My thoughts and activities in Dharamsala

Saturday, April 06, 2013

Arousal


In a not too distant pass, well- really less than 45 minutes ago this Saturday, me and the others clapped our hands, stomped our feet, laughed, ridiculed, and pointed fingers at each other at the Main Temple. This now being the end of our fifth week of class-phew!!!, The first week of class felt like a month, and we have already just finished our first topic also. The weather at this time is just as awesome as weather gets around here; one day last week when we had that week off of debate while I was studying on my balcony I witnessed sunbow after sunbow all day long, from sunrise to sunset. It was just a day that only thin feather-like cirrus clouds floated high in the sky above and when the sunlight poked them it made a perfect roygbiv around it. Next to that, my favorite is the butterfly invasion, which is just a constant stream of small yellow and white butterflies flying up the mountain.

These days HHDL is in ‘da house’ so we see the constant flow of people who had received audience with him leave his residence with their necks bedecked with white Tibetan scarves and big ecstatic smiles on their faces as we debate. During night debates I at times think to myself ‘Wow, the sound that just emitted from my clapping hands can be heard by HHDL’. Ah! Such a childish thought really since with all of us clapping, stomping and yelling at the same time the cacophony just become background noise.

Being back in class is always a bit of a shock especially after vacation and one spent for the most part here, beside three super duper awesome weeks in Norway, in the winter. I sat on my ass for the most part, all sense of motivation totally evaporated from my system. It got quite dismissal for me especially towards the end of February when it was the most desolate and the weather was going straight up buck wild. I recalled my mild and amusing shock as I woke up one morning to see the town covered in snow and going to bed with most if not all of it melted.

As the date for the beginning of class approached I slow welcomed back my classmates, many whom had spent their vacations in some really high, really cold places such as, Ladakh, Spiti and Mon-Tawang which are as far as I know still snowed in. One of them had to take a helicopter to reach his village by the Indo-Tibetan Border. Everyone though looked refreshed and healthy from smacking on all that home cooked grub and receiving all that family lovin’.

When class started we had one very significant change and that was a new teacher. The school secretary had told me that our previous teacher Gen Tenzin Gyurmey a.k.a Gen Druptop was over worked by teaching two perfection of wisdom classes. Gen Druptop is the kind of guy who definitely prepares before class and his intellect as far as reasoning goes is superb. I could imagine that teaching one perfection of wisdom class will be enough but two is a heavy load for sure. And so they found us another teacher who’s teaching style to closer to our first teacher at Sarah College Gen Lodoe a.k.a Morphesus. He more than likely doesn’t prepare for class, he is filled with clever and cute anecdotes and has a roaring laugh as he schools us in debate in class. His name is Gen Thupten Kunkhyen but he is better known as Gen Tsa Gyakpa for reasons that are unknown to me. He is a bit of a chubby dude so I can see why there is the gyakpa (fat) part but the tsa part is still a mystery to me. He used to teach Collected Topics (བསྡུས་གྲྭ), intro to debate logic, to Upper TCV students, actually I wonder if he still does or not. His brother, who I think attended I.B.D., is the English Translator for the HHDL when he teaches here. Last year he would come to our afternoon debates to do some schoolin’ and he substitute taught us for one class when Gen Druptop went M.I.A. The word is that he has memorized mass corpuses of texts and that they are all fresh in his mind. One thing I can say for sure is that the dude can talk, our class time which is supposed to be an hour and a half long tend to go on for two hours. I have no doubt that homeslice could teach all day without any fatigue if given half the chance.

We have also changed teachers for our Wednesday cutting doubts (དོགས་གཅོད།) class, a class that helps us to generate debate out of our topics, Gen Alak Khenpo who I think is a classmate of Gen Druptop, teaches at Kirti Monastery up the road. His style of teaching is very similar to Gen Druptop with superb and ultrafast reasoning abilities and a badass memory. Though, based on his accent, I assume he is from the Amdo region of Tibet he speak very clear albeit lightning fast.  In fact, now that I think about Geshema Kelsang Wangmo, who has been kind enough to answer my question over the phone, has this quality as well. She is also classmates with Gen Alak Khenpo and Gen Druptob, hmmmmm!

Although since this is technically our third year of the perfection of wisdom course, it is this year that we really get to study it. The first two years one get bits and pieces of it scattered about but this year we go in the study of the Mahayana path hardcore. The topic for this year is called The Arousal of Mind of Enlightenment (སེམས་བསྐྱེད།). Even though we will spend the majority of our time studying The Instructions or Advice for Gaining Enlightenment (གདམས་ངག), the course is named after the first topic studied.

So where does this all come from? Well, we get our order of topics to study based on the outline of the main Indian Buddhist text that we study, The Ornament of Manifest Realization (མངོན་རྟོགས་རྒྱན།) by the future Buddha Lord Maitreya. This a text takes all the topics found in the perfection of wisdom sutra literature which is quite vast and condenses them into 70 topics (དོན་བདུན་ཅུ) which is condensed into eight manifest realizations (མངོན་རྟོགས་བརྒྱད།). For each one of these manifestations one chapter is dedicated to it thus making the text eight chapters long. The first manifestation is the omniscient mind (རྣམ་མཁྱེན།), or the mind that a Buddha Superior (སངས་རྒྱས་འཕགས་པ) is said to possess. An omniscient mind is said to be “an ultimate exalted consciousness that realizes directly ten phenomenon, the arousal of the mind of enlightenment etcetera, (སེམས་བསྐྱེད་སོགས་ཆོས་བཅུ་མངོན་སུམ་དུ་རྟོགས་པ་མཐར་ཐུག་པའི་ཡེ་ཤེས།)” which is the definition of an omniscient mind.  Of the ten phenomenon, the arousal of the mind of enlightenment is the first and the Ornament of Manifest Realization discusses the ten phenomenon in turn starting with the arousal.

What the Ornament actually states about the arousal is really brief, three four line stanzas in fact and so we have other many texts (which are stacked like a mountain next to my computer) that elucidates on these three stanzas. What the teacher lectures from is Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s “The General Meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom” (ཕར་ཕྱིན་སྤྱི་དོན།). The Ornament must be memorized of course and the important points from the General Meaning must be learn by heart. The other texts though they are extremely important are taught in class sometimes for they are mainly to be read on our own time if there is any. I find for myself that The Ornament and The General Meaning alone fill up all of my study time.

The arousal of the mind of enlightenment is extreme important to the practitioner of both the Mahayana and Vajrayana paths, for without it one is technically not on the path to enlightenment. The arousal is known as the door through which one engages the great vehicle path (ཐེག་ཆེན་ལམ་གྱི་འཇུག་སྒོ) which is explicitly stated in its definition.

As we got deeper in the study of this topic debates arouse thanks to the texts which guides us; does a Buddha Superior possess this mind or not? Or does he/she possess great compassion? If one is a Bodhisattva does that being necessarily possess the arousal of the mind of enlightenment? What are the criterion that is needed for the aspiration of the arousal of the mind of enlightenment (བྱང་ཆུབ་ཏུ་སྨོན་པའི་སེམས།) and the engagement of the arousal of the mind of enlightenment (བྱང་ཆུབ་ཏུ་འཇུག་པའི་སེམས།) which are the two main divisions of the arousal, for there are many different opinions stated in various texts. And there is even more to cover, our teacher said that all year could be spent easily on this topic but we have more than ten topics to study before exams roll around again. I just wanted to provide a brief snidbit into what I have been thinking about as far as class goes without boring you and without writing a lot like a sometimes tend to do.

I always think about this blog and I am glad that I have been able to keep it going for this long though my regularity in keeping it updated has been compounded by the amount of school work.  Last year was just really bad in that respect and I hope I can be better this time around but of course that is yet to be seen. I hope that this find everyone around the world in happy spirits. Much Love.

Pax

P.S. If you are interested or curious about studying the Perfection of Wisdom, I.B.D. graduate  Geshema Kalsang Wangmo la teaches it in English at I.B.D. two months in the spring and fall, mp3’s of her lectures and PDF class handouts can be downloaded from the classes’ blog http://ibd-buddhist.blogspot.in/. Class for this spring is to start this Monday April 8th.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Soaring High; Blazing Flame


I am definitely very happy for my new crib, especially now as we are nearing winter.  The backside of my room gets a whole lot of sun throughout the day and here where good indoor heating is virtually non-existent, to have a place that gets sun is quite a status symbol regardless of the how much the rent is or the luxury of the pad. One can have a piece of shit room and if it gets sun folks oh and ah causing one to stand slightly more straighter with the shoulders slightly more spread apart.  From my balcony, almost straight ahead and over a valley there is a little knob where paragliders launch off from.  They are really cool watch especially when they glide close to the top of the Dhauladhar range which means that they are really, really high up there. That is probably the closest a human can reach to the experience of the soaring of an eagle. Sometimes in the back of my mind I think ‘I would like to try that sometime’ but I always soon realize the fact at I am chicken shit and acrophobic. You ain’t getting me nowhere near no fucking paraglide, though it’s nice to think about.

Now that monsoon has been over, the mornings here are just wonderful.  On my window hangs two round prism thingies and when the arisen sunlight hits them it scatters many rainbow blotches all over my room. It’s like having two mini-solar powered disco balls that shoots rainbows everywhere. Every morning so long as it is not cloudy the first thing that my eyes see is roygbiv.  The sun at this point arises to the left of my apartment over the range and it rays hit very warmly. I brush my teeth on the balcony so that I can warm myself and soak up some heat. The morning skies are alive with kites, crows, and house swifts that for some reason get seriously lost and fly hyper-topsy-turvily in and out of my room two or three of them at a time.  Some times they’ll circle the room several times until they find the door.

When I first moved up here in the spring, there were these light-yellow butterflies fluttering everywhere.  They always flew from the valley up the mountain.  I remember one day as I was chillin’ on my balcony when I heard HHDL’s caravan horn announcing his arrival to McLeod Ganj that at that moment I thought, ‘these yellow butterflies are fluttering up the hill to greet HHDL back to Dhasa!’

Now as the cold is slowly creeping in eventually one is going to have to bust out the electric heaters and the hot water bottles and hope that the electricity don’t die.

Being at IBD school-wise has been extremely difficult for me, which is partially why my blog did not receive any attention.  The other part was that I was burning out hardcore and waging a war within myself between absolute laziness and studying like a fucking mad man, between being really grateful for all the beautiful delicious fruits in my life and wanting to take all my philosophy books, throw them in a big pile and light them bitches on fire. Back and forth like a yo-yo.  The move up from Sarah College to IBD implied that we wouldn’t have a proper vacation until the winter, the end of the year, which if we would have stayed at Sarah we would have had a summer vacation. With that being the case we immediately after finishing our 2nd year at Sarah commenced the 3rd year of the course at IBD pretty much without break.  

This year’s subject matter was extremely difficult for me, plus I had to keep in mind that our change in teachers had something to do with it too. Gen Tenzin Gyurmey, a.k.a Gen Drubthob, is one hard sumbitch.  He is extremely intelligent, has an incredible memory and during lectures talks miles above one’s head. I know that I wasn’t the only one struggling with his lecturing style. Unlike our teacher at Sarah, Gen Lodroe a.k.a Morphesus, who pretty much spoon-fed us; Gen Drubthob did not do so at all. Though he is extremely meticulous and a very eloquent speaker his words would not sink in for the life of me. His ability to articulate numerous styles of reasoning on a single query is astonishing. A nun in my class compared it to those gymnasts who are able to do all the various activities of the sport. I thought that it was a good analogy. On top of that, not only is he  a master of Buddhist philosophy and dialectics, he is also quite the accomplished practitioner thus earning him the moniker Drubthob (tib. grub thob, skt, siddha) which means accomplished one, one who is accomplished in the meditative arts.

Drang Nge (tib. drang nges) this year’s topic: was like our previous year’s topic drawn out of the homage of the “Ornament of Manifest Realization” (tib. mngon rtogs rgyan, skt. abhisamayAlankAra). The main text used for the study of this topic is called the “Essence of Eloquence: the Interpretive and the Definitive meanings of the sutras” (tib. drang nges legs bshad snying po) written by the founder of the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism Je Tsongkhapa. This text provided us with an intense and in-depth study of the four tenet systems of Indian Buddhism categorized by the Gelukpa school particularly focusing on the Mind-Only tenet system (tib. sems tsam pa, cittamAtra). As far as I know, this is the only time during the long arduous years of study that the Mind-Only tenet system is studied in depth.

