travels in Tibet

3 months

but who is counting ... me!

I will be on the road again at the end of July heading back to Xining and beyond to spend a serious amount of time studying, learning and getting so much closer to finishing my TTM studies.

I say finishing advisedly, because I doubt that I will ever really finish studying it in this or many more life times. The foundations that Dr Nida so painstakingly gives us will serve as a starting point. There is always more to learn! And of course as more and more texts become available in English in the future, more information will be coming.

And I hold fast to my wish to be able to read the Gyud Shi in Tibetan before I finish with this life!

Speaking of which, heading to Melbourne today to restart my Tibetan language classes, yay.

Oh that's right, I came here to study!

Returning to noisy, dusty, pollution central - Xining - was not the ideal way to emerge from my retreat. On the other hand, no shower for 8 days, someone to speak English to and be understood, seeing Dr Nida, starting our course at the Tibetan Hospital; these were all good reasons to love Xining after all.

So I already told you about ending up in the back of a police car on the first day back, thank you to Dr Nida's cousin for driving us in his "company car". Really, the glorious chaos continued from there on in.

I am always so impressed by this hospital. It grows and gets busier, the doctors seem to be more and more dedicated each time I visit. It is always a huge job to organise this event and this year with such a big group of students, even more so.

I can't tell you exactly how many we are because we have a floating population of Russian students. No-one knew how many to expect and they seem to come and go over the weeks that follow, interesting. We do however have lots and lots of Italians. 31 in total I think and they are a tour group all on their own. For translating, moving around and being shown stuff and just management in general we are all constantly being put into groups. First we have 3 main groups - Italian, Russian and English speaking. The English speaking is the smallest group (and the funnest). We have 5 French, 1 Swiss, 2 Germans, 2 Americans, 2 Aussies (yay Team Australia) and 1, sometimes 2, Vietnamese-living-in-Germany.

But just because there are so many of us, sometimes we have sub-groups. And then there are meal times where the groups are re-defined into vegetarian and non-vegetarian. And then those who can't cope with the idea of eating family style from shared dishes and want to just have their own plate of food. If you spend too much time thinking about this, you would go mad. So I stick with the english speakers and just eat whatever is put in front of me!

We have our official welcome from the hospital directors, as I have heard this speech twice before it is very hard to look focused and engaged when Dr Nida is laughing and pulling faces at me. No decorum. Naturally they are proud of their facility and the work they are doing, it is fantastic.

Then our program commences. We have lectures by doctors from the various departments in the hospital: bloodletting, urine analysis, pulse reading, bath therapy. We visit the out-patients, see the external therapies, see the bath centre, the medicine areas - storage of materials and production, the hospital museum and research centre and go on rounds with a lovely doctor (going to marry him when I grow up) through the in-patient facility. We all have very impressive white coats, and because they were all the same size - extra large - mine brushes my ankles in a very fetching way.

It's very intense, and because our hotel is not near shops, restaurants or internet places, at the end of the day we re-group into who-wants-to-do-what with the guides and we rush out into the evening with another intense program - of shopping and eating.

Under the leadership of Dr Padma (going to marry him when I grow up),the external therapies department seems to have gone ahead by leaps and bounds. It is so busy, all the time. There is also a marked change in talking about the spiritual aspects of Tibetan Medicine. As one doctor tells us so wonderfully, "when I am working on a patient, my head is boiling with mantras". The doctor who takes us on rounds also talks about spiritual aspects of treatment, and always keeps a hand on each patient as we stand around their bed, so they don't feel like an object we are all staring at. He is very very lovely. Oh, I already said that ;)

One of the important aspects of what Dr Nida does, the re-invigoration and restoration of various treatments in Tibetan medicine, is shown when he gives a talk on the Yuk Cho stick therapy and 80 doctors come to listen to him!

There is a large Chinese temple across from the hotel and every night and early morning I hear the big deep gongs, it's good to think that amongst all this busyness someone is finding time to pray.

The week at the hospital, although crazed and hectic, is great as always; and I am grateful to those who have put so much time and effort into creating this opportunity for us.

