Dharamsala

His Holiness the Dali Lama is in the U.S., in California, and we are in Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj, his home, temple, and the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile.

We arrived to Dharamsala in time for Easter at St. John’s in the Wilderness. Church member Paul Hudson had told us about the church which serves 40 Indian Christian families and visiting international tourists. We were late for the English language service and early for the Hindi service.

We were also three days late for a Passover seder that was held at Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant here in Dharamsala Mcleod Ganj. We’ve had experiences with so many religions here in India. We wish we could have gathered with Jewish people celebrating.

Lhasa, the Dali Lama’s Tibetan home, is said now to be a tourist site for the Chinese.

His home away from home Mcleod Ganj is also a tourist site. Dharamsala Mcleod Ganj is a mix of Indians, Tibetans, Buddhist monks and nuns from around the world and lots of Western tourists, hence Jimmy’s Italian restaurant.

Last night a brass band dressed in white and gold uniforms processed down the street with Hindu men in red turbans and women in red and gold or green and gold saris followed them dancing. Bald headed monks in maroon robes, police in brown berets, tourists with day packs, Tibetan women in traditional jumpers and stripped aprons, Kashmiri Muslims who operate bizarre stalls, all shared in the joy of this wedding procession.

Easter Sunday morning we walked the church grounds, hilly and green and full of old gravestones. Irises were blooming in the cemetery, amidst death, new life. The Easter sermon was on Jesus having no nationality, but a child of God, boundary-less. For communion, people took off their shoes and went onto the chancel and knelt. The minister offered the wafers and common chalice cup. After the service, a group of Indian women all called out to us, “Happy Easter!” One older woman gave each of us a wrapped candy and a little blossom whose fragrance grew in the warmth. That was a moment of Easter.

Later we walked down winding paths and steps, spinning prayer wheels as we circumambulated the Tibetan Buddhist temple. We appreciate seeing how Tibetan Buddhism has many images that look like Hindu images.

We had a few days here with our friends who are active in a U.S. Unitarian Universalist congregation. We shared some UU rituals. With a cloth over a suitcase and a candle, we gathered in a circle for a chalice lighting, check-in and sharing. The next day we hiked together to a sacred lake and had a dream group. Dreams were shared and each of us responded with “If that were my dream…” Two religious rituals of Unitarian Universalism.

Through another church member Cynthia Josayma who lived in Daramsala Mcleod Ganj for many years, we have introductory letters to a Tibetan scholar, his translator, a Tibetan opera singer, and a man who served for 44 years in leadership in the Tibetan government, many years as the Dali Lama’s right hand man. All are gracious and hospitable and generous with their time. They talk freely with us about relations among Tibetans and Indians, newly arrived Tibetans, 2nd generation Tibetans in exile, and long ago refugees. March marked 50 years of Tibetan exile in India.

We got to hear Kelsang Chukie Tethong sing Tibetan opera at a gathering of Afghan Muslims in town for a peace conference.

Tibetan monk and scholar Geshe Sonam Richen granted us a private meeting. We each presented him with a white scarf which he placed around our necks as is the tradition. He has a warmth and a beautifully expressive face. We talked of the commonalities of world religions and his belief that it is good to study world religions and incorporate into one’s own spiritual practice what works. We asked about compassion and non-attachment, and he delineated the difference between attachment which grows compassion and clinging attachment which distorts perceptions. As Buddhism spreads around the world, it adapts to local cultures, but he sees Buddhism as always holding as its essence compassion for all sentient beings.

We visited the Tibetan Children’s Village where 2000 children live and go to school. We were impressed with the well run school and homes, the self-contained, content children, and all the objects and messages preserving Tibetan culture and heritage. Each child is paired with an older child who tutors with homework, teaches the child to cook, and guides the child in learning prayers from Tibetan prayer books. The children study Tibetan, Hindi, and English languages. The TCV motto is "Come to Learn, Go to Serve."

The Norbulingka Institute preserves traditional Tibetan culture and arts. Through apprenticeships, students learn the ancient ways of painting, metal work, appliqué, and woodwork. We watched as craftspeople pounded metal to make a life-size Buddha.

We’ve attended programs and teachings at two monasteries, at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and at the Tibetan Museum, and we have meditated with large groups in Buddhist temples.

Our second Sunday we attended the English language service at St. John’s. The service was led by young adults whose nationalities are from around the world. They played keyboard and guitar and led us in lovely singing.