The main gist of this topic deals with the fact that Mahayana Buddhism divides the teachings of the Buddha into three turnings of the wheel of Dharma or three distinct sets of teachings. The first being after his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya were afterwards he travelled to a deer park in Varanasi and gave the teachings on the “Four Noble Truths”. The second being at Vulture Peak in Rajgriha not far from Bodh Gaya where he gave the teachings of the “Perfection of Wisdom” sutras. The third being at Vaishali, were he gave the teachings of the “Excellent differentiations”.  Because these teachings are outwardly very different from each other, trying to ascertain which one of these are what the Buddha actually meant is where the study of drang nge comes in. The general idea is that the Buddha’s teachings are without contradiction, so what gives? We are taught that he gave teachings depending on the capacity of the student’s ability to understand them and that is why there are three sets of teachings.

Our first analyst comes from the Mind-Only school, who asserts that the first two teachings are interpretive and that the third and last teachings are the definitive.  I don’t want to get into it deeply because lengthy dissertations have been written on this and it is confusing as hell.  To be brief, this school asserts, using a chapter from the “Sutra Unraveling the Thought” (tib. mdo sde dgongs ‘grel, skt. saMdhinirmocana-sUtra) as their scriptural source, what sutras are interpretive and what sutras are definitive.  From their viewpoint, the Buddha indicated during the first teachings and the students of those teachings asserted that all known phenomenon are established by way of its own characteristics (tib. rang gi mtshan nyid kyis grub pa, skt. svalakSaNa-siddhi) which roughly means from my feeble understanding that a phenomenon exists as an entity in itself without related cause or conditions acting on it besides its own or that it has its own distinct essence separate from others and also that certain or all phenomena are established as external objects (tib. phyi rol don du grub pa) basically meaning that objects exist out there by themselves without any relation to the mind perceiving the object.

Again from the Mind-Only School’s viewpoint, the Buddha indicated during the second teachings and those students asserted the opposite from the first teachings stating that all phenomenon are not established by way of its own characteristics, (tib. rang gi mtshan nyid kyis ma grub pa) i.e. empty.

Moving on to this school’s view on the third teachings,  in which the Buddha indicated that all phenomenon are divided three ways, they are either, 1) thoroughly imputed, (tib. kun btags, skt. parikalpita), 2) other-powered (tib. gzhan dbang, skt. paratantra) or 3) thoroughly established (tib. yongs grub, skt. pariniSpanna). This school asserts that the first one (thoroughly imputed) is established by way of its own characteristics and that the last two (other-powered and thoroughly established) are not established by way of its own characteristics. The first one can be thought of roughly as being a phenomenon that appears only to a conceptual consciousness and many though not all are permanent. The second are objects that have causes and effects, which break down momentarily like organic matter, animals, etc. The third is just this school’s euphemism for emptiness (tib, stong nyid, skt. zUnyatA), which is a huge can of worms that I am unable to open. But as one can hopefully see and as I have stated, the Mind-Only tenet system asserts that this third set of teachings are definitive.  They also assert that a valid direct consciousness and the object that it perceives are of the same substantial essence (tib. rdzas gcig, skt. eka-dravya) thus rejecting the notion that phenomena are established as external objects since they are integrally substantially related with the mind and not outside of it. The debates within this topic are very gnarly and have caused me a lot of headaches and or utter confusion. We also very briefly studied the two Middle-Way (tib. dbu ma, skt. mAdhyamika) tenet school systems’ view on this topic which is quite different from that of the Mind-Only tenet system’s view. 
The other topic studied briefly is Buddhist Logic for two straight months during the monsoon, which are hella intense because things get really competitive between the classes. We have more interclass group debates during this period and it culminates with a two day interclass debate competition held in the main temple in front of HHDL’s throne and a big Buddha statue.  This is where debate as entertainment/ spectator sport is demonstrated to the fullness. Especially with my class as the new kids on the block, watching the upperclassmen doing their thing with style and finesse was amazing to watch. The debates at times would reach fever-pitch intensities.

With monsoon rockin’ out full-power at this time, I remember during some of the regular evening  one-on-one debate sessions, with florescent light bulbs glowing and flickering and the thick, thick fog engulfing us as we debated with clapping hands and stomping feet, that I would stop for a second and looking around me feeling like I have been transported to some another world of mist, dim eerie pale white lights and dialectical cacophony.

My IBD landlords seem to have fixed the leaky roof so I was “relatively” dry meaning that room didn’t turn into a pond but my neighbors were not so lucky. Their room got flooded really badly during one of the many week long onslaughts of rain and had to switch rooms.

To wrap things up, similar to last year’s situation with the Kalachakra, this year exams were bumped up a month because HHDL will be giving teachings on thirteen texts of the genre call the “Gradual Stage of the Path” (tib. lam rim) in one or two of the big monasteries in the Tibetan settlements in South India on November 30th until December 15th and the entire school is going. Our exams consist of two debates exams and two written exams, one on Buddhist logic and one on drang nge. It was an exhausting process and in the middle of it I didn’t think that I was going to make it. We were given 15 days to study between the last day of class and the first day of exams which were the debate ones. I tried my best to review as much as a could and I tell you that 15 days was not enough.  There were 3 out 5 classes who had to take the debate exams and they required us to attend all of them which lasted four days in total, consisting of two three hour morning and afternoon sessions. For three days they were held in the main HHDL temple same spot as the interclass debate competition and the fourth one was held in the IBD temple.  The three classes were the Middle Way class and the two Perfection of Wisdom classes mine being the freshmen Perfection of Wisdom class.  The Middle Way class only had one debate exam and has a small class so they were done pretty much by lunch.  Both of the Perfection of Wisdom classes has each twice that many and two exams to take so it took longer to go through our classes.

All of the IBD teachers were in attendance plus four geshes from one of three big monasteries from South India who acted as the judges. Each day we started off by reciting prayers to the Bodhisattva of Wisdom Manjushree. It was our teacher Gen Drupthob who made all the questions for the exam. Exams went in order of seniority thus first being the Middle Way class and then the two Perfection of Wisdom classes, mine being the last. We sat on rows of thin mattresses on the floor long ways in the temple.  In the first two rolls on the right and left side of the temple were seated the class whose turn it was and all were given numbers written on colored board. There was one more row behind these on either side where the rest of us sat.  On the left towards the front where the teachers were, was a square mattress right by Gen Grubthob. Next to our teacher was where the top guys of whomever respective class sat.  In front of our teacher on a small table are a buzzer thingy, a clock, a tray with many white envelops containing two questions and a metal bowl filled with rice with pieces of tightly rolled up paper stuck into it. These papers had the names of all the students of each respective class. On the right front sat the geshe judges and between them and the teachers was the hot seat a mattress where the defender sat.

To commence our teacher would pull one of these pieces of paper and he will call out the name written on it.  Whomever that person was had to go to where the teacher was and grab any envelop from the tray sitting in front of him. Then sitting on the square mattress having chosen one of the two questions provided within the envelop, had to study the question for five minutes.  The reason why they placed the top guys of the class right there was so that they can help.  Also another name is drawn and that person would have to sit as the defender. After the five minutes are up the person who has been studying starts the debate standing up as the challenger.  Each debate lasts 10 minutes and right exactly in the middle of it the teacher will again reach for another named piece of rolled up paper from the rice filled bowl and call the name and then that person would go the square mattress using the rest of the five minutes to study for his or her debate. Once the total ten minutes are up the person who just challenged will then sit on the mattress in front of the temple and assume the roll of the defender and the other person who was on the square mattress studying will get up and debate the question they had just studied and so and so forth. The very first person of each class who started as a defender is automatically be the last person in the class to be the challenger and when they are finish its then the next junior class’ turn to go at it.

When it finally came our classes turn, my name was the first to be called out by Gen Drupthob to be the challenger.  As I sat on that square mattress, the two top guys in my class tried their best to explain to me the debate that I had picked, the another question made no impression on me. I noticed Gen Drupthob smiling at me. It was a quote that I didn’t know very well at all and plus I was way, way too nervous and so by the time that my five minutes was up, I was a total blank and froze. Somehow I made it through pretty much fumbling through a debate that I really didn’t know. I remembered the topic but barely and it was one of those things that we did not spend that much time on in lecture and in the debate courtyard. It was just my luck of the draw; I was totally embarrassed for screwing the pooch like that though I held up pretty decently when I had to defend.  Also being in the main HHDL temple which is open to the public so that folks can make offerings, worship, etc  and being in front of the other classes and teachers and being well aware that I am a non-Tibetan guy doing this just hit me all at once way harder than I expected and I got stage fright. I was glad though that since I was the first of my class to take the exam that I could now rest in my shame for the rest of the day. Later that day, a schoolmate told me that she was glad to see me there debating and being a part of IBD, that I was the first black person to debate in the Tsuklakhang, her statement definitely made me feel better.

The next day was the Buddhist logic debate exam and that went a whole lot better and the Geshes and the teachers helped out a lot.  Once it was all said done with regards to the debate exams, the rice that was in the metal bowl were all of the rolled-up pieces of paper that had contained our names, was distributed to all of us and then we recited a prayer called Tenbarma (tib. bstan ‘bar ma) in which it had a repeating verse every couple of lines that said, “ten pa yun ring bar gyur ci” (tib. “bstan pa yun ring ‘bar gyur cig”) “May the teachings blaze for a long time” or a slightly different variation of the verse. Every time that that verse would come around we would throw in the air the rice that was distributed to us before hand. The rice scattered all over the place and with each time that I chucked the rice the more relaxed and relieved I became knowing that the debate part of it was all over. I thought as we threw into the air that rice that had previously contained all of our names secretly,  that despite all the stress of preparations and exam taking, that in the end it just gets scattered to the wind, all that nervousness and anxiety, all thoughts of “what if this and that” were totally dispersed.  Even though we still had the two written exams to take eight days later I was definitely way more collected and relaxed.  I guess that this small ritual was a small lesson in the impermanence of things and in non-grasping and non-attachment.

Now I am totally on vacation and couple in of weeks I will venture to the Scandinavian country of Norway to spend the holidays with a very kind and generous friend who invited there for which I am most grateful and excited.

I have been mostly hanging out since last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day for folks back state-side, which was the last day of the exams. IBD had a two hour puja that night which one of my schoolmates called the ‘bye-bye puja’ and we received a lot of offerings a.k.a. munchie food. 

Had thanksgiving dinner with an American friend  after the puja got out which was cool, she wanted to share the thanksgiving culture with her Tibetan friends and she cooked up some dank-ass grub , though there ain’t no turkeys around maybe besides some jive turkeys but no one wants to eat those.

Yesterday, I for my first time attended the only church in the area, St. John of the Wilderness. I have been living here for seven years and had never been to this church. The night before I was at a friend’s housewarming party and an older gentlemen from New Zealand who was there though a bit forcefully invited me to go because he is an strong advocate for Tibet and a had invited a Tibetan monk and the foreign minister of the Tibetan Government in-Exile to attend the service since they were going to pray for Tibet during this spike of self-immolations happening in Tibet right now. At first, I was not sure if I was going to go or not, but since forever I have wanted to check it out and plus it has a graveyard with grave stones and shit; I miss meditating in graveyards. One doesn’t see graveyards that often since cremations are the norm here. I used to do it a lot in college. A bit back in the woods behind the college I attended, there was a small country graveyard/ cemetery a bit off the beaten path with some graves marked and other not. When I had time I would walk back there and just sit amongst the graves. There is just something about sitting in graveyards, anyways, so I got up early and walked to the graveyard of the church which was established during the British colonial rule over India over a hundred years ago. Some of the gravestones went as far back as 1850. Also many of them couldn’t be read due to weathering I assumed. The area provided a great view of both McLeod Ganj and Moonpeak which has some snow on it. The service was great; the New Zealander who had invited me, which I came to find out used to be a Jesuit priest, gave a great sermon along liberation theologically lines. I realized that in Dharamsala the Christian population is miniscule being outnumbered by Buddhist and a tons and tons of Hindus and Sikhs. I thought of the example that HHDL gives when he travels the world, he enters other faith’s places of worship and worship with them in their style no matter what the faith is, regardless if he agrees with their fundamental tenets or not and he does it sincerely. He says that by doing so one can show true respect to others religious tradition. Though my feeling at the service was initially a bit uneasy, partly because it felt out of context here in India, I thought about how and why the HHDL does it and just let go of all my resistance and just be in the moment of the service and I enjoyed it.

