Tibetan monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery meditate in a Maumee home where they are staying. Front row from left are Geshe Jampa Norbu, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, and Jang Chub Chophel. Back row from left: Lobsang Phuntzok, Tenzin Lobsang, Lobsang Yeshe, and Lobsang Wangchuk.  ( THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON )

By DAVID YONKE

Article published Saturday, September 13, 2008

Seven Tibetan Buddhist monks from India’s Gaden Shartse Monastery have been touring the nation, including a stop in northwest Ohio this week, and say they keep running into the same problem everywhere they go: “No one wants us to leave. They say, ‘Stay here, we’ll find a house for you to live in. Stay in our city,’” Lobsang Wangchuk said. “We’ve had this happen over and over again.”

The reason, he said, is that Americans are intrigued by the monks’ peaceful countenance and want to experience the same kind of tranquility and happiness.

Teaching Westerners how to find peace, harmony, and understanding is one of the reasons the Buddhist monks have been trekking across the United States since November, with another eight months scheduled on their current tour.

The two other primary reasons for the U.S. tour, Lobsang Wangchuk said, are to demonstrate Buddhist art and to raise funds for a newly opened hospital the monks built in southern India.

In an interview at a spacious Maumee home where the group has been staying, Lobsang Wangchuk said one thing the monks do not try to do is convert people to Buddhism.

“We see all religions as having the same purpose. We always try to harmonize with other religions. We never try to convert anybody,” said Lobsang Wangchuk, wearing the monks’ familiar maroon-and-saffron robes. 

Geshe Jampa Norbu, one of the tour’s two main teachers, sat cross-legged on a wooden dining room chair during the Wednesday morning interview, offering comments in Tibetan that were translated by Lobsang Wangchuk or another monk, Tenzin Lobsang. 

Several other monks milled about, eating breakfasts of cereal and jam-covered toast or heading out for walks along the Maumee River.

“Geshe says over and over again that maybe it’s better that you stay with your own religion,” Lobsang Wangchuk said, “and if Buddhism helps you understand your religion, then integrate some of the principles into your religion to help you understand it better.

“It’s almost like we’re a shopping mall: Whatever you like, you take with you. And what you don’t like, leave behind. If we can help you, wonderful. But we don’t try to convert people to Buddhism.”

The Gaden Shartse Monastery was founded in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1416 and at one time housed 5,000 monks. The monastery was destroyed during the Chinese takeover of Tibet in the 1950s, when many Tibetans fled to India.

The Shartse monks built a monastery in exile in 1969 and now have more than 1,000 monks at their facility in Karnataka State, in southern India.

“India has been very kind to us,” said Lobsang Wangchuk, a native of Southern California. “The Indians have given us a place to stay until maybe, perhaps someday, Tibet is free.”

The 66-year-old monk, with shaved head and light brown eyes, said he began studying with Shartse monks in 1979. He saw a Buddhist teacher appear to him in a dream, he said, and the teacher later knocked on his door. 

The monks are grateful to the Indians for letting them practice their religion freely, Lobsang Wangchuk said, and that is why they built a hospital. While the facility recently opened, the monks are looking for more doctors and nurses to staff it and more funds to equip it.

“We want to return the kindness to India as much as possible, so we hope to provide free medical care. There are numerous poor villages around us where people have no money to ever see a doctor,” Lobsang Wangchuk said.

Interest and awareness in Buddhism in the United States has been growing since he first began heading up the Tibetan monks’ tours nearly 20 years, he said.

Americans note that monks own only the most basic essentials, such as their robes, tea cups, spoons, and books, yet they appear to have inner peace and harmony. Meanwhile, he said, the material wealth of most Americans rarely leads to fulfillment.

“In our travels, we see that in India it is very difficult,” Lobsang Wangchuk said. “But here, we have all the facilities — hospitals, good roads, easy access to food, supermarkets. But there seems to be a lack of happiness in the West, a lack of peace. So we feel that we can help with this.

He said Geshe Jampa Norbu, who is making his first U.S. tour, is a highly respected Tibetan Buddhist teacher and a two-time valedictorian. The other primary teacher on the U.S. tour is Geshe Kalsang Gyatso, a chanting master.

Geshe Jampa Norbu said through an interpreter that the current economic problems in the United States are making many Americans re-evaluate their priorities, which could bring positive results.

“If a recession or a depression comes, then either there will be anarchy, or people will turn inward,” Geshe Jampa Norbu said. “People will seek some sort of teaching, which all religions hold, that there are ways of transforming the mind and showing them that happiness is an internal event. It is not an external thing based on possession and objects.”

The 42-year-old Buddhist teacher was born in Tibet, where he studied for almost 22 years in Lhasa before fleeing to India in the 1980s during a brief period when China relaxed travel restrictions. 

Geshe Jampa Norbu studied for a total of 25 years before receiving his Geshe degree, then studied further at the Gyuto Tantric College in northeast India. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama gave him full ordination vows in 1988.

“To be given permission to teach, it takes about 30 years of study” Lobsang Wangchuck said, “and that’s six days a week, from 5 a.m. to midnight. So it’s a real intense program and it produces a very unusual type of human being.”

