I arrived to Lhasa and was greeted by my Tibetan guide Gyalsten, and my fellow tour companion, Canadian Bill. In the Tibetan language, Lhasa means the Holy Land or the Buddha Land and is the center of Tibet's politics, economy and culture. Our guide told us that it’s common for people to say that 87% of Lhasa is Tibetan but in reality it is only 60%. The remainder 40% is Chinese who come to Lhasa to work. Immediately you can see that Tibetans and Chinese are not similar in any shape or form. In fact one tourist I met proclaimed, “Tibetans look more Mexican than anything else”. And it’s true…
The city of Lhasa
Everywhere I went in Lhasa I’d see the presence of the Chinese army. Soldiers and police were stationed on top of buildings, in front of monasteries, you name it...they were there just waiting for trouble to break out. But to me Lhasa appeared to be such a peaceful place and the Tibetan people so harmless.
Arriving to Lhasa the first thing I noticed is how important Tibetan Buddhism is to the everyday lives of the Tibetan people. Walking down the street (always clockwise around the temple) there would be hundreds of Tibetans making their daily pilgrimage around the temple, chanting, twirling prayer wheels, or fingering prayer beads. I even encountered several people throwing themselves down on the ground in what the guide told me was prostration. This was something I had never seen before. In Buddhism, Buddhists carry out prostration before the image of the Buddha to show their respect for them. This was to become a common sight in Tibet… almost as common as prayer flags. Tibetan Buddhists put prayer flags outside their homes and places of spiritual worship for the wind to carry the good vibrations across the countryside. They are said to bring happiness, long life, and prosperity to the person who put the flag there and also those in the vicinity.
Pilgrim performing prostration
We spent much of our time in Lhasa visiting the monasteries of which the most famous is Potala Palace. This enormous monastery was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the current Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. The monastery is thirteen stories tall and contains over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and 200,000 statues in addition to many tombs of previous Dalai Lamas.
Potala Palace
The other monasteries we had the opportunity to visit were Norbulingka (Summer Palace) which was where the Dalai Lama would spend his summers. In fact it was here that the current Dalai Lama made his escape to India disguised as a Tibetan soldier in 1959. At Sera Monastery, the 2nd largest monastery in Tibet, we had the fortune to watch monks debate the philosophies learned that day. This was quite an intense experience with lots of shouts and claps as they try to get their point across. And at Jokhang Temple, in the center of Old Lhasa, we witnessed hundreds of Tibetans making their daily pilgrimage to this very important temple.
Monks debating
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