As it is normally done at the end of a practice session, I would like to dedicate any merit that might have been accrued from this humble act of writing this blog entry to all the Tibetans how have sacrificed their lives for their freedom through the intensity of the purifying door of the blazing flame.

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Da roof! Da roof! Da roof is on fire…..

March 20th was the day that I left Sarah College for Higher Tibetans Studies for the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in McLeod Ganj. The pass five years at Sarah seem to of just disappeared never to arise again and thus “Is that not the nature of time?” It just slips right through your fingers. A quick quirk, I am right now finding it interesting to write this without an f-button. I have devised a way to do so. Anyways, so I no longer reside within the confines of Sarah College.

After Kalachakra we jumped full on into the realm of Buddhist logic studying for our first time directly the major work on Valid Cognition by Dharmakirti for a month or so. Within that time, which should have been two months, we basically studied the three bodies of the Buddha (sku gsum, trikAya) and the topic called “phyogs sgra” or “the term chog”. The study of the different bodies of a Buddha is a very huge topic and we only study the basics at this point.

In Dharmakirti’s text this study stems from the homage of “The Commentary on Valid Cognition” (tshad ma rnam ‘grel, pramANavarttika) in which the first line of the homage shows the nature body (ngo bo nyid sku, svabhavAkAya) which is equated with the Buddha’s non abiding nirvana (mi gnas pa’i myang ‘das, apratiSTita-nirvANa). This type of nirvana means that it is the end of the road in a sense since only the mental continuum of a Buddha possesses this type of nirvana because only such a being can eliminate both the obstructions to omniscience (shes sgrib, jJeyAvaraNa) and the afflictive obstructions (nyon sgrib, klezAvaraNa). Once one eliminates theses two afflictions only then can one be a Buddha, sounds easily peasy right? The method and the path to achieve this are found in the literature called the ground and the path (sa lam, bhUmi-mArga).

The second line shows the omniscient consciousness of a Buddha or her wisdom consciousness (ye shes chos sku, jJAna-dharma-kAya). These two bodies together are also called the body for one’s own benefit or purpose (rang don gyi sku) since they can only be attained by one own effort.

The last line and a half of the homage shows the complete enjoyment body (longs sku, saMbhoga-kAya) and the emanation body (sprul sku, nirmANakAya) of a Buddha. Together they are called the body for other’s benefit or purpose (gzhan don gyi sku) since it is through this that she is able to benefit others by showing and teaching the Dharma. These are also known as the two form bodies of a Buddha (gzugs sku, rUpa-kAya). The former two bodies are collectively called the Buddha’s truth or phenomenon body (chos sku, dharmakAya) plus with the latter two we have the three bodies.

There are many debates coming out this which as you can see only comes out of the homage which consists of four lines. A brief look at one of these issues which I recently stumbled upon is this: A Buddha’s mental continuum is said to possess both an omniscient consciousness and the five sense consciousness more or less like you and me. This means that objects appear to a Buddha like cups, chairs, full moons and rainbow, etc. But in the tenet system from which point of view the Commentary on Valid Cognition is written under, the Mind-only school (sems tsam, citta-mAtra), the existence of external objects are refuted. Thus the appearance of… hmm lets say an elephant to an eye consciousness that perceives it; that object is said not to be there externally outside of the consciousness that perceives it. In fact this school would assert that the direct perception of the object by the eye consciousness and the object itself are of the same essence (ngo bo gcig, ekarUpatA) or same substantial essence (rdzas gcig, eka-dravya). Now this gets us to a Matrix-type situation, just like the folks jacked into it cannot tell that their very experience of the world around them is just a projection of the mind. The difference here being that in the Matrix the sentient machines created the reality for the mind to project while in the Mind-only school it is ones previously accumulated karmic imprints (bag chags, vAsanA) from a pass life stored in a part of the sentient being’s mental continuum called the storehouse consciousness (kun gzhi rnam shes, Alaya-vijJAna) that is doing so. This very topic itself is big, complex and I am not going that route.

My idea was that if a Buddha’s omniscient consciousness is said to be an exalted wisdom that realizes directly all phenomena, meaning that the true nature of reality would then clearly appear to her moment by moment in all of its splendor and infinitude then such a being would have no use for sense consciousness since whatever it perceives is inherently mistaken based on pervious karmic imprints which a Buddha is supposed to have eliminated completely when she attained liberation. Now, there is a lot more that I am missing naturally, but I just wanted to give a taste of some of things that can come up on the debate courtyard.

The other topic called “the term chog” is a real pain in the ass and really gets into some crazy, topsy-turvy logic shit which unfortunately besides the very basics I am unable to grasp. This topic arises out of the first stanza and is also a historical debate between Dharmkirti and another Indian Buddhist called Ishvarasena. Dharmakirti is seen as the main proponent of Dignaga’s views on Valid Cognition (tshad ma, pramAna) of which the text that we study is a commentary of. But probably prior to Dharmakirti there was Ishavarasena who was also a commentator to Dignaga’s Valid Cognition views. For some reason Dharmakirti seems to have had a greater impact on Buddhist logic in particular and Indian logic in general as compared to Ishavarsena.

Anyways, the first line of this stanza is supposed to show the definition of a correct reason (rtags yang dag, samyak-liGga). A correct reason is suppose to be three things or modes (tshul gsum, trai-rUpya), 1) the property of the subject (phyogs chos, pakSadharma) 2) the forward entailment (rjes khyab, anvaya-vyApti) and 3) the reverse entailment (ldog khyab, vyatireka-vyApti). So what the fuck does this mean? The basic syllogism used has three parts, a subject, a predicate and a reason. When a subject is the reason it is the property of the subject. When the reason necessarily entails the predicate it is a forward entailment and when the negation of the predicate necessarily entails the negation of the reason it is a reverse entailment. E.g. the common syllogism used is: The subject sound is impermanent because it is a product. Sound is obviously the subject and we actually say the word subject (chos can, dharmin) in debate. Impermanent is the predicate and product is the reason. Since sound is a product it is the property of the subject. If it is a product it is necessarily impermanent is the forward entailment. If it is not impermanent then it necessarily is not a product is the reverse entailment. Now there is a problem with the translation due to the differences of both languages. Tibetan does not employ any articles like, the, a, it, etc where in English they are necessary but hopefully the point can still be made.

Here syllogisms goes to someone and are not formal or correct in and of themselves. A consciousness is required, obviously not one of a Buddha since they possess omniscient consciousnesses. This consciousness or its possessor must be at a certain stage in her understanding. Using the previous syllogism she must know that sound is a product through valid cognition, meaning a correct clear perception of the object, she must also know that products are necessarily impermanent but what she does not know is whatever sound is impermanent or not. She must have this doubt whether the subject is the predicate. For then through the correct reason/ the three modes mentioned above, her doubt is eliminated and she is said to have had an inferential cognition (rjes dpag, anumANa).

Now back to the first line of the stanza, the main issue lays around whether the first mode should be called phyogs chos, pronounced chog choe, because there are different chogs and that would be ambiguous. Since chog choe is a condensation of chog gi choe (phyogs kyi chos) i.e. the chos phenomenon of phyogs then what chog is one talking about. Ishvarasena’s camp asserts this because there are many chogs. The general meaning of chog, which in colloquial Tibetan means side or direction, is the syllogism’s subject and predicate taken together e.g. The subject sound is impermanent and so if chog meant that then there would not need for a correct reason since that person has already realized that the subject is the predicate and like I said earlier, for a correct reason to work doubt in that area is essential. This camp suggests that a new terminology be coined which they called choe chan gi choe (chos can gyi chos). They used the term choe chan subject and choe phenomena for this new term thinking that it will eliminate any confusion. But the same problem of ambiguity arises again because there are three different types of choe chans (chos can) and so which one is not ascertained from the new terminology and thus many gnarly and vertigo inducing debates are born as we students try to reconcile the differences of opinion.

Are you still with me? I hope so! For part of the Tibetan New Year break, which was not celebrate this year by the Tibetan community in exile because of self-immolations that have happened in Tibet, I was invited by the Emory study aboard program to travel with them to Rewalsar on pilgrimage to a lake called Tso Pema (Tsho Padma) where the tantrika, the Guru Padmasambhava is known for meditating in the many caves up in the mountains surrounding the lake. Briefly, the legend states that Guru was practicing meditation in the caves which then were in the Kingdom of Zahor and he took as his consort the Princess Mandarava the daughter of the King. Obviously the King was not too happy with the idea of his regal daughter knocking boots with a tantrika. Tantrikas are kind of seen as very freaky nasty ass people, they normally cover themselves in the ashes collected from cremation grounds and they hang out there too. They don’t shower, walk around openly buck naked, have wild looking unkempt matted locks, eat shit, vomit and other such delectable snacks.

And so the King thought of teaching ole’ Guru Padmasambava a lesson. A version of the legend states that he caught the Guru and his daughter and burned them at the stake. What was interesting was that the pyre continued for a couple of days where it should have extinguished itself naturally by then. But what ended up happening was that the ashes from the pyre turned into water creating a lake and in the middle of the lake was a large lotus bud. When the flower bud opened it contained the Guru in union with the Princess. At that point the baffled King and his retinue prostrated themselves to the Guru and this why the lake is called Tso Pema, The Lotus Lake and why the Guru is called Padmasambhava, the one born out of a lotus. He is particularly important to Tibetan Buddhism because he, under the invitation of the then King of Tibet Trisong Detsen, subdued all the land deities who were attacking the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet and turned them into protectors of Buddhism in Tibet. And so I spend this time with these students, who impressed me lot, half the time I had no clue what they where talking about so bright and intelligent they were and clue to chill with.

After that, led to what I called the bardo (bar do, antarAbhava), the intermediate state between Sarah and IBD. By the time classes had resumed at Sarah I had, with the great help from my German friend Sebastian (thanks again man!), moved most of shit to my new apartment in Da Ganj and boy! Have I accumulated a lot of shit! There was a problem because since we had to stay at Sarah for most of March we were required to pay tuition there but also many of us had to start paying rent on our new apartments for that month. This only applied to the international students since we are not allowed to live in the IBD dorms. Me, being a broke ass bitch could not deal with that. Some had planned on moving out before the Tibetan New Year vacation and to stay in the college guesthouse for the remainder of time at Sarah; this was mainly because no one was willing to give us, at the time, a definite date of departure. The principal got word of this and came into our class, disrupted the lecture and seriously chewed our asses out for it. He told us that he felt sad that folks would not talk to him directly about their situation and that he would feel embarrassed if folks stayed in the guesthouse because it will seem like Sarah does not care about its international students and students in general. While I was in the Tsamjor course I have seen him chew out the students before but this was at a whole other level. So, those folks who had planned to stay in the guest house changed their tune quickly. I spoke with him about my financial situation and since landlords of apartment and administrators of IBD and the mother school of Sarah are one and the same we worked out a deal.

Prior to leaving we had our final class picnic, with our Morpheus-like teacher who had quickly led us through the various landscapes and rabbit-holes of Buddhist philosophy, at a spot by a river close to the Norbulingka Institute in Sidhbari. We played games, met some of the new students, all of them are Monpas and pretty young, ate some dank ass grub, and chatted with Genla. We also had a more solemn farewell in the Sarah temple were Genla gave us some advice about practice and the motivations for studying philosophy, we offered him a gift as a class and many students gave suggestions and experiences about the pass few years.

