Teachings of the Dalai Lama

June 24, 2004
Chennai

Hello All,

I'm writing this from the city of Chennai (it used to be called Madras, before restoration of its traditional name in 1997), in southeast India. I got here a few days ago and am still adjusting to being south where it's quite warm and humid. The monsoon (rainy season) is now arriving in much of India, and I expect to be spending the last five weeks of my travels exploring the lower half of the Indian subcontinent.

This entry covers my last two weeks in northern India during which my journey took me to a week of teachings by the Dalai Lama in the Spiti region of the northeast very close to the Tibet-China border. I know this is another really long email, but what an awesome experience it was!

By the way, I've had little or no access to internet service for over two weeks, so my apologies if I haven't answered your emails. I received some wonderful messages from many of you and it's been so great to hear from you; I wish I could reply to everyone, and I'm going to try and catch up, but the internet service here has been so sketchy that it's been all I can do to get these accounts of my trip out (at least here in Chennai service seems to be better than it was in the north).

Going to See the Dalai Lama

The Journey from Dharamsala to Spiti

The latest installment of my India adventure begins with my bus ride from Dharamsala to Manali. Describing bus trips here in India could fill pages all by themselvesÑI'll try not to spend too much time on this part of the account, but they've been memorable experiences. Anyway, this is a tale of another Indian bus ride. A group of us stood waiting in the dark at the McLeod Ganj bus stand for an hour past when the bus was supposed to load at 8pm, wondering whether it was coming or not. Finally it arrived after 9pm, loaded up, and we started down the hilly road, only to stop after proceeding for not more than 15 minutes--because roadwork had created a huge hole making the road impassable! We sat in the bus in that spot for almost two hours before the hole in the road was filled, thus beginning our trip with more than three hours' delay. That bus ride was also notable for the two guys who sat in the back seat and, after consuming a bottle of whiskey, serenaded the rest of us with an atrocious boozy version of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall," and almost started fighting when well past midnight one of the guys trying to sleep went back and told them to shut up. Not an auspicious start for the ride to attend the Dalai Lama's teachings.

Herd of sheep filling up the road on the bus ride from Dharamsala to Manali

Late in the morning the following day we got into Manali, a resort town and transportation hub in Himachal Pradesh at the northern end of the lush green Kullu Valley. As the bus was approaching town one of the passengers, a woman from Italy, came around to check in with several of us who were heading to Spiti for the teachings, and four of us agreed to share a rented jeep for the long ride to the village of Kungri. After negotiations with several Tibetan drivers near the Manali bus stand, we arrived at a price and Claudia and Silvana, from Italy, Tim from Australia, and myself started heading up the mountains for Spiti.

At the bus station in Manali, waiting to arrange the rental of a jeep and driver to take us to Kungri

That ten-hour jeep ride turned out to be one of the most beautiful of my life. Two hours out of Manali we climbed over the Rohtang La Pass (elev. 13,000 ft.) and entered the Lahaul Valley and its majestic valleys framed by spectacularly beautiful mountain ranges, some snow-capped, others of brown and gray rock. As Tim remarked, it was like being in a dream--hour after hour we continued on a narrow, winding unpaved road, occasionally past a few small rural Tibetan dwellings, a Buddhist stupa (religious monument) now and then, but mostly nothing but us, the road and the mountains. Several hours later we crossed over the Kunzum Pass (elev. 14,928 ft.) into the Spiti Valley. At times the scenery resembled the Grand Canyon, at others a moonscape--breathtakingly beautiful. It had gotten colder as we reached the higher elevations, and I'd gradually put on all the layers of clothing I'd brought with me (for this trip I'd almost decided not to bring my sweater and jacket since the rest of India is so hot--it was a good thing I had them!). At one little Tibetan outpost that sold food and chai I bought a Tibetan-made wool hat, which I was very glad to have over the next week.

