My Arrival in Lhasa, Tibet

Flying over Tibet, I see tippy-top peaks of snow-capped mountains peaked out of the clouds. Cloud formations included what looked like a panda bear sticking its tongue out. Another cloud resembled someone resting, perhaps a reclining Buddha, and another cloud was too reminiscent of a mushroom cloud. I must have seen the top of Mount Everest, but there were so many mountain tops that I don’t know which one it was.

Germans surrounded me on the plane, and when they spoke English, it was with a British accent. A Tibetan guy across the aisle (I had the window seat) asked the German guy next to me if he’d put a book in his bag. It was a hardcover book and pretty big, and he bought it in India and no doubt it was not a pro-Chinese occupation kind of book. The German guy was dubious about it, since he didn’t want to get in trouble either. He turned to me and asked, “Do you speak English?”
I smiled and said, “Yeah.”
“Yeah. You’re British?”
“No, American,” I admitted. He then explained the situation to me and asked if he should take the book, and I said I wouldn’t do it, just to be safe. I then explained, “If he’s caught, he’d get into worse trouble, though. He could be imprisoned. But you’d still get in trouble.” At the airport near Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, my bags had to all go back through a security check, even though we were arriving rather than departing. This young guy in a green Chinese uniform and wearing clear plastic gloves searched both my carry-ons but not my suitcase. Stuff I got in Dharamsala and that I don’t want the Chinese to see is actually in the suitcase, so I lucked out in that respect—so far, anyway. I guess they’re more concerned about what we bring than what we take to an airport for departure, since this is fascist Chinese-occupied Tibet.

The soldier even flipped through pages in my books and notebooks, probably to see if I brought pictures of the Dalai Lama. I’m so glad I didn’t purchase any such pictures in Dharamsala, after all! I’ll wait and get some when I return to Kathmandu.

What the tall, stern and unsmiling Chinese soldier didn’t do is read the smallish print on the front cover of my spiral bound photocopied edition of the Tibetan Dhammapada: there are lots of words on the cover, and toward the bottom is a paragraph specifying the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Dharamsala and the dates of the teachings. Of course this was all in English, and I suspect that he wouldn’t have understood many of the words on the cover. I don’t think Chinese or Tibetan people speak English as much as people from India and Nepal do, since in those countries it’s taught in school even when they’re little kids. That’s the best way to learn more than one language: start in elementary school; I wish we’d do that in America.

I recall reading that, for whatever reason, China doesn’t allow you to bring more than twenty changes of underwear. When I read about that, I imagined what it could be like when a Chinese authority looks through my suitcase.

“You have too much underwear! You are a member of a splittist faction!” “No, that’s just a rip in the seam.” “Why you have Dalai Lama pictures in your underwear?” “I figured of all the places that would least likely get looked at carefully…”

This is so crazy—I’m in Tibet for real! I’d like to take a picture of a yeti, but I won’t be out in the wild, and I doubt a yeti would be circumambulating the Jokhang Temple.

Gyantzing is my tour guide, a guy. I was hoping for a female tour guide. After this trip, I’ll want a one-way ticket to Herland. I was relieved to leave that mean boy in a green uniform and head toward this big open space devoid of furniture with the one exception of a sort of table on which I had to place my Chinese visa, an eight and a half by eleven inch piece of white paper with black ink and an official-looking red stamp. A middle-aged Tibetan guy in a dark jacket approached me and asked if I’m Susan, and I smiled and said, “Yes!” He gave me a khatta, a white Tibetan greeting scarf that’s sheen and printed with auspicious Buddhist symbols. It has a very long silky fringe on each end, and the fringe tangles with everything.

Writing in the minivan while riding from the airport, I took notes in a horrible scrawl, while Gyantzing gave me information:
The airport is at 3600 meters above sea level, and Lhasa is at 3700 meters above sea level. All I know about meters is they’re approximately four feet. I didn’t do the math; I just know it’s big numbers.
The river near the airport is the Brahmaputra, and it’s winding like turquoise arteries. From Mount Kailash to India is 60 kilometers. The Yellow Valley is sandy with short, spiky brown and red plants.
Barley, wheat, and peas are the main crops. I know they can grow potatoes and other root vegetables, though, and they’re actually capable of growing quite a number of vegetables and flowers during a couple of summer months, at least on the plateau. Nowadays there are greenhouses, but oddly they looked empty as we rode past them from the airport. It seems to me like this would be a great time of year to put the greenhouses to use.
Lhasa Gytsu is the central river, and it goes to northern Tibet. ( I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I totally misspelled that.)

Twenty percent of Tibetan males were monks, and two percent of Tibetan women were nuns, before the Cultural Revolution. Or to be more accurate, this was before about 1959, since the Chinese had already invaded and done a great deal of harm before the Cultural Revolution and kicked plenty of monks and nuns out of their monastic lifestyle. However, the tour guide isn’t supposed to say that: the official Chinese bull shit propaganda story is that the invasion was “the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet” (yeah, just like Georgie Porgy and his minion’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq were “Peaceful Liberations”) and it’s absolutely verboten to point out that the invasion was in fact very violent and oppressive, not a peaceful liberation at all. Not to mention that buildings like monasteries were bombed; monks and nuns raped and murdered, that sort of thing. Peaceful liberation, indeed.

400 nuns—biggest number in Tibet—on mountain. 600,000 = population of Lhasa, 40% Tibetan. New buildings are coming up in Chinese style. Tall glass skyscrapers, I notice. China has certainly lifted its leg and pissed on Tibet.

