Drepung Monastery in Tibet

I met up with my tour guide Gyantzing, and the driver took us to Drepung Monastery, an eleventh century monastery just outside of Lhasa. “Drepung” means “rice heap.” Gyantzing explained that sacred items that are important to a Tibetan monastery include: chortens (stupas, which originally were reliquaries in India after the Buddha died), statues, and scriptures.

Drepung is Tsongkapa’s monastery, and he founded it in 1416. He’s a major figure in Tibetan history and legend and founded the Gelugpa sect, which is the Dalai Lama’s sect. He predated the Dalai Lama lineage. The Gelugpa sect was reformist, because Tsongkapa frowned on some of the leniency, like “monks” who weren’t celibate in other sects. He put a lot of emphasis in the sangha as a strong monastic community.

Power—wisdom—compassion: three statues representing these three things are continually displayed together in Tibetan monasteries and temples, because you can’t have one without the others. Invariably, they’re very elaborate and beautiful statues, typically painted gold with blue hair, the usual Tibetan Buddhist coloring for traditional statues. And they can be wearing brocade patchwork capes. The “compassion” figure is Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

But I was writing about how you can’t have one without the others. If you have wisdom and compassion without power, then you don’t take action. That makes me think of activism, not only in the sense of Engaged Buddhism but also in the sense of donating to the Global Fund for Women or Peace Action or Amnesty International, and doing things like signing petitions and writing letters for peaceful and humanitarian causes.

At the Drepung Monastery, we visited a typical Tibetan prayer hall or chanting hall, and there was a cheerful monk on a window seat to whom you were to give money if you want to take photos. Up against his side and on his robes was a fluffy brown and cream-colored cat, curled up into a ball. I placed a yuan bill in front of the monk, saw the cat, and said, “Oh, a kitty!” and smiled. Who knows if the monk or the cat understood what I said. I was tempted to pet the cat, but given its close proximity to the monk, I decided against it. It wouldn’t be the first time I nearly petted a Tibetan monk. Um, never mind.

While I was blissed out at the monastery, with the endless blue sky and stony mountains and stunning snow-capped mountains serving as a surreal backdrop, I was aware that there used to be one hundred thousand monks there before the Chinese invaded, that it used to be a much livelier place, with four universities inside it. It still contains a functioning university, but I was struck by how quiet, how almost deserted, the place seemed. The monks there now are all caretakers: they clean the place up, cook food, take money for photography, and refill the metal offering bowls with water or refill the big butter lamps. That is not deep scholarly stuff.

As a woman, I can understand seeing the Tibetan monastic system as power-tripping and elitist, but I nonetheless think it’s important to have scholars and spiritual practitioners who are doing the deep stuff; that is, who are scholars and meditators. Of course, I think they should include approximately the same number of women as men. Nonetheless, I see the way the Chinese limit the monastery as also being oppressive, as intolerant of religion or more importantly intolerant of spirituality.

I often saw a monk or some guy whether or not he was wearing red robes, adding large chunks of yellow butter to the enormous butter lamps, two foot wide metal bowls on a pedestal in front of shrines. Or someone, who in some cases looked like a pilgrim rather than a monk, poured liquid butter into the lamp, or a monk lit the row of wicks sticking up out of the uneven butter mess. Just because we were indoors didn’t mean we were in a cozy room; I was glad that I wore my coat and a heavy Tibetan-style shirt over my cotton Tibetan-style blouse and chupa. Some of the butter in the lamps was very solid, no matter that flames burned at the top of the wicks. The rancid butter smell was rather less than pleasant; maybe that’s why my nose hasn’t noticed the aroma of unwashed pilgrims.

We climbed many stairs and wandered into many rooms, some—many—of which had amazing sculptures (what you might even call dolls) draped in colorful patchwork brocade capes and often in coral and turquoise jewelry. Some sculptures were instead studded with such jewels. Many of the statues were enormous, some as large or larger than life; some were a couple feet tall, and some very small, such as in the cabinets filled with a thousand identical Shakyamuni Buddha statues.

