First impressions of Little Lhasa

I’m here! I feel I almost bypassed India and landed square in Tibet. I caught the risky flight connection thanks to the domestic plane being on “Indian time” and was picked up by a grinning young man who introduced himself as Tenzin and who whisked me away in a taxi up the mountain to the College for Higher Tibetan Studies, a small compound of monks and lay people studying Tibetan and Buddhist thought.

Some first impressions:

• Wow, those rhesus monkeys are big.
• Thunder rolling through the valley up to my open windows makes for an excellent nap.
• There are a lot of people named Tenzin or Karma. Those will be my first guesses when I forget a name.
• Are they still playing basketball this late? It sounds like its getting rowdy.

But it wasn’t basketball. One of the most animated things I’ve ever seen is the after dark discourse of the young monks studying here. Out in the large yard were 5 groups of maybe 8 monks each, debating loudly while clapping and chanting and egging each other on. I was told that the standing monks can only ask questions and the seated monks can only answer. They try to catch each other in philosophical missteps. I can’t understand a word, but they are surely having a good time.

I wish I had learned physics this way! I wonder if the classes I teach will be this engaged? It makes me excited and a little bit nervous. Tonight I brought out my telescope to peek at the moon in an effort to stay up until 9pm and get on the right time schedule. Now I’m off to bed! Pictures to come.