Story
by ANH DO and TERI SFORZA
Photos
by CINDY YAMANAKA
ABOUT
THIS SERIES
There
was something very different about Donald Pham. Even as a child, he seemed
strangely wise. His parents came to believe that he was a monk in his previous
life and should study in India. We follow his arduous path as a Tibetan
Buddhist monk in a four-part series.
Part
one: The decision
A
few years ago, his name was Donald Pham, and he lived in his family's airy
Laguna Niguel home with soaring ceilings, thick carpet and vistas of rolling
hills. Today, he is Konchog "Kusho" Osel youngest student at the Institute
of Buddhist Dialectics, run by the Tibetan Government in Exile.
Part
two: The separation
Don
becomes the first foreigner ever accepted at the esteemed Gaden Shartse
monastery in India in its 600-year history. It is a path he must take,
says his mother. If he doesn't like it, he could come home.
Part
three: The struggle
It
has been more than three years since his family gave him to Tibetan Buddhism.
Since India replaced Orange County as his home. Since he said goodbye to
his parents on his 13th birthday and entered the confines of the monastery,
a rigid and utterly alien world.
Part
four: Resolve
In
the Himalayan foothills of northern India is the little town of Dharamsala,
seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile. It is also the home of the Institute
of Buddhist Dialectics. After two years in the confines of the monastery,
Kusho is sent to the institute for a while. Perhaps he will be happier
there.
* The
Orange County Register © 2003: http://www.ocregister.com/features/monk/
Part
one: The decision
INTRODUCTION
"When
love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised."
FROM
DHARAMSALA, INDIA
The
dull clanging of a bell awakens him at 6 a.m. It's dark. He climbs from
his thick blue sleeping bag into the chill of the Himalayan air and pads
across bare concrete to the bathroom - a cold-water tap and a ceramic hole
in the floor.
He
drapes himself in a cloud of crimson robes, descends a pocked and stained
staircase, and joins the other monks streaming silently to morning prayers.
Barefoot before the golden Buddha, he bows and folds his legs lotus-style
beneath him. The guttural chant rolls from his lips like a gentle song,
his slight body hunched, his shaved head bent: "Namo dharmaya, namo sanghaya."
A few
years ago, his name was Donald Pham, and he lived in his family's airy
Laguna Niguel home with soaring ceilings, thick carpet and vistas of rolling
hills. He was a gifted student who owned a body-board and played clarinet
and Nintendo. He had his own bedroom with glow-in-the-dark stars on the
ceiling, loved science fiction and toyed with the idea of becoming a writer
or doctor.
Today,
he is Konchog "Kusho" Osel - youngest student at the Institute of Buddhist
Dialectics, run by the Tibetan Government in Exile at the behest of His
Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.
At
the age most boys are going to parties, courting girls and playing football,
he has taken a vow of chastity, promised to relieve the suffering "of all
sentient beings" and learned to play cricket. He has pledged to tame all
passions, rigorously discipline body, speech and mind and never intentionally
kill another living thing, not even a mosquito. He has accepted the emptiness
and impermanence of all things - including himself - and is struggling
to forsake attachment, not just to objects, but to the people he loves.
Grasping
is suffering. Letting go is freedom.
Young
Kusho's goal - the goal of all Tibetan Buddhists - is enlightenment itself.
A state of perfect wisdom. A state, the Dalai Lama has written, that can
be infused with mystery and border on magic: monks lost in meditation who
raise their body temperatures 18 degrees, even while sitting on beds of
snow; lamas whose bodies die but remain fresh for weeks; lamas who are
rumored to fly. The boy who used to be called Don is on an arduous road,
one that can take far more than a lifetime to complete. His grandfather
adamantly opposed the idea. Relatives denounced it as madness. He has fallen
ill from alien food and water, wept with homesickness and wondered exactly
why he was there. There are so many challenges, but breaking the bonds
of attachment to his family is proving to be one of the hardest tasks of
all.
Clutching
a corner of his robe, Kusho swings it over his shoulder in a billowing
cloud of crimson, then buries his face in it, almost as if to find shelter.
"Namo gurubay, namo Buddhaya." ("I take refuge in my gurus. I take refuge
in the Buddha.")
The
boy is 16. He is a monk. The first foreigner ever accepted into his monastery.
How did he come to this? Whose decision was it? Will he be able to keep
his vows for life?
A
FATEFUL TOOTHACHE
The
romance between Don's mother and father began with a disastrous root canal
half a world away.
Huyen
"Lee" Nguyen rushed to Saigon's government-run dental school in 1971 with
a throbbing jaw and bloated face, intending to see the senior instructor
immediately. But a young dental student named Hy Pham spotted her first
and decided to treat the cute girl in the miniskirt himself.
Lee
was his first root canal. "He didn't make me better," she says. "I felt
worse."
Lee
complained, and Hy felt terrible. He gave her medicine and presented himself
that night at her house with a box of candy and an apology. He asked if
he could keep visiting. She said yes.
They
were engaged within a year, and the wedding was planned for after Hy finished
Army duty. But Saigon fell to the communists first, forcing Hy to flee
in 1975. Three times Lee tried to join him, paying for passage with bars
of gold. The first time, she was too ill to sail. The second time, communist
patrols captured her boat, and she spent two months in jail. The third
time, she fled through the jungles, praying to Buddha as she dodged snakes,
wild cats and booby traps. When she finally reached a refugee camp in Thailand,
fellow refugees credited their success to her prayers.
Lee
joined Hy in Los Angeles in 1980 when he was working on another dental
degree. Her entire family eventually followed. They married in 1981, opened
a clinic in Long Beach and considered themselves blessed when Connie, their
oldest daughter, was born a year later.
THE
BOOK OF DEATH
Lee
had long been a devout Buddhist. She understood karma as the law of cause
and effect that determined everyone's station in life. She believed wholly
in reincarnation. But after her mother died a difficult death in 1984,
questions nagged at her.
Can
a person control his death? Where does he go in the interim? What will
the next rebirth be?
When
she became pregnant again in 1985 with Don, her questions intensified.
What sort of life was inside her? What part of a person goes on after death?
How, exactly, does reincarnation work? She probed the mysteries with Hy
and asked at a local Vietnamese Buddhist temple, but she couldn't find
a satisfactory answer.
