Glimpse of Tibetan Settlement, Bylakuppe

                            

Pre 1961 Bylakuppe was a forest. Now after five decades more trees are emerging to reforest the land that Government of India and public, especially people of Karnataka graciously let Tibetans to settle and cultivate.

            The stories of the newly arrived Tibetan, who deforested the land, are nerve-racking. There were countless incidents of struggle with elephants and few Tibetans were killed in those struggle. As the land were ready for farming another struggle ensued. Many Tibetans had no experience of farming. Most of them were nomads in Tibet. However, the determination and unwavering guidance of His Holiness The Dalai Lama suppressed all the major challenges of the inexperience Tibetans to become successful farmers. There was an incident when His Holiness was almost attacked by bulls, while visiting the newly made farms.

            Tibetan at that time exchanged their jewels; gold, silver, emerald, and other precious stones for few kilos of rice, wheat flours, and other groceries. Such was the pathetic situation of Tibetans at that time. However, their strong faith in unity and determination of preserving the rich cultural heritage ensured unbelievable success that we can see today.

            Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan Settlement in India, has many memorable places. However, some are less known and often even unheard of to many locals. I shall try to bring forth four such historic places.  Hoping that the future visitors and local people alike could cherish about them. The four are: His Holiness Palace, The Second Camp Lake, A Chinese’s Tomb, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Palms’ print on the floor of a Temple.

His Holiness Palace

Main entrance of the palace

The Palace 

Celebrating His Holiness Birthday 

His Holiness’s Palace is Located near the vast forest. This humble palace is the hub of all major Tibetan events, political or cultural. Many young Tibetans know it as a place to celebrate or commemorate Tibetan events. However, not many know about its religious importance. It is the site, where His Holiness The Dalai Lama bestowed Kalachakra Initiation in 1971, the second Kalachakra Initiation post 1959. Unfortunately there is no resemblance of it and locals rarely visit this holy place for religious purpose. Fortunately it was renovated few years back but is still remained largely isolated.

The Second Camp Lake

Monks feeding fish

It is a natural lake enlarged to accommodate more fish population. It is a protected lake. People free fish and other marine creature like crabs and turtles. It has been developed for feeding fish. People visit this lake to feed fish and cool breeze in the evening. Last year, due to shortage of rain the lake almost dried. Many fish had reportedly died. Sera Jhe Health Care Committee with the help of donors dig bore wells to fill the lake to save fish from dying.

            This lake has potential to become a bird sanctuary if more trees are planted around it. However, trees were cut down to shoo away the fish eating birds. 

This lake is a holy lake, too. His Holiness The Dalai Lama had visited this lake several times to feed fish. That could be the primary reason why Tibetan put extra effort to preserve it and protect its fish.

A Chinese's Tomb

Gya Lobsang Tashi's Tomb

Gya (means Chinese in Tibetan language) Lobsang Tashi, as he is known in Tibetan community, was a member of PLA. He was an artilleryman of PLA before defecting to the Tibetan side at war in 1959. He fought against PLA and eventually fled to India with Tibetan. He settled in Tibetan community and had a Tibetan wife too. There was little record of his life story. Tibetan elder gave him full respect by building a tomb for him and later his wife was buried next to him. Presently, significant of his tomb is unknown to many young Tibetans, although it is at a very visible area. 

His Holiness Palms’ Mark

This is a very auspicious yet hardly known fact of the Bylakuppe Settlement. His Holiness the Dalai Lama left his palms’ mark at a small temple in 1973, when he visited the settlement to inspect the functioning and boost the spirit of Tibetan people. The community temple of Old Camp fifth and sixth was newly built at that time. His Holiness visited to consecrate the temple and while prostrating he left his palms’ marks on the hard cement floor.  It was painted in gold and well preserved even today. 

 

His Holiness Palms' mark 

        

Unending Adventure

Unending Adventure

            Hope you all are fine. It took me long to settle down and write this. I thought I could update my life in monastery monthly.  However, my life back in the monastery has a different view on that.

            Since I left Emory, I am pretty much determined to spend at least two consecutive years in my monastery, Sera Jey Monastery, pursuing to set up a stable foundation for Monastic Science Education. The immediate first month that I spent in the Dharamsala went very fast that I didn’t get much time to think on my goal.

Offering China-Tibet Initiative’s Constitution to His Holiness The Dalai Lama. My most memorable day. Thank you Emory, my Chinese friends and all the members of CTI. 

