Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page i Bookhouse 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 Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page ii Bookhouse 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. Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 10/1/06 9:48 AM Page iii (cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:66)(cid:54)(cid:67)(cid:73)(cid:71)(cid:54)(cid:72) mantras and (cid:66)(cid:62)m(cid:72)(cid:57)is(cid:58)d(cid:66)em(cid:58)e(cid:54)an(cid:67)o(cid:68)u(cid:74)r(cid:71)s (cid:72) an accidental love story (cid:87)(cid:98)(cid:111)(cid:102)(cid:116)(cid:116)(cid:98)(cid:33)(cid:88)(cid:98)(cid:109)(cid:108)(cid:102)(cid:115) Vanessa Walker Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page iv Bookhouse 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: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 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 Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page v Bookhouse To the Tibetan people, whose freedom will benefit us all. To my husband, whom I love. And to our precious child. Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page vi Bookhouse Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page vii Bookhouse 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 Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page viii Bookhouse Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page ix Bookhouse 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 Bh1044M-PressProofs.QX5 5/1/06 10:47 AM Page x Bookhouse x 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