The road through the Spiti Valley heading to Kungri

Tibetan children at the outpost store in the remote Spiti Valley

Mountains along the way to Kungri in the Spiti Valley

Tibetan stupas at a mountain pass in the Spiti Valley

Around 8:30 pm we rolled into the town of Kaza, where we had to stop for the inspection of our passports by the Indian police. Ordinarily we would have stopped there for the night; when we'd left Dharamsala on Monday evening we were under the assumption that the teachings would begin several days later on Friday as the Tibetan Government in Exile website stated, but Tim had found out that the schedule had changed and in fact the teachings were beginning Wednesday, the following morning. So we felt an urgency to make it all the way to Kungri, the town where the teachings were to begin, even knowing we'd be getting in quite late and unsure if or where we'd be able to find accommodations to sleep that night. In fact, we'd given a lift to a couple of young Tibetan guys from one end of Kaza to their home several kilometers outside of town and they'd advised us to stay there for the night--they'd been up in Kungri that day and knew that all the tents were full and thought we'd probably just have to turn around and return to Kaza anyway. As we drove to Kungri in the darkness our Tibetan driver passed several of his jeep-driving colleagues heading the other way back to Kaza; they asked him why he was going to the monastery so late and laughed when our driver pointed at us with an exasperated look on his face.

Tent city where we slept the first night in Kungri

We reached Kungri at around 11 pm; there were a few lights on but not very many people out to talk to. A few Indian policemen were on patrol and we asked one how we could find a place to sleep; he told us to go to the Police Control tent. We eventually found this tent and discovered that all the Indian policemen were inside asleep under blankets. Then Tim, who had spent a lot of time with the Tibetan community in New Zealand, started asking the few Tibetans who were still up and awake if they knew a tent where we could sleep that night; they shook their heads. At this point we were really tired from having traveled basically for the last 27 hours and we were staring at the prospect of having to turn around and make the two-hour ride back to Kaza--not a cheerful thought. Then Tim saw another Tibetan entering what turned out to be a mess tent and asked him; thankfully the guy, after first hesitating, said we could sleep there that night--hooray! Just before midnight we pulled our packs into the dirt floored tent and found spots to sleep around the Tibetans, who were sleeping in a group underneath a pile of blankets in the center of the tent. I slept on a 1/2 inch foam mat I'd bought to do yoga on and wrapped myself in a woven rug and blanket I also used for yoga. It wasn't enough--the wind was blowing hard outside and I shivered all night; what with Kungri being 11,500 ft. above sea level, that was one real cold night. I kept rolling over and pulling that rug and blanket tighter around me trying to seal out the cold, but it wasn't quite working.

Looking along the road into Kungri (many, many tents for the pilgrims come to attend the Dalai Lama's teachings)

Three pilgrims from the long jeep trek enjoy chai the next morning.

Kungri

At 5am it became light outside and I gave up trying to rest any more; I crawled out of the tent numbly and took a look at the tent city in the daylight. Many, many tents were set up around the Kungri Temple and the adjacent monastery. All in the middle of the beautiful Pin Valley, with green and brown slopes rising around the Pin River, and gorgeous snowy peaks high above and beyond the immediate mountainsides.

View of the Kungri Monastery complex

That morning we again registered our passports with the police (there is tight security run by a special detachment of the Indian police and the Dalai Lama's staff for teachings like these). Then we found some chai to warm and wake ourselves up, and soon queued up to pass through the metal detectors, be frisked and have our bags inspected before entering the temple to find a place to sit for the first day of teachings. Thanks to the Dalai Lama's compassion for the westerners in attendance, we found that there was a special section for us with an English translator, right up on the platform of the temple next to His Holiness's colorful ceremonial dais. The first two days I was lucky enough to be sitting literally fifteen feet from him! In fact we westerners had a much better seat than many of the local Tibetans who came for the teachings. The third day the teachings moved to the monastery next door to the temple, and though our seating wasn't very close, we were right next to the door which he used to enter and leave from, and so we saw him up close that way.

Street scene from Kungri during the Dalai Lama's visit

Bustling crowd in front of gate to the Kungri Temple

I'll get to discussing what I got from the Dalai Lama's teachings in just a bit, but first I'll describe the life in Kungri outside of the teachings. During the first day's session, I found a friend from Dharamsala who'd arrived a few days earlier, and it turned out she had room in the tent she was staying in for one more. So that afternoon after the teachings were over for the day I moved my stuff out of the mess tent and proceeded to live in a smaller camping tent for the next three days; I washed and shaved from a big water tank located up on the hillside above us, along with many other Tibetan monks and villagers, and dined in the village in one of the few local dhabas (basic Indian restaurants) or the temporary canvas-roofed canteens set up for the event.

View from the tent I shared in Kungri after the first night.