Then
Lee, two months' pregnant, found the book that would change the course
of her family's life.
It
came from Tibetan Buddhism, a very different tradition from the Vietnamese
Buddhism she grew up with. Called "Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth,"
it was written by a spiritual assistant to the Dalai Lama named Lati Rinpoche
- a teacher who would have enormous power over her unborn child's future.
"I
grabbed that book and I read - oh, my goodness, amazing book," she says.
"Lati Rinpoche was able to answer everything from his experience. He is
the reincarnation of an important tulku (a highly realized being) and has
lived many lifetimes.''
The
book says that the time between death and rebirth is, at most, 49 days,
or seven cycles of seven - the number of days that the Buddha was lost
in bliss when he achieved enlightenment. Those still enslaved by desire
and attachment pass into a middle state. If their actions in the past life
were good, they enjoy a favorable rebirth in the human realm. If their
actions were bad, however, they have an unfavorable rebirth in the animal
realm.
Lee
read the book nearly every night as her belly grew round. Her son, Donald,
was born March, 18, 1986, in a labor she recalls as remarkably easy. "I
think he brought me to Tibetan Buddhism," Lee says.
A
SPECIAL CHILD
Don
was a gentle baby who seemed different from the very beginning. "He was
very, very serious," Lee says. "He was like an old man."
Don
was content to sit for hours and watch his older sister, Connie, lord over
the toy collection. The two couldn't have been more different: Connie,
4, was bold, passionate and demandingly inquisitive, while her brother
seemed intent on absorbing the entire world through his eyes by watching
it very, very, carefully.
Fourteen
months later, their little sister, Christine, was born. She and Don were
soon dubbed "the twins." They shared the same calm demeanor and the same
gummy smile. They were both painfully shy, and they were virtually inseparable,
arms entangled as they learned to talk and toddle. Connie, feeling left
out, often wrought big-sister havoc upon them.
Work
and three children kept Lee too busy to think much more about the mysteries
of death until 1990, when her mother-in-law offhandedly gave her a newspaper
for the waiting room of the dental office. Lee was thumbing through it
when a small item leapt out at her: A Tibetan monk was visiting a temple
in Los Angeles. A monk named Lati Rinpoche.
She
lost her breath. "The name was tiny, just a dot on the page," Lee says.
"But to me it looked like the whole world. I can see that only."
Lati
Rinpoche was the monk who wrote the book about death.
The
next day, Lee went to the temple to meet him. "I saw Lati Rinpoche for
the first time in my life, but I had a feeling that I saw him, sometime,
somewhere before," Lee says.
His
tales of the Himalayas seemed strangely familiar, too. "I feel, oh, I've
been there before," she says.
Lee
returned the next day to hear his teachings with her three children in
tow. As soon as Lati Rinpoche entered the temple, Don, then 4, pitched
over on his bench and smashed his head. He didn't cry, but a bruise quickly
rose. Lee fetched ice to soothe it, and Don and the other children sat
without complaint through two hours of teachings on the nature of consciousness.
That night, Lee said, Don's swelling mysteriously disappeared.
Lati
Rinpoche gave teachings in California for two weeks, and Lee took the children
to hear him almost every day. She was entranced, on fire, with what she
recognized as the truth. The Phams stayed on as members of the Los Angeles
temple, faithfully appearing each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday to hear
the wisdom of its spiritual leader, Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen, affectionately
known as Geshe-la.
Such
dedication wasn't easy. It required a 50-mile drive through rush-hour traffic
- each way - and Lee wasn't keen on subjecting the little ones to it three
times a week. She encouraged Don and Christine to stay with their cousins
instead, but they insisted on going with her. The children became fixtures
in the temple's last row, quietly drawing or coloring as Geshe-la taught
the graduated path to enlightenment by meditation and mindfulness of body,
speech and mind. He spoke of the difficulties of meditation, how the untrained
mind springs from idea to idea without focus like a monkey in a tree, how
difficult it is to calm and still.
Once,
Lee gently admonished her son for not paying attention, but Don insisted
he was listening. "I say, 'OK, what did Geshe-la teach today?'." Lee says.
"And right away, he replied, 'Geshe-la said, 'Consciousness is like a monkey.'."
Lee
was surprised. It seemed an advanced idea for a kindergartner to grasp.
Don
showed a level of selflessness that was startling in such a young child,
says Tenzin Dorjee, a family friend and former monk. When he took the children
out for ice cream, Don would refuse to order, afraid of wasting money and
preferring that his sisters be indulged instead.
"He
worries a lot. Too much. I say, 'You are just a child,'." Dorjee said.
"He already shows a sense of responsibility at too young an age. If he
happened to kill an insect, he felt bad for the whole day."
The
depth of Don's feeling became eerily apparent one afternoon while the Phams
dined in their sunny kitchen. Christine accidentally broke a plate and
burst into tears. Her brother's words of comfort to her made his parents'
eyes widen: "Don't worry, it's just a thing. If you're attached to a little
thing like that, how you can give up your body when you die?"
"I
never forgot the moment when he said that," Lee says. "He was 5."
Lee
thought this was an auspicious sign and shared the news with Geshe-la at
temple.
Geshe-la was pleased but instructed Lee to say nothing more about it; they
would watch Don to see how his spirit grew. All three of the Pham children,
Geshe-la thought, were uncharacteristically devoted to the teachings at
very early ages. "How they understood we don't know," Geshe-la says. "They
build up from the small, all the time listening, listening, listening,
listening. ... All the time collecting in their consciousness."
FIRST
VIETNAMESE GESHE
Even
though their hearts had turned to Tibetan Buddhism, the Phams still visited
the Vietnamese temple for big holidays and celebrations. These galas were
marked by merriment, prayers and offerings but not by lengthy lectures
on sacred texts. This did not escape Don's attention.
He
asked Lee, using the Vietnamese word for "mother": "Me, why is there no
teaching at the Vietnamese temple? If you don't get the teaching, how can
you know what is wrong or right?"
Lee
answered his challenge with a challenge of her own. "I said, 'OK, now that
you see that, you can become a good Vietnamese monk so you can give them
the teaching,'." she says. "He said he will. He did not hesitate. So I
said to him, 'Mom hopes that in your future you can give a different flower
to their beautiful garden.'."