There was a lot of repetition in the subjects of the statues: we saw a great many thousand-armed and eleven-headed Avolakiteshvaras; Green Taras and White Taras; and a great many Tsong Kapas (hardly surprising, since he founded this monastery and it’s very much associated with him). Since I’m not from Tibet, Tsong Kapa isn’t that significant to me; I have a greater appreciation for compassionate bodhisattvas such as Avolakiteshvara and Tara. There were at least two sets of arhats, some fierce deities such as a huge Palden Lhamo figure; she’s a protector of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama. In one prayer hall, along a wall, were large likenesses of all the Dalai Lamas except the current one, which got us on the topic of the rather suspicious deaths of many Dalai Lamas when they were very young; for instance, the ninth was a little kid. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Dalai Lamas died when they were kids, likely thanks to poisoning.

We probably could have gotten through the tour faster if I didn’t talk so much. Before visiting Tibet I had been in Dharamsala, the Tibetan exile community in India where the Dalai Lama lives, and I brought it up in conversation. Gyantzing said, “That must seem more like Tibet than here,” and I agreed. He was in Dharamsala six years ago, so he’s not brainwashed as I had feared. He’s not squeamish about discussing things that I expected to be taboo, such as the controversy over the current Panchen Lama. I was probably pushing it when he explained the stacks of manuscripts in a glass case and I said that we saw many manuscripts at the exile library in Dharamsala, and as we walked toward a doorway, I said, “And we even met the Prime Minister.” That’s not exactly a safe topic! There were indeed people around, and I’ve read that even people who look like monks could be spies.

To my surprise, we toured the kitchen. That’s a bit like touring a theater and going backstage. It has a very high ceiling like most of the rooms, but it doesn’t have the colorful murals covering the walls and columns that the prayer halls and other rooms have; the kitchen was all painted a dark brown and was quite dark, although traditional wooden cabinets were painted red and yellow and with a floral pattern. There were gigantic metal pots for feeding large numbers of people, and there were rows and rows of large teapots like the ones the monks carried during the Dalai Lama’s teachings, but these teapots were bigger.

As soon as we entered the kitchen, I heard a cat meowing! A grey and white cat walked around, and it was very vocal, friendly, and purred enthusiastically while I petted it. Gyantzing said that it’s a well-fed cat, and I said, “It looks like an American cat.” A monk had just cooked little beige potatoes; Gyantzing offered me a couple, and they were very hot and tasty, boiled and salted. The cat may have been hoping to get a potato, too. It had to settle for Gyantzing and I petting it and my taking a couple pictures of it.

The Drepung Monastery includes an upper section that at one time was the Dalai Lama’s living quarters, like the second through fourth Dalai Lamas, before the Potala was built. It was much like I believe the Dalai Lama’s rooms look like at the Potala, which I’ll get to visit tomorrow. There was an Audience Chamber, red-painted furniture and a tall throne where the Dalai Lama sat while regular people came in and talked to him or at least bowed to him. There was a very old yellow brocade cape set up on the throne, next to which was a display case; I’m thinking it contained a statue and offerings, but that may have been another similar room. Next door was an audience chamber where the Dalai Lama talked with politicians, and connected to that was a room full of beautiful red-painted, carved furniture: cabinets on the sides, a bench facing the door, a couple of small, low cabinets in front of the bench. The walls of the Audience Chamber or one of the other rooms were painted with murals that told stories.

I was a little surprised at the murals in one small room, a simple room with a staircase leading upstairs. The room contained no furniture and was like a hall or ante-room that led to the outdoors and that was one of the last places we went. It had not only murals of various figures on a black background, but above that was a border displaying flayed animal and human skins hanging. There were also some skulls painted here and there. It was quite tantric, and quite gruesome, but at least it was stylized rather than realistic.

Here are some books by Tsongkapa:

The Great Treatise On The Stages Of The Path To Enlightenment, Vol. 1, Snow Lion, ISBN 1-55939-152-9

The Great Treatise On The Stages Of The Path To Enlightenment, Vol. 2, Snow Lion, ISBN 1-55939-168-5

The Great Treatise On The Stages Of The Path To Enlightenment, Vol. 3, Snow Lion, ISBN 1-55939-166-9

Ocean of Eloquence: Tsong Kha Pa’s Commentary on the Yogacara Doctrine of Mind, State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-1479-5

Ocean of Reasoning: A Great Commentary on Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-514733-2

Tantric Ethics: An Explanation of the Precepts for Buddhist Vajrayana Practice, Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-290-0

The Splendor of an Autumn Moon: The Devotional Verse of Tsongkhapa, Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-192-0

The Fulfillment of All Hopes: Guru Devotion in Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-153-X

Three Principle Aspects of the Path, Tharpa Publications