This was a very special event indeed for this small remote community; many believe it may be the Dalai Lama's last visit to Kungri; in recent times he has come here only once every three or four years, and I heard from a lucky friend who had dinner with the Kungri monastery's rinpoche (abbot) that because of the high elevation he has experienced some difficulties with his heart (he'll be 69 next month). As much as it was an honor and a blessing for me and my fellow westerners to be present for His Holiness's teachings, it's difficult to describe how much he is revered by the Tibetan people for whom he is not only the ultimate spiritual leader but also the caretaker of a sacred faith and culture which has been uprooted from Tibet and whose future is in peril.

This is the Tibetan family who rented us the small tent we stayed in, and shared their house with us for meals during our three days in Kungri. They were very warm and gracious hosts.

Tabo

After three days in Kungri the teachings moved to the village of Tabo 40 kilometers away. The Tabo Gompa (temple) is over 1000 years old and on its walls is painted some of the most important and precious Indo-Tibetan Buddhist art still in existence (most of the great Buddhist art in Tibet having been destroyed by the Chinese in the last 50 years).

The ornate gate entering the village of Tabo.

Going to Tabo was another adventure in itself, as the entire gathering of several thousand people assembled at Kungri packed up and scrambled for the limited jeep and bus services to get to the next site of teachings. I found a jeep for a party of six and myself after making the rounds in the main parking lot asking a half dozen drivers, and thus we made the hour and a half drive over. Since we'd left Kungri twenty minutes before the Dalai Lama's convoy, as we drove the road to Tabo that morning we were able to enjoy all the people lined up along the road to greet His Holiness, including many women dressed in traditional Tibetan costume. When we got to Tabo we joined the throng lining the main street to the temple and waved to him as he arrived.

After greeting the Dalai Lama we went about finding a place to stay; we were told that 5000 people were already in the tiny village, many living in tents; I was advised by an Indian policeman at the information tent that it would be "very difficult" to find accommodations at this point. But he huddled with a Tibetan man who also seemed to be in charge of coordinating the event and they asked me if we'd be willing to stay 3 or 4 km outside of town. I said yes, that would be okay, and the Tibetan man scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to the Indian policeman, who turned to walk with me towards the jeep. His name was Mr. Varma, and it turned out he's been working for the Himachal Pradesh security detachment for special guests of the province (including his ongoing assignment to the Dalai Lama) since 1972; it also turned out his son was our jeep driver.

Pilgrims in Tabo street after a day of the Dalai Lama's teaching.

Mr. Varma accompanied us on the drive out of Tabo about 2 1/2 miles along the winding dirt road, steep cliffs rising above and the Spiti River's rapids running far below, until we reached the village of Kurith--which was in its totality a Buddhist stupa and one beautiful little farm with fruit trees, fields sown with peas and barley, and several farm buildings. We drove down the hill to the farm, and Mr. Varma was kind enough to accompany us and help us find the Tibetan farmers and communicate with them in Hindi to arrange our stay (they didn't speak English). That farm was so quiet and peaceful (quite in contrast to how crowded the village of Tabo had become with the pilgrim population), that in some ways it was the highlight of my experience at the Tabo teachings. It was like living in an oasis.

The farm outside Tabo where we stayed during the teachings; it was a treat and a privilege to share the home of the hard-working Tibetan farmers who live there.

Starting out on the 2 1/2 mile walk to Tabo from the farm we stayed at.

The road entering Tabo. It was a beautiful 2 1/2 mile walk along this road from the farm we stayed at.

Living there was quite rustic; the bathroom was "open," i.e., one was free to find whatever corner of the fields one wished to answer nature's call. I made the walk down to the river where I shaved and bathed, squatting besides the fast running glacial melt swelling the Spiti River (though the family did heat buckets of hot water for us if requested). We were provided with a really good meal of rice, dal and subji (spiced vegetables) each night by the Tibetan family, as well as breakfast and chai in the afternoon—some of the best food I've had in India. They had 4 adorable children, who were excited to have us as guests (I don't think they rented the rooms we were staying in very often) and though it turned out only one member of the family spoke any English, all were very solicitous of our comfort and it was a real privilege to share their farmhouse and experience a window into their way of life.

These two boys lived on the farm we stayed at outside of Tabo. They were very shy but fascinated by our presence in their home.

Doing yoga on the farm outside of Tabo.

I loved making the hour-long walk into town each day for the teachings; it was a time for reflection and giving thanks for the vast beauty around me and the blessing of being able to have this experience. In the evenings the sky was so clear and filled with stars that you could easily see the clouds of the Milky Way, and you didn't have to wait very long to see a shooting star streaking across the galaxies.

Pic taken on the last day in Tabo after the teachings were over.

