Buddha's Tooth

I once took a class on Buddhism in college. It was the only class I took at Trinity that had over 25 students. I think I did okay in the class but I retained almost none of it, except the basic Buddhist concept that all desire leads to suffering, and that enlightenment is a state of no desire and therefore no suffering.

*

Before moving to Bhutan I had these far-flung notions that I would get into meditation. I remember one of the things that appealed to me so much about teaching in Bhutan was that there was mandatory meditation in schools. I thought I’d be surrounded by peaceful Buddhists who meditated on a daily basis.

Soon after arriving in Kanglung and starting work at the school, I quickly learned a few things. One – at my school “mandatory meditation” translates into a minute of silence during morning assembly. After saying their prayer to the goddess of learning, the students collectively become silent, some close their eyes, some giggle and stifle their laughter, some just stare straight ahead. The silence is broken by a single, loud clap by the school captain. And the rest of morning assembly continues. The teachers are allowed to conduct meditation in the classrooms, which I’ve done before administering exams. What that means to me is to have the students stand, take some deep breaths, I remind them to relax, to free their minds of stress, do the best they can on the exam, and we’re all silent for a couple minutes. I don’t imagine what I do hurts them, but I can’t imagine it helps a whole lot either; after all, I don’t know anything about meditation or mind control.

The second thing I learned soon after moving to Bhutan was that the majority of Bhutanese know just as much about meditation as I do, which is nothing. I can accurately say that the rest of the 19 staff members I work with are religious Buddhists, but I don’t know if any of them actually meditate. There’s one male teacher, Phuntsho, who fits the bill of the peaceful person I imagined every Bhutanese would be. I know he’s meditated before, but I don’t know how often he does it. Phuntsho doesn’t eat meat because he doesn’t believe in inflicting harm on animals and doesn’t want to be the reason for their suffering, but Phuntsho has also said, “I try really hard not to beat the students. I think about Ma’am Lisa and how she doesn’t beat. But sometimes, I get so angry, so I say a prayer to Guru Rimpoche, and then (with his hands he gestures beating a student).” Phuntsho is just one of the many teachers I work with who beat the students.

What I’ve learned and observed about Buddhism here in Bhutan is not so much the goal of reducing suffering, but the goal of earning merits. Earning merits in this lifetime will help in the reincarnation process – the more merits, the better the chance of coming back to earth in the next lifetime as a good human, as a Buddhist preferably. Phuntsho has twice bestowed on me what he considers the greatest wish – “I hope you will come back as a Buddha.” What he means is, he hopes that I will come back as a reincarnate. There is no higher aim than that. The thing about earning merits is that it’s not necessarily based on good will towards others, at least from what I’ve observed. Don’t get me wrong, Bhutanese are extremely kind and generous people who open their homes to you and help you out when you need it. But I’ve never heard merits being associated with good deeds toward fellow mankind or even animal kind. What I do hear all the time is about how to “get more merits” through such deeds as building prayer wheels, whitewashing a chorten, putting up more prayer flags, holding a puja, getting blessed by someone really important, or giving an offering to a temple. So much of life here surrounds these activities. And these activities take precedent, oftentimes, over school.

During my time teaching in Bhutan, there have been countless examples of religion (in the name of earning more merits) trumping education, but there is one event in particular. During the month October, I think I taught 16 days, as opposed to the normal 25 or 26 (remember, we have school on Saturdays) due to various reasons. The King had his Royal Wedding – a three-day holiday, the Hindus celebrated Dassain – a one-day holiday, my school celebrated Sports Day – three days off from teaching and a 1-day holiday, and, finally, the Sacred Relics came through Trashigang – a two-day holiday.

The Sacred Relics, which were on a country-wide tour for the first time ever, consisted of a piece of Buddha’s tooth, and two pieces of teeth belonging the Buddha’s disciples, each encased in a glass structure. The sacred teeth are normally kept in India but came to Bhutan on the request of the Prime Minister. Seeing these relics would earn a person lots and lots of merits.

Since the school was giving me two days off to see the teeth, I figured I might as well see them. I didn’t know much information – where the relics were on view, the time of the viewings. But, due to the religious significance, I did know that Trashigang would be flooded with people.

On the morning of the first day of the relics being in Trashigang, I remember hearing my landlord’s truck start up and leave around 5 am. On his walk to work, Scott saw open truckloads of people and students going towards Trashigang. By the time I got around to walking to lower market in hopes of hitching a ride, it was close to 10 am and Kanglung felt like a ghost town. No cars were on the street. Shops were closed. No one was walking on the road. Only with a help of a walnut seller was I able to get a ride in an Omvi van going to Trashigang. The Omni van happened to belong to the family of one of my students. My student wasn’t with his family that day though (“He doesn’t like crowds, ma’am”), but his class 10 sister, Dorji Dema, was very warm and welcoming.

The Omni van wasn’t the healthiest vehicle, but I couldn’t complain; I was just happy to find a ride. It chugged along at a slow pace and even stopped to help another van, which was loaded down by too many people.

