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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999 Apr 08 - The Register Article: "An old war will bring Tibetans to Cape Cod"An old war will bring Tibetans to Cape Cod By Laurie Celine Smith awa Rimpoche, a Buddhist monk and member of the highest Tibetan order, walked across the roughest terrain on earth by night, wearing his maroon robes. His trek was to escape the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet. Cape resident Marietta Hickey moved to Hawaii in 1979, to escape financial ruin and what she says were troubled relationships. There, she retreated to a mountain- top, where she encountered a life changing experience. Then they met — in Nepal. They married in May of 1997, and live in Yarmouthport. Marietta and her husband, Lawa, are working to bring 70 or more Tibetans to Cape Cod to work for the summer. The two of them are working to raise a quarter of a mil- lion dollars so Lawa can rebuild (continued on page 17) Lawa Rimpoche's 1959 trek across the Himalayas brought him, finally, to Yarmouthport. Staff photo by Robert Barboza Lawa Rimpoche, a Buddhist monk and member of the highest Tibetan order, walked across the roughest terrain on earth by night, wearing his maroon robes. His trek was to escape the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet. THE REGISTER THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1999 PAGE 17 reach our shores An old war will bring Tibetans to Cape Cod (continued from page 1) his monastery in Eastern Tibet, and in doing so preserve a culture that is almost lost. She is also turning her house into a dharma center, a place where Tibetan monks and nuns can teach. The 70 Tibetans will arrive in mid April and early May. They will work at jobs from Provincetown to Sandwich. Marietta will hire 14 Tibetans to work at her restaurant, Abicci, in Yarmouthport, paying them $6 to $12 an hour. "Most are at $8.52 an hour, like the dishwashers," she said, explaining that, "they need to meet their expenses to make it worth it for them to leave their families, husbands and wives." She will house them two to a bedroom, six in one three-bedroom rental house, four in another two-bed- room house. Others are renting a condo or staying in homes where locals have offered to house them. Other businesses, like Daniel Webster Inn, which also own Hearth & Kettle, will hire the Tibetans through the help of Jane Zimmerman, owner of a mid -Cape company which brings foreign workers to the Cape. What makes Tibetans different from other minorities is that "they are without a country. They are refugees," said Marietta. "There is more work here than they are used to, because in Nepal, they can't get jobs and have no money. They are happy to make a little money," said Lawa, who in his baggy black pants and paint splattered black turtle- neck does not resemble a traditional robed monk. Holding a caulking gun in his hand as he spoke, taking a break from renovating his and Marietta's house, he told his story. `Passing highest mountains' Lawa walked for two months that spring of 1959, hiding in the cliffs of the Himalayan mountains, sometimes for days on end with no food, hiding from Chinese soldiers who were trying to kill the thousands of people who scurried out of Lhasa when the holy city and home of their political leader, ti, Lama, was bombed. An Eastern Tibetan monk, Lawa had been in the capital studying at Patala Palace when the Chinese mortars began destroying the city. The Tibetans scattered from Lhasa one by one, going in every direction into the mountains. "I did not know where to go. I knew to hide," Lawa said, speaking in his second language, English, that he learned as an adult after leaving Tibet. He said he was "too scared to feel cold or heat. Could not feel hunger. Everybody cry." He was about 23 years old when he walked through the world's highest mountains, leaving his own Sera monastery in Eastern Tibet it for the last time. Oddly enough, Lawa's name, given to him by Tibetan monks when he was 8, translates into "passing highest mountains." His birth name was Chungay Dorjae, which means "enlightened thunder- bolt." hunder- bolt" Lawa finally found his way to the Indian border, where he was able to rest in safety, in a bamboo barracks that the Indian government temporarily provided for him and other Tibetans. Lawa is one of about 5,500 monks who walked out of Tibet, and one of approximately 100,000 Tibetans who did it A Geshe (equivalent to a Ph.D. in our society), he decid- ed to no longer wear his robes. In his refugee group, he was the eldest in a group of 13 monks, none of whom spoke the language of the strange country where