Innehållsförteckning för February 2018 från Womankind

Do you ever say or think that once this happens then I will be happy? Once I lose weight, or get well, or make money, or find a partner, or have a child, or buy a house, or finish the renovations, or stop work, or find work, or find meaningful work; once I find my passion, then, only then, will I be happy. Happiness, in this context, is a place sometime, somewhere in the future. Children’s writer Enid Blyton in the classic tale The Magic Faraway Tree imagines a huge tree in an enchanted wood. At the topmost branches of this tree, Blyton describes an ever-changing magic place that can be found - the land of toys, birthdays, dreams, and take-what-you-want. And the children in her tale dither about at…

When asked, “What makes you happy?”, most people will list items such as financial security, good health, a hearty meal, time with friends and family, and so on. Few will say, “I am most happy when sitting alone in an empty room.” Happiness for many, therefore, hinges on circumstances. “I am happy when people are nice to me, or when I make money, or win races, or take a holiday, or buy nice things.” Happiness hinges on something occurring that is pleasant, which means that in its absence, the opposite of happiness may loom - boredom, disappointment, listlessness, frustration. French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says that this is a common error when thinking about happiness. When our happiness relies on something external occurring, that’s not happiness, but pleasure, he argues.…

Eight years ago my mother came to Punjab, India, to admit my younger brother into school and then quickly departed. I haven’t seen her since. There are four in my family. My parents are still in Lhasa, Tibet, whereas my younger brother and I live in India. I left Tibet when I was age 7 or 8, I can’t quite remember. My mum and dad made the decision to send us away because Tibet is occupied by China and they thought we’d be better off growing up in India. I left home first, arriving in Dharamsala, then Dehradun and finally Punjab, where I am today. Most of my teachers are Tibetan and so are my classmates. I was born in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1998, and spent the first years of…

Day one: Over lunch I found myself in the company of a young woman heading back to the US for Christmas. “I’m insisting to my family that we go somewhere cold,” she told me, “because a sunny Christmas is just wrong.” She said this with the usual gravitas that northern hemisphere residents use. I always read into these statements some kind of expectation that I will apologise for Australia’s sunny Decembers - which I refuse to. Instead of getting on my high horse, I decided to think about how much this North American must be missing home, and how great it will be for her to be with her family again, by the fire. Day two: On the phone, I recounted an incident when I ran into a man I…

It began one hectic afternoon in 1976 at the Daily Mail, the fast, national paper in the hub of London’s Fleet Street. I was frantically meeting a deadline as a feature writer when the telephone rang. It was a friend, Leslie Kenton, health and beauty editor of Harpers & Queen, who wanted to speak to the editor. He wasn’t in, so I asked what she was up to. “I’m going to Nepal to meditate with the Lamas for a month. I’m leaving in three weeks.” “How wonderful!” I heard myself say. “Come with me,” she replied. I’d never read a book on Buddhism, never seen a Tibetan Lama, had no notion of meditation, and had no secret wish to go to Kathmandu. Yet, somehow it seemed right. As a journalist,…

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Next time you feel irate, enough to yell obscenities and shake your fist in fury, wait for 90 seconds. Harvard brain scientist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor says it takes the body 90 seconds to rid itself of the chemicals released from anger. “Once triggered,” she writes in her book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, “the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience.” After 90 seconds, she says, the chemical component of anger will have left the bloodstream completely. But why do we often remain angry for hours, sometimes days? According to Taylor, if we feed our brain with angry thoughts, creating a narrative or storyline around why we’ve been mistreated, overlooked, disrespected, unloved, undervalued, and so forth, we…

You may liken it to a home treadmill for the mind. It’s something that you can construct in your home, and by its sheer presence will inspire you to ‘work out’. Let’s call it mind training for happiness. Mind practitioners, without exception, will have one (at least) in their abode, and often carry a portable one on holidays. First, they choose a space in their house or apartment that’s easily seen but doesn’t disturb other people or activities. The space is cleared and cleaned, and if possible, elevated above floor level on a shelf or table. And then objects are chosen that resonate, arranged in the most personal way. Just as one does not play tennis in the dining room, the quiet contemplation of life cannot be undertaken in the…

Two years ago I went on a hunger strike in New Delhi, India. I didn’t tell anyone beforehand, not even my mother. She learned about it on the first day. I told her that I was doing it for Tibet and that if anything happened to me, she shouldn’t grieve. Moments later, I unplugged my phone and prepared my mind and body. I was born in Nepal but now live in India. Actually, I am a Tibetan who’s never been to Tibet. I have never felt how the ground heaves during monsoon nor seen the blinding white snow-capped mountains in winter. The nostalgia of home brings me happiness, but also plunges me into bitter despair. This is the tragedy of my life. I spent my childhood in Kathmandu, Nepal. My…

