Living in the Shrine Room

It was around 6:00am when I heard a knock at my door. Choosing to ignore it, I rolled over and shoved my earplugs further into my ear. The knock sound again, however, along with my name this time, and I figured I should probably answer the door. My host mother came quickly inside, handed me a bowl, told me to eat it while it was still hot, then proceeded to offer the same breakfast to the gods.

I live in the family's shrine room, a somewhat intimidating dwelling. As I enter the room, the Dalai Lama smiles down, entreating me to be a more compassionate person. There are offerings of water and sometimes fruit to the gods within the shrine, and often, a butter candle is lit in their favor. Unfortunately, that candle often burns well into the wee hours of morning disturbing my sleep. (It really is ridiculous that I need complete silence and darkness to drift off. I feel so high-maintenance). Once or twice, after waking up in the middle of the night and failing to fall back asleep because of the flicking light, I grumpily blew out the candle. I have stopped this selfishness now, as I am pretty sure blowing out the candle is sacrilegious.

Anyways, my family is used to me waking up pretty early as I sometimes walk with my host mother before the sun rises. Thus, I really cannot complain that the one day I decided to sleep in, I ended up drinking heated chang (Tibetan barley beer) and watching traditional Tibetan dances on television well before 7:00am. It was Losar, the Tibetan New Year, and it was certainly a treat to be able to celebrate it with a Tibetan family.

Typically, on Losar, a family wakes up early, drinks their chang and eats sweet rice, before changing into traditional Tibetan clothes and then visiting high lamas or monasteries for New Year’s blessings. Often, Losar is a fifteen-day celebration with dancing and merriment continuing late into the evening. However, this year, Losar was canceled by the Dalai Lama in recognition of the monks, nuns, and laypeople in Tibetan who have self-immolated in protest for religious freedom.

Suicide in Buddhism is considered a terrible sin. There are six realms of reincarnation, and the human realm is considered the best. Human is the only realm that has the ability to reach enlightenment/nirvana and thus, escape samsara, the cycle of life and death in the material world. To commit suicide is to surely be reincarnated into a lower realm; it is throwing away the chance of enlightenment. So to us in the western world, setting yourself on fire would certainly be considered suicide, at least that was what I thought before arriving in Nepal. However, this is not what is actually going on. Although the Dalai Lama has condemned the self-immolations and requested their abatement, these actions are actually considered something other than suicide. In Tibet, where any type of protest is immediately and forcibly put down, self-immolation is a way to still state one’s dissent. Those who self-immolate do so in compassion for others, hoping their sacrifice will force the international community to really look at the conditions they are living under and help to make positive changes. Thus, the cancellation of Losar this year was to honor those people who saw fit protest the only way they thought they could.

My host family celebrated only a slight bit, nothing like in years before. We all donned traditional Tibetan dress and went up to the roof with the neighbors. We hung prayer flags (one should only hang prayer flags on an auspicious day, otherwise, they will bring bad luck until they are weathered away). We at sweets and drank chang and beer. Someone chanted mantras, and then we threw tsampa (barley flour) up into the air. Perhaps it was not the traditional, fun, and celebratory Losar, but I consider myself lucky to have been able to experience it.