Any
doubts Lee may have had evaporated in the car on the way to temple when
Don was 8. Lee had tuned in to Vietnamese radio, where a speaker extolled
the talent in the immigrant community, from lawyers to doctors to engineers.
Don
piped up from the back seat: Why are there are so many doctors and lawyers
in the Vietnamese community, but no geshe? he asked. I will be the first
Vietnamese geshe.
A geshe
is the most learned of Tibetan Buddhist monks. Lee decided it was time
to seriously consult with Geshe-la about the boy's future.
WISDOM
OF TIBET
Geshe-la's
face is barely creased by his 79 years.
Born
in eastern Tibet, he entered the ancient Gaden Shartse monastery near Lhasa
when he was 8 years old, and it was his home for nearly 30 years.
That
ended abruptly after evening prayers on March 14, 1959, as the Chinese
army was closing in on the capital. The Chinese were intent on "liberating"
Tibet from its "backward" religion and economic stagnation. Geshe-la knew
that the Dalai Lama already had fled through the snowy Himalayas to India,
but was told he must flee as well.
It
was nearly midnight. Geshe-la grabbed a few holy books and some food, turned
his back on his home and walked toward India, wearing only his robes.
The
paths through the Himalayas were choked with snow. Many Tibetans died there,
victims of Chinese soldiers or exposure; others lost feet, hands, fingers
and toes to frostbite. Geshe-la was lucky. Thirty-five days after fleeing,
he arrived, stunned and exhausted, at an Indian refugee camp. Gaden, he
would learn, had been destroyed by Chinese forces. Many monks had been
imprisoned, tortured, even killed.
The
Dalai Lama urged the refugees to pick up exactly where they had left off.
So Geshe-la dove back into his studies, earning the Lharampa Geshe degree,
the highest awarded by the monastic university system. Much like a doctorate
of divinity, it took 23 years to complete.
In
1963, the Dalai Lama sent him abroad to spread Buddha's teachings in England
and the United States. China may have seized Tibet, killed hundreds of
thousands of Tibetans, destroyed countless monasteries and phased out the
Tibetan language - but Tibetan traditions were marching forward, nonetheless.
He
had helped them take root in California, and Geshe-la listened carefully
as Lee spoke of Don. In Geshe-la's Tibet, it was common for families to
offer sons to the monastery. But Laguna Niguel was many worlds away from
Tibet.
Geshe-la
appreciated that Lee and Hy wanted their son to be a monk. He agreed that
Don was sweet, smart and seemed to have the right temperament for monastic
life. But he knew that the bond between mother and son was strong. Did
the parents really understand what it meant to offer a child to the monastery?
Did they have any idea what it was like to live within its walls? The exhausting
hours monks must keep, the worldly things they must forsake, the strict
vows they must obey? Could they comprehend what life is like in India,
which has been called a highly developed nation in an advanced state of
decay?
It
was not enough to just imagine a land of staggering riches and abysmal
poverty, of brutal heat and lashing monsoons, of dusty villages and wandering
ascetics. Geshe-la insisted that Lee and Hy go to India, stay with the
monks and see for themselves.
She
was told that a monastery is like an ocean. "A lot of treasure, but a lot
of sharks, too," Lee says. "You cannot find anywhere that is perfect."
PASSAGE
TO INDIA
Don
was 9 years old when his parents boarded a plane for the daylong flight
to Bombay in 1995. After two more grueling days of travel, they arrived
in the southern state of Karnataka, where they finally climbed on a bus
that would take them to the monastery.
It
snaked along streets choked with cows, dogs, rickshaws, ox carts, scooters
and people - so many people - dodging overloaded trucks speeding toward
disaster and finally arrived at the Tibetan settlement of Mundgod. The
re-established Gaden Shartse monastery squatted on a low hill, isolated,
prayer flags flapping languidly in the heat.
This
new Gaden had come a long way since the refugees camped in tents and built
the first common hall from mud, thatch and bamboo. It had grown into a
rambling campus capped with a cavernous prayer hall, Tibetan flourishes
of red and gold flashing from the rooftops. The next generation of Tibetan
leaders - some 1,500 students - studied there. And one of Gaden's most
exalted teachers was Lati Rinpoche, spiritual assistant to the Dalai Lama
and the monk who wrote the book on death that brought the Phams to Tibetan
Buddhism in the first place.
Life
at Gaden, Lee and Hy learned, was rigidly structured.
The
gong awoke them at 5 a.m. A silent parade of scarlet robes filled the temple
for prayer. Breakfast was at 7, a sober affair of chewy Tibetan bread and
exotic tea blended with butter, milk and salt. Then the monks attended
classes in language, debate and logic until 12:30 p.m., when they broke
for lunch.
Afternoons
were crowded with private teachings from gurus and tutors; a light dinner
of rice and soup was served at 6; then the monks assembled again for Buddhist
teaching and debate classes that stretched, sometimes, until midnight.
Lee
and Hy stayed for six weeks. Gaden, they decided, was a profoundly sacred,
spiritual place. They were deeply touched by its harmony, by the purity
of its discipline, by the compassion they felt emanating from its monks.
The monks were almost constantly engaged in learning, with more hours devoted
to study than even the best American private schools offered. And there
were no distractions - no televisions, no DVD players, no computer games.
There
were also no comforts of home. No fast food, no washing machines, no hot
water, no privacy. Not even any Westerners to talk to. Just a closed universe
of refugees, speaking a language they didn't understand.
Don
would be a foreigner in a completely foreign land. Is this what they wanted
for their only son?
DIVINATION
The
question eventually would be decided by ancient ritual.
In
divination, a holy man appeals directly to a deity, seeking the answer
to a vexing question. The ritual can employ fire, mirrors, prayer beads,
bones. It would be performed in India by Lati Rinpoche himself.
The
question went beyond whether Don should enter the monastery; it was also
whether his little sister should enter the nunnery. Christine wanted to
dedicate herself to Buddha's teachings - and be near her brother.
The
signs were clear, Lati Rinpoche said. Don should enter the monastery. Christine
must wait.
Lee
and Hy were thrilled that their hunches about Don had been correct. "He
is a special boy. A very good boy," his father says. "I believe that this
is the right path for him to follow, and he believes that, too."
