Art appreciation

As some of you know, I spent about four years travelling around India and Nepal, and about two of those were following HH the Dalai Lama to his many places of teaching and discourse throughout India.

Nowadays, some wags probably consider that stalking. There was a day when it was considered pilgrimage. That's what you do with saints, in the Hindu and Buddhist tradition. Saints don't stay in one place, they keep travelling. You follow them around.

Anyway, some of my favourite moments were in and around the teaching sites, where "Life's Rich Pageant" coalesces.

This photo was taken one morning in 2006 at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh at the Central Institute of Tibetan Higher Studies, where everyone was queuing for the metal detector to get into teachings.

Last week, I received some Art Appreciation from a Flickr user named East Med Wanderer:

Great shot! All life is there - it has the quality of composition of one of the great master painters. And with a point and shoot - terrific!

Sometimes that's all it takes to make your day, or week. One of the great master painters probably would include the entire face of the purple-wearing woman at left, though - for compositional balance. That way, there would be two women facing each outside corner.

I can no longer post the larger versions of the photos - they kept getting stolen off the blog site. You can view (but not right-click) a larger version here.

Punching Lamas

Nutshell synopsis:
It's a familiar formula that still never fails to jar and enrage: The Chinese as saviours of that which they have destroyed; protectors of that which they despise.

......
De-coding the cryptoganda
News from China

There's lots of "Panchen Lama" in the news this week, what with the Chinese government's Serf's Emancipation Day being forcibly observed in Tibet, and their "World Buddhist Forum" featuring their very own child star, the puppet Panchen Lama.

So, looks like it's time for my semi-annual Panchen Lama blog.


A Tale of Two Lamas
People often ask me: "Will the Panchen Lama be the next Dalai Lama?"

First of all, not really, as they're two separate offices. Once you've been recognized as a Panchen Lama, you cannot become a Dalai Lama and vice versa.

Second, depends on exactly to whom you're referring.

The PL usually referred to as the "real" one, Gedun Chokyi Nyima, at left, hasn't been seen since 1995.

The "PL" currently appearing at the Forum is a hand-picked Chinese stand-in, and he would become something like "a new Dalai Lama," if the Chinese government had their way.

A five-year-old boy was chosen by the Dalai Lama as successor to the 10th Panchen Lama in 1995, but he has disappeared from public view since his selection became known. China's critics ... called him the world's youngest political prisoner. (from the Boston Globe)

The Chinese puppet "Panchen Lama," known by Tibetan loyalists as "Panchen Zuma" or Fake Panchen, is being trotted out as the key guest at China's own "World Buddhist Forum."

Conspicious by their absence: all the world's most famous Buddhists, like His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, HH the Gyalwa Karmapa, and Vietnamese Rev. Thich Nhat Hanh, among others.

I wonder whether any of the participants in this "conference" disputed or boycotted the absence of HHDL - as Tutu, DeKlerk and many others are in the case of South Africa's failure to issue Him a visa for an international peace conference?

Of course, we all know it's not safe for the Dalai Lama to go to China. But it seems any real Buddhist leaders worth their mani mantras ought to boycott such a conference being held in China.

Like McCartney's post-Beatles re-education campaign to depict himself (rather than Lennon) as the real "artistic" one, the Chinese government continues to rewrite history and cast itself as a saviour and proponent of Buddhist culture and religion.

Note that many of these "news" stories are from the official Chinese press, such as People's Daily. I give you clips as they are delivered to me by Yahoo News Alerts (Keyword: Buddhist).

Experts: Protection of intangible Buddhist heritage in China significant
People's Daily Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:13 PM PDT
Buddhist experts attending the World Buddhist Forum over the weekend called for enough attention to the protection and inheritance of the intangible Buddhist heritage. "Buddhist culture is an important part of the intangible cultural inheritage in China"....

What a nice statement. Too bad China was and is one of the prime destroyers of that intangible culture.

In a similar vein:

Chinese Buddhists urge international cooperation in scripture researches China Economic Net Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:23 PM PDT Buddhist experts attending the World Buddhist Forum here called for international cooperation in researching and protecting the Tripitaka, the encyclopedia of Buddhist culture.

And here are appearances by the stage-managed Chinese Panchen:

China's Panchen Lama criticizes "unscrupulous" foes
Boston Globe Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:01 AM PDT
The young Tibetan anointed by China as its Buddhist figurehead for the region said Tibet faces assaults on stability from an "unscrupulous" individual, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled denunciation of the Dalai Lama.

Panchen Lama, businessmen weigh Buddhism's impact on business China Economic Net Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:22 PM PDT Singing, listening and taking notes, the 11th Panchen Lama, Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu, attended a forum Sunday here with businessmen and monks, where they discussed Buddhist philosophies related to business.

I thought the Chinese kid's name was Gyancain Norbu...??

...and on the stories go...you can tell which news sources are China-approved and which are not by whether they specify "the China-backed Panchen." This Taiwanese paper carefully notes the irony of "officially atheist China turning to Buddhism":

China turns to Buddhism to calm Tibet, Taiwan tensions
Chinapost.com.tw Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:18 PM PDT
WUXI, China -- The Beijing-backed Panchen Lama addressed an international Buddhist audience in English on Saturday, as officially atheist China turned to Buddhism as a balm for internal unrest and international tensions.

It's a familiar formula that still never fails to jar and enrage: The Chinese as saviours of that which they have destroyed; protectors of that which they despise.

Related reading: 

Himalayan Tragedy: The Story of Tibet's Panchen Lamas 

Party line

Indian media-watchers will have a familiar response to this headline:

Indian newspaper applauds China's democratic reform achievements in Tibet

12:07, March 29, 2009

When I saw this, I immediately said, "It HAS to be The Hindu."

And, so it was.

