My college had a visiting scholar from the Tibetan exile community in Dharmsala, Nawang Dorjee. We became friends over the year where he was at our college and we spent time talking about the Tibetan people and culture. I was drawn to the plight of the Tibetan people when China took over their land. I thought that the Tibetans must hate Chinese but Dorjee told me no.
I consider Robert Thurman my guru when it comes to the study of Tibetan Buddhism. I have his books and they are underlined and annotated. I listen to his podcasts https://bobthurman.com/podcasts/. He makes Tibetan Buddhism understandable to me.
I have always wanted to visit Tibet and talked to Dorjee about it. I tried to book a tour in China but at the time the bullet train to Tibet was very popular and I wasn’t able to book it on short notice.
Then I found out that Druk Yul (Bhutan) was a country adjacent to Tibet. Tibet had attacked Druk Yul a few times. It is fascinating to me that Tibet which had such a warrior culture transformed into a Buddhist nation. Druk Yul is the land of the thunder dragon, already something that makes me feel at home as an astrological
Everyone who goes to Druk Yul has to go through a local tour company. I told my tour company that I really wanted to see Buddhist culture. She must have sensed my naivite and told me they were a Buddhist country. There is nothing that is apart from Buddhism, starting with the Royal family and going to the creatures that are increasingly seeking refuge in their country because their habitats elsewhere are being destroyed. This is the country that invented the Gross Happiness Product because the Gross National Product doesn’t quite measure what a country should be.
Trekking is the way to get to know Druk Yul. Its landscape is very similar to the Northwest with mountains and trees. It is one of a few countries in the world that is carbon neutral. The trekking is a mindful meditation. In Buddhism the world is a creation of the mind. The first day we trekked up to Takstsang Monastery. I didn’t think I was going to make it because I had yet to acclimate to the altitude. But our patient guide Lop Sang just told us to go one step at a time and rest if we needed.
The largest Buddha in the world is in the mountains above Thimpu. Lop sang, our guide, told me that it cost $100 million to erect. That seems to contrary to my conception of what Buddhism is about.
I attended the Druk Wangyal Tshechu Festival and was able to see the Bardo dance. It helps people visualize what will happen when death comes and to not be afraid of the peaceful and wrathful deities. I’ve read a few translations of the Tibetan Book of the Dead but watching the dance and looking at the artwork in the temples brought me closer to what the Bardo Thordol is. A translation by Gyurme Dorge in 2006 helps.