Masala Vagabond: Tea and Crumpets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Just before Losar, Kunchok reminds me: His Holiness is teaching soon. Don't forget to get your ticket. On the morning sales begin, I arrive at the security office to stand in one of those infamous Indian queues, the kind that involve more pushing than queuing. Fill out a form, hand the man two pictures and ten rupees (25 cents), and I receive a small ticket with my information printed neatly in Tibetan and a stamp over my picture. Number 96.

Monday morning, and I'm up bright and early (although the fact that 7am seems so early counters my insistence that this is not just a vacation). I carefully pick out what I'm going to wear, as nervous as if this is a first date, and I'm out the door.

I spy others on the road with me, heading into town, and pick up the pace. No one is going to get my seat. I'm #96, after all.

The trip down to HH's Main Temple is long, and it takes over half an hour for me to get there. I'm not especially worried, however, as I'm arriving about an hour early. Tibetans form one line, monks another (the long, orderly queue of red robes is something to see), and the foreigners take the final entrance, at the very back. Standing in line, getting excited with various Europeans and Russians, I wait to go through security.

Metal detector. Total body frisking. At this point, after having been frisked regularly to get into a cinema in India, I don't bat an eye at this. Bag check. The man rifles through my bag, checking my pen to make sure it's not too pointy, then just as he's about to give it back to me, notices the little black case: my camera. How stupid! The man points me away. “Leave it with a shopkeeper,” he says.

Rushing back out through the Temple periphery, out the gates, and up the hill towards central Mcleodganj, I'm looking for a shopkeeper I know and trust. Unfortunately, I only come to the Temple complex rarely and see no faces that have offered me chai. Store after store is closed at this early hour. All the way back up to the Prayer Wheels that mark the center of the bazaar, I step down a few crumbling stairs to peak into the travel-agency-turned-cell-phone-store. Closed! Drat!

A friendly face, like the supporting male actor in a Bollywood comedy, appears from behind a corner at the back. And I am saved! I stammer out my request, like a young man asking for a girl's attention, and am met by a metaphorical question mark over his head. "Sorry? I didn't get that." Composing myself, I ask, “Can I leave my camera with you?”

By the time I get back to the Temple, it's about 20 minutes until show time. I rush through the periphery, past the beggars and the hawkers on the way to the entrance, dropping a 5 rupee coin in a begging bowl (perhaps this will improve my karma so I can get in at last). Again, I wait in line, this time warning the Europeans and Russians about the camera rule. Again, through the metal detector. Okay, I open my bag, eager to get going.

And he pulls out my cheap Indian cellphone. (NOOooooooooooo!!!!!!)

At this point I don't care about losing my phone, so I hope to keep my phone safe with this unknown salesman with promise of a small bribe (ahem, tip). Either way, the cell phone can go. Temple. Metal detector. Bag search. Frisk. Up the stairs. I can hear it's started, HH's voice is ringing through the loud speakers. The courtyard is absolutely full, mostly with Tibetans, who appear to be arranged as if at a picnic (and are chatting as though they are as well). There are thousands of people in the complex, and the dull roar of hundreds of hushed voices adds white noise to the teaching. A big television at the front of the courtyard shows HH's face, but there's no room near enough to see it. Disappointed, I sit and listen.

After about 30 minutes of (fairly) solid Tibetan, I'm beating myself up for forgetting my radio (the English translation is being broadcast), and I decide to head back to Bhagsu. If I get my radio now, take back my phone and camera so I know they're safe, then I can make it back to the Temple in time to be one of the first seated for the afternoon session.

All the way back up to Bhagsu, all the way back down, all the way through security (there's an awful lot of groping involved in seeing His Holiness), I'm back in the courtyard. I notice people walking up the staircases which lead to where HH will be sitting, and wonder why they have the privilege. I approach the security officer like a dog approaches the dinner table. “Security Pass?” he asks. I pull out my yellow card as if in apology, a bit unsure if this will work, but he waves me through. I stifle a “woohoo!!” (or clumsy leprechaun leap, with clicking heels) and head up the steps.

