Tradition

 

Four days after Losar, I sat drinking coffee and filtered water at a charity-driven café in Dharamsala. One of the younger local Tibetans came in still drunk and reeking of the booze from the night prior. It part of the Losar tradition to be drunk for 15 days, he told me. A joyous bender. Pink-eyed and disheveled, he refused filtered water, insisting that his glass be filled from the tap—which surprised us.  His mood was rambling. He told us that he’d been awoken too early that morning in his house wedged in the hills. Three Sri Lankan Buddhist monks on his porch begging for food had awoken him. It is a tradition for monks to live off of handouts. He offered them his thoughts instead, saying, ‘why don’t you just be good men? You don’t need to be monks. You can have a wife and a house. You can just be good men’.

Losar, 2011

Today, March 5^th, 2011, exiled Tibetans living in India’s Dharamsala began a 3-day celebration of their New Year—a holiday they call ‘Losar’.  It’s their biggest holiday. Welcome to the year 2138!

Today also marked the first time since leaving Korea that I was awoken by an alarm clock. In the cold, predawn darkness, I recalled dismally the robotic pattern of so-called ‘real life’, namely that work-a-day trance of inflexible schedules that will consume my life again after this vacation.

 

So…why does today mark the beginning of the year 2138?  Actually, it is also the year 1757 and the year 985, since Tibetan calendars have three different beginnings. 

According to the most popular system of notation (called ‘Bot Gyalo’), the first year of their calendar coincides with the ruling of the first king of Tibet, Nyatri Tsenpo, (in the year 127 BC by the Gregorian calendar), who ruled 2138 years ago. 

Another system of dating that pegs this year as 1757 begins with the 28^th king of Tibet. Lastly, there is also a Tibetan system called ‘rab lo’ that cyclically uses both the animals of the Chinese zodiac and the Indian elements of fire, earth, iron, water and wood. This system was Tibet’s first system for counting years and began in the year 1027 AD (according to the Gregorian Calendar), consequently making now the year 985, the year of the iron rabbit.

Under the inky blackness of a moonless sky and directed by only a flashlight’s narrow beam I ascended a long crumbling set of concrete and muddied stairs, alongside which the hissing of exposed plumbing was like an angry snake. But not until reaching the road above did I actually become nervous. Usually teeming with people and vehicles, now it was eerily silent, empty and dead dark except for shifty shadows in the alleyways that were nothing but stray dogs without rabies, I told myself.  It was a long 10 minute walk to Tsuglagkhang (pronounced 'Tsuglagkhang'), the town’s main temple belonging to 14^th Dalai Lama where festivities were to be held early today.  I kept wondering why the streets were so empty.

Upon reaching the temple gates, I felt safe and stupid. Stupid because I was an hour and a half early with nothing to eat and no caffeine inside me. I calculated how many more minutes of sleep I could have claimed. Futile, I know.

By around 6:30AM, a sun without warmth was finally creeping over the eastern Himalayan foothills, casting long shadows in this concrete temple which, for the most part, lacked walls. People began trickling in, many ritualistically circumambulating the temple clockwise, spinning prayer wheels and humming mantras.  Since it is part of Tibetan tradition to receive a new piece of clothing for the New Year (called a ‘chuba’), the Tibetan people were beautifully dressed in their new gifts, often silk dresses of exquisite design and rich color. I, in my broken shoes and muddied pants and Caucasian skin, felt out of place—a feeling that I barely notice anymore.

But nothing about anything was particularly photo-worthy. Dutifully, I worried about the publication I was to do for Rogpa, a charitable organization that wanted from me a Losar story with photos for their Korean newsletter. I found myself propping my camera against the cloudy windows of a walled off little room where countless butter candles were being lit. It was this or the people walking in circles…

 

Then something occurred to me.  That I’m a Canadian, in India, writing for a Korean publication, about Tibetans celebrating their New Year, is a fact that testifies to how small the global village is becoming. The temporal bewilderment of it all must speak to something else; it is simultaneously the years 2138, 1757, 985, and 2011,plus I was celebrating the third New Year this year—one during each month of 2011, so far. The first on January 1^st, the second during February in Korea (Korea has its own New Year), and now Losar, in March. If I go north to Nepal, I can celebrate their new year too, in April.  Space and time: they just ain’t what they used to be. . .

