodles; she picked up my bowl and mixed the sauce up thoroughly, so that there were no dry noodles. If I had been eating spicy Indian food, I could have eaten from a bowl of bland yogurt and munched on bread or pappadums. Instead, I had nothing to alternate with the hot sauce. I plowed my way through and observed the stinging of my dry lips and sniffed because I didn’t want to blow my nose at the table.
The cook, I observed, opened a canister and placed some strange white stuff into another customer’s bowl of noodles; it was thin, squarish slithers with tiny holes, and I suspected it was fish, since the slick yellow stuff she also chopped up and put in the bowl was fish. She noticed me watching and put two squares of the holey white stuff into my bowl—I ate it, mixing with the noodles and sauce, not wanting to offend but simultaneously appalled that I was probably eating fish for the first time since 1994. While my scruples were damaged, I simultaneously remembered Shantum’s explanation that the Mindfulness Trainings, or five precepts, are guidelines rather than vows. Oh how the mighty have fallen; this is far worse than using the Worst Toilet in India. The strange white stuff had no taste and didn’t gross me out as I would have expected from fish—I was thinking it was either bread or fish, but in hindsight it may have been tofu. Scentless, tasteless, and white; it would be wonderful if it really was tofu. At some point she also noticed the condition of my nose and gave me a piece of toilet paper with which to blow it, which, amused, I did.
While I was eating and making a spectacle of myself (because, incidentally, Lhasa is a place to gawk and be gawked at), I noticed a white juniper stove in which offerings of juniper were burning. I then noticed the colorful and ornate doorway to a small white temple. This was behind the noodle stand. I also noticed, to my amusement, that I was practically next door to a real indoor restaurant that even had its name in English. After I emptied my bowl, except for some red liquid at the bottom, I pulled a fifty yuan bill out of my wallet, and the cook pointed at a ten yuan bill, so I gave her that and she handed me back the fifty. So I think I got a filling meal for a few pennies.
I got up and headed for the little temple, to be accosted by numerous beggars. I wouldn’t give any of them money, since I didn’t want to start a riot, and I kept walking toward the prayer wheels. As a young-looking ragged male beggar approached me on the right, I held my water bottle slightly out, and he took it out of my hand. This struck me as very funny and I suppressed a laugh. The bottle in fact only contained about two inches of water.
I walked the few more steps into the temple and spun the two-foot-tall gold prayer wheels with gusto; the temple contained a concise line of the wheels. I then joined the crowd of pilgrims circumambulating around an Avalokiteshvara shrine that seemed tiny after my morning at the Potala. But it was still quite ornate: the bodhisattva wore a gold crown incrusted with turquoise and coral. I circumambulated three times—this involved being pushed by fervently murmuring pilgrims through a narrow and darkish corridor. I then headed back out and down the street to the hotel, where I used the Internet for half an hour.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Bodhicitta, Gratitude, and Generosity
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.
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.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Arrival in Dharamsala
Monkeys watching traffic from the side of the road, in the Himalayan foothillsDuring our drive through the mountains or rather foothills, Shantum’s car had a flat tire, so pulled over in front of what I guess was an auto repair shop, and we had to wait for a bit. I wasn’t bored. Some boys out front were attempting to fix a bicycle. As we waited and chatted in the car (and probably made some jokes that I’ve failed to jot down), a couple of Hindu guys walked by along the side of the street. They were dressed identically in white kurtas and dhotis and bright blue turbans, and they had identical bushy beards. Jamie commented on them; maybe they were brothers.
After this interlude, we rode up and up and up. We passed, of all things, an amusement park that was under construction. Sometimes the United States doesn’t seem like a fabulous influence on other parts of the world; you know, malls, guns, nuclear weapons. But I digress. The amusement park is for tourists coming up to Dharamsala, although it’s hard for me to believe that people interested in Dharamsala would be into amusement parks; they’ve never amused me. Furthermore, this amusement park doesn’t improve the scenery. Did the Dalai Lama approve of this? Who knows. Maybe there’ll be a haunted house shaped like a three-dimensional mandala and with hungry ghosts leaping out unexpectedly. And it will have to include something inspired by yetis and snow lions. OK, I’m downright nauseated now.
We stopped up on a mountain, in an area that included a few shops and the occasional colorful truck passing by. To the right of the road, down below, was a river, and directly at the side of the road were monkeys that sat and watched traffic go by; they moved their heads back and forth as if they were watching a tennis match in a cartoon.
We rode past rows and rows of little shops and countless pedestrians, mostly Tibetan, including monks and nuns. The road became a very narrow curving path, and sometimes we passed a sea of red robes. I was afraid the taxi would hit a monk or nun, but somehow it didn’t happen. I often looked downward into the valley, and it was excessively steep! Foothills or not, by most people’s standards these are full-size mountains. It’s no wonder I felt so dizzy. I looked down into the swooping valley and saw very green terraced fields and a few buildings.
We had been riding for a long time, when we came to a village setting. Stores packed right next to each other lined the sides of the narrow road. Indians bustled about their business, and I was struck by all the bright colors, thanks to the painted buildings, the merchandise (I saw at least one fabric store), and of salwar-kamiz on the women walking by and barely looking at us. No doubt the locals are very accustomed to Western tourists.