Sera Jey Science Center

Once back in monastery, after the Dharamsala’s stay, I was informed about the Science Center in our monastery and assigned to help set up things there. I was overjoyed to hear that we have a Science Center, at last. It was a huge room. And we have a separate room for laboratory, too.

 

                  

Sera Jey Science Center 

Sera Jey Science Laboratory 

Opening of Sera Jey Science Center

Beside that we have two science classrooms. I was one of the monks who help set up things in these rooms. I shall upload more photos of the Science Center when the setting is complete.

We had a good fortune to receive His Holiness The Dalai Lama in our monastery in July this year. His Holiness celebrated his birthday in our monastery. Right next day, July 8 His Holiness inaugurated our Science Center and I had good fortune to receive his blessing. I showed him the newly opened laboratory and he instructed me to compare my Buddhist understanding with Science. Although the advice was directed to me at that time, but obliviously the guidance was meant for all the monastics.

Double slits with Thabkhe

  

His Holiness Opening the Center 

Receiving guidance 

World of Sense Exhibition 

The second major event that I was fortunate to get involve was the Science Exhibition by our monastic science students. Sager Family Foundation and our Sera Jey Monastery sponsored the exhibition. The theme of the exhibition was World of Our Senses. I was asked to help the exhibitors by monastic science students. I agreed to take part if they could come out with a small booklet in Tibetan on Five Senses from Science and Buddhist Perspective, which they agreed and we were able to distribute the colorful booklet to the public on the days of the exhibition, August 29 to September 1. We held the exhibition at three different locations and it was a great success. The primary goal of the exhibition is to promote the collaboration of two fields of studies; Science and Buddhism and we also aimed to promote science education in Tibetan community, too. We were very happy to see the interest of the general public.

Activities on taste

Cover of our first booklet

Presenting on visual 

We are all (Sera Jey Monastery Science Students) very happy, because of the success of the small booklet. We are encouraged to come up with more short information booklet on science in the future. Hopeful, we might be able to publish bi-monthly science booklet in Tibetan soon. While creating the booklet we found out that there are some monks who are very good at editing, some at designing, some at translating, and so on. Hence we learned that we have resource to publish. So the publishing is our next target.

            I also found the experience in Emory very useful not only in Science but other experiences that I gained while in Emory. One thing that I found very important for teaching is the need of a good syllabus of the course. I might work on that aspect for the long run of the Monastic Science Education. I think that won’t be a difficult task. We already know what textbooks we are going to use for the first year courses, the newly developed by first Emory monks! Hence according to that I could layout the syllabus.

           

Other Joyful Activities   

Oh! I end up talking lots on dull parts; let me go for more fun aspect of my life now. In fact, I took my last semester in Emory lightly academically because I knew that I won’t be able break lose like that once back in the monastery. So I went out biking, visited bar and karaoke, and held a cigar in my hand, remember held not smoke. I would love to share some photos of those too.

       

Biking with my best friend 

Singing with Tibetan students 

Holding a cigar!

            

Back in the monastery, I hangout with my friends, we went out for lunches, visited forest, and a dam. I had such a wonderful return so far. However, there is still something I am yet to accomplish on my bucket list. Hopefully I shall be able to tick them out once I am back on my feet.

Vegetable Market

Visit to the dam 

Having lunch with friends 

  

Unexpected Learning Experience  

Oh! I am yet to share my new experience. Well, it is over now so nothing to worry. For the past two weeks I was bedridden. I had an auto accident and had minor fracture on my left pubic ramus (A tiny bone, part of pelvis). Doctor advised me to take complete bed rest for two weeks. I did that and now I am on my feet walking and soon will be running again. Those two weeks has been most refreshing weeks for me. I got lots and lots of time to reflect on my past deeds and contemplate on my future plans.       

            I also found out that how fortunate I am to have so many dear friends when in need. My friends sacrificed their week long summer holiday to accompany me. They took me to the hospital regularly and occasionally took me out to my favorite places, too. Oh, life is now here for me!!! It is the un-expecting attitude that is the most rewarding mental states I want to continuously possess. I gained some weight as I was well fed by my roommate and friends. However, I think I lost some microbes from my gut after taking antibiotics for two weeks. My immediate plan is to reintroduce microbes into my guts.