Getting out beyond the town, there are glorious hikes along terraced green mountainsides with the snow-capped Himalayans in view, rocky paths and ancient steps to Hindu temples, and rivers, waterfalls, and clear pools of water.

We have been reading to each other our journal entries from throughout our time in India, integrating our experiences, and giving thanks for all the opportunities the sabbatical has brought us.

Love,
Barbara and Bill

Chandigarh, April 17th

Our time in Chandigarh was meaningful because of two connections.

A friend from California grew up in Chandigarh and his mother and sister welcomed us. Chandigarh, unlike any place else we’ve seen in India, is a new city built following the partition of India and Pakistan as the new capital of Punjab as well as Haryana. Chandigarh was built by plan for neighborhood sectors arranged in a grid, each with its own shops, schools, places of worship, and parks. Our friend’s family walked with us in the Rose Garden, the Bougainvillea Garden, along Sukha Lake where we saw a new site for us -- local people in sweat suits and running shoes out for their early morning exercise. Piped in along the walkway is Indian classical music. We attended a mesmerizing concert of classical Indian ragas at the newly remodeled Tagore Theater. The city is clean, and traffic is orderly with lots of round-abouts.

A highlight was participating with the family in the celebration of the birthday of Ram on the ninth day of the new moon. Young children visit homes. Our friend’s mother sang prayers as she washed the children’s feet. All of us were given red tikkas, third eyes. Puja prayers were sung in front of the home shrine. Fire was lit and then incense and everyone was blessed by smoke and scent. The mother and sister fed the children their first bites of delicious homemade suji halwa sweets on puris given to the children. The children bless homes by their visits and the hosts let the children know they see the divine in them.

Because Chandigarh has been viewed as a new, prosperous city, many people have moved there, hoping to improve their families’ lives. Right outside the boundaries of the orderly city are neighborhoods with great poverty. Church member Frederick Shaw directs a public health care project in one. The project’s center has bare bones preschool classrooms, beginning library, (old!) computer room, kitchen for nutrition classes, health care promoters’ training rooms and a staff room. Frederick walked us through the neighborhood the project serves. We saw open sewers, pigs eating in mounds of garbage, flies, an area that was once a playground strewn with trash. Each plastic bag becomes a pond during the monsoons, a breeding ground for the disease carrying mosquitoes. A woman came out of her home to show us the water line of where the sewer floods her home during the rainstorms.

The health care project recruits and trains a person from each neighborhood of 200 people in about 20 neighborhoods. These health care promoters visit each family, chart the weight of children, check on immunizations, teach nutrition and family spacing of children, and look in on the general health of everyone in their group of 200 people.

We were able to do a little volunteer work at the project. We repaired and painted broken preschool furniture, cleaned up computers, cleaned floors, freshly painted a blackboard, and visited preschool classes. We participated with the health care promoters in their early morning breathing and stretching exercises, led conversational English with them in the early afternoon, followed by team building activities.

One day each of us was able to accompany a health care promoter while they made their neighborhood rounds. Families greet the health care promoters with respect and welcome. Everyone, children and adults, wants to be weighed. Most homes have one room, plain and simple, with a cot, a few possessions, and a small religious shrine. The floors are swept and washed, but right outside there are open sewers. The health care promoters, along with their teaching, do a lot of listening, showing care and compassion.

We went by one place with four little children on the dirt compound outside the house. One baby, just able to sit up, was crying. Another about nine months older was sitting with snot all over his nose and face, which was covered with flies. A third boy was playing in the dirt where large cockroaches crawled. Another boy about 7 or 8 years old was suppose to be taking care of the others. The mother was at work, cleaning other people’s homes. The father was at work too. Two older children were at school. The mother hasn’t agreed to participate in the program. Sad, very sad. The health care promoter is doing what she can. She elicited help from neighbors. How amazing to have a trained, trusted health care promoter come door-to-door, offering care and support.

Over the days, we came to really respect and feel connected to these health care promoters and to witness the good work of this project. We wrote our appreciations of each staff member, intern, and health care promoters. Our last day we all formed small groups and created non-verbal enactments of compassion, trust, team work, and justice. A part of the justice enactment included a Hindu and a Muslim reaching out to one another. We offered our gratitude to them for all we learned. Then a group of the health care promoters offered us a performance of Punjabi folk dances.