It wasn’t until 7 AM that something happened. Ceremonial horns emanated deeply from upstairs where few were allowed entrance to the hour-long consultation with the Nechung oracle as well as offerings to and invocation of the protector goddess of Tibet, Palden Lhamo, by the monks of the Namgyal monastery. The ceremonial horns didn’t seem to be attempting music, exactly; rather, they were punctuating the prayers—a blow of a horn stood in for a comma here, a paragraph break there. The low, drawn-out honks sounded like heavy furniture being moved.  I wasn’t allowed up to watch.

By the time this finished, the crowds were thick and those that were ritually circling the temple often became stuck in pedestrian jams. Most others got seated around the main altar room where decorated monks of the Namgyal monestary chanted prayers for a long, auspicious life of the Dalai Lama. Unbelievably deep and baritone, the monks chanted in a way that reverberated at the depths of my bowels like the growl of a Harley Davidson or the colon-rattling protests at poorly digested chili. A clash of cymbals and a short blow on a conch shell could be heard between each short prayer—more audible punctuation. The cymbals sounded like an exclamation point and I bemused myself by wondering how they would make a question mark sound? 

Following the chants, two of the highest ranking monks of the Geluk monastery debated Tibetan Buddhist philosophy with one another while another monk distributed rice into the open hands of the hungry crowd. Since they debated in Tibetan, I understood nothing. I wondered how many Tibetans could really understood… … Tibetan Buddhism can be abstract, subtle and dry (and wrong, in my opinion).

A ritual dance of good wishes was then staged by four colorfully dressed young men with swords. This dance, called ‘gar’, is performed only on Losar.

After this, the two scholarly monks debated once more, an act which closed the prayer ceremony.  I went home, ate chocolate pancakes, drank hot chai tea, and slept. Best part of my day, it was.

Interesting Factoids about the Tibetan Culture and Losar:

- Tibetans use a lunisolar calendar. This means that the duration of each month is calculated by the position of the moon, making them shorter than solar months. A 12 month year, then, is only 354~355 days. Consequently, an extra month is added every few years to compensate for the shorter years. The year that just ended consisted of 13 months.

- Oracles and predictions are important to both Buddhists and the government, in Tibet, and a consultation with the Nechung oracle is an annual tradition. This is also reflected, to a lesser extent ceremonially, by Tibetan folk tradition. Every Losar, it is custom to eat a dumpling with a secret ingredient inside, which is supposed to light-heartedly comment on the year ahead. To find a chilly in one’s dumpling signifies that the eater has a hot temper and a sharp tongue. Butter represents a soft heart, while coal represents a black heart. Anything white represents purity, etc. This is usually a source of amusement and even playful teasing. 

- Tibetans celebrate not only the beginning of a new year, but also the end of the old year. One way they do this is by a ritual called 'zor tarma', carried out during the days before Losar. For this folk rite, a sacrificial cake is made with kneaded dough, sometimes containing bits of clothing from the family's wardrobe.  The cake is then burnt as an offering to the spirits at some secluded place. Sometimes the cake is blasted with fireworks, which, in Dharamsala, could be heard exploding like bombs and echoing  thunderously off the snow-capped Dhauladhar mountains. Cleansing then done, they don't look back as they return home--thereby banishing yesteryear's misfortunes and ill-karma.

Perspective in Little Tibet

Christians who flock to Jerusalem or Buddhists to Varanasi or Elvis fans to his birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi, these are people who I used to not get.

Spatial proximity to an idol or sacred location, I thought, was totally irrelevant, if it's not directly connected to some advice, instruction, or at least entertainment. It's just a little emotional lift, like eating a hot chili pepper but more expensive.

Waiting for the Dalai Lama

I suppose I've come to acknowledge some sort of strange magic in it, in proximity.

When I first saw my own idol, Slash, he played live and transformed before my eyes from a Guitar-God forged of pure Awesomeness into a talented flesh and blood human--probably somebody who spent many hours practicing alone in a room, like me.   