I see on the river reddish brown ducks with pale yellow heads, black-tipped wings. We passed greenhouses, where people grow tomatoes, cucumbers, etc, and a group of people planting trees with a cart loaded with branches. We passed Western-looking cows and sheep. I’m kind of surprised that the cows aren’t more like Indian cows.

We passed an 11th century monastery, Ballendesh, built in typical Tibetan style, whitewashed with slanting walls. Pretty. Cremated, ashes in stupa—brought ashes back in 1960’s (I’m not sure if this comment refers to an abbot or to the monks of that monastery in general or not—too bad my notes weren’t more detailed). We came to a mountain with carved and painted Buddhas. Around the time of the invasion or the Cultural Revolution, there was a request that the central government (as in Beijing) not destroy the monastery, so here it stands. (We were still south of Lhasa while I scribbled these notes, while the tour guide was speaking in the jeep.)

The military base, a big tall scary building a few minutes down the road from the old monastery, is three years old. I looked up at the looming rectangle, a very modern building, and thought: That’s a sign that you’re in an oppressive fascist police state. It’s such a power-tripping symbol to have a military base right there, on the outskirts of Lhasa. It disgusts me but doesn’t really surprise me. I seem some green military vehicles in front of the building, around which is a fence with a gate where a stiff green-clad soldier stands. He looks like he’s frozen in place; he may as well be an android rather than a person.

We stopped to see the beautiful, bright Buddha paintings on a mountain, and the ducks on the lake across the road were talkative in and at the edge of the snakelike winding little bits of river. Before we walked up to the mountain and looked at the big bright Buddha, we went through a colorful gate painted in Tibetan symbols, and we stopped at a juniper stove. It’s whitewashed and probably made of earth, and it’s shaped rather like a vase or like a Tibetan stupa, with curved sides and a curved aperture where the juniper is placed. Inside the aperture, the surface is burnt black and has remnants of the plant, and a little bit of smoke still issues out. I’ve seen these many times in photos of Tibetan architecture, and I could tell they were stoves, but I never knew exactly what they were. They’re located in front of all monasteries and temples, and they are used for burning offerings of juniper every morning. I hope they grow plenty of juniper bushes nearby.

The Buddha is indeed huge and painted and slightly carved on the mountainside. It’s low enough that the artist or artists could have been standing on the ground while making it, rather than standing on scaffolding. It’s not smooth and sophisticated but rather has the rough texture of the rocky mountain and has a folk art look to it. Colorful deities, smaller than the Buddha, are painted on the mountain, and I recognize Green Tara, a Goddess of compassion who has one foot down from her lotus throne, like she’s about to get down and help people out. I wish she’d come help me, but I have to help myself.

A few yards past the big Buddha mountain, we passed newly-built summer houses. Although the houses have Tibetan-style murals, the walls are filled with very large greenish glass windows; they are deserted little vacation houses presumably for Han Chinese invaders. They consist of modern architecture despite the murals, and the architect has made no attempt at imitating traditional Tibetan architecture; the little houses look like they might only have one room, maybe a little more than that, and they have peaked roofs. Given what the climate is like, I don’t think people would stay in them for more than a couple months. Would they really enjoy it?

I see plenty of modern versions of Tibetan houses. They have garage doors like Indian and Nepalese buildings but also ornate red Tibetan doors. They have grey walls made of what looks like big stone or cement blocks. They can have large front picture windows, probably for the living room, and they also have plenty of other windows, with glass. Traditional Tibetan windows didn’t have glass but had shutters—given the climate, I’m thinking you’d have to be bundled up all the time, even in the house. Of course, the Tibetan beer chang would warm people up, as would hot food and a fire.

We came to traffic police, who are Chinese in fancy blue uniforms, before we passed bulldozed (or more likely bombed) and graffiti-decorated older Tibetan houses. If they were destroyed in the fifties or sixties, I’m surprised nobody’s cleared away the evidence and instead has left these reminders to inspire resentment and to perhaps inspire some Tibetans to be suspicious of the official Chinese version of their history. I’ve read that Tibetans living in Tibet aren’t getting the real story, and this is not surprising; though if they have parents or grandparents around who remember what really happened, then I suspect they learn from them.

We passed under the new railroad and saw the station in the distance. We passed the notorious train station, which mimics traditional Tibetan monastic architecture and was completed in 2006. I’ve read that global warming means the permafrost is melting, and this will make the train tracks sink and crumble in a short time. Really smart thinking. But of course, the Chinese are in denial about so many things. I’ve also read that while the official story is that the railroad is good for Tibet and that building it gave many Tibetans jobs, the truth is that the better jobs were given to Chinese and that Tibetans had the worse and lower-paying jobs on the railroad. And of course it also means that all the more Han Chinese can move into Tibet, as if there aren’t enough. They don’t even have the lungs for this climate—I can’t think they’d be all that much at home.

On the left we passed a cement factory, which according to Gyantzing is one of the first factories that the Chinese built in Tibet, in the 1960’s, causing the worst pollution in Tibet.
Also on the left, after we’ve entered Lhasa, we passed Drepung Monastery. It is on a mountainside beyond shops and looms up looking quite large and impressive, all whitewashed walls slanting inward so that the base of the wall is wider than the top, just in all traditional Tibetan architecture, and the monastery has the obligatory black-framed windows. Sera Monastery is in Lhasa and Ganden, which houses the yellow-hat sect, is in Gyantse. It dates to the 11th-12th centuries, 14th century. The last sect only dates to the seventeenth century and is a reformist sect thanks to the fifth Dalai Lama. He got other orders to change into the Yellow Hat (Gelugpa)—most monasteries in Tibet are now yellow-hat. The second through the fourteenth Dalai Lamas had their education in this monastery, Drepung. It’s a big and special place. I’ve had the impression that lately the reason there are so many more Gelugpa monks and nuns is because of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s charisma, but it sounds like it predates him.

