A Western Buddhist's Visit with Tibetans in China 2007

This post is a diversion.  At this stage I would like to share my experience of being with Tibetan Buddhists in China in a trip we took in July/August 2007.  The occasion was Rinpoche's return to the Kyegu monastery in Kham in what was Eastern Tibet, now part of Qinghai Province, China.  He was born in India, is recognised as the 10th reincarnation of a lineage of Tulkus and is the current Spiritual Director.  The monastery has 600 monks and 100 nuns.  This was only his second visit, made possible by having gained Australian citizenship the previous year.  About 25 of us accompanied him.

The initial group flew into Beijing from Australia and other places.  There was much consternation with our mandatory Chinese tour guide when 8 monks in Tibetan robes arrived to meet us at the airport.  A load of fun!  Our trip started with a side visit to Wu Tai Shan, about 8 hours by road south of Beijing.  This is the spiritual home of Manjushri, Boddhisattva of Wisdom, and there are temples dating back to the 8th century on 5 mountaintops, each at about 3,000 metres.  It is also now a dedicated Buddhist tourism area, with 4 star hotels and 47 remaining Buddhist temples.  Our guide was Khenpo Kunga Zangpo, who has been granted land to build a new Sakya Temple.  The photo is of Khenpo with some of our group on the plot of land.
                                         

I am seated on Khenpo's right.  The monk in front is Phuntsok, Rinpoche's attendant and currently going through the process in Sydney of acquiring Australian residency.

The next shots shows the playfulness of the Tibetan monks, again Phuntsok and also Tsekyab, a highly qualified Puja or Ritual Master, who is currently also in Sydney.  Both these monks were born near the Kyegu monastery and walked into Nepal as teenagers, leaving their families behind.  They moved on to another small monastery in India about 5 hours north north west of Delhi, where Rinpoche is also the Spiritual Director. Their reunions with their families while on our visit were particularly moving.

Back in Beijing we met up with Rinpoche and others and took the 18 hour train ride west to Langzhou on the Old Silk Road, then a short coach ride to the Qinghai capital, Xining.  The train was excellent, fully up to European standards.  After a couple of days acclimatising at 2,500 metres in Xining and stocking up with oxygen pillows, we gathered in 3 buses for our group and about a dozen 4wds for Rinpoche and a number of monks who had joined us from the monastery to head the 900km south south west to Kyegu.  Some passes on the road were close to 5,000 metres. The town is known as Jyekundo in Tibetan and Yushu in Chinese.  Here is a map of the route.  In 2009 the Chinese opened an airport near Jyekundo, so it is much more accessible.

There were many stops along the way and the entourage was continually growing.  We slowly climbed to the average height of the Tibetan plateau at about 3,500 metres and went over the high passes.  Most of the 4wds were owned by Tibetan  businessmen from the town who had come to meet us.  They all had brothers who were monks.  So we gathered into a procession, these photos taken about a third of the way along the trip.

Rinpoche is the one  in the middle back, without a kata or offering scarf.  Everyone would offer their kata to Rinpoche for a blessing and he would place it around their neck as a blessing.  The little monk alongside him is another Tulku, or reincarnated being, from the monastery.  We also gathered local sightseers, who took time out from caring for their yaks and goats and came up to be blessed.  On the whole trip, locals seemed to know there was a special being in their midst.

Along the way we stopped at a typical village to repair a tyre, as well as take advantage of the local toilet facilities - 4 walls and a hole in the floor leading to the nearest stream. 














I was fascinated by the local tractor, which was diesel driven and could carry enormous loads, as well as entire families.

From there we drove to within about 30km of Jyekundo, where this tent was set up as a reception point for hundreds of monks and people from the town.  Our group, now over 20, was lined up on either side of the entrance, seated on mats and fed as special guests in recognition of us having helped bring their Rinpoche back to them after so many years.  Rinpoche stayed in the tent overnight and we went to the nearest village, where we experienced 0.5 star accommodation - amidst a combination of angst and hilarity, depending on one's demeanor.

The next morning Rinpoche was enthroned in his chariot and we gained an escort of about 100 horsemen, a similar number of motorbikes and almost as many 4wds, utes and cars.

This photo is one of my favourites. It displays the essence of the devotion of the people to their Rinpoche. It was taken at a stop at a temple where there is the largest Mani wall in existence, approximately 1 square kilometre. It is made of stones engraved with the Chenrezig or compassion mantra, OM MANI PEMA HUM.

From there on we were guided by Chinese Police and military, as the crowds along the road meant that for the last 10km, the only thing moving was the procession.  Fortunately, our 3 buses were immediately behind Rinpoche's chariot, so we were in the thick of it the whole time.  Then as we came to the town, we could see the monastery straddling the two hills above it.  Kyegu Monastery, also known as Dondrubling Monastery, was founded in the 13th century, and is one of the most important in the Sakya tradition.  Although I had seen photos, I was blown away by the sheer size of it.  The construction at the top right side is the base for a huge new Buddha statue.  The monastery is at about 4,000 metres.The town has a population of about 100,000, of which we estimated 30 to 40 thousand turned out to welcome him to the monastery. That effectively locked up the town for the whole day.

