The Buddha Blossoms in Mongolia

Interview with Australian monk Thubten Gyatso Mongolia, August 2009 by Helen Manos.

For centuries, Mongolian nomads were strictly Buddhist: each ger (yurt) proudly displayed a Buddhist altar and the nomads passed on the oral lineage of knowledge and rituals to their children. But when the Soviets came in the 1920s, religion was banned and those found practising were jailed. More than 120,000 monks were murdered and most monasteries destroyed. One high Ladakhi lama, though, was allowed in to Ulanbataar as India's ambassador.  Just before the Soviet departure in 1990, Bakula Rinpoche built a monastery and invited other high lamas to its opening. One of these was Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche had already been asked by HHDL and Mongolian students to open a Dharma centre. A half-built 3-storeyed building rising between the Mormon church and Millie's Café was to become the new FPMT centre.

On a grey November day in 2000, Thubten Gyatso and another of Lama's students, Debra, arrived in Ulanbataar to oversee the completion of the centre. ‘Debra was courageous and handled the working crew well,' Gyatso says, ‘but she developed germ phobia when she bathed two street kids in her apartment and got lice. It was like that in Mongolia, unbelievably poor and filthy.'

Living a little distance away, Gyatso gave teachings to Western ex-pats crowding into the city, and daily zig-zagged along icy roads to Bakula Rinpoche's monastery to teach the monks. ‘I knew those roads like the back of my hand, all the vodka-addicted drunks and the street kids. Life was so hard for Mongolians,' Gyatso reflects. ‘When the temperatures dropped to minus twenty and thirty degrees, the kids disappeared underground to keep warm near the sewers, and the alcoholics froze to death. Occasionally, a drunk approached me but my robes and my height kept me safe. Violence was a way of life here.' 

Swiss-born Ueli Minder became the centre's first director. Committee meetings were held at Millie's Café where Millie served great coffees to ex-pats and Mongolians alike. Here Gyatso met Gunjima, a bright graduate with fluent English and Mongolian alike. That first summer, after the thrill of watching the great frozen river in the city thaw, Gyatso and some new Mongolian friends headed out into the countryside to Lake Hovskal. The country was dotted with nomads' gers, sheep and goats (yamas, or horned-ones), yaks and horses. The old life had returned: people flocked to see a real Buddhist monk. They called him Lama Gyatso.

For the next three years, Gyatso continued to teach Dharma. Mongolians, hungry for their old, forbidden religion, packed the gompa to capacity. The first students were middle-aged, those who remembered whispered mantras and secret ritual implements of their grandparents. Slowly, the young people followed, curious to hear and learn. Gyatso also visited the prisons. ‘I told them about Milarepa, the serial murderer who greatly repented his crimes and became enlightened, and they related to him. Violence was high in Ulanbataar, stabbings were common among men and women. We distributed many books. For the first time, Mongolians could read the Dharma for themselves: before the Russians came, teachings were in classical Mongolian and not accessible.' Gyatso's weekly radio articles, published in a book called The Perfect Mirror, remain popular today.

Between 2000 and 2003, Gyatso designed and oversaw the building of the Soup Kitchen. Later, a sewing group for poor women was started, followed by a children's education program. Now ten years on, eight Mongolian nuns study at Dolma Ling supervised by Australian nun, Glenda Lee and two senior Kopan nuns. A vibrant English program flourishes at the centre and Dharma is taught every night of the week.

And the future?  ‘The core of society's spirituality lies in monastic people, living and practising purely. After the communists left, married men donned robes and called themselves monks to make money. This is not the Buddhist way. You can't get Dharma from books: you need the living example.' Gyatso pauses and adds deliberately, ‘Then it is up to students to seek the Dharma: they must go to the teacher and request teachings as they did in Buddha's time. If teachers give teachings but students are not seeking the truth of the Dharma, the teachings become ‘idle gossip.' Dharma happens in students' minds: it is personal evolution.' He adds.  ‘We'll wait and see what happens here. Lama Zopa and His Holiness both have great plans for Mongolia.'

Helen Manos

Post script:
Between 2005 and 2008, Gyatso did a solitary retreat at De Tong Ling, Kangaroo Island. He gave a public talk at Buddha House in September 2008, stressing the importance of meditation and contemplation on the Buddhist path.)