DELHI, INDIA --Sadness and rain filled the faces of about 200 Tibetans, their cheeks painted with the rising sun flag of the country they long to see again.

Hands chained together and their voices raised aloud, school children, monks, elders, women and teenagers sang songs remembering the 47th anniversary of Uprising Day, March 10 1959, when, after nine years of occupation by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the revolt against communist rule failed and tens of thousands of people where killed as a result.

Tashi Tobgyal, a 25-year-old Tibetan photographer was there too, but expressed his doubts about the purpose. “We manifest every Uprising Day but it is repetitive, not effective,” he said.

Tobgyal´s parents where amongst the 85,000 people who fled Tibet in 1959 and sought refuge in India. The Indian government gave them land to found 36 settlements, including Dharamsala, where the 14th Dali Lama,--spiritual and political leader of Tibet, now heads the government in exile.

About 2,000 Tibetans flee their country every year. Since then, the Tibetans in exile, scattered in communities mainly in Nepal, India and the United States have lead a relentless fight to regain autonomy from the PRC.

The deeply rooted tradition of Buddhism amongst Tibetans has been the driving force behind their struggle, as the values of compassion, nonviolence and the rejection of extremism, -called Middle-Way approach, as a way to end suffering are clearly put into practice.

In his address on the 47th Uprising Day Anniversary, the Dali Lama said in his statement that:
“The basic principles of the Middle-Way Approach for resolving the issue of Tibet, trusting that a time must surely come when we would have the opportunity to engage in talks with the Chinese leadership.” Reinforcing his commitment with values consistent with Buddhism.

“The exile government has worked hard to maintain the traditions,” said Prof. Geshe Ngawang Samteu, director of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India.

“[It has done so by] founding schools for Tibetans where there’s a large community in exile and maintaining cohesion through teaching of Buddhism,” he said in his office on the university campus, witch is in the town where Buddha gave his first sermon.

Tobgyal had just seen Motorcycle Diaries, a recent film about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Argentinean freedom fighter and one of the fathers of the Cuban revolution.

“When Che was in a march of coal miners, he threw a stone at the soldiers and said “can’t you see they’re thirsty, give them some water!”…Well, I feel we don’t have anyone to throw a stone at China and say that,” said Tobgyal.

Ahimsa, the Sanskrit term for avoidance-of-violence and central belief in Buddhist practice, has been evoked constantly in the evolution of the freedom movement.

But the practice and understanding of ahimsa is not set in stone, and the Buddhist teachings of accepting destiny, even if it means endless exile are challenged.

Tobgyal’s concerns and need “to throw a stone” are part of growing frustration and sense of urgency amongst young Tibetans, most of whom, now in their 20s and 30s, where born and raised in exile.

Whereas the Dali Lama rejects even hunger strikes as part of his understanding of ahimsa, this practice is increasingly used by protesters and is bound to play a role in the numerous protests sprouting around the world leading to the 2008 Olympics hosted by China.

Most of the protesters on this day in Delhi belong to the Tibetan Youth Congress, deemed as the major organization for Tibetan independence and claiming to have over 10,000 members all over the world. They are convinced hunger strikes and civil disobedience are acceptable means of protest, not contrary to ahimsa.

“Buddhism is the correct path to freedom,” said Tendin Kalden, 32, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress in New York and New Jersey.

“Gandhi borrowed the Buddhist value of nonviolence, ahimsa to free its country thru nonviolence and he did it,” said Kalden.

Addressing the questioning of ahimsa’s effectiveness in the 21st century, Kalden added, “even if the world has changed since then, and Tibet is in a different circumstance than India, the path is the same, the midway approach [taught by Buddhism] is the way most Tibetans want to fight for the freedom of their nation.”

Kalden was one of the organizers of a Tibetan Festival in New York, hosted at the Diocese Armenian Church, located at 630 2nd Ave in Manhattan.

The mood was festive; the women dressed in their traditional outfits, very colorful pieces of cloth tied around their waists, their long black hair came down the back framing their round faces with deep black eyes.
Little girls where walking around smiling at the crowd and selling CDs of Tibet’s musical sensation, Phurbu T. Namgyal, who played latter that night.

Half the public where also performing, so the crowd was filled with costumes with yak skin and dangling hair adornments.

Around 100 families, young and old performing together.

