Ladakh: the last, unspoiled mountain kingdom [Archive] - The Project Avalon Community Forum

View Full Version : Ladakh: the last, unspoiled mountain kingdom

Bill Ryan

15th December 2016, 21:38

.
I'm starting this thread at new member Vrinda (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?31161-Vrinda)'s suggestion: see her post #5 below. Ladakh isn't actually the one, last, unspoiled mountain kingdom -- Bhutan is the other one -- but although pretty hard to get to, it's easier to get to than Bhutan; and it may offer just as much learning, and wonder, and inspiration, to any visitor.

It did so for me. I read Helena Norburg-Hodge's book back in 1988 (then called Journey to Ladakh), and desperately wanted to go there. I was penniless at the time, so hit on the idea to lead a spiritual group there, thereby sponsoring my own trip.

It was outrageous, but I was confident, and it was all a spectacular success. So much so that there was a waiting list, and I led two further trips after the first one, and a colleague led the fourth and last. If I'd kept all that up as a business enterprise, I could be doing the same thing to this day.

Just a tiny bit about Ladakh, which a surprisingly large number of people have not heard of:

http://projectavalon.net/Ladakh.gif

Although it's politically in the northernmost tip of India, it's geographically on the Tibetan plateau.

Most of Ladakh is arid, rocky, mountainous desert, at an altitude of 11,500 ft or higher. When there, you might as well be in Tibet -- minus the Chinese occupation and all the cultural and physical destruction that the Chinese wrought.

But the local people are from a wonderful, beautiful, wise, ancient, Buddhist culture, living an ingenious, healthy, and brilliantly organized, agricultural, pre-industrial life -- and who, like the Tibetans two or three generations ago, could teach us everything we need to know about how to live life sustainably, non-violently, abundantly, and above all spiritually.

I long ago lost all my photographs. However, I can recount one eternal moment when I hiked up to see a tiny abandoned monastery on a rocky bluff above the trail I was on.

But it was not abandoned; there was a monk there. We had not a word of shared language of any kind, but without hesitation he greeted me like a brother -- despite my strange appearance, and even stranger clothes. (I was wearing an improvised cotton sheikh's headdress, and the darkest of dark glasses, and little of my face was visible: I probably looked like The Elephant Man. Furthermore, I was hiding under a huge green "Stop Acid Rain" Greenpeace umbrella, all protection against the searing desert sun. Most aliens would have looked more human than I did. :) )

But none of this even made the monk blink. We sat on a low wall together, silently, side by side, while he shared his bag of apricots with me, straight off the tree. I was with him for just half an hour, yet it remains one of the formative experiences of my life.

A billion dollars could not have bought the depth of those 30 minutes sitting silently with the Ladakhi holy man.

I can say much more, maybe later. The five posts below have been copied over from another thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?92058-Downsizing-shelter-and-expenses). If anyone reading this has been there, I for one would love to hear.

:star:

Vrinda

15th December 2016, 21:39

The same we learned from Ladakh. For more see Helana Norberg-Hodges' Antient Futures: Learning From Ladakh.
It is available in book format, but it used to be a documentary available in English for free.
Now it is only available in YouTube in Portuguese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAiDPDV2sk4&t=927s

Unfortunately, there is only a trailer in English language. What impressed me most, when I saw it over 6 yrs ago, was that a 12 yr old child in Ladakh knew how to make mud blocks and how to build a house, and how to grow the food to be self-sufficient. Beats how we live in the US of A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_UT1ROfNiw

Bill Ryan

15th December 2016, 22:04

The same we learned from Ladakh.

Off-topic here: (I apologize!) I led a handful of spiritual treks to Ladakh back in 1988-9. Quite something else. I was also inspired by Helena Norberg-Hodge's book. A wonderful, wonderful place, well worth its own thread.

