The Gyalwang Drukpa

When I completed the Pad Yatra, many people came to me saying that they felt sorry I had such a hard time in Shingola, without food and shelter for 2 days. I was quite shocked to hear their sympathetic remarks, because out of the entire pad yatra, the best and most exciting time I had was at Shingola. I can still remember this so clearly. How we human beings always make rumours out of small things? Simply think, how could we survive without eating any food for 2 days? Impossible to survive, even for 1 day.

We were actually waiting for the mules and horses for 2 days. We had tents, although not all of them arrived with us, we had to squeeze more people into one tent, and a few people did not have sleeping bags which were with the mules, so they had a little bit of difficulties, but not a big problem at all.

The most exciting part of the entire journey, to me, was passing the Shingola. The only concern for all of us was the safety of the mules and horses. They simply could not walk in the melting snow, they slipped and fell down many times. We were really feeling very sorry for them. As practitioners of Live to Love, monks and nuns took the loads from the mules and the horses, so that these lovely animals could walk without anything on their backs and then they could walk safely. So that was the only small problem we had, otherwise we all had such an exciting and fun time.

Even though physically we were quite tired at Shingola, but when it came to having fun, our tiredness disappeared. Our monks and nuns walked up to the top of the pass a few times to slide down in the snow. I was very surprised to see how energetic they were when it came to having fun. I can understand, after all besides being monks and nuns, they are also human beings. I enjoyed myself looking at them having fun. I myself didn't dare to slide down the snowy slope, maybe I felt I was too clumsy and too heavy, and mentally I felt old in front of all these fun loving monks and nuns whom I see as my sons and daughters. I think I enjoyed much more watching them having fun and enjoying themselves in the snow. It was really not that cold for me, it was minus 20 something degree and this was considered to be quite a pleasant temperature for me.

When we met some local people, they said we were crazy to cross Shingola during those days because it was not open and it was full of avalanches. But it must be due to the blessings of the divine ones that we did not encounter any avalanche, there was just some strong wind with snowfall, it was just great fun, like an adventurous journey. You can see the photos for yourself that everyone had big smile, no one was having sad or disappointing look.

On the journey, I came across many ancient and historical objects of refuge which are yet revealed to the world, not even to all of us until this trip. I am still feeling the excitement about discovering them in a few of our ancient monasteries. I am inspired to turn them into holy pilgrimage sites as the sight of these holy objects will definitely be an encouragement to all the practitioners of genuine spirituality and therefore will benefit a lot of beings around the world. If I can put in some effort through the point of view of Live to Love under "heritage", I think this is a very meaningful project for all of us. I am very excited and positive about making this happen. If we are not able to materialise this within this year, then we should definitely aim for next year.

I want to say a few words to express my appreciation from the depth of my heart to all the organising and working committees of Young Drukpa Association (YDA), which I formed not too long ago. They were taking such good care of all of us, including all my guests. They have really been acting according to my wishes. For example, they are actively involved in turning Markha valley into the Hemis National Park, with the help of Indian government, and the Hemis National Park is under the environment preservation zone where more than 20 precious species are being taken care of. We are doing many of these things, but we don't talk about it, maybe it is important now to tell people our YDA and our many different communities have been doing many things to preserve the natural environment. This sort of activities which are not just talking in theory but actually doing them can be a great example for YDA in many parts of Ladakh and Himalayas. YDA members have been quietly promoting eco-friendly tourism, encouraging homestay and discouraging the use of non biodegradable materials in Ladakh. They have been putting in a lot of effort, which is really great for me to know.

I was also taking the opportunity to discourage the villagers and welcoming committees to use disposable cups and plates, plastic bottles and cups, and in fact I think I should also discourage them to offer packed drinks to me and my entourage in the future. All these packed juice and packed food are actually one of the main source of the rubbish. I am very happy being offered traditional tea, tsampa and traditional food, without plastics. In fact, I think the dietary change in some places that I visited this time may be causing weak health. Having tsampa and traditional food are the best for health, they are nutritious and also they are not causing any unnecessary pollution to the environment. We should all try our best to promote that. One of my main missions for the yatra was to encourage local people to appreciate their own culture and their own beauty, including the beauty of their food and many things.

This awareness of environment protection should continue more actively after the yatra. I was also happy that monks and nuns whom I saw throwing rubbish and plastics in the rivers and everywhere learned to pick them up and also learned to stop eating junk food and drinks, so that they could reduce rubbish and waste. We all have to find a practical solution what to do with this sort of rubbish and how to minimise them.

From Phanjila to Hemis, which is only a third of our journey, we collected 60,000 plastic bottles, 10,000 chewing-gum wrappers and tobacco wrappers and also 5,000 cans of carbonated drink. The ones we collected earlier were less because those areas were not so accessible by roads and not so commercialised. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the amount of rubbish my monks and nuns collected near the rivers and streams and in steep ravines. I was really shocked. If remote places where we went through could be full of that much rubbish and we had only spent 42 days in these places, I wonder how many times more of rubbish we city people accumulate in a day. If this can be included as our merit, then really we have to find a few more planets to fill our rubbish.

Anyway, there is a long way of education to go. I am hopeful everyone in my small community, at least our monks and nuns in all our monasteries and nunneries will start to be more aware and to improve in their practical knowledge of how to take care of our nature and our environment.

Because of their love for me and devotion towards the lineage, I have accepted the request of Ladakhis to celebrate my next birthday in Ladakh. So the birthday will be celebrated in Naropa Palace or Naro Photang in Shey. Some people may wonder why Shey again? It doesn't mean that Shey has some unique environment, it's because of the space and the temperature there are easier during winter to organise huge gathering. To me, I am having my birthday in Ladakh, not in Shey particularly, because of the love, affection and sincerity that the entire Ladakh or Himalayas give me. So I promised them to return to Ladakh for my birthday. My main desire is not to celebrate my birthday, there is nothing great about celebrating birthday. It is an excuse to encourage YDA and everyone to keep up with their activities of Live to Love and other humanitarian activities to help each other, including the idea of keeping environment clean and healthy, foresting, taking care of nature, etc. Wherever I go and whatever I do, the excuse can be anything, the goal is to encourage people to practice LIVE TO LOVE. I was looking at the Live to Love website and was very thrilled to see that even our friends and young people in Bhutan are actively involved in Live to Love. We should continue no matter what to promote Live to Love and to engage in the activities whole heartedly for the benefit of all beings.

I definitely would love to have any of my students and friends outside of Ladakh to come and join together for my birthday. I will be giving teaching on the Jewel Ornaments of Liberation by Gampopa. I don’t know whether that will be translated into English or not. Even if it’s translated, I don’t know if it will be well elaborated teaching or not, due to, as usual, the limited time for me to finish such a big volume of teaching. I will have not more than 13 days. Within 13 days, I don’t think I can elaborate that much, but I will try my best. If there is a demand from the English speaking people and if this crowd is big enough, I will ask organizers to provide simultaneous English translation.

I also want to thank Rigzin Namgyal whose family is predominantly Drukpa followers, no wonder whatever they are doing, they are doing without conditions, for me and our lineage. His older brother Gyalpo also did a great job for us for the last few pilgrimages, but this time, Gyalpo was very busy because of government services. Rigzin was great and everyone was very happy towards the end, everyone could not leave eyes off from Rigzin Namgyal, especially me. I am still missing his presence, hoping that we will be joining together and doing similar kind of things for the sake of Live to Love and humanitarian activities in the form of pilgrimages or any other forms.

I have nothing much to say as it's getting quite late. So that's all for now. I have put some photos of the pad yatra in the photo gallery to share with you.