What Happens with What Happens to Us

Lately I’ve been thinking that it doesn’t much matter what happens to us over the course of our lives. What matters is what we do with happens to us.

Despite our best efforts to make it not be so, anything can happen. And anything usually does.

Maybe we’ll get the job we imagine we richly deserve, the work we know to be so right we can feel it in our backbones and in the afternoon rustle of the trees in our backyard.

And maybe we won’t.

Maybe we’ll live to be 102, and tell a fabulous, detailed, dirty joke on the eve of our dying day.

And maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll die young, for reasons that can’t be explained. Maybe we’ll win the lottery. Maybe we’ll score a Pulitzer Prize. Maybe we'll find ourselves on the cover of People Magazine. Maybe something tragic and untimely will happen to a child of ours.

And maybe it won’t.

Maybe all of this will happen. And maybe none of it will.

Knowing this, what interests me these days is a single question: how can I respond gracefully, moment to moment, to whatever it is that comes my way?

Other questions trail just slightly behind. How can I give myself over to the big "yes" of life, while understanding full well that I may never understand? That life might forever remain an awe-inspiring mystery? Can I move from the space of "yes" for the sheer lunacy of it?

And might heartbreak be viewed in another way entirely? As perhaps an opportunity to not only not cease up, but to do the opposite--to relax and become better acquainted with compassion, so that our hearts might be opened wider still?

Can I dare myself to do the unthinkable, to love at all costs?

My practice, always. And always so much to work with.

Voices of Tibet: "Arriving to Depart" in Bylakuppe

After completing ten days of interviews with Tibetan elders living in exile in India for an oral history project we've come to call Voices of Tibet, Tashi Chodron, Silas Hagerty and I climb into a car to begin the careening six-hour drive north that will return us to Bangalore from Bylakuppe.

On our way out of town, we pay a visit to The Karuna Home for the Disabled, outside of which, thumbtacked to a bulletin board, is the following message. It's entitled "Rites of Passage." The paper upon which it is printed is torn and weathered. No author is credited. And as I read, I can't help but think of the occupants of this place, the elders of Bylakuppe, me.

Given our unique space, context and notional truths, time comes and goes away. Its passage is marked by arrivals and departures of people, places and events. The observance of these rites of passage becomes important as all of us arrive to depart. The brook emerges from a hill to merge into a stream. Time flows into space and man dissolves into oblivion. There may be homogeneity in these processes as each assimilates the other to define its own uniqueness, and the end of one signals the beginning of the other. All of them are ephemeral in their own distinctive way. Therein lies their beauty. We die to be reborn; we go away only to return.

If need be, there's always the next life to figure stuff out.

Voices of Tibet: TASHI TSO

TASHI TSO was born in 1932 and makes her home at the Tsogye Shedupling Nunnery in Bylakuppe. She is distinguished from the other elders we’ve interviewed for staying in Tibet long after the Chinese invaded her country--until roughly ten years ago. It was only after witnessing the arrests of a group of nuns and monks in Lhasa that she slowly made the decision to flee Tibet around 1996.

“Before I escaped, I saw terrible things,” she says. “I saw monks in Ghanden Monastery being arrested by the Chinese police—who tied their robes to their mouths and knotted them in the back.”

“In Norbulinka, a part of Lhasa, nuns and schoolchildren were demonstrating with their fists in the air, shouting ‘Free Tibet!’ The school children managed to escape, but the nuns were grabbed on each side by two members of the Chinese police and taken away.”

With guidance from her root teacher, Tulko Paelo, Tashi Tso has been a nun since the age of 56. For many years before, she made her home with her brother and his wife.

Three years after witnessing the above described events, Tashi Tso and a small group of fellow nuns made their escape into Nepal, a trecherous journey that took over a month. They were forced to use hidden roads and paths to avoid detection; each footstep in the snow took considerable effort. “Many of those like us arrived in Nepal without toes or fingers due to frostbite,” she recalls.

About six years ago, Tashi Tso settled at the nunnery in Bylakuppe. “I am very happy and content with the blessings of His Holiness Pema Renpoche,” she says. “Even though I neither read nor write, my teacher has told me it’s permissible not be able to read the scriptures."

