I’ve been wanting to write about rural Tibet, but up until now I’ve been unsure about what my spiritual angle on it would be. Now I think I’ve got it figured out, so let me try it out on you, “When things are tough, such as rural life, you can’t just live by yourself - you need to rely on a community and that community needs to be LOVING if it’s gonna stay together.” Something like that. I should also say that I just got back from China a few days ago, so this will be my last blog. I hope you’ll give me permission to write one last thing now that I’m home - it’s just taken me a while to let this idea gestate in my head. Now that I write it, the idea of things gestating inside my head is kind of disgusting - anyway, here we go:
When we went to visit a student’s home, outside the Tibetan monastery town of Rebgong, it took us half a day of driving (bus and car) to get there. Ronald, the student, was hosting four of us foreigners at his uncle’s house for a night. When the car finally pulled up to the house, we shakily walked into the courtyard, met the family and proceeded inside for some milk-tea. In Tibet it’s customary to nearly force-feed your guests. Ronald immediately started making us tsampa (barley flour, yak butter, tea, dried cheese curds and a bit of sugar), as he is a self-proclaimed tsampa-ologist. You mix the ingredients into a ball of dough and enjoy. This force feeding can also backfire, we heard about a nun who went to the United States and collapsed after four days because she’d told people she wasn’t hungry and they didn’t follow up with the Tibetan-style force feeding she was used to.
In the morning we went for a hike with Ronald - it was our idea, we couldn’t just sit and drink tea in a beautiful forested valley like that. At one point we ran across a mass of long prayer flags flying overhead - all leading uphill. When we got to the top we found a cozy hut where all the prayer flags were attached to a tree out in front. A woman quickly came out to great us, the mother of an important Lama in the area, who was spending a few weeks in the hut meditating. When we came in to have some tea we also met a monk who was dropping off supplies for the nun. It was so small inside that she could hardly move around to make us tea. I thought about people back at home, and how many of them would suddenly welcome in visitors if they had gone off to meditate for several weeks. Instead of this sacred time that couldn’t be interrupted it was more important to welcome people in - almost like this welcoming was part of the spiritual dedication.
In the same valley, we visited a monk who was starting a school for poor students. We also visited the monk’s home where he houses and feeds four orphans. This particular monk has focused on education and will start another school after he spends two years getting this one started. Monasteries play a huge part providing public service like this - with more monasteries each year discovering the link between their religious teachings and helping mankind. A small school like this one would be sponsored by a larger monastery in another town. The textbooks and money required for a school like this often come from charity. Ronald, for example, has written several proposals to help fund this new school.
So, what’s my impression? Why did I write this? Let’s start with my overall belief on the value of travelling. Each country / place has some things figured out better than other places. Maybe my country is better about different cultures coexisting, while countries like China or India are a lot better about using less resources per person. Each place you visit still has problems, some people aren’t nice, and there are things that need improving. Yet, in rural Tibet I saw people really relying on each other and supporting one another in a way that I haven’t seen in China. In many of the areas I visited, I found religion being a central part of people’s lives, as well as their heart. To me, the value of traveling is seeing how other cultures have solved something you so deeply want solved in your own culture and then taking that lesson home. Now I am home.
Arthur,
Enjoyed your piece on Rural Tibet very much. Prompted me to check out your other postings too. Great photos by the way.
David
David Meanwell - Director Tibet Urgent Response Network
Wow! thats really neat. Some cultures are so fascinating. Thats cool that you could learn so much from people in China and take that home with you. Keep loving life.