The
Phams knew it would be difficult news to break to the extended family.
They were pondering how to do it when Don, in his excitement, told his
cousin. The news raced through Lee's family - Don was going to India to
become a Tibetan Buddhist monk.
Lee's
father, Nam Van Nguyen, was outraged.
He
had fathered four sons and eight daughters, and saw one of them die. He
had been a bicycle merchant, a presidential adviser, a lieutenant in the
French army and a newspaperman. He fled his homeland after it fell to communists,
built a new life in the United States and watched proudly as his sons and
daughters became professionals - doctors, dentists, pharmacists - and sent
their own children to college. America was the land of opportunity, the
land of plenty, the land people from all over the world longed to reach.
How could his daughter even think about sending Don away from all this
for the privations of India?
Nguyen
ordered a family meeting of his 11 children. Together, they would persuade
Lee not to do something foolish.
CONFRONTATION
Nguyen
fumed in the family room of a daughter's house. His children, their husbands
and wives crowded around him.
Nguyen
did not have a favorable view of monks. When he was jailed for planning
protests against the government as a newspaper writer in Vietnam, monks
were among his fellow inmates. He said their followers came day after day,
bearing apples, grapes, oranges, milk.
He
was forbidden to enter a room where a high monk was staying but flung the
doors open anyway and saw the monk enjoying a fine meal as two attendants
fanned him and two others fed him. Nguyen was outraged. This wasn't the
life he wanted for his grandson.
Don,
he said, is a sweet boy, an obedient boy. His desire to help people is
real and noble. But he could help countless people by getting the best
education possible and becoming a doctor or a dentist like his father.
He could cut prices to help the needy and give money to the poor. He does
not need to be a monk.
He
leveled his charge. Don's wish to enter the monastery is not his own wish.
It is his parents' wish, Nguyen said. Don agrees to make them happy.
Don's
aunts and uncles jumped into the fray. Don is just a child. How can you
send him to live in India by himself? How can you separate him from his
family? How can you take a gifted student out of school? How can you do
this?
Don,
Nguyen said, is a boy of no choice.
Part
two: The separation
INTRODUCTION
"By
understanding all phenomena to be like illusions, I will be released from
the bondage of attachment.""
FROM
DHARAMSALA, INDIA
A baby
cobra slithers into the garden, injecting itself into a spectacle that
has changed little in 400 years.
Monks
with shaved heads and red robes shout and stomp and clap in the throes
of fiery debate. It's an unwieldy dance: Bodies twist as if to throw fast
balls; arms shoot into the air; hands slap together as feet pound and voices
surge. "Sa!" resounds through the courtyard. "Sa!"
It's
9 a.m. at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, and the quietest monk in
the din of debate class is Konchog "Kusho" Osel, the boy who was once Donald
Pham of Laguna Niguel. Don - who loved science fiction, hip-hop music and
Del Taco - is now an ascetic who speaks fluent Tibetan, clutches wooden
prayer beads and argues his point to the two men at his feet: Not all sentient
beings understand the impermanent nature of sound.
His
voice is softer than the others. His claps are calmer. And his voice has
no malice as he flings the ritual "Sa!" - "Shame!" - at his competitors.
Rigorous, formal and highly stylized, debate is the tool Tibetans use to
hone intelligence and deepen understanding of the fine points of Buddhist
philosophy. It's a vital part of a geshe's 20-plus-year education, and
Kusho's opponents are about to launch into the required counterattack when
someone suddenly cries, "Cobra!"
Kusho
and the others rush to the spot where the snake slides through the grass.
It's a juvenile, but the boy who grew up with nary a housefly now understands
that a baby cobra's venom is as deadly as an adult's. He stands back as
its hood flares. Killing is an abomination in Buddhism because the snake
could have been a loved one in a previous life. A monk approaches the intruder
with a long stick, but instead of using it as a weapon, he sweeps the interloper,
stroke by stroke, gently out of the garden.
Kusho
is a long, long way from the manicured lawns of home.
STEELY
WILL
Nam
Van Nguyen, Don's grandfather, furiously opposed sending the boy to India
to enter the monastery.
He
called an urgent family meeting. Dozens of relatives squeezed into a family
room in Huntington Beach. Don's mother nervously faced them.
The
storm rose quickly. Don is only 12 years old, his aunts and uncles said.
How can you send him halfway around the world by himself?
He
would not be alone, Lee retorted. He would be in the care of one of the
most illustrious holy men of his time - Lati Rinpoche, spiritual assistant
to His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.
How
can you separate him from his family? He's a gifted student in the United
States - where everyone wants to send their children for an education.
How can you send him to India, one of the poorest nations on the planet?
Don
is the first foreigner ever accepted at the esteemed Gaden Shartse monastery
in its 600-year history, Lee said. Its educational program is more rigorous
than any American school's.
Don,
the grandfather said, is a good boy, an obedient boy. He has always wanted
to help people, and that is admirable. But his wish to enter the monastery
is not his own. It is his parents' wish. Don is a boy of no choice.
Lee
turned to her father. She is not pushing her son, she said. He is pushing
himself. Since Don was 8, he'd wanted to be a monk. Don, she was sure,
had been a monk in his last life. Don, she was sure, had led her to Tibetan
Buddhism while he was still growing in her womb.
This
path, she said, was something he must try. If he didn't like it, he could
come home. She knew a man who was a monk for 20 years - a translator for
the Dalai Lama - who gave back his vows, earned his doctorate at the University
of California and now teaches. Don, she said, is very bright. He is an
American citizen. He could come home and get a Ph.D. any time he wanted.
To
be born human is a precious gift, and human life must be lived wisely,
Lee believed. Laypeople could accumulate much merit by doing good deeds;
but a monk, by dedicating his life to Buddha's teachings, automatically
accumulates a great deal more. That not only eases his suffering and the
suffering of others but also helps ensure that he has a good rebirth in
his next life. That was vitally important to Lee.
"I
just want him to try," she told her family. "You will see. This is right
for him to do."
FINAL
DAYS AT HOME
For
months, Don attended classes as usual at Aliso Viejo Middle School, trying
to keep his mind on seventh grade. He went to temple as usual each Wednesday,
Friday and Sunday, trying to keep his mind on "wrong understandings that
perpetuate the misery of mental darkness."
