To Teach and Learn

Tshering sat in his chair and struggled between his faith and his disillusion - an intense tug of war in his mind. His upbringing told him that he had to have complete faith. Even the stories he read as a boy said that if one has complete faith and blind devotion, then one can find the Buddha in the most unlikely things/places. But the modern educated man in him questioned the being before him. He recalled who some of his friends called the Rinpoche, "Rinpoche James Bond" and talks about womanizing and partying kept him occupied and very confused. He would have not been there in the hall had it not been for his best friend, Kinley. While Tshering was confused, Kinlay, on the other hand, was fully immersed in everything devotional. He sat next to Tshering, peacefully luxuriating in the warm radiance of the Rinpoche. The Rinpoche finished his oral transmission and the audience applauded. The Rinpoche smiled and said that the applaud was not necessary. He was not a show-man...

The Bhutanese have a superstition that certain women have negative spirits (cultural gender discrimination).  These bad spirits are called soendae. The soendae live within a person and thrive when they are able to make other people sick. The person who is the host has little knowledge of the negative spirit living within her. When a soendae has visited a person, that person becomes sick or sometimes even die if the remedies are not carried out in time. When one washes his or her body with a herb called tsoe (rubus), scratches appear on the part of the body that has been exposed to the soendae . In certain parts of Bhutan, it is also believed that the soendaes maneuver in the form of small flames, hopping and wiggling from place to place. And if one is brave enough to whack it with a stick, the host becomes sick the next day. Bruises appear from the beating received. It is also believed that soendaes have groups and they sit for meetings before they proceed wi...

Our Dzongkha Lopen walked into the classroom and we stood up to wish him. We were doing revision and each student had to memorize stanzas of the poem-like text, write it on the board, read it and explain it to the class. He nodded and we took it for permission to sit down. Though the day was bright and pleasant, it contrasted with his mood. We could tell he wore his wrathful face that day. I was nervous and scared, as it was my turn to write and explain the stanzas. He sat on his chair and called my name after running through the name list. I walked up towards the blackboard and received the chalk in my cupped hands from him. He gave me a mocking chuckle that, to me said, “Here comes the stupid no-nothing tsagay (fool)”. I had not memorized my stanzas, though I had some idea about what they meant after consulting with a friend who was good at Dzongkha.   I did what I had to do. When I finished my task, the first look on his face was sheer bewilderment....

My son loves ghost stories. I try my best with the few ghost stories that I know and when I run out I have to create them. Most of the time before I finish a story he falls off to sleep but there was one story that we were able to finish. Image from www.ramayanainfo.blogspot.com Dangphu   dingphu… there lived a demon. He had ten heads. The demon, Doe as we Bhutanese know it, was very strong and intelligent and it was all because he had ten heads. He could think ten times faster than an average demon and all his senses were ten times stronger and clearer than other demons. He had long hair on all his heads. He had fangs in all his ten mouths. He had ten pairs of bulging bloody eyes and ten pairs of huge sharp ears. Strong and powerful as he was yet these powers came with unbearable itches that his heads underwent every moment of his life. He did the best he could to get rid of the problem but every remedy failed to redeem him from his troubles. Tak...

Image from www.lisagetz.blogspot.com The first spoons were of gold, forged in the heavenly blue fires of the Gods (Lha). Men were brute then and dinning manners unknown. Happy as the Gods were beholding man, it deeply troubled them to watch a man feed. Thus, the Gods counseled among themselves to resolve this brutish eating manner and gifted the first of their spoons to the first kings of men. Beings from all the realms witnessed and glorified the Gods for their noble deed. But not everyone was with the same mind and heart. Some disapproved of man's worthiness and claimed the civil hand for themselves secretly fearing the Gods' wrath if they openly laid their claim. The desire lurked like the long dark shadows of the deep woods and drew darker and stronger lines with the light from the godly moon. Image from www.pureinsight.com The  Lhamoens ( Lesser Gods)  were the feistiest and fiercely nurtured their desire to lay their hands on the spoons. It was they who defied...

This was a bed time story from my father.  After a million Tara recitals, the baby was born. She was the sweetest thing her mother laid eyes on. But shortly after giving birth, the mother passed away. The father married again, for he was just a man and lacked the knowledge to bring up his daughter. The stepmother was a shrewd woman. She loved her husband but could not make herself accept his daughter because the girl reminded her husband of his late wife. Every time the father and daughter were together, jealousy flooded her heart. The fact that her husband loved his daughter more than her was a difficult truth for her to accept. Things didn’t change for her and she felt worst when her womb remained cold even after five years of marriage. It didn’t take long for jealousy and frustration to turn into hatred. The girl bloomed into a beautiful young woman. She had a sweet voice and sang songs while she took the family sheep for grazing. Every morning she would t...