We’ve passed countless Chinese shops on the outskirts of Lhasa. I look at the signs over the roll-up doors and see scarcely any Tibetan script, all Chinese. Yes, I mentioned roll-up doors; I didn’t expect Tibet to have the same sort of entrances to shops that India and Nepal have, but there it is. I’m guessing that China also has shop doors that look to Westerners like garage doors, because under the circumstances Tibet is much more influenced by China than by India, although Buddhism came from India to Tibet and therefore in the past India had a huge influence on Tibetan culture. We stopped at the Bank of China, a remarkably new-looking building (like so many) but they’re not taking US dollars at this hour, so we’ll go back tomorrow morning to exchange some of my money.

I saw a very skinny and young Chinese woman sitting behind a guy on a motorcycle. She wore tight jeans and a purple jacket, and I noticed that she had tall black boots with spiked heels. I guess it was the boots, plus things I’ve read about modern Lhasa, but I strongly suspected her of being a prostitute sitting behind a customer. The motorcycle was at a wide intersection and zoomed off around a corner to the left. The streets are so wide and clean here, nothing like the narrow, dirty, and chaotic streets in Kathmandu.

As we drove past the towering and impressive Potala Palace, I gasped and gawked and the tour guide told me a few things about it. The Potala has thirteen stories and a thousand rooms. On the façade different sections are painted different colors: red, white, or yellow. The red rooms are the Dalai Lama’s and for politics. The white rooms are for the monastery. In other words, the Potala has a color-coded façade. The yellow section is a courtyard between the special white section, which contains among other things the Dalai Lama’s rooms, and the red. This isn’t tourist season, so we can spend more time in the Potala; normally tourists are only allowed one hour in the Potala and it is crowded.

The Potala sits on top of a mountain, the Marpo Ri or Red Hill, and it looms over Lhasa as if it’s giving the Chinese government the finger. I’m not one of those Shangri-la people who think that Tibet has been nonviolent for the past hundred years; I know it has in that time been just another patriarchal country, and according to the history books Tibet has had wars with China and even battles between different sects, different monasteries. Nonetheless, I figure that since the mountains are still standing, the Potala is still standing, and the Jokhang Temple is still standing, Tibet still has some magic.

I don’t think it’s possible to be a radical feminist and be a Shangri-la person, someone who sees Tibet and Tibetans through rose-colored glasses. If you have feminist consciousness, then shortly after you start learning about Tibetan culture it becomes really obvious that it’s male-dominated, and you might also suspect the monastic system of being somewhat power-tripping in general, not just in its contempt for women and nuns.

Actually, the monastic system isn’t all to blame for that, but rather the social structure in general: parents encourage their sons to go to the monastery, which traditionally was where you got the best education. But parents highly discourage their daughters to become nuns and thereby get a comparable education to the boys; they’re encouraged to get married and give birth to children. Even if they do become nuns, they have a tendency to do domestic chores around their parents’ house or for the monks, so that they still don’t get the kind of education and training that monks get. Nuns are not fully ordained bhikkunis and are totally considered subservient to the monks. Also, in Tibetan tradition, monks perform rites and ceremonies for the people, but nuns totally don’t. It’s so misogynist and hateful, and every time I read or think about power-tripping males in Buddhism I find it terribly ironic, given what Buddhist practice is supposed to be all about. Cultivating male ego has no resemblance to cultivating egolessless, quite the contrary. I should perhaps mention that of course my male and androcentric tour guide didn’t mention any of these things; my comments come from many books I’ve read about Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.

The Yak Hotel, where I’ll be staying, is just down the street from the Potala itself, on the main drag, Beijing Street. It is a very wide and very modern and clean paved street, again in sharp contrast with what I’m accustomed to seeing in India and Nepal. The streets in Lhasa are indeed reminiscent of a Western street, and the steering wheel is on the left side, just like in America. In both India and Nepal, it’s on the right, and traffic goes on the left side of the road.

The Yak Hotel, which I started to mention, is at least two stories tall and has a grey concrete façade. Facing the main drag is a wide doorway into the lobby, and the doors are open and display two door curtains, or whatever they’re called, that are white with blue trim and appliquéd with big blue Buddhist continuous knots; we had seen some for sale at the nunnery in Dharamsala, and Marsha purchased one in the gift shop. To enter the hotel parking lot, we actually drove through a gateway that led to a courtyard where other vehicles are parked. The courtyard is surrounded by tall grey walls that imitate traditional Tibetan architecture but have straight walls rather than the truly traditional ones that slant inwards.

This neighborhood, where my so-called budget hotel is located, is the Old Lhasa neighborhood, where most of the Tibetans live and where the architecture at least pretends to be traditional Tibetan architecture. The street is flanked on both sides with tall, grey stone or concrete block buildings, with black-framed windows and flat roofs. Along each side of the very wide street is a lane for rickshaws that have striped canopies imitating the top horizontal of Buddhist flags or Tibetan banners; that is, the canopies have a nylon ruffle all the way around, striped in red, yellow, and green, but they’re cheap and faded-looking compared to the rich brocades that you would see inside a Tibetan temple.

Before I parted with Gyantzing in the lobby, he gave me a brief run-down on tomorrow morning. For breakfast, there’s a fifth floor rooftop restaurant. At 9:45 I’ll meet with Gyantzing in the lobby.

Most of the hotel staff apparently consists of very young and thin Tibetan women. A skinny girl in a mauve padded nylon jacket took my wheeled suitcase and carried it up a flight of stairs to my room. Also a boy helped out in the room, and between them they introduced me to the heater with its white plastic remote control and someone turned it up for me. I tipped them and looked around the room with a grin.