But
nothing was usual anymore.
Aside
from a trip to Canada, Don had never been out of the country. He had spent
only a few nights away from his family. His sisters and cousins were his
closest friends. His mother took care of his every need - from making his
bed and cleaning his room to buying his clothes and preparing his meals.
And since he was a small boy, he had slept each night beside his father.
Soon
he would be 10,000 miles and 12 time zones away.
His
bedroom was his sanctuary. There were stuffed animals and action figures
on the shelves - Batman, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Wile E. Coyote - and glow-in-the-dark
stars on the ceiling. A wetsuit for body-boarding hung in his closet. His
bed was crisp and fragrant with clean sheets. The room had thick carpeting;
a private bathroom where everything was spotless; and windows that, on
clear days, framed the gleaming Pacific.
Almost
every night, his big sister, Connie, would invade his room. Connie loved
her little brother; he was the one person she could really talk to - she,
the motormouth; he, the silent one. She usually ranted about the injustices
of everything from globalization to high school politics. But since the
decision had been made to send Don to India, her tone had changed markedly.
She
worried for him. He had always been so eager to please, to make his parents
happy and proud. Connie considered it her mission to make sure he understood
all he was giving up: Home. Comfort. Family. School. America. Blue jeans.
Mom's great cooking. "I never tried to encourage him; I never tried to
talk him out of it," she says. "I just wanted to make sure he knew what
he was doing."
Are
you sure, really sure, you want to do this? Connie asked every night. And
every night, his answer was the same. Silence.
"He
would just stare at the ceiling and give me this look like, 'Are you crazy?
Do you think I would do this if I didn't want to?' But he never gave me
a straight answer. He never actually said 'yes,' which always bothered
me, and still bothers me to this day."
Travel
plans were set. The family would stay with Don in India for six weeks.
Don, Connie, little sister Christine, mother Lee, an aunt, their spiritual
leader from the temple, Geshe-la and some students, would leave in February
1999. Father Hy, unable to close his dental office for so long, would join
them in March. The Phams would then return to the United States, without
Don, on March 18, coincidentally his 13th birthday.
Don
packed. He wouldn't need much. He tried to take just the essentials: books,
shoes, CD player, hip-hop CDs - and Batman, Goofy and Wile E. Coyote. He
had no idea what his new life would be like.
GATE
TO INDIA
The
plane landed in Bombay at twilight. It was winter, so the weather was still
cool: 88 degrees, with humidity at 65 percent.
Bleary-eyed
from the 24-hour flight, Don, Connie and Christine squeezed into a taxi
and stared mutely out the windows.
Vast
slums stretched along the airport road, like a mirror held up to a mirror
so the image repeated into infinity. Thrown together from scraps of cardboard
and tin, the huts leaned against each other like stumbling drunks fighting
gravity. Children played in fields carpeted with trash.
The
slums were swallowed by the grand Victorian decay of the city. Women in
saris of gold, crimson and sapphire seemed to float past ornate gothic
edifices erected by the British. Laundry in riotous colors dripped from
balconies. Cows lounged on busy roads and rooted greedily through trash
piles. Red double-decker buses snaked around a giant statue of Queen Victoria
and plunged into the tumultuous, teeming city - home to more than 13 million
people, half living without electricity or running water.
Carts
groaned beneath heaps of exotic foods. Vendors hawked the mildly addictive
betel nut, which men chew and spit out, leaving streaks of red on walls
and sidewalks everywhere.
Don
and Christine shrank as beggars pressed against the car. Lepers with open
sores thrust fingerless hands toward them, nubs of bone poking from their
stumps. Filthy girls, barely older than Connie, balanced skinny babies
on their hips and shoved their hands at the children, imploring, "baksheesh,
baksheesh" ("money, money"). Don wanted to give them something, but his
pockets were empty.
"They
were terrified beggars would eat them alive," Lee says.
A
NEW HOME
After
two more days of dusty travel by plane and bus, the family finally arrived
at the Tibetan settlement of Mundgod in the steamy southern state of Karnataka.
The Gaden Shartse monastery perched on a hill, isolated, a world unto itself.
It
was 10 p.m. They were exhausted. Darkness kept Don from getting a good
sense of his new home.
Monks
rushed to greet the weary travelers. They were relieved that the family
had arrived safely, if four hours late. They bowed in welcome and led everyone
down a narrow lane to Lati Labrang, a three-story house surrounded by an
iron fence and flowering garden. It was home to Don's new guru, Lati Rinpoche,
the man who would become the most important person in Don's life.
They
entered a small, simple room that was Lati Rinpoche's private chamber.
At 77, he was frail, with a thin face, slender arms and curved shoulders;
bald on top, with gray stubble sprouting on the sides of his head; and
dark eyes that shone. Recognized as the reincarnation of a renowned Buddhist
holy man, he was revered as a saint and a scholar, one of the few living
lamas who studied at the ancient monasteries inside Tibet. He was also
the author of the book that brought Lee to Tibetan Buddhism.
These
days, he accepted as private students only the reincarnations of high lamas,
putting Don in a rarefied class and setting huge expectations for his future.
Humbly,
Don brought his hands together. He touched the crown of his head, his forehead,
his throat and his heart. He dropped to the floor, pressed his forehead
to the ground, rose quickly and repeated the prostration twice more. This
was not simply to show respect to his new teacher but also to drive out
pride and ego.
Lati
Rinpoche received his first Vietnamese-American student with blessings
and a warm smile. Tea was served as they chatted about the family's journey
and the big event: Don's ordination. It was in a few days, and he anticipated
it with the nervousness and excitement that others might feel before a
wedding.
The
family ate a late dinner with Lati Rinpoche's disciples, crowded around
a long kitchen table. Then Don was shown to his room.
It
was on the second floor and could not have been more different from his
room at home. It was secured with a sliding latch and padlock. Inside,
three beds lined up in a row on the bare concrete floor. The walls were
a medicinal aqua-green. A wobbly fan hung from the ceiling. Storage shelves
held textbooks, medicines and personal things - and onto his allotted shelves
Don placed his stuffed animals and action figures. The windows were over-laced
with decorative ironwork in the Tibetan "endless knot" pattern, symbolizing
the interdependence of all things. Downstairs was the Eastern-style communal
toilet he would share with the other monks. He had two roommates, each
more than twice his age. They spoke little English. He spoke little Tibetan.