The air is thin near the Himalayas. At an altitude of some 1,400 metres above sea level, lower air pressure gives the breath more significance - breathing in, breathing out. But at the Druk Gawa Khilwa Abbey in Kathmandu the morning’s meditation practice of stilling the mind - and focusing on the breath - is accompanied by an activity a little more rigorous. It may come of some surprise to discover that hundreds of nuns are perfecting not just the challenging ‘no mind’ of Buddhism, but the crane, twist, and cat stance of kung fu. At the Druk Gawa Khilwa Abbey something radical has occurred: through martial arts, the nuns are upending generations of gendered standards to advocate for equality both within the abbey’s walls, as well as in surrounding…

When Phil Borges visited Tibet in 1993 he meandered across a pot-holed road in the capital city of Lhasa rarely disturbed by passing cars. When Borges travelled across the Tibetan plateau, the vegetation was so high in places that nomads complained about losing sheep within the voluminous folds of grass. But when Borges returned to Tibet almost twenty years later, the pot-holed road had become a six-lane highway and a significant portion of the Tibetan plateau was barren and dry. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reports that about 18 per cent of the Tibetan glacier has disappeared since the 1950s. Borges, a humanitarian photographer, was locked out of Tibet for 18 years; the publication of his book, Tibet, Culture on the Edge, which documented exiled Tibetans and their spiritual leader,…

Her picture is taken in front of the Mahadodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, a sleepy village in north-east India, the place, they say, where Buddha attained enlightenment beneath a sacred Bodhi Tree. Joan Ewing, the daughter of a newspaper publisher from New England is standing still - her long hair set in braids tied with gold and yellow silk. Less than an hour after this picture is taken, Ewing’s braids are sliced at the roots and wrapped in a piece of white cotton cloth. In January 1970, in a hotel room in Bodh Gaya, Ewing became among the first American women to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. She was renamed Karma Tsultrim Chodron and housed on the second floor of a rickety building next to the Swayambhu stupa, in…

Recent studies suggest that the brain continues to change over the course of our lives - brain cells grow and form new connections, and, essentially, the more time we devote to learning new skills, the better. On the following pages, Womankind is pleased to showcase the winning entry and finalists of Photographers’ Award XIII ‘Learning’, which is defined as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or instruction. WINNER The winning photograph is Focus, by photographer Ceren Gunsoy, capturing in exquisite detail a child in a learning environment, fixated on the task at hand. FINALISTS The cleverly-executed Never Stop Learning, by Agustina Sosa takes out second spot. Other finalists include the evocative photograph From Me to You, by Emma Jensen, which was captured in Sapa, Vietnam; and Learning…

On pages 94-97 of this edition of Womankind, find the ‘family’ with which you most identify: Buddha, Vajra, Ratna, Padma, or Karma, and also note the encumbered pattern, or poison, associated with this particular family. For the coming quarter, simply be aware of your habitual patterns when under pressure or when problems arise - and each day attempt, where possible, to transform this energy into a positive state. If anything, by simply being mindful of your ‘poison’ - and relaxing into it rather than running with it - you will manage to shift your automatic response.…

Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change By Pema Chödrön We live in difficult times. Life sometimes seems like a turbulent river threatening to drown us and destroy the world. Why, then, shouldn’t we cling to the certainty of the shore - to our familiar patterns and habits? Because, American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön teaches, that kind of fear-based clinging keeps us from the infinitely more satisfying experience of being fully alive. Reflections on a Mountain Lake By Tenzin Palmo Tenzin Palmo draws on her years of solitary meditation in a Himalayan cave to bring us this inspiring approach to the spiritual path. Her advice is characteristically direct: “the essential thing is to learn how to develop a practice which you can live with moment-to-moment in your everyday life.” Tenzin…

ASIA SOCIETY MUSEUM New York Unknown Tibet: The Tucci Expeditions and Buddhist Painting 27 FEBRUARY – 20 MAY 2018 This exhibition features an extraordinary group of works from the Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale (MNAO), Rome, including major paintings collected by Italian scholar and explorer Giuseppe Tucci during his expeditions to Tibet and now in the collection of the MNAO. The works are presented together with photography taken during eight major expeditions led by Tucci between 1926 and 1948. The MNAO paintings have only recently been restored as a group and this exhibition provides the first opportunity for scholars and the general public to see these historically important and stunningly beautiful works in the United States. The exhibition sections are organised to take viewers on a trip along the Path of…