The night of the 19th I packed the remainder of my shit and the next morning of the 20th the spring equinox we all moved up the hill. Our class had rented a big ass truck to haul our shit and all of it wouldn’t fit in. Luckily, Ani Shiwa from Korea had ordered a separate smaller truck which could haul the extra baggage. And thus I bade farewell to Mother Sarah Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies (ma yum sa rah mtho slob) who had nursed me on Tibetan language and philosophy for five years and who has now weaned me to go deal with the IBD big dawgs!

We had to act fast once we arrived, to unpack, to fix our rooms and to get prepared for the next day because class was about to start. We all helped each other. We were thrown immediately into everything, not knowing up from down. IBD is a lot smaller institute compared to Sarah. Everything is tightly compact and it is quite a labyrinth to navigate. It took me until midnight that day to get things livable in my apartment and semi-organized. My pad is really close to IBD and I can see the school, Namgyal Monastery, the Main Temple and a nice view of the valley from my balcony as compared to my Sarah room where I had a great view of the mountains. I have my own bathroom but it is separate. The main problem with my room is that it leaks during monsoon which really sucks and the school is slow, slow, slow in fixing the roof. The guy who lived here before me, a monk from Israel lived here for years with the roof leaking like that.

We have new rules and schedules to get used to. There are morning prayers from 6 to 7am, but they are optional for those of us who live off-campus. Then breakfast and then mandatory memorization time for an hour I presume, for those who live on-campus. In the mornings from my balcony I can see the guys pacing back and back forth on the roof downloading texts in the morning sun. Here we have to take memorization exams once a week every Wednesday. 11am to 12pm is our lecture period. Our new teacher, Geshe Tsering Gyurmey la, is hard as nails. A classmate of Geshema Kelsang Wangmo la, he is known for being at the top of his class from day one. Where Gen Lodroe was very laid back, this guy definitely carries himself like a scholar. One can tell that he prepares before class, where I doubt that Gen Lodroe ever did, beside maybe a few times. We also share him with the other Perfection of Wisdom Class (phar phyin). Some students from that class attend ours.

He is a relativity new teacher who first starting teaching a few years ago with the above mentioned class and it is his first time teaching ‘The Presentation of the Interpretable and the Definitive meaning of the Sutras’. Like our first year in the Perfection of Wisdom this topic arises out of the homage of the ‘Ornament of Manifest Realization’ but the main text used is Je Tsongkhapa’s, the founder of the Geluk school, ‘The Essence of Good Explanations’ (legs bshad snying po) which is a hard ass text. In a nutshell, this topic is about ascertaining which of the Buddha’s words are the ultimate meaning requiring no further explanation and which words are not meaning that those teachings are not of the ultimate view or meaning. This work is in two main sections by tenet system. We will look at the first one which is on the Mind-Only school for a few months.

Though he speaks very clearly and elegantly, he speaks fast as hell and it is hard to follow his logic. He also has an incredible memory quoting things from various the different Tibetan schools. The commentary that we study on “The Essence o f Good Explanations” called the “Garland of Utpala Flowers” by Panchen Sonam Drakpa is also hard to follow. And so most of us are very confused right now or have not a clue what the fuck is going on. I know that even many of the guys from the upper class still struggle after two years with him. Lunch and dinner are just like at Sarah 12:30 and 5:30 respectively and we have to pay a nominal fee per month for them.

The first debate session unlike at Sarah is from 2pm to 3:30pm. The debate courtyard is on the lower yard of the main temple. Since there are many classes, Perfection of Wisdom, Middle Way (dbu ma, mAdhyamika), non-sectarian or ecumenical (ris med), etc, we are spread out. The upper classes get to debate in front of HHDL’s throne, while we at the lower rungs debate on a grass and shale courtyard, a traditional indication marking a debate courtyard, off to the side. Where at Sarah our debates were more or less private, here they are in front of everyone. In fact it is a tourist attraction. Our first day was nerve-wrecking as an ass ton of Indian tourists were just snapping away with their camera, westerns too and since I am particular looking (tall black dude with dreads screaming in Tibetan) I definitely get tons of stares. Once I noticed out of the corner my eye some white lady stand right next to me in a state of disbelief. So far I have been trying to abscond myself by sitting either in the middle of courtyard or on the way far side of the fence.

Not only that but Tibetans off streets sometimes join in; one never knows who was an ex-monk. I saw a guy in a black leather jacket totally tear into one of my classmates and I came to find out that he is one of the local shopkeepers. Generally though debate is kind of a spectator’s sport in Tibetan society despite the fact that most of them don’t understand what is going on. Our disciplinarian (dge bskos) is supposed to keep an eye out for tourist intervention but he ain’t done that great of a job so far besides schooling us in debate. Another incident was how some Punjabi guys wanted to debate and a classmate told them that they could and with the imitation of a handclap and foot stomp stated, “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” at which my friends where looking at these Punbajis like they were cuckoo for coco puffs.

A few days out of the week we have for the last half hour of the debate session a damja within our own classes. Some times we finish a debate session by reciting some chapters out of “The Ornament of Manifest realization”. From four to five thirty there is a Tibetan grammar class, but many of the international students, like myself, have opted not to attend finding the schedule a bit tiring as it is, though we don’t have the mandatory study period like at Sarah.

For the evenings we have an hour of prayers right in front of HHDL’s throne starting at 6:30 and then debate until 9:30pm. One night I wondered if HHDL could hear us (his pad is near by) screaming, yelling and clapping, and if could was he laughing at our lack of understanding. On Fridays there are interclass debates, in which the previous one I was given the task of starting the debate. It was tough going though because the defenders were from the upper class. Two of the three groups from our class were spinning wheels with their defenders. One group had H.H. Taklung Shabdrung Rinpoche, one of the heads of the Taklung Kagyu School, sitting as a defender who I know is sharp and good as hell. As all this was going on that night, I thought about how many years ago when I first came to Dharamshala and I stumbled on one of these debates sessions with Jason Fults and an English guy named James. I will never forget the shenanigans that I saw that night and now here I am doing it myself, badly I might add but here regardless; I had could only smile, while we couldn’t get the defender who sat in our group to budge an inch on his position.

On Wednesday night there are no debates but everyone must attend prayers. This pass Wednesday Gen Umze la welcomed our class with so advice and the sad events of the day. The special thing about IBD is that during the last week of every month we only have to attend class (chos mtshams) but also with living in McLeod impromptu cancellation of classes and or debate arises. Classes here are six days a week with no second Saturday of the month off. But our first Saturday was off which I think was due to folks who wanted to attend the last Tibetan Opera concert (lha mo) at TIPA that has been going on for a month I think. This pass week saw some cancellations too but for sad reasons. With McLeod being the hub of Tibetan politics and activism there is always some candle light vigil, protest and what not. And actually there is a guy (I call him McLeod’s CNN) who walks or is on occasion driven around town with a loudspeaker giving announcements for the Tibetan community on news, events, marches, protests, prayers, etc.

Well one day after having dinner at IBD and on my way to da crib, I saw a bunch of people in front of the entrance way reading something. I was naturally curious and I went to see what was up. It was a picture of some Tibetan guy on fire running down a street and a picture of a letter. At first I thought that the picture must have been photo-shopped and that it could not be real. Then I read the letter that was written by the burning guy in the photo Jamphel Yeshi. I did not know what to think. At that point folks were saying that he was still alive, barely though since over 90% of his body was burned.

I came to find out later that many photos of this incident have been spreading around cyberspace like the fire that consumed this young man. At first, from what I can tell from the pictures, the dude ran a good ways in front of many and folks were just standing there taking pictures and videos watching the dude burn. Something ain’t right, but then I thought many of the folks there must have been in utter shock and in disbelief at what was happening in front of their eyes. This happened in New Delhi, where the President of the Peoples Republic of China, Hu Jintao, was in da house to attend some conference with other world leaders to talk about blah, blah, blah and the Tibetan activist naturally threw a demonstration to welcome him.

The young man was only 27 years old and had come to India in 2006 from Kham, I heard and was living in Majnukatilla, Delhi which cannot be fun place to be for a new arrival from Tibet. Supposedly he made the decision on his own to self-immolate himself and he wrote a letter about his motives. That day I saw a loud protest march creeping up the hill from Gangkyi from my balcony. Then the next day that evening I heard McLeod’s CNN telling people to gather at the main temple to pray for Jamphel Yeshi but as we found out he passed a way that morning and thus that day classes were cancelled. Yesterday a memorial funeral to honor his death was held at the main temple. A massive crowd of people crammed in there. His body was brought in coffin wrapped in a white cloth, draped with the Tibetan flag and people silently threw white kataks at it as the bearers carried his coffin to the front. Afterwards, a huge procession chanting the supreme compassion prayer accompanied his body to the cremations grounds for Mr. Yeshi’s final taste of fire. I sat on the roof of IBD chatting with some classmates about the self- immolation watching the smoke rise into the sky and the beyond.

The pictures of Jamphel Yeshi’s self- immolation were hung almost everywhere. Now everyday, every time I go to IBD, I see the pictures, blown up in two huge posters that hang in front of the street entrance to the temple. The epithet Martyr is added to his name now like he has been knighted or the Tibetan equivalent Pawo (dpa’ bo) literally hero. It is hard to look at these images; they just don’t sit right with me. Maybe it is just because I am American since we are sheltered from such graphic images. Though, I thought it is interesting that I can watch horror movies, slasher flicks with all kinds of violence and gore in them without batting an eye but something like this just feels weird and I don’t know how to name or classify the sensation. The first time I saw images this graphic was during the 2008 protests where pictures of folks who had been killed or severely injured were blown up to huge posters that hung all around town, then as now that sensation arouse; then just recently in Bodh Gaya, the pictures of the charred up corpse of the rinpoche from Amdo who self-immolated himself hung on the outer circumambulatory walkway of the Mahabodhi Temple.

These pictures would not be allowed on national TV or in the newspapers in the States that is for sure. Definitely they couldn’t be hung in any public space stateside. Shit, I remember when it wasn’t allowed to publish the picture of all the coffins being shipped back from Iraq, of all guys who died in an unjust war. They were just coffins, you can’t see what’s inside them draped with the US flags and all. But here it is a whole different story; even the daily Indian newspapers show corpses all the time.

Now, as many of you might know about 29 or so self-immolations have happen in Tibet within the pass year, mainly in areas outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (T.A.R) which the Chinese government concerns to be Tibet proper. These outer areas which have large Tibetan populations are spliced up between the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan if I am correct. Actually, after Jamphel Yeshi’s self-immolation, another one happen in Amdo by a young monk named Sherap I heard. This one in India, which is not the first here, is the first one that happened in front of a shit ton of people like this and that has gotten some attention due to all those cameras snapping away. One video (warning this video is graphic!) came out of Tibet of a Tibetan nun standing perfectly still while she was totally engulfed in flames and that is on YouTube. I think the first Tibetan self-immolation started in exile with a guy name Thupten Ngodup who did so April 27, 1998 and some how since last year many in Tibet mostly monastics have taken to the practice. I wondered if they had some how read about the American War in 1963 Vietnam where several monastics self-immolated themselves due to the oppression of Buddhist by the then staunchly Catholic President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem who was installed by the U.S. government to counter the Communist North.

One of these self-immolators in particular, Ven. Thich Quang Duc, received a lot of media attention in those days. I remember seeing it in a documentary (warning!) about the American war in Vietnam. His body was perfectly still in meditation as he burned. In fact, any of you Rage Against the Machine fans who has their subtitled album have seen his self-immolation since they used that picture for the cover of their album. One of my Vietnamese ex-classmate Ani Thanh, a nun wrote of him in her doctorate dissertation called “Compassion in Buddhism (Based on Tibeto-Vietnamese sources) from which she received her Ph.D from the Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan University in Kolkatta, she wrote of him:

Seeing a dark destiny for his people and concerned about the danger of the destruction of Buddhism, the Most Venerable Thich Quang Duc secretly prepared a letter full of compassion with words from the core of his heart. His last compassionate message expressed his concerns for the destiny of the country: “I am Thich Quang Duc, Abbot of Avalokitesvara Pagoda. I am a monk and a disciple of Lord Buddha. Realizing that many people have suffered and continue to suffer, I cannot sit here and witness the destruction of Buddhism. Therefore, I am happy to vow to offer my impermanent body to the Buddhas and dedicate this merit for the preservation of Buddhism…”

Then, the Most Venerable Thich Quang Duc performed his heroic deed to highlight Buddhist demands for religious equality in South Vietnam. On 11th June 1963, he sat down at a busy intersection in Saigon in the meditative position. He then poured gasoline all over his body and set himself alight.