they suddenly found themselves living. They had no money, planted trees for work, knew no one, and had no ties to their native Tibetan culture. He was influenced in 1971 by some of the younger monks, when he broke two of his 253 vows. With no Tibetan community or place to learn and practice the dhar- ma (Buddhist teachings) Lawa broke his vow of celibacy and his vow not to drink alcohol. "I had to disrobe, or else I would look like a monk on the outside, and not feel like a monk on the inside," he said. Many monks who left Tibet disrobed. "Some people become crazy, do things like that," he said of people in a situation with "no family, no country, lost." Lawa eventual- ly found his way to Nepal, where he worked for 11 years as a cook for the School for International Training. The monastery he left served three villages. He returned to Tibet in 1983 to find his monastery demolished with Tibetan -American student exchange. Marietta has set up a non-profit corporation, called Jang Chup Ling, which translates into "Land of Enlightenment." She and Lawa have deposited $20,000 of their own money to start it off. The goal is to house 100 monks at Lawa's rebuilt monastery, so that the younger Tibetans do not for- get the lessons of compassion that his culture holds sacred. `I was just a mess' Marietta Hickey admits she has a reputation from the party days of the '60s and '70s, some of it stemming from various controversies at her previous restaurant, La Cipollina. Marietta openly discusses her life prior to her "only a few walls left" standing, and only two of his eight brothers and sisters still alive. His people have asked him to return, to rebuild the mon?stery so they can have "a place to pray, teachers, and a future for this life and the next life." He feels the need to return, to rebuild his monastery, to give the younger generation something to believe in, as the Chinese have taken away all forms of religion. "Tibetans have something inside," he said, with a fist to his chest. "They are like flowers that need sunlight so they can open up," which they can't do without the wisdom of the elders. Without the monasteries, they have no place to learn, no center or community. "The old are dying, and the new gen- eration is forgetting," he said. To rebuild his monastery is to re -instill the belief system of his people. It has been 40 years since his escape, and every day of his life he carries in him a great hope that something will change between China and Tibet. The Chinese government is finally allowing some monks to rebuild in Eastern Tibet, where Lawa is from. It is a strategy which decreases oppo- sition to Chinese rule and is good for tourism and publicity. It also creates a central institution in a community with ready-made social legitimacy which, if it can then be con- trolled through selected and "approved" monks, can be used as a way to disseminate Chinese propaganda and exert local control, according to Philosophy Professor Jay Garfield of'Smith College, who helped create the first Marietta Hickey and her husband, Lawa, are working to bring 70 or more Tibetans to Cape Cod to work for the summer. The two of them are working to raise a quarter of a million dollars so Lawa can rebuild his monastery in Eastern Tibet, and in doing so preserve a culture that is almost lost. Buddhist awakening. "My mind was in really horrible shape. I was just a mess. I lacked in enthusiasm and hope." She moved to Hawaii broke in late 1979, after facing "a lot of opposition" from people in her life on Cape Cod. She took a massage course while there, and flipped burgers for money. Her massage course led her to a Buddhist retreat. "I wasn't on a spiritual quest. I was agnostic," she said. "I went on the retreat for all the wrong reasons," she said of the experience that nevertheless led her to her new life. At the top of the mountain, she realized that the Tibetans "have a much broader understanding of the workings of the mind," she said between interruptions of carpenters, plumbers and phone calls as she prepared for the opening of Abicci's season while finishing up a month of renova- tions. " I learned to train my mind," Marietta said of her stud- ies under her Tibetan teacher, Lama Tenzin. "Buddhists put a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility. Nobody can do it for you," she said. Her Buddhist teacher brought her to Nepal, where she met Lawa. "I knew the first time I met him that he was somebody special." "Marietta has a very kind heart," said Lawa. "She is not someone thinking only of money," he said. "She wants to help others," he said of his wife. "She will make many people happy" by bringing the 70 Tibetans here, he said.