Finally, the taxis stopped in a drive in front of a house in the woods, at the top of a mountain. We got out and met a very friendly, big black dog. I had my Indian book bag and my backpack handy but still had enough hands to pet the dog. I admired the trees around us and saw some vestiges of older architecture. Along a sort of ledge was a low stone wall, and in front of it some old columns lay on the ground, amid the leaves. I looked up at the house itself, Cloud’s End, the Maharani’s and Maharaja’s summer home and guest house. The house itself is a bungalow that looks like it could have been an add-on, and it has additional buildings out in the back courtyard. Out front, the Maharaja himself greeted us along with at least a couple of his servants. The Maharaja wore a lavender hand-quilted coat with red trim and local cylindrical hat that was off-white with green trim. Shantum introduced him and explained that he was an old school friend at Dehra Dunn. The Maharaja corrected good-humoredly, “Or perhaps school enemy.”
I gawked when I got up to the regal room that I’m sharing with Enid. The doors to the room are glass doors framed in a dark wood and flanked by matching windows that filled that section of wall. To my left was a small shelf, sort of like a deep wainscoting, along the wall, and then a desk and chair, and next to that a stone fireplace, and then a sideboard with, among other things, a platter containing bottles of water and two glasses. In the center of the room, facing me, was a very large bed, and next to it was a nightstand; on the other side of the nightstand was a door.
A corner of my room at the guesthouseTo the right, there was a charming nook full of bookshelves, and another ledge along the wall, but this one was covered with paperback books. Below it was a very low silver settee with a big cushion and accented with very colorful patchwork cotton pillows. In front of this was an equally low coffee table. All of the furniture looked antique, from the nineteenth or early twentieth century. The only light sources in this luxuriously decorated room were a lantern hanging from the center of the ceiling, a small lamp on the nightstand, and another small lamp on the desk. Despite all the books, the nook had no light source.
The door and windows of my roomBeyond the large and ornate room was a very small bedroom with a wardrobe facing a Victorian dressing table, and in the far corner was a small and simple bed, in sharp contrast with the big regal room. A door next to the dressing table led to the white porcelain bathroom. It has a slanted roof and is basically a lean-to, and in the far corner is a small bathtub for bucket baths. After asking Enid if she’d mind, I took a squatting shower and was delighted that the water was very hot. That’s something you can never take for granted when you travel to the other side of the world.
Shantum had announced that lunch would be at 2:45 at the Snow Lion Restaurant, Hotel Tibet, in Dharamsala. We walked there, and it was good to be walking after sitting in a car. Inside the restaurant, I sat at the end of a long table in the far corner, and I was close to an open window. Despite my dizziness, I was compelled to pause by the window and look out at the fascinating mountain view. We were very high up, and the mountains descended and disappeared below. We ate vegetable rice, noodles, roti (bread, like pita bread), veggie balls (made of ginger and cabbage), all after a tofu soup. Also soupy mushrooms and greens. We drank ginger lemon tea afterwards. Throughout the meal, I talked with Etiel, who was trying to figure out if we’d get along well enough to be roommates in Tibet. I felt dizzy and nauseous throughout the meal, but I didn’t think it was worth mentioning and assumed it was because of the ride through the mountains. I also assumed it would fade soon enough.
While we were still inside the same building as the restaurant, out in the hall waiting as people took turns using the loo, Samaya asked me how I was feeling, and I said I’m dizzy and was also nauseas earlier, but now I’m only dizzy. She said, “You’re looking very pale.” I smiled and said, “That’s normal.”
She said, “I know you’re usually pale, but you’re more so today. It’s probably altitude sickness.” Etiel said, “You definitely weren’t this pale in Delhi.” Meanwhile, I was surprised that they’d noticed I was feeling ill, just by observing me. I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling and had assumed it was from the movement of driving and driving around and around on the mountain; I had been too focused on the breathtaking scenery and didn’t want queasiness to spoil the bliss. Samaya suggested I tell Shantum how I’m feeling and ask him to get us altitude sickness pills. So in a few minutes I had an opportunity and asked Shantum. He knit his brow in concern and said he’d stop at the pharmacy in just a bit. So after we got outdoors and started the tour, Shantum asked who all was having altitude sickness, and it was only about three people. I seem to be the worst case, and I’m the one who plans on going to Tibet! Like a hypochondriac, I have to admit I enjoyed the attention; however, since the altitude had such a strong effect on me, I thought I was a wimp. Shantum went into the pharmacy and came out with circular orange pills and gave me the packet.
“You take three a day,” he said. “Do you have water?” “No, I’m out,” I said, shaking my big empty bottle. Shantum held out his own plastic bottle, took a sip and asked me if I could drink from the bottle without touching it, and I smiled and said, “Sure.” “Take the pill now and I’ll give you some water,” Shantum said.