:star:

:focus:

Bill Ryan

15th December 2016, 22:18

Vrinda

15th December 2016, 23:51

Thank you for sharing, Bill. Not off topic at all. What a wonderful experience! Did you get to see Helena's documentary?
She has continued speaking on the topic. Last documentary of hers I saw was at Schumacker College, UK (cofounded by Kumar Satish, another fantastic contributor!). They are easily found in YouTube now. But how sadly different things are in Ladakh now.

Our group was so encouraged and hopeful when we saw this documentary, we had great hope for the rest of us. Do you know of efforts implementing similar communities in the US? I have heard of Michael Reynolds, Garbage Warrior, and his eco ships using old tires, and there is a group of feminists in the northwest building and teaching how to use bale straw for building, but little on self-sufficiency as experiment in the US.
I tried to connect with Woofers in Puerto Rico. Most groups are led by young folks, doing great work... nothing off-grid yet.
Intergenerationality is another challenge.

Have you followed the folks in Vichada, Colombia, Las Gaviotas, fully off-grid, award-winning. They have had solid funding from Gunter Pauli, great eco-philanthropist, founder of ZERI, and together with Janine Benyus co-creator of biomimetism.

Paulo Lugari, architect of Las Gaviotas
http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/events--updates.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xogJew_nlko

Gunter Pauli, ZERI
http://www.zeri.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcstYY6DXfc
This used to be a wonderful one hour lecture by Gunter.. much reduced now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35SnYcMXTzY&list=PL30C791DB2623532C

The women in the northwest I believe are:
https://www.strawbale.com/womens-natural-building-workshop/

Let me tell you, I am so technically challenged that I would hesitate to start a thread, but what a great idea. If you get it started, I'd be happy to contribute the links and folks I encountered along the way in systems studies and the transformative leadership program. Folks who are creating eco-sustainable alternative ways of living... and the theorists who inspired them, like Gregory Bateson. On the same course, I was immensely impressed by ecofeminist and MP Marilyn Waring on political design to depress whole segments of society. There is a wealth of data available for folks who love to read that I would be delighted to share. And hope other folks are inspired to join in and share what they are doing. Also, there is much that needs to be analyzed. For example, Gunter Pauli is doing wonderful things, but I need help finding out what is he doing in the Club of Rome? Likewise, Erwin Laszlo, what are these folks doing at the Club of Rome? This does not sound too good to me, but I have not gone deep enough in that area and adopt a hermeneutic of suspicion, while recognize their good works.

Please let me know if you or collaborators can help start a thread on these topics around sustainability--off grid living, I'd be delighted to participate.

Best always,
Vrinda :flower::flower::flower:

Vrinda

16th December 2016, 00:21

THANK YOU, Bill !!!!!!
It´s been a few years I wanted to see it again, it takes us back to being there!!!
Such a wealth of experiences! The challenge is to adapt it to wherever we are!
These are the thoughts and the ideas it so abundantly brings to the viewer!
I can see it again and again, until I feel empowered to do it!
But, nothing is accomplished alone.
Let's get inspired!

Great Love to all! :highfive::star::star::star::star::star:

