We burn, we resist, we fight for freedom in Tibet

Today I woke to the sound of DistantMountain – the music track one hears when traversing the mountains in my all-time favorite game, Suikoden – and lay in bed enjoying the newly acquired padded mattress. After nearly a week of sleeping on what basically amounts to a box spring, under misty blankets that never quite seem to dry, it was worth enjoying. Julie hopped out of bed and got ready for the day; it's amazing, really, considering how sick she had been yesterday.

She ultimately decided to stay home and rest so as not to aggravate her illness, but I went with Gill, Rinzin, and another of the teachers up the street to the Dalai Lama's temple. There was a prayer meeting being held this morning since another Tibetan had self-immolated theother day (not here). I saw a handful of other westerners in the crowd, though most people were clearly Tibetan, most of the women wearing the ubiquitous traditional chupa. We walked through the security checkpoint where we were given a quick pat-down and our bags were checked for any prohibited items (cell phones, cameras, anything dangerous). Then it was up the stairs to the upper level of the temple where we grabbed a couple of cushions that were provided en masse and found a spot to sit facing the smallish room in the center where monks were gathered. We were early, so people were still milling around and talking to each other; Palsang found me and we said hi.

The room continued to fill with people. I saw a couple of dogs wander through, and heard a baby or two. A large banner hung near the center of the area we were sitting in with portraits of all the Tibetans who had self-immolated in protest of the “Chinese situation,” as many Tibetans refer to it. 

A banner similar to the one that was in the temple.

Close up of the banner.

People prostrated toward that center room (you'll have to forgive my lack of formal knowledge on the subject; I'm very clearly an outsider here), many of them old women: you stand with your hands in prayer position at or just above your head, then move them to your throat, then your heart, then kneel and bend to touch your head to the ground; stand and repeat. Some people were doing it on boards made just for this purpose so they could kneel on a pad and then slide down so their entire body was laid out flat, then they'd stand back up and do it again. And again, and again. No wonder so many of the Tibetans I see around here are so fit, you've got to have great abs and knees if you're going to be standing and kneeling and standing and kneeling so much, and even more so if you're stretching out flat each time on top of it.

A gong sounded. The chatter of the crowd died down and the distinctive, throaty sound of a monk beginning a chant came over the loudspeakers. The crowd opened their prayer books that had been handed out – 51 pages written entirely in the elegant script that is the Tibetan language – and began to chant along. The words flowed in such a way that it was like listening to music; the monk sang the notes and the people followed. Low for a few syllables, then a step or two higher for a few more, and back down. It wasn't at all like listening to group readings in any Christian church I'd ever visited, where every few words feels like it's a separate phrase and the inflection drops; this was almost trancelike, and you could feel the energy build in the room as hundreds, probably thousands, of people joined in.

I don't speak more than a couple of phrases in Tibetan, so I couldn't really follow the specifics of what was going on, but I'm pretty sure that sometimes the crowd would drift away from what the monk was singing and sing something else. The women next to me especially seemed to be saying different words, but it all worked. Their feminine voices stood in contrast to the baritone maleness of other parts of the group. Every so often everything would come back together and you'd hear this surge of a room full of voices all chanting the same thing.

Once in a while the chanting would come to an end and the monk would either draw out the note he'd been on and then start up again, or he would instead go into a low monotone where he'd repeat a mantra – Om Mani Padme Hum, for example – for a few minutes. The people in the temple would do the same, repeating the phrase over and over and over at their own pace, most of them very quickly, with varying inflection, and the whole place buzzed with the sound. The monk would bring everyone back into the chanting, the reading from the prayer book, and this continued for quite some time. Sometimes I saw people saying the prayers with their books closed in their laps; I guess there were some pretty common passages.

Some nuns and monks began lighting the hundreds of small candles that were set up on a table in front of the banner with the portraits. It had to have taken them at least 20 minutes with half a dozen of them working at it to get them all lit.

Some young monks and older men who were apparently temple regulars came around with buckets, first in the inner room where the monks were sitting and then out to the rest of us. “Bread?” I asked Gill, the teacher from New Zealand who's in her third session at Tibet Charity. “Tibetan bread,” she said. “They feed everyone. Isn't it incredible?”

It was. Remember, there had to have been at least two thousand people there; Gill estimated 5,000. I'm bad at estimating high numbers like that, so who knows. It was a lot.

The monks with their buckets made their way through the crowd making sure everyone who wanted one got a piece of the stuff that to me looked like really dense pita bread.

The chanting continued. It lulled into the buzz of mantra recitation, and then elevated back into the prayers.

Indians in brightly colored saris and westerners in brightly colored backpacks wandered through the temple increasingly as the meeting went on. I couldn't help but feel like they were being at least a little disrespectful – here were people remembering, mourning, gathering together in solidarity because another one of their countrymen had set himself on fire in protest of the oppression faced by their community – and they were just walking through, staring, watching, as if the Tibetans were fish in a tank, or animals in a zoo. No one else seemed too offended by it, so maybe they don't care. I just thought the least they could do was find a spot and sit down, make themselves less obvious. I mean, I wasn't really following what was going on either, but I was there in support of the cause and just wanted to be a part of it.

Monks came around with giant kettles and paper cups and poured tea. Many of the Tibetans pulled glasses or mugs from their bags; clearly they had done this before. The rounds were made again, ensuring everyone got some.

The chanting continued. You could feel the energy in the room surge and fall in waves.

I was hungry, as all I'd eaten for breakfast was a banana and one of the bland (in the way that Saltines are bland; I still thought it was pretty tasty) cookies that Julie had gotten to try to settle her stomach last night. No one else seemed to be munching on their snack, though, so I held off. I suppose it's not really polite to be chanting prayers with a mouth full of bread and tea.

Another 20 minutes or so passed and everyone set their books down and grabbed their bread. Many of them dipped the dense stuff into their salty, creamy Tibetan tea, so I did the same.

I think it was after this that the Prime Minister of Tibet, who had been present in the center room with the monks this whole time, gave a speech. He spoke more slowly and articulately than most other Tibetans I've had the opportunity to listen to, but all I could pick out were the occasional proper nouns: Dharamsala, Australia, and the like.

The monk began his throaty chanting again and the Tibetans joined in, and they finished out the rest of the prayer book. When they reached the end, the last sound was drawn out and then ended, and everyone stood up, put their mats away, gathered their things, and left. There was no ceremonial closing, no “thanks for coming,” just the end of the book and then we were on our way.

Palsang came to get me and we first walked the kora, a circular path around the center of the temple, along with many of the other people who had been there that day. Many of them did so with prayer beads in hand; the Mani prayer wheels on the kora were turned. 

Prayer wheels in McLeod Ganj. The ones in the temple are gold.

On our way out we stopped to retrieve his cell phone where he had to check it before coming into the temple. Lots of other people had to leave theirs as well (I didn't bother bringing mine); I waited on the side as he pushed his way through the throng to the table. One of the young men passing by was Kunga, a student in my Elementary English class at Tibet Charity. He cheerfully said hi, shook my hand, and asked how I was. I responded in like and told him I'd see him in class tomorrow.

After that Palsang and I went to get breakfast, and then returned to my room where we did a few pages in his English book and we waited for Julie and Kalden to get back from her follow up at the hospital.