With my gloved finger, I fumbled as I attempted to open the package, so Shantum opened it and handed me the pill. I swallowed it and he held the water above my head and tilted my head back, and I gulped down some water as it fell into my mouth. We did this a second time in the center of the crowd, in the middle of the street. With the second gush of water into my mouth, I placed my hand over my lips and had trouble swallowing because I was on the verge of laughter.
As we started to move on, a couple of people asked me for an altitude pill, and I let them each take one. Manny said he didn’t feel quite right but wasn’t entirely sure it was altitude sickness.
The central square in Dharamsala, with many monks Shantum gave us a walking tour of Dharamsala, or Macleod Ganj, as this mountain is called. In the bustling crowd, mostly pedestrians but also some white cars, we followed along, gawking at the other pedestrians and the shops. At least I was gawking; I’m sure everyone else was so much more sophisticated than me, the youngest in the group. We moved through the crowd, with Shantum showing us particular restaurants and hang-outs, and I was mesmerized by the store fronts displaying colorful shawls and other fabric; statues and ritual tools; thangkas and just about anything else. Someone wandered into a store and got behind, so Jagdish stayed with him. We paused in the street, waiting for them to return, and I noticed an old Tibetan woman selling yak wool shawls, so I bought a burgundy one for only 250 rupees; that’s about five U. S. dollars. I finished up just as the group started moving on. I hugged the folded-up shawl for the rest of the walk, with the wool against my face; it’s so warm and smells like a cow. A clean cow. I had myself a security blanket. We briefly stopped to look at merchandise, and merchants spoke to us, but we knew this wasn’t the time to do hardcore shopping. I was amazed at the sight of monkeys walking on telephone wires overhead. It was like a circus act, tightrope-walking monkeys.
Shantum led us to a bookstore and went in to quickly get us the Wisdom Publications edition of the Tibetan version of the Dhammapada, which is the main text that the Dalai Lama will be using in his teachings this week. As it turned out, there were only thirteen copies left, and they were photocopies. So Shantum led us to another bookstore, which he described as the finest one here, but it was closed. That bookstore was just to the right of a narrow lane leading up to the restaurant where we’ll have lunch tomorrow. Shantum explained how to get up to it and then we walked to the temple where the Dalai Lama gives his teachings.
Shantum led us to a bookstore and went in to quickly get us the Wisdom Publications edition of the Tibetan version of the Dhammapada, which is the main text that the Dalai Lama will be using in his teachings this week. As it turned out, there were only thirteen copies left, and they were photocopies. So Shantum led us to another bookstore, which he described as the finest one here, but it was closed. That bookstore was just to the right of a narrow lane leading up to the restaurant where we’ll have lunch tomorrow. Shantum explained how to get up to it and then we walked to the temple where the Dalai Lama gives his teachings.
I doubt we’ll get a chance to walk up to the Dalai Lama, bow, and exchange greeting scarves with him, but you never know. If he’s as tall as his waxwork figure at Madam Tussaud’s, I’d have to stand on tip-toe and stretch to get the scarf over his head. I hope I don’t stumble, fall on the Dalai Lama, and give him a heart attack. I don’t seriously anticipate meeting the Dalai Lama; it’s more important for other people to meet him, particularly Tibetans who have risked their lives and possibly lost toes to frostbite by walking out of Tibet.
The temple is a large, predominantly white and blockish building with several balconies. On a long veranda down below, a throne is draped in yellow fabric. That is where the Dalai Lama sits for the teachings. In front of it was the area we walked around, a courtyard with various pillows and pieces of fabric lying on top of a huge sheet or tarpaulin. Sections were cordoned off, one for Tibetans, and one for foreigners, and they were labeled with pieces of paper attached to the cords. Here and there I saw clusters of string hanging from the cords; the string was yellow or red or multicolored.
We walked past a many-tiered building that Shantum explained is monks’ quarters. I looked up, and on the third floor balcony stood two red-clad monks who smiled down at us and waved. I grinned and waved back, as did many of us. It was getting quite dark by that time.
We climbed into white cars, after visiting the Dalai Lama’s temple, and we headed down the mountain to have “Strucks” and dinner at Cloud’s End Villa, the Raj’s guest house where about fifteen of us are staying. We went into a living room with a dais, where Shantum was seated on the center front, and I settled down next to him after taking off my coat.
I was feeling very dizzy again, so after we meditated, I covered my new red bag with my new red coat, lay my head down, and used my new red shawl as a blanket, with my feet facing Shantum. I didn’t think about the Indian tradition of not facing your feet toward your teacher; it is a sign of disrespect, which I totally didn’t mean. Shantum massaged my feet and my top leg during “Strucks.” In hindsight, I should perhaps have gone ahead and taken another altitude sickness pill at about that time, but I was out of water to wash it down.
“Does anybody have a bungee cord?” Richard asked. He’s Paula the Rabbi’s husband, who practices both Judaism and Buddhism. “Richard wants to leap into the valley,” Rachel said. Now I can’t remember the real reason he wanted a bungee cord.
When it came my turn to speak, Shantum said I didn’t have to, but I sat up and spoke anyway. I said, “Despite feeling dizzy and nauseas, I was mesmerized by the scenery as we moved up the mountain, and I wanted to be like a many-headed deity so that I could see all around. Also, the monkeys sitting at the side of the road were watching the traffic and turned their heads like they were watching a tennis match. Later, I was fascinated by the stores with colorful fabric and statues.”
