American Indians Join Tibetans

[Guest guest]

BUDDHIST NUNNERY AT PEACE VILLAGE

 

Native Americans, like Tibetans, were almost decimated by

colonizing powers that displaced, starved and robbed them of their

land. But, as the annual gathering of Native American elders at the

Peace Village testifies, peaceful traditions are hard to eradicate.

The elders came from as far away as Honduras and El Salvador.

 

China's Maoists destroyed Tibetan Buddhist relics, texts and

buildings during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Yet, in the

end, that destruction had a boomerang effect.

BY SUSHMA JOSHI

 

On July 28, 2005, I attended the consecration of a Tibetan Buddhist

nunnery at Lincoln – a small town in rural Vermont, USA. The town is

so small that you could miss it, as we did – we drove right past it.

The general store, in the middle of the town, had a sign so quaint

that we had to drive around several times before we found it. The

houses, with sloping gabled roofs, were scattered amongst fields of

summer wildflowers. Children's tricycles rested on the overgrown

grass outside red, dilapidated barns.

 

The friend who drove me to the event was a young American woman who

had experienced the effects of war first-hand: her husband, who she

had been married to for eight years, was psychologically traumatized

after being posted to Iraq. Their marriage had ended soon after his

return home. It wasn't so much the loss of her husband as the loss of

her best friend that hit her hard, she said. Nations at war pay

dearly in terms of human trauma – something that never gets factored

into the cost of war.

 

This awareness of war's vices accompanied us as we tried to find our

way to the "Sunray Peace Village," where the consecration was taking

place. Prayer flags and a small white stupa suddenly appeared in the

middle of nowhere. Dozens of parked cars suggested that we had

arrived at the right place. As we walked towards the incense smoke,

we saw a gathering of about a hundred Americans outside a tent. "Oh,

this is where all the hippies of the Sixties disappeared," my friend

whispered light-heartedly. "I was wondering where they had all gone."

Inside the tent sat several monks, with a Cherokee spiritual leader

named Dhyani Ywahoo in the center.

 

The venerable Dhyani Ywahoo is a spiritual leader who descends from

the Cherokees, one of the Native American tribes of North America.

Started in 1969 by Dhyani Ywahoo, the Peace Village is a sangam of

three traditions: Ningma, Kagyu, and the Ywahoo (Cherokee) lineage.

It is not surprising that Tibetan Buddhism should be embraced by

Native American practitioners – the similarities in cultural and

shamanistic practices suggest that the two groups might well have

drifted off into different continents at some prehistoric time but

never quite lost their physical or spiritual resemblance. Both

traditions emphasize peace and peaceful relations with the earth.

 

The entire congregation chanted Tibetan mantras for the ground

blessing of the Vajra Dakini Nunnery. When completed, the nunnery

will be the first Drikung nunnery in the West. Attending the ceremony

were a group of Benedictine monks in black and white, who had also

been invited for the event. "All spiritual traditions come from the

same place," said one of them, beaming. In a country where the

monastic tradition is almost dead, the monks seemed eager to find

comradeship among the followers of another tradition in which

monasticism is alive and thriving. The brothers were taking care of

Indians of Mayan descent from Guatemala, who they had brought along

to take part in the ritual.

 

Native Americans, like Tibetans, were almost decimated by colonizing

powers that displaced, starved and robbed them of their land. But, as

the annual gathering of Native American elders at the Peace Village

testifies, peaceful traditions are hard to eradicate. The elders came

from as far away as Honduras and El Salvador. At lunch, I talked to

two "spirit guides" from the rain-forests of Latin America. Massacres

of Native Indians in Latin America have taken place even in

contemporary times, but they continue to practice their shamanistic

traditions.

 

China's Maoists destroyed Tibetan Buddhist relics, texts and

buildings during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The monastic

tradition was thought to be feudal and corrupt, and had to be

destroyed through all means. Monasteries were defaced and individuals

were forced to give up their spiritual texts and artifacts, which

were burnt before the Tibetan community. Yet, in the end, that

destruction had a boomerang effect. Instead of dying out, the Tibetan

tradition has continued to flourish globally in a way that nobody

could have predicted in the 1950s. Perhaps, if the leaders of the

Cultural Revolution had foreseen how those actions would lead to a

vibrant resurgence of the tradition forty years later, in places as

far away as North and South America, they would have left the

monasteries alone.

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