· Of domesticated animals, yaks are the highest dwellers in the world, living at heights of 3,000-5,000 metres, or 9,800-16,400 feet, above sea level. · To survive at such altitudes, yaks have terrific lung capacity - three times that of cattle. · Yaks can swim in nearly frozen water while keeping their body temperature stable. · Like cows, goats, and sheep, yaks are ruminants, meaning that their stomach consists of four separate compartments. · A yak can survive in temperatures as low as -40°C (-40°F). · Yaks obtain water by eating snow. “The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner.”Tibetan proverb · Yaks are endangered because of interbreeding with domestic cattle.…

When I first gave birth, I felt no maternal instinct. Just pain. Horrible pain. I was also reeling from this immense sense of duty, a huge burden on my frail shoulders. Nothing would be the same from now on. I had to take care of this child. In Tibetan society, women stay at home, while men work, so, in a sense, we are equal, in that roles are shared. I do think, however, that men have it easier because they don’t get pregnant or give birth. I suffered a lot when I was pregnant. When I first gave birth, I made a promise to myself: “Never again!” Who was I kidding? Soon I had forgotten the pain and the misery of childbirth, and had another child, and then another. Before…

Sipping chai at a tea stall in India, Sonam Tashi, a 55-year old monk recounts being in a Chinese prison after posting photographs of the Dalai Lama around his monastery in Tibet: “I was arrested in 1988. Those in prison have great suffering because they are put in small cells. When the youth couldn’t tolerate their hunger and thirst I would give them advice according to Buddhism. Many masters of the past made great efforts to become bodhisattvas despite many hardships. When I think of this, I didn’t feel my suffering in prison was very great. I had one small mala [prayer beads] around my wrist, which I used to recite mantras. I had to stay as a prisoner, but I just thought of it as a retreat house. If…

In 1994, I went to Tibet for the first time, not with my mother as I had dreamed of, but alone after she was killed in a car accident on the first day of that year. For years, she had talked about taking me to meet her family and to see her birthplace but we decided to wait until I graduated from college. So, after I completed the Tibetan Buddhist death rituals for forty-nine days, I took my exams and went to Tibet to meet the people who had known and loved my mother before I was born. I had adjusted myself to living in multiple languages and privileged the English language because it was the language of security and power. People often ask me what it felt like to…

The element of the Padma family is fire, like the warm glow of a sunset. A Padma landscape is soft rolling hills and mossy glens, an abundance of flowers, birds, and animals. When you enter a Padma house, warm colours like reds dominate; there are candles, velvet pillows, a warm fire; the harmonious and colourful home of an artist. Padma people, writes Lama Tsultrim, often wear solid colours, especially red - luxurious garments in velvet or silk, often form-fitting to attract attention. “The encumbered mind state of Pad-ma is intense desire, lust, and craving,” she writes. “Padma personalities desire to manipulate situations and people through their magnetism.” Like salespeople, Padma personalities often foster relationships with others that are personally beneficial. They can feign empathy to win another’s approval but struggle…

As the curator of an exhibition on the art of Tibetan medicine, I noticed that visitors were particularly fascinated by a Tibetan medical scroll painting on human embryology. It consisted of over 60 small drawings lined up, in comic-strip style along horizontal registers. Together, they gave a detailed account of how the consciousness of a previous life is thought to combine with the respective ‘red’ and ‘white’ reproductive fluids of the parents. The resulting embryo is then shown to develop, week by week, through the three, so-called fish, turtle, and pig stages all the way until, at the very bottom of the scroll, we see two lovely, slightly larger scenes of a woman giving birth to a child and her relatives bringing gifts and rejoicing in the new arrival. The…

Born Diane Perry in 1943 into an English home where spiritualist meetings were often held, Jetsunma (“reverend” in English) realised, at age 18, that she was a Buddhist. After a short stint as a librarian at the Hackney Public Library in London, she saved her money to journey to India to teach English, and in that same year became the second Western woman to be ordained in the Vajrayana tradition (often referred to as Tibetan Buddhism), receiving the name “Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo”, or the rather stately “Glorious Lady who Upholds the Doctrine of the Practice Succession”. Vocal about the discrimination against women in the Tibetan monastic world, Tenzin Palmo founded a nunnery to offer nuns the opportunity to study, meditate, even debate, in a way that challenges the establishment, which…

“As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.” The Case for Optimism on Climate Change Instead of focusing exclusively on the terrifying aspects of climate change, former US Vice President Al Gore turned the topic on its head, outlining why he’s optimistic and why - even in the face of rising seas and melting glaciers - we can dare to dream of a safe and sustainable future planet. Cave in the Snow Based on Vicki Mackenzie’s book, Cave in the Snow: A Western Woman’s Quest for Enlightenment, this documentary describes the life of female monk Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, who spent 12 years alone in a Himalayan cave at an altitude of 13,000 feet. In 1988, she emerged from the cave determined to build a convent…