His
family stayed in the guest quarters, near the only bathroom with a Western-style
toilet. Connie urged Don to use it, but he didn't want any special privileges.
He didn't want to stand out any more than he already did.
Jet
lag made sleep erratic and elusive. The day began too soon, before the
sun rose, with the clang of a bell. The sight of hundreds of red-robed
men pouring into the temple for morning prayers was spectral in its beauty
and their deep chanting hypnotic in its repetitions. Breakfast surprised:
The tea was spiced with salt and butter, and the Tibetan bread was chewy
as a brownie.
TRANSFORMATION
The
transformation from American boy to Tibetan monk began with the hair.
Don
hadn't cut it for months; it flopped in silky black strands over his eyes
as the monks wrapped his neck in cloth and handed Geshe-la the razor. Geshe-la
grabbed a lock and cut; half-moons spiraled to the floor. This symbolized
his renunciation of physical beauty and new dedication to spiritual life.
Carefully, Don's head was shaved from crown to nape until his scalp shone
through, pasty beneath the black stubble. His mother scooped up some strands
to save.
Don
raised his hands to his skull and felt its naked shape, laughing nervously.
"Dude, you look cool," Connie assured him.
The
next day was Feb. 14, 1999. The start of Losar, the Tibetan new year. A
very auspicious day. The day Don Pham would become Konchog Osel - "clear
light" - in an ancient ceremony that would make him belong, body and soul,
to the monastery.
He
awoke at 3 a.m. and ate a light breakfast to keep himself from getting
sick with nervousness. Lati Rinpoche presented him with his first set of
sacred robes - brilliant crimson, soft cotton, transcendent in their elegance.
He had seen these only on holy men, and the fact that he would now wear
them seemed beyond belief.
They
had more layers than an onion, fit loosely and were prone to slip - to
force the wearer to be constantly mindful. The older monks helped him wrap
the hallowed fabric, and he soon appeared in the hallway, where his mother
waited.
The
sight of him, transformed, nearly took Lee's breath away. He looked like
an old monk, but in miniature. "He was totally changed," she says. "In
that moment, I knew he did not belong to me anymore."
It
was like New Year's and a wedding rolled into one. The monastery's 1,500
monks poured giddily into the temple.
Trumpets
- usually reserved for the most holy monks - heralded Don's arrival. Bells
rang. Cymbals clashed. Drums thundered. Incense burned. In a deep, hypnotic
drone, the monks chanted prayers praising the Three Jewels - the Buddha,
his teachings (the dharma) and his followers (the sangha). Don felt overwhelmed.
The
high lamas sat on gold and red thrones at the altar. Don prostrated himself
to them. He prayed for their long lives and offered each a blessing scarf.
A special breakfast was served - oatmeal, raisin bread, jam, tea. It was
a gift of the Pham family, as all the elaborate meals that day would be.
The
Phams presented gifts to each of the 1,500 monks. Lee, dressed in a traditional
Vietnamese temple gown, carried bricks of Indian money, and as the prayers
echoed, she inched up and down the rows of monks, bending to press 30 rupees
into each palm. Don followed her, giving his new brothers 10 rupees each;
his sisters, Connie and Christine, followed, giving five rupees each.
That
amounted to more than one U.S. dollar per monk - a small fortune. This
offering gained the family merit and helped free it from obstacles - but
by the time it was over, their backs ached from stooping.
Giant
drums thundered. Was this young man eligible to enter the monastery? Was
he beholden to spouse or king? Was he slave, demon, killer, robber or tyrant?
No.
He was free. He repented, as all new monks do, the innumerable transgressions
he committed in this and previous lifetimes. He admitted to faults of body,
speech and mind generated by greed, hatred and ignorance.
In
a ritual that barred his family and all outsiders, Don took the 36 sacred
vows of monastic life, through which he could achieve enlightenment, escape
the painful cycle of death and rebirth and help all sentient beings. He
vowed never to kill. Never to take what is not given. Never to lie or take
intoxicants. He would not sing or dance, would not adorn himself to beautify
the body, would forsake sexual activity.
The
lamas stressed that these vows were not be taken lightly or with the idea
that they would be discarded if they proved too difficult. They were taken
for life. To abandon them meant a loss of karma not just for himself but
also for others.
The
holy men consecrated Konchog Osel, touching his robes, reciting brief prayers
and blowing blessings upon the sacred cloth.
Nearly
five hours had passed. The sun had risen. Don Pham was no more.
His
mother wept.
"I
felt this huge relief. I didn't feel heavy anymore," she says. "All of
the attachment and ordinary things in daily life disappeared. I felt totally
joyful. I had fulfilled my duty to raise him and to bring him back to the
monastery, where he belongs."
A
SPECIAL BLESSING
A euphoric
entourage soon set off for Dharamsala, a small town in the sliver of Himalayan
foothills separating China from Pakistan. They would attend three weeks
of teaching with the Dalai Lama, and present to him Tibetan Buddhism's
first Vietnamese-American monk.
The
Phams had gone to some of the Dalai Lama's teachings in the United States,
but the prospect of an audience with the reincarnation of the Buddha of
Compassion - who chooses to return to Earth to relieve suffering - was
an unimaginable privilege.
The
taxi carrying their group labored up the steep roads to Dharamsala, dodging
cows, dogs, groaning buses and craters. The road seemed insanely narrow,
clinging to the earth like a worn ribbon slowly disintegrating. The steel
faces of giant trucks greeted them coming out of hairpin turns, requiring
the driver to slam on the brakes and jerk the wheel.
They
finally arrived at the Tsuglagkhang Complex, a modest stand-in for the
holy buildings in Lhasa, perched on a peak above the plains. They presented
themselves at the locked gates of the Dalai Lama's private residence. Armed
Indian guards admitted them through one locked gate, then another.
The
mountain air was cool as they ascended the drive leading to the tiny home,
perched at the hilltop amid pink bougainvillea. From here, the town of
McLeod Ganj - "Little Lhasa" - appeared to cling stubbornly to the rugged
mountains, much as the Tibetans clung to their traditions, even in exile.