With Frederick Shaw we visited a film discussion group held at the University and a potluck meal of expats from Germany, the Netherlands, England, and Canada. These experiences gave us glimpses into more people’s lives in India.

With our friend’s family, we shared delicious meals in their warm, comfortable home. We felt like family.

We talked of issues of relations among religions and cultures, the suffering of Indians, Muslims and Hindus, during the riots and partition, and the family’s visit to the U.S. One said she would never forget seeing in Las Vegas a poor, under nourished child looking out of a barred window. We talked of poverty and environmental concerns in both our countries and around the world.

We felt so at home with the family. We shared laughter as we tried to take group photos and moving experiences with them at Sikh and Hindu temples. They go regularly to both.

When it came time to leave Chandigarh, the time seemed to have gone by so quickly. The time there was so good.

We took the bus from Chandigarh to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. We stayed in a guesthouse donated by UK, Canadian and U.S. Sikhs.

We covered our heads, left our shoes, washed our hands, walked through a warm stream of clear water washing our feet, and entered the temple compound.

In the early 1980s Sikh separatists occupied the Golden Temple. On order of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the army evicted them. The temple was damaged and there were violent Sikh and Hindu clashes. Thousands, mostly Sikhs, died. Her Sikh bodyguards later assassinated Indira Gandhi. Yet there is no security.

At many temples and historic sites, we have gone through metal detectors, had handbag searches, body searches and scans. At the Golden Temple you just walk in. All are welcome – no matter the religion or caste.

The golden gurdwara or temple shines in a large pool of water, and the surrounding white marble compound buildings involve a mixture of Hindu and Islamic architecture. Beautiful, shining, everything is clean and clear, away from all the mad hustle and bustle of the old city bazars beyond its walls. We circumambulated the temple grounds. There’s a section where people discretely take a dip in the water.

We were hungry so we made our way to the Guru-Ka-Langar, the common dining hall where up to 40,000 pilgrims a day are served. You pick up a tin Thali plate from one man, a bowl from another, a spoon from another, and wait for one shift to come out and then you go in and take a place on the floor. Rice and dhal are each scooped out of buckets onto your plates. You cup you hands and a couple of whole-wheat chapatti are offered to you. It happened to be the first evening of Jewish Passover and Christian Maundy Thursday when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and they ate supper together. Our friend took the last part of her chapatti and offered each of us a piece to take in remembrance of this place.

We walked outside under the full moon shining in the sky, lighting up the temple, and reflecting in the water.

The Sikh holy book is chanted continuously and the original copy is ceremoniously taken in at 10:15 at night and returned each morning at 4:30. We experienced both rituals.

Though there is a lot of ritualized ceremony, the place is relaxed, peaceful, and joyful. Women come up and place their babies in our arms, ask their young children to say Hello and to shake our hands. Men and women are lovingly with their children. People act as if a child is a gift from God. We don’t witness children whining, complaining, hitting. They look cared for and content. Youth and young men want to be at this place. Elder’s hands are held by their children and grandchildren.

The Golden Temple is beautiful as the sun rises and sets and under the full moonlight. But what was most moving was the communal meals and their preparation and clean up. We saw groups of people sitting on blankets peeling mounds of garlic, huge pots of dhal being stirred, a whole dishwashing assembly line. Everything is so well organized to keep everything functioning. Bucket brigadeswash down the walkways and clean the buildings. There is so much volunteer cooperation in such a prayerful and joyful way. The Golden Temple is a place of community, sharing work, sharing food, sharing ritual and song.

At Amritsar we also visited Jallianwala Bagh, the place where 2000 Indians were killed or wounded by the British in 1919. We know the history from the movie Gandhi. 20,000 Indians were holding a peaceful demonstration in an open space surrounded by high walls. General Dyer, without warning, ordered his troops to fire.

When we visited Jallianwala Bagh, it was Good Friday when Christians mark Jesus’ being killed for speaking truth to the powerful and calling for non-violence. We were talking about feeling badly about our English heritage and all that white people have done to people of color when a man came up and asked the usual greeting, “What country?” We responded “United States of America,” and he introduced us to his wife, daughter, and son. He said, “I welcome you to my country.”

We’re grateful for all we are getting to experience in India. We know much is going on in your lives and we send our good wishes, appreciation, and love.

Love,

Barbara and Bill