Now, I am not comparing Tibet with Vietnam but they do sure a key similarity, a seen oppression of Buddhism, severe human rights violations and most of the self-immolators were monastics. In the case of Tibet freedom or self-determination is also a key factor. I have spoken with another Vietnamese nun in my class who told me that Ven. Thich Quang Duc is now seen as a saint, a bodhisattva of types and that something like a miracle took place because his fire totally consumed his body but his heart supposedly stayed perfectly intact and it is currently on display in some museum in Vietnam. She told me that she understands the Tibetans pain and reasons for this drastic act since it reminded her of her own country.

Many Westerners are in opposition to this act and some if not many straight up demand that it be stopped and I am presuming the most people back at home who do gives a rat’s ass might think that it is a waste and think that Tibetans should think of another strategy or if they don’t that Tibetan should just capitulate like the natives did on Turtle Island. But what other strategy? Besides diplomacy? Besides hunger strikes? Besides peace marches? And the list goes on. When it comes to activist movements the Tibetans have tried almost everything, next to suicide bombings and straight-up terrorist tactics Al Qeada style. Some fear that it might go that way. Anyways, the truth is that Tibetans though generally uneducated aren’t stupid and know that no nation is going to do I god-damned thing towards China in relations to Tibet or anything else for that matter. Too many countries are dependent on all that cheap shit that they make. All one has to do is to take an inventory of all the shit you own and see how much of it says ‘Made in China’ on it, a lot isn’t? Imagine not having all that shit.

Most of the self-immolations in Tibet are not happening in front of cameras or huge crowds. Golok Tulku Sobha Rinpoche from Amdo did it in front of a police station, and that is what makes this one in India so different.

Do I agree with tactics of Tibetans lighting their own asses on fire? Hell nah!!!! It makes me fucking cringe, but at the same time, the questions that arise in my mind are: How bad does shit has got to get for me to light my ass on fire? What would it take for me, seriously, to light my ass on fire? Is there any cause out there that could generate within me the courage to do such an act? And if you can mentally get yourself there then I think one can reach a place of true solidarity if one truly supports Tibetans and their rights to self-determination and other solidarity movement too! If you cannot do so, like I can’t, then I you are most likely a privileged person who is not aware of those privileges. But we the privileged must try!

Many of us have passports, can go to almost any country we want, have a certain amount of power (real or contrived) as a citizen of whatever country we belong to, you can say whatever the fuck you want when you want, hang whatever picture we want in our home without fear of imprisonment or worst. For those of us who have these things since forever, it is hard to imagine being without them. I can’t imagine it, but what about those people in the opposite situation like many Tibetans in Tibet and other fucked up places in the world? How can we say jack shit without truly understanding where they are coming from? When one does not even possess the experiences necessary to understand? I know this is just a rant but I have just been tired of hearing Westerners saying what Tibetans should and shouldn’t do when they themselves cannot see beyond their own cultural baggage boundaries. Like late comedian Richard Pryor once said, “… [they]should just have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up!”

I could only imagine, if there were people telling such non-sense to Black folks during the Civil Rights movements. “Y’alls Niggas shouldn’t protest!” “The white man is going to beat yo ass good!” “ ’em water canons is going to kill you if ‘em dogs don’t first!”. The fact is that regardless of how bad shit got for those folks, dog bitten, being shot at, facing white supremacist ass police’s billy club, no matter what one said, that did not prevent them from going out the next day do the same shit all over again with pride and determination knowing full well the risks. And although these are two very different situations in different countries and eras, it still come down to the same thing, those folks without the capacity for generating a real honest feeling of solidarity cannot prevent nothing, only those who understand and have lived that experience can possibly prevent it and probably once understanding is met one might see ones place in the big scheme of things and act accordingly. I am sure that not every single Tibetan is down with the self-immolation thing. But like Dead Prez said “freedom ain’t going come ‘til we regulate it” and in the case of Tibet can you guest who these regulators must be? But heh! I could be totally wrong!!

And so, I am dogged tired, it‘s late and I somehow manage to write all afternoon this Saturday. This is as good as a therapist!!! I seriously, only wanted to write a few pages; especially without an f-key typing is a royal bitch. I hope that you don’t mind this big ass rant on this but it has been something that has been on my mind for quite some time now. A quirky anecdote; It’s funny in a way, Tibetans activists are screaming, “Da roof! Da roof! Da roof is fire…. Meaning here of course Tibet a.k.a the roof of the world, while probably the Chinese officials in Beijing somewhere are finishing that hook, “We don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn! Burn motherfucker! Burn!” Chill the fuck out it’s a joke, hahaha! Kangpa Tshapo you are just not funny.

Pax

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Om ha hum ho ham ksha: 32rd Kalachakra 2012

Though I am kind of jumpin’ the gun since I have not been able to provide an update for the last four or five months; the multifarious experiences from this recent event is fresh in my mind having returned only a week ago and so what has transpired during the previous months before that I hope to get to in another entry if possible, though I do have to say that it has been a difficult year ‘the thus passed one’ and if the return of Quezalcoatl does not render our earthly physical existence nullified by the year’s end (as many seem to believe), I hope for some shining bright days.

When we first found out that HHDL was to give another Kalachakra Empowerment in India and that it was to be given in Bodh Gaya, the location of the Buddha’s enlightenment, many of us made a pact that we will attend it together as a class. This event was important, so much so that the entire school was to attend and as we came to find out our class schedule was modified to account for the time that will be lost due to its mass attendance. Our second Saturday vacations and the school picnic were cancelled. In our class, an 8 month course was crammed out in 4 months but in that regard I am getting ahead of myself. 3 months before the empowerment we had prepared our travels arrangements to and back from Bodh Gaya. With this being my first time there I was naturally excited. Due to time and finances I don’t get the opportunity to travel around India as much as I would like and so this occasion was special. We were lucky to receive substantial donations from our classmates. That allowed our going to go a bit easier given that travelling in India is a bit trying for those not accustomed to it and was glad to be in the company of my fast Hindi speaking classmates.

On a cold Monday afternoon, 12/26/2011, the day after Christmas (Merry belated X-mas everyone!!) 25 or so of us including students from the foundation Tibetan language course and acquaintances from outside piled all of our shit on top of two vans and with us crammed inside them headed for Pathankot in the Punjab to catch the train “the Sealdah Express” headed directly to the City of Gaya, a thirty three hour train ride. Most of us were travelling 2nd class sleeper but we were scattered all throughout the train. On the way we stopped to make a quick pilgrimage to Tilopa’s meditation cave, which I had visited a few years back when I was a student in the Tsamjor class (Bridge course) for my first time.

When we got to the Chakki bank train station that night we found the entire platform packed with Tibetans (I think many of the Punjabis must of have found the sight quite amusing to say the least), heading towards Bodh Gaya. I saw several acquaintances there with their families and luggage waiting for the train. After I saw the crowd, I had a feeling that things could get a bit tricky as far as getting on to the train was concerned. Even though everyone had assigned seats and everything, getting yourself and your shit on to the train through two doors, one on each end of the caboose, is on a first come first serve basis. Since we were scattered all throughout the train and within our subsection we had only one native, a monk from Spiti who spoke Hindi and Tibetan, besides me there were two Koreans, a monk who spoke some decent Tibetan and lay guy who only spoke Korean, 5 Vietnamese nuns which out of them 3 spoke Tibetan and the other two who only spoke Vietnamese. Out of the 3 who know Tibetan only 1 spoke it good with other two on a so so basis.

Before the train arrived, we all mingled and chatted together, trying to figure out where on the platform we are supposed to stand to enter the correct caboose for the train will only stop for 5 minutes and then quickly bust a move whether yo ass is on the train or not. Seeing the packed platform of mini-Tibet at the Chakki bank station and my group of companions I was a bit worried. Eventually our train arrived and when it finally stopped everyone grabbed their shit and bum rushed the train. I had all my shit ready and I was the second or third one in our caboose. I don’t play! I had my game face on for sure. Folks were carrying all kinds of shit with them. One guy in front of me had a box of glass canned goods (probably pickled chilies knowing Tibs) that broke on him as he entered the caboose and the cans crashed on the floor. I hopped over him quickly and found me a temporary spot for my shit with the intention to help my companions with their stuff but they were not to be found for they had entered through the other door. The aisle of the caboose were über slim thus moving around was quite trying. I had then realized that I had made the mistake of not knowing my seat number so I sat where I was while the waves of bodies screaming and yelling flooded the train. In the midst of the madness like the blink of an eye I felt the train moving; Gaya, ho!

After awhile I found the Spitian monk “Nono” (which apparently means king in Spiti dialect) who had our tickets with him that told us our seat number and we slowly figured out the seating arrangements. Some of the Vietnamese nuns where in a different box from mine and apparently had had a hard finding their seats since they had brought their tickets separate from ours. Nono was such a good sport and had got everyone squared away. The nuns had lost their tickets and passports and he helped them scorched the train to find it. Initially, the nuns were yelling in confusion in Vietnamese and after having to sit with them in the back of the van from Sarah College for four hours as they jibber jabbered away this yelling was starting hitting a sore spot. On the way back from Bodh Gaya I was thinking that the sound of the Vietnamese language was like if someone had enlarged some chipmunks to human proportions and they were having a conversation amongst each other, another classmate referred to it as duck speak (ngang pa’i skad). Eventually, the tickets were eventually found, but Nono then realized that he had not had his luggage with him and thought it was lost but luckily it wasn’t as we came to find out once we had arrived in Gaya. In the meantime I let him use an extra blanket that I had brought with me. It was mighty cold that night and it was rumored that Bodh Gaya was also cold.

The 2nd class sleeper experience was generally ok. Each caboose of the train is divided into various compartments back to back and each is divided with large and small compartment on each side of the train, one to fit six people on one side of the train and another thinner one to fit two people on the other side. I was in the thin compartment. In the bigger one there is a low seat to sit on and a bed hanging above that on both sides of the compartment perpendicular to the aisle. At night the back rest of the low seat is swung upwards and attached to some chains that are placed in the above bed to make another bed, thus with both sides of the compartment there are 6 beds and in the smaller one across the aisle there are two on top of each other that lay parallel to the aisle.

There was a very nice Tibetan family seating with us and they were so cool, we all chatted together. These folks came prepared; they had all kinds of yummy grub with them and were gracious enough to share. Other folks who I had met throughout my time in North India were also on the train, like the kids from Gopalpur TCV, it was great to see them again. Small interlude, my hands are fuckin’ cold yo!!!

Chai and coffee-walas floated about the train screaming in a zygyt throat singing style pitch, garam chai (hot tea) garam coffee (hot coffee) over and over again. Beggars, handclapping hijras, street performers, junk food-walas also passed to and fro working their hustle for that rupee. Classmates scattered amongst the other cabooses visited us and vice versa, cruising the train like we owned the shit.

Sleeping rather sucked though because the window next to me would not stay bloody shut and I could not physically fit inside my sleeping bag and my bed at the same time; which led to me assume a modified fetal-like sleeping position and to my sleeping slipping and sliding in all directions which allowed that cold ass air to hit all my tender sensitive spots.

By 8 am of the 28th we arrived at the Gaya train station, we rushed out of the train and into the madness. After we had all grouped up, we carried our luggage outside to be immediately accosted by taxi and rickshaw-walas. Our substitute class captain, another Spitian monk “Gelong” (since he is a fully ordain monk, it is the Tibetan word for the Sanskrit bhikshu), who took the responsibility to arrange our rides to the campsite where we will be staying during the remainder of our time, was working his hustle to get us a good deal on the rides. I understand some Hindi and was seeing the kind of dance one must perform in order to get a good deal which involves: 1) yelling at the top of one’s lungs, 2) sending insults, and 3) the fluctuation of the price back and forth in between steps 1 and 2, and finally 4) the typical Indian head wobble from both parties which signifies an agreement on a suitable fare. It is a rather trying and tiresome process but which is also essential for India in general and particularly in Bihar the poorest state in the country generally known as the trash dump of Bharat (India). There is trash almost everywhere so that is a big statement to make and that ain’t no joke. Many of the multiple deals we had since leaving Sarah, ordering food in a greasy nasty dhaba, arranging almost anything required this ritual. In a way, it reminded me of da ‘hood.