My hotel room is so not my idea of what you would expect in a budget hotel. This is so much fancier than a Motel 6! The room even has complimentary white terrycloth bathrobes hanging in the closet, and the bathroom contains complementary toothbrush, shampoo, bath gel, and a comb, each in its individual little cardboard box. And on a small table by the windows are a teapot, tea bags, and Chinese-style white porcelain teacups with lids and decorated with a Yak Hotel logo illustrating yaks. There’s a mini bar, but it just has a few beverages—pop in red and white cans like Coca-Cola, Lhasa beer, and four bottles of water; I’ll definitely drink all the water. There’s a Western toilet and bath; I figured in a budget hotel I’d be squatting for both the toilet and a bucket bath. Furthermore, the décor isn’t plain and drab; the room is beautiful—it is brightly painted with Tibetan Buddhist murals, including the Wheel of the Law. The ceiling is also brightly painted with ridges like those in the architecture of Tibetan monasteries. The only thing budget-like that I can figure out is that there’s no elevator. I don’t think there’s room service either, but I’ve never used that anyway.

I am in Tibet! I am so dizzy! I ate some dried fruit and hazelnuts that I brought, and I took the Chinese herbal medicine and an altitude pill. I’ve only been to a dozen countries, but I somehow suspect Tibet is the weirdest country in the world. I hope the aroma of incense and butter lamps will be stronger than the smell of hygienically challenged pilgrims.

I should mention, thanks to a glance back at my scrawled notes, that when we got to the old Tibetan neighborhood, which is called—guess what—the Old Tibetan Neighborhood, there are shops with lettering in both Tibetan and Chinese. Again, the shops have open fronts like in India and Nepal, and when they close for business, they roll down the “garage” door.

2
With altitude sickness and a cold, I went to bed at 8 pm tonight. I just woke from a dream in which I was outdoors with a happy group of people holding hands and dancing around a pine tree… or maybe we danced around a player piano that mostly played automatically but you could push keys and make some music. I was dancing with the Dalai Lama! He was on my left and let me hold his pinky while everyone danced. The dancing style seemed rather more Jewish than Buddhist, like at a Jewish wedding.

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.

Norbulingka Institute

Some of us climbed into the taxis but others (including moi, as Miss Piggy would say) walked to the next place: the Norbulingka Institute. It was only about a mile away. I greatly enjoyed the walk, on such a beautiful and bright sunny day. On the left side of the narrow dirt road, we passed cows standing around and chewing their cud at a barnyard. On the right side, we passed fields of yellow flowers, bright green tall grass, and some idyllic trees. John and Lynn got so far ahead of me that John became concerned and went back to make sure I didn’t get lost. I think someone else was quite a bit behind me. The view and route seemed flat compared to the valley and dizzying roads we’d been using in Dharamsala.

The Norbulingka Institute, a beautiful and idyllic place where Tibetan arts and crafts are taught and kept alive, is a registered trust under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, and it is preserving Tibetan culture. This complex includes: offices and reception, guest house, café, workshops, academy for Tibetan culture, Deden Tsukhang (the Seat of Happiness Temple), Norling Arts Shop, and the Losel Doll Museum.

At the Norbulingka Institute, we passed through a Tibetan-style gateway into a courtyard of tree-lined paths, landscaping, potted plants, ponds and waterfalls. It was like paradise—or perhaps I should say it was like Shangri-la. I noticed in the distance Shantum talking on a cell phone, and his posture and movements suggested that he was impatient. I tried to ignore this as we followed a path up to a café, where we sat at small round tables in front of a Tibetan-style building colorfully painted in flowery murals, and a couple of young Tibetans gave us menus and took our orders. I sat with Sheila, Lynn, and John, and a very friendly brown dog came along and let Sheila and me pet her.

John’s lunch came first, and it looked yummy, a stir-fry concoction, while I waited for my lunch. Maybe it was just as well I overdid the snack at the nunnery. Finally after everyone except me had lunch, the waiter came back to the table, and John reminded him that I didn’t have my lunch yet, and the waiter finally informed me that they didn’t have that particular dish; so I pointed at John’s plate and said, “I’ll have that instead.” The lunch, when it finally came, was as delicious as it had looked on John’s plate. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the company of the other people at my table, to say nothing of the dog.

On the previous day, Jagdish had handed me his cell phone, and Bina had informed me that it turns out that the travel agent hadn’t mentioned $300 that I still owed for staying in Kathmandu. Sitting at the Norbulingka café after finishing my lunch, I wrote a check and gave it to Shantum, who suddenly snapped at me. He began by saying imperiously, “Ms. Susan;” it’s odd how people most often use my name when they’re chastising me as though I were a bad little girl, an attitude that has not improved my relationship with my name—but going by a different name wouldn’t make it any better, because no doubt people would use it the same way. That might indeed be the reason why I almost never address people by their names.
In short, Shantum demanded to know why I wrote “so many checks.” I was shocked by his behavior, in part because I had already had this discussion, or rather a much more civil version of it, with Bina via e-mail, when I explained that I was concerned about checks getting lost in the mail, and she had informed me that the bank charges a fee for every check and that if the check didn’t get to them, I could cancel it. Since I was deeply shocked and hurt by Shantum’s behavior (even though it was nothing compared to the verbal attacks I have continually received from relatives ever since I moved to Kansas), I did not know what to say and spoke in a stilted voice. “I wrote this check because Bina called the other day and said I owed another three hundred dollars for Kathmandu.”