The monks’ Toledo visit has included personal and group spiritual healings, empowerments, and house and business blessings; a public lecture Thursday night on “World Peace and the Unity of All Religions,” and a Chenrezig 
Empowerment blessing, intended to help people become more peaceful and compassionate, at a local yoga center last night.

The monks will create a sand mandala today to honor the Medicine Buddha starting at 10 a.m. at St. Ann Mercy Hospital’s Cancer Center, 3404 West Sylvania Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

The monks will be in Findlay from Wednesday to Friday. More information is available online at www.gadenshartsetour.org.

Contact David Yonke at:dyonke@theblade.comor 419-724-6154.

Original Article

With Tibet occupied by China, much of the Tibetan Buddhist population is in exile in India. But this week, a small group of Tibetan Buddhist monks is venturing further afield — to Findlay.

Monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery are traveling throughout the United States to educate people on Tibetan Buddhism. While in Findlay, they are also performing healing rituals specifically geared toward healing the community from recent flooding.The monks arrived on Tuesday and will stay until this weekend, when they will conclude their tour by creating a sand mandala and ceremonially destroying it, carrying the sand to the Blanchard River.

Findlay is part of a 10-month tour throughout the United States. Everywhere, they have been made welcome, said monk Chophel, who goes by one name.

The Gaden Shartse monastery is located in Mundgod, India but the monks travel throughout the world to share Buddhist teachings.

“It’s kind of like dharma on wheels,” Chophel said.

Monk Lobsang Wangchuk, said there is greater curiosity about Buddhism and greater welcoming of their message now than in years past. The monks have seen attendance go up at their events, for example.

The monks (also called lamas) are raising funds to furnish a hospital to provide free medical care in the region of their monastery. They raised funds to build the hospital on a previous tour.

Through an interpreter, Geshe Jampa Norbu, one of the lamas in the group, said the most common question they receive from Americans is their feelings about Tibet and, recently, the Beijing Olympics. Norbu said they did not advise boycotting the Olympics.

Since China invaded Tibet more than 50 years ago, much of the Tibetan culture has survived only in exile in India, Chophel said.

“In Tibet we can’t even study the Tibetan language,” he said. “You have to do that in secret.”

Peace is a central tenet of the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, Wangchuk said. For example, the Tibetan people do not want to fight the Chinese occupation, believing that “if you harm other beings it creates more anger, more hatred.”

Buddhism includes a belief in reincarnation, and Buddhists believe that if you take up violence in this life you are likely to be reborn into a life of violence and war in your next life, Wangchuk said.

Wangchuk said the Dalai Lama, the head of state and spiritual leader of Tibet, is “probably the foremost spokesman” for world peace.

He said the approach is “the Tibetan people, waiting patiently over 50 years for the return of their country, and not striking back.”

Tenzin Lobsang, the monk who serves as the group’s interpreter, said the monks are hoping for increased human rights for the Tibetan people, including the right to practice their religion freely. Chophel said the Dalai Lama accepts that China has taken over Tibet but wants “greater autonomy” for the Tibetan people.

This weekend the monks will build a “medicine Buddha” mandala. A mandala is a design signifying the universe. Building a sand mandala can take anywhere from a day to 10 days, Wangchuk said. The purpose of the project is to provide healing from the floods that have afflicted Findlay. Wangchuk said this will remove people’s inner turmoil over the flood as well as healing the environment. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there are many spirits responsible for nature and the weather, beings that don’t have names in English, Wangchuk said.

“There are elementary spirits that live in nature that can affect the weather,” he said.

Norbu said the monks will be praying for an end to flooding. Their religion also focuses on care for the environment, and they will be spreading the word not to destroy forests or pollute water, he said.

While in Findlay the monks are also performing private healings. Wangchuk described this as a process in which the lama removes a person’s negative energies and “transforms them into inexhaustible bliss.”

This year for the first time, the monks are working with Century Health mental health clients. Gary Bright of Century Health said the organization has been providing counseling to flood survivors, and the monks’ focus on healing seemed a good match.

The tour has visited Findlay in the past. Area couple Phil Sugden and Carole Elchert met Wangchuk in California and learned that his mother lives in Findlay. They made arrangements for the monks to come to Findlay, and they’ve been here every three years or so since then.

Chophel said the monks are usually hosted by American Buddhists. While there are some cities in America that have large Buddhist centers, the monks prefer to visit communities that may have just a few Buddhists, in order to offer support and education.

“They don’t have this opportunity very often,” he said.

The monks frequently speak at Christian churches throughout the United States. While in Findlay, they led a healing event at the First Presbyterian Church on Tuesday. They will speak at the Unitarian Universalist Church tonight.

Wangchuk said there is a lot of common ground between Christianity and Buddhism.

“Every religion wants peace and happiness,” he said.

The monks will be speaking tonight on “Compassionate Practices of Buddhism” at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 2415 Suite B, N. Main St. from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. A $10 donation is suggested.

The monks will create the sacred sand mandala Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Findlay Municipal Building. The public is welcome.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, there will be a ceremonial destruction of the mandala and all in attendance will be invited to proceed to the Blanchard River where the sand will be placed as an offering to purify the surrounding environment.

Original Article