DNA

16th December 2016, 02:48

I'm going to tell a short tale. Take it for what you will.
In the fall/winter of 2002 I was working as a mortgage processor. My team lead was this amazing fifty five to sixty year old Mexican man. The man was a devout Christian and spent some time trying to convert me, as such we began talking and he had these amazing stories, of which he would tell at my request. The man's name was Art, and try as I might I have not been able to locate him since but I will try.
Art told me fascinating stories about his childhood, and one of those stories I feel goes very well with this thread.
Art grew up in Texas, but he would spend summers in South Western Montana at his uncle's place where he would play with children from the nearby Native American reservation.
When Art was about 17, at the urging of his Native American friends, Art and two of these friends went on an all day hike, up into a mountain that was one of three mountains that converged.
The goal of this hike was a valley, a valley completely closed in by three mountain ranges that surrounded it.
Art told me that the Valley was the same temperature all year long, mostly because it was warmed by the same geothermal activity that warms Yellowstone National Park.
Long story short, it took a day to hike into this Valley, they would spend a day in the valley, and then it took a day to hike out.
Art told me that the plant life in the valley was unlike anything in the surrounding area.
Furthermore Art told me that the fish in the valley were so unlike anything that they had ever seen before, that they took a specimen to their local High School Biology teacher, he in turn sent it to the University of Miami, where it was deemed to be a living fossil. Art would then laugh and joke about how he and his friends were some of the only people on earth to have eaten this fish deemed to have been extinct for millions of years.
As years went by the High School teacher stressed the importance of keeping this place a secret, apparently the University of Miami had sent some folks out to explore the region and they were so impressed by the place they said the place had to be kept a secret for fear it would be destroyed if word would get out and the place be discovered. As it turns out the place was some kind of living time capsule, being as the geothermal vents kept the place at a constant temperature and the mountains kept invading creatures from entering.
Art would tell me his story, but not the name of the Mountains associated with the place, the most I could get out of him, was that the three mountains that formed the enclosed valley were in the vicinity of where the three states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho intersected.
Anyone like to propose a guess as to where it might be?
http://www.usgwarchives.net/maps/usa/usmaps/trio1892.jpg

zen deik

16th December 2016, 03:23

Just imagining making such a trip is uplifting.... Thanks for sharing...

ponda

16th December 2016, 03:51

Spent a couple of months there in 2001. Magical place.

I recommend the Manali to Leh road trip. Quite the experience.

http://www.reisen-ehrlich.de/assets/Bilder/Headerbilder/TibetNepal/Ladadk-Kloster.jpg

http://rnrblog.roughandreadytours.net/wp-content/uploads/blogger/_45tUjZmdjtE/TG4ND4gkwqI/AAAAAAAAA-o/Uocld9x__yE/s1600/10_B4706.JPG

http://himalayanecotourism.com/pictures/tours-in-the-himalayas/ladakh/tours-treks-himalayas-ladakh-zanskar-10.jpg

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0280/0261/products/14895579710_14340bc225_h.jpg?v=1454765031

shaberon

16th December 2016, 03:57

+10 rep

Bhutan is still pristine but: very expensive, which kind of makes sense, as they really don't want a foreign influx. I tried tapping in to all 84 of their web domains, and couldn't find anything that would accept input from a foreign ip.

From Ladakh, the Indian Trans-Himalaya extends across Himachal Pradesh frontiers; this area is like the moon, and is in application with UNESCO to become basically the world's largest area with medieval lifestyles remaining unchanged. Yes, they have cars and electricity but, not very much of that.

I completely consider it a spiritual bastion, more or less in conjunction with the old Silk Road around Khotan-Bukhara. Both in terms of secret teachings, and as a confluence of, I suppose, inter-faith dialogue including Nestorian Christianity. And yes, those external areas got paved both by Islam and China, but the Indian frontier states did not suffer that.

Some of the oldest known "out of Africa" human fossils have been found in Pakistan (~1 million years old), which, pre-Islam, was connected to the same.

If I am not mistaken, "Little Tibet" is both: inaccessible 75% of the year, and all over 10,000 feet high--tending to give a lowlander mountain sickness. Champions at breath holding train in such places to increase their red blood cell count. I imagine the mere physical feeling is totally different, and for Bill to say thirty minutes of silent company was priceless, well, that's certainly not to be sneezed at.

AxisMundi

16th December 2016, 22:34

I was there last year for the first time. A truly incredible landscape and people. One of the most impressive things I witnessed was the Drepung Vajra dances at Lamayuru Monastery (a couple of photos included). This sacred ceremony performed once a year was initially conceived by the Tantric patriarch Padmasambhava in the eighth century and depicts both the wrathful and peaceful deities of the Bardo, the perilous realm between death and rebirth.