The Teachings of the Dalai Lama

Having had the wonderful opportunity to attend six days of teachings by the Dalai Lama, some of you may wonder what I learned from the great good fortune to be present for spiritual instruction from one of the world's foremost leaders in faith. I know the folks reading this email are coming from many different reference points in terms of religion and spirituality; I'm no authority on Buddhism, but I'd like to share just a little bit of what the teachings meant to me.

View of the crowd of Tibetans in front of the Kungri temple (courtesy of Dana A.)

By the way I'm not a Tibetan Buddhist, I don't even consider myself a Buddhist really, though I seek to drink deeply from the cup of that wisdom tradition. That being said, the Buddha's great achievement and example of the possibility that a human being can attain enlightenment has been a powerful inspiration to me since I first read Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha at the age of 19. Since then I've read and studied Buddhism at times and found my life to be greatly enriched by its gentle, openhearted and inclusive teachings on how to live. I've particularly admired Buddhism for offering to people what they wish to take from its teachings, without insistence on conversion.

The Dalai Lama seated on the dais at the Kungri temple (courtesy of Dana A.)

The first three days in Kungri the Dalai Lama gave teachings on "Finding Rest in Meditation," "Finding Rest in the Mind Itself," and "The Smooth Path of Omniscience," all Buddhist texts authored by scholars of the Nyingmapa tradition hundreds of years ago. The teachings at Tabo Monastery were called a Vajradhatu Initiation, which as I understand it was a "transmission" of the Dalai Lama's spiritual energy to those in attendance to assist us on our paths towards enlightenment, whether that be achieved in this life, five or five thousand lifetimes hence ... During these six days of teachings, even though quite a bit of the material was a little too focused on tantric scripture and ritual for a non-Buddhist layperson like myself, I felt that I gained a much greater appreciation of the practice of Tibetan Buddhism by the faithful—and the vast majority of those in attendance at the teachings were local Tibetan villagers and monks, whose reverence and awe towards His Holiness was very moving to witness.

New friend Dana a. from Israel (many thanks to her for the photos of the Dalai Lama in Kungri)

The aspect of the teachings that was most relevant to me was the Dalai Lama's speaking on the more universal principles of Buddhism. One of the main points he stressed throughout the teachings was the importance of cultivating bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is a mind (including thought, action, feeling and speech) totally dedicated to others and to achieving full enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings as fully as possible.

Tibetans sitting underneath tented screens to protect pilgrims from the strong sun on the dusty grounds of the Tabo monastery during the Dalai Lama's teachings.

According to the Buddhist viewpoint, we as human beings have two great missions in life: to understand the truth of things as they are, and to understand how best to relate to our fellow beings here in this world we find ourselves in.

The first part of this is quite a challenge to wrap one's mind around; His Holiness talked about the importance of realizing the fundamental emptiness of all conditioned arising phenomena, how everything in our manifest world is constantly changing and therefore its reality is not ultimately inherent in the universe. Our ignorance of this truth causes unsatisfactoriness in our experience over and over, and is the root of all suffering; the answer to the problem is to understand the nonexistence of all things and events except as temporarily arising and passing phenomena. That's where the Buddhist Dharma can be turned to in order to help us in our understanding (Dharma refers to the content of the teachings and wisdom of the Buddha). I think to ultimately grasp the meaning of this truth requires a meditative approach which transcends our ordinary rational mode of perception; for most of us, even an occasional glimpse of this is a great accomplishment.

Photographing inside the temples in India is prohibited; I saw so many beautiful temples during my time in India I couldn't get a picture of. I managed to get a few in Kungri during the hour or so at the end of the teachings when the Kungri temple was opened up for the pilgrims in attendance.

The second part is a bit more accessible to understanding, but a lot harder to put into practice (at least for me). The Dalai Lama said that all the suffering the world contains derives from the desire for happiness for oneself; and all the happiness the world contains derives from the desire for happiness for others. So according to this, individual happiness in life (as opposed to pleasure), personally and collectively, derives from the degree to which the focus is for the benefit of others; and to the degree to which one or one's group is focused on their own happiness as opposed to the benefit of others, unhappiness is derived. That's a bit of a different route to self-satisfaction than most of us in the West are used to.

Tibetan women dressed in traditional costumes; they performed a Tibetan folk dance during a break in the teachings at Tabo.