I am also counting the minutes until we get into our bus and head up to Mahlo and the grasslands!

so where was I?

I feel like I should start from the start again, but that is probably redundant now. We had some issues with local authorities in Mahlo which meant it was a good idea to stay away from the internet cafes. Combined with lack of easy access in Xining, the blogging has been a bit harder this time for sure.

But maybe a bit of a recap of some things and some new stuff, it's all good, and I'm only writing all this down for my own benefit anyway!

I want to re-visit Gonlakha, metaphorically, physically and through words and pictures. It is such a special place.

It's a small monastery, and its community, perched like a layered cake up the side of a very steep hill. Each area is terraced and everything goes up up up. The rinpoche has his little glass sided building atop the monastery but below the dwellings, where he sits as the heart of the place. There are two Gompa's and a large school room style building that was built by Dr Nida and  his association. We hope to sponsor a few months of teaching there next year for the  local children. The village is about 5 minutes away by motorbike, but apart from that there is nothing else is this valley except the animals, birds and plant life, plus the herds belonging to the local people. It is so deeply peaceful.

We arrived and I was welcomed and given my room. Sonam and the driver departed and there I was, the only english speaking person for miles around. The monk who looked after us on our last visit set me up with a small table in the covered area in front of the gompa for my practice. He showed me where the prostration pads were, they are brocade on the front and rabbit fur underneath. There are deep, smooth grooves in the wood from the many many people who have done their prostrations here before me. It is also about 36 degrees Celsius at least, and as we are at 3000 metres above sea level and I have only been here in Amdo for two days, I am feeling the altitude!

The gompa is well secured with a huge padlock, but I don't take it personally as it is kept locked except for when the monks are there chanting or when they put the offering bowls in every day. This is the small one which is like a tiny jewel box, with hundreds of small Guru Rinpoche statues, porcelain ones and one large statute of Guru Rinpoche, very beautiful in the centre. They seem very good at making the torma offerings here, they are very elaborate and decorative.

From when we arrive until I leave, I am offered tea and food about every two hours! The lady who does all the cooking for whoever is hungry has decided that I do not eat nearly enough. I can't get her to understand that  a full stomach is not a good idea before doing 200 prostrations. The amount of food I see her put out daily is astonishing, and everything is from scratch. It doesn't matter who turns up, there is always enough food for all. And chat, and tea, and of course the novelty visitor. She also makes the best tsoma. Mountains of them. Everyone turns up for lunch on those days.

So my day starts with my getting washed and dressed quickly in my room, because you never know who is going to pop in the doorway. Often I would open my eyes from sleep to find someone watching me, and one time, a lady who thought it looked comfortable obviously, lying curled up next to me. It's ok, it's like living in a pack of puppies, always someone to cuddle into you.

Then it's time for kora, with my two kora girls, we walk around the gompa and exchange smiles and mantras. Then its breakfast time with everyone, and my phrase book. I pass on the tsampa because I can't get it without the butter which I don't like when it is aged, and have bread and milk tea. Then I write in my journal, do my bits of washing before heading off to the gompa for the first session of the day. Quite often I have an audience for this, they try and read the english in my prayers, or just stare. Usually I get a huge smile and a thumbs up when they eventually get bored and go away.

Each session takes between one and a half and two hours depending on how long the prostrations take, which means how much resting and gasping goes on.

After that I go and wash my sweaty face and have some tea and a rest before I treat people in my impromptu clinic. This started within an hour of my arrival and it makes me very happy to do it. I think to be here and be such a welcome guest while I do a week of spiritual practices especially meant for those who work in healing means it is especially blessed to be doing this work as well.

However, well equipped I am not! I have incense, I bought up a big box for the monastery, so a few packets are held back to use for moxibustion. I have butter for massage, and I go and find some smooth rocks to heat in the sun, also for massage. Very simple, very pure ku nye indeed. And mantra water of course, which makes Dr Nida roar with laughter when I tell him about this later. Me making mantra waters for the yogis at their monastery. It is funny.