The democratic reform in China's Tibet Autonomous Region abolished the theocratic system, did away with feudal serfdom and slavery, emancipated about a million serfs, and laid the basis for the modern development of the region as a part of the Chinese socialist system, an Indian newspaper said Saturday.

The reform in 1959 brought forward China's project of freeing a million serfs, said a leading editorial published by The Hindu, one of India's major English newspapers, which echoed the celebration of Tibet's first Serfs Emancipation Day, an official annual holiday, and denounced the Dalai Lama's past persecution of the Tibetan people. ....

The Hindu, otherwise a well-regarded and venerable established paper, has an extremely pro-China and pro-Communist editor. I heard he gets free trips to China courtesy their government to keep printing anti-Dalai Lama crap like this. 

Related reading:  
India and Tibet; a history of the relations which have subsisted by Francis Younghusband
 

Tamaso maa jyotir gamaya*

The business of Buddha
News from Karnataka

Buddhism is a growth industry. In India, where most people are Buddhist for business purposes (catering mainly to foreign Buddhists), an astonishing number of new structures, complexes and facilities are always going up in the name of the Tathagata.

I think it's mostly great; all the statue-carving (shilpas) and icon-painting gives employment to traditional artisans. And though religious conversion (even from Hinduism to Buddhism) is still a fiery topic in India, it definitely promotes good will toward the Dharma and its exponents.

One of the latest is Gulbarga, Karnataka, according to this Deccan Herald report. Hey, even HHDL will be there on January 19!

I think Gulbarga is better known for some Sufi Muslim tombs, and a fort. But Buddhist remains and relics and ruins are all over India, and continue to be revealed and revitalized.

Gulbarga offers a rich history of the earliest Buddhist settlement of Satavahana period, [2000 or so years ago]. One of the ancient sites here is in Kanaganahalli near Sannati, a famous Buddhist heritage site on the banks of river Bhima in Chitapur taluk.

The remains of stupas, major rock edicts of King Ashoka, mounds, slab inscriptions and statues are all found scattered in a small area within the revenue limits of Kanaganahalli. About five to six stupa remains are found in and around Sannati.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch
In the meantime, in case there was any doubt, Nepal now officially sucks. We only have power for 8 (eight) hours A DAY.

With all the chaos facing the nation, the dominant political party has occupied itself invading the Inner Sanctum of the nation's holiest shrine and trying to replace the 260-year-old traditional priests, who as per tradition came from south India, with Nepalis. One of whom just happens to have the same surname as the Prime Minister himself!

Lighting oil lamps is no longer a charming Hindu and Buddhist custom...it's a necessity.

*Sanskrit slok that means "Lead me from the darkness into the light"


Related reading:  
Buddhist Goddesses of India 

Don't believe the heap

This just in! mountain made from molehill, film at 11
Kathmandu, Nepal

We have enough mountains here in the Himalayan Former Kingdom. In fact, with no petrol, no money, no roads, limited diesel and propane, no electricity, no schoolbooks and no real government or rule of law it's about all we've got.

I can't help but notice that some writers have lately added to the surplus, marking "Mountain" on our cultural and political maps where mere "Molehills" once stood.

One easy way to create a mountain is to heap up the hype of "news" where there is none.

Case in point: (jumping over to the western Himalayas for a moment):
Nicolas D. Kristof's assertion a couple weeks ago that HH Dalai Lama's acceptance of Communist Party Rule in Tibet marked a "major turning point" (or some such nonsense) in the so-called dialogue between the Tibetan Government in Exile and the Chinese.

"An Olive Branch from the Dalai Lama"? What was he doing before, hurling invective?

Breathless with excitement, the double-Pulitzer winner Kristof rings what he clearly believes to be a clarion call:

One signal is this: For the first time, the Dalai Lama is willing to state that he can accept the Socialist system in Tibet under Communist Party rule. This is something that Beijing has always demanded, and, after long discussion, the Dalai Lama has agreed to do so.

News Flash to Nicky!: The Dalai Lama has always said this. He's been saying it for years (HHDL always says he's a socialist anyway, even calling himself a Marxist) and besides, it will hardly be seen as some major concession - the Chinese never considered it up for discussion.

Before I could muster my disdain for this silliness, Manyank Chhaya beat me to it in this very lucid article which explains the non-event.

Indeed, the entire (widely republished, including in the International Herald Tribune) article appears to have been written in order for Kristof to reiterate, "I met the Dalai Lama personally. That's right, I got to sit and talk with him. The BIG D.L.! and ME!"

It's just like last year's reports that claimed the Dalai Lama was going to "resign." The Dalai Lama's been saying for literal years that the minute he's not needed politically, he will devote himself entirely to delivering Buddhist teachings and spiritual matters. This is nothing at all new. Every writer just wants to be the first to break some new angle on a Dalai Lama story so they try to put old Chhang in new bottles.

...dot dot dot.....

By the way, in case you were wondering what the so-called "dialogue" or "talks" between HHDL's special envoys and the Hu Jintao sound like, our special Siren On the Scene had her ear to a tea-glass against the wall at the most recent Round of Talks in Beijing. She swears it went something like this:

HH: We give in! You run the government, just let us run our own religion. That's all we want.

Chinese Govt.: DALAI AND "DALAI CLIQUE" IS A SPLITTIST WOLF IN MONK'S CLOTHING TRAITOR TO THE MOTHERLAND BARBARIC FEUDAL LORD WHO DRINKS THE BLOOD OF POOR PEASANTS FOR AN APERTIF AND SUCKS THE MARROW OF THE WORKING CLASS DURING HAPPY HOUR

HH: Not really, actually you can stay in political and military power....we just want to run our monasteries and rituals according to our own traditions.