Shantum sternly explained in front of everyone why it was a nuisance to receive so many checks. The entire time he spoke, I sat slumped in my chair, staring at my lap and not seeing anything, and feeling deeply humiliated and hurt. Without even knowing what he was saying, I muttered a couple things like, “Oh, is that so,” and, “I didn’t know,” and felt too shocked and incapable of speech to actually point out to him that Bina had explained everything to me.
During last year’s pilgrimage, Shantum had seemed very nurturing and supportive and kind, and he had paid me complements (the opposite of what I am accustomed to) and had seemed to have a grasp of psychology, since he figured out that I’m shy. I had subconsciously turned him into a surrogate mother to make up for my verbally abusive relatives and for the fact that I had been bullied instead of nurtured throughout my childhood. Shantum was the second person I stupidly turned into a surrogate mother and who had rejected me. I finally figured out that the only person who can nurture me is myself.

While we still sat at the café tables, Shantum also acted impatient with Mimi for not being decisive about what she wanted to do this afternoon. I put on a cheerful façade and said, “Somebody’s a grumpy Buddha.” John and Lynn got a good laugh out of that, but it didn’t change my overwhelming sense of rejection and despair.

Another “mother” had rejected me and once again I was completely rootless. I have known since the age of five that I am on my own and that nobody is around to truly nurture me, so it is absurd for me to not be accustomed and resigned to this. If I were not still traumatized by my childhood, if I had not just been through six years of regular verbal abuse from relatives, and if I had not put Shantum up on a pedestal and turned him into a surrogate mother, I would not be hurt by his behavior.

The Norbulingka Institute is a remarkable learning center where Tibetans learn and practice woodworking, thangka painting, making appliquéd thangkas and banners, furniture building, and other crafts. We climbed precarious stairs and passed stone structures, including a wall that curved around dramatically. I should have enjoyed the tour, but the entire time I felt so humiliated and ashamed of whom I am, that it was as if a dark raincloud hovered above me and nobody else. A Tibetan boy gave us a tour of the Institute before the group went on our own, and while I should have been excited to see students painting thangkas in a studio with the Dalai Lama’s voice on the radio, and to see colorful murals on a woodworking studio’s walls while students built an embossed cabinet or wardrobe, I wanted to be invisible.

After we parted with the tour guide, we ended up in a gift shop, but I didn’t feel like buying anything and would have been very ashamed if I had done so. But really, I feel ashamed of everything I do and of being myself. I wish I could be someone else, a decent human being, someone whom people respect, but I’m stuck with being a worthless loser. Feeling miserable and dejected, I idly wandered around the shop while everyone else seemed to be eagerly chatting and looking at merchandise. I would have preferred to go to the doll museum, but it had a separate entrance fee and I didn’t think I would have enough time, for I was under the impression that we would be leaving soon.

People dispersed from the gift shop, and I overheard some people, including Paula and Richard, were going to the temple, and so I tagged along. In the center of the Norbulingka Institute is a standard Tibetan temple with a shiny gold roof and with colorful murals galore. I followed the others up the temple steps and stared around at the murals. I looked down at my feet and to my utter embarrassment saw that I was still wearing my hiking boots. I hurried back to the entrance to slip them off. I couldn’t even feel good in a Buddhist temple; the positive energy that it might have contained did not penetrate the oppressive raincloud that surrounded me.

In the taxi with Shantum and me, Etiel said something about Shantum as a tour guide, and I made a sarcastic remark in response. She said, “I think he’s doing a fabulous job! It’s hard to be a guide for so many people.” She said it plenty loud enough for Shantum to hear, and she tapped the top of his seat back.

Shantum said, “I am unemployable.” He added something to the effect that people have labeled him “unemployable.”

“I know the feeling,” I said, thinking nobody could be as unemployable as I, but Etiel also agreed, although it was hard for me to think of her as unemployable. Shantum proceeded to talk about some of his previous employment, how he’d get a job and try to do it his way, but his employers didn’t want him to do it his way. He worked for one dollar a year for the UN for six years, and he tried to make the program work, but the UN didn’t like the way he did things.

After a brief pause in the conversation, Shantum brought up the subject of my pilgrimage memoir, and of my including the notes I took during his storytelling. He said, “I’m not sure it’s kosher, you see. It took me twenty years of research. Penguin has a contract for me to write a book, and it’s been sitting on my desk—I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

I explained that the book is about both my path and the Buddha’s path, and that I wrote his comments in quotation marks, as dialogue. I also said that I’d go ahead and send him the current draft by snail mail, since it’s five hundred pages and would be easier to read in print rather than on a computer screen.

In the late afternoon to early evening we went to a tea plantation, or more specifically the tea plantation owner’s guesthouse, to admire the view and watch the sunset. The guesthouse included two charming white bungalows, and we went through the main building, admired the décor in the process, and went through glass doors at the back of the house to step out into the back yard. There we had a view not of tea plants as I had expected, but of what looked like a forest touching the borders of the yard, and best of all we saw the Himalayas in the distance.
We met a very friendly older man, whom I at first thought was the owner of the plantation, but he was more like the butler; he wore a business suit and a blue turban and spoke English very fluently, with more or less a British accent. He told us all about the plantation and the guesthouse. (We even saw Western guests sit out on the patio at some point in the evening).

Male servants in dark brown Nehru suits served us beverages, and they set up a table with tea and snacks, something breaded and similar to tempura vegetables, with green minty dipping sauce. I got a small plate and would have served myself a tiny portion, but Jagdish served me a generous portion of breaded veggies and sauce. He knows my gluttonous ways too well. If I had not been around people, I would have eaten nothing for the rest of the day, because I didn’t think I deserved to eat.

