Meditation, silence and monkeys
Now that I’ve left the Tibetan Buddhist enclave of northern India for the desert plains of Rajasthan, its special qualities have become even clearer. The appeal was strong at the time - that’s why we stayed longer than planned - but now it feels like a slightly dreamlike experience, one to treasure and draw on.
For three weeks our home was in the hillside village of Dharamkot, a mile or two north of the Dalai Lama’s monastery and Tibetan government-in-exile at McLeod Ganj. This included 10 days at Tushita Meditation Centre, a mostly silent world within a world where I was immersed in a Buddhist introduction course with my wife Clunie. There was nothing to interrupt meditation practice, writing, reading and monkey watching.
The community’s gentle, phone-free rhythms, the surroundings of high pines and views over the Kangra valley were a joy. But to me the lectures/sessions themselves ranged from stimulating, calming and insightful to downright disturbing.
Buddhism may have originated in India about 2,500 years ago but the Mahayana version prevalent in this region was reimported after China’s invasion in 1959. Thousands of people fled over the mountains and found refuge south of the border, the young Dalai Lama, their head of state and spiritual leader, among them.
Now he is 89 and, although less active than before, he still holds regular audiences at his monastery, an elegant and welcoming complex that draws Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike in their respectful droves. He is also ubiquitous via posters and photographs in streets, cafes and shops. So too are maroon-clad monks and nuns, with their shaven heads and sandals or trainers.
Hindu shrines are dotted around homes and courtyards as well, the two religions entwined in apparent harmony. But it’s Tibetan Buddhism that has attracted the curious here from far and wide since the 1960s; Dharamkot, ramshackle and relaxed on its improbable slopes below the Dhauladhar mountains, part of the Himalayas, accommodates them (us) with generosity and ease.
Goats, cows and semi-stray dogs share the space with locals and visitors, and fabulous birds such as the yellow-billed blue magpie and Himalayan buzzard were visible up close from our guesthouse balcony. The steep steps of upper Dharamkot are only accessible on foot - big loads have to be carried by donkey - and I’ve never seen so many cafes and restaurants in one town, most of them with shelves full of books to browse.
The vibe is beautifully peaceful, humming with spiritual and philosophical curiosity and the possibility of new friendships, though an edge of physical risk comes from the many unfenced drops.
At Tushita, any nerves about having to keep quiet for more than a week - apart from a daily hour-long discussion group and the odd question to teachers - faded fast. With about 90 people following the same routine, and so much to take in and observe - internally and externally - the required silence became a welcome change and refuge from usual life.
People sat or stood around looking at dawns and sunsets, reading or writing in notebooks and journals. With no pressure to go anywhere or achieve anything, yet none of the trappings of a conventional holiday, a rare feeling of calm filled the days. Even washing up lunch in a team that communicated with gestures instead of words was a new kind of fun. The food, all vegetarian, was delicious.
Often a din of barking would erupt from the trio of monastery dogs as they charged at packs of monkeys when they got too bold. Watching and hearing this constant vying for supremacy was one of the main entertainments.
But overall, the more my limited knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism grew, the less affinity I felt for it. Yes, it’s meant to be a way of life, an active training of the mind rather than an intellectual or religious credo to accept or dismiss, but so many aspects - as presented by our teachers, anyway - irked me once we got beyond the central tenets of compassion for ourselves and others (including all sentient beings) and the need to work on “negative emotions” such as anger and envy.
Everything is changing and nothing is what it seems, hence it’s folly to feel too much “attachment” or “aversion” to what lacks any inherent concrete reality. Our suffering, the endless cycle of samsara, stems from this ignorance about the true nature of existence and “emptiness”. If we follow the path of enlightenment “we can perfect our minds, fix our minds” across many rebirths and become omniscient like Buddha.
To me the notion of a perfected mind is not even desirable, let alone achievable. It’s fine to practise whatever helps us to live better and more generously but at the core of Tibetan Buddhism seems to be a kind of absolutism I had not suspected. And who gets to define enlightenment?
The Buddhism I was more familiar with is that practised by the late Vietnamese monk and writer Thich Nhat Hanh. This seems to encourage a closer harmony with the natural world of which we are part, and appreciation for the gift of life generally, without so much wariness of the attachment trap.
Karma is frightening. We were invited to imagine the trials of “being in a wheelchair” and having to negotiate the perils of India’s public spaces; then not only to feel gratitude for avoiding this fate but to congratulate ourselves on having “created the life you have”. Some examples were given of typical karmic fruits - adulterers are prone to being reborn in dirty, smelly conditions “such as the Brazilian favelas”, apparently. Women and girls in Afghanistan have been robbed of their voices for something I felt too outraged to catch.
Even China’s invasion of Tibet is believed by many people to stem from Tibet’s invasion of China in the eighth century. Where all this leaves personal agency and free will on the path to merit is hard to fathom.
Nor is a “precious human rebirth” by any means guaranteed. We could end up as an animal or insect or, if our misdeeds are atrocious, in the realm of “hell beings and hungry ghosts”.
Death and impermanence were among the main topics, with an emphasis on the fragility of life. This was unsettling but timely - we were worried about Clunie’s beloved mother, aged 99 and ailing since we left Edinburgh in October. As it turned out, she would pass away a few weeks after the course ended. Mortality is something we have both been reluctant to face, like much of western culture - here the preparation has helped directly with this actual loss.
Two of Tushita’s jewels are its rooftop and the wonderful library. In desperate need of poetry I savoured two books that were like a divine antidote to didacticism - Songs of Shabkar: The Path of a Tibetan Yogi Inspired By Nature, and Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns, edited and translated by Beata Grant. Both came with parallel original versions, which added to the visual and textual pleasure for someone who doesn’t know either language.
I asked the librarian, who was so knowledgeable and friendly, if I could take their photo to use in this piece but the answer was a polite no. “I have family in China and I have to think of them,” they said, a reminder of the continuing oppression.
After Tushita we spent an extra week in Dharamkot to absorb our experiences and go further along the mountain paths.