New Age Namtars: Tibetan Autobiographies in English

Abstract

In the fall of 1995, I arranged a visit of Tibetan monks to Kenyon College, where I was teaching at the time. Like many such traveling groups, the monks of Drepung Loseling monastery offered American audiences sounds of their famous overtone chanting, glimpses of folk and religious dances, and a sample of Gelukpa forms of philosophical debate. Four monks stayed with my family for several nights. Their visit also happened to coincide with the playoff games for the World Series, and the Cleveland team my husband T. S. and I were cheering for was in the running. After the monks’ performance of “Sacred Music, Sacred Dance” before an admiring crowd, the monks,T. S. and I settled in front of the TV for the game. None of the monks knew the rules of baseball, and they were eager to learn. Only one of them, Geshe Damdul, was fluent in English, so with him as translator and my little knowledge of Tibetan, T. S. and I set out to explain the baseball’s intricacies. The monks were familiar with cricket and soccer, so many comparisons were made among those games. And they learned fast: what a “ball” is; why a foul tip is not a third strike; why you can run past first base after a hit but cannot overrun second or third. The quiet monk they called “Elvis” because of his grown-out sideburns sat with his legs tucked under him on the couch.