China: YOU WANT TO DESTROY UNIFIED CHINA AND RETURN TIBET TO THE DARK FEUDAL AGES WHERE EVERYONE WORE LEG IRONS LIKE BLING BLING AND ON THE WEEKENDS WENT TO PUBLIC EXECUTIONS INSTEAD OF INDOCTRINATION RALLIES LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE

HH: Uh, no...

China (sticks fingers in collective ears): LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA LA........

(Lather, rinse, and repeat - for the past six years.)

The "di" in dialogue means "two." The Sino-Tibetan DI-scussion is more of a monologue, going only one way.

And in other non-news....

On the other side of the Himalayas, scandal-mongering secularists attempt to create child abuse stories where there are none. The way to create a mountain, in this case, is to accrete creative imagery and selective exaggeration atop a religious custom you clearly don't understand.

There is plenty of child abuse in Nepal. Bonded labour, child trafficking, and so on. But these folks aren't concerned with that.

Witness today's "news" by AFP's Sam Taylor:

KATHMANDU (AFP) - A Nepali tradition of locking a young virgin girl in a palace and worshipping her as a "living goddess" has been dealt a blow with the country's Supreme Court ruling she has the right to go to school.

"LOCKING a YOUNG VIRGIN" (as opposed to a wrinkly, OLD virgin) "in a PALACE! " Now there's real objective journalism - visuals courtesy The Brothers Grimm.

It's sort of like saying that child monks are locked in a monastery, or that kids in a Catholic boarding school are prisoners. They are kids. Their parents decided where they would go, like most kids. In those places, there are rules. No kid has a "right" to go just anywhere he or she wants to...that's part of what it means to be a kid.


These girls' parents accepted the title of Kumari for the girl. They could have refused. The girl receives home-schooling, which is quite a luxury in a country where many children get no education at all. Her health care needs are met. There is no "labour" to speak of and even if there were, why are the plaintiffs not equally concerned with the thousands of bonded child labourers across the region?Above: Sajani during, and below after, Kumarihood. Photos by me

What if the girl doesn't want to be a Kumari? What if she doesn't want to enter a beauty pageant, be a child spokesmodel on TV, or take piano lessons? Do kids ever really get to say no?

Sure, she could be non-cooperative. She could sulk and be rebellious (I definitely tried it). The parents could still force her to do any of these, non-abusive, activities.

Those claiming to be so concerned for the various Kumaris' "rights" should review the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ones they keep harping on but haven't actually read. It seems none of them are violated by the Kumari tradition.

...the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

I would submit that the meaning of participating fully in cultural and social life varies from culture to culture. In a typical Nepali household, "full participation" of girl children in family life means doing a full day of chores after school, if they do indeed attend school. Carrying water from the well, chopping vegetables, sweeping, cleaning, laundry and so on are all "full participation." Female literacy overall in Nepal stands below an appalling 27%.

The Kumari is exempt from all these things, and as such is quite privileged, rather than deprived. There isn't a whole lot of hanging out giggling at the mall involved in the average Nepali girlhood. All the Kumaris are able to receive visitors and play with children their own age - they are hardly sequestered in the locked palatial towers Taylor suggests.

Some interested parties made much ado about the Bhaktapur Ekanta Kumari's being "forbidden" to travel overseas last year to promote the documentary Living Goddess. In fact, Sajani Sakya herself was never forbidden to do anything. The seated KUMARI, however, traditionally does not travel in such a way. Sajani was free to go, but that would mean surrendering the title of Kumari. It was her (and her parents') decision.

Every title and position has its rules. Miss America, Eagle Scout, Class President and other titles can also be rescinded if protocol is not followed. The person is free to do as they like; but in order to retain the title, they must follow the rules. It's not a rights issue, it's an issue of whether or not you want to keep the job.

And that's about all the non-news that's fit to print.

Lha Gyalo

....means "victory to the Gods" in Tibetan
Kathmandu

From my sickbed (severe, persistent giardia) I've been watching the, er, progress of various situations here in the 'Du (or as Tnog perceptively called it, the Mountain 'Du).

Having missed both HH Dalai Lama's birthday celebrations -- July 6 is now World Tibet Day - as well as the first in-exile birthday celebration of HM Gyanendra (he stayed in at his new downsized digs, the Nagarjun hunting lodge on the edge of town), I was delighted to see that, for once, due process - this time in the form of a Supreme Court verdict - seems to have worked in Nepal.

About two weeks ago, three Tibetan community leaders were imprisoned without charge. Most alarming was the fact that one of them (Kalsang Chung) was not at all involved in pro-Tibetan demonstrations and in fact was the director of the Tibetan Refugees' Reception Center (the first place new arrivals go when they've crossed the mountains, escaping Chinese Tibet).

Since I couldn't get any first-hand info, here are the news blurbs. Lha Gyalo!

Nepal court orders release of Tibetan leaders
Reuters via Yahoo! News Tue, 08 Jul 2008 6:46 AM PDT
Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the release of three senior Tibetan refugee officials recently arrested in Katmandu and accused of involvement in anti-China activities.

Nepal: 3 Detained For Anti-China Protests Released Scoop.co.nz Tue, 08 Jul 2008 8:19 PM PDT 8 July 2008 - The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal has welcomed the release of three people who had been detained under the country's Public Security Act (PSA).

Tibetans hail Nepal's release of three jailed leaders
IANS via Yahoo! India News Tue, 08 Jul 2008 5:06 AM PDT
Kathmandu, July 8 (IANS) Tibetans in Kathmandu Tuesday hailed the release of three jailed community leaders, including two women, after Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to free them.

Coming attractions

Lamawatch continues
Dharamsala via Kathmandu
----------------
Now playing: Tenzin Dhondup - About the DraNyen
via FoxyTunes


I am very often asked, "When will the Dalai Lama be appearing publicly in India?"

