TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

Reflecting on my notes now, it wasn’t until this day that I actually knew what day it was— due to the whole travel across the globe thing, we essentially missed the latter half of July 3rd and the first half of July 4th. As a result, all my dated notes look something like this: “July 6, 2007—I think” until I finally got the hang of it. How confusing!

It was on this day, July 7th, 2007 (“For sure,” my notes indicate) that we got our first taste of Buddhist philosophy and art, as well. Yes, yes, this trip was not just a vacation into Rabbit Hole Land… it was an adventure of the mind into the Great Land of Knowledge as well.

It is at this point that I will admit to my readers that I am a geek at heart, and as such, feel the need to delve into this side of me every now and again. Consequently, at the risk of boring you all immensely, I simply must share the first piece of Buddhist art we encountered. It really is a simply fascinating piece, and is found at many of the monasteries, as it is a fairly crucial piece as well.

First, it’s time for some Tibetan history. Fear not. It’s not too detailed. Essentially, the Tibetans were historically (and some still are today—pictures of the ones we met will be forthcoming) nomadic farmers, mostly yak herders. Most of these Tibetans, however, were also deeply Buddhist, and as such, the culture eventually formulated a way to carry one’s sacred objects from place to place in an easy manner. Consequently, something called a “thangka” (the spelling varies) was derived. Essentially, a “thangka” is a piece of cloth upon which a sacred object or deity is painted. Since it is made of cloth, this piece of artwork can be rolled up and carried around with ease.

Now, for some linguistics. Tibetans didn’t have their own written language until well after Buddhism entered the country (which was around 7th century AD). Consequently, many of the Buddhist teachings in the country during this period of time were done pictorially.

And viola! The reasoning behind this first piece of artwork becomes clear. The following piece is simply a pictorial representation of the basic Buddhist teachings. Buddhists would bring this around to aid them in teaching others about Buddhism.

There are a few details about this picture (called the Bhavachaka) that I would like to share, once again, at the risk of boring those who are uninterested in Buddhism or philosophy in general.

Unfortunately, this is not the best picture of the Bhavachaka, so y’all will have to deal with my descriptions as well when trying to understand what I’m referring to. In the middle of this painting (the smallest circle) there is a picture of a pig, snake, and a cock, which symbolize ignorance, hatred, and greed respectively. In Buddhist philosophy, these are the three poisons that one has to avoid. It is believed that if a person creates karma based on these three attitudes, they will be reincarnated into one of the lower realms.

Now to explain what a lower realm is. Around this inner circle there is a larger circle within which the six realms of existence are explained. It is believed that there are three upper levels of existence—the sura, asura, and human realms. The sura and asura are formless realms. One spends time in this realm in one’s natural state—as a formless ball of energy. While here, one is “blissed out,” or, in other words, when here, one is always extremely happy. One gets into these two formless realms by creating good karma. The other upper realm is the human realm. I’m fairly sure you know what that’s like.

The three lower realms in Buddhist philosophy are the animal realm, the hungry ghost/spirit realm, and the hell realm. The former are the animals that you see around you everyday. It is believed that they are in one of the lower realms because they do not have the consciousness to recognize that they are in a state of suffering and need to escape it, whereas humans can consciously realize this and actually do something about it. The hungry ghost/spirit realm is a mentally created realm, sort of like a nightmare. One, however, does not realize that it is mentally created, and simply wanders around this realm in constant want or need because one was a miser in one’s human life. The hell realm actually has 18 parts to it—9 cold hells and 9 hot hells. One gets into this realm by simply creating a lot of bad karma.

Now, for a better comprehension of karma. A really good, albeit oversimplified, way of understanding karma is to think of it as money going into the bank. When you do something really good, you get paid, but you don’t have to necessarily use that money right away, so you can just throw it in the bank for later and maybe gain some interest or something. It is believed that the smallest good act can create huge amounts of good karma, depending on how that small act affects the person it was done for, and how that person reacts to said small act. For example, I could simply smile at a dude because he looked like he was having a bad day. He could then feel better, and bring his mom out for ice cream because he hasn’t been treating her well lately. Said mother could then go to work the next day and actually have a good day, which brightens up the moods of everyone she works with. All of these people could then go out and do something wonderful themselves. As a result of a single smile, I brought great joy to a number of different people. I could get huge amounts of good karma from this. Similarly, however, I can create a ton of bad karma (ie: get into debt) by the smallest negative action. Since Buddhists believe that the amount of good karma one has in the bank affects one’s placement during reincarnation (when one can go into another realm of existence), Buddhists try to create as much good karma as possible. Unfortunately, even this may not be enough. For example, if one ends up in the sura or asura realms, although it would be pretty sweet for a while (being “blissed out” would be awesome!), one eventually runs out of one’s retirement karma, and eventually will be reborn into a lower realm. It is believed, then, that one can only escape the eternal cycle of reincarnation via the human realm because only humans can understand that there is suffering and that we need to escape it. In the sura or asura realms, one is too distracted being happy to realize that one will eventually be reborn, and will see suffering again. In other words, Buddhists believe that everyone on earth is very fortunate for living in the human realm, as they have a chance of escaping cyclic existence and breaking away from these six realms.

