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STORIES
Bhutan: Seeking the Middle Way
Producer: Karen Michel
 Listen to the Story
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A 5 year old tikku, a reincarnated
lama, at home in Thimphu.
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Before going to Bhutan, I read as much as possible about the country
and talked to folks who'd been there. The published
articles agreed on two things: tourism was limited
to 6,000 people a year and the country was Shangri-La.
The people who'd visited agreed on nothing: being a
Western Buddhist was an advantage/would be ridiculed;
everything was expensive/everything was reasonable;
adjusting to the altitude was difficult/the
altitude was no big deal; and it was inevitable that
the cold would get to you/wearing layers made everything
easy.
Let me address the tourism assertion first: it's a myth, wrong, false.
In fact, tourist arrivals have been as high as 9,000
people in a recent year, and Bhutan encourages people
to come: you just have to write a letter to the Minister
of Protocol asking permission, and stating why you
want to go. And you have to wire $200/day for the duration
of your expected stay. (The idea is that this will
keep "the
backpackers" out.) The
letter, I would learn, is pro forma, getting a visa
doesn't take long, and the $200/day covers your guide
(mandatory), hotel, meals, permits (required for visiting
monasteries and government compounds) and transportation,
and is, therefore, not a bad deal at all.
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Thinley Dorji, Minister of Information
and Technology, in his office in Thimphu.
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As for Bhutan being Shangri-La, well, too many places in that part of
the world claim the title. If you ask me, Bhutan is
quite amazing; I'll leave it at that. I prefer the
notion that we all have our own vision and version
of Shangri-La, whether influenced by James Michener
or not.
What did matter, after all, is that I am a practicing Buddhist, of the
Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism; so are the Bhutanese.
My guide, Pema Tshering, made a point of telling people
that I was a Buddhist: it made a difference to him, and
to -- it seemed -- everyone I met. It meant, among other
things, that I was open to a society based in Buddhist
principls, a place where generosity was expected, moderation
(the middle way) always a goal, loving kindness and compassion
a way of life, and stupas, monks and monasteries everywhere.
It meant, critically, that -- by Bhutanese lights --
I knew how to behave in both the secular and sacred
realms. And so I was able to meet with high lamas, go
into inner sanctums of monasteries, receive blessings,
have discussions on the dharma. I had access to aspects
of life that, I was told, were generally unavailable to
tourists.
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Pema
Tshering, my guide: the Patrick Swayze
of Bhutan, in Wangdu.
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I was not really a tourist, of course, but a journalist.
Yet I was traveling on a tourist visa. This made me nervous.
Getting a journalist visa took much more time, and I didn't
have but a few weeks between assignment and anticipated
arrival. I figured that having a small tape recorder was
less obvious than a video camera, but still I was concerned:
Bhutan maintains a tight control over its internal and
external image. So before I left I met with Gyaltshen Penjor,
the First Secretary of the Mission of the Kingdom of Bhutan
to the United Nations. He was friends with a friend of
a friend, it turned out. And that, too, mattered.
I told him that I was going to Bhutan both as an academic interested
in issues of media and cultural change (which was true) and as a journalist. "Should
I be worried about that?" I asked him. He responded by querying
me about my Buddhist beliefs. Why was I a Buddhist? For how long? What
did that mean for my life? My answers satisfied him: he said I'd be fine,
that I should use his name as necessary during my travels, that he wanted
me to meet his brothers and to spend time with his mother in her village
home.
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A teenager
in Internet cafe in Thimphu, playing a
video game.
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After our meeting, I sent him an article I'd written several years before, "The
Journalist in the Lotus," about reconciling the practices of journalism
and Buddhism. He said he wanted to talk with me more
about the dharma when I returned.
During my too-brief stay in Bhutan, as I tried to understand the impact
of recently-introduced media on a profoundly Buddhist
culture, I thought often about the conflicting advice
I'd been given by visitors, about the falsehoods in
the (always gushy) Western press, and about how fortunate
I was to have met Gyaltshen. I had a meal with members
of his family in Thimphu, and spent an extraordinary
afternoon with his mother in her village near Paro.
What I experienced in those 10 days in Bhutan will take me years to
unravel; I hope I'll be back before too long to add
more to the skein.
-- Karen Michel
Links:
Bhutan Broadcasting Service
Thanks to Valeria Vasilievski, Pema Tshering, Deki
Wangmo, Gyaltshen Penjor, Bob Vye, Yeshey Dorji, Tshering
Pema, and Hotel Dragon Roots.
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