This is question I always welcome; my eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas morning.

I should really write the Complete Guide to Seeing HH in India - how to get a seat, what to bring and not to bring, how to register, where to stay and so on. It does require some planning, but unlike in the west, his public teachings in India are always free. (That's right. Five or 10 days with the Dalai Lama - for free.)

You can always get His Holiness' latest schedule updates at the Official Website.

And it pays to check every few weeks - there are always changes. He's in Germany now, but I am happy to report that HH will be back in Dharamsala later this summer.

It's very, very hard to believe that it will have been nearly ONE YEAR since I've actually seen him....but that's the way the river flows sometimes.

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from August 4 to 6: His Holiness will give teachings on Atisha's Lamp for the Path To Enlightenment (jangchup lam kyi drolma) at the request of a Korean group.

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from September 25 to 27: His Holiness will give teachings on Je Tsongkhapa's The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (lamrim chenmo) at the request of the The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore). Contact: The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore), 02-28 No. 1 New World Center, Singapore 209037 Singapore Tel: +65 6491 1027 Website: www.tibetanbc.org

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from October 1 to 5: His Holiness will give teachings for Chinese Buddhists.

K-Town Updates

News from Nowhere
Kathmandu, Nepal

--The "historic" agreement signed last Thursday between the UMDF (United Madheshi Democratic Front), which had been spearheading the Tarai agitations, and the provisional government here in the 'du seems to have eased the petrol crisis. Now the trucks delivering gasoline from the Indian "mainland" should be able to get through without obstruction....unless, of course, one of the other several Tarai-based ethnic groups decides to launch an agitation. (The Madheshis aren't the only disenfranchised people living in the Tarai, just the noisiest.)

--My acquaintance Sajani Sakya, the Bhaktapur Kumari, has decided (or more likely it has been decided for her) to take early retirement from her post as Living Goddess. The 11- year-old girl's parents chose to have Sajani undergo a traditional Newar ritual of "ihi," or symbolic marriage to a fruit.

It's not as weird as it sounds (or maybe it is, and I have just been in this part of the world too long). Bollywood goddess Aishwarya Rai underwent a form of the same type ritual prior to her marriage to Abhishek Bacchan (in her case, she ritually "married" a tree).

Most Newar girls undergo this simple ritual around age 11, but Kumaris do not. Why this was so important for Sajani to do this now is a mystery. Anyway, the search is on for a new Bhaktapur Kumari, and Sajani is now attending public school like a regular girl.

--Maha Shivratri - a major Hindu holiday for the god Shiva - is coming up, which should mean the freaks, sadhus and Shiva Bhakts will be on display at Pashupatinath. That's March 6th, by the way.


--in a non-Nepal based story: many people write to me asking about where they can see HH the Dalai Lama. HH's schedule is always available at his official website. As this is the year of the Beijing Olympics, he will be abroad most of the year hoping to raise the profile of the Tibet issue as well as that of other human rights issues within China.

However, it's just been announced he will be teaching in Kaza, Himachal Pradesh (I think that's in Spiti valley) from June 22-24. There is little commercial accomodation in the area and the HP government is trying to figure out how to house all the pilgrims. Maybe I'll bring a tent.

More news as it happens!

Once in a lifetime

Letting the days go by....
Kathmandu, Nepal

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may say to yourself
"am I right? am I wrong?"
and you may ask yourself
"My God - What have I done?"

Nothing is working. My camera's picture card, the laptop, my watch, audio recorder, cell phone - every piece of personal technology I own is, in some way, broken or dysfunctional.

The one Skype terminal in town sounds like it's coming through Peter Frampton's Vocoder (or was it a Talkbox?), and international phone lines are usually jammed.

Of course, the fact that power is OFF eight hours a day means, among lots of other things, that that's eight hours less of available fax time for the all-important fax to be transmitted from the FRRO in Delhi.

At this rate, I can only hope to be back in India in time for Tibetan Uprising Day (March 10), when a group of Tibetans will begin a march back to Lhasa. Somehow, I am going to have to find out the origin point of the march and its planned route. For obvious reasons this is being kept somewhat secret.

This photo of the young monks listening to translation on an I-pod was taken at 2007 Spring Teachings.

In local news: three weeks in Nepal has convinced me that the elections are, once again, not going to happen as projected this coming April.

Meanwhile, back in Himachal:
The people I asked to hold my bags and reserve a room for me must be wondering where the hell I am. The phones never work here now, and they don't do email.

The picture below was taken at the Dalai Lama Temple in Dharamsala a couple years ago. The Tibetan women are performing prostrations (full-body-length prayers) in front of the main temple.

Here's a report lifted directly from Phayul.com about the opening days of HH Dalai Lama's Spring Teachings (aka, Where I'm Spozed To Be).

One year ago, things were so simple. How did things get so complicated?

Dharamsala, February 23: Thousands of Buddhist devotees are attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama's annual spring teachings, which began Friday at the Main Tibetan Temple (tsuglag khang).

Earlier on Thursday, the Tibetan spiritual leader gave teachings on Jataka Tales after presiding over the “Butter Lamp Festival” (Choe-nga Choepa, held on the fifteenth day or the full moon day of the first Tibetan Lunar month), which is the highlight of the Monlam Chenmo (the Great Prayer Festival). On Friday, His Holiness began his spring teachings with Dhammapada texts....

...Alongside main discourse, His Holiness has also been giving teachings on “The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa” (Mi-la-ras-pa’I gur-’bum).

Below is a full text found on the Dalai Lama’s website following the first day of the spring teachings:
The two texts His Holiness the Dalai Lama is to teach belong to the Six Major Texts of the Kadampa Tradition: the Jatakas and Udarnavaga (Dhammapada); Asanga’s Bodhisattva Grounds and Maitreya’s Ornament of Sutras; finally, Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life and Compendium of Trainings.