There is so much more that was covered in the teachings: the importance of overcoming the negative unwholesome states of mind, such as greed, hatred, and ignorance; the wholesome mind states to cultivate, Joy, Equanimity, Compassion, and Love—what Buddhism calls the Four Immeasurables; the notion that it's better to be motivated to achieve buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings than for oneself alone. I'm sure much of the great body of teachings covered by His Holiness during those six days has eluded my conscious retention; I can only hope that through spiritual osmosis some of that wisdom filtered into my being anyway.

Tibetan pilgrims lining up to receive prasad (food blessed by the Dalai Lama) after the last day of the teachings at the Tabo monastery.

One incident regarding this wonderful teacher particularly stands out in my mind. The last day of the teachings went kind of long, and in the afternoon the Dalai Lama was finishing up the Vajradhatu Initiation by leading those assembled in the 28 hand mudras (gestures) which correspond to the visualization of 28 deities of protection residing within a mandala symbolically used as part of the practice of tantric Buddhism. We'd all been sitting on the hard ground for over four hours, the wind was blowing dust from the grounds of the ancient monastery all over us, and I particularly was beginning to feel a bit irritable and impatient (it's a long road to enlightenment for me!); I didn't relate that much to the ritualistic part of the teachings, had no intention of becoming a Tibetan Buddhist, and in a somewhat less-than-compassionate state of mind was wondering when His Holiness would finally finish going on and on with all these crazy hand gestures and wrap up the teachings so I could get up, stretch my aching knees, and get on with my life. As the Dalai Lama demonstrated something like the 24th mudra on the television monitor which we were watching him on that day (the old Tabo monastery was too small to contain the assembled crowd), he suddenly broke into a delightful laugh, almost a giggle, as he watched his own hands demonstrate what could be considered a silly circular shimmying movement of his hands and loose wrists. All the heaviness and impatience I was feeling melted as I watched this great man make it a little easier on all of us to finish up the teachings. To me the wonderful light laughter of this man, which graced us throughout the teachings, said as much about the Dalai Lama as any of the powerful truths he passed on to us.

View from the bus ride through the Spiti Valley after leaving Tabo.

Manali and Delhi

The day after the teachings were over I got up at 3 am, received a ride from one of the Tibetan farmers we'd been staying with into town with my bags, and boarded the local bus (which left at 5am) and rode for twelve hours from Tabo out through those fabulous mountain valleys back to Manali. By the time we got into Manali I was pretty tired, and felt a bit ill, perhaps from all the dust I must've breathed from the road on the way back, and perhaps also from the descent from the much higher elevations in Spiti. I got a room in a guesthouse in Vashist, a village 4 kilometers outside the hustle and bustle of Manali, and spent a few quiet days there resting and making travel arrangements for the next leg of my journey.

View from Vashist, a village outside of Manali where I stayed for a few days after returning from the Dalai Lama's teachings.

Waiting at the Manali bus station (basically a muddy parking lot) for the 16-hour ride on the "deluxe" bus back to Delhi.

Over the weekend I took the bus from Manali back to Delhi (16 hours), spending one more day enjoying the warmth and hospitality of Ushi and Avnish at their guesthouse where I'd stayed my first weekend in India. I did some sightseeing, checking out some of Delhi's old Muslim landmarks, and went on Avnish's hidden Delhi tour the next morning, which was great—starting early in the morning, he took us through a park where we fed the monkeys, then on to the Delhi flower market, after which we took bicycle rickshaws through Old Delhi's narrow alleys, covering the red light district, fruit and vegetable markets, breakfasting at a place where we watched them make yogurt lassis (thick sweet yogurt drinks) and sweet chelabis (dough deep fried in circular curls and then dipped in sugar syrup), and finished at a Hindu temple where Avnish gave us a fine presentation on the Hindu cosmology of the gods Shiva, Ganesh, Krishna, and Hanuman. It was good to see some of the positive cultural features of Delhi; it's too easy to feel a bit negative and overwhelmed by the scam artists, touts and the heat in that city.

A snakecharmer on the city streets of Delhi.

Vendor making chelabis, deep-fried dough dipped in sugar syrup, in Old Delhi. Note stacks of puris (hollow deep-fried bread) already made.

Our tour of Old Delhi included a visit to see an Indian laundry, where manual human labor does the work of getting clothes clean.

Monday afternoon I flew more than halfway across the subcontinent to Chennai, where I've come to study yoga and explore the south for a while. More about that in my next email.

May everyone be well and happy—blessings upon you all.

Sol