Nalanda Story

Contemplating the Pyrenees

My friends and family fell into the most extreme categories of being fearful, shocked, religious, philosophical or merely curious when they learnt I was packing my bags, passport in hand to go to a little known village in the southwest of France in the Midi-Pyrenees.

When I shared the news of my being accepted into the hallowed surroundings of a Mahayana Buddhist monastery blessed by the enigmatic icon, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself I was quite relishing that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of basking in his global celebrity image. Of course, my dream of Warhol’s fifteen seconds of fame materialising with me in focus was shattered. Not many among them seemed to share either my excitement or my passion for this experience. Could they have imagined that it was a narcissistic temptation to self-dramatisation?

Each of them anticipated the worst. That perhaps I was damned for life,

A French Impressionist Photograph

burn in an eternal hell, that it was blasphemous a Christian could entertain a radical idea such as this or worse still be robbed of my worldly possessions. Fall off the edge of the world as one of them voiced in an e-mail that smacked of fear.

My planned disappearance from the face of the earth was just the disconnection that was necessary, just what I wanted, as it was good that people didn’t know where I was or how they could find me.

Meditation Opens Doors

Was I on the verge of being considered unbalanced for having to run away? As certainly I do not count myself among those who have kept the scales even. Was I having a personality problem? Balanced people have hobbies and become gardeners, they raise happy families and pets, they go to work and they smile. The faces I knew when I escaped reflected Bozo the clown in a melancholy mood, stress ridden, while their shoulders sagged under the gargantuan task of survival in Singapore where material accoutrements carry clout.

Was volunteering at the Nalanda Buddhist monastery in Lavaur a dangerous undertaking? Would it turn out to be a nightmare? Forty eight kilometers from Toulouse’s airport Blagnac and perched on the banks of River Agout it is a road that is richly reminiscent of the 19th Century European paintings especially from the French Academic, Realist, Barbizon and Post-Impressionist traditions that leads to the monastery.

All those years of living in the wondrous environment of Singapore with its

Lavaur Countryside

shopping malls, its loud promotional music, my fellow Singaporeans and the daily din, became a thing of the past as we drove through countryside that must have inspired those French painters of landscapes and still life. The calm I needed arrived without my having to listen to soft classical music with a wine glass of red in hand. I was released from all concerns, floating across a panorama of old farmhouses of a blurred and muted colour that made me feel as if I were moving across a post-impressionist painting.

Nalanda Feline Dreaming About a Mouse Supper

Those certain conditions of quiet and isolation were present as this was not a city but a village with rolling hillocks, fields of wheat, sunflowers and mustard. The brushstrokes for the moving canvas were breathtaking as lethargic, black and white cows chewed the cud and dotted the grass just so. Was it not wonderful to escape the car alarms, police sirens, voices, radios, dogs and children being harshly reprimanded and the other music of metropolitan life?

This was the scenario that was unnerving and the need to melt away became a constant in my overcrowded psyche. Janadas Devan uniquely encapsulates this feeling in his nostalgic salute to Singapore’s National Day 2008, “Where we call home,” and, indeed it no longer felt like home. He describes a country that is “in the tense which imagines the future as though it is already present.”

The pugnacious novelist Paul Theroux who is famously charismatic and never overburdened by modesty similarly articulated when on a fleeting visit to Singapore, “ It has changed, as the scenes and prospects that existed during my time in the sixties are now no more.” He was referring perhaps to our breathless glorification and haste to get on with the technological progress and its accompanying curse of change, in landscape, rural scenes, buildings, roads and oriental charm that has left behind a country that is bereft of both character and soul.

Theroux by the way was retracing a nostalgic journey through these parts and on the verge of completing his recently launched, “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” a travel book that traverses 28,000 miles recapturing a previous travel book, “The Great Railway Bazaar.” He has fortunately given Sim Lim Square and our shopping malls a kindly dispensation.

Rouzegas

But I digress. My righteous and philosophical friends had pointed out that peace could be found in Mother Teresa’s Kolkata Home or in the bowels of Zimbabwe. The merely curious turned away, nodded knowingly, and pacified me as one would an over zealous six-year-old who planned to buy World Vision to save the world’s disadvantaged children.

The most fearful and facetious of the closest of close friends warned that the monastery was a backpacking community of cultists who were sucking me into their midst in their hope of milking me of my millions and my modest three-room HDB dwelling. My fertile imagination transported me from my little apartment to a posh place in Cornwall Gardens off Holland Road. My limited knowledge of the holy bible surfaced with “Oh ye of little faith, ” upon their doom and gloom pronouncements.