Likewise, a week ago, when I saw the Dalai Lama drive by in his car, escorted by police and welcomed by a crowd of deep-bowing, well-wishers and clouds of incense, he transformed from a fuzzy concept in my head into some dude in a car who attracted a lot of friggin attention.  

A pretty crappy picture of the Dalai Lama, seated on the far left.

Of course, I'd previously been aware of his being a religious celebrity but I suddenly had the burning question: Why him and not this monk to the left who stood waiting in the cold to catch a glimpse? He looks like he could use a little attention.

What makes the man in the car into THE DALAI FRIGGIN LAMA? 

Well, it's really an interesting story that stretches the boundaries of plausibility for most western minds, I think.

Here's one thread of this wooly narrative:

Once upon a time (2500 years ago) there was a warrior prince in India, a land where people were divided by caste and the prince was of the highest. He was, from birth, groomed to lead combat and live in opulence.  But, as he matured into young adulthood, he traveled his land and was devastated by the suffering of the lower castes that his palace existence had sheltered him from. 

He renounced his wealth and wandered his land trying many spiritual practices, including the most ascetic. But the suffering in his heart remained.  He finally sat himself beneath a Bodhi tree, waiting, concentrating on compassion, feeding on insects and leaves, until one day, he was Enlightened.

This man, whose name was Siddhartha, was given the title Buddha. And he gave sermons to spread his teachings. And his teachings became known as Dharma.

Included in Dharma is the doctrine of reincarnation and karma: life follows death follows life follows death, ad infinitum.  Karma, constituted by the life-time actions of a sentient being, dictates--sort of as a natural law, like gravity--what life form you will take after you die.

During one's lifetime(s), spiritual tasks, rituals, prayers and deeds might lead one eventually to Enlightenment, which frees one from karma, from desire, from suffering, and therefore from the chain of endless rebirth.

However, an Enlightened being does not selfishly rejoice; rather s/he chooses to be reborn into the material world of suffering beings after his/her death. S/he does this with the sole purpose of bringing others to Enlightenment. Such beings are called Bodhisattvas of Compassion--Enlightened beings willfully reincarnated into our world to annihilate our karma--and they live among us in this story.

About a thousand years after the Buddha achieved his Enlightenment, there was a man named Songtsen Gampo who ruled Tibet, which was a warring nation that had claimed much territory, including large areas of China (ironically), Nepal and Mongolia. In the 7th century, this Tibetan King took two wives, one from Nepal and the other from China. Both wives were Buddhist and began planting the seeds of Dharma within him, and the seeds germinated in the government, eventually taking root in the whole country. Temples were built, scholars were invited, Buddhist education was implemented, and the warring nation of Tibet put down its swords and became peaceful.

As these Buddhist schools became increasingly developed and the monks more judicious in their studies and determined in their spiritual pursuit, an epiphany occurred to them. Likely their dead ancestors--also having been highly evolved spiritual monks and scholars and certainly Bodhisattvas--must be choosing to reincarnate around them as humans, to further the teaching of Dharma.  Thus began, around the great Tibetan schools of Buddhism, the idea of a 'tulku', a Buddhist teacher (that is, a 'lama') who, after dying, reincarnates into a human form again in Tibet to Enlighten students of Dharam. Thus, when one tulku died, a search began for the reincarnation within relative close proximity (there's that magical proximity, again); the search includes oracular consultations, and identifying the tulku by careful study of the behavior of young candidates born shortly after the tulku's death. Upon identification, this child would inherit all he had accumulated in his previous life.

Among the many great schools and temples was one called the Gelug school of Buddhism, founded in the late 1300's ~ early 1400's by one of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist scholars, Je Tsongkhapa. This was the most important of all schools.The head "lama" (teacher of Buddhist doctrine) of this school was a spiritual leader for Tibet. When the head of this school, who also was a tulku, died, a search began for his reincarnation. They found him, and he became the 2nd 'head lama' of the great Gelug school.

The 3rd head lama of this school was a highly evolved monk named Sonam Gyatso among whose achievements was his teaching the Mongolian King about Buddhism, and thus converting the Mongol. Gyatso means 'ocean', which in Mongolian is 'dalai'. Hence the title "Dalai Lama", which from then on was reserved for the head of this influential Buddhist school.  The title was then applied, retrospectively, to the two former lamas.  So Sonam Gyatso was the third "Dalai Lama", a title reserved for just one being, reincarnated over and over again for the sole reason of annihilating karma.