While those of us who had gone on this particular outing—for it was not the entire sangha—sat admiring the view and snacking, we had a discussion. Shantum reminded us that today is Thursday and we need to turn in our Mindfulness Training essays tomorrow. This led to some discussion about the Mindfulness Training, which a surprising number of people have said they wish to do, even though some of them aren’t even Buddhists. Not that I’m into labels or identification with just one religion or spiritual tradition. I much prefer the word “spirituality” to “religion,” of course.

Marsha asked about alcohol and said that she drinks wine at night. Shantum said, “You should drink mindfully and think about whether you’re causing suffering…and you might just end up swearing off alcohol.” Shantum explained that originally he only did four trainings; he didn’t drink alcohol and was at the time only interested in ganja. (I had no idea what ganja is, but since then I have looked it up and learned that it’s a Sanskrit or Hindi word for “marijuana.”)
“The Mindfulness Trainings aren’t vows, they’re just guidelines,” Shantum said. He said that at the wedding, he drank two sips of champagne, because they were doing a toast; he wasn’t going to drink, but someone put a glass in his hand. I was surprised to hear he actually drank even that much; the pilgrimage last year had seemed very anti-alcohol, and I had been comfortable with this after reading Sharon Salzburg’s remarks about alcohol and meditation being a bad mix. If you drink in front of children, Shantum said, “you’re planting the seed of alcohol in them.” (I’m glad my brother doesn’t drink in front of Malcolm.)

The topic of vegetarianism also came up. Someone said that animals feel fear, know that they’re going to be killed—on some level of consciousness, but they’re in fear when they’re about to die. Shantum said, “There are fear toxins in the meat—you’re eating fear.” (There’s another reason for me to see meat eating as unclean.) There are plenty of other reasons for being vegetarian, such as it’s much more ecological and economical to plant fields and eat the grains or produce directly rather than have animals grazing, using up the grain and causing deforestation, but I don’t think that came up in the conversation. And in my experience, taste buds are a perfectly sensible reason to be a vegetarian, even if it is self-centered and trivial compared to other reasons. I don’t need to do Mindfulness Trainings for that; laying off sweets and aspiring to use something that vaguely passes off as mindful speech are the biggest challenges for me when it comes to the Mindfulness Trainings, which I did on the pilgrimage last year.

Shantum talked a little about Indian vegetarianism and said that it is perfectly acceptable in Indian vegetarian tradition to eat eggs. Despite my overwhelming self-hate and rejection, I actually spoke up at this point. I said, “I’m not a vegan, but ninety-five percent of chickens in the United States live in inhumane conditions, packed tightly into cages and never seeing the light of day. That’s a good reason to refrain from eating eggs.” I have gotten the impression that chickens are treated the same way in Ireland; I remember eating a great many eggs there but only seeing chickens once. In India, however, it’s not unusual to see chickens and chicks running around, like so many animals in India.

Shantum, referring to his younger days, said he was “a guy with no limits, like a free bird,” only he wasn’t free because he was “trapped in samsara.” So the Mindfulness Trainings have been his guidelines.

You take refuge in the Buddha three times for these reasons: 1) the Buddha Shakyamuni, 2) your potential for awakening, and 3) your awakening. “This mindfulness practice is your refuge,” Shantum said. He also used the word “aspiration.”

We stayed at the tea plantation long enough to admire the sunset as Shantum had proposed earlier. I could see a very bright pinkish-orangey sunset between trees. We went around to the front of the house, and while people stood around talking and I didn’t feel like talking to anybody, I watched the sunset amid other trees that, since it was getting darker, looked like black silhouettes. The sunset was bright orange and very dramatic.

Here is my new insight poem:

Mindful Trek

Mindful steps over rough terrain
rocks glistening in the sun
sparrows singing and crows cawing
elk footprints and rhododendron trees
the scent of pine and cedar
hawks soaring in blueness with a backdrop
of snow-capped triangular mountains
are more spiritual to me
than any temple or ceremony.

During our dinner conversation at Cloud’s End, I heard such unusual phrases as, “Rather dishy monk” and “I think he’s rather yummy”—the sisters Jill and Pat were commenting on the Dalai Lam’s translator. As listening to them often is, it was like being in a British sitcom. They have charming British accents and are around seventy years old. Someone asked for my opinion and I said, “Yes, I think he’s attractive.” At some point, I did add, “but he’s Tibetan, so what do you expect?” but I don’t think anyone heard me in the big echoic room with all the talking going on.

The sentence, “Shantum is angry with me,” became a sort of mantra that I repeated in my head over and over again. At some point it shifted to: “Shantum despises me.” The unkosher aspect of my book dawned on me more and more in the evening, and I felt very foolish and ashamed for not having realized it. By midnight, I became convinced that I’ve done something horrible.

I had foolishly thought that if I went back to India, I’d again experience the bliss, happiness and confidence that I had had on the pilgrimage last year; I had, in short, tried to run away from my depression. But no matter how far I travel, I can never get away from myself.

Despite this depression, I began to very dubiously think that maybe there’s a possibility that my book will be fine without the notes…but it will have to at least include summaries of why each location was important to the Buddha, and I should still send it to Shantum. From what I have read about trying to get nonfiction books published, I have the impression that no publisher would be willing to publish the stupid book unless it had Shantum’s written approval, since he was the meditation teacher and tour guide.

The Tibet Children's Village

We rode straight from the church to the Tibetan Children’s Village, which struck me as a place to get a better education than the school I attended, even though by American standards Morgan Township High School was considered above average. We walked through a large paved area surrounded by buildings that were part of the school. The main office was in a building at the top of a grassy slope, on which were large rocks painted with curled up deer, presumably a reference to Deer Park in Sarnath. The buildings looked more or less like modern variations on Himalayan architecture.