"Generating compassion is good enough.”

Voices of Tibet: NAMKHA DORJI

NAMKHA DORJI was born in 1937 and is a monk at Bylakuppe's Namdroling Monastery. When he was about twenty years old, the Chinese invaded his family's village in Tibet's Dhotoe province.

He says the invasion left little for him to do.

“Our Buddhist teachers advised us not to fight the Chinese,” he recalls. “We were always taught that any area that covers the sky contains sentient beings—and that the lives of all sentient beings should be protected.”

"With the Chinese invasion, terrible things began to happen in Tibet. And they're still happening. While I was there, the oldest monastery in Tibet—one devoted to Guru Rinpoche—was destroyed. And I’ve been hearing about further destruction to monasteries there only recently.”

“At first, the Chinese said, ‘We’re here to help you.’" remembers Dorji. "And we believed them. Before this, there had never been any politics in Tibet. Tibetans didn’t know how to play the game.”

In 1960, after Lhasa has been taken over, Namkha Dorji was jailed in the first of several different prisons. “Prison life was very hard,” he remembers. “Attempts were made to educate us in Communism. Many died of starvation.”

And he saw abundant evidence of torture. “Many jumped into the river, or hung themselves—they couldn’t take it anymore.”

Dorji fled Tibet in 1962, arriving first in Assam, and then in India--only to be jailed in the latter country on two separate occasions for allegedly being a Chinese spy. These are experiences Namkha declines to discuss.

“India has been nothing but good to me,” he says.

“I request the whole world to support the Tibetan cause,” Namkha asks. “Tibet was an independent country for thousands of years. It was a Shangri-la, a heaven, always a spiritual place."

And yet Dorji is resolute in his desire for a peaceful approach. "Regaining Tibet through political means is not the way," he says.

"The way can only be made right through the teachings of the Dharma.”

Dorji credits the teachings of the Dharma—and specifically “the training of one’s mind--for the equanimity he has come to experience.

As for his feelings about the Chinese?

“I have only compassion toward them."

Voices of Tibet: YANGLAY

YANGLAY is 79 years-old and one of Bylakuppe's earliest occupants, arriving at this 700-acre settlement, six hours south of Bangalore by car, when it was little more than jungle.

(It is said that a number of Bylakuppe's initial settlers were set upon by wild elephants in the course of trying, painstakingly and with each swing of the machete, to forge a community.)

Yanglay was about thirty when she got here--a widow with an infant daughter. Her husband had been killed by the Chinese prior to her escape from Tibet.



We meet one gray weekday morning outside an empty temple in Bylakuppe's fourth station; Yanglay stands alone in the wind and drizzle, waiting for us. I can't help but notice, beneath her traditional long Tibetan skirt and apron, the things that adorn her feet: pink plastic slippers with "Hello, Kitty" icons on them.

All told, there are five of us inside the temple as we begin interviewing: Silas (the cameraman), Tashi (the translator), me (the interviewer) and Sean (the photographer). Yanglay sits on a plastic chair facing us: quiet, expectant, perhaps a bit nervous. Meditation cushions lie in a large, neat stack over to the side of the room against one wall.

Just before we start, a gust of rainy wind prompts a hard green papaya to be released from its tree. With a jerk, the papaya flies though the open doors of the temple and lands with a satisfying thud on the floor in the middle of us all.

Release papers are handed to Yanglay. Like many of Bylakuppe's older residents, she can neither read nor write. So she signals her agreement to be videotaped by pressing her thumb into a purple stamp pad and using its imprint in the place of a signature.

“In 1956, the Chinese first came to our community and ordered us to register our guns," Yanglay remembers. "When they next returned and ordered us to give up our guns, we decided to protest.”

Yanglay pauses.

“The Chinese took the dead bodies of the Tibetans they killed and brought them back to our village," she continues haltingly. "They made the parents of the dead circle their sons' bodies. They were forced to taunt them, to say out loud, 'See! When you don’t listen to the Chinese, this is how you end up.'”