After lunch I go back for my second session and then I have to have a nana nap! I am sure they think I am really lazy and it is impossible to explain about all the things my body is getting used to, so I stop trying. Another thing I am dealing with is a lot of joint pain, the altitude is all I can attribute it to, but whatever, my joints are very inflammed and painful. I try my best to ignore it because this is such a great opportunity and I am so lucky to be here. At sunset, I sit and wait for dinner, which comes after the five o'clock snack, and look at the special hill with the trees (this hill was bare until the death of the first lama, then the trees all came) and watch the eagles playing on the currents and think I am the luckiest person in the world.

I sit with them after we eat to be sociable. I don't mind not understanding what they are talking about, the voices are company and by the end of the week we are even sharing some little jokes and gentle teasing. But I am always ready for my sleeping bag by the time the stars are all out. Drolma who is always first up in the morning is always last to bed, and she will not allow me to help with dishes or cooking at all.

One day, lots of ngakpas arrive and set up a big production run of amulets. I watch this fascinated. One hands me a sheet to fold and starts to show me how. Thrilled I sit down ready to be his best student, but one of the monks comes over and shoos me off. How dare I be a woman and want to do this. Oh well, it's their place. I am nevertheless quite excited  just to watch the whole thing. It takes all day and there is much laughing and talking and no doubt tall tibetan tales told. I entertain some young boys who are practicing their writing by showing them my tibetan writing which is much worse than their 7 year old efforts. 

The next day most of the monks pack up and depart for the hills where there is to be a big gathering of ngakpas, and the rinpoche will be giving an empowerment, they will be gone for five days. This means sadly I will leave before they return, but I plan to come back before heading home to say goodbye.

Another afternoon, I emerge bleary from my siesta to find 3 Europeans having tea with my monastery family. To be specific, 2 Russians and one from the Ukraine. Yes, students of Dr Nida also who are traveling about a bit before the course starts in Xining. They plan to come back here afterward to also do retreat. This will be good news for Drolma, 3 men to feed, I am a big disappointment in the food department.

By the time my week is up, I feel as though I have lived here for years and can't imagine a different daily routine. When I go to the gompa for my last session the thunder starts to roll up and down the valley, and as soon as I finish the last prayer of dedication, the rain comes. Yuthoks blessing, I think, he must be pleased.

And then before  know it, it's time to leave. I have given all my gifts, hugged and been hugged and even the stoics are a bit teary when I get into the taxi. Me? I am howling like a big baby. I am sure there are things I will want to add to this, but I hope you get a feel of what a special time this was in a very amazing place.

gratitude

blessing

contentment

peace

lots of laughter, who needs a shared language when you can smile and laugh together.

joys and sorrows.

Some days really shine and some are really black, in a few short days I have had both.

The black day is so sad I don't know how to write it.

When Yandrongtar came up to Xining to visit from Kokonor he asked me to come back with him the next day. I knew he had some serious problems with his clinic and the land, all to do with the government. So, I got a translator and left the group and drove to Kokonor with him on Sunday. My understanding was (and via various translators) that the government had aquired his land and he needed to buy it back.

So we drove, 3 hours, and arrive at the village finally, with all the sunday tourist traffic. I get out of the car and am confronted by a devasting pile of rubble. The clinic stands empty and will be demolished in the next few days and our hospital that you all helped me to build is already gone.

I can't express how shocked and saddened this made me, even now as I am writing I am trying not to cry any more. But it's much much sadder and more terrible for them.

The bad news keeps coming, one of the young doctors I have met before, with a young family, was injured during the riots in 2008, crushed between two cars. I knew of this but now learn that he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

The stories of what is happening here are so fantastic they must be true. A very senior PRC party official was driving through the village and decided that the buildings were too ugly for a tourism area. They had to be demolished and re-built 20 meteres back from the original location. In the process the government aquired all the land along that strip and the owners now have to buy it back and build only according to the plans the government have issued. The other stories involve chinese mafia and that is just the start.

It is a very popular area that the Chinese are trying to lock down and cotnrol, and they are not interested in any visible Tibetan presence.
But what does that mean for health care for the nomad people?

