Sustainability: The Tibetan Story

April 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Last month I had the amazing opportunity to join my daughter, Camille, for her college Spring Break. We had decided to trek in the Himalayas above Dharamsala for our trip, starting at McLeod Ganj. I had been there before, most notably for Losar (Tibetan New Year) in February 1971 and again in 1972. Can it really have been that long ago? What a difference the decades have made as the village has grown in size! McLeod Ganj was then a small outlying area above Dharamsala, a neighborhood with a few wooden houses. In the center was a temple with a huge prayer wheel and a row of prayer wheels surrounding it. Here, devout Tibetans who had settled nearby to be in the energetic field of the Dalai Lama could make their daily circumambulations, turning the wheels as an offering and chanting mantras.

My mantra before the trip (and I found out that it extended during my trip), was, “What’s sustainability?” I had been working on wrapping my mind around this question since Audrey James from Paradigm Nouveau approached me last fall. My answers over the past 6 months have evolved into open-ended inquiries. The question itself is beautiful. So there I found myself in Dharamsala, India, with the Tibetan people, looking through the lens of this question. In short, my answer through observation was this:

Sustainability is not a place or a system or a method, an object or even a goal. Although the idea of sustainability can be a guiding principle in our planning, the truth is ultimately that nothing is sustainable “out there” because everything is in a state of flux. What really can be sustained lives within us. The Tibetans use the message from the Dalai Lama, “Never give up … work for peace in your heart and in the world … never give up.” This possibility of hope sustains them at the level of their soul. When their soul is sustained, life can continue to grow, even in the face of unthinkable circumstances.

A prime example of this was a story I heard from a young Tibetan filmmaker who was born in exile in India and raised in the Tibetan Children’s Village by an old woman who had spent 28 years in solitary confinement and hard labor. The filmmaker asked her adopted grandmother how she managed to sustain herself in those conditions when all but three of the other female prisoners had died. She replied that after some time in captivity, she somehow found out that the Dalai Lama was alive and had made it to the safety of India. She never gave up the hope of someday seeing him, and perhaps seeing her children again. That hope kept her alive.

The leadership of the current Dalai Lama has for the past 50 years been focused on coming to grips with this existential dilemma, helping his people deal with oppression and violence while at the same time giving them a sustainable future, a future which lets his people see they will continue peacefully. The Dalai Lama’s vision is not just for Tibetans. He has a vision for all people to enjoy universal human rights and have respect for one another. People around the world enjoy the fruits of his vision to this day.

Vision for the future is the foundation upon which the Tibetans have sustained themselves for the past 50 years. Vision first, circumstances second.

In coming home I am looking at sustainability with new eyes.

My 20/20 vision seems clearer.

I see Sustainable Boulder operating at a level of community we’ve never known before. There’s something very exciting about all of this.

If we could all start sharing our vision for the future and focusing that vision in the same direction … what could be possible?

What is your vision for the future?

What’s your 20/20 vision?

PS All of these photos were taken by my daughter and me in India!