The Shrine room is filled with monks, but the main doors and windows are open, leaving a line of sight straight from the teaching chair to an area outside. I sit down next to a German couple, asking if the seat is taken. The woman shoots me a frown, saying “Probably. We just got here.” When I sit, she adds, “we need to respect the people who's religion this is.”

Sigh. What's spiritual tourism without the spirituality? Apparently, it's these Germans, who sit there confused for the teaching, reject the butter tea after a puckered sip, and don't come back the next day. “Oh yes, when I was in India, I saw the Dalai Lama. So wise...what? Oh, no, you don't need to understand what he says. It's nonverbal.”

Up here, the crowd is mostly Tibetans. Those around me greet me warmly, not sharing the German woman's view, and offering me a burlap sack to sit on (rather than the cold ground). They chant in unison before the teaching, a beautiful and subtly echoing sound. And he (He?) appears, with his entourage of security people and VVIPs, stooped over and smiling at the crowd, pausing to greet people. We stand in a bow with our hands before our chests, as if holding a small gem between them.

I'm not going to attempt to summarize HH's teaching, because that would be a bit like taking a bite of a very fine cake and trying to feed the chewed goo to someone else. The subject, however, was the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva, an important text in Tibetan Buddhism for it's emphasis on spiritual altruism. In storage, I have this text, a little gold book that was a present from Columbus KTC (the Tibetan Buddhist Center back home), and always found it something to be (pardon the pun) further chewed. For me, number three is especially striking to me:

Remaining too long in one place our attraction to loved ones upsets us, we are tossed in its wake.
The flames of our anger towards thus who annoy us consume what good merit we have gained in the past.
The darkness of closed-minded thought dims our outlook, we loose vivid sight of what is right and what is wrong.
We must give up our home and set forth from our country - the Sons of the Buddhas all practice this way.

I have heard numerous interpretations of this verse, but for me it means this: to develop, a student must remove herself from that which she loves, that which she hates, that which she knows. She must fight the “darkness of closed-minded thought,” so that she may develop the clarity of mind to do what is best, to know what is right. This is what it meant to me the first time I read this, a little over a year before I came to India. This is why I have taken this trip, if any single verse can adequately describe my reasons: to fight the “darkness of closed-minded thought.”

During the teaching, we are offered food by the local monks and nuns: a enormous English muffin (about 6” diameter, this thing), and a cup of butter tea. Finally, a cup of butter tea! After studying Tibetan customs for the last four years, I finally get to taste the famous butter tea: salty milk tea with melted butter. Taking my cue from those around me, I dip my bread into it, and it's quite nice. Mmmm, buttery, salty, holy num-nums. HH stops speaking, his Yoda-like voice (and mannerisms) pausing for some butter tea. Note: the Bodhisattva of Compassion and patron saint of Tibet loves his tea.

The crowd is so vast that, for the first fifteen minutes we spend leaving, we're still one whole unit in the street. I'm surrounded by short-haired monks with their distinct monk-smell (it's very pleasant, a smell I can only describe as “clean”) and their soft-looking robes. When I finally have my own “personal bubble” back, after being crowded for so long amongst these many Tibetan refugees, it feels like a bit of a loss.

Something lost, something gained.

_____________________

Beautiful verses from the 37 Practices:

Like the dew that remains for a moment or two on the tips of the grass and then melts with the dawn,
The pleasures we find in the course in our lives last only an instant, they cannot endure;
While the freedom we gain becoming a Buddha is a blissful attainment not subject to change.
Aim every effort to this wondrous achievement - the Sons of the Buddhas all practice this way.

15
If in the midst of a large crowd of people someone should single out of abuse,
Exposing our faults before all within hearing and pointing out clearly the flaws we still have;
Then not getting angry or being defensive, just listening in silence and heeding his words,
Bow in respect to this man as our teacher - the Sons of the Buddhas all practice this way.

...Never lose courage to take pain from others - the Sons of the Buddhas all practice this way.

...Then always possessing alertness and memory, which keep us in focus and ready to serve,
We must work for the welfare of all sentient beings - the Sons of the Buddhas all practice this way