I'm back in Dharamsala, where they recently celebrated the Tibetan New Year Celebration: Losar. Happy Losar! I came up here from Chandigarh (a city ~300 km south), where I lived in the Nek Chand rock garden in Chandigarh for 5 days with about 40 others for a Zero Waste Conference. The garden is composed entirely of industrial waste materials. Most of the other participants were from here and are active in sustainability projects throughout India. For example, one person I met works with hotels and institutions to reduce their waste production. With buildings to fill with all the biomass, the methane is trapped and piped to the kitchen to use for cooking. The hosting organization Seva ("selfless sevice"), provides alternative education free of cost and is totally volunteer-based. One of their members, Kush, teaches children math by intricate methods of oragami and paper folding. So, Seva hosted a gathering to make creative things out of rubbish and to strategize on waste reduction & management. It was great! Together, we prepared, cooked, and ate three vegan meals each day. We had workshops on making baskets, jewelry, cases, and furniture out of paper, scraps, and rubber. We danced, debated, sang,and slept piled on top of each other, Indian style. This is a picture of a group making cocnut shell jewelry. And another of Gyandev, who I accidentally called bastard instead of God of Knowledge by mis-prouncing his name. He is dressed up for an event we held with the public to raise awareness about zero waste. Here are more photos of the event.
From there, I met up with a few friends from Delhi in Dharamsala. I wanted to write again about it because it is a place with such feeling. The day after tomorrow, I will attend a teaching of the Dalai Lama at the main temple here which I will use a radio to listen to a translation (given in Tibetan). There is chanting echoing about the mountains accompanying the rain and thunder we're getting today.
Last night, a conversation with an Tibetan named Lutz who has been here for about ten years and talked about the Chinese occupation in Tibet. The entire region is militarized and it is impossible to talk freely in the public. In addition to systemmatically erasing their culture, China is also exploiting the natural resourses there. It is a region very rich in natural resources and China has been mining these since they arrived in 50 years ago using Tibetan prisoner labor. Then, I came across this interesting article today discussing the same issue. Check it out here. Also, check out the Mount Everest Campaignregarding the recent inprisonment of Tibetans crossing the moutains to come to India.
Anyway, despite all of this, the Tibetans I've met have such peace about them and truely live out their leaders messages. When I saw the venerable Samdong Rinpoche (first elected prime minister of Tibet in exile) speak, he said that only when Tibetans have no hatred or anger, but only compassion for the Chinese government, will freedom return to Tibet.