The doctor has an idea but I have to think about it, it's a lot more money and a very complicated process. Dr Nida is also concerned with the proposals. Also I am worried that if they do it this time, what is to stop them doing it again.

He was very worried that I would think it was his fault. As if small people like us can do much against this juggernaut.

But I will keep trying. There will be other avenues to help. There is so much here that is worth fighting for.

So are we ready for a good day?

We are in Mahlo now, the grasslands are heaven on earth and at this time of year, when covered in wild flowers and herbs, you can't believe that somewhere so beautiful really exists. When we finished climbing up up up on the long drive from Xining (we went from 2,400 metres above sea level to 3,600. When we go up to Chabdrak it gets to 4,500), and suddenly you emerge on the high plateau, I begged the bus driver to stop so I could get out and just be there for a moment. It was just on sunset and the air was gold and all around me was an amazing persian carpet of flowers.

I love Mahlo. It is a wild west town, tibetan style. The men are so handsome and cowboy, and the women incredibly beautiful. The hospital is growing with a huge new building underway. So getting back here was a good day. In my heart, this is one of the places in the world I am always returning to.

A shining beautiful day yesterday. Dr Nida was born near here, and although he spent the first seven years of his life in a nomad tent, the family home is now here. So his mother invited us all for lunch yesterday. That is all 47 of us.

As we walked towards the house there was a long line of family and friends waiting at the gate to welcome us all one by one. And inside, a feast of Tibetan proportions. They were so happy to have us, and that so many of Dr Nida's students were there. It was generous on so many levels. He has not been back for 3 years and I could understand if they were more protective of the short time they will have together.

There is a small tent on the grass, this is where Dr Nida consults for the many people who come a long way to see him. (As we drove into Mahlo the night before there was a group waiting with katas for his car to drive past.)

He saw patients before coming to the hospital to start teaching, again after lunch and then after dinner. I went back in the late afternoon to help while he rested and had some food.

This was a humbling experience. A young Tibetan girl Tsering Drolma was translating for me, and as we came over to the tent, the long line of people stood and bowed to me. Then it was three extraordinary hours where I think I learnt more about Tibetan medicine than all my reading has taught me over the last five years.

And then the priviledge of working along side Dr Nida when he came back.

Blessed in so many ways, but most especially when I can help someone.

Last bit of good news, the young nomad girl I helped last time with some money for her study is now a doctor and working at the hospital. She hugs me about 100 times an hour and I have had my picture taken with her whole family!

so, back in the most disgusting internet cafe in the world

So, back in the most disgusting internet cafe in the world, hands down, and i don't think some of these people ever go home! And we won't speak about the second hand cigarette smoke, but then the patients even smoke in the hospital here!

Pulse reading and everyones favorite, urine analysis yesterday. The doctors are all amazing as ever, so dedicated.

There has been some problem with the water in Xining, it goes off for a long time, many hours, and the ammenties are becomming a little scary. Also in the hotel only hot water, better than only cold, but still makes for fast showers.

Shopping at the tibetan market after class last night. Never a jolly place, but this time so many beggars and people with missing limbs crawling on the footpath, and tiny pickpockets, all 2 foot tall. Stil shopping is shopping and a girl has to do her best :)

Dr nIda is in fine form and keeps pulling faces at me when the doctors are talking and I am trying to look like a good and serious student of tibetan medicine. I have to keep ducking under the desk.

Dinner at yak restaurant - thank goodness for momo's after trying to herd 8 italians around the city. (we have 31 in total = challenging!) Sonam Dorje is heroic in his tour guide personna!

This morning we did rounds at the hospital, so interesting, and this mornings doctor is very commited to traditional methods even although there is a state imposed obligation to use a certain amount of western medicine and methods when patients are first admitted.

Then just before lunch, the doctor from Kokonor appeared, so nice for hiim to drive all this way to say hello. We will spend a day or two there at the end of the trip. This afternoon, the medicine factory, selection, storage and preparation of herbs. and hopefully flushing toilets when we return to the hotel.