Sonam Chonzom, 29, born and raced in Darjeeling, India, came to New York five years ago to be a babysitter. Until recently Chonzom served as president of the Tibetan Woman Coalition, refugee women’s organization working for Tibetan freedom.

Chonzom is also a teacher in a Tibetan Sunday school, where she sees the children and parents trying to maintain their Tibetan identity while immersed in a different culture. “I just wish to get to see Tibet in my lifetime” she said as her happy eyes turned watery but never stopped her smile.

A fight in the line to get food broke out and quickly security escorted two men outside.
The crowd seemed shocked and several people followed them outside, reprimanding the men.
One of Chonzom’s students, six-year-old Sonam, came running and hugged her around the legs.

“I’m sure they’re fighting because of something stupid,” she said. “Fighting is always stupid, right?”
Chonzom hugged her and shock her head in approval, while her eyes drifted of to the land she longs to see. She never cried.

Rinzin Dolka, 31, Tibetan Women Coalition accountant, is organizing the protest, taking place on April 21, during the visit of China’s Prime Minister to New York. Dolka expressed both hope and urgency for a peaceful resolution of the Tibetan conflict.

“[I hope] nobody gets hurt or killed,” she said. “Our nonviolent way it’s working but I’ll take a while.”
After a long pause, and a glance at the room filled with children that have never seen Tibet, Dolce added, “I hope for the best, because we are running out of time, so many Chinese are coming in to Tibet and diluting the culture… the culture is vanishing.”

Dolce, like many others, hopes to go back to Tibet, even if the latest peace talks with the government in exile do not lead to Tibet’s full autonomy.

“The culture is dying in our country, “said Dolce. “In America we can tell them stories, we can sing in public, in Tibet we would be killed. We are running out of time.”

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In the early morning glow, a sadhu and woman bathed and prayed on the banks of the Ganges. (Sophia Chang)

“Going to the Ganges is like going to church. But church is a matter of choice, and the Ganges is a religious obligation.”

This was the introduction to the spirituality of the Ganges River from our guide, Onkar Dubey, on a pre-dawn bus on Day 12 of our journey. We were driving toward the river to observe the Hindus of Varanasi bathing in its sacred waters. Varanasi is a city of early risers and morning ablutions in the river are considered one of the most sacred and auspicious of Hindu rituals. They are so valuable in Hindu mythology that when some men and women get older, they leave their families and move to Varanasi, where they bathe daily in the river until their deaths.

Dubey explained that sadhus, holy men who renounce family and material possessions to seek a greater spirituality, are particularly drawn to the river’s sacred waters. Many sadhus ritually bathe in the Ganges early each morning, get a blessing from a priest, receive a mark on their foreheads, then sit for an hour or so reading the Bhagavat Gita or pages from their own prayer books. They may visit one of the 2,000 temples that dot the banks of the Ganges for the seven kilometers that stretch through Varanasi. Praying to the rising sun, said Dubey, brings light and life to people.

From a rowboat as the sun was rising, we observed sadhus bathing along with locals and spiritual westerners; monkeys, considered holy in Varanasi because of their relation to Hanuman, the monkey god, chasing each other along steep ghats; two rams butting heads repeatedly; a man floating on his back in the river, surrounded by candles and marigolds. Dhobis, or washermen, soaked clothing in the polluted waters of the Ganges, then slapped the pants and shirts against rocks by the river bank, knee-deep in water.

Dubey pointed out that no houses are built on the east bank of the Ganges, and that the temples and guest houses along the west bank are submerged when the water rises 40-50 feet in the rainy summer months. A local myth says that if someone builds a house on the flood-prone east bank he will be reincarnated as a donkey.

Varanasi is sometimes called a city of burning, and cremation ceremonies take place 24 hours a day along the Ganges, with people coming from all over India to burn their dead on funeral pyres and scatter the ashes into the holy river. Hindus believe that if the body is cremated on the Ganges, the soul goes directly to heaven and achieves moksha, or freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth. To build a funeral pyre takes about 360 kilograms of wood and costs around Rs 3,000 (or nearly $70). In the funerals we witnessed, bodies wrapped in red and white shrouds burned silently. No one wept or displayed grief as they felt blessed to provide their relatives a burial in the Ganges, Dubey explained.

Aruna Viswanatha, our Hindu student journalist, felt more connected to Varanasi than to any other stop on the trip. She was taken with the authenticity of the city, among both the long-time residents and foreigners alike. “In the U.S., capitalism co-opts culture,” she said. “But in India, India co-opts culture. It’s captivating in the way that it’s such an openly spiritual experience, it’s open but personal and not in a contrived way. And that seems really hard to do.”