Gill, one of the two British sisters, said, “I wouldn’t mind if all I got out of this journey is the company of such a wonderful group of people and the scenery.”
I skipped dinner and went to my room, took another altitude sickness pill, took a shower and changed for bed. I have been writing in my journal since. After Enid, my roommate, got back, a servant brought her a dish of brown pudding in a tray and it looked alluring, so I asked about it. Enid said it was dessert and asked if I want some, and I said, “Sure!” So the servant (all of them are male) soon came back with a dish for me. It was warm and a little spicy, and I realized it was halwa.
The Raj stopped by and asked, “Is someone not feeling well?” He was concerned because I wasn’t at dinner. I said, “I wasn’t hungry—we had a late lunch, and I’m not used to eating so much.” I didn’t mention the altitude sickness.
He asked if we wanted the space heater on, and we enthusiastically replied in the affirmative. The room was definitely chilly. I had noticed the space heater earlier, on the floor near the desk, and the electric cord was draped over the back of the desk chair. I unwrapped it and looked around for an outlet, and the Raj took the plug and approached an outlet on the cabinet next to the desk. My Tandem stuffed toy owl, Dewey, was on the desk, sort of in the way, and I giggled as I picked it up and moved it. The Raj plugged in the space heater and, looking bewildered at the toy owl, said, “What is this?”
I said, “It’s an owl,” with another giggle. Before Enid had gone to dinner, we agreed to take turns sleeping in each of the two beds, because the double bed in the big room looks more comfy than the little bed in the smaller room attached to the bathroom. Enid decided to let me get the big bed tonight, probably because of my altitude sickness. I picked Dewey up off the small bed and had said, “Just so you know, I didn’t bring this to use it as a teddy bear.”
“Are you going to take pictures of it in different places?”
“Wow! Yes, how did you know?” She explained that earlier on the trip, a school teacher had been doing the same thing for her class, with a stuffed toy frog, to teach them geography. I’m glad; a large portion of the group will not be weirded out by my behavior. Well, at least not my weird behavior concerning the owl.
It’s a little after 12:30 am. I’ve had some sleep, wrapped up in the yak wool shawl under the sheet, blanket, and bedspread, but I’ve woken to a very loud downpour accompanied by thunder. The rain is beating heavily against the roof—similar to the sound of a hailstorm in Kansas. Really, this weather is like Kansas in the spring. Weird! I totally didn’t expect this.
I Saw the Dalai Lama!
The veranda of the Dalai Lama's temple. The yellow fabric is draped over the throne where the Dalai Lama sits during his talks.Last night the rain was torrential and thundery and loud and the electricity went out, so I wrote a little in my journal and wrote five post cards…by flashlight, while I was under the covers, since the space heater of course wasn’t working. I even draped my new yak wool shawl over the bed as an extra blanket, so I did rather well. Anyway, sometimes the thunder would stop or even the rain would stop, and I’d be convinced that I’d go to sleep soon. But it would start back up again.
I put on my Tibetan chupa today. It’s made of heavy dark blue cotton with a cotton Thai-style wrap-around blouse of a dull grey cotton made interesting by strips of metallic silver threat and strips of turquoise chenille woven in with the grey cotton.
This is one of the buildings at the guesthouse, Cloud's End. Those of us who are staying at Cloud’s End had breakfast in the dining hall, which has a beautiful but cold white marble floor and an impressive fireplace with an ancient stele on the wall over the mantle. This particular building is recent and hopefully will someday have more furnishings and pictures in the big, cold and echoic room.
For breakfast, I was a bit surprised the food was very Western. There was toast and jelly, oatmeal or cornflakes (I had oatmeal), and a bowl of fruit—I had an orange and a little banana, which I broke up into pieces and mixed in my oatmeal, though I still wished it had some cinnamon. I also had a glass of orange juice and a cup of chai. Though I ate heartily, I would rather have rice, dhal, and chapatti for breakfast. John said, “It’s funny how they think we want to eat the same American food that we normally avoid at home.”
This is the fireplace in the dining room at Cloud's EndHere I am on a straw mat, waiting near the gate through which the Dalai Lama steps and it turns out that we were supposed to have a radio in order to listen to the teachings in English; I had assumed the radios were passed out when you got to the gate or someplace. Now I’m feeling terribly stupid and embarrassed—I won’t understand a word for the two morning hours—but hopefully I can dash in someplace that sells small radios with headphones. A couple people said it was in an e-mail, and they added that it was an e-mail that came rather late, but I looked out for every e-mail from Buddha Path and didn’t read anything about “Remember to bring a radio with headphones.”
However, Richard said that just yesterday Shantum had mentioned radios and a few people went into a store to buy them. And I as usual didn’t have my head screwed on properly! I had altitude sickness and was gawking at Tibetans, monkeys, and fabric and stuff in shop windows. Fabric is so much prettier than an ordinary radio. So there I was, completely oblivious when I could have gone into a shop with the others and gotten a radio. I’ll just blame the altitude sickness, even though this sounds like my usual stupidity. Given Samaya’s comment about how pale I was looking, I may have been sicker than I wanted to believe. And coming to think of it, given that my nephew has been diagnosed with ADD, it’s very likely that I also have it. But that’s just making excuses for being a total loser.