His Holiness clarifies that his approach to presenting the Buddhadharma is first to describe its benefit and second how to put it into practice.

All sentient beings yearn for happiness, but not all know how to achieve it. Clearly, material development counts for a lot, but not if it increases your anxiety.

More important is having a calm mind. Recently doctors have demonstrated that medication alone does not affect a cure; calmness of mind also has a role to play.

Cultivating love and affection, warm-heartedness in our relations with others is a source of inner calm.

Diplomatic license

Irrational International Relations
Kathmandu, Nepal

There just can't be such a thing as a normal visit to the Indian Embassy of Kathmandu. It just IS NOT allowed.

Always, there has to be some kind of extenuating circumstance inserting itself into the few thousand feet between my guest house and the complex of bungalow-style buildings in Lazimpat.

Today's episode featured a blockade of the front gates of the Indian Embassy by members of the Nepal Army, or maybe Nepalis in the Indian Army. What? No one could explain properly; evidently it had something to do with Nepali members of the Indian army striking for better pay and improved conditions.

Guys, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but have you looked around the neighborhood lately? You are lucky to have a job at all, let alone one working for the neighborhood superpower.

So I had to find the "secret" back entrance by a public school. Evidently this strike has been going on for a while, because the school gate has actually been now painted with the name "Indian Embassy Entrance." Armed soldiers come and go along with the uniformed schoolchildren and orange-robed ascetics applying for Indian visas.

When I finally reached the window, I was surprised to see the famous Toupee Man was no more. Toupee Uncle, gone! Now who's gonna smile at me and make playful banter?

In fact, all the faces had changed. Great, now I have to ingratiate myself anew.

A Colombian woman in line next to me had heard, via the expat jungle telegraph, that the previous crew had all been transposed - caught for taking baksheesh in exchange for issuing five-year visas, and sent upriver to some other office.

However, the grace of the avatars was in my corner. The new man at the window was either a Sherpa, or a Tibetan.

"WHY you are coming and going so much from India?" he asked, flipping suspiciously through the - by now several dozen - various stamps and stickers in my passport.

Of course, there MUST be a nefarious reason to want to spend time in India. I love this logic - it's as though they're admitting that no one in their right minds would go there. Come to think of it, they do have a point.

My impeccably chaste reply:
I am following His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

(Note to karma police: Forgive me for name-dropping, just trying to get back to Dharamsala to see Him.... this year he's teaching Dhammapada.)

The guy's head snapped up. "Really?"

Sure. Wanna see?

I switched on my camera and flipped through the close-range photos for him, as his eyes widened.

"You have MET him?"

Yes.

"He KNOWS you?"

Yes. (Not by name, just as that gutsy American woman who bullies around the Indian male news photographers. HH does get a chuckle out of this, I have seen it.)

Would you like some tenshug? I asked, reaching into my bag of silken blessing cords that had been 'zapped' by just two of the 1000 Arms of Avalokiteshvara.

Problem solved. Thanks, HH!

Because of some Hindu holiday (of course, there's one on a weekly basis - but what the hell is 11 February? - oh that's right, Vasant Panchami), I can't retrieve the visa till 14 February.

But Mercury will still be retrograde...maybe this time I'd better bring along some Precious Pill.

All About Vasant Panchami
I'm glad it's Vasant Panchami. If there were ever a patron goddess of Geek Girls, it would be Maa Saraswati.

Saraswati is the goddess of wisdom, art and music. It is believed that goddess Saraswati endows human beings with the powers of speech, wisdom and learning.
She has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning: mind, intellect, alertness and ego. She has sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus — the symbol of true knowledge — in the second.

(Actually, it's not a lotus she is holding in the second hand...it is a mala, or prayer beads for saying mantra.)

With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on a string instrument called the veena.

She is dressed in white — the symbol of purity — and rides on a white swan that symbolises Sattwa Guna or purity and discrimination.

Saraswati is also a prominent figure in Buddhist iconography — the consort of Manjushri.

Yaa Kundendu tushaara haaradhavalaa, Yaa shubhravastraavritha Yaa veenavara dandamanditakara, Yaa shwetha padmaasana Yaa brahmaachyutha shankara prabhritibhir Devaisadaa VandithaSaa Maam Paatu Saraswatee Bhagavatee Nihshesha jaadyaapahaa

Translation --
"May Goddess Saraswati, who is fair like the jasmine-colored moon, and whose pure white garland is like frosty dew drops; who is adorned in radiant white attire, on whose beautiful arm rests the veena, and whose throne is a white lotus; who is surrounded and respected by the Gods, protect me. May you fully remove my lethargy, sluggishness, and ignorance."

I dare ya

Wouldn't it be nice?
Delhi

It is Friday night, and I'm in Majnu Ka Tilla, Delhi's Tibet Colony. I need to get my Delhi-ing all in one location. MT is good for accomodation, but a lousy location with boring food. Paharganj is a good central location but too noisy and crazy.

There's lots of arguments about who should get this year's Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian honour).

Mostly, it's Indian career politicians arguing about whether their cronies should be nominated.

The Indian Tibet Support Networks as well as other Indian Tibet activists, however, say it should be the man who is, if not the last true Gandhian, certainly the most prominent and beloved example of non-violence living today- HH the Dalai Lama.

The Bharat Ratna need not be given to Indians per se. Previous recipients include Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa.

Seeing as how the Central Indian government, back in November, directed Cabinet ministers NOT to attend a Delhi reception for HH upon his return to India from receiving the US Congressional Medal of Honour, this seems a distant dream.