After checking out of another hotel (“if it’s Saturday, it must be Varanasi!”) we traveled the 10 km to Sarnath, a famous site of Buddhism in India. Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama around 600 B.C. in Lumbini, Nepal and achieved enlightenment in Bodh Gaya in the Himalayan foothills. He gave his first sermon to five disciples in the deer park in Sarnath. Sarnath was destroyed in 1197 by Muslims, according to Dubey, and became a buried, forgotten city until the 1830s when it was rediscovered and excavated by the British.

Sarnath has a touristy feel, but inside the Buddhist temple built on the site of Buddha’s cottage in the deer park all was peaceful, and colorful frescos depicted the important moments in Buddha’s life. At the end of the temple an altar held a giant statue of Buddha surrounded by flowers in vases.

Buddha was originally a Hindu, and his teachings are in part a response to Hinduism. Buddha sought to do away with the caste system, and to abolish temple rituals, priests and animal sacrifices. Instead of these, Buddhism pointed to a middle path, a life of moderation that avoided extremes. Jesse Ellison was taken with the connection between Hinduism and Buddhism. “I thought it was so telling that Hindus believe Buddha was a reincarnation of Vishnu,” she said later in the Varanasi airport. “The way Hindus embrace the Buddha as part of their ancient faith speaks to the complexity of Indian culture. India and Hinduism are like giant sponges. They soak everything up and make it their own.”

A lot of the artifacts found at the temple during the British excavation are on display at a nearby museum, including the four lions of the Asoka Column that are featured on all rupee notes and coins. Sophia Chang and some others observed a group of Thai Buddhist monks, clad in yellow robes, chanting in front of a statue of Buddha. Chang found their chanting beautiful. “It was nice that they turned the museum into a place for prayers and redefined what a shrine or temple has to be.”

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On a hazy Friday evening at the New York Buddhist Church at 331-332 Riverside Drive, a small group gathered in the upstairs meditation room to hear an introduction to the practice and teachings of Buddhism.

The group was led by T.K. Nakagaki, a Buddhist minister from Japan who practices Shin Buddhism, a tradition founded by Shinran in the 13th century. Clad in a black robe, his head shaved, Nakagaki sat on a large, black cushion on a raised, gray rattan meditation mat. An ornate fireplace dwarfed him, as did the objects surrounding him. He explained the significance of each: to his left was a burning candle, symbolizing wisdom, and to his right stood a vase of fresh flowers symbolizing the impermanence of life. A small bench held pots of incense, used in offerings of respect, and decorating the mantle were statues of the Buddha. Nakagaki explained that the statues were in no way meant to be gods, and were in fact developed in reference to European and Greek depictions of gods.

"In Buddhism, there's no failing because there's no God," Nakagaki said of the nonjudgmental aspect of his religion.

Nakagaki began the session by asking the students to sit on identical black cushions in a row on the floor, backs straight, bodies relaxed, heads straining toward the ceiling as if hanging by their hair. In Buddhist meditation practitioners start by breathing out and then breathing in. Those meditating sit cross-legged on the cushions in the position of a triangle, legs supporting the weight of the back, leaning forward, hands in front forming another triangle. The eyes should be slightly opened and fixed on a point on the floor.

"If thoughts come into your head, think them then let them go," said Nakagaki. "When you're sitting, your body becomes a mountain. Whatever comes, rainfall, crowds, the mountain is still there." After meditation, Buddhists chant. In the Shin Buddhist Service Book, the Japanese chants are transliterated and their pitches are denoted in horizontal lines stemming from a vertical line. Practitioners memorize the chants, which praise the Buddha's enlightened wisdom, and each chant is a sutra. Nakagaki explained
to the group that sutra is connected to the word suture, as in a text sewing the Buddha's words together.

Nakagaki reflected on the nature of comparative religion, saying that Western religion tends to be more linear, with a beginning and end point, while Eastern religion is circular; indeed, one of the main symbols of Buddhism is the wheel, symbolizing that the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. He also explained that Theravada Buddhism is closer to Catholicism in its conservative approach to the teachings of the Buddha, whereas Mahayana is more like Protestantism. Theravada is a rural tradition and Mahayana comes from the city.

"All paths are different, but all reach enlightenment," said Nakagaki.

