by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

Day 6

September 21 (Sunday)

The day of our trip to Dharamsala had arrived. The hotel limo took us to the airport at 6:30 in the morning, a time remarkable only for the dearth of traffic at that hour and the liberty that provides for the resident monkeys, who were out in force. Entire monkey families were cavorting in the streetscape. Our driver took a number of side streets before hitting the main artery to the airport. That was not mandated by traffic concerns, so what was that all about? I cannot imagine dignitaries being taken along the same route. We did not ask.

At the airport we were relieved to make connection almost immediately with the Vietnamese contingent. We had hours to wait before our flight, plenty of time to make mutual acquaintance. Delhi airport prides itself on being a quiet airport. The concourses are thickly carpeted. The air is not constantly punctuated by flight announcements. An apparent exception was in the remote terminal for the commuter flights, where we settled down to await our flight. Here the flight announcements were not only routine, but they were repeated in several languages—repeatedly! There was more noise than silence. And we were just trying to get acquainted.

It had been our hope that in addition to the training of professionals we might have the opportunity to observe how long-term meditators respond to our synchrony training and also the ILF training. One Vietnamese monk, the spiritual leader of the Vietnamese group, had already indicated his interest in experiencing the training, and here he was. As a matter of fact, he was just as eager as we were to explore the terrain. And he had lots of questions. Unfortunately these questions were all formulated in Vietnamese. This meditator, who was addressed as ‘the Venerable,’ had spent twelve years in silent meditation, during the course of which he lost access to the English that he had once known. Questions and answers were now thrown back and forth during the precious intermissions between flight announcements. It was as if time were short, and yet we were to spend a number of days together under what would surely be more favorable conditions. We were off to a promising start.

The flight was less than two hours in a prop plane with short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) capability for the short runway at Kangra Valley airport, which serves Dharamsala. I did not want to think about how old this plane was. This is where the seasoned traveler pulls out his sound-cancelling headphones and inflatable headrest, and buries his head in the India Times. Nothing about ISIS or the Ukraine. India has other things to worry about, mainly its near neighbors, China and Pakistan. A Pakistani political aspirant had just declared his guarantee that Kashmir would be returned to Pakistani control. That does not help.

And then the real adventure began with a caravan of cars going up the mountain. The roads were hardly worthy of the name. Worst of all, they were shy of the required two lanes, but they had to serve as two-lane roads nonetheless. This made for a lot of drama, but the local drivers seemed to be taking all of this in stride. Horns were used incessantly, but mostly as annunciators rather than as imperatives. “Here I come, said the horns, ready or not.” Trucks with broad gauges even invited horn-blowing with signs on the back. We were headed for McLeod Ganj, the town that has grown up around the monastery and the residence of the Dalai Lama, and presently also contains the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile. It is a suburb of Dharamsala that sits isolated on a mountaintop at 6000 feet elevation. It is located near the northern tip of India, not too far from the border with Pakistan and Kashmir.

We had lunch at Jimmie’s Italian kitchen, a breezy second-story operation away from the din of the street. The walls were plastered with placards of American movies, not only of Kundun but of The Godfather and Kill Bill. The whole thing seemed incongruous. From that vantage point one could see the mosaic of rooftops in a haphazardly constructed neighborhood. Meanwhile, our luggage was delivered to our hotel, the Serkong House, a newly constructed hotel that jutted up from the steeply sloping hillside at the edge of town. With marble floors throughout, and equipped with thoroughly modern furnishings, one nevertheless had to navigate an unpaved, rocky path to get there.

The afternoon agenda was to visit the Namgyal Monastery Main Temple, which, in a few days, would be the site of the Dalai Lama’s teaching. One could just see a part of the edifice from our third-story room. The walk took us down one of the two roads through town, bordered on both sides by tourist-oriented shops. Those would be for another day. Cameras were not allowed in the temple, but before I gave mine up I got a picture of the statue in memory of all those who immolated themselves—and still immolate themselves—in the cause of Tibetan independence. It is difficult to imagine the levels of desperation and of commitment that drive someone to this act of public self-sacrifice. Surely this does not have any impact on the new ruling class in Tibet, the Chinese government. The appeal is to the world at large. It is to us. The statue recalls to mind an earlier time when Buddhist monks were immolating themselves in opposition to the Vietnam war. And here we were, in the company of the Vietnamese—their guests, really—and in the company of Vietnamese Buddhist monks. The war was never mentioned.

Just steps away is a placard about Tibet’s stolen child. After the Dalai Lama recognized the child as the reincarnation of Panchen Lama back in 1995, the child and his family disappeared and is presumed to be in the custody of the Chinese. It has now been nearly twenty years, and the wall of silence continues. Coming out of the monastery grounds we encountered a candlelight vigil in the cause of Tibetan freedom. The procession was accompanied by chanting and singing and the exclamation of slogans, but it was remarkably dignified.

At dusk we made our way to the Hummingbird Restaurant at the Chonor House, which is loosely affiliated with the monastery through the Norbulingka Institute, an organization devoted to the conservation of traditional Tibetan crafts (more on that later). Our hotel, the Serkong House, is also part of that fine organization. The footpath, once again, was unpaved and steep. Not all of the Vietnamese had arrived, and yet our group filled the restaurant. A senior aide to the Dalai Lama came by to pay a courtesy visit, in that by now he knew Minh Chau well, given her key role in organizing Vietnamese participation in the Dalai Lama’s annual Southeast Asia teaching.

On the way back to the hotel, by way of yet another goat path, I got separated from the group because the photo of a placard offering leech therapy just needed to be taken. My disappearance in the darkness of a moonless night caused some concern, but of course it is impossible to get lost in a town of only two roads, particularly when you are heading for the point where they both meet, and that point is at the top of the hill. Of course others tell me the assertion that it is impossible to get lost in McLeod Ganj is of little comfort to those who set out to look for me. Sue told them not to worry, that I typically found my way, but the search party of Barbara and Minh did not have that history.

It had been another eventful day.

Our Trip to India Continues

Dharamsala Day 7

Siegfried Othmer, PhD
drothmer.com

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