They
were led into a parlor in the simple cottage and waited. Connie peeked
at the guest book, and saw that actor Richard Gere had just left. They
were ushered into the garden where the Dalai Lama lovingly tends to the
blue and purple blooms. Kusho's mouth went dry as the Dalai Lama emerged,
clad not in the elaborate gold brocades of his predecessors, but in the
same simple red robes as Kusho. The Dalai Lama squinted through his thick
glasses, smiled warmly and welcomed his American guests.
Kusho,
overwhelmed by an emotion he did not fully understand, began to cry. Tears
streamed down his cheeks as Geshe-la dropped to the ground, prostrating
on behalf of the entire family. Geshe-la introduced the trembling boy,
saying he hoped that Kusho would someday use his gifts to benefit the Vietnamese
community.
The
Dalai Lama smiled with pleasure. The presence of both parents symbolized
their full support for Kusho's chosen path. He spoke to Kusho in English,
offering blessings and words of encouragement. "Study well," he says. "Be
a good monk, a simple monk."
Kusho
was unable to utter a single sound in return. He sniffled as an assistant
rushed in, draping white blessing scarves around everyone's neck. Kusho's
photo was taken beside the Dalai Lama, and within 10 minutes, the visit
was over.
But
Kusho felt changed. There was something overwhelming about the Dalai Lama's
presence, something that affected him profoundly, deeply. The Dalai Lama
was no ordinary person. He was an "ocean of wisdom," a living embodiment
of kindness and compassion, of everything Kusho had dedicated his life
to. And seeing the blessed man's face, Kusho felt certain he was doing
the right thing.
SAYING
GOODBYE
The
dawn of March 18, 1999, came bright and warm and much too quickly. It was
Kusho's 13th birthday. The day his family would return to the United States
without him.
There
was a surprise celebration with two cakes - inscribed not to Don, but to
Kusho - and a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday," which was a novelty to
the dozen monks who crowded around, sharing the chocolate dessert. They
lent a distracting air of festivity to the bittersweet celebration.
After
six weeks in India, the Phams were leaving. The monks helped Christine,
Connie, Hy and Lee haul suitcases outside. Kusho followed, urging them
not to forget anything.
The
bus pulled up. The luggage was loaded.
Hy
turned to his son to say goodbye. This boy, so different from the one he
tucked into bed. This boy, offered to Buddha, who was not his own anymore.
Hy broke down. Christine dissolved as well. Kusho did his best to stay
strong while Lee and Connie turned away, fussing over bags, struggling
to choke back tears. Connie was afraid that if she started, she'd never
stop.
Lati
Rinpoche had comforted the parents. Don't worry, he said. I will be a father
to Kusho. I will be the teacher of Kusho. I will be a friend to Kusho.
A dozen
monks surrounded Kusho, waving goodbye as his family boarded the bus. "Don't
worry," he whispered to his mother.
Connie
boarded last, turning quickly to catch sight of her little brother one
more time. But all she saw was a sea of men in red robes, indistinguishable
from one another.
She
frantically searched the faces as the bus pulled away. Finally, she found
him, the little monk in the middle. He was smiling and waving. At that
moment, she thought, of course, he should be here. It was in the way that
he walked, the way that he wore his robes, the way that he rejected his
blue Converse sneakers for Indian loafers so he wouldn't stick out. This
is his family, Connie thought. This is where he belongs
LONELY
HOUSE
At
home in Laguna Niguel, the photo of Kusho with the Dalai Lama was prominently
displayed on the mantel. The Dalai Lama was smiling; Kusho's face was swollen
with tears.
Hy
poured himself into work. Lee worried about Kusho's health. How was his
stomach adjusting to the Indian food and water? Was he ill? Weak? Losing
weight? Was his asthma acting up? She missed him. Of course, she missed
him. But she kept reminding herself that mentally, spiritually, he was
not hers anymore.
Without
him, the house was eerily quiet. He was Christine's confidant, Connie's
sounding board, and now they found themselves with little to say, and no
one to say it to.
Connie
would wander into his bedroom and stare at those silly stars on the ceiling,
at the lone Mickey Mouse he left behind. Christine would compute what time
it was in India, figuring that when she was waking up, he was going to
sleep.
At
dinner, while watching TV, in the middle of doing homework, one of them
would say, "I wonder what Don's doing now." Was he lonely there? Did he
have anyone to talk to? He was an American in a sea of Tibetans, unable
to speak their language. Did he feel isolated? Frightened? Homesick?
Was
he happy in the monastery half a world away? Would he tell them if he wasn't?
Part
three: The struggle
INTRODUCTION
"Don't
return anger with anger ... Don't return criticism with criticism ...If
struck, don't strike back."
FROM
DHARAMSALA, INDIA
The
monks are mumbling. To themselves. Each one trying to memorize a different
line of sacred text by repeating it aloud, over and over and over, until
the temple rumbles like a thundercloud.
It's
2 p.m. Self-study time at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics. Konchog
"Kusho" Osel - the monk who used to be Donald Pham of Laguna Niguel - sits
against a far wall, legs folded in the lotus position, on one of the hard
mattresses lining the floor like low-slung church pews.
At
16, he is the youngest student in the school, his upper lip just beginning
to sprout peach fuzz, his cheeks as smooth as a child's. Like the others,
Kusho murmurs to no one but himself. Like the others, he rocks rhythmically
to and fro. And like the others, he scours the book before him, struggling
to commit every word to memory. This is absolutely essential; later he
must conjure these passages, verbatim, as he spars with his fellow monks
in an ancient debating ritual that has been performed, as elaborately as
ballet, for centuries in the Land of Snows.
Kusho
was raised speaking English and Vietnamese, but the words he now utters
are in neither language. The pages he scrutinizes so earnestly are a mass
of graceful loops and lines that, just a few years ago, were completely
incomprehensible to him. "There are two types of reasoning, one which implies
the agent directly and one which implies the agent indirectly. ..."
It
has been more than three years since his family gave him to Tibetan Buddhism.
Since India replaced Orange County as his home. Since he said goodbye to
his parents - on his 13th birthday - and entered the confines of the monastery,
a rigid and utterly alien world.