Our tent was paid for by the school, there was five tents in total, four 4 big ones and 1 smaller one. We were one of the first ones to get there. The Vietnamese and the Koreans had their own arrangements so they dipped out. The school captain was there already and he showed us the 2 guy tents and one tent for the ladies and another for staffers. He said that we could stay in one of the big tents for the first night but that we would need to moved to the smaller tent once the other students had arrived which at first I found it rather odd mostly based on his tone of voice; some of the guys were a bit annoyed at his implications that made it seem like the Sarah philosophy guys are screw loose. But in the long run I was glad that we had our own tent.

Once we had placed all of our shit on the ground and relaxed for a bit we headed to the spots of all spots. Like Mecca is to Muslims, like Bethlehem and Jerusalem is to Jews and Christians, Bodh Gaya and particularity the Mahabodhi temple is to Buddhist. That is the spot where it all began, the ascetic Gautama Siddhartha is believed to have achieved enlightenment at that spot where this temple currently stands and was thereafter to be known as the Buddha the awakened one. I was quite surprise to find that the temple was not within walking distance. Unlike the 2006 Kalachakra in Amaravati, everything was not in walking distance. The campsite was erected on the grounds of the Magadh University campus a few kilometers from the Mahabodhi Temple and the empowerment grounds. So we caught some rickshaws that could only take us part of the way and we had to either walk or catch a bicycle rickshaw the rest of the way.

Though it was still some days away from the teachings and the empowerment, there were already tons of people. The whole Bodic family was on full display. The folks from the three provinces of Tibet, Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang were all sporting their particular native garb and tongues. The folks from the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal and Bhutan were in the house; Bhutanese ladies with their short brushy box-like haircuts and their teeth bleeding red with betel nut juice, which is kind of gross looking if you ask me. Monpas from Arunachal Pradesh in their reddish garb and funky looking black felt hats, many of my classmates are from Mon-Tawang and I asked one of them, “Hey wassup with ‘em hats?” The hats are round and every thick that the top like a thick ass pancake and from the four sides hangs a spike of felt that hangs from the hat to the sides of the face in the front and the sides of the neck in the back. He said “In Mon, during monsoon it rains a lot so the four hanging spike directs the water away from the face”. I immediately busted out laughing and so did he.

Also, one saw all of the sects of Buddhism there representing, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh (of which I found surprising), China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Mongolia etc; all these vast range of folks spiraling around this Temple of Grand Awakening, the Mahabodhi. Finally seeing it with my own eyes was spectacular, circumambulating it was difficult since many people where there. There are many levels to the location of the temple. An outer circumambulating walk way which is higher than the base of the temple that sits like a huge tall trapezoid of ancient stone.

Below there are also two other such walkways an outer and an inner one. The in between was filled with various sights, prostrating plank-board crammed in one section with folks doing full body prostrations towards the temple repetitively, ancient stupas, folks sitting in meditation, some conversing, some reciting texts or prayers. Water offerings made in tiny plastic cups with yellow and orange marigolds set singly in each one. Many times these offerings formed words or beautiful pictures. In the inner walkway laid the entrance into the temple itself (which I never got the opportunity to go inside) was a beautiful gold statue of the Buddha in the front; this walkway is surrounded by a high wall of three sectional horizontal stone beams high, middle and low intercrossed at regular intervals by a vertical stone pillar. On the wall itself there were faded round floral like cravings. The base of the temple itself is filled with cravings of various Buddhas. Towards the rear grows the apparent sibling of the very tree (ficus religiosia), the Bodhi Tree, under which the Prince Siddhartha achieved enlightenment. The tree is big; its base is surrounded by a wall similar to the one that surrounds the inner walkway. Here one finds many pilgrims in prayer, rubbing their prayer beads and their bodies up against the gate. I was definitely moved by the sight. Folks tossed money, white silk scarves (kataks) in the gate to the base of the tree. On the day before I left I threw in a quartz crystal that someone had given me while I was in Kentucky the summer of 2010, think the guy’s name was Henry. The floor of the inner walkway is also laid with marble or some other marble-like stone.

Like I said I was moved when I saw and was near to the tree, it was quite unexpected, it just happened. I have never been the one to shed tears and this got me by surprise. On the last day I ran into a English upperclassman of mine there listening to a dharma talk and I told him about it and he said “ I bet ya folks back in Brooklyn will find it strange that you cried at a tree”, “Yay” I said “Brothas crying to a tree don’t last too long in da ‘hood”. The story of the enlightenment on all that, though I believe it is possible, I still have the doubt lingering in the back of my head. I have been called gullible too many times as a kid that I try my best to push towards its opposite.

Anyways, after the tree on the floor there were seven stones in the shape of lotus flowers to mark the steps the Buddha made after he got up from his meditation seat, which Tibetans call the diamond seat/ dorje den (Tib. rdo rje gdan, skt. vajraasana). On the middle walkway there is a beautiful long wall stone sculpture depicting the various stages of the life of the Buddha. On the higher outer walkway there are prayer wheels in the inner side and on the outer side there is set-up in a line on gold plates for the entire side of that wall the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 8,000 verses written in the Sanskrit in Lansta and Devanaagari scripts and in the Tibetan uchen script. The spot where it is said that a cobra or a naga of some sort protected Siddhartha from the rain as he sat in meditation is dedicated with a pond with a statue of the scene in the middle.

A marked scene at the temple while circumambulating the outer walkway is the beggars, first after turning the second corner, dark faceless hands are poking out of wall hold plastic bags of water filled with fish for sale to liberate them in the above mentioned pond, the act known in Tibetan as tsethar (tshe thar) literally to liberate life. The idea being that by liberating these fishes or other animals one accumulates positive merit. Some of my classmates told me that it is a total scam. These guys grow the fish or buy it cheaply from someone who does so in big buckets until the buckets are filled with tiny fish, I think that they might be catfish. The bigger ones are sold for meat; I was surprised by this fish farming practice. Back to the wall, as one approached this side of the wall one hears the sellers screaming to get your attention in multiple languages, “Amala! phe sho” or “Pala! Phe sho” they shouted in Tibetan.

Further down others sold butter lamp offerings, and further down still a butt load of dark hands, a hundred easily reaching out through all parts of the wall high and low, like pins jutting out of the face of Hellraiser’s Pinhead, holding small aluminum bowls soliciting and urging pilgrims to drop money into them. This, my first sight of Bodh Gaya will probably stay with me for long time. I went to the temple at least once a day, sometimes twice with my various classmates. A few days later, I remembered walking amidst the crowds of pilgrims and I felt someone tug on one my locks and I turned quickly around to find a young man from Kham, sporting the distinctive red ribbon that Khampas wrap around the top their heads. I told him politely not to pull on my hair. He then asked me for a piece of my hair and I was like ‘what’, again he said take off a bit of your hair. And so while continuing my walk I searched my head for a piece of hair and asked him if he wanting the bit I was holding in my hand. He said yes and I ripped it off and gave it to him. He then placed the lock in his pocket and quickly vanished into the crowd. I wanted to ask him what he was going to do with my hair, hoping that he wouldn’t do some Tibetan Voodoo on it or something, but I was stuck for a bit answering the curious questions of a middle-aged Tibetan lady from Portland, Oregon and thus I lost my opportunity.

On our second or third day our class together went on pilgrimages to the various ancient Buddhist sights of Bihar a couple of hours away from Bodh Gaya, one of the most impressive of them being the Vulture Peak (Tib. bya rgod phung po’i ri) where it is believed that the Buddha turned the second wheel of his teaching with the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in One Hundred verses and the Heart Sutra thus teaching the Mahayana view. This sits on a peak as the name suggests and it was packed full of people. Once we had climbed to the peak we recited the Heart Sutra. One the way down we saw Chinese pilgrims doing full body prostrations up to the peak, the beggars who sat on the edge of the stairs from bottom to top starting to chant “Ami Tou Fo” the Chinese mantra for the Bodhisattva Amitabha. I turned to my one of my classmates mentioning that these beggars are very adept at changing their tune depending on which race or nationality of people happen to be walking in front of them, when we were hiking up this hill they chanted “Om Mani Padme Hung” and now without a second to breathe is “Ami Tou Fo”! To this he laughed; I then thought myself, well hell bells! It’s great marketing sense, one gotz to kno yo’ costumer to make that rupee.

We also visited two Jain meditation caves built by King Bimbisara of the Magadhan Empire (c. 543-491 B.C.E), who is known as legend has it to have place a treasure vault behind one of the caves. This vault door is still there today, but I doubt that the booty is still in there.

Later on we visited what I would call the height of the pilgrimage, the ancient Nalanda University which many believe to have been the one of the world’s first universities. This place truly blew me away. I have seen pictures of it on the internet, the HHDL is has stated many times that the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is descended from the Nalanda tradition, many if not all of the Indian Buddhist masters of olde whose works we study are Nalanda graduates. It is now believed that the university was founded around the 5th cent. C.E. At its height it had 2000 teachers and 10,000 students and the subjects offered were the study of Buddhism in their Mahayana and Hinayana manifestations, the Vedas, philosophy, math, logic and medicine. It is also believe that it was tuition-free. In the 12th cent. it was waylaid by the invading Turks leaving the place in absolute ruins and that signaled the end of Buddhist learning in India.

When we finally entered the university ground, though everything is in ruins, one is immediately impressed by it size. It is huge! It leaves the observer in wonder imagining what this place looked when it was in its prime. For us, students of Buddhist dialectics, we can almost hear the sounds of debates reverberating off those ancient walls, we read about these infamous Nalanda debates and now with the visual senses activated walking through this place the echoes of antiquity seems to come alive. Oh! How I so wish that I possessed the skill to be able to paint a picture of this place with the various colors of words, but alas I can’t.

In order to make a connection to this grand place, some of guys staged a brief debate, gullibly wishing that the wisdom and realizations gained from the debates held here back in the day will somehow pour into us. Eventually as we did so folks started to crowd around to see what all the commotion was about. Later on, we came to find out that we were not the only ones who wanted to make a connection with the place. I saw from the distance in the ruins of what was once a massive hall, a group of monks shouting, “OHHH, chiiir ,chiiir, chiiir”, The distinctive call given when a defender is unable to answer the posited query, next followed by a “Ohhh, tsaa, Ohhh, tsssaaa, Ohh, tsssa”, signaling that the defender was caught in a contradiction. Many of us tried to get there to see their debating but by the time we got there the monks had already dispersed. While at Nalanda I really wish that time travel was possible, I wish I had a TARDIS, to navigate me towards the Nalanda of its height. One can dream right, but still knowing that our studies are rooted from the masters who studied on these grounds, I left Nalanda thinking ‘there’s no school like the ‘ol skool’.

On the way back, we hitted up some hot springs. It seems to me that every hot spring that I have visited so far in India is always inside a Shaivite Temple, and I wonder why is that? This place was packed and I didn’t bring no swimming gear, so I stood outside chatting with my classmate a nun and her sister who hail from Sinpapore for a bit. The other guys weren’t in there too long; they said that it was utter madness. Public holy hot springs Indian style!!! While on the pilgrimage, riding around the Bihari countryside one really sees how busted up this province is. Generally, it is known that India is a dirty place with trash all over and what not, but I have never seen anything like what I saw cruisin’ through Bihar man!

