Lhasa, Awakeness
August 19, 2005
I have to admit, these two days I got be very selfish and weak… if I may blame, that is the 90 hour devilish bus journey and those commersialization and heavy sinofication in Lhasa. Talking about commersialization, as a Buddhist I felt very terrible myself when seeing how the monasteries here competing to earn as much money as possible by charging very expensive tickets. I remember when a monk insisted to charge us a ticket of 10 yuan just when we wanted to climb a hill to see sunset!
Today there are some “enlightments” that brought back my spirit. The “kora” travelling around the Sera Monastery was exciting. The ticket to enter the monastery is an expensive 50 yuan, but doing round trip outside the wall is free of charge.
The gem of today is the young novice monks outside the Potala Palace. I have never been entering Potala due to its expensive ticket (100 yuan) and I cant afford it. OK, forget about the tickets now. These monks coming from Qinghai Province by walking to Lhasa to do pilgrimage. They were all friendly and curious, especially when I share the life of novice monks of Laos with them, which somehow quite a different world. As a Buddhist myself, we had really many things to explore each other, and I realized the Buddhist saying “laksa dharma manunggal esa” (thousands of dharmas are actually One) was indeed true.
These monks are paid by the Chinese government, they earn about 150 yuan/mo. Compared to monks in Lhasa who get a thousand something yuan, what these little monks earn are nothing. One of these monks dream to join his other Tibetan compatriates in India, meeting Dalai Lama, and of course leaving China. He has tried to smuggle to Nepal last year, but was unfortunately caught by the People’s “Liberation” Army of China, and sent back to Lhasa.
It was indeed a mind refreshing conversation, and I felt the warmth of friendship when a monk hold my hand along the way home, something that I wont try with other men in Indonesia.
Ah… pencerahan lagi…. kutahu meski kulitmu tak secerah Santi dan Sinta, aku yakin hatimu selalu tercerahkan dengan perjalanan-perjalananmu.
Btw, mumpung di Tibet, kirimi aku foto Yak dong… itu mirip sama llama kan?
from, Embem -yang banyak maunya-
Cool. It’s a real pity that you didn’t go inside Potala though, Ming. VERY expensive i know. But it is unique amongst the various places in Tibet’s historical past. When i was inside there, i could later see potential ways that you could get inside the outer wall from the back if you were very discreet. It would be quite a gamble though, and they may decide to check your ticket somewhere else inside of course. But it’s an idea. One girl i was with, used an out of date Student card and managed to convince the ticket seller at the west side that it was a student discount card. Because the attendant only knew Chinese, she didn’t want to argue about it. She got the discount..LOL