I do wonder though about a somewhat dark tradition of magic amongst the Tantric Buddhist sects here. Various sources on the net will assert that at the core of Vajrayana is a cult of black magic. At another Monastery (Hemis) I was wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and admiring the beautiful statues of Buddhas and Boddhisatvas. I went into one hall where no photography was allowed and there was a very large statue of the ugliest beast I've ever seen. It looked like something out of a bad voodoo movie....bird like with black tarred feathers as I recall and surrounded by offerings of chocolate, whiskey and alot of cash. Looked strangely out of place and so I called one of the monks over to ask who this Deity was. 'Oh' he said 'This is the protector of the Monastery'. Makes you wonder. Still, Ladakh is indeed a magical and beautiful place and I very much hope to return one day :)

Vrinda

16th December 2016, 22:59

DNA, sorry but, if I were you... I would lock the cherished story in my :heart: and throw the key out to endless space... as at least one person of good conscience would do all in his/her power to keep this pristine place unspoiled (at least in your mind/heart).

The uninvaded, uncolonized lands are few. How precious it is to know that one more exists!
Gardens of love for your story... :flower::flower::flower:

*Btw, the "Mexican" man and his ancestors were linked over centuries in migratory seasonal patterns extending from the South to the North of the continent along what was the Mayan Empire to smaller sister "nations" up "north" where the land could not be harvested during the winter months... These relationships continue, in spite of the fact that few Indigenous Mexican folks recognize that their ancestors migrated in the same patterns before the Louisiana Purchase.. when the wild west was an extension of Mexico and Maya land. It is sad to see how little US "education" includes and concedes about the history of first settlers.

Vrinda

16th December 2016, 23:08

Thank you Bill for bringing your vivid impressions of time in Ladakh and our conversations here!
Fantastic!
:flower::flower::flower:

I was there last year for the first time. A truly incredible landscape and people. One of the most impressive things I witnessed was the Drepung Vajra dances at Lamayuru Monastery (a couple of photos included). This sacred ceremony performed once a year was initially conceived by the Tantric patriarch Padmasambhava in the eighth century and depicts both the wrathful and peaceful deities of the Bardo, the perilous realm between life and rebirth.

I do wonder though about a somewhat dark tradition of magic amongst the Tantric Buddhist sects here. Various sources on the net will assert that at the core of Vajrayana is a cult of black magic. At another Monastery (Hemis) I was wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and admiring the beautiful statues of Buddhas and Boddhisatvas. I went into one hall where no photography was allowed and there was a very large statue of the ugliest beast I've ever seen. It looked like something out of a bad voodoo movie....bird like with black tarred feathers as I recall and surrounded by offerings of chocolate, whiskey and alot of cash. Looked strangely out of place and so I called one of the monks over to ask who this Deity was. 'Oh' he said 'This is the protector of the Monastery'. Makes you wonder. Still, Ladakh is indeed a magical and beautiful place and I very much hope to return one day :)

Vrinda

16th December 2016, 23:35

AxisMundi,
Thank you for the stunning photos. What I understand of tantric grotesque images it that they simbolize fierce forces... what Jung would call "the shadow". And Jung studied with Yogis in India... so he is taking in and bringing out Indic/Vedic cultures, while adapting the symbolism to what is more chewable to westerners accustomed to TV, consumerism, 9 to 5 and Hollywood.

There is nothing scary in this image that is not already scary inside of you and me. Likewise with the Goddess of destruction in Indian tradition, Kali-Durga. In these deeply philosophical cultures, the colorful imagery is froth with enriching narrative about stories where demons were slayed by the positive and protective powers of these apparently grotesque images. The negative forces are represented as aspects that shoot forth from the ego and base desires (desires which are in contradiction with Dharma, ethics and morality, and end up harming or hurting others). All these images are a dramatization represented in sculptures and silkwork, in cultures where highly creative philosophers narrated highly charged and profound spiritual messages in ways that could be easily understood by common folks. In brief, all this is artistic representation of a different style. We had the Greek and Roman epic poems, Tibetans and Indians have their epic scriptures full of Gods and Goddesses, demigods and demons fighting between the forces of Light (Dharma) and darkness (or evil). Hope this makes some sense.