As the kilometers passed, Dorji Dema would receive updates on her phone – “Ma’am, I heard the cars are lined up outside Trashigang,” “Ma’am, we’ll have to walk from the petrol pump.”

Dorji Dema was right. The Omni van didn’t make it much farther than the petrol pump, which is located five kilometers outside Trashigang. We parked and joined the masses of others walking in the hot sun on the too dusty road. I walked alongside Dorji Dema, but we continually had to stop to wait for the rest of her family to catch up. Her family included an aunt who had just given birth two days before and had the newborn in tow, as well as an elderly grandmother. As one can imagine, Dorji Dema’s family was not moving too quickly.

As we moved toward Trashigang, we passed hundreds of people who had already seen the relics walking back toward their cars. I’ve never in my life seen such haggard-looking people than those we passed. For the occasion, everyone was in their best ghos and kiras, but after a long day of waiting in the hot sun, their clothes were disheveled, dirty, crooked. People draped their kabneys and rachus over their heads and already reddened faces to guard them from the sun, their facial expressions contorted in fatigue and dehydration. I had moments of wanting to turn back, to not expose myself to whatever lay ahead. It was not like seeing these relics meant anything to me really. What compelled me to go into Trashigang that day, to continue walking with Dorji Dema despite the waves of haggard looking people, was curiosity. I wanted to see the crowds, the mania more than I actually wanted to see the teeth or receive whatever merits seeing them would earn me.

By the time we got into Trashigang proper, I continued to wait with Dorji Dema as she searched for her family. But after some time, I decided it was best for me to go solo. I thanked Dorji Dema and her family (once we found them) profusely before setting off to view the teeth on my own. By this time, I had found out that the teeth were in the courtyard of the Dzong. Walking a little faster, I followed the flow of movement and saw throngs of people, crowded and hot, waiting as I approached the Dzong gate.

To say that Trashigang was ill-prepared for such massive crowds is a great understatement. There was likely zero real thought put into crowd-control, which is why when I started waiting around 1 pm, the police were joined with secondary students, their arms linked, in the attempt to make human gates.

The viewing had started at 7 am that morning with people showing up as early as 4 am. In addition to the human gates, the police were also employing the use of poles, set vertically, to create another kind of barrier. Many people, even the very young and the very old, tried to sneak under the poles. The group of people that surrounded me in my waiting were, when we actually got to lines, chronic cutters, and I joined in. Pushing was also rampant as policemen repeated over and over, “Line, line, line.”

Because I was alone, I was able to maneuver quickly and cut and rush forward, so that my wait to see the teeth was less than an hour. Others had to wait three or more hours. Others had to make multiple trips before the waiting time seemed somewhat manageable. I was lucky. Well, of course, I was lucky; I was going to see the teeth.

Each black speck of tooth was encased in a glass ball, so there was a line of three glass balls set on a table, protected on either end by Indian monks with the addition of a hovering local policeman. As the line of people passed the glass balls, everyone covered their mouths and lowered their foreheads towards the relics. The line moved very quickly and before I knew it, my turn to “view” the relics had passed, and all I could recall was seeing the tiniest bit of black.


Seconds later I saw the vice-governor and talked with him for a couple minutes. He explained that praying to the teeth would bring good luck to my life, and obviously he means it – why else would all these people come from far away places and struggle with hours of waiting in crowds and the hot sun?

The thing is, is that I’ve heard this many times before. When I moved to this country and started partaking in cultural practices, I started out always asking why. Why were we waiting by the side of the road for some important person to bonk us on the head with a stick? Why was I pouring ara in my hair? Why was I sitting on the grass for hours in the hot, hot sun waiting for yet another blessing? The answers were always the same – each act would bring good luck to my life, or, it would earn me many merits. I’ve never understood why one blessing for good luck in my life was any different than another blessing for good luck in my life. Was getting bonked over the head by Je Khenpo more meaningful than covering my mouth and bending my forehead to black pieces of teeth? Will spinning a prayer wheel bring me more and less merits than walking clockwise around a chorten three times? Will rolling out dough for cookies that we’ll offer to the temple more important than teaching my students simple present tense?

As I walked outside the Dzong gate, I passed the anxious crowds of people still waiting. I passed Dorji Dema and her family. I passed people from the Merak-Sakteng area who had probably walked for three days in order to see the teeth. I passed a mother breastfeeding her baby in line. I passed two teachers I work with who were on their third attempt to see the relics. I walked away from the Dzong that afternoon feeling satisfied – I had accomplished what I had set out to do – and relieved to have the experience behind me with plenty of hours left in the day.

I quickly walked out of town and toward the road where more people were leaving than coming. I tried my hardest to maintain a bounce in my step; I didn’t want to look haggard or exhausted. Only a few attempts were made at hitching a ride back before I got a ‘yes.’ It was in yet another Omni van, this one filled with secondary students and one of their uncles as a driver. The teeth may not bring me a lifetime of luck, but for that afternoon at least, as I sat wedged between a boy and a girl on a bumpy ride back to Kanglung, toward home, I felt pretty darn lucky.