Recalling her husband's death, Yanglay brings her hands to her face and begins to cry.

"He was always very nice and kind to me," she sobs. "I never got a chance to say goodbye.”

Eight months pregnant at the time of her escape, Yanglay joined a small group making its way to India. The group had no idea in what direction India lay.

“Follow the sun and you’ll get there,” Yanglay recalls a lama suggesting.

The group did as they were told. Along the way--in Nathuka--Yanglay gave birth to a daughter, prematurely.

At the memory of her arrival at Bylakuppe, Yanglay pauses and again begins to cry.

“I lost my mind due to sadness," she says through her tears. "I went on to bear two more children and can’t even tell you who their fathers are." For an long moment, Yanglay looks down at her hands folded in her lap.

"The lamas had to bless me, and somehow I made it through.”

“I want the Chinese to be out of Tibet," says Yanglay. "Each day I do my prostrations so that the Chinese may be cleared from Tibet and we may return freely to our homeland.”

Voices of Tibet: DORJI BHUTI

DORJI BHUTI is 81 years old and grew up in the village of Chungdu, in the Tibetan province of Utsang. She was the only child of farmers, and escaped her country in 1959.

"The Chinese who were occupying our village made us feel very uncomfortable,” Bhuti remembers.

“They came to our homes and asked lots of questions," she continues. "And they returned several times. If we were consistent in our answers, things weren’t as difficult for us. But if we ever hesitated, or gave different answers to the same question, they would come back even more.”

Bhuti's father was imprisoned. Her mother, refusing to leave the country without him, advised her only child to flee while she could.

“We were all suspicious of one another—even within the Tibetan community,” Bhuti recalls. “It was difficult to know who to trust.”

Dorji Bhuti joined a group of thirty who fled their village in the middle of the night. When asked what it was like to leave her mother, she burst into tears. “Saying goodbye to my mother was one of the hardest things I ever did,” she cries.

Bhuti had already married; her husband had previously escaped. The couple were parents to two young children.

“I had my eight year-old by the hand and my four year-old on my back,” Bhuti remembers.

“By the time we arrived in Ghantze, the Chinese were there—and many Tibetans surrendered. But my children and I blindly moved ahead. I could hear guns shooting from every direction."

Dorji Bhuti breaks into tears. "I was worried my child would be shot on my back,” she says.

What gave her the strength to go forward?

“Knowing His Holiness was also escaping," she answers. "I had no other ambition for myself and my children other than to be with him.”

Bhuti and her children found themselves at the base of snow-capped mountains by the Bhutanese border. With the help of two fellow travelers, they managed the treacherous journey into Bhutan.

Once in Bhutan, and to her great shock, Bhuti reconnected with her husband. Together, the family traveled to Darjeeling and then to Bylakuppe, where she bore two more children.

Since her escape, Dorji Bhuti has returned once to Tibet, in 1986. But while there, she says, she "found no freedom to say or to listen."

“I’m thankful to the Indian government that we have a place to stay here in Bylakuppe," she says. "But after all these years, it still feels like we’re simply taking shelter here. It would be lovely to return to our country as free Tibetans."

Voices of Tibet: SANJAY

SANJAY is 82 years old and hails from the village of Amchok in the province of Dhomay. He is one of the few settlers in Bylakuppe who hails from Tibet's remote northeastern province, Amdo.

“I was from a nomadic family,” Sanjay remembers. “We just herded the yaks and the drees and ate yak butter.”

“The younger generation doesn't pay much attention to us," he says. "It’s so important to preserve our culture and learn our language.”

“I’d love to return to Tibet and see my younger brother," Sanjay says. "And and old girlfriend wrote to me to tell me that I have a daughter in Tibet whom I’ve never met."

"If the Dalai Lama were to return to Tibet, I’d return, too."

Voices of Tibet: JAMYANG TENZIN

JAMYANG TENZIN is 77 years old and arrived in Bylakuppe in 1961, following his escape into India from Tibet.

At the time, Bylakuppe was a jungle. "People were being killed by wild elephants. We were given a single tent," Tenzin remembers. "And we were grateful."