On the last night of 2011, the night before the first event that the HHDL was to give, as I tried to curl into my undersized sleeping bag I felt something that I thought wouldn’t be an issue in Bihar, tiny rain drops. Bihar is known for being a relatively dry province. And as anyone who was in attendance knows that the dust in the air was intense, towards the end the sounds of coughing were in stereo! Anyways, our tent was not built very well and either were any of the others. It was apparent that the tent constructers did not factor in the possibly that it might rain. All the tents are made from canvas and built in long rows with partitions to separate individual living spaces. In our space the tent roof did not touch the side of one of the partition where my and several of our heads were positioned as we slept. Just like the tent constructers we didn’t think it will rain, I had first taught that it might not last too long, but ohhh, how wrong was I.

And sooooo, Happy New Years!!!! It rained the whole day and stayed cloudy and rainy for the next three. All that dust and dirt turned into mud. Water was easily seeping into the tents. The entire campsite turned into a quagmire of mud. The toilets, which from the beginning were already chocked full, had become the grosses toilets I have ever seen in my life. The toilets were so bad that piles of dudu were just everywhere. A few times in the mornings I remember seeing some old Kinnauri and Ladhakis ladies entering a toilet, gasp in horror, just to turn around and do their business in plain sight beside or in front of the toilets all while holding a conversation. One day I got really sick from some Bhutanese food, which required me to frequent those toilets more times than I would like to admit and very time my stomach just couldn’t take it, I had to put my game face on just to prepare me for the fecal slaughter that I was about to witness again for the umpteenth time.

So back to New Years, getting to the Kalachakra empowerment tent was a dismal affair, slipping and sliding in the mud. I saw many folks straight bust their shit, falling on their asses. I had heard that the estimated amount of folks who attended the empowerment was more than 300,000, with some estimates reaching as high as 500, 000. So as you can imagine, the lines to enter the huge empowerment tent were long. Luckily, for me the line for the foreigners, which was gender segregated, had a virtually non-existent male line, while the line for the females were very long. For some reason it is always like this, there are always more foreign ladies than dudes at Buddhist teachings in India or even amongst backpackers now that I think of it. This ratio might be pervasive across religions too, though I don’t know, I just wonder. Anyways, I quickly get inside, my sneakers are heavy with the mud caked on them and I come to task of finding me a seat.

The areas are segregated by profession and nationality, the foreigners section, the monastic section, the Himalayan region section, the Tibetans from Tibet section, etc and so I am a foreigner and so headed off to that section which was by then almost totally packed. Normally, the “smart” people are supposed to mark off their spots in advance before the beginning, but from experience I have learned that that can be a nightmare and though not doing so is a nightmare in itself it is not as much of a nightmare as the mini territorial battles that happen in the foreigners section at teachings plus I always tend to find a seat somewhere. As I scope around, I saw that a group from some dharma center, obviously North American, had placed a huge tarp on the ground with the name of their dharma center written it that could fit, if one sat like how the Tibetans sat all smushed on each other, 60 people easily. On this tarp were about 6 people holding down the fort shooing away any interlopers and one guy kindly asked if he could sit there. Then one of the dudes who sat on the tarp told him no, which I can understand, but then continued to talk about how his group had woken up early in the morning to reserve their seats and that if one is not willingly to do the same then they are not allowed to attend the teachings. Now this took me aback, I was standing looking out throughout the entire tent, the Tibetan and monastic sections were just packed like sardines in a can, folks are cramming where they can and here is this guy with a huge near empty tarp that could fit a butt load of folks not willing to let the guy sit down just for a second to relax at least. Though I wanted to say something, I held my tongue thinking it to be wiser than starting something, but seriously, why the fuck do folks come to see the HHDL for when he is constantly teaching about cherishing others before oneself. No doubt very few are able to live up to the ultimate goal of the ideal, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t try, let the bro take seat. It is rainy, the tent roofs are leaking on everybody, we are all miserable. Everywhere else folks welcome you, share what little they have and they all bear the pain together, at least that is what I have experienced over and over again when seating with Bodic folks, not saying that they live up to the ideal either because like we will see later they don’t but in this respect we can learn something, which is why we go to teachings in the first place and why the HHDL constantly is teaching about compassion like it is never going out of style. Like I said, I eventually found me a nice muddy spot to sit in after I had walked all over the place with folks staring at me like I had just stepped out of spaceship. We are all wet, but while the HHDL did his thing he pointed towards the miserably moist conditions which we were all enduring, I think we all felt better after he made that observation.

Towards the end of the first day of the New Year the conditions had gotten worse though the rain had kept the dust down providing some relief to our throats. I didn’t bring any raingear and I was wishing that I had. Taking advantage over the situation street hawkers were trying to sell 50 rups umbrellas for over 300 rups to the crowd spilling out of the Kalachakra empowerment tent who mostly looked like a bunch of wet rats. Back at the campsite the organizers had made several announcements through the loud speaker located throughout the site indicating that they had turned off the electricity to prevent the danger electrocution. My classmates could not understand why the electricity was shut off, mainly because they want to charge their phones so they could update their facebook status, and I tried to explain the concept that water conducts electricity. That night we all slept early, our tent was wet except for the middle; luckily we had brought tons of straw that we placed on the floor when we first arrived which I think helped us out a lot. We ended up sleeping with all of our shit bundled in the middle of the tent.

The next day there were no teachings going on but we saw many people getting the fuck out dodge for realz. Auto rickshaws crammed with luggage were seen exiting the Magadh University campsite. Locals were walking the streets offering rooms for rents. About half of the guys in our tent split too. I almost ended up moving but I was way low on funds (thanks Aunt Marlyn for the hook up for which without I would have been really scarred) and I wanted to tough it out with the guys. One guy approached us offering us what at first seemed like a good deal for 9 of us. 3,500 rupees for the reminder of our stay he said and he showed us the room, but then he changed his tune to 3,500 rupees per day since he was offering free use of his motorbike and cable T.V. We laughed at the guy and told him that he was crazy and we split. Our tent started to look like the leaning tower Pisa, one of the bigger tents that the other Sarah guys were staying in had completely fallen early that morning and they were heading on pilgrimage like we had done before. I saw them trying to set the tent back up but that was not going to fly. Half of their other tent had fallen as well and they were able to recover that and all the guys had to move into that tent. At the end of the day there was an announcement stated that the money for the tent will be refunded. Eventually the sun came back out and things got dry and dusty again.

There were six campsites in total and we were located in camp 6 the dormitory camp. The first camp had Swiss cottages, nicer white canvas tents, but the others not so. With many of the different camps emptied out in a few days after the mass exodus from the campsite, those of us to lived in camp 6 were ordered to let a hike and look for another tent in the other camps because they said that our camp was not as full as the others to begin with and after many of folks had bailed out due to showers they wanted to fill up the other camps. They said that it was hard to keep an eye on our camp and a lot of thief has been reported to have happen there. That night after returning from the Mahabodhi Temple I high tailed it to our tent. Nono, had been sick with diarrhea for 4 days now and had been sleeping in the tent pretty much the whole time. Some of the other guys were there and we went to look for a new tent. First we went to camp 4 right across from ours and found a decent dry tent to co-op, seeing that there was a tent searching madness going on I wanted to move into the tent right away. We made a sign in Tibetan and English claiming the tent and went back to our old tent. Nono being sick didn’t want to move until tomorrow morning but I urged that if we don’t move now we are not going to get a nice tent.

During our time at Camp 6 we had bonded with a Tibetan family next door to us, their cute daughter Choying who was about 2 or 3 years old came over to play with us many times. One of the ladies who lived next door who we just called ‘neighbor sister’ (Tib. khyim mtshes a cag) had asked if we had found a tent. She urged us to combined forces to find another and we went together to search again, we showed her the tent that we had chosen in camp 4 but our bilingual sign claiming ownership was obviously ignored. We cruised throughout camp 4 checking various tents. We were about to walk into one tent until we heard someone yell from an adjacent one, “Hey, watch out! People having been shitting in that tent!” I was like ‘no way’ and walked into tent with my flashlight. Lo and behold the proclamation held to be true and I turned around and told neighbor sister, barely keeping myself from laughing that there was shit all up in that tent. Tears were rolling down my eyes as I passed her the flash light so she could see for herself after which she too and the rest of us were doubled over in laughter. Even the folks in the adjacent tent were laughing now. I was like, “WTF is wrong with people! What! Can’t they tell the difference between a tent and a toilet” and again more laughter. Now, I knew that the toilet situations in the camps were bad but this was too much. As we continued searching tents neighbor sister will send me in first and then yell, “Is there any shit in there?” We found many such toilet tents. I walked into one tent and caught two kids red-handed or would it should be better to say red-assed. I immediately started yelling, “hey, what the hell is wrong you, aren’t you ashamed, don’t your parents teach you any everything”. Poor kids! They bolted, ass hanging, like a bat out of hell. I think I put the scare into them good. Eventually, with the help of neighbor sister we got a nice tent in Camp 2, which had nice clean toilets for a change, though that camp too was not exempt from its share of shitty tents.

To the disappointment of Nono we moved all our shit with the quickness, straw and all. And after we had been all set up we all went to bed really stinking tired. The next morning I woke up and a Ladakhi monk asked me if I had seen his cell phone which he had placed to recharge next to my sleeping head early that morning. I did not see his phone; we all suddenly got up to search for it, not to finding it anywhere. We all then realized that someone had walked into our tent while we were sleeping and ganked his phone. He was pissed; he had just brought that phone one month ago. Another Ladakhi monk had his glasses stolen while he was washing his face which he had placed hanging on the wall by the water spigot. I taught that it might be locals coming in and ganking people’s shit but they said that they thought that it was young Tibetans hooligans doing the stealing.

Attending the Kalachakra and being there after awhile I came to see that not everyone who comes comes for the teachings. I mean I knew this before from my experiences at Kalachakra 2006, but unlike this Kalachakra I was then with other foreigners and had only been in India a few months. With this experience I was with my classmates and also been in the country for a few years not months so the realization was deeper. With the entire Bodic community plus the Buddhist community at large represented there, many motivations are bound to pulling each of us in various directions. I saw many there to reunite with family from Tibet. Various calls to join different movements were also in effect, Free Tibet movement, Tibetan Language Purity movement, Tibetan environmental movement, Tibetan Veganism and so. Plus with the variety of businesses going on, Kalachakra is an interesting combination of business, politics, spirituality and rock & roll. There were several different markets to choose from to buy all kinds of stuff. I enjoyed joining my classmates as they went shopping pursuing the bazaars, taking notes on their bargaining skills. They tell me that Indian merchants are easier to deal with than Tibetan merchants because Tibs generally do not like to cut down on the price, while Indians love it and are accustomed to the bargaining dance which I think is also a culturally quality Indians possess as compared to Tibetans.

One night some of us went to check out on some of the various concerts being offered. In one I saw, which was attended by a shit ton of monks, a cute Tibetan girl on the stage shaking her hips (surprisingly well I might add) in a skimpy shiny outfit to the popular Bollywood music hit ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’. The monks were just going ape-shit over this. I was lodged in a midst them and at one point thought that I they were going to stampede kicking my skinny ass. But for realz, they tore down several parts of the zinc-plated wall that bordered the makeshift concert venue as that girl shook her money maker for the crowd. The stench of monk testosterone was too overbearing and I had to dip to the bird.

Chillin’ with the guys was really cool; it was I have said before, like having a bunch of little brothers. I met a lot of their friends; many did not believe that we were in the same class. A learned a lot about the inner world of their part of the Himalayas from which they hail, high up in the Himalayans near the Tibetan border and though are Indian citizens, when they travel to other parts of India they are not treated like other Indians which they expressed bothers them. Mostly they identify themselves from the places that they come from, I am Ladakhi, I am Spitian, I am a Monpa they would say to Tibetans; I am from Arunachal Pradesh, I am from Jammu-Kashmir, I am from Himachel Predesh they would say to Indians. So many interesting things they shared with me and vice-versa, I wish I could write all down.

When I was alone, one of favorite things to do was people watching, one of my old pastimes from my days of living on the streets. When I used to live on the streets of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida way back when, when I would take of break from spare changing, the act of going up to strangers and directly asking them to spare any change (which we then called spange-ing), I would sit on the low white wall of the Ft. Lauderdale strip and just watch people go to and fro, beside the random rastaman who might share a spliff with ya and chat you up philosophizing about I & I and Jah or whatever, just sitting there watching the people go by always brought me a simple pleasure plus being on the beach and being a teenager watching the bikini mamas was an extra icing on the top.