Marsha offered to go with me for a radio at the beginning of lunch break, and we’ll meet up with Shantum and the Dharma Bums at Chonor House, the restaurant that Shantum indicated last night. Conveniently, Marsha remembers where it was. I’m so glad she’s willing and even happy to do this. It’s amazing how scatterbrained I can be. It’s like I’m the high-maintenance sangha member on this trip, even though I’m normally totally independent and a loner. Ironic. You’d think that after a few years of practicing meditation I’d be less scatter-brained.
Monks are chanting, the crowd is getting bigger and bigger and so I’m sharing my mat with a couple of Tibetan women. Crows are cawing and birds chirping overhead. Sometimes it starts to rain but then it decides not to and now the sun is starting to actually beam—I should put on some sunscreen….
I just saw the Dalai Lama from just about a yard away!! Some monks came through the gate, one carrying a large metal bowl smoking with incense, and behind them walked an old monk holding something mostly yellow and stick-like, probably a rolled-up thangka, and right behind him came the Dalai Lama, who grinned and patted the monk in front of him heartily on the back. I grinned, and many people laughed. I watched the Dalai Lama go forward slowly. He smiled and waved at various members of the crowd. Eventually I couldn’t see him, and a bunch of red- and brown-robed Tibetans walked behind him. I was grinning as silly as can be and had a warm and fuzzy blissed-out feeling.
I looked forward, suddenly aware of much movement in the crowd as people turned to the right to face the temple instead of the walkway. I looked up and saw many red-clad monks standing on the temple’s balcony. The balcony itself is painted a bright yellow and has bright red banners, trimmed with black and yellow, strung all the way across on both levels so it was a festive display of red and yellow. Now the monks are seated, I think facing away from us and chanting. Many monks are chanting. It’s a soothing sound. I might meditate while the Dalai Lama is speaking, since I don’t have a radio. It’ll be rather different this afternoon—hopefully—when I’ll hopefully have a radio at last. What a total flake.
2
Yesterday Etiel said that she’s decided she didn’t want to go to Tibet after all, because she’d like to stay a little longer in Dharamsala. I smiled and said, “When it’s not such a madhouse.” But I hoped it wasn’t because of my personality. I’ve been flaky as usual, of course. On the bright side, I’ll have no roommate, so I’ll have some solitude and do quite a bit of yoga and meditation in the hotel rooms, even if it’s only in the evenings.
Yesterday Etiel said that she’s decided she didn’t want to go to Tibet after all, because she’d like to stay a little longer in Dharamsala. I smiled and said, “When it’s not such a madhouse.” But I hoped it wasn’t because of my personality. I’ve been flaky as usual, of course. On the bright side, I’ll have no roommate, so I’ll have some solitude and do quite a bit of yoga and meditation in the hotel rooms, even if it’s only in the evenings.
I lucked out with the radio situation: the Dalai Lama was just chanting all morning, and Richard and I followed along in his copy of the English translation of the Tibetan Dhammapada.
We went to Chonor House for lunch. As I headed for a table on the balcony to set down my paraphernalia, I passed Shantum, who said with a smile, “Fancy dress, huh, Susan?”
I said, “Yeah, I’m in costume!” even though I didn’t feel like I was in costume and have worn this chupa to work many times. My coworkers are accustomed to my weird clothing.
The hilltop restaurant had a simple buffet of Chinese/Tibetan food, but some of us had to use the toilet first. We stood in line downstairs, but someone said another toilet was upstairs, so Sheila, Shantum and I went upstairs and stood in a line almost as long. However, as we went up the stairs, we were treated to many beautiful framed embroidery and appliqué pictures, mostly Tibetan. A large appliquéd Tibetan flag hung over the stairs. While waiting in line, I commented on the beautiful needlework and took a better look at a couple of the works of art, some hanging above a couch. As I did so, I noticed a mala lying on the back of the couch; it was mostly wooden beads but with two pale blue glass beads and one silver skull-shaped bead. I said, “Oh, look, someone left their mala! In a manic goofy mood, I added, “Well, gee, if they don’t come back for it, then finders keepers!”
Sheila said, cheerfully rather than sternly, “No, no, bad karma!” Duh.
“Oh, yeah, I guess you have a point.” I wasn’t even thinking about the precept that includes not taking anything that isn’t freely given, despite my having done the Mindfulness Trainings. Incorrigible! Maybe I should stop picking pennies up off the pavement. Whatever I do, I need to banish thoroughly all thoughts that are simply repeats of things my mother said throughout my childhood, such as “Finders keepers.” Question authority! Such comments have been, I suppose, stamped on my memory. I felt rather foolish despite my euphoria. Nonetheless, I was still concerned about whether the person who lost the misplaced mala would come back to get it.
Sheila reassured me, “They’ll come back for it.”