The guide, an adult male who had a high position working for the Village, took us to a dorm for little kids. The front room included a couple of wooden cabinets topped with some toy animals and below a row of colorful thangkas, and on either side wall was a door, one leading to the boys’ dorm room and the other, almost completely covered with stuffed toy animals, lead to the girls’ room. As we stood inside the boy’s dorm, the guide explained that it accommodates twenty-four kids: it includes seven bunk beds, fourteen beds, and two kids sleep on the bottom bunk. The rooms were clean and neat and I’m sure that even if it seems crowded by American standards, the living conditions are very good. Maybe if the school had more funding, it would have more space.

Door to the girls' dorm

Entrance hall to the dorms

We afterwards visited the baby room, which I thought was pretty. The cribs, under a slanting roof, were all painted bright blue, and an aisle went down the center of the room. The little room had dormer windows and a tall window at the far end, across from the door where we entered. Nearby was a spotless restroom with white porcelain fixtures, and to my amusement there were several squatting toilets in a row. I recall that the house where I live originally had just an outhouse, and it had two seats next to each other; my mother came from a family with ten children, so no doubt it was convenient, but so much for privacy.

Baby room

The guide explained that there are several locations for the Tibetan Children’s School. Ladakh--seven schools (does this note mean there are seven of these schools just in Ladakh?)We met a little girl who walked across the plateau with her little brother on her back, but her parents are still in Tibet. Tibetans come to India, all illegal in transit. This is a school exclusively for children coming from Tibet, ages ten to seventeen. Seventeen is about the top age, but a few are twenty. The school does include an eleven month old girl; her mother left her behind because she had to return to Tibet.

Our guide explained that the main purpose of the Tibet Children’s Village is preserving a separate Tibetan identity. Nehru asked what help the Dalai Lama wanted, and he replied that he wanted schools for the children, to keep a separate identify and keep their culture alive. Nehru said, “Sure.”

This school teaches both in Tibetan and English up to the fifth year, then Tibetan is the main subject and language. From the sixth year, they learn more English. Sixth through eighth years, they learn Hindi too. Up to Class twelve, they learn Tibetan and English. There’s no compulsory Hindi, but from class nine they study the Hindi language.

Richard asked, “Do most of the boys become monks?” The guide said that a few become monks. He didn’t want to tell the percentage, because more and more monks become laymen nowadays.

This ferocious beast attempted to scare me off, but I was fearless.

Parents don’t support the school because they can’t, but they give to His Holiness. The distance between here and Tibet is about one hundred miles as the crow flies (rather shorter than I thought). Mann is a village on the border, and it’s closer to Tibet than to Delhi. Kids go to monastery school up to age six; Shantum said that’s typical in India. After that, they have ordinary schooling. It was weird to hear about parents coming to Dharamsala and dropping off their children before returning to Tibet, thus abandoning their children, and some members of the sangha expressed concern about this. But parents return to Tibet because the Chinese authorities hold their families hostage when they take this trip. It’s too expensive to get an education in Tibet, and it’d be Chinese anyway. I kind of think it’s amazing the Chinese authorities even let the parents take their kids to Dharamsala for an education; you’d think the authorities would be more inclined to let the kids remain illiterate. Still, they’re a bunch of bullies.

We were walking around at the Children’s Village, along a path with Tibetan-ish bungalows on our right, when we passed by a group of Westerners standing around talking, and I looked at each of them, and then I made eye contact with an Indian guy who looked like he could have been Shah Rukh Kahn’s brother. The resemblance was quite startling, and he even had the same eyebrows. We made eye contact and exchanged a smile. I didn’t mean to be flirty. I guess that’s called accidental flirtation.

Some of our group (including me) sneaked into the back of a math class for teenagers. Surprisingly, the class was entirely in English. Gee, it’s convenient to have a first language that’s so popular; it seems like people speak English almost anywhere.

This is the entrance to a classroom, where teenagers were taking a math class in English.

Stones on the hillside were painted with curled up deer.

After we left the children's village, we went to the city center to have lunch at Chonor House, the restaraunt where we almost always had lunch.

Now it occurs to me that I should go ahead and snail mail Shantum a printed copy of the manuscript, since he doesn’t keep up with e-mails all the time, and since it’s a five hundred page manuscript. The printed copy would be much easier to read than if he tried reading it on a computer. I’ll mention that before we part. I’m hoping he’ll enjoy and appreciate the book—I’m really hoping he enjoys it and thinks it’s well written. I’ve gotten for the most part positive feedback about the quality of my travel writing.

Monks lining up in the street, to enter the Dalai Lama's temple for his teachings

By the time we got to the town center, it was past 12:30, and monks were lining up in the street to go to the temple. After we parked and started moving up the slanted pavement to Chonor House, I stopped and turned to get a picture of monks in line; usually I don’t have my camera with me when we see them. I went a little further up and took a picture from above, because there was a mass of red-clad monks and slowly moving white taxis. Quite a view.

Veranda in the back of Chonor House

We had a delicious buffet lunch on the customary balcony. We had a mushroom stir fry and a broccoli and cauliflower stir fry, and I just barely remembered to refrain from putting milk in my tea. Last night I realized that my stomach was upset because I had consumed so many milk products throughout the day.

View from Chonor House. The big white building in the center is a monastery on the hillside.