The entire discus upon which this information is painted is held by Yama, the Lord of Impermanence and Death. It is believed that he lives in our bellies, constantly eating our health. He acts as a reminder to Buddhists that we are all constantly dieing and that we need to make the most of the time we have left.

So, thank you for that. But enough of philosophy for now. After exploring the Sera grounds for a while—where we saw a bunch of really neat statues and chapels—we eventually came to their assembly hall. Fortunately for us, the monks were just sitting down to chant before lunch, and we got to sit in. It was AMAZING. Our professor Jim had told us we would get to experience stuff like this, but most of us had no idea what it would be like. The monks all sat down on their comfy mats in rows and started chanting, presumably thanking the world for their meal and/or praying for those who were suffering in the world. Some of the younger monks had scriptures from which they read, but the older monks had definitely memorized these chants at this point. The monks also had different sacred objects in their hand—a vajra and a bell. A vajra sort of looks like a two-sided triton (think Little Mermaid), but both ends of the triton are closed, indicating peace rather than violence. The vajra stands for skillful methods (in obtaining enlightenment) and compassion, both characteristics of which are considered masculine. The bell stands for wisdom, the characteristic that is associated with femininity. So in other words, each monk held a female and male symbol in their hands, indicating balance and harmony.

After about an hour, the monks finished their chants and began eating what looked like a stew made of potatoes and carrots. Though I’m not entirely sure what it was made of, it smelled delicious.

Once this was done, we all headed back into the bus, made the tight squeeze through the buildings down to the main road and went back to our hotel for a late lunch. We then visited the Potala Palace! Before making the trip, I did a bit of research on the places we were going, and this was totally my favorite on the list. And it was wicked cool!

The Potala Palace has over 1,000 rooms and was formerly both the winter retreat for a number of the Dalai Lamas as well as the home to the Tibetan government. Getting to the actual palace was quite a long haul—huge stone stairs all the way up, and since we were at such a high altitude and were still unaccustomed to it, we were exhausted by the time we got up there. Many of us actually had to take breaks just to make it alive!

Here's a picture of me waiting for the rest of our crew at the front door of the palace. I like how blurry it came out-- sort of adds to the mysticism of the place itself.

Once we all got to the main entrance of the palace, we were given one hour to tour those rooms that were open to the public. After walking through the initial dark passageway, the walls of which were covered with various Buddhist art, we entered a large square that was under construction, and got the opportunity to see firsthand how traditional Tibetan cement floors are made.

Basically, it’s a song and dance affair. The workers stomp down the cement (rather than having a cement roller) to make it flat after it has been poured. In order to stomp in unison, they sing traditional songs that have a beat to which they stomp back and forth. It takes a very long time to actually make the floor flat enough, and the workers get quite messy during the process. Although the workers were getting paid (albeit very little in our terms) for their efforts, it is more of a privilege to them to be helping with the winter palace of the Dalai Lama than anything else, as the majority of them were Buddhist. Helping with this, or even helping construct any of the other Buddhist temples, creates pretty good karma.

We then continued our way past the workers and into another building. While going up the stairs for this area, we couldn’t help but notice that the center aisle (there were three aisles to the staircase all together) was tied off. This is the staircase that the Dalai Lama uses—no one else is permitted to. We then continued on our way into a number of different rooms, one of which was the meditation room for the Dalai Lama. It had a bunch of different statues that are supposed to help with meditation, as well as some nice artwork. We even saw one of the monks that still lives there meditating with his cat, or at least that’s what it looked like. The cat was sitting straight up next to the monk and had his eyes closed, even though it was clear he wasn’t sleeping! Extremely odd! But very cool! Like many of the other temples, however, we were not allowed to take pictures at all in this hall. Otherwise, I’d totally show you a Buddhist cat.

We continued on to see one of the many stupas of the various Dalai Lamas that were housed at the Potala. A stupa is a construction that either holds sacred artifacts or even the remains of one of the enlightened monks. They are usually heavily decorated. There was one that held one of the Dalai Lamas that was made out of 8,000 pounds of gold! As we were in awe over this particular stupa, our professor noted one of the older monks in an area of the palace that was forbidden to tourists. Evidently, Jim knew this monk, and when the monk saw him, they started to chat. As Jim explained to us later, he was actually the highest-ranking monk at the palace and a good old friend. Since Jim does so many of these trips, he’s constantly bringing things like medicine to this monk and some of the others that live there. The monk then decided to bless us all with a kata—so, we all got in a rather long line and waited as the monk tied our katas into a longevity knot, and blessed us each individually. We would walk up to him, he would put the kata around us, tie the knot, and press his forehead to our own foreheads while wishing us a long and happy life. It was absolutely amazing. Needless to say, we were all beaming by the end of it, and all felt truly blessed. We continued rather quickly after that, as we didn’t have much time left, having spent so much time with the older monk.

