Altar with offerings of butter lamps, blessed saffron water and butter sculptures at the March 2003 Tibetan New Year Celebration.
PHOTO: Alexandra Alter

At the start of any Tibetan religious ceremony, Tibetan Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, or the Buddha's teachings on the nature of reality, and the Sangha, or the community of believers. The term Sangha usually refers to the monastics who spend years studying Tibet's developed systems of philosophical thought and tending to the spiritual needs of a lay population.

Tibetans living in New York, where a small community of monks and nuns have scattered throughout Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey, are learning to relate to a new kind of Sangha. Whereas in Tibet, monastics often lived in remote areas where they were secluded from society, monks living in cramped New York apartments are very much a part of the world. Although exiled monastics have greater religious and political freedoms than monks in Tibet, those who sought asylum here have had to contend with finding work and adhering to very strict rules without the supportive structure of a monastery.

"It's hard to be a monk here," said Jikme Thubten, a monk from the Nechung monastery in Dharamsala who was visiting his relatives in Queens. "If you want to stay here for a while, you have to take off your robes and work. Nobody supports you. The robes themselves are not what make you a monk, but then once you are out in the world working, it becomes hard to control your mind. The mind is not good."

Lama Pema Dorje said he finds it difficult at times to adhere to the 240 rules that circumscribe the life of a monastic. "There are so many rules," he says, modeling the fleece ear cuffs that he wears in the winter. They are his only protection from the cold since he is forbidden to cover his bald head, one of the signs of a renunciant.

Still, Lama Pema is vigilant in guarding his vows.

"I have vows that I have taken on myself. Buddha said you are your protector and you are your enemy. If there is a Sangha together, you have more opportunities to hear teachings and say prayers. But the vows are something you protect yourself. If you don't want to go to hell or be reborn in the lower realms, you have to protect your vows. Nobody forces you to do anything," Lama Pema said.

The rigorous demands of monastic life become too burdensome for many monks, said Lobsang Tserpa, a Tibetan monk who moved to New York two years ago. Lobsang said he has run into several of his former students here in New York, and most of them have disrobed.

Lobsang, who was one of many Tibetan children orphaned during his family's flight from Tibet in 1962, came to regard Ghuyte, the Tantric monastary he lived in since the age of eight, as his family. Even at the age of 41, Lobsang still gets advice from his root teacher, Lama Kochoe Rinpoche, a 90-year-old teacher in the Nigma school who lives in the Bandara Tibetan settlement in North India. Now, Lobsang lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in a makeshift monastary of sorts.

Lobsang rises at 3:30 every morning to offer water bowls and incense, do prostrations, and recite the Vinaya, the text which outlines the rules monks live by, before sitting down to meditate for an hour and a half. But despite his exceptional level of discipline, even Lobsang rarely succeeds in completing the required six meditation sessions a day.

The other monks sharing Lobsang's apartment have even less time to devote to spiritual matters.

"I live with five other monks, former students of mine, who have to work every day and don't have time for religious practices," Lama Lobsang said. "But they are good students and they haven't lost their vows yet," he said with a laugh.