I imagine what would future beings think of our cult of Halloween... It truly includes a macabre angle... but even kids have fun. Similarly with Tibetan masks and demons. Fun and sacred to insiders.

:flower:

Shannon

17th December 2016, 00:55

So cool, Bill...I look forward to more stories :)

kanishk

17th December 2016, 06:20

As I remember from many posts I read on facebook, Bhutan spends about 30-40 % of its budget on environment. Their king is a very kind person. Just recently when his first baby was born he planted 10's of thousands of plants. He cooks for people.

As when studying 3 of my classmates are from Bhutan. They use to tell me that around 2006 their king introduced new structure to rule as we see in democracy, they said he is introducing democracy on his own.

When I was doing PG one of my professor was doing the project in Bhutan. He told us that he end up paying for the project from his own pocket. This happened because if you want to take out your money earned in Bhutan, 30% and above is deduced by the government. And because he was not aware about that, he quoted for the lowest price. If was also the project related to environmental planning. He said that the economic policies of Bhutan are structured with the discussion and suggestion from Lamas there. Thats why they have such a very strong policies that it is very difficult for corporations to interfere there.

Now and then my friends post many of their pics from there professional life to personnel life. They don't have consumes taxes so if you are in Bhutan you can buy luxury items for very cheap. These people are very trendy, fashionable but also very traditional too. They wear traditional clothes in offices. And they don't hesitate to look simple. As we see in Facebook people only post the pics when they are in huge gatherings with trendy dresses and pouty selfies but when I look at the people of Bhutan on facebook, they don't have such thing. Means they don't have ego of having more money than than someone else, good thing is that the poorest of poor, is living a satisfactory life, as I see it. And yes these people get married very very early. All the Bhutanese juniors, seniors, colleagues of mine are the first one to get married even so so before all the girls. Having grownup children now wow, so fast in that area :heart: of life.

shaberon

18th December 2016, 06:53

As when studying 3 of my classmates are from Bhutan. They use to tell me that around 2006 their king introduced new structure to rule as we see in democracy, they said he is introducing democracy on his own.

That's more or less why I tried to get onto their websites, as we tend to find that when "democracy" comes, there can be a few hidden goodies that really aren't quite so good. I was unable to communicate; for the most part, they have skipped the "computer to internet" phase and mostly just have "smartphone to facebook". Apparently, they all speak English, and many do not learn much of their own language. They have one rather strange issue, which is, they can eat fish, but not kill them--so as the fish go down river, right after they cross the border, Indians catch them and sell them back to the Bhutanese...

I'm not surprised to hear about a wrathful guardian of a monastery, I would expect it to be fairly common. Roughly, it all follows the concept of "Mahakala, you appear as a demon in order to overcome the endless hordes of demons". There are meditative practices that will set the practitioner in a charnel house (a place where corpses are kept prior to disposal) which are done in order to overcome feelings of aversion and disgust. Those things may not appeal to refined sensitivities, but that does not make them invalid.

There is something, and I forget its actual name, but H. P. Lovecraft styled it as "the forbidden corpse-eating cult of Leng", which is all about the consumption of human corpses to increase one's own power; this is done by one very small clan, not really as a cult that spreads. Also, plenty of the areas where Bon and Buddhism spread, already had traditions of necromancy, blood sacrifice, etc., and the people who do this were able to blend into legitimate schools. And of course a few of them are just plain drunks and other sorts of liars. One could also criticize a lot of physical or hatha yoga techniques that were really only supposed to be done under close supervision, not tossed to the public as training exercises. Some of that stuff can lead to imbalance, disease or insanity. In that sense, it's somewhat accurate to say that there's black magic within Eastern disciplines, but then it would be unfair to class all Vajrayana or Tantra in that way.

If I am not mistaken, unlike the Bhutanese and Trans-Himalayans, most Ladakhis are not Tibetans but Dards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dards