The 5th Dalia Lama,Lopsang Gyatso, became--in addition to Tibet's spiritual leader--also the administrative ruler, and the chief political administrators of Tibet, from the 17th century onward, have been the Dalai Lama, and the commoners have happily been led him and the monks ever since.
After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, the 14th Dalai Lama was finally located--after 4 years of searching--in the East of Tibet as a young babe living at a modest mountain farm. During the lifetime of this Dalai Lama in the mid 20th century, a neighboring country called China, quickly becoming a global superpower, producer of knick-knacks and complete worldwide asshole, claimed Tibet as one of its territories. The peace-loving Dalai Lama tried to accommodate their new master, but the brutal tyrant used torture, imprisonment, genocide and propaganda in a (failed) effort to secularize the Tibetan people into a materially productive hive of consumer/worker drones.  With lives threatened, the Dalai Lama and many others were forced to escape into India, into exile, back to the same nation where Buddhism had begun, with Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. There, they began to re-establish their temples, schools, medical clinics and government in various areas of India, particularly in Dharamsala, mountainous as it was an thus, reminiscent of their stolen home, Tibet.  

Among the tasks of the 14th Dalai Lama is spreading not only Dharma, but also furthering the cause of freeing Tibet, now a police state with a quickly deteriorating environment, from Chinese rule. But despite his busy schedules, he regularly returns to his people and residence in Dharamsala, India, to give teachings. One spring in the early 21st century, on route to his residence in exile, this Dalai Lama was driven within a certain proximity of a person who wrote a long-winded blog about it.

Destination Dharamsala

Getting to Dharamsala

A sturdy, filth-spewing bus departed from Delhi with only myself and two others aboard—an unexpected luxury, which was nice, I thought, since I’d be here for the next 13 hours (which turned out to be more like 17 due to a couple stops for make-shift repair work).

More driving in Delhi, more mind-blowing scenes.  The first jaw-dropping sight was a huge, ancient castle occupying several city blocks. It was redish and in total disrepair. The large peacock perched on a domed tower was a nice touch. Again, at the red lights, the beggars swarmed: this time children were dancing to a drum, doing cart-wheels and yogi contortions through the huffing traffic.  A woman came, reached her hand up and as I shook it, I realized that the hand belonged to a Hindu drag queen.

“Am I pretty?”  

“Uhhh…”

“Kiss me”. 

“No”. 

“Fuck me”. 

“Please get away from here”. 

Moving again, entire families piled on motor-cycles rode alongside while the multicolour saris of the women flapped in the windy pollution; dusty pedestrians J-walked and J-ran across the hectic highways busy with whatever chore; off the road were garbage can bonfires belching black smoke over old men with long white beards; corrugated metal hovels rusted badly and sagged, while cows, dogs, donkeys, and even camels scuttled or laboured around. Every degree of poverty on the spectrum seemed to be represented here.

And seemingly, every sort of religion. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Tibetans, Seculars, Christians—all identified by clothing, jewellery and make-up.

Delhi lives. There are so many people.  In every gritty nook and littered hole you see somebody or more. And every inch of the place seems simultaneously under construction and yet falling apart at the seams. Delhi is intense.

Only an hour into our trip we made a stop. In piled people into every vacant seat, and their luggage was crammed everywhere else. Good-bye spacious luxury. 

Five or six hours later, thoroughly cramped and having exhausted every conceivable bodily posture in search for something approaching comfort, we stopped again and the bus emptied. Thank god, or ganesh, or whoever. There were vendors outside and I hadn’t eaten for 18 hours.  After a piss and a chocolate bar, I felt ready to take on India again.

It was mind-boggling that after 9 hours of bus travel, though the city was behind us, humanity was not. There wasn’t a break in traffic or commercial/industrial lights shinning in the night.  Not until the 10^th hour.