“Are you sure they’ll figure out where they left it?” I asked, looking at the beads and picturing someone running up the stairs for them. I wondered how long they had lain on the back of the couch.
While Sheila was in the restroom, it occurred to me that, if nothing else, an employee would find the beads and give them to someone who’s poor. I remembered the pushy beggars on the steps as we went up to the restaurant. When Sheila came out of the bathroom, I said, “Hey, do you think an Indian beggar would like a mala? Just kidding!”
Sheila said in a comic voice and with a wagging finger, “Ah, you funny girl!”
We had lunch on a balcony with a fabulous view overlooking the valley; we could also see the monastery and monks moving like ants on the balconies of a large white monastery on a hillside. I had tea, rice, stir fry broccoli and pink carrots, rosemary potatoes, and stir fry cabbage. I sat with Sheila, Samaya, and Shantum, who sat down after we had already scooted the chairs so that none had their back to the amazing mountainous view. Shantum asked, “Why are the chairs arranged like this?” Samaya and Sheila explained that it was for the view.
The conversation at some point turned to Shantum’s kids, who seem very well-behaved when we’re around. Samaya asked if they’re “really as perfect as they seem around visitors.” Shantum said that the older one (Nandini) is very good, “but the younger one has been acting like a brat.” I was a bit surprised at such a harsh judgment coming from Shantum.
Sheila asked, “How old is she?”
“She’s three,” Shantum said.
“Well, you see, that’s why.”
“She contracted lice,” Shantum said. He went on to explain that she’s been fussy and scratchy because she had lice. Well, it’s no wonder! While we were at the Seth house, she had a couple of times flopped down on Shantum’s lap and he had held her while he was talking. She definitely did not come across as a brat.
During our lunch break, Marsha asked around for a radio at Chonor House. It was great having her take care of me; she wasn’t timid about speaking up. Shantum let me use a spare radio, a small and simple one with an antenna. Rachel let me use her headphones, but I have to return them by tonight. Shantum confirmed with Kathy that I could use her extra set of headphones, which she didn’t have with her but could lend me later, at Cloud’s End. It was rather crazy, but at last, I have a radio and headphones to use throughout the Dalai Lama’s talks.
Everyone has been your mother in a previous life…seems like everyone in this sangha has been my mother.
3
During the Dalai Lama’s afternoon talk, he told the Jataka Tale about the lioness and cubs, how she was about to eat them out of desperation, and that particular incarnation of Siddhartha Gautama—or the Bodhisattva, as his previous incarnations are called in the Jataka Tales—plunged to his death so the lion could eat him instead of her babies. It was about generosity. Still, it doesn’t truly put me in the mood to jump off a cliff so a lion and her cubs can eat. Really, I have a great deal of writing to do in this lifetime, and I think that’s what’s kept me from committing suicide even during my most despairing moments. Practicing generosity, the Dalai Lama points out, is benefiting yourself. Sure, it feels good to help others and to in the process forget \about my lame ass self; generosity takes away depression. Sharing, generosity, almsgiving—such as getting some tea and powdered milk to donate to the monks and nuns who are serving the crowd during the Dalai Lama’s talks. They walk around carrying big teapots, and Marsha noticed that some people give them donations of tea boxes and powdered milk. It’s butter tea and I didn’t bring my tumbler, but I can bring it next time and find some tea to donate.
I’ve been experiencing a lot of generosity on this retreat. The group waited for me at Gandhi Smriti, and everyone’s been helping me out: with the radio, altitude pills, tissues to use in the bathroom, Enid letting me use the nice bed on the first night, Samaya telling me I look pale and suggesting I ask Shantum to stop at a pharmacy, everyone looking out for me and making room for me. Of course, I can’t forget to include Jagdish getting my taxi driver’s attention, jumping into the cab, and giving me a hug. I really needed that; it was the right moment. It’s as if everyone in the sangha is indeed my mother. While we were at Shantum’s house, he said, “Your body is my body. We should be not only a collection of individuals, but a sangha, interconnected with each other as a whole.”
But part of my brain is telling me that I should also help out sangha members, and I haven’t so far. I don’t know what to do to help. Maybe I’ve never been anyone’s mother in a previous life... with the one possible exception of cats. I’m nurturing with cats, if nothing else.
Leaving, the Dalai Lama waved in the direction of the crowd where I was. I waved back and happily smiled. Despite my seeming uselessness, I certainly felt euphoric, thanks to the Dalai Lama. While the crowd was getting up, Etiel got my attention from behind a railing and soon I was also with Lynn. She was on my side of the railing, so we spoke first and moved toward the railing, to wait out the crowd for a bit. Samaya and Sheila and Mimi were also there, and I agreed to go to a coffee shop with them. The Dalai Lama’s talk ended at three, so we had an hour before the English language translator’s talk in the Kalachakra Hall, at the Dalai Lama’s temple (we’re there now, as I write this).
