Nancy’s Big Adventure

I am revisiting my blog – WOW!  So much has happened …

I recently received an email from friends in Nepal.  The fun news is that they had SNOW for the first time in more than 60 years – the kids went nuts!!  It only lasted one day, but it was 24 hours of complete craziness.

The bad news is that the violence in Tibet has spread to the Kathmandu valley.  Boudhnath (Boudha) is generally acknowledged to be the most important Tibetan Buddhist monument outside Tibet and has now become the Mecca of Tibetan exiles in Nepal (more than 20,000 Tibetan refugees live in Nepal).  Tibetans staged a major demonstration in Boudha on March 10, marking the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape to India after an unsuccessful uprising in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

It is difficult to express my sorrow and horror related to the current situation in Tibet. For almost fifty years the Dalai Lama has waged a non-violent struggle in exile to bring attention to the plight of his people and save their unique culture and religion.  The news reports of violent force being used against monks and nuns is heartbreaking – the photograhs of  overturned cars and burnt-out shops in Barkhor Square, the large open-air market area in front of Jokhang temple in the “Tibetan Quarter” of Lhasa are almost surreal.

It was my intention to travel to Lhasa while I was in Nepal, but there were a number of factors that prevented me from going through Tibet, including strict entry and exit travel restrictions in violation of my teaching contract in China.  I am not a Buddhist, or (obviously) Tibetan, and that culture is not my own. But the brief time I spent in Nepal and around the people affected me profoundly.

The most basic Buddhist greeting, Namasté means “The divine in me honors the divine in you.” If it were possible for all people who love Tibet, and those who love China, to think of everyone involved in this conflict in those terms – honoring the spiritual values in each side until there are no sides – solutions could be found.