After that, we headed out of the Potala, taking plenty of pictures of the outside of it as we went down the stairs on the other side.

Here's a picture of me taking a small break on the way down. Note the longevity kata from Potala's highest monk!

We also crossed the street shortly afterwards and went up into this look-out structure where we could get tons of pictures of the Potala. We got a very nice group picture there, which hopefully I will be receiving soon.

After our adventures in the Potala, we made our way to the Jokhang. As both of these buildings are in the same town, it wasn’t a very far trip. We got there just in time to be ushered into a small area the monks at the temple had made for those followers who wished to chant/meditate with the monks. This area was also fenced off, so that other followers could watch the monks chant without the monks being disturbed by their presence or the offerings that many of them wished to proffer. The area we were in had the same types of mats that they used to chant on, so we all got our shoes off and made ourselves comfortable. The monks chanted for about two hours—it was so amazing, though, because here we were, a bunch of Westerners in the holiest city in Tibet listening to this rather large group of monks praying for the world. It was… just wow. I definitely began crying at one point—there were just so many monks there! And it was so obvious that they were sitting here for this period of time not for themselves but for those suffering in the world. Truly fascinating. At one point, we even got offered a kata from one of the younger monks, and the eldest monk there blessed some water during the rituals that was offered to us as well. At first, we didn’t really know what to do with the water the monk was offering, but we eventually got the hang of it. Basically, we had to put out a cupped hand, which the monk then filled, and then we splashed the water on our face and over our hair. Pretty neat.

After the chanting was completed, we got in line to see the great Shakyamuni Buddha statue, which was brought to Lhasa back in the 7th century AD. During that period of time, a peaceful king, Songsten Gompo, was in charge of Tibet. He was one of the first kings interested in bringing religion into the country, and as such, he married two Buddhist princesses, one from Nepal and one from China. Both princesses brought huge pure gold Buddha statues with them as dowry gifts. Unfortunately, the Nepalese statue was ruined during the Cultural Revolution of the 1950’s, making the Chinese statue at the Jokhang an even more valuable relic.

Seeing the statue was rather intense. It was nothing like the pictures indicated, and no book could describe the atmosphere, either. Everyone in line was a fervent Buddhist follower—some were pushing people aside to get a better spot in line to simply SEE this statue. We were all ushered in first because we had a large group. Essentially, we were pushed into the small circular room that contained the statue, and then marched around it in a clockwise fashion (technically circumambulating it, which is what Buddhist do to sacred objects, buildings, or even cities). There was a monk standing on the left side of the statue who literally (but gently) pushed our foreheads down to the statue for a moment, pulled us back up, and then pushed us along back in line. Once again, on the right side of the statue, a monk did a similar thing. And then, we were pushed out of the room. This was done because there were so many people wanting to see that statue (and who would have stayed there for a long period of time given the opportunity) that the monks simply wanted to get everyone in and out as quickly as possible so everyone got an equal opportunity to be near this sacred object. Just wow. Really really intense.

Afterwards, we headed to the Snow Land Restaurant, where we all got our first opportunity to order anything we wanted, rather than having a buffet style menu or having either our professor or tour guide order large amounts of food for us. Ironically, I got some vegetable curry. Oh yes. Working the Indian food in Tibet. I have to admit, though, that they have some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had. That night was also the night that one of the people who was on the trip with us had her 60th birthday. Can you imagine having your 60th birthday in Tibet? That’s certainly a story to share. We found out about it and ordered a cake for her, which she, being the 20 year plus Buddhist that she is, promptly offered to our waitresses, as well. She was so surprised when she saw the cake! You should have seen her face! I really enjoyed the fact that I got to share that part of her life with her… she was such a sweet lady—a middle school choir teacher, actually, from Nebraska. Such a sweet lady.

After dinner, we had a couple hours to ourselves. I wandered in and out of the shops on the same street our hotel was on, just to see what was there. I ended up getting some delicious incense for myself as well as one of my friends, and a cute little bag for my older sister. That evening, I also made my first phone call home and was lucky enough that three of my friends were all hanging out at the same place, so that with one phone call, I could catch up with all of them. Oh yes. My favorite boys in the world—my best friend, the dude I call my brother, and my boyfriend. It was awesome.

And then. SLEEP! And that ends the adventures of day four.