Ruta Sevo's Blog: Roots of My Writing - Posts Tagged "tibet"

In the novel, I wanted to portray a Peace Corps volunteer who decides to stay in Nepal and becomes a Buddhist nun. Are there any like her in the real world? A really famous “Western nun” is Alexandra David-Neel who snuck into Lhasa in the 1920s by walking out of China. She was a French woman with a passion for Buddhism. She both became a nun and learned Tibetan, and collected manuscripts. (More about her later.) What about contemporaries?

Diane Perry is nearly my age. She was born in England in 1943, the daughter of a fishmonger. She too read Sartre and Camus around the age of eighteen, but one book immediately made her realize “I am a Buddhist.” She attended meetings of a Buddhist Society to learn more. At the age of nineteen while still in England she met Choygam Trungpa, a lama, who invited her to be a disciple. Finally she found a way to travel to India at the age of twenty-one, where she met her lama Khamtrul Rinpoche and soon became the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo. Her spiritual journey included meditation in a remote cave, at 13,000 feet elevation in the Himalayas, for twelve years. Her extraordinary story is written by Vicki Mackenzie and is called Cave in the Snow: Tenzim Palmo’s Quest for Enlightenment. See http://www.amazon.com/Cave-Snow-Tenzi...

June Campell is a Scotswoman. She decided at the age of ten that she would travel to Tibet and become a Buddhist. Unfortunately, the Chinese invasion of Tibet in1959 closed off the country when she was old enough to think about travel there, but the resulting emigration of Tibetan Buddhists to places all over the world reached even Scotland, where she met lamas and “took refuge,” which is the ceremony of induction. This was the time of the “hippy Sixties.” She travelled among dharma centers around the world, learning practices and the Tibetan language, and acted as a language interpreter. Her book is academic for the most part, about the significance of the female in the philosophy and symbolism of Tibetan Buddhism. What is highly unusual is her account, in Chapter 6, of becoming a secret sexual consort to a high-ranking lama (who had taken vows of celibacy). You’ll have to read the impact on her moral and spiritual perspective. If you studied anthropology, you’ve heard of the method called “participant-observation,” which is the idea that you become part of the culture you are studying in order to understand it from the inside. Although she was not consciously an anthropologist, her scholarship is very thorough and she is unabashed in revealing the extent to which she experienced it. She lectures in Edinburgh. Those who reveal the secrets of Tantric sex are threatened with madness and death. She not only told, she wrote quite thoroughly, and spoke to sell her book. Which, as I noted, is fairly academic. See Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. See http://www.amazon.com/Traveller-Space...

There are more stories. You can find all of these people using Google or searching in Wikipedia. There is the American Dierdre Blomfield-Brown (born 1936) who became Pema Chodron. There is American Thubten Chodron born in 1950. And American Helen Alexa Koclanes who married an Indian man and in the process of fleeing the marriage ended up in Sri Lanka and became Bhikkhuni (Sister) Miao Kwang Sudharma. She published Wonderful Light: Memoirs of an American Buddhist Nun. See http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Light...

Alexandra David-Neel first got a bug for Buddhism and travel when she was a child in France. She broke the mold for obedient daughter very early, running off on hikes and secret journeys in her teens. In her forties, with her husband’s support, she embarked to India to perfect her knowledge of languages. (He subsequently wired her money for the next twenty or thirty years.) She badly wanted to go to Lhasa, the home of Tibetan Buddhism, but Tibet was stopping all foreigners at the border. British officials watching the borders of their empire in India likewise did not want crazy ladies or any travelers causing trouble.

She snuck into Tibet in 1923 by crossing over mountain ranges in the winter, from China. She was middle-aged (55) at the time and travelled mostly on foot with a young Lama Yongden whom she claimed as her adoptive son. They were disguised as pilgrims, wearing thick wool robes, with belongings in a bag and tucked into the pocket formed in the front fold of their robes. She had learned Tibetan per suggestion to her by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama himself. Her pockets contained two cameras, gold jewelry, a compass, a pistol, a cooking pot, begging bowls, two spoons, a Tibetan necklace of bone, and gemstones to use as currency. They carried no food, depending on alms that are given to travelling monks. They made tea by starting a fire with a flint stone.

Because foreigners were absolutely forbidden to enter Tibet, Alexandra used soot from the cooking pot to darken her face and hands. This worked for months while they were actually in Tibet through terrific snow storms, high mountain passes, and tense encounters with dangerous locals. The whole journey of crossing Tibet coming out of China took three years and covered thousands of miles. Lama Yongden gave readings and performed blessings and rituals to win over farmers who could share their huts or barns, and food. After Alexandra David-Neel returned to Europe with a photograph of them in front of the Potala in 1924 as proof of success, she wrote thirty books about Tibetan Buddhism and her travels.

British officials were furious about her transgressions but she had many allies among monks and native officials. Later thousands of readers were enthralled by the secrets and stories she told. She was one of a handful of first Westerners to enter the territory and write about what she saw. Unlike the others, she had become an ordained nun and stopped at many monasteries in her travels, just like other Buddhist monks did as a way of life, to learn new teachings and practices. She lived to be 101 years old, yet another testament to her extraordinary stamina and vitality. Single-handedly (or rather, with the help of her son Lama Yongden) she was a significant conduit between Tibet and the West and the spread of Buddhism in Europe and in America.

