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Maroon Robes In Twin Cities

J M Shenoy

By the time the highly publicized and successful three-week long American sojourn of the Dalai Lama ended recently, there were scores of articles about Tibetan Buddhists in New York, Bloomington (Indiana, where the older brother of the Dalai Lama lives) and Hollywood.

However, there are more than a dozen American states where Tibetan Buddhism is available to the seekers at a number of small temples and communes run by the admirers of the Dalai Lama including Tibetan exiles.

The twin Minnesota cities of St Paul and Indianapolis are an example of finding Buddhism in unexpected places.

There are more than 1200 followers of the Dalai Lama in Twin Cities -- and the list includes a shaved head nun who works in a busy but small Tibetan store.

Fifty-six-year old Ani Ngaw Chodon, who wears a necklace of threads which the Dalai Lama has blessed is ever ready to talk about Buddhism, and the compassion filled life it offers to all.

Several Tibetan monks including the 44-year-old Lobsang Jungnes live in the poorer parts of the cities where they spend about three hours a day chanting and meditating -- and working in low paid jobs.

Tibetan Buddhists began arriving in the Twin Cities after the 1990 Congressional act that allowed 1,000 Tibetans to emigrate to the United States. Minnesota, with sponsors lining up, took 160 Tibetans, among the most that any state did. California and New York each accepted more than 100. Many Tibetans had lived in India in Dharmasala and near Khushalnagar near Madikere in Karnataka before migrating to the United States.

A handful of the Tibetans started restaurants in Los Angeles and New York. The latter has a Tibetan restaurant in Manhattan frequented by Harrison Ford, Richard Gere and a number of Hollywood celebrities.

The Minnesota Tibetans remember the brutal conquest of their country by the Chinese but following the Dalai Lama's exhortation, they do not hate the Chinese.

Today, estimates of Tibetans in the Twin Cities run in the vicinity of 800, second only to New York City and its suburbs (2,000), according to Ann Ayrault, of the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota. The Tibetans began working in hotels but now have fanned into health-care occupations.

"From a Buddhist perspective, that kind of work has a nice resonance -- compassion and service in serving sick people," said Ayrault, a Long Island native who became aware of the Tibetans' qualities during a trekking trip in Nepal in 1982.

For all its multiple deities and multilayered stories springing from the Buddha's emergence in the sixth century BC, Tibetan Buddhism is as simple as a mustard seed. Neither starve nor overindulge the body and its senses, the Buddha said -- the middle way in all things.

"It says only that you try to help others. If not that, at least don't harm others," said Tsering Topgyal, who along with Ayrault oversees Minnesota's Tibetan American Foundation, based in Minneapolis.

Local Buddhists say that the depth to which Tibetan Buddhists honor and respect all life can exceed understanding of many people not only in the west but also in Asia.

Palden Gyatso, a monk, endured years of torture by the Chinese, including having a cattle prod placed across his lips. What was his biggest fear, he was asked when he visited the Twin Cities.

"I was afraid I would lose my compassion for the Chinese," he said.

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