It seems all the cabinet ministers dutifully stayed away, though one former PM did attend. Here's what Inder Kumar Gujral had to say.

He told the Dalai Lama that India shares the honor of the U.S. medal because it expresses the philosophy of modern India's spiritual father, Mahatma Gandhi.

"This inscription on the medal by itself embodies Gandhi in spirit and Gandhi's message, and your presence. And when the Congress presented it to you we felt honored, because we thought that this was a message which was not only given to you, but to the Indian nation also," he said.

The world's most coveted photo opportunity - a shot with the beaming bespectacled monk -
is also the most taboo for politicians.

Come on, guys. What is REALLY going to happen if you do it? China's going to stop sending over crappy plastic toys? flat screen TVs? running shoes maybe?

What were all those decades of anti-imperialism for if you can't stand up to the fastest growing empire?

What good is all the talk of independence and sovereignty if you live in fear of retribution for having your photo taken with India's greatest living saint? You wouldn't let America boss you around like that!

I dare ya! Honour HH Dalai Lama with the Bharat Ratna.

"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

Out come the freaks

The Demographics of Devotion
Majnu Ka Tilla, Delhi

I've often commented on HH the Dalai Lama's ability to bring together a diverse range of people. The foreground and wake of any DL event is always evidence of Life's Rich Pageant.

And, here they are now, all around me. In the countdown days to the Mundgod event they are all coming in to roost.

A guy at the opposite breakfast table this morning looked like he was auditioning for the part of Merlin or Gandalf, with a long white scraggly beard and some kind of robe. There are always a few who look like extras from a Biblical period movie (beard and sandals).

I used to be far more tolerant of this sort of thing. At one point, it was what we foreigners in India were known for (dropping out and dressing like slobs).

Now I have personally experienced the damage this has done to our image abroad and am a bit impatient with it. Okay, we come to India to "do our own thing," but can we please comb our hair (this really seems to rankle Indians, westerners with messy hair) and just not dress in costume? -- Costumes that are some weird kind of pretentious parody of things we thought we would find in India? Foreign tourists and visitors in India are still living down the image that we all come here to have orgies and smoke charas. "Real" Indian guest houses (as opposed to ones geared towards foreigners) are often wary of foreign guests and we often get the slithery eyeball ("decadent westerners in our establishment! The decadent Indians are bad enough but at least they don't draw attention!").

What's Your Movie?
You can see the kind of "trip" each one is on from their trappings. One's on an orange-clad spiritual Krishna kind of trip, another with his mysterious black thinks he's some kind of tantric master on the road to discovering Tibetan secrets.

Then there are the followers of the Upper Middle Path. They are well-groomed midwesterners or trendy Coasters and tend to travel in large groups with name badges, usually attached to some American or European dharma centre who has organized the trip. Excuse me, pilgrimage. They are on *pilgrimage.* I watched the blow-dried group this morning, led by their red-robed monk shepherd. They insisted he say grace in Tibetan before they ate their pancakes. God knows how many thousands of dollars they are paying for this packaged chaperoned India.

I suppose I shouldn't be mocking Americans who have an impulse to explore other cultures and travel abroad - after all I am one myself, and when you consider the great mall-going masses, really these folks are quite refreshing. This group (UMP) tend to be extremely open, almost wide-eyed about the whole thing. But, just that whole thing of ... trying to turn EVERYTHING, even pancakes, into some significant religious experience to tell stories about back home.

Then there are the career Buddhists in the know. They travel independently and always know the date HH is arriving, the date of the long-life puja and never fail to have some kind of inside information about some top-secret ribbon cutting event that ONLY Rinpoche so and so knows about, and he told them...but don't tell anyone....

There are also Buddhist clergy of all nationalities and robe-colours, it's almost like a monastic fashion show. Maroon, mustard, and grey are the most common, but you will also find orange, black and white for various Buddhist denominations. Australian and Taiwanese nuns, Ladakhi and American monks. Tibetans speaking English, Americans speaking Tibetan, Tibetans speaking Hindi to shopkeepers...

...and of course the French, who are visibly struggling, finally having to admit that French is NOT the most important language in the world. I enjoy seeing them limp along, struggling to be misunderstood by the locals who speak much better English. Another way to spot the French is by the cigarette smoke - indoors. That, and the fact that they take forever to order in restaurants. Every little thing must be absolutely perfect and they ALWAYS have some special exception they want made ... and they NEVER are able to explain it in good English. Try not to get stuck with a French party in a restaurant, this will delay your order by a good 20 minutes to half hour.

Don't forget the inevitable and numerous beggars (all Indian, many able-bodied and young) who flock anywhere there is a hint of "religion" and foreign money. Please don't give them anything at all, not even food or attention.

Go (away), big orange
There is also a cadre of Indian beggar monks (aka the Stinky Orange monks) in bright orange robes. They are trading on the fact that everyone thinks they're Theravadins from Sri Lanka. But Theravadins are immaculately clean. You can smell these guys coming literally a dozen feet away. I am really not sure what denomination, if any, they fall under; some kind of generic Mahayana I suppose.

Traditionally, monks were supposed to beg for a living --but that took the form of sitting out in the road or going from home to home with a begging bowl and accepting whatever was put into it, regardless. These guys accost foreigners and beg for cash. If you give them too little (10Rs) they complain and ask for more. I think they are actually a pimped begging gang sent out by their master, an unscrupulous "abbot" from Bodh Gaya. They turn over some of the money to their master and pocket what they can.

Thank all the gods for the Tibetan old-timers. They ground the whole event with a peaceful, smiling, uncomplaining presence. Their constantly whirring prayer-wheels create a sort of vortex around them and even on the bus or in the market, many are continually chanting mantras. They and some of the Career Buddhists are the only people wearing Tibetan clothing. The young Tibetans, with short greased up hair and tight jeans, are all dressed like Hindi cinema stars.