The flatlands—which I presumed to be India’s Northern plains—came to an end and from the further north entered the mountains, at first with gradual ups and downs but quickly into more of a hair-raising experience. The road had become narrow and snaking, leading the bus over jaw-dropping cliffs, bowel-clenching bridges and through the rain.  At some points I looked out the window to see mere inches between the wheel and a cliff’s edge. I closed my eyes to summon relaxation but no such thing appeared. I opened them again as the bus wound around the side of a sickly steep mountain slope and I saw an awe-inspiring vista of gigantic emptiness spread across a terrifying gorge that our road wrapped all the way around. After 3 hours of this sort of nerve-jangling drive, we finally reached mountainous Dharamsala. 

Morning

Late Afternoon

Night

The three above photos were taken from my hotel room. 

Delhi, India, February 12/2011

Arrival in Delhi

The plane touched down in Delhi at 9:30, local time. The smog was visible from inside the airport, a haze that drifted through the fluorescent lights, tasting faintly like burnt tires.

I sat on a bench hugging my backpack. My resolve to stay there the night and avoid hotel bills lasted about an hour.  I felt small, foreign and on display there, filled as it was with all manners of the unfamiliar: countless languages, turbines, long beards, flashy saris, suits, and people who generally seemed to know where they were going.

At one of the booths I paid 200 rupees for a taxi that would drive me to an over-priced hotel at which I’d just booked a room.  “Go to the yellow and black taxis outside sir”, the man said, “and give him your receipt. He will take you to your hotel”. 

No problem, right?

My First Scam

Outside the chaos thickened. More varieties of people, more vendors, and every sort of transportation you can imagine was there except my ride, the black and yellow taxis.  A face in the crowd hollered at me: “Prepaid taxis are over there”. His finger pointed into the gloom beyond.  I walked hesitantly in that direction, memorized by all the weird little cars and the awesome diversity of people and noises. The face came at me, saying, “here, follow me”.  So he led me down a ramp into an underground passage, making small talk about where I’m from and whatnot.  I remembered that my researches of India informed me that ‘anybody who appears to be helping you is somebody who you should be very sceptical about’.  Alarm.

“Do you work for the airport?” I asked him. 

“Yes”, he said, followed by some “blah blah blah blah”. 

It was a leading question I quickly realized and I should just asked him why he was helping me, or casually asked what he did for a living.  Oh well.

Up the ramp we went, surfacing on the other side of the lanes of traffic. He called the so-called taxi driver on his cellular.  It felt sketchy.

“So, a yellow and black taxi is coming then?” I asked, trying to feel like I was on top of things.

“Oh yes of course”.

What came was a black car with yellow tape over the top and a yellow sticker on the side with something written in Hindi.  When I got in, my discomfort deepened upon seeing that there was not only a driver but also somebody in the passenger seat.  We departed.  I scanned for weapons and saw nothing.

We drove into the smoggy darkness of crumbling roads and sprawling wasteland while the two in the front talked in hushed tones.  One turned back to me, asking, “Is this your first time in India?”

“No”, I lied.  “I’ve been here a few times.  I’m meeting a friend at that hotel on the receipt. He’s expecting me”. 

“Oh. He is an Indian friend?”

“Yes” I lied again.  My mouth was dry, palms sweaty—symptoms of deep anxiety.  We were well into the slums now and I felt pretty over-whelmed and vulnerable. Out the window I saw dogs fighting, dilapidated buildings missing entire walls and the guts spilled into the littered streets where the many homeless wandered. Fires burned, shadowy figures crisscrossed, neon signs flickered and we were doing circles.

“I can’t find your hotel sir”. The two men stopped the car, claiming that they could take me to another hotel instead, or let me out there, on porch of hell.  With a strength I didn’t feel, I told them pretty sternly to take me back to the airport so I could find a competent taxi.  They said they would, on the condition that I leave the taxi receipt with them. So back we went.

The airport, which only 20 minutes ago seemed so vast and alien was such a relief to return to, chaotic, uncaring, but comparatively safe. I got out of the taxi and left.

I had to buy another prepaid taxi, and the man at the counter explained that this was a common scam.

The second attempt was a success.  I got to the hotel, searched the place for insects or other pests, found none, and slept restlessly while outside the dogs of Delhi barked.

 

Booking Transportation to Dharamsala

I stayed in Delhi for a little over 2 days, more or less against my will.

