Monk-y Pix

Just fortified myself with a hunk of fresh bread thickly smeared with semi-crystallized wild Mongolian honey. Each ambrosial mouthful has been chased by sips of just-brewed Tie Guan Yin loose green tea (I know what you're asking – was this “Iron Goddess of Mercy” tea “monkey-picked”?). This, or something like it, must be the daily fare in Tushita Heaven.

I’m celebrating, you see. Following months of fruitless scheming, wheedling, and cajoling, I have finally gotten my hands on photographs of the eight Mongolian boys we sponsored to go to India. Looking at the pix, I suspect that the Powers That Be simply hamstrung me until photos could be had of them actually in India. Much more impactful, as you'll see.

And why, exactly, are we shipping Mongolians to India?

{Can’t help myself – this just reminded me of an old Red Skelton bit. He joked, “I saw an ad last week that said, ‘For only 25 cents a day, you can feed a child in India.’ So I sent my kids.”}

Well, this question steers us into the choppy waters of comparing holocausts, but it’s important to understand.

The first thing to know is that Mongolia and Tibet are twin spiritual brothers. They are the only two major countries in the world to create a culture based on the Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism, that flowed out of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent during the latter centuries of the first millennium CE and spilling a bit into the next. The troubles for them, like almost everyone else on the planet, were to fall like hail in the 20th century.

By now, most everyone knows a little something about the horrors visited upon the Tibetan people by the Communist Chinese who invaded and occupied that land in the late 1950’s. The worst of it was to come a decade later, during the time of extreme ideological fanaticism in China known as the Cultural Revolution. Mass murder and torture of Tibetans, wholesale looting and demolition of the monasteries and their contents, environmental devastation, famine, the whole lovely smorgasbord.

But why do we know so many details about this? Because tens of thousands of Tibetans have managed the unimaginably arduous escape over the Himalayan Mountains into countries that accept them as refugees – Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and India – and have documented the sordid tale.

Why do we know so little about the same holocaust inflicted on Mongolian Buddhists a generation earlier by Stalinist forces? Because the Mongolians had no escape routes, having just ejected the Manchus and Chinese after a bitter struggle.

So. The Tibetans, little by little, have preserved and built up their culture in exile over the past two generations. They benefited greatly by a segment of the Western population that just happened to be ripe to embrace and digest the teachings of its lamas, and of course because of their incomparable global ambassador, the Dalai Lama himself.

Thus, although Mongolia as a nation has emerged since 1990 from behind its thick iron curtain into long-awaited freedom, it is the Tibetans, without a nation of their own, who have managed to nurture the lion’s share of the Vajrayana culture the two peoples share.

What we’ve been asked to do here in Mongolia is to cooperate with the renaissance of the traditions of Padmasambhava, known in Tibet and the Ancient Translation lineage, or the Nyingmapa. Today, there is no lama who has done more to safeguard and propagate this lineage than HH Penor Rinpoche, who maintains his seat-in-exile at Namdroling Monastery in south India.

So it’s there that we’ve sent boys who have expressed an ardent wish to learn these traditions. They will stay for several years, perhaps as many as ten, to absorb the philosophy, language, ritual details, and practices of the Nyingmapa, and bring them back to Mongolia for the benefit of their people.

My teacher considers facilitating these young people’s education the most crucial facet of our work in Mongolia. I’m so happy, therefore, to share with you a few images of a small success.

Here are the eight boys as they are preparing to leave. The journey began at the Sainshand Station in Mongolia’s Eastern Gobi province for the 20-hour train ride to Beijing.

From Beijing, they flew to Bangkok, then New Delhi and a short hop to Bangalore. A further five-hour drive deposited them at the gates of Namdroling, in the Tibetan community of Bylakuppe in India’s Karnataka state. After a few days to adjust to dropping 3000 feet in elevation and gaining 70 degrees of heat, they suited up for an audience with Penor Rinpoche. What an incredible difference, huh?

His Holiness accepted their offerings and had gifts for them in return. Then he bestowed on them the five special genyen precepts for those wearing robes, which will form the basis of their discipline while they're there: not to intentionally take the life of any sentient being; not to take anything you know to belong to another; not to utter anything you know not to be true; not to engage in any sexual conduct; and to refrain from any intoxicants. Here they are in His Holiness’ house:

I was told that His Holiness said that he was pleased with the three Mongolians already in residence at Namdroling, two of whom we sponsored, and had arranged special housing so that all eleven could stay together. He said that if many more Mongolians come, he will build a special college just for them. Here are the eleven, along with their able chaperone Erdenebat (far left) and one of the Tibetans:

And here they are in one of the monastery courtyards, holding up what I guess are photos and other things brought from home:

And here is one of the littlest guys. He seems to be settling in well, almost like he’s been doing this for lifetimes. Ooh, I’d pinch his little cheeks if he didn’t look just so serene!

Now, I’m pretty sure that the majority of the DODR readership is female and I hear a faint rumbling – where, dear Konchog, are the girls?

Good question, and since I am my mama lama’s monk, I posed exactly that to Altangerel when we had dinner the other week. He replied that there are girls who want to go, but that he just wasn’t confident about their safety.

Well, when I go down to see him for Tsagaan Sar, I will put his mind at ease.

I was staying at Namdroling in early 1991 when the first Tibetan nuns, exhausted and sick from their escape from Tibet, showed up literally at Penor Rinpoche’s doorstep. He housed them in a classroom and, seeing the future as he does, set the wheels in motion for the construction of a large nunnery. Today there are several hundred nuns under his care, receiving the exact same education and training as the monks. Fortunately, one of them is Canadian, Ani Damchoe Wongmo. Double fortunately, Ani-la created a blog last year or I wouldn’t know of her existence. So I emailed her and asked her to fill me in on the life of the nuns there, security measures, etc. This she did, with much reassuring detail.

So relax, ladies. As Buddha is my witness, this year the young women will get their turn.

And you, if you are so moved, may help make it happen. Plane tickets and stipends for monthly necessities rarely manifest spontaneously! It’s through generous sponsors that these young men and women will dedicate themselves to bringing Mongolian Buddhist culture back to life. And many of them live in situations where the cost of a plane ticket almost equals their family’s annual income.

This past year was easy – one sponsor paid for the whole shebang! But now we’re looking ahead, and would welcome any contribution you could make toward sending the next group to the monasteries and nunneries of India. Check out the new page dedicated to this aspect of our project here, and feel free to email me (link at upper left) if you’d like to discuss this, or anything else for that matter!

Comments

[Rachel H]

Please know I mean no disrespect, but the little boys look so very young. How can they know with full understanding that this is the path for them? I know there's no coersion, I'm not trying to imply that. I just wonder.

[cyndie]

ON the upside, what a wonderful opportunity this creates for them to learn in another country. Very good list of first principles given, if only all followed them, what a wonderful world we would be.cw

[Konchog]

Rachel -- I hear you. This question comes up sometimes, because we look at the situation from our Western cultural POV. It's different if you have a belief in habits accumulated during past lifetimes, first of all. And then, this is not necessarily a lifetime decision for them. If at any point they choose to go and live a different life, they're perfectly free to do so.

But in Tibetan and Mongolian culture, if you had more than one son, it was a family embarrassment if one of them didn't go to the monastery! They consider this a rare blessing. In some of the photos I didn't show, the parents are fairly bursting with pride.

[Rachel H]

Thank You.