Written 1-25-10 (yesterday) and photos from the trip

Here's a post I wrote yesterday, and pictures below that I've taken along the trip. This one's fairly long, but I have more to say later. Enjoy


Today after a meeting we had tea with the faculty of the Sarha school as well as our roommates. During introductions amongst my table I was humbled by the realization that I had been calling my roommate by the wrong name. He nicely told me that it is Tsonam, not Tsampo, but part of being in this environment is being okay with making mistakes. A lot of them. Without a certain willingness to be corrected and admit your mistakes, it becomes difficult to learn.

Tsonam is 28 years old and has been a monk since 17. He lives here in India now but is originally from Tibet. Many students were born in India from families that left Tibet years ago, but about forty percent left Tibet to come here. He had been studying in southern India and in 2006 returned to Tibet to visit his family. His passport was expired so he was put into a Chinese prison for three months before being released and coming to Sarha. He told me he has diabetes, which was surprising because he looks to be in good shape but his diet and lack of exercise could have brought it on. I’m not sure what type he has, but clearly he’s been diagnosed because he knows he has it, so I intend to ask about it. He told me last year he had his appendix removed and since then he’s been more concerned about health so he exercises regularly, but with the limitations of monastic life and that there is no gym or anything here, he mostly does pushups and stretches.

I was told he had fairly good English skills but he appears to speak better than many of the other roommates of the American students, and he certainly has better English than I Tibetan, so I ask him what certain things are and learn from him. Today I learned the phrase (this is transliteration) “day-ring nam-shi pay-yak-po dook,” which means: “the weather today is very nice,” which it is.

We had some free time Sunday so the male Americans went down the slope to where the river bed is. Right now it’s more of a stream but during monsoon season it will be brimming. During the height of the season Dharamsala can get around 80 inches of rain, but that’s during the summer so I won’t experience that thankfully. Traditionally the monsoon season is when the sangha, or monastic community, stays together and doesn’t travel not only because it is more difficult but the increase in water brings out many bugs and worms from the ground and so in order to avoid harming them it is best not to travel. In the past monks could only have walked to travel but now they can take cars, buses, trains, etc. but still it’s not as common.

Non-harmfulness reminded me of the Jain temple we visited in New Delhi. I’m not as familiar with Jainism but it has many resemblances to Buddhism and Hinduism. Jain monks tend to be more ascetic than Buddhist monks in their nature. Jainism is usually characterized by the abstention of harming all life, taken to the highest degree. One cannot take any leather or fur (or faux leather we found) into a Jain temple because it represents the harming of life. Jain monks wear cloth over their mouths to avoid breathing in small insects and they abstain from farming, allowing the Muslims to do it instead, because to disrupt the earth would harm the creatures living there. They may also walk bent over, with a broom sweeping the ground before them so they don’t crush anything in their path. Water is filtered several times before boiling to protect smaller organisms, they don’t burn incense attached to wood because it may hurt wood dwelling insects, and you can begin to see how intense their devotion to the protection of life is. They understand it is impossible to prevent the harming of all life, but believe it is necessary to make all efforts to do so.

When we visited we were given a tour by a Hindu and spoke to a Muslim artist who was helping with the renovation of the art on the walls, so the sense of inclusion and cooperation with other faiths is there. Jains usually tended to be gem dealers because it was one of the few professions not harming life and the majority of the biggest and most successful gem/diamond dealers today are Jains, as I understand it. In this way one might suggest their faith has treated them well. However the artist told us that in order to apply the gold flake to the walls (the temple is covered in gold) he mixes it with camel’s blood but doesn’t tell them this. If they knew it they would certainly fire him and strip the walls that he had painted.


Here are some photos, with captions:
This is one view of the stepwell we visited in New Delhi


And this view really demonstrates how large it is, and what it actually is of course. It used to be almost filled with water but in the last several decades the construction has drawn the water out of the ground so now it's completely dry. This photo was from very high up...


These next three are from the crafts village we went to.

Stone carving


beautifully hand-painted boxes, eggs, etc.


metal work on a gate


We saw this web of hijacked electricitiy in the alleys of Old Delhi, and is probably indicative of why there are often brown outs.


this was outside of a Hindu temple. Photography isn't allowed in most temples. In Hinduism there is a deity in the likeness of a monkey called Hanuman, so the monkeys are welcome and seen as holy, so we saw a lot there.
These symbols were on the entrance. What most people don't realize is that the svastika belongs to many asian religious traditions, and is of great symbolic importance. This was the case long before Hitler perverted it's meaning. They can be found going in both directions, one symbolizing spiritual strength and the other physical, Hitler chose the physical. If this peaks your interest, look up the origin of Aryan, you'll see that most of his ideas were taken and distorted to meet his aims.

group photo from the crafts village also, the little girl next to Professor Doyle was a student on a fieldtrip


Near the king's palace, but taken while riding in a rickshaw. Moments later after we got out, our driver was pulling a u-turn and got hit by another car, but he seemed to be mostly okay as he drove us for the rest of the day.


the nature of the alleyways...


There's many beggars in New Delhi, and most of them are probably organized and trying to trick you, but many, like this man, suffer from deformities or illness.


The Red Fort mosque, we went to the top of that minaret, but it was so foggy it was hard to see much


taken inside the mosque



Finally we arrived at the Sarha school, to find ourselves surrounded by beautiful scenery.

this is the view from my rooftop, and what I wake up to outside of my window most days (photo is a little dark)


the walk down to the river..


a beautiful view from the river bed. It's mostly dry now because it's not monsoon season. to the right is a small Hindu shrine

some of the landscape when we went down to the river. (forgive me for it being dark, I haven't gotten the chance to fix it)


this is Alex on our walk back from the river.


I was told that I wouldn't touch the bull. I did touch it, but it turned out to be a cow, and this is me running away after touching it. The cow, of course, didn't seem to notice.


prayer flags on the roof


from the roof...