The First Few Days in Dharamshala

I'm in an interterm course on Tibet and the Power of Nonviolence, and the conclusion of the course brought us all to Dharamshala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, for three weeks. 

I spent a solid 30 hours in transit from Denver to Toronto to Dehli to Dharamshala, but the final descent was lovely surrounded by immense mountain ranges. We hopped in SUVs up to upper Dharamshala and Tibet World, getting there by mid-morning on the 30th. A brief walk around the two parallel streets that make up the center of town revealed a variety of food, tourist shops and hostels, street vendors, one ATM, and a Buddhist temple. We were introduced to two of the store owners, and took lunch at the Snow Lion. John, who owns a jewelry store and scarf store with his father and brother, took us walking out to a local waterfall. John's family is Kashmiri, and he has welcomed every group of DU students since the program's inception in 2001 and still remembers the names of pretty much every student and professor. He's the sort of guy who stops you on the street and invites you to tea, then proceeds to pull out an entire store's worth of scarves or stones, explaining the quality and significance of each of the different items. The tea is fantastic - cinnamon, saffron, sugar and honey. Truth be told, all of the food and drink here is amazing. 

It's hard to believe that the same day we were in the Delhi airport filling our lungs with smog we were sitting under a waterfall halfway up a mountain soaking in sunshine and sharing chai and cookies. The days so far have been beautiful blue-sky days and the crew is great - we're a group of 14 including two professors, one coordinator, two grad students and nine undergrads.  That first night jetlag caught up with us and I'm pretty sure no one was awake after 7 pm. Since then we've started to get to know each other through sharing meals and stories. There's a lot of laughter and a good amount of teasing.

Our second day found us listening to Yeshi, the owner of the hostel, tell his story. His story is an impressive one of snowbound treks across the Himalayas, big dreams and many miracles. If he agrees, I will share his story soon. The groups volunteering with Gamru school, the Tibet Post, Tibet World and the Students for a Free Tibet all broke away to meet their supervisors and determine their scope of work. I'm at the Center for Living Art, so I won't meet the artists until Monday. Instead, I passed John on my way to lunch and was diverted to Bloomingdales (so named for the stores in NYC) to be plied with endless cups of delicious tea and cookies while John emptied the contents of the store onto the floor in front of us, showing ever more beautiful scarves and rugs in silk, pashmina and wool. One measure of quality, he explained, is if you can pass the entire scarf through a ring with space to spare. The pashminas are hand-stitched, as are the rugs. Two hours of showmanship later saw me with two scarves and two rugs which I most definitely do not have space for while I am laden with what feels like my sister's entire room, clarinet included. That same evening we walked the kora, which is essentially a walking meditation route past hundreds of prayer wheels, a wall of photos of self immolators, beautiful stupas, and endless mountain vistas that ends with clockwise walks around the Dalai Lama's temple. It is a lovely reflective walk and the temple itself is beautiful and welcoming. I have never felt as welcomed by a religion as I have by Tibetan Buddhism, although I still know relatively little about it apart from its extensive concern for self-reflection. Both monks and nuns here wear the red robes, although I think their duties and practices are different. It bears investigation on my part to understand the religion and its values better.

Day three saw us up early and in taxis down to Government College in the hopes of getting passes into a convention we'd heard about the day before. It was "In the Path of Buddha and Gandhi: A Convention for Global Peace," and the blessing was to be given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself. It wasn't on the schedule, but if you get the chance to see the Dalai Lama, you take it. As he was arriving, the master of ceremonies read us quotes she found particularly insightful and inspiring from the Dalai Lama's Facebook page. Oh to live in the modern age. His entrance was greeted with crowding cameras jostling to take a thousand pictures, and an audible refusal to proceed straight to the stage. "I want to greet the people," he said. And he did. He asked me where I was from and acknowledged my two letter response. The best way to describe him as we sat through a series of speeches, one in Hindi, one on nuclear weapons, and one on Gandhian tradition, was jovial. He goodnaturedly accepted the endless gifts of books, Gandhi pictures, model spinning wheels, and accolades that came throughout the speeches. When his turn to speak finally came, he urged the audience towards action over prayer, and using tradition in combination with modern science. I'm sure there are videos up by now of his speech and now that I'm writing days later, it has faded into the other days here. Although I don't remember the details, the feeling of the conference was hopeful. It's not every day you get to be in the front row as the leader of a government, even a government in exile, spends his morning talking about Indian tradition, "mental hygiene," environmental protection, protest and nonviolence. It made up for the subpar cafe lunch and the general feeling of awfulness from being both cold and sick. The sickness never really goes away - it is smog lodged in my lungs - but it's not debilitating. 

The first three days were packed, which was pretty indicative of the rest of our time in Dharamshala. I started my placement that Monday, and the rest of our time has been full of morning meetings with local Tibetans and organizations, afternoons at the Center for Living Buddhist Art, evenings in conversation class with Tibetan monks, and nights with delicious Indian, Japanese, Tibetan, and even a bit of Italian food. It will be the work of days or weeks to transfer my notes into coherent thoughts, but it has been lovely and interesting and moving to be here with this community.