OUTSIDE Magazine lists My Journey to Lhasa (originally published in 1927) among the top 25 best adventure/explorer tales of all time. (See http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-... ) You can get used copies of various editions. (See http://www.amazon.com/My-Journey-Lhas...)

A great biography of her whole life is Barbara Foster and Michael Foster’s The Secret Lives of Alexandra David Neel: a biography of the explorer of Tibet and its forbidden practices. http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Lives-Al...

There is even a book for children: Far Beyond the Garden Gate by Don Brown. (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Beyond-Gard...)

Tibet is a vast, high and sparsely populated territory. Its size is comparable to Alaska and Texas combined. It is a little larger than Mongolia. The population density is one of the lowest in the world, ranking with Mongolia and Australia among countries, and close to Wyoming in the US. The average elevation is 16,000 feet. By comparison, the highest average elevation in Colorado is 6,800 feet. Tibetan people are living in relative isolation and very high up.

The famous Silk Road actually passed to the north of Tibet, through the mountain range at the edge of the Himalayas. For centuries, foreigners were mostly stopped from entering in great numbers by geography, and by the Tibetan’s wish to stay apart. (The leading Lamas would not send young monks to Europe in the early 20th Century, to keep them from intellectual contamination.) The economy was based on subsistence agriculture. There were almost no roads and little use of technology. People travelled with yaks until the middle of the 20th Century. Possibly one in five males lived in a monastery, supported by surrounding settlements. Monks however, did travel from place to place on foot, making pilgrimages to holy sites and to learn from more advanced lamas.

The Chinese incorporated Tibet by force in 1951. Monasteries continued to operate, but in 1959, the Tibetan government was abolished, and the Chinese started to actively suppress the monasteries as a feudal system. They raided monasteries, burning sacred manuscripts, stealing treasure, and killing monks. The confiscated property. The Dalai Lama fled to India.

Now, the “Tibetan Autononous Region” is a police state where the Tibetan language and culture are suppressed. The Chinese built a major road that made it possible for commerce to grow, for ethnically Chinese people to immigrate in large numbers, and for troops to be ready to maintain control. There are large prison camps.

The ethnic Tibetan population in Tibet is less than 3 million. Another 3 million fled the country with great difficulty. Many settled in refugee colonies in India. They brought with them Tibetan Buddhism. The displacement and diaspora of Tibetans reached the whole world. An unintended consequence of the Chinese invasion and oppression was the rapid diffusion of Buddhism to the West, as many countries and communities welcomed monks and refugees.

Buddhist studies flourished in the US. Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, for example, has faculty who are experts in Tibetan Buddhism. (See http://www.naropa.edu/ ) The Ligmincha Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, is specifically preserving the Bon Buddhist tradition of Tibet, led by the Lama Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. (See https://www.ligmincha.org/)

You can find practicing Tibetan Buddhist shamans in California, for example. There are meditation centers and Tibetan medical practitioners all over the country. Many Western people call themselves Buddhists, although there are many varieties, just as with Christianity.

Yangzom Brauen wrote a memoir of her family’s flight from Tibet that is a personal account of this history. It is harrowing, as they had to walk out at night, avoiding Chinese soldiers who were shooting people trying to escape. Yangzom’s grandmother lost her husband and a daughter on the way and spent years in refugee and work camps in India. A Swiss scholar visiting India fell in love with her mother Sonam and brought them to Switzerland. The memoir, published in 2011, is called Across Many Mountains, a Tibetan Family’s Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom. It is an inspiring and informative. If you want to read one thing about Tibetans, this is it. (See http://www.amazon.com/Across-Many-Mou... )

Living at such a high altitude, what do Tibetans eat? Their livestock includes yak, goats, and sheep, so they have meat and milk. The most important crop is barley, which is roasted and milled into flour. Thus bread and noodles are staples, and rice in lower regions. They are able to grow potatoes, oranges, bananas, and lemons. The livestock provides yoghurt, butter, and cheese.

Many accounts of Tibetans getting together involves drinking tsampa, or butter tea. Travelers and pilgrims in Tibet tell of being offered tea at every turn. A piece of black brick tea is thrown into boiling water to steep. A little salt is added. Then a glob of butter is added, and maybe a little barley flour, I’ve read, to make it a meal.

This is not too different from the English and Indian style of drinking tea with milk added, and sometimes sugar. With the butter and salt, though, it sounds like a broth to our tastes. I asked myself how people could survive drinking this all day. I thought about how it replenishes fluids all day, satisfies hunger, adds salt, and provides some nourishment. Maybe the constant stimulant is healthy, as we think now about green tea.

The steamed dumplings are interesting to me, because dumplings and meat-stuffed buns sound like a universal. The Chinese have steamed dumplings. Russians, Poles, and Eastern Europeans eat pierogi, which is a bun stuffed with meat and/or cabbage. My forefathers the Lithuanians made kuldunai, much like Italian tortellini. South Americans eat empanadas, or meat-stuffed pies that you can hold in your hand. Maybe the American sandwich, hamburger and hotdog evolved from meat-stuffed dumplings and breads.

Tibetan Meat Momos – Steamed Dumplings

Mix ground beef with water, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, chopped green onions and ground cumin. Make a rising dough. Roll it out. Put meat mixture in 4” circles, fold them over into a half-moon or like a basket. Cook in a steamer.