At this Kalachakra, I once again took to this habit. I easily passed hours watching folks go up and down, many times seeing old friends. The cornucopia of people, the kaleidoscope of traditional garbs, the street hawkers, the beggars all in a dance of movement and the universal murmur of multilingual jibber jabber shifted in and out of focus in front of one visual and audio field. One time a middle age Burmese refugee lady sat next to me outside the Mahabodhi Temple and chatted me up in mixture of Burmese, Hindi and English. I showed her the Burmese bag I was carrying which I had traded from my Burmese roommate the summer of my freshman year at Berea College, Licky Sung. This lady was surprised to see me sporting a Burmese bag and I was happy too.

For me I gained a cultural significance out of this Kalachakra as compared to the Amaravati one. During the teachings and the actual empowerment I met and got to know some Mongolian monks and one from Siberia whom eventually I invited me to sit with them for the rest of the event. Before the teachings every morning, inter-denominational debates where going between monks for all the sects of Tibetan Buddhism, which was the first time that I had seen such a thing, and hope that more of it will happen in the future. All the debates were really short. The defenders stayed the same but the challengers would line up and each had about a one or two minutes to challenge the defender on whatever topics they chose. I heard everything from the basics debates on colors to advance philosophy being thrown at the defenders. Young and old were too involved, one young monk of about maybe 7 or 8 years old went up and had everyone rolling with laughter. One day the defenders were from the Nyingma sect and many were surprise at how well they held their positions. Generally Nyingmapas are not known for their dialectical debating skills since it is not emphasized as much as tantra is in their tradition.

The actually teachings and empowerment were awesome of course, but my attention was different drawn somewhere else. The teachings section was easier to understand especially since know I am studying some of the topics that the HHDL had mentioned, but when it comes to tantra I am lost. I used to have a huge interest in it but now I feel that it is way above my head and that I need to stick to simple practices more conducive to my level and not just ride the tantric bandwagon without knowing WTF it is about. Every morning before the empowerment, the HHDL will have the Heart Sutra chanted in various languages. My favorite of course was the Sanskrit version and I noticed that the chanters were the same monks who here at Sarah last year studying Hindi & Sanskrit and kicking our asses on the debate courtyard. My least favorite was the English though it was chanted by none other than Richard Gere himself and company. The English version lacked the rhythmic flow that is found in the Tibetan and the Sanskrit, though yes of course that it not as important as the meanings of the words, a bad ass beat to ride on drives the point home deeper I think.

On the last day of the empowerment we had to wake up really stinking early since it was to start at 6am. We all high tailed it from our camp to the empowerment site which was so full, the lines were very long. The foreigners’ line for the ladies did not even seem like a line and the one for the men was intersected by the monk’s line. There was one road that led to both the gates the monks had to enter and the one the foreigners had to enter; obviously there are more monks than any other participant at the event. Anyone who stuck their necks under the tent for a second during the teachings will immediately notice the infamous sea of maroon red overpowering in size. Anyways, this one road led to a bottleneck situation and many monks being pranksters were pushing from the back on purpose causing a rippling effect through the rest of crowd. Again I got scared for a bit thinking that it wouldn’t take much of this to easily turn into a stampede situation. Once I was close to the point of the bottleneck all I could do was go with the flow as best as I could. One monk got up on a high ground in frustration and started screaming at the monks saying, “What is the matter with you? Why do you study the scriptures for? Are you learning anything?” and the prankster monks just started jeering making fun at him, no one really listened to him unfortunately. On the foreigner’s line I thought some fights were about to break out because of all the oscillating going on. Old Mongolian ladies were cutting the line left and right to the frustrations of all the ladies standing in the line behind them. After I eventfully got in and found my new Mongolian monk friends, I told them that I have been totally flatten, flat like Tibetan bread. I was relieved for this last part of the empowerment, which went quickly but then there was madness concerning the distributions of offerings and blessed water. The offerings which mainly consisted of various cookies and candies were straight up thrown onto the seated crowd. Folks threw themselves at the treats as if a piñata had exploded. Later on Richard Gere announced the release of the HHDL new book titled “Beyond Religion”, some Tibetan traditional songs were sung and several Indian politicians spoke. Including among them was the son of the late Chief Minister of Arunchal Pradesh, a Monpa named Sri Dorje Khandu the main sponsor for this Kalachakra, Pema Khandu. There is some controversy surrounding his death; he died in a helicopter crash in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh around September 2011. Some believe that is might be political motivated. In that state the Monpas make up a small percentage of the population while the rest in made up of what my Monpa classmates called Lopas and the two groups are not amicable towards each other.

Anyways, we had one more day left after the end of the empowerment, so some of us went on other pilgrimage to some places in waking distances. One called Lotho Kawa, where the Prince Siddhartha is believed to have spent his ascetic years starving himself in meditation for six years and the village of Sujata where after realizing that not eating food wasn’t getting him any closer to enlightenment (obviously I do not think he would have advocated for the so called breatharian diet) that then village girl named guess what? Sujata gave the starving prince ascetic some milk and rice to chow down on. The village of Sujata was some sad shit to look at and quite depressing to walk through. The temple dedicate to Sujata was equally bleak, there was a school attached to it with kids just sitting on the ground in their school uniforms but they were doing nothing but eating candy. Each kid had a mound of candy in front of them and right across the way there was the candy-walas soliciting pilgrims to buy candy to give to the children. Overall, it was very sad but that day was also our last full one there so we got most of our classmates who by then had scattered across Bodh Gaya to meet at the Mahabodhi Temple to recite the “Ornament of Manifest Realization” and the “Heart Sutra” together which was very nice especially since we did it covered by the branches of the descendent of the bodhi tree. Several passerbies also enjoyed in as well.

On the last day in Bodh Gaya, I spent the morning at the Mahabodhi temple especially, close to the base of the temple in the innermost walkway for one more glimpse; I later joined a friend who wanted to go shopping. The monks did really well at the Kalachakra because almost every day they received 1,000 rupees notes as offerings and so with that extra money his pocket we glided through the bazaar. By 9pm we packed all of our shit and went to the rendezvous spot to await our bus to the Varanasi. Even though we booked our train tickets three months in advance we could not find a direct train back to Pathonkot and so we ordered our train tickets from Varanasi which was only four hours away from Bodh Gaya.

Once we had arrived in Varanasi early in the morning, we went to Sarnath, another important Buddhist site, for the Buddha taught his first teachings on the Four Noble Truths there. There is a huge ancient stupa called the Dharmekha and the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies and multiple monasteries of various Buddhist countries. We stayed in a Jain Digambara Dharamshala, which is a place that provides very basic lodging for pilgrims at mad cheap prices. The word Dharamshala means a place of refuge, so it is a place where poor pilgrims seek refuge while on pilgrimage. It is interesting that Tibetan refugees would end up with their exiled capital in a place called Dharamshala. Anyways, when we got to the stupa we saw a part of it covered in kataks. I immediately wondered how the hell people were people getting those kataks up there. The stupa is round, the bottom half was thicker than the top half. People were circumambulating it at the base. On the outside folks were putting rocks into their kataks which they then whirled quickly beside their bodies as it gathered enough centrifugal force to hurl it at least over the second bigger half of the stupa. Local boys were marketing their katak hurling skills on the behalf of the inept pilgrims. This made the circumambulating a bit scary because many who tried where not necessarily sharpshooters and easily missed their mark which left the rock filled katak to fall and knock some poor pilgrim upside the head. I saw many mis-aimed attempts. Some started to scream to folks to stop, plus it made the stupa look trashy. Afterwards we grouped up and spat out some prayers and we dispersed. I and a few of us visited a temple built in 1904 by the Sri Lankan Buddhist activist Anagarika Dharmapala who restored many important ancient Buddhist sites including Bodh Gaya and Sarnath. Also we went on a boat ride on the Ganges River which was very cool. Then we visited the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies (CIHTS) in Sarnath, which was quite impressive. They offer various degrees there at a graduate school level. It is under the Government of India. They offer Tibetan Medicine, Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, English and one can study with teachers from all the schools of the Tibetan Religion including Bon. I have always had a thing for nice libraries, becoming more appreciative of them since Sarah’s library blows the hairy meatball. The CIHTS’s library is a tiny gem for Tibetan and Sanskrit Buddhist students and their texts in English on various topics was also quite impressive. I was impressed but from talking to a friend who had spent two years there, it is not all that it is cracked up to be after it went under Indian government administration. I would love to spend some time there to study Sanskrit well, one of the best Buddhist Sanskrit scholars in world teaches there, but his is very old. Several of the guys have mentioned to that they would like to attend CIHTS after the finishing at IBD to learn Sanskrit; I don’t think monks have to pay to go there.

The next day, was all about getting to the train station since our train was to leave at 12:50pm and we were a ways away from it. Varanasi is quite a huge city. At the station as we were hauling our shit to the platform while we were walking on an overpass bridge, I saw a shit ton of black ass smoke soon to realize that a caboose of a train had blown up. It had a huge hole on the side of it and flames were jutting out of it pouring black smoke. This platform was almost empty of Tibetans. We kicked it on the platform relaxing eating papaya as we sat on our bags which we had placed on the floor in a pile. We had to switch platforms but before too long we were on our way back home. As the train pulled out roaming towards the outskirts of Varanasi I saw out of the window that the sky was filled with kites. From almost every roof top I saw kites whizzing and buzzing through the air. It turned out that that day was a kite fighting festival. It reminded me of a section in “The Autobiography of a Yogi” where the young Mukunda was participating in a similar kite fighting festival in Calcutta and he had lost his kite and to retrieve it he prayed to the Divine Mother to bring the kite back to him and the kite naturally floated back directly to his hand. Seeing all these kites in the air made that scene come alive to me. Anyhow, this time on the train we were all close to each other to the amazement of the other Indian passengers. We walked up and down the aisle, shot the shit on various topics, on our experiences during Kalachakra, on all the crazy stuff that went down, their views about village society, etc. Many played cards which they can do for-fucking-ever non-stop. They are some gambling fools, they always played a game called ‘thousands’ and many times at Bodh Gaya tried to get me to play but I suck at cards games and I do not like to gamble.

Before too long we arrived at the Chakki Bank train in Pathonkot, Panjab and the two vans that had brought there the first time was there waiting for us. It was raining though. After getting some breakfast and drinking some chai from some roadside stalls (I have eaten the most street food than I have ever had since I have been in India) we head back to Sarah. Back at Sarah and back into my room one of my plants was dying, I had no one to watch it for me though I think it will survive. While we were away I learned that it snowed at Sarah all the way to the Pathankot. It never snows at Sarah and it in fact it was the first time it did so in 56 some odd years. It was definitely the coldest I have ever felt it. I have been back a week now today being Sunday 22nd of January. We started a new topic 5 days ago, with our root text being Dharmakiirti’s commentary on Dignaaga’s compiendum on Valid Cogition, (Tib. tshad ma rnam ‘grel, Skt. pramaanavaaritika) a very important text on Buddhist Logic. Both Dharmakiirti and Dignaaga are Nalanda graduates. Pretty much we have about a month or more at Sarah it so seems and after the Tibetan New Year at the end February we are suppose to start class at the IBD campus in McLeod Ganj and continue the rest of our studies there. This is my fifth year at Sarah College and it is going to be interesting living in the madness of Da Ganj again. I have become quite used to living here regardless of all the difficulties I have had throughout the years. I have lived there longer than I have been a student at Berea College, which is weird to think about. Anyways, I am tired, been writing since yesterday afternoon, it is 7:30pm and my hands are cold.

Pax

P.S. As you have obviously noticed this is a late entry, I had wanted to post this and write other blog entries since then but with lack of internet at Sarah and since the f-button on my laptop refuses to cooperate I have been unable to do so. I am now at IBD in McLeod Ganj and regardless of my busy schedule I hope that since there are many accessible internet cafes in town that I will be in a better situation to keep in touch with friends and family and to update the blog more regularly. I have been very sad that I have not been able to do so. Much Love, kangpa tshapo!!