I am trying to get back to Gonlakha when we get to Rebkong, most of the monks were away at am event further up in the mountains when i left. the rinpoche was giving a five day empowerment. Dr nIda told me that over 1000 people were there. But I would like to see them all before I head for home.

demo

Tibetan Medicine adds another leaf to its newly planted tree in Australia

In 2009 we were blessed to have the first intake of students for Traditional Tibetan Medicine studies here in Australia. At the end of that first course, our teacher Dr Nida Chenagtsang said it had long been a dream of his to teach TTM in Australia.

So coming back for our second year of studies felt like a real consolidation of that dream into a very real reality. Our TTM family had grown with the inclusion of some new students who had completed studies during the year to enable them to join the current group.

As always it is with great anticipation and excitement (and some fear – what have I forgotten!) that we start our classes with Dr Nida.

TTM is such a vast and rich subject, with it’s history going back thousands of years; deeply embedded in the indigenous Bon culture of the Tibetan people and then later entwined with Buddhism, as it became the predominant religion of Tibet. Tibetan medicine can encompass not only the things we expect from a healing system such as medicines, external therapies, suggestions for diet and lifestyle; it can also include dream studies, astrology and an understanding of Sa Che or geomancy or more esoteric techniques such as healing with mantra. So it’s no wonder that we feel a little daunted as westerners embarking on this journey.

We don’t need to worry, Dr Nida makes sure we don’t get lost, don’t feel left behind in the cultural or historical differences. The fundamental thing we all need to practice any kind of healing is compassion and he shows us that in so many ways. We laugh, cry, and learn a lot!

As our nine days fly by we learn more about pulse reading, urine analysis – everyone is used to coming to class with their small yellow jars now. We look at tongues and hear about leeches. We try not to set each other on fire as we practice moxibustion. We face the prospect of bloodletting – what is worse, giving or receiving?

We learn about the amazing infinite, internal journey of the fetus. Long before the advent of x-ray or scanning, Tibetan doctors had a clear understanding of the way a woman’s body becomes a whole universe for every child that is born. And of course the mysteries of the end of life journey, with its dissolution of the body back to the five elements from which we all are formed.

We find out there are 72,000 internal channels in the body (and I hope we are not expected to learn them all by next year!) The three humors become more detailed as we go further into the subtle energies at work in us all. Pathology studies begin, and understanding the systems of our amazing bodies.

We all so enjoy having the gentle energy of our Tibetan students with us in the classroom, and the opportunity to hear Tibetan spoken each day is lovely.

(And we learn that an orgasm every day is good for your health…)

And it’s here in this room in a hotel in Melbourne that we have taken another step forward on our TTM journey; and started to really comprehend how connected we are, to each other, to our chosen subject, to our teacher, our patients and everything in and around us. That seems to be the most important thing anyone who wants to work as a healer can learn; that there is no separation.

Dr Nida Chenagtsang Teaching Schedule 2010

Details for all courses and  public talks with Dr Nida next year are now available on the Ngak Mang Australia web site.
http://www.ngakmang.org.au/

Mantra healing course 2

Hi all,

I have added just a few photos from mantra 2 to the TTM album.

http://buttercupchappati.typepad.com/photos/ttm_melbourne_2009/

enjoy!

mantra power and recycling all at once

Mantra Healing and good bye to Dr Nida until next year.

Our two Mantra healing courses, level 1 and 2 were fabulous of course. It is a fascinating modality and we love a little magic and mystery don't we. Mantra 2 in particular, Dr Nida called it Hogwarts School - Tibetan Style!

The use of mantra for healing is ancient, some of these mantras are thousands of years old. It is simple, easy and very effective. And since the Chinese invasion of Tibet, not officially taught any more; which makes these teachings all the more precious to us. How fortunate we are to receive them.

Now we have to go our separate ways and spend many hours in retreat to empower these healing tools. 

And Dr Nida is now in Singapore teaching for a few weeks. Always, we are sad to see him go and look forward to welcoming him back next year. (Hopefully all our homework will be done!)

Mantra 1 group

and Mantra 2!