I hadn’t realized we’d spent that much time at the Children’s Village—for the first time we were hearing the Dalai Lama’s deep and musical voice from the balcony of Chonor House. I had left the radio behind in the room, taking it out of my bag when I found out that we would be going to the Children’s Village; I had wanted to lighten my load, but I should have known better! About half our sangha has been listening to the radios, and I’ve been writing in my journal and listening to crows. We’re supposed to meet up here again at six, which gives me time to use the Internet and attend the four o’clock teaching. That gives me plenty of time, and some time to wander, too. I’m going to go off in just a moment, after I use the restroom, since this restaurant has two that are nice. I’ve also been listening to and imitating the crows. A pair of them seemed to say, “Uh-oh! Uh-oh!”

Back on the street, after lunch

TPAC and Mc'llo's

We arrived in the evening at the Tibetan Performing Arts Center (TPAC) and followed the crowd into the auditorium, a theater with a slightly slanted floor facing a wide stage. The performance was apparently sold out, and the audience was almost entirely composed of Tibetans. We sat in two rows and I had no idea what to expect. The play turned out to be a sort of variety show, and a very professional one at that, like a Broadway musical in New York. Each skit, or whatever you call it, involved a chorus of singer/dancers, about half male and half female, wearing colorful and beautiful traditional Tibetan costumes from a specific region. In one skit, the women wore extremely long sleeves that hung way past their hands and they swung the sleeves around as part of the dancing. In another, men wore red fringed circular headdresses that I recalled seeing in the film Kundun. We must have seen just about every possible chupa, the traditional Tibetan jumper; in one region they only have one sleeve (so that it’s easier to use a bow and arrow), and in another region they have two long sleeves, and the kind of chupa that you normally see women wearing on an ordinary day, and which I was wearing, doesn’t have any sleeves. The dancing, acting, and singing were on a par with a musical you might see at any professional American theater. The performers didn’t generally speak lines but almost exclusively sang; however, one of the skits involved some dialogue that we didn’t understand because it was in Tibetan; the rest of the audience was delighted and laughed heartily at the jokes.

We went to Mc’llo’s for dinner; it is a very popular hang-out for Westerners and is located in the heart of the central square of Dharamsala. When the cat’s away, the mice will play. Shantum is at a wedding two and a half hours away and won’t be back till lat, maybe tomorrow morning. I saw few Tibetans or Indians, but unlike at an American restaurant, the tables were very close together. We followed Jagdish up a staircase to the second floor of the restaurant; the bottom floor is quiet and sedate in comparison. The restaurant upstairs was somewhat dark, and large star-shaped paper lanterns hung over all the tables. The outer walls were almost completely windows, overlooking the main square, of which Rachel said, “It’s like Times Square, or Piccadilly Circus.”
Paula said, “But without the neon signs.”

The tables were crowded close together, and next to Richard, at the next table inches away, was a British woman who works at the Tibetan library and has been here since November; she also is part of the organization Free Tibet, which she said is going well. She explained that winter is the only time that Tibetans can escape across the border, because there are fewer Chinese guards. Indians and Indian organizations have been giving a lot of support for the Tibetan cause. The British woman mentioned the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy. She and Rachel have both lived in London and Swansea. There was indeed a demonstration in the square before we got to TPAC. It involved a megaphone, the flag of Tibet draped over a building’s outer wall, and monks handing out white candles.

The restaurant has loud Western rock music playing; Peter Gabriel was singing “Sledgehammer” as we left. Between the music and the conversation, it was very hard to understand what anyone was saying, and the only one who understood me was Rachel, since she was next to me on my left. Sometimes she’d repeat my response to others, since my voice is hopeless. Actually, Richard might have understood me—he sat straight across from me.
Most of the group drank alcohol, which weirds me out after last year’s pilgrimage with the all-Buddhist and distinctly anti-alcohol sangha. This sangha passed around several bottles of beer called Sandpiper, and Richard has discovered a whiskey called Royal Challenge. It must be a royal challenge to endure the burning sensation as that liquid goes down your throat. Yuck. I pulled out this notebook, and Rachel, who sat to the left of me, said, “Everybody stop talking! Susan’s writing everything we say!” We’ve had a lot of joking around about Shantum not being here. “When we’re at Strucks, she’ll pull out her notebook, and say, ‘Shantum, you won’t believe what happened while you were away…’”

Earlier, Richard and Rachel et al made comments like, “Shantum’s at a wedding. He’ll probably get drunk.”
“I’ll bet he’s smoking.”
“He’s smoking pot. He’s doing LSD at the wedding.”
“Oh, no, no!” I said, appalled but simultaneously amused, if that’s possible.
“I think he’s done with those days,” Richard said. Oh, yeah, majorly!

I wonder if anyone’s going to the Dalai Lama’s teachings with a hangover tomorrow morning.
We all ordered Tibetan food, which turned out to be a big bowl of noodles with veggies, like chives and carrots, and a side dish of momos. We were packed into a corner, and Kathy ended up at the other table (although she was inches away from me) and talked with a guy on her other side. In the taxi on the bumpy and fast ride back to Cloud’s End or Cloud Nine, as John called it, Kathy said she was practically sitting on the guy’s lap, and that he must have been thinking: “This is like my mother sitting on my lap.” She added, “Sometimes I forget that I’m fifty and someone else is twenty-five.” Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to remember I’m not a twelve-year-old. It’s weird being so much younger than the rest of the group. Oh well. Actually, I don’t usually have a sense of age gap.

Now that I'm alone in my room at the guesthouse, I feel horrible, so unlike I felt on the pilgrimage last year. My usual inferiority complex has come with me on the trip, although of course it’s not as overwhelming as it is in Kansas. I don’t know, it might be in part because we aren’t doing the forty-five minute meditations that we did just about every morning on the pilgrimage last year. I’ve been awake since three am and it’s a bit after 10—I have so got to get some sleep. And I’m a bit on the grumpy side. I think I’ll always be a total freak and a total reject, no matter where I go. Nobody will ever like me.