Contact is taking a holiday!

Sydney Morning Herald, 17 October 2016

Sertar, Garze: In the northern summer of 2001, thousands of Chinese security personnel, backed by an army of labourers armed with sledgehammers, massed at the entry of the Larung Gar Tibetan Buddhist Institute.

In this almost impossibly remote place, sitting high on the Tibetan Plateau, 9000 monks and nuns had found a home, defying decades of China’s aggressive atheist policies to learn from its charismatic and avowedly apolitical founder, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok.

The authorities had long been skittish about the remarkable growth of the institute, and particularly alarmed by its growing appeal to ordinary Han Chinese. By 2001, more than 1000 Han called Larung Gar home.

That summer authorities moved with little warning, citing official concern over possible “splittist” activity, and evicted all but 1400 of the residents. Labourers quickly laid to waste 2400 dwellings.

Many of those evicted from Larung Gar were soon to find their way to another remarkable settlement to the south-west; the Yarchen Gar Monastery.

Both Larung Gar and Yarchen Gar (Gar translates as “camp”) have remained largely hidden from the outside world, as much because of geography as the tight controls on freedom of movement put in place by the government. Both sit at elevations of more than 4000 metres, sunk deep into hidden valleys of the Hengduan mountain range that cuts across China’s south-western Sichuan province.

Both camps are part of what is known as the Garze Semi Autonomous Prefecture, where 77 per cent of the inhabitants – some 800,000 people – claim ethnic Tibetan heritage. As in the similarly named Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), the people’s future has long been out of their own hands.

In theory, to move around Garze one needs only a Chinese tourist visa and bucketloads of time, patience and fortitude. This is in stark contrast to the neighbouring TAR, what has become known to the wider world as “Tibet”. Visitors to the TAR must first negotiate a complex and shifting permit process before joining an organised and highly controlled tour of the region.

Daily encounters with police

Yet Garze and nearby Qinghai are also restive. Tibetans here have openly protested against Chinese control, most notably as part of a violent uprising in 2008. Referred to by the Chinese as the 3-14 riots, unrest had spread from the TAR into Sichuan. This unrest effectively slammed the door shut to the region’s hidden treasures until 2013.

Today, despite relative calm, nuns and monks continue to take the extreme measure of self-immolation in towns and villages. Reports of random arrests and the disappearance of accused activists are common. Recently Garze has been open, yet regulations can change overnight and information is scarce.

In China’s breakneck boom this region is ground zero in the great “go west” campaign, viewed by the People’s Republic as integral to the growth of the Chinese economy. The wealth of natural resources found here, as well as the nation-building railway into Tibet – completed in 2006 – have been the catalyst for extraordinary development.

In the regional town of Sertar, which sits astride the Larung Gar complex, the reality of the security situation quickly hits home. I was challenged in the main square and taken to police headquarters to sign in and face a barrage of questions. Mercifully, one officer spoke English and took my story of being a history teacher at face value. It would be just one of the almost daily encounters with police over the coming weeks.

In the following days I was free to explore the vast warren of huts, temples and study houses around the complex. I witnessed a noisy debate between monks where the men and boys almost came to blows over competing theological arguments. The monks and nuns are separated by the main road, which slices Larung down the middle.The tinderbox atmosphere and police presence of Sertar is replaced by the constant hum of worship, with the sound of prayer and Tibetan horns a constant.

Chinese tourists visit Larung too. The biggest draw for them turns out to be the opportunity to witness a traditional Tibetan “sky burial”. At 1pm every day, the Rogyapa (“body breaker”) arrives to dismember human remains, which are then fed to aggressive flocks of vultures on a hillside set back from the complex. Macabre to some, the ritual is a practical way of disposing of remains while adhering to jhator, the principle of kindness to all living things, which includes feeding these huge creatures.

The institute attracts followers of Tibetan Buddhism from all over China. The regrowth of the institute after the 2001 evictions was swift – students began to illegally return and rebuild almost immediately. After Jigme’s death in 2004, countless followers made a pilgrimage to Larung Gar to pay homage to their spiritual master. Many stayed and contributed to the already rapid regrowth of the population at the camp. Larung Gar is now home to an estimated 50,000 people.

Highest level of spiritual enlightenment

At Yarchen Gar, founded in 1985 hard against the border of the TAR, living conditions are deplorable. Without even basic sanitation, every corner of the complex is permeated by a breathtakingly toxic smell. About 9000 nuns live in ramshackle huts on an island, while the more solidly built monks’ quarters sit favourably on the surrounding hills.

Monsoon rains bring regular flooding; on my visit ankle-deep raw sewage flowed into the streets on more than one occasion. No electricity runs to the island. Cholera and typhoid outbreaks are a daily threat. In winter, temperatures plunge to a life-threatening minus 25 degrees.

Yet this does not deter the nuns. Winter meditation sessions, referred to as the “direct crossing”, can last for days, with nothing more than a blanket to shield worshippers from the cold.

The reward for this remarkable display of self-deprivation is the chance to learn firsthand from some of the most revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism. The current leader in residence is Asong Tulku. Tulku is a title given to a person who has reached the highest level of spiritual enlightenment; Asong is considered a living Buddha by his followers. To assist in his teaching at Yarchen, Asong is aided by senior nuns referred to as khenmos. Many nuns begin their life here at the age of just six.

Not only do the nuns dedicate themselves fully to their studies, they are also responsible for almost all physical labour at Yarchen, constructing houses, unloading trucks or building roads. The monks, who rarely participate in physical labour here, seem to have it easy in comparison.

Despite the living conditions, vast amounts of money are being funnelled into gigantic, ornate temples and monuments, while the slum continues to crumble.

Han Chinese money has poured into this region, with relatively wealthy converts to Tibetan Buddhism bringing much-needed funds to the camps. Wealthy benefactors hoping to improve their karma for the next business deal, or through a “cover all bases” spiritual mentality, have sparked a huge construction boom on the far western Chinese frontier.

During my time in Yarchen I had several memorable brushes with Asong Tulku. As he piloted his gleaming white Lexus around the slum, our paths would meet on my early morning photo shoots. Watching people fall into the putrid mud at his feet wherever he walked, all rushing to pay tribute with cash and gifts, I wondered if the money for for the Lexus couldn’t be better spent elsewhere.

Any man following nuns would be blinded

The abrupt change from the monsoon season to the biting cold of winter was a fortuitous time to be visiting Yarchen. A ceremony in which almost the entire population of nuns empty from the confines of their island home for a month of meditation in the hills was due to take place.

For days preparations for this ritual, translating roughly as the “circle of life”, had provided a preview of what was to come. Basic supplies were taken by foot into a hidden nook outside the complex, the location of which was strictly off limits to outsiders. On the big day, the sight of 9000 nuns in their bright red robes streaming into the hills was a privilege to see. Any man that followed the nuns on their trek would return blind – so said a message written in bold letters on a sign hammered into the ground at the entrance to the valley.

By rights Larung and Yarchen Gar shouldn’t exist, and at different times the authorities have tried to sweep them away. Draconian restrictions on freedom of movement and religious practice in the TAR itself mean that nothing exists there to rival these two sites.

The future leadership of Tibetan Buddhism quite possibly rests not within the more recognisable whitewashed walls of Lhasa’s hillside fortresses, or with the Dalai Lama’s circle, but in China itself.