            Now I know what I miss most since I left Emory. Yogli Mogli, the frozen yogurt!!! Anyhow, I am taking Indian yogurt to increase my dear microbes. I am sorry I had to kill several of my tenants due to that accident. 

Few days after the accident 

Outing with friends 

Enjoying drinks at home

Well, this is thus far! Surely there will be more exciting experience to come. Thanks for your patient reading and my heartfelt thanks to all my teachers, relatives, friends and well-wishers. Just keep inspiring me.

Back on my feet and determined to run soon!!!

                 

         

Discussion on Time

Discussion on Time

This is to share with you the information that I had after discussing with some fellow monks from Sera Je Monastery. We spent two hours discussing on the concept of Time both from Buddhist and Science perspectives. We learned that both agreed that Time is not Absolute but Relative.We also learned what Philosopher Augustine said "I knew what time was until I was called upon to speak of it." And also Dr. David Flinklestien  once told us that "I have been researching on Time for the past many years yet I have no idea what Time means, but I still have time." Let's Quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Book Ancient Wisdom and Modern World "Another way to understand the concept of dependent origination is to consider the phenomenon of time. Ordinarily, we suppose that there is an interdependently existing entity which we call time. We speak of time past, present and future. However, when we look more closely, we see that again this concept is merely a convention. We find that the term 'present moment' is just a label denoting the interface between the tenses 'past' and 'future'. We cannot actually pinpoint the present. Just a fraction of a second before the supposed present moment lies the past, just a fraction of a second after lies the future." According to Science we learnt that there are three Arrow of Time namely:Thermodynamic arrow of Time, Psychological Arrow of Time, Cosmological Arrow of Time. But we are not able to know what is second law of Thermodynamic so, we are looking forward to your help on this. Secondly, the question that we are not able to solve is that according to Science 'The faster one travels or the closer one is to an object with a very strong gravitational pull time elapses more slowly' We don't know how? One interesting thoughts that comes up in the discussion while discussing  is that 'Does it means that the gods those who has very long life span live nearer to the core of this galaxy because, the stronger the pull from the center of the massive galaxy has more effect on slowing  their time. Same idea is also prevalent in Buddhism as Highly qualified yogi can alter their experienced of time so that for what others may experience is only an instant is experienced by the mediators as a much longer period of time. And also Asanga who spent a morning in Pure Land with Maitreya when returned to Earth it has already passed fifty years on Earth. 

For the conclusion we want to quote from a book called The way of the white clouds by Lama Anagarika Govinda" It is the flow, the continuity of its movement that makes the river; and it is same with time. One he who accepts it in its fullness, in its eternal and life-giving rhythm, in which its continuity consists, can master it and make it his own. By accepting time in this way, by not resisting its flow, it loses its power over us and we are carried by it like on the crest of a wave, without being submerged and without losing sight of our essential timelessness." I hope that someone will shine light to the questions and doubt that has been raised in this discussion.

China-Tibet Initiative
March 25th, 2012
                                                                                                                                                Issue 1

China-Tibet Initiative is a dialogue between Chinese and Tibetans (but not Chinese and Tibetan exclusive) taking place twice a month. The purpose of the dialogue is to get to know one another and exchange cultural values and life experiences.

"Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more and more closely interconnected." - Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations


Jack’s story
Jack shared his story about moving from Shenyang to Beijing when he was young, seeing Tibetans for the first time when he toured in Gansu province, participating in the 2008 Olympics games as a city volunteer and going to college here in Emory.
Regarding to Jack stories, many questions such as “if he was seeing Tibetans for the first time in Gansu,” “What happened when Tibetans were protesting during the Olympics games,” and Nate asked “which of his middle school classmate went to the same high school and college with him,” which turned out to be Nate himself.


Sangpo’s story
Later Sangpo told his story about his childhood in Sichuan and Lhasa, escaping to Nepal and India, and how he decided to become a monk. Much discussion has been done on the protests within Lhasa, how people in Tibet receive information from Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal.
Many Chinese students were shocked at the long escaping process Tibetans have to go through and the risks they face.
After the conversation, everyone felt they have gained and achieved a lot from the conversation.


Ngawang: “Dialogue opens the door for better relationship and more harmonious society.”


Nate:  "Some stories are like in the movies.”

Next dialogue will be on April 7th, anyone is welcome to come, more details coming up.

                                                                                                                               by Bart Qian


For more information please LL Bart Qian or Ngawang Norbu