The crowd leaving the teachings was congested. The crowd gently pushed us along at a remarkably slow pace and we held onto each other, forming a sort of chain. I mentioned my claustrophobia before it hit me for real—we had no personal space, no path through the crowd, only an ocean of people oozing out of the temple’s courtyard and down the path out onto the road, which was packed with people. Mostly red-clad monks surrounded us. I warned Sheila, who was right in front of me, “If my claustrophobia drives me crazy, I could be screaming and shoving everyone out of the way.” She laughed with me and expressed gratitude for the warning, and I added, “Not that I would really shove a bunch of monks around. Sounds like bad karma.”
We had moved through the crowd, through the street, till we had some breathing room, and Samaya said, “It’s three-thirty.” We only had half an hour before the next talk! So we turned and headed back, since it would take a long time to return to the temple, but on the way we stopped for big skeins of blessing strings and for mala beads before we got back to the temple.
4
At four pm, we attended the Dalai Lama’s translator’s talk in the Kalachakra Hall. It was back at the temple and in the center of the second floor. We went up a flight of stairs and turned left, and then we passed a hall in which someone was teaching a crowd in the Tibetan language. Outside the double doors leading into the Kalachakra Hall were shoe racks, and we took off our shoes and lined them up on the wooden racks before setting foot inside the big thangka-decorated hall. The room has several columns that, like the walls, display colorful thangkas, Tibetan Buddhist hangings framed in brocade. The floors are covered with cloth, which in turn is covered with meditation cushions. Everyone goes in and picks a cushion, and we sat along one wall, closer to the back than the front. The Dalai Lama’s translator, a younger monk in red robes, appeared at the front of the hall, and some people bowed and scraped and he told them that wasn’t necessary. He fortunately used a microphone and spoke very clear English in a pleasant voice. In fact, his is the same voice speaking English on the radio during the Dalai Lama’s talks. The following are the notes that I took during the talk.
He gave a very eloquent and engaging talk about the four noble truths. He also talked at some length about being devoid of inherent existence, which basically means that something is made of a bunch of things that come together, and a thing or a person is constantly changing so you can’t put your finger on what this thing or this person is. He talked about mental fabrications, such as someone having a hallucination and describing a flower that’s supposedly sitting on a table; one person describes the imaginary flower differently than do other people.
He said, “Say you’re dreaming. You’re so hungry you dream about eating food, suppose someone says wait here, and all this food disappears. This obsession with food doesn’t go away when you wake up. Wherever did it go? It was just a dream, it wasn’t real, it was a part of your own mind. It appears that dream food is real food. Everything you see around you is nothing but a dream. But don’t think that we’re dreaming now. You do exist, but in a different way than you think you exist. There is a gap between appearance and reality. In reality, there is no such thing as solid and independent; as soon as you wake up, you have no such attachments to the dream. When you face reality, obsession disappears.”
Recommended reading:
Dalai Lama: How to See Yourself as You Really Are
By Nagajuna:
Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way
Precious Garland
Supplement to the Middle Way
Commentary on Bodhicitta
Ocean of Wisdom: Commentary on Nagajuna’s Wisdom of the Middle Way
5
Taxi Ride
In the taxi back to the guest house, I was in the front seat, clinging to the “Holy Mary handle” as my brother has called it, a bar on the roof by the window. This was after attending the Dalai Lama’s translator’s talk. It was a terrifying ride. Looking through the windshield, I kept thinking the driver would hit other taxis or pedestrians or bikers. When we were driving close to the ledge—the passenger’s seat was on the left, and until then I only sat on the right side in back. And so there was a sheer cliff just to my left, and I kept expecting to fall off. Fortunately, lively conversation took place in the back seat, and I was frequently turned to look at the other passengers, Shantum, Samaya, and Sheila. Gee, we all have names that begin with “S.”
The conversation had to do with among other things Vajrayana (or Tantric) Buddhism, which Shantum described as having “a lot of mumbo jumbo.” Like me, he considers compassion and lovingkindness more important than knowing how to do esoteric Tantric stuff. Furthermore, he’s quite skeptical about Vajrayana but then pointed out that Nicky, a Tibetan Buddhist monk from the USA, whom we’d be meeting tonight, has quite a different attitude and knows more about it.
Shantum’s also critical (for good reason!) of monks, at least in the Tibetan tradition. Sheila—or was it Marsha?—mentioned a friend who was caught off guard by a monk (I interpreted this as rape, but it may have been “only” harassment or attempted rape), which she totally didn’t see coming simply because he was a “monk.” Generalizing, Shantum pointed out that “Monks are nasty” and that “They’re boys in robes.” In the Tibetan tradition, they can start out in a monastery when they’re five years old, and they study to be monks without necessarily being especially spiritual, and eventually they might decide to not be a monk, now that they’ve been educated for nothing else and are a burden on their parents. Yeah, I remembered the book Being a Buddhist Nun when the subject of monks as sexual predators came up.
When we arrived at Cloud’s End, other white cars were already parked and a tall Caucasian monk in red Tibetan robes stood by one of the taxis, and Shantum said, “Nicky’s already here.” We got out of the car, much to my relief, and Shantum apologized for being late, but Nicky said he only just got here. Samaya and I introduced ourselves and shook hands with him, and we all went in. I went to my room in order to use the bathroom before going to the meeting, and Enid was already in there. (At dinner I learned she had gone to the room and spent the afternoon there to have some solitude.) She said, “Do you know who Nicky Breeland is?”