He ended his teaching with a lovingkindness meditation. "May I be happy, well and peaceful," he intoned. "May my parents and all my relatives be happy, well and peaceful." He expressed wishes for his friends, enemies, neighbors, those who live in his city, his country, his world, all animals and plants, all sentient beings, all future generations to be happy, well and peaceful and free from suffering, pain and attachment. Then he placed his hands together and bowed his head.

Aaron Schumm, an MBA student at Duke who said he was looking for an
alternative to the Christianity he was raised with, was impressed with the evening's lessons.

"I'm a big fan of awareness and respectfulness," said Schumm outside the temple later that evening. "No one's aware so I find that interesting. And attunement with your surroundings, you look at things in a different light. This gives you a different perspective."

As for whether he would incorporate the teachings he'd just learned,
Schumm had mixed thoughts.

"I like the meditation part, I can't relax. But I'm not going to sit around my apartment and chant."

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They were ready. After 30 minutes of silent meditation, nearly 100 students of Buddhism trained their eyes on the middle-aged storyteller, cancer survivor, and Buddhist sitting before them.

Laura Simms, the speaker at a recent Tuesday night dharma gathering at the Shambhala Meditation Center at 118 W. 22nd St., sat cross legged on a platform raised slightly above her audience. Most of the devotees, both first-timers to the center and longtime Buddhists, sat comfortably on rounded floor cushions placed in neat rows on the wooden floor. As the charismatic teacher leaned into the microphone, she had one message in mind: Never forget the Hinayana.

In the Buddhist tradition of progressive revelation, “Buddha’s first presentation, the Hinayana, was the ‘lesser vehicle,” Simms explained. Ignored in favor of the later teachings, the Mahayana and Vajrayana, it was easy to forget that the early teachings remained the basis of Buddhism, she said.

Moving naturally into professional storyteller mode, Simms, author, performer and leader of storytelling workshops, recalled her days in the 1970s studying with the Shambhala Center’s founder — Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Part way through her three month study session in an isolated tent camp, Simms recalled, her class was ready to begin learning the Vajrayana, the highest Buddhist teachings. “The night before we were going to learn the Vajrayana,” she said, “people slept. Suddenly, at 2 a.m., the gong rang. We were woken up to hear an important teaching.” In the cold early morning, Simms and all of her classmates assembled in the main tent. There, the Rinpoche greeted them with only four words, before sending them back to bed.

As college students to senior citizens listened intently, waiting for the ultimate teaching, Simms let her words hang in the air.

“Never forget the Hinayana.”

On hearing the story, some listeners smiled, nodding their heads in recognition and others jotted notes on small pads of paper, as Simms explained the importance of Buddhism’s most basic teachings, the entrance to Buddhist practice.

The basis of the Hinayana, she explained, is the sitting practice, the meditation that all adherents practice, from the gurus in Tibet to the novice practitioners now sitting before her in a 6th floor apartment in Chelsea. Meditation, she said, is the key to mindfulness, to becoming aware of one’s thoughts and emotions.

“It is the idea that we can question how we perceive the world,” she said.

Part of this shift in perception is the recognition that everyone suffers, she said. Through Buddhist practice, one must recognize others’ pain as well as one’s own.

“We see the force of our own suffering and see others involved in the same process,” she said. “We see people with compassion.”

Determined not to give her audience any excuse to let their attention wane, she turned the conversation to her own struggle with cancer. Looking professional but comfortable in a black jacket over a red silk shell and a long black skirt, it was hard to imagine Simms enduring grueling radiation treatments.

It was Buddhist teachings that helped her face her illness, she told the audience. She endured the treatments during the three months that a Tibetan guru coincidentally ended up living in her home.

One might think the guru’s presence would have been a blessing, and in many ways it was, Simms said. “But you don’t know how distressing it is when you want to feel sorry for yourself to have an enlightened person always present and always cheerful,” she quipped.

Through her own struggles, Simms said, she discovered what it meant to learn from the Hinayana. “The first teaching of Buddha deals with investigating ourselves, knowing the origins of suffering,” she said.

Simms’ message rang true to a number of students present. Ann Kenan, 33, formerly an Episcopalian, found Buddhism through her work as a yoga teacher. After learning yoga, she began to meditate and that led her to seek out further Buddhist teachings, as Simms suggested it would.

Of the progression from yoga to meditation to Buddhism, Kenan said, “It’s all built on top of each other.”

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