CHANGE
The
monks - his new family - polished off the birthday cake and stood beside
him waving goodbye to the bus trundling away with his old family. His mother,
father, sisters and aunt had stayed for more than a month at Gaden Shartse
monastery, trying to make the transition easier, but it was disorienting,
almost dizzying, when they actually went back to California without him.
A flood of exhilaration and terror rose as the bus faded into the distance.
Alone.
He was alone.
Aside
from a trip to Canada, Kusho had never left the United States. He had slept
each night beside his father. Had every care attended to by his mother.
Was best friends with his two sisters. Now he was among strangers in a
remote corner of southern India, a solitary American adrift in a sea of
1,500 Tibetan-speaking monks. Many were refugees, and if he understood
their language, he would have heard harrowing tales of how they fled on
foot through the vengeful Himalayas to escape Chinese oppression.
But
he could not speak Tibetan. He could not understand the conversations that
swirled around him in the dining rooms. He could not understand the banter
in the courtyards. He could not understand the daily debates between learned
monks or even the casual conversations of his roommates. The few people
who spoke English were many years his senior. He had no one to relate to
as a peer, as a friend, to whom he could confess the aches of his heart.
It was lonely, isolating, disconcerting.
The
comforts of home - of everything familiar - were gone.
His
house with a view of the hills had been replaced by a four-story, concrete-block
building. The plush carpeting was replaced with cold concrete. His bathroom,
with an Indian-style hole in the floor. His shower, with a cold-water tap.
His bedroom, once a private sanctuary, was now a small chamber in medicinal
aqua-green packed with three beds. His roommates were two men more than
twice his age. They knew nothing of Nintendo games or cable TV or body-boarding
or hip-hop, his favorite music.
After
the schedule at Aliso Viejo Middle School, days at the monastery were extraordinarily
long and exceptionally rigid. The clang of a bell woke him at 5 a.m. Prayers
lasted for hours, followed by breakfast and four hours of intense, one-on-one
classes. Lunch, at 12:30, provided strength for four more hours of private
teachings in the afternoon, and a light dinner fortified for lectures on
Buddhist philosophy or debate that lasted until 9 p.m. After that, he collapsed
into bed, exhausted. Monday was the only day off.
The
food did not agree with him. The boy raised on tacos, pizza and his mother's
homemade rice noodles was now surviving on vegetables, rice and thin soup.
Breakfast was identical almost every day. As was lunch. And dinner. The
monotony was by design: Food is a physical necessity whose sole purpose
is to keep the body strong enough to enable the mind to "realize the Way"
- follow the path to enlightenment. Pungent spices were to be avoided:
garlic, if eaten cooked, was said to increase sexual desire; if eaten raw,
to increase anger. Meat was a rarity; in addition to being expensive, the
Buddhists did not want to cause any unnecessary pain to animals.
Water
took its toll on him as well. India's unfamiliar microbes ravaged his digestive
system, leaving him ill and weak for months. He felt lethargic and tired.
The chubby boy who entered the monastery was bony within a year.
And
the weather was extremely uncomfortable. The heat of southern India was
as sweltering and soggy as a dragon's mouth. In May, before the monsoon
season, temperatures often soared past 105 degrees, and the humidity was
stifling. It was exhausting even to move. There were, of course, no air
conditioners.
Some
boys befriended him until they learned he was American. Then they shunned
him. By phone, his mother tried to comfort him, saying it didn't matter,
some people are like that, you can't expect anyone to be perfect.
It
felt like prison. The severity of monastic discipline stunned him. He was
under enormous pressure to do well and to behave with a composure far beyond
his 13 years. In addition to being the first American ever admitted to
the monastery, Kusho entered the ranks of the rarefied when he was accepted
as a pupil by master Lati Rinpoche, spiritual assistant to His Holiness,
the 14th Dalai Lama. It was an exceptional opportunity, like being admitted
into Harvard and getting to study with the most distinguished professor.
Lati Rinpoche specialized in teaching the reincarnations of the most learned
lamas, instantly setting expectations for Kusho enormously high.
Such
opportunity came at a price. Lati Rinpoche's pupils did not have the freedom
other monks had because everything they did or said reflected on him. Rarely
were they allowed to venture outside. Childhood pastimes - running, yelling,
playing - were forbidden. Kusho was under constant supervision by older
monks. "You're under house arrest," other monks often said.
Punishment
for rule-breakers was severe. Each monastery had a disciplinarian called
an "iron club" lama, who was responsible for maintaining order. Monks who
appeared to nod off during prayers or classes were beaten with wooden prayer
beads or switches for what was said to be their own good. It didn't matter
if the offending monks were young or old; if they broke the rules, they
met the same fate. Kusho cringed as a monk he knew was beaten in front
of him for mischievousness; the sights and sounds of it haunted him. He
felt terrible for the boy every time he saw him.
It
was so hard to make friends. He worked hard to fit in and avoid the whip.
At home, he was never required to do chores and was similarly excused from
manual labor at Gaden. But he loathed the idea of standing out any more
than he already did. He learned to sweep with a broom that looked like
a horse's tail. Learned to make butter tea and serve his teachers. Learned
to cook their food, even though he had never made a meal for himself, and
to clear away and wash their plates.
At
night, in his small room, Kusho ached for his family. Memories took on
a dreamy patina: His big sister Connie's evening invasions of his room
were not annoying, but endearing. His family's dinnertime recitations of
events at the dentist's office or school were not mundane, but riveting.
He wished he could taste his mother's homemade soups and longed to tell
his sisters about all the crazy things he had seen. He loved them and missed
them terribly.
The
spiritual goal of Buddhism is to eliminate this type of intense attachment
and thus relieve suffering. Kusho wished he were that strong. But often
that first year, he cried, straining to be quiet so he wouldn't disturb
his roommates.
He
called his parents every other week but never let on. "Everything's fine,"
he would tell his mother. "Don't worry about me."
SCHOOL
DAZE
And
so began Kusho's pursuit of the elusive geshe degree in an educational
system founded before Galileo discovered that the planets orbit the sun.
While
his classmates back in the United States were measuring the degrees in
an angle, reading "The Pearl" and studying cell functions, Kusho's curriculum
looked like this: the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajraparamita), seven years
of study. T | 
KUSHO:
NHÀ SƯ TRẺ VIỆT NAM