I said, “He’s the Buddhist monk we just met in the driveway.”
As we headed for the door, Enid explained that his mother was a major Vogue Magazine editor who coined the line, “Pink is India’s navy blue,” a comment that I recognized. We were both struck by the contrast between a Vogue editor and a Buddhist monk, one so worldly and the other so not.
“What could be more frivolous than a fashion magazine?” I said. “Actually, I say that even though I find fashion interesting from an aesthetic perspective.”
Enid said, “I like fashion. It’s really interesting.”
“I don’t like it in a let’s-promote-anorexia sort of way, but just in an artistic sort of way.” I could have added, as Ani DiFranco has sung of the fashion industry, “Women should be allies, not competitors,” referring to an attitude that the fashion industry promotes. I set my own fashions rather than follow them; sometimes things I want to wear become available anyway. I discovered this not long after 9/11, when I felt like wearing more Bohemian or Hippie-inspired clothing, and coincidentally embroidered kurtas appeared in catalogs.
Enid said, “I like fashion. It’s really interesting.”
“I don’t like it in a let’s-promote-anorexia sort of way, but just in an artistic sort of way.” I could have added, as Ani DiFranco has sung of the fashion industry, “Women should be allies, not competitors,” referring to an attitude that the fashion industry promotes. I set my own fashions rather than follow them; sometimes things I want to wear become available anyway. I discovered this not long after 9/11, when I felt like wearing more Bohemian or Hippie-inspired clothing, and coincidentally embroidered kurtas appeared in catalogs.
For Nicky Breeland’s talk, I was one of the last people in the room and sat on the floor in front of everyone else. During the discussion, servants brought us a strange hot beverage that had ginger and honey in it; it was probably a variation on ginger lemon water. And it was in glasses and steaming hot.
Nicky Breeland is a Buddhist monk who runs the Tibet Center in NYC, and Shantum met him there twelve years ago; they’ve also met in Sarnath and Delhi. Nicky’s own teacher is here and has been coming to the teachings every day. Someone said, “A wise man changes himself.”
Nicky talked about Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, which is an esoteric and tantric Tibetan practice that is for the purpose of gaining enlightenment in a big hurry. He talked about suffering and transcending suffering, having compassion for everyone (even those who are very wealthy, since they will not always have so much. The discussion was a lot about removing others’ suffering and being a bodhisattva.
Nicky said, “Initially you’re trying to remove your suffering rather than change others. If you have compassion for others but don’t acknowledge your own suffering, it’ll be pretty flimsy compassion. It is not enough to wish to remove your suffering and not enough to have compassion for others. You must also have the suffering of change.”
He said some misnomers about Hinayana Buddhism that I’m rather tired of hearing and reading. Theravada Buddhism is Hinayana, which Mahayana Buddhists (such as Tibetan and Zen) smugly call the lesser path. If it’s so “lesser,” then why do I get the distinct impression that what we Theravada Buddhists practice is the same as what the Buddha himself practiced? It is a tradition handed down directly from the Buddha’s original teachings, the Pali cannon.
Nicky said that the Mahayana aim is to work toward attainment of a state where we can help others. Um, guess what, the same goes for Hinayana, which is much closer to the Buddha’s own practice. I’m kind of tired of this dismissing Hinayana Buddhism as self-centered. If it’s so self-centered, then why do Hinayana Buddhists practice metta, loving-kindness? He said, “To pursue one’s own happiness is Hinayana,” but that’s merely what’s popular to say about Hinayana. Sure, Hinayana practice is about healing yourself, but you heal yourself in order to be more able to save the world. If you’re helpless and can’t even change yourself, then how do you think you’re going to save the world? I’m getting tired of Mahayana Buddhists spouting this arrogant misnomer. He also said, “Mahayana, out of wish to help all sentient beings, works to attain state of Buddhahood.” As if Hinayana doesn’t!
He also talked about being devoid of inherent existence and used a candle as an example. “Lots of ingredients make a candle (cotton, bee’s wax). Likewise, there are different me’s—the mind me, the physical me, the way I think about myself. That core “me” is changing moment by moment. According to that truth, as the Buddha used it, there’s no permanent me—the self is a bunch of parts put together because we think of ourselves as individuals. The candle is a changing thing that has seemed real—it exists in time and gets shorter and eventually disappears. Changeability makes it possible for us to develop, to become a Buddha.”
After the discussion, Nicky Breeland joined us for diner in the big cold dining room where we had breakfast. We had rice, dhal, a potato dish, roti, and another curry dish. I didn’t touch the mixture of plain green peas and square carrot bits, because I’m not a fan of peas. Desert was apple sauce mixed with yogurt and honey. Once again, I ate too much. Restraint! So far, I don’t think we’re doing anywhere near as much walking as we did on the pilgrimage, so it’s not like I’m getting lots of exercise to make up for my eating big meals.
We passed around birthday cards for Jagdish and John, and each of us signed the c cards. So Jagdish is six months older than I am.
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