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Clarke Scott is a fully ordained Buddhist monk trained in the Tibetan tradition. A student of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Clarke has received personal instructions—direct one-to-one instructions—on Madhyamaka philosophy and meditation from His Holiness. Recently Clarke moved to Tasmania to pursue a Ph.D in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Tasmania.

Saving Zanskar and Repaying the Kindness of a Truly Compassionate Being

One of the blessings of my visit to India earlier this year was the chance to spend time immersed in Tibetan culture. What I truly believe is a culture of compassion. While there, I gave some lectures on English and computers to several Geshe’s. And became very close to one in particular – Geshe Lobsang Yonten,  pictured right. The photo was taken in Dharamsala, days before I was to leave. I think, if my memory is correct, Geshe-la and I were debating about something related to Tsongkhapa’s view of the ultimate truth and I cracked a joke part way through. Geshe-la thought it was very funny, as you can see. Geshe Lobsang Yonten is a Lharampa Geshe from Zanskar a remote region of Ladakh. But, I am getting ahead of myself, so, let me go back to the start in order to set the focus of this story.

It was the week after I attended the Mind and Life conference held at HH Dalai Lama’s residence. This was about April 2009. I had been hanging out with the Geshe’s, not getting much of my thesis written, but having a lot of fun. I must have eaten something bad because over night I went from feeling normal to the worse kind of sick I had ever experienced. I couldn’t eat or even walk, and I slept for about 18 hours of the day. While the other time was spent in the bathroom. This went on for over a week. Once I surfaced, I became very serious about what went in my body. So, I thought I would ask Geshe-la if it would be possible if I could use his kitchen (when he wasn’t using it of course) to cook for myself. I thought that if I knew what and how the food I was eating had been cooked, I would have a better chance of staying healthy. So, I walked to Geshe-la’s house. He was just arriving home from English class, and I must have had a strange look on my face because he looked at me as you would a sick puppy, and proceeded to tell him about where I had been. Needless to say this was a turning point in my stay in India.

After this, Geshe Yonten looked after me like a mother. Cooking for me, not even allowing me to do the dishes. I had to really push him to let me help. He would cook my breakfast, and dinner. Poor me, I had to cook my own lunch as he was at English class. Yet, he would always check in to make sure I was Okay. He even gave me a set of keys to his house so that I could come and go as I pleased. We also, along with few of the other Geshe’s, would go walking into the surrounding mountains each night, sometimes stopping for tea or Mo-mo’s. Although I never had a brother growing up, this is how I imagined it to be. I got to see the depth of Geshe-la’s kindness and as you probably know, in the Buddhist tradition, we are taught the notion of caring more for others, compared to ourselves. This is something that we aspire to develop and something I have been taught to venerate. Yet, seeing it first hand is truly amazing and totally inspiring. Of course, those with this level of compassion, do not think anything of it. Caring for others is “just what you do!” No bliss and bubbles, just grounded kindness.

Sometimes in life we get a chance to help someone great, do something great.

So when I heard of Geshe-la’s project to educate children from his region of Zanskar (for some reason he chose not to mention it too me while I was in India. I guess he thought I would be too busy to help), I simply had to get involved.

Save Zanskar Project

In 2003, Geshe-la started what was to become the foundation of the Save Zanskar project when he brought 17 of the poorest children from Zanskar to Manali and Dharamsala to be educated. As the parents of these children simply cannot afford to send their children to school, without Save Zanskar, many of them will never see the benefits of an education.

Ultimately, Geshe-la would like to expand this project in order to educate many more children than he can by himself. Thus, the aim of the Save Zanskar project is to promote education, in order to save the distinct culture of this traditionally Tibetan region of northern India.

I have witnessed first hand Geshe-la’s compassion. His natural disposition is to look after others more than he looks after himself. He cared for me as a mother would, taking on the responsibility without thought or concern for himself. These kinds of people are special, and we Westerners, could learn from these examples. To my mind, these actions are the actions of a truly compassionate person – a Bodhisattva.

Freedom from suffering starts with an education.

What Can I Do?

The cost to house, cloth and education each child per year is $430.00 USD. If you would like to help these kids please email more for me information or go to the Save Zanskar website.

Finally, in true Geshe Yonten style, he never mentioned that his project was the focus of a documentary by a leading American based film maker (if you cannot see the video, perhaps because you are reading this via email, click on this link). I have also added some additional photo’s of Geshe-la and the children.

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