When we meet him on the porch of the modest, tidy home he shares with his wife, we’re told she's at the monastery performing her daily prostrations.

Tenzin was one of seven brothers and four sisters. “Traditonally,” he explains, “the eldest brother in the family served as the homemaker, the second son went to the monastery, and the others worked on the farm or become nomads.”

Tenzin was the fifth son.

Daily life was spent cultivating the fields, planting crops and working towards “accumulating merit.”

At the age of 16 or 17, the Chinese invaded his village “all of a sudden.”

“We believed that Tibet would take care of us,” Tenzin recalls. “At first, the Chinese were very reasonable-seeming. They told us they were on their way to meet some Americans, and needed us to help build them a road.”

“We weren’t suspicious of them—we did as we were asked and helped them build the road.”

"The next year, however, in 1948," recalls Tenzin, "the Chinese government started to gather up poor people."

In his early 20’s, Tenzin joined the Tibetan resistance movement. “There were about 500 of us—a miniscule number compared with the Chinese Army. We lost a lot of our members as we traveled from one station to another. We also killed a lot of Chinese.”

“Two of my elder brothers were imprisoned in Lhasa. A lot of prisoners died of starvation. My brothers just received a small cup of barley powder—tsampa—and water. So many were dying every day. My elder brother didn’t think he would survive. He was placed in a dark cell for six months."

"When he was released, his eyes were all funny.”

Tenzin much of these facts only after coming into exile.

“During my escape, it was very tense," he says. "We didn’t know where we would land, what we would get to eat—we really had to live life moment to moment. At the end of each day, we said out prayers for being alive another day."

Tenzin credits his strength to the Dharma teachings he learned in Tibet.

“Now at the age of dying, and thanks to the teachings, I’m confident that we have a good life. And we will be reborn into an even equally good life.”

“Tibetan spiritual teachings are very pure—and very important to preserve.”

Voices of Tibet: Giving Up All in Bylakuppe

So much for blogging in India. My two weeks in Bylakuppe as an interviewer for the oral history project Voices of Tibet found me nowhere near any kind of internet access.

No matter. Having just returned to Brooklyn, the story I want to share has a shelf life longer than (at least this!) life itself.

I was in India's largest community of Tibetans in exile--a five hour drive south of Bangalore over oft-bumpy roads--at the invitation of VOT co-founder Tashi Chodron (who grew up in Bylakuppe and stands to the left in the photo above). The idea was to focus on the stories of those Tibetans who, in particular, remembered what Tibet was like before their country was invaded by China in 1959. Tashi and I were accompanied by Silas Hagerty, a filmmaker, a dear friend, and my fellow partner in KarmaTube crime.

Silas served as videographer. I asked the questions. Tashi translated.

And one morning in the middle of it all, but a week after writing this, I found myself on the receiving end of perhaps the most extraordinary act of generosity in my life. Following an hour-long interview just outside the entryway of Bylakuppe's Tsogye Shedrupling Nunnery, an 81 year-old nun by the name of Yunsto--bearing an impish grin and mostly-missing teeth--signaled to Tashi that she had a gift for me. Yuntso reached into her saffron-colored robes, and from between two turquoise buttons, struggled to pull out a pale yellow khatag--the ceremonial scarf signaling goodwill and "auspiciousness" that Tibetans use to honor others. She stretched out her arms to place the khatag over my shoulders, then from around her wrist removed a strand of brown prayer beads nestled together on a red string--and joyfully placed them into the palm of one of my hands.

As Tashi remarked later, of the objects and the act, "They were all she had to give, so she gave them to you."

Note: Not "but" she gave them to me, but "so" she gave them to me.

Note: It wasn't a sacrifice.

How can I possibly now un-know this? If such a gesture can exist in this world, who am I to ever worry that I don't have "enough"? Indeed, could it be that the sum total of all that we "own," be they qualities, experience or possessions, are granted their fullest expression only in the course of offering them freely to another?

I will keep Yuntso's khatag and prayer beads close, to remind me of such notions. Or better yet, perhaps I will give them away.