Gimme a break
Whew! I need to go for a walk. Maybe down by the river...nope, stinks too bad, way too dirty. I mean the ground itself even, not just the water. All the parks will be jam packed as it's the Sunday following Christmas. There's always Lodi Gardens or Hauz Khas Deer Park.

Down to earth

Back to sea level
Tibet Colony, Delhi, India

I'm in the New Sakya Cyber Cafe in Majnu-Ka Tilla ("Tibet Colony"), Delhi. The cyber guy is playing Chipmunks Christmas music ("Please Christmas Don't Be Late"). I knew Christmas in Delhi would be weird, but I never could have predicted the Chipmunks.

I had to come out here, even though it's not centrally located, because it was a little bit like Ladakh. Or Dharamsala, without the good restaurants.

I am still recovering from the drop in altitude and culture shock. Give me a day or so to produce a proper blog entry. For now, here's the Lamawatch.

Lamawatch: Dharamsala
HH Dalai Lama Begins Teachings of 13 Deity Yamantaka
Dharamsala, December 22: His Holiness the Dalai Lama began a five-day teaching at the Main Temple (Tsuglagkhang) at the request of Gandan Thegchenling Monastery of Ulan Bator, Mongolia. After the five days' teachings, on the morning of December 27, the Mongolian Buddhist group will organise a long life offering ceremony to the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Some 250 Buddhists from Mongolia, mainly monks from the monastery, are attending the teachings. Hundreds of Tibetans and, a sizeable Buddhists from Korea and western countries, and some Chinese Buddhists attended the first day teaching here today....
...Tenzin, a monk student from the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, said that an initiation is a must before carrying out a formal teaching of Guru Puja. “His Holiness has decided to confer Lha Chusoom Jigjey Kawang, one of the highest tantric initiations, for two days this time”, Tenzin says.

Maybe I'll shoot on up on the 12-hour bus ride to Dharamsala. Who better to play Santa Claus than the Big D L? Here's a photo I took at the 2006 Kalachakra in Andhra Pradesh.

Rumour (not yet verified) has it that there will be a January 2009 Kalachakra, again in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh. Shout out to the homeboys and girls in Guntur! Vijay, Teja and Asha - Bagundhi!

So close to heaven

Snowblind
Kaspang, Ladakh
For today's entry I am nicking the title of a pre-existing book about the "Vanishing Himalayan Kingdoms" Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh and Mustang. I have yet to read So Close to Heaven by Barbara Crossette, but it expresses so perfectly the feeling I have when up among the snow covered hills.

Green, gold, grey, white. I have seen the Ladakhi landscape completely change colours four times. When I arrived in August the valleys were lush and green. The green turned to amber gold. There are a few weeks before the serious snow when everything just appears grey. Now from Hemis onward the valleys are blinding white, and the Indus, still running turquoise, is edged in ice.

The picture above was taken from the rooftop of Chemdey Gompa near Serthi ("Sakti") village.

Changes in latitude, changes in attitude
I had such a perfect "last day in Ladakh" on Dec. 19th, with trips to Chemdey and TakTok gompas and cozy, glowing village homes, that I decided to extend my stay another 2 days, into the Winter Solstice. There was a special chaam (ritual masked dance) at Chemdey monastery, and I was invited. A special chaam dance at a monastery on the Solstice - I couldn't resist.

As luck would have it, yesterday I ended up with altitude sickness, which ruined the next 18 hours. How, after 4 months at 13,500 feet, did I end up with altitude sickness, you ask?

I was invited to visit a remote (really remote) mountain monastery called Kaspang, past a valley called Igu, way out past Karu village. "It is so beautiful!" enthused my friends. "You won't believe it."

When we arrived at Igu Village, the entire local populace appeared to be out in the winding street, except for a few kids with makeshift snowboards who were skating on the frozen river. It turned out to be a cremation and funeral. A young woman of the village had died - no more than 25 years old or so.

My friends and the driver could not be deterred from their mission to the monastery. So we drove through lanes that became increasingly less dirt and more snow. About 2 kms from the monastery, the road was just covered in snow - about 4 inches. Not bad to walk in, but too much for the car (not a jeep) to make it uphill.

My Ladakhi friends insisted we abandon the car and walk, uphill, for the next 2kms. After about 1000 feet it became painfully- literally painfully - obvious that we were up too high for me to go hiking.

"How high are we anyway?" I puffed, seeing sparkles like confetti before my eyes.

"Oh, about 15,000 feet" Dorje answered.

For a Ladakhi, that is no problem. For ordinary lowlanders, once you get about 10,000 feet, every 1000 feet or so requires a new adjustment period. If you don't believe me, just try it.

At this point we had been at 15,000 feet about 2 hours. We had gained about 1,500 feet from our starting point in Leh valley. I was suffering in a very real way from altitude. My Ladakhi friends, never having been in this situation themselves, refused to recognize it.

"Come on! It will take only half an hour!" I looked up at the gompa in the distance, which with its white walls against the white mountains, felt like a mirage. It was at least one and a half hour's walk by my speed - including breath-catching stops. My friends could have walked the whole thing in half an hour.

Blood singing in my ears, I turned and looked back where we had walked. The entire panorama was just like Seven Years in Tibet or the Shangri-la movie of your choice - unbelievably austere, lonely, purified by aeons of snow which managed to be crunchy and soft at the same time. Amazingly, not so cold, especially when you are hiking. And no wind.

In the distance a lone man in a black goncha robe was leading an equally black and mighty, shaggy dzo (yak hybrid) through a pass. They looked like ink hieroglyphs on white paper. There was no sign of habitation anywhere around them. The man and animal appeared to have emerged from nowhere - they must have been trudging for hours. I suddenly wished I was riding the ponderous dzo. The yaks and dzos are so deliberate and grave in their movements, they are almost like walking boulders.

