13 July 2016 [I was wondering why my journal was missing some entries. That’s because much of what I wrote comprised a personal, private series of letters to Mac. Here is a letter that I thought was worth including.] I can’t believe I missed a day, but we met with learning partners in a.m., cleaned up, packed out of Dharamsala, drove a couple of hours on winding roads to Bir (a small town, relatively speaking), toured Tsering’s monastery, had a late dinner, then I returned to the monastery with Tsering to see the baby monks (well, boys aged 4 or 5 to teenagers) still in class after 9:00 p.m. The younger boys had all carefully traced a picture of Mickey Mouse or Peter Pan, while the older boys were learning how to do butter sculptures, which are these amazing, colorful objects that they place on the altars. The temples here make the Catholic churches in Europe look fairly plain and simple. Today we hiked over to another monastery, trekking through farms, villages, mountains, streams with boulders, etc. We passed by a Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) where 800 kids live. Some are orphans, some are refugees without parents around. They live in dorms or houses of about 30 or 40 kids with an adult supervisor. The grounds are covered with inspirational slogans, like “Others Before Self.” Yes, Jonestown without Jim Jones. This just indicated to me that you can live collectively if you have enough money, dedication to the cause, and don’t have a crazy leader. I s’pose you could say the same about the monastery schools: they are essentially boarding schools, where they really run the kids. I mean, as in Bob Boze Bell, “run ‘em,” not abuse them. It really is possible, though they’re not permanent: just boarding schools. Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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