It is not every day that a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks come to visit Durango. After all, Durango is a long way from the Gaden Shartse Buddhist monastery in the Indian state of Karnataka.
But on Thursday, dozens of residents crowded into Dreams of Tibet on Main Avenue to witness six monastics create a sand mandala as part of their Compassion Way Durango tour, a 10-day series of meditations, healings and cultural demonstrations meant to share Tibetan traditions and teachings with the community.
At the same time, the tour sought to raise money to build a new school for the roughly 1,200 young monks back in India to help preserve their tradition.
The six monks came to create a mandala of compassion – a geometric design made of multicolored sand and meant to create a physical manifestation of a Tibetan Buddhist prayer for the well-being of all sentient beings. And for Geshe Phuntsho, one of the monks who led Thursday’s events, this was his fourth visit to Durango since 2001.
He said the events are for anyone in the community – regardless of their religious affiliation or ability to donate – and are meant to spread compassion and peace to all – the guiding principle of Buddhism.
The monastic school the monks were part has a long and fraught history.
Gaden Monastery was originally founded in Tibet roughly 600 years ago by a Buddhist saint named Tsongkhapa, who, the story goes, was prophesied to do so by the Buddha Shakyamuni. The monastery he founded became the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, of which the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader.
Geshe Phuntsho said monks from the Gaden Monastery had to flee the People’s Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party in 1959 as they invaded Tibet and destroyed Buddhist monasteries and Tibetan cultural sites.
“During the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, along with over 6,000 monasteries and nunneries, our monastery was completely destroyed,” he told a crowd Thursday evening. “There were over 3,300 monks in Gaden Monastery. During the Cultural Revolution, only a few survived and managed to escape over into India.”
In 1970, following the guidance of the Dalai Lama, 85 monks applied to create the Gaden Shartse monastery in India, who granted them land in the southern state of Karnataka. The guiding principles of the monastery, according to the school’s website, was to preserve the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and culture, spread the teachings of Tsongkhapa and promote brotherhood among different religious traditions.
This is not the first time monks from the Gaden Shartse school have been invited to Durango. In 2001, 2004 and 2018, they came to share their traditions.
But Karma Bhotia, who with his wife owns Himalayan Kitchen and Dreams of Tibet, said the COVID-19 pandemic prevented a return journey for the monks. This year’s visit was extra special to him.
Since the pandemic, political polarization in the United States has become endemic – something he thought the monks’ message of compassion could help soothe, Bhotia said.
“COVID changed the whole world, and so many people lost life, so many lost a loved one,” he said. “And after that, politically, we are dividing more and more. I’m worried for that, how we can come together.”
Even before the pandemic people disagreed, Bhotia said, but there was a sense they could come together after debating politics and see one another as humans. But he rarely sees that these days. Bringing the monks to Durango and inviting community members to learn from them could be a way to bridge that divide, he said.
“That’s why we call this tour ‘Compassion Way Durango,’” Bhotia said. “We need compassion. We need to help each other, share with each other, love each other, care for each other. Because we are one, (even if) we have different thought, different ideas.”
The goal of the visit, he said, is to invite anyone interested in what the monks have to say – regardless of religion, financial background or political affiliation – to learn.
Bhotia said he is not religious – he follows teachings from multiple devotions. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Government in Exile, has said Buddhism is not a religion at all, rather a framework to live by.
“I heard many times from (the) Dalai Lama,” Bhotia said. “He always says, Buddhism is not religion. Buddhism is art of living.”
Kate Siber, an organizer for the Durango Dharma Center, said her organization belongs to a different lineage of Buddhism altogether than the monks, but that they shared that insight. Their visit, she said, was an exciting chance to learn from people who had dedicated themselves entirely to the guiding principles of Buddhism, she said.
“The Durango Dharma Center is rooted in the Western Theravada lineage, which is a weaving of several traditions, largely from Southeast Asia, Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka,” she said. “The Tibetan lineage is quite different in form. We really welcome Buddhist teachers from different lineages, and this is a great opportunity to get a taste of a different lineage that we don’t normally have access to.”
Buddhism is a philosophical approach to life, according to Geshe Phuntsho, Siber and Bhotia. The Buddha Shakyamuni was just a man who attained spiritual enlightenment through meditation, and is not a godly figure. The monks’ visit was not meant to convert people, but rather to provide a different cultural and philosophical perspective, Siber said.
“Some of the words that they share might resonate with you, but also it might be simply a wordless transmission of wisdom,” Siber said. “I would just go with an open heart, and you may receive some cultural insight too. It’s a very different culture than what we live in here. And so it’s an opportunity to be immersed in a completely different culture.”
Part of the purpose of the monks’ visit is to raise money to construct a new school at Gaden Shartse, Geshe Phuntsho said.
When the monastery was originally completed in the 1970s, there were only 85 monks, according to the school’s website. In the decades since, the number soared to 1,200 monks, ranging from 3 to 105 years old, with members coming from all over the world, Geshe Phuntsho said.
Admission to the monastery was free, he said, with special preference given to orphans and low-income children. And, following the Dalai Lama’s recommendation to modernize the education of the young children attending the monastery, they are taught math, reading, writing, science and social studies in addition to Buddhist teachings, he aid.
“We are trying to teach (the children) an equivalent to 10th grade standards in India,” he said. “So that means we are planning to give them modern education. So you’re also doing modern education. It was the Dalai Lama's plan.”
In order to build the new school, the monks are relying on donations and money raised from selling merchandise at similar events across the United States. Geshe Phuntsho said the money raised here goes far in India, where a monk can live on about $1 a day.
The fact that so many children and adults continue choosing a monastic life is encouraging to Geshe Phuntsho. After all, one of the main purposes of the monastery is to preserve the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. And, with the Dalai Lama’s recommendation to modernize the education of young monks, they will be well-equipped to live even if they choose to leave the monastery.
Geshe Phuntsho chose to see the positive in life, even with all that had happened to the Tibetans. Both the changes to the education system of the monks and being able to venture out beyond Tibet to share their culture may not have been possible had the Chinese not forced them out, he said.
He held no resentment for what happened when the People’s Liberation Army forced the Dalai Lama and other Tibetans into exile, he said. Even in exile, their philosophy taught them to see the positives in life and to practice compassion and nonviolence.
“Sometimes compassion can be not to choose violence or fight back,” Geshe Phuntsho said.
There are two types of compassion, he said: compassion for others and self-compassion. Self-compassion, he said, includes taking care of oneself and choosing to see the positive in all things – even the Tibetans being forced into exile.
“Because of the Chinese who invaded Tibet, Tibetans explored out of the mountains to share this culture,” Geshe Phuntsho said. “Otherwise you (would not) see us. Thanks to China, we are getting some glimpse around the world. Everything has a positive thing to see.”
The monks are in Durango until Friday. The community is invited to meet at 3 p.m. Friday at Dreams of Tibet, 988 Main Ave., from where the monks will walk to the Animas River to pour the completed sand mandala into the river. A full calendar of events can be found at durangodharmacenter.org.