I switched back to the present with the changing landscape and the

Tibetan Flags

chateau Rouzegas that housed the monastery came into view. What a vibrant picture it was of colourful Tibetan prayer flags waving in the afternoon breeze, the sun driving broad golden spokes through the hundred-year old pines, the birds upon coming home in their hundreds chattered excitedly about their work-day and a horse and donkey team neighed and brayed. A distant wind-bell chimed in accompaniment and a flock of sheep bleated so as to be part of the greatest audio-visual show on earth.

Settling in at the monastery under the gaze of at least a dozen photographs of the ever-smiling Dalai Lama was calming. His charming smile portraying the innocence of a little boy still present in spite of his displacement, driven away from his familiar surroundings in Potola Palace. How did he manage such calm? Wouldn’t it be nice to be forgiving, kind and peace loving as him, I wished. My daydreaming had to stop as there was work to be done and I got acquainted with the magnificent, well-equipped kitchen. And my volunteer duties as a cook commenced with two others.

Did I learn anything else besides French, Danish and Dutch cuisine from my colleagues? My current lifestyle avalanched on me and I questioned myself. Was I mindful of others, was I patient, was I kind, loving and compassionate, and was I practicing taking and giving, was I humble and respectful.

Chilling out after lunch

Lost in this maze of exposing questions, I washed, cut and readied green salad for lunch. Cooking Singaporean dishes for a United Nations of monks from such far-flung places as from Madrid to New York including a motley assortment of students and volunteers from Peru to Katmandu was a challenge I deserved. Perhaps my first lesson was in humility. I gritted me teeth, smiled and prayed that they would be spared the torment of diarrhea.

Some afternoon breaks were reserved for trips to the kitchen garden where I lost myself getting up front and personal with herbs like rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano and parsley. Their smells were heightened due to their freshness and I understood why European chefs used herbs in their cooking. The aubergines, fennel, artichokes, lettuce, courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes looked inviting and never artificially plump, as they were organically grown.

Many other afternoons were spent in the charming garden setting of Cathedrale Saint- Alain de Lavaur, a Roman Catholic Church before the French Revolution and seat of the then Bishop of Lavaur. The story of the cathedral dates as far back as 1255 when it was built. The French take pride in treasuring their old buildings as one would family jewels or silver. It has not been “upgraded” as Singapore would its Housing Development Board apartments or its heritage monuments, but preserved with the cathedral’s architectural design reminiscent of the era it was built. Its single nave’s width measures 13.8 metres while its overall length is 73 metres.

Cathedrale Saint Alain de Lavaur

The cathedral and its environs reflect the character and charm of the Midi-Pyrenees region. The Saint-Alain is widely known for its antiquated reed organs, and many commercial recordings have been made there with the 70-year-old resident organist playing ethereal music fit for the gods and lucky church-going Lavaureans.

Meanwhile the studies for the preservation of the Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism continued. Prayers of gratitude before and after lunch were intoned in wondrously haunting melodies just as they would have in Lhasa, large wind chimes clearing the air of negativity and the dough prepared as a prerequisite for after-lunch prayers was fed to hungry ghosts in the River Agout.

Peace and joy reigned and sitting under a giant magnolia tree after lunch savouring tranquility over a mug of menthe tea became a ritual. It was paradise to an extreme as communing with the almighty forces above and simultaneously watching the antics of the monastery’s felines as they hunted for field mice added a touch of quirky humour. The cats were of course strict vegetarians and followed the eating habits of the monks.

The documentaries on the Dalai Lama helped remind me about freeing my mind of pride and to develop a quiet state of mind and to walk his talk. The fact that we share an identical need for love and therefore everyone is a brother or a sister. How easily I had forgotten that the Bangladeshis, China Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Indians, Myanmareans and Sri Lankans in Singapore were brothers and sisters in spite of their behaviour, colour, dress and scent. An exhilarating finale told me that our basic natures were the same. I needed to alter my thinking.

Most of the documentaries ended with the Dalai Lama waving, walking humbly away, displaying that most Asiatic gesture with his right hand on his heart, that beatific smile promising, “ Everything is okay.”

Time ran out and the great escape was no more and I was glad to be back to the Singaporean stew. The “Charm Offensive” I had learnt from the French was a strategy ripe for launch in Singapore.  Their mantra was to smile so as to get the world smiling back at them.  It was a great exercise to start with my dog during our morning walks.  Greeting five people “Good Morning” was a win-win work of art as my fellow Singaporeans broke into smiles. 

Had I triumphed with a life-changing experience at Nalanda Monastery? Could be.