I looked down. Tracks of mysterious animals made pie-crust patterns across the powder. Sometimes the tracks criss-crossed one another. The trident shape of a partridge or magpie's feet, what looked like the petite hopping of a snow rabbit, and one kind of track that appeared in sets of three. Must have been a galloping wolf.

Back to reality. "There's no way," I said. "I can't make it. Sorry to ruin all your fun." From the comments, it was obvious my companions just thought I was being a wimp. Literally, I would walk fifty feet and have to collapse onto a rock. Still, they thought I was malingering.

My head was spinning. I heard one of them say, "Come on, take a picture of me with the gompa behind!" (I was the only one with a camera (quite possibly the reason I was invited.)

Finally I got angry. This s*** is dangerous, and here they were joking around about it. "Can you not see," I hissed, "that I am SICK, and ready to collapse? I am NOT laughing. This is NOT a joke. I have every single symptom of altitude, and still you won't listen to me!!! We have to go down." As soon as I was able, I wheeled around and began backtracking firmly toward the car.
By the time we got back to Igu, we had been at 15,000 feet nearly 3 hours. It took nearly the next 24 hours to recover. Moral of the story if you are not Ladakhi: Don't go trekking with Ladakhis (or Tibetans) who are not professional guides. They think you are faking altitude sickness. In a way, it makes sense. They have never and probably will never experience it themselves, unless they climb Everest. Moral of the story if you are Ladakhi: don't take foreigners up to 15,000 feet and then expect them to hike up a hill, unless you want to carry them back down.

Down to earth
When we finally got to Igu, we stopped at the house of a distant relative (all Ladakhis appear to be cousins of cousins of second cousins from their father's village). As if to prove my symptoms were real, I dropped my glass of butter tea on the floor. "I don't have coordination yet." Then I dropped a biscuit someone handed me. And I couldn't really hear anything anyone was saying - like being underwater. It's like being drunk without any of the fun.

Eventually, after seeing me move like a drunkard, my friends started to take the condition seriously. I am still pissed off that it ruined the last day and half in Ladakh. I did get to take a fun sleeping pill at home to help me sleep it off and recover, though.

Strike!
The very last day (today) was additionally ruined by the LUTF strike. All shops were closed till about 3pm. Altitude sickness, beautiful scenery, spilt butter tea and political strikes - all in all a very Ladakhi day or 2.

Lamawatch
After the teachings at Mundgod, Karnataka, HH Dalai Lama will hoof it to Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, to open a Tibet festival, make a bunch of speeches and inaugurate a bunch of stuff. Here's the news item.

I am interested to see HH on Gandhi's home turf, which has been so wracked by communal violence. I wonder if any local groups will invite him to address the subject.

Here is a photo I took of HH at the Hindu Long-Life puja in Dharamsala, back in April. I wonder whether he is looking at me saying, "So good to see you!" or, "You again!!!" Or maybe, "Get outta my way already...."

Everywhere at once

People (westerners that is) ask me if I don't ever get "fed up" with living in India.

Well, I do get fed up, for sure, with my inability to be everywhere at once. At any given time there are about a dozen places to be, things to do and people to talk to that I find fascinating and worthwhile. This, in contrast to my adopted hometown of Nashville where an appearance by the local belly dancing troupe is the highlight of the month.

Until I learn how to bi-locate, I will continue to miss a few things.

For instance, what looks like it was a powerful, well-organized and well-attended rally of the All India Tibet Support Groups network. The occasion was International Human Rights Day (December 10) in Delhi. (I think this is also the anniversary, in this case the 18th year, of HH the Dalai Lama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.)

The Indian Tibet support groups (such as the All-Party India Parliamentary Forum and Friends of Tibet) are critical, I believe, not only for the Tibetan people and their status after the passing of the Dalai Lama but for Indian national security.

I especially like the banner that reads "India: Remember 1962." (If you don't get the reference, Google it for pete's sake. Here are some clues: "India" "China" "1962".)

Here are some awesome photos by Tenzin Dasel for Phayul.

The photo above is one of my own taken at Tibetan Uprising Day, March 10, 2007 in Dharamsala.

Her Holiness?

When I finally drag my cold feet outta here, which looks like it will be December 12, I will be on my way (a very long way, via Dharamsala, Delhi and Kathmandu) to see HH Dalai Lama in Mundgod, Karnataka at the famous Drepung Loseling Monastery. In the meantime, I keep up with the Lama Watch.

The photo below was taken (by me) at Annual Teachings last March in Dharamsala. Most of the old lamas (and some of the younger ones) seated on the platform near the Dalai Lama are also reincarnated lamas, or Tulkus. So when the Dalai Lama looks like he's greeting an old friend, he is possibly greeting a very, very old friend (like, through lifetimes).

Here's the latest:

News from Milan, Italy via Leh, Ladakh
MILAN: Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Thursday suggested that his successor could be a woman.

"If a woman reveals herself as more useful the lama could very well be reincarnated in this form," the 14th Dalai Lama told reporters in Milan, where he arrived for a private visit on Wednesday.

full story here.

But the visit was not without its political complications, as usual

...The Buddhist leader also said his 11-day visit to Italy was "not political" and that he did not intend to "cause problems for the state and the (Italian) authorities."

Beijing has complained to the Italian foreign ministry over the visit, which will take the 1989 Nobel peace prize laureate to Rome for four days from December 12, even though he will not meet with any members of the Italian government.

A planned meeting with Pope Benedict XVI was cancelled, in a decision that Italian media reports said facilitated the ordination on Tuesday of a new bishop in Guangdong, southern China, with the Vatican's approval.