Initially we stayed in a 2 star hotel owned and run by the monastery in the town .  My wife and I had an ensuite, but there was no running water and no S-Bend on the toilet, so the room was always full of toilet smells.  All washing was done using buckets of water carried from the communal ablution area.  At night the unused rooms were let out by the hour to locals who wanted somewhere to party, so there was continual traffic and door-knocking to check for empty rooms well into the early hours.  As our group was largely female, this created some trauma.  The traffic was particularly high as it was the run up to a major annual horse festival and people were coming in from the neighbouring provinces and from all round the world.  Look at Tour information on Jyekundo Horse Festival. There are several other sites giving different tour options. As well, there are a couple of good 4+ star hotels, one owned by Tibetans, and many 3 star hotels in Jyekundo.

Leading up to Rinpoche's return, a new residence and reception centre had been specially built within the monastery. That is the 3 storey place with rows of prayer flags in the centre of the photo.

Each day some of us would join Rinpoche and sit along the walls of the reception room, together with managers and senior monks from the monastery.  Locals including businessmen and nomads would come in from about 9:00am up to as late as midnight each day to be blessed, have their children named and blessed and in many cases to receive what in effect were last rites.  These audiences would fit around whatever other activities he had.  Towards the end of the visit, which lasted over a month for him, he would be called out 2 or 3 times a day to perform rituals for those who just died.

The population of the town is about evenly split between Tibetans and Han Chinese immigrants, with the administration done by the Chinese.  Many Tibetans are employed in the police force and administration, but they must have been educated in Chinese.  It was fascinating to watch the protocol around the Tibetans, who acknowledge Rinpoche as their continually reincarnated spiritual leader while they administer the Chines rules and regulations.

The monastery is well supported by local Tibetan businessmen and people, and there is a strong building program under way. The nomadic lifestyle is being reduced as the Chinese limit access to grazing areas.  The family of one of our monks has been told they will have to dispose of their herds and find other ways to earn a living in town.  The Tibetans do make great small business entrepreneurs.  Many of them live in what are relatively affluent suburban homes, not that unlike ours in Australia, with modern appliances, and have a 4wd or car and motorbikes.  In the town perhaps the most noticeable thing is that although the roads are sealed, there is just soil at the edges, so it is continually dusty, particularly as the winds are often quite strong.

Our main group was in Jyekundo for a total of 18 days, including for the Horse Festival.  Rinpoche chose to put me in retreat after the first 6 days, so what follows is mainly my wife's experience.  I will cover the retreat separately.

One visit I did was to the Nunnery, about an hour out of town, where there now over 100 nuns.  This was a much more intimate centre and I was particularly struck by the devotion of the families.  There were many young nuns, seen with katas in the back of this group.

The location was stunningly beautiful, backed into a ring of hills and looking out towards snow covered mountains.  Even though it was mid summer (July) we were treated to a storm, snow flurries and the brilliant rainbows for which the area is famous.

In this group in front of the Nunnery you can see the young Tulku on Rinpoche's right. The bearded monk in the front right is the young Tulku's dedicated tutor.

At the main monastery, each morning at 8:00 a monk would climb on the ruins of the temple that was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.  He is that little spot of red in the centre of the photo.  He would then summon the monks to prayers, or Puja, by blowing on a conch shell.  The noise would reverberate across the whole valley.  The photo below is of a room in one of the senior monk's houses.  It consisted of this room, a kitchen and a small room for retreats.  Attached to it was a cubicle with a hole in the floor that was the toilet.  This is the room in which I did my 38 day retreat, with the door locked on the outside.  The seat was both my meditation bench and my bed. Monks brought me meals three times a day.  I never left the room.

  Down in the town is this amazing statue of Songsten Gampo, the 7th century king who first united Tibet and married Princess Wen Cheng of China.  The size of the statue can be appreciated when you pick out the people at its base, to the right of the white railings.  Songsten Gampo is claimed by the Chinese as paying tribute to them.  Other claims are that he defeated the Chinese in battle.  He is credited with bringing Buddhism into Tibet and commencing the translation of the Buddhists texts into Tibetan.

Earlier I mentioned Lama Tsekyab.  The photos below are of him in his robes in preparation for a Lama Dancing ceremony and another of him with his parents and siblings in his parents house.  My wife and others ate with the family - I was already in retreat.

A favourite outing of Rinpoche's was to go in the mountains and have picnics.  The following photos show a typical rural compound, Rinpoche in earnest conversation with a local family, an example of what such a picnic looked like  and a group of nomads packing up their black yak's hair tents and preparing to move down to the plateau for the winter.

 This has been an indulgence for me.  I trust it has been of interest to you and gives some feel of the the Kham region and the life of Tibetans living under the Chinese regime.  It is of necessity from a Buddhist viewpoint, as we were travelling in the company of Tibetan monks for almost all the time.  I have deliberately not commented on the issues that surround this, as I wish to return to the area several more times in this life.  Looking at this, I hope you can understand why.      Yours in Dharma,      Vajramate.