Sera Monastery

It's been hard to write when I'm done with work at the end of the day. We've been finishing on average around 8pm. So first I'll talk about what we did last weekend.
We headed up to the Sera monastary which is very famous in the world of Tibetan Buddhism. The Johkhang monastary in the center of the Tibetan quarters of Lhasa is the current center of Tibetan Buddism as I understand it and the Sera monastery is probably second in importance. The Sera monastery in its heyday had over 5,000 monks. It is located 4 minutes by bus outside of Lhasa. The pictures are there to see. There are many many fewer monks than the past. The monastary on close inspection is a bit delapidated however the views are incredible. We did the Kora (walk around the monastery) and it was amazing how winded i got at altitude.

Tibetan history is so complex and the things I heard about it before i came here and read about it are very different than the reality. Maybe it's so romanticized bc it was forbidden for westerners to enter for so many centuries and the current teachings we now hear from tibetan buddhism speak about peace and tolerance.

For one thing I always thought it was a very peaceful place because of Buddhism, etc. According to what I've read, prior to the chinese liberation it was a feudal society that was governed by the Lamas and a few wealthy landowners. Because Tibet had been closed off to foreigners, it was a technological throwback. Lhasa had open sewers, no glass windows, no electricity, etc. I can only imagine how cold the winters must have been with no covered windows and just a curtain covering the door and windows for protection. The wheel was used only for a prayer wheel and other than that it was not used as a means of transport according to lonely planet.

The society was a very punitive one and punishments were brutal. If the Lamas rules were not obeyed ie aiding a Westerner in the 1800s if they were secretly exploring the area then they were subject to death. Other common punishments were burning out the eyes with hot metal and cutting off hands. Westerners that did enter during the 1800s and early 1900s did report seeing many disfigured folks begging. The region was ruled with an iron fist if that's the right expression.

However Tibetan Buddhism is incredible and many of the messages of Buddhism are beautiful. They are tremendously religious people and their rituals pervade everything they do.

The Chinese presence is here. About 50% of Lhasa is Chinese and most of the stores are Chinese owned. The tourism industry is booming and there are far more Chinese tourists than western tourists. With the new railroad from Beijing to Tibet the projected tourism is expected to double to 2.5million visitors a year. So Tibet will be changing a lot over the next few years. The countryside however is still very traditional. As I will write about later on our site visits.