I was staying at the International Inn—a hotel which, despite the slummy neighbourhood but likely due to its proximity to the airport, exceeded the budget I’d set myself. It was 2200 rupees a night. In so far that it had a sit-down toilet, I guess it was a classy joint.

After spending a day wasting effort trying to reach my destination, the next morning, full of stoic optimism, I set out for the 3^rd time to the airport in the hopes of booking a flight into Dharamshala, home of the 14^th incarnation of the exiled Dali Lama of Tibet. I knew that Kingfisher airlines had flights from Delhi to the Gaggal airport—situated a mere 20 km from Dharamsala.

Plan: 1) go to airport, 2) buy ticket, 3) fly.

No problem, right?

Nobody at the airline counter seemed to know what the hell I was talking about. Was Lonely Planet and the internet lying? Had things changed?  I went to every airline booth and still, nobody knew where Dharamsala was, or the name of the airport nearby. Three hours later, my optimism frayed at the edges of frustration, I conceded failure and went back to the hotel.  A good sleep, more internet research, and I’d figure it all out.  I pushed back the urge to just get the next flight back home…not knowing where home was exactly, Korea or Canada.  With that thought, I fought back the feelings of being lost, rudderless and alone. 

At the hotel the receptionist, a friendly-seeming fellow and surprised to see me again, asked why I was back. Too tired to fake an air of competence, I threw my cards on the table, admitting that I was having difficulties getting to where I wanted to go. “So sir, please book me another room”.

He told me that he could set up the flight for me. A phone call later, he told me to give him 7000 rupees; all I had to do was show up at the airport and the ticket would be ready for me, waiting.  Not knowing if I was being paranoid or shrewd, I had no intention of giving him 7000 rupees.  “Let me sleep on it” I said. 

And I went up to my room to figure things out or at least brood.  An hour later a phone beside my table rang. On the other end, the receptionist explained that he can have me on a bus to Dharamsala by 5:30 in the afternoon.  The bus ticket would be 600 rupees.  Cheap. 

The catch: the bus station is a 40 minute drive away; his ‘friend’ would drive me there for 1000 rupees.

Do I trust this guy? I asked myself No. But I weighed my options and found few.  Shrugging, I gave him 1000 rupees, thanked him as sincerely as I could, and wished for the best.

The 40 minutes through Delhi were as mind-blowing as they were alarming, a swarming interchange of motorbikes, buses, pedestrians, bikers, cows, rickshaws, cars and the consistent disregard for any sort of traffic rule except for ‘get there first and try not to die’.  In every case that a Canadian would courteously yield, an Indian blares the horn and accelerates.  At red lights, women beggars ran into the lanes holding their feeble, dirt-covered toddlers or babies into the car windows, asking for handouts. Construction crews patching the broken roads peppered the lanes and children ran barefoot across the debris through which stray dogs zig-zagged and cattle lazed.  In the clearness of the day, the smog was even yellower and more obvious. 

I realized somewhere along this ride that my hotel hadn’t been in a slummy area; Delhi was generally just rundown and over-populated.  It was dusty and crumbling and had gathered its filth and urban decay in such a manner that it was sort of beautiful, in an ancient seeming sort of way. Maybe there was a cleaner area but I never saw it.

“You want I can drive in this car you all way at Dharamsala”, reported my driver, breaking my cycle of thoughts.   

“Ha”, I laughed. “No”.  It’s a 13 hour drive. The bus would have to be cheaper.  His comment casted a cloud of doubt over the alleged legitimacy of what was transpiring.

When we stopped, I told the driver to wait while I got my ticket inside.

The building looks as if it has tried and nearly succeeded in burning itself down. Nothing in its appearance announces bus stop or a travel agency, but things in Delhi, I’ve come to understand, rarely meet expectation. As I go to the entrance, my driver leaves. 

Well then. Shit.

As it turned out, this was a travel agency, they were reputable, and a happy ending seemed close at hand. I bought the ticket and had about 2 hours to wait until the bus arrived. Great—I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Outside I found chipmunks, monkeys (!), and a stand that sold bottled water at special prices for tourists, only a 1000% mark-up!  I had enough for a bottle of water which I nursed while I waited with the monkeys.