Mantras & Misdemeanours: An Accidental Love Story

310 Pages·2007·1.15 MB·English

by  Vanessa Walker

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FOREWORD
I am happy to learn that Vanessa Walker has written a book on the
Tibetans in exile. It is my hope that her book will inform more
people about the issues and challenges that confront the Tibetan
community in exile. I also hope that through her book a greater
number of people will come to appreciate the consistent efforts by
the Tibetans in exile to preserve Tibet’s spiritual and cultural heritage.
I believe this book constitutes a fresh look at the Tibetan
community. She explores traditional Tibetan institutions like the
Nechung state oracle based in Dharamsala, which was relocated to
South India ever since we came into exile in 1959. The author re-
visits our efforts to democratize our administration, and the debate
generated in our community by my Middle Way Approach of not
seeking independence for Tibet but for Tibet to operate within the
overall framework of a confident, stable and prosperous People’s
Republic of China.
However, the main merit of this book is its narrative on the
concern of the generation of young Tibetans who were either born
in exile or who recently fled Tibet. I believe a frank and open
discussion of the problems and challenges faced by this new
generation of Tibetan exiles is critical in our common attempt to
help this generation of Tibetans to live fulfilled and productive lives.
This book also highlights the lives of many young Tibetans who
have dedicated themselves to the cause of Tibet, and on whose
shoulders will fall the responsibility of ensuring the happiness of
the Tibetan people and the preservation and promotion of Tibet’s
rich spiritual heritage and its distinct culture.
The Dalai Lama
October 3, 2005
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Vanessa Walker worked as a journalist at The Australian
newspaper, as their social affairs, film and, most recently,
religious affairs writer. For the past decade she has studied
Tibetan Buddhism, undertaking various retreats in Asia.
She is a frequent traveller to India.
In 2004 Vanessa resigned from her position at The
Australianto live in the small Indian town ofMcLeod Ganj,
the epicentre of Tibetan Buddhism and the home of the
Dalai Lama. She now lives and works between Sydney,
Australia and her hometown of Auckland, New Zealand,
where she and her Tibetan husband are raising their new-
born baby.
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mantras and
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an accidental love story
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Vanessa Walker
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Some ofthe people in this book have had their names changed and their
stories merged or separated to protect their identities.
The phonetic and most common
spellings ofTibetan words have been used
First published in 2006
Copyright © Vanessa Walker 2006
All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a
maximum ofone chapter or 10 per cent ofthis book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for
its educational purposes provided that the educational institution
(or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library ofAustralia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Walker, Vanessa.
Mantras and misdemeanours: an accidental love story.
ISBN 1 74114 583 X.
1. Walker, Vanessa—Travel—India—Himachal Pradesh.
2. Himachal Pradesh (India)—Description and travel.
3. Himachal Pradesh (India)—Biography. I. Title.
954.52053092
Text design by Zöe Sadokierski
Set in 11.5/16 pt Fournier MT by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To the Tibetan people, whose freedom will benefit us all.
To my husband, whom I love.
And to our precious child.
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contents
Contents
Preface: Ants Across the World ix
1 My Himalayan Obsession 1
2 Moving On Up 22
3 When First We Meet 42
4 Choying’s Escape 71
5 The Devil in the Detail 80
6 Divine Governance 100
7 Of Marriage and Money 107
8 A Belly Full 125
9 Mela Madness 146
10 Beauty and the Brutality 157
11 Realised Women 175
12 Buddha Air 196
13 Respite in a Maroon-Coloured World 211
14 The Looming End 238
15 The Reluctant Rinpoche and Long Goodbyes 260
Epilogue 288
Acknowledgments 292
References 294
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preface
ants across
the world
Ants Across the World
There I was, stuck in a dank hotel in Boudhanath, in Nepal’s
Kathmandu Valley, simultaneously getting changed and brushing
my teeth, when I looked out the window and saw a bank of
moon-faced boys in monk’s maroon, their arms casually wrapped
around each other, staring back at me. They were unabashedly
curious, not at my semi-nakedness—that didn’t seem to occur
to them. No, nine pairs of dark, slanted almond eyes were glued
to the electric toothbrush vibrating in my mouth. Realising they
were caught, they turned and ran away, all gangly legs and flying
robes, back into the colourful concrete building from whence
they came. I was twenty-four, newly aware of the catastrophe
that had befallen Tibet. This country, whose very name is resonant
with a quality both magical and tragic, was split open for the
world to see after the brutal invasion by communist China in the
1950s. Thousands of Tibetans poured out into India, following
their leader, the person who means everything to them, His
Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
During that first trip I went to the famous stupa at Boudhanath,
a magnet for newly escaped Tibetans. Circling round and round
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Mantras &Misdemeanours
the stupa, the stringed beads known as malasin hand, whispering
mantras under their breath, I was taken by the way Tibetans
appeared strong-minded yet kind and calm. I was intrigued at
how they preserved this demeanour in the face of the horrors
that had been perpetrated against them. That is what led me to
Tibetan Buddhism.
Back in Australia, I fell in to the Buddhist world, going to
my local centre, doing retreats and taking initiations. I found my
lama and travelled to Tibet on pilgrimage, a trip that only increased
my fascination with the Tibetan people. In Lhasa I joined great
streams ofTibetans circumambulating the sacred Jokhang Temple,
falling in next to an ambling elderly nomad who had taken his
best friend—a goat on a leash, its snout covered with a pink-
crocheted mouthguard—on the circumambulation in an attempt
to rid it of its bad karma so it could climb higher up the species
ladder to be reborn a human.
Like many western Buddhists I also gravitated to India. In
Bodhgaya, where Buddha gained enlightenment under the Bodhi
tree, I did as my lama asked and finished tens of thousands of
prostrations. My neighbour was a skinny smiling monk who had
spent the previous three years prostrating his way across Tibet,
down through Nepal and into India. Using broken English and
sign language he told me he planned to prostrate all the way to
America in the name of world peace.
Like thousands ofBuddhists I was drawn time and time again
to the Himalayan hometown of the fourteenth Dalai Lama,
McLeod Ganj. It is a modern-day frontier town filled with
indigenous Gaddi Indians, entrepreneurial Kashmiris, exiled