Human Values Workshop

Darla school staff attended Human Values Workshop in Gedu for three days beginning from 13-15^th of August. I am reproducing some important topics that the workshop covered during these three days. When there was a feedback session, everyone said how changed everyone was at the end of the workshop. In the beginning, the content was similar to our eight-fold paths, and it actually was derived from there.

The session starts with this proposal, an ambiguous one:

“Whatever is said is a Proposal (Do not assume it to be true/false)

Verify it on Your Own Right – on the basis of your Natural Acceptance “

It also defines the role of education.

“The role of education is to facilitate the development of the competence to live with Definite Human Conduct.”

And transformation is equal to development as far as the workshop. This is the diagrammatic summary of human values.

Transformation = Development

Right Understanding is all we need

And Preconditioning leads to many undesirable activities

 

The self and body...i like this part the most. Everything submerges in the space. Where does the self go from the space? 

Being Bad Boys

Boys are boys. Girls are girls. Nicely said.  Boys will remain boys, be in Bhutan, India, Arab countries, Africa, and whichever community that they belong to, boys are always boys.  There are no bars, no religions, no conformities when it comes to doing something. They are damned bad birds. They sleep the whole day and enjoy the whole night. They talk about sex and the only sex, no love, no affection of sorts. They watch ridiculous movies. They play loud music. They never go to class. They never wash dishes, etc and etc.

Very recently, a group of boys rented the upper floor flat. Four boys stayed there in three BHK. And it is very much the same with them. The same behavior, the same loud music, the same. They sometimes throw buckets of water down on the staircases. Crazy. Fully maniacs are those boys, and because of these, I feel boys are different species. They have no such thing as forbearance. They are animals sometimes. They have all qualities of donkeys, monkeys, horses, pigs.

In my class, we have one very mannered, up-to-date, perfectly well-disciplined boy, a kind of very studious boy. He was more than me. But when time ran, he has changed. We told him that he behaved like a girl. He changed now. He has now become crazier than any other fellow mates from the class. He bunks from the class, sleeps in the class, and fights with teachers. He has simply become a hopeless, mannerless person. He simply doesn’t have a future, I feel. In the distant land, there was a king. He wanted to find out where the language comes from. He worked for many many years. The crazy king asked all his ministries to do some research about it. He concluded and laughed himself declaring, “Language comes from the society.” So, it’s society-made. Boys aren’t made by society, I guess. They are borne tough and crazy by nature. And the polarity of boys is girls. Bet it, some girls are not that polar. They, however, are equally crazy or quite a lot than boys. Despite this, I do have not much knowledge of ducky’s world. We are in drake’s world.

I have encountered many boys belonging to different sets of religious groups. From the surface, these boys would look religiously inclined and would look at everything forbade by moral and ethical values or conformities of the society. They are not. They say something and do the opposite right away. For example, Muslims are so much bounded by a confirmed set of beliefs that they are not allowed to make any kind of adultery. But they do. I have seen, they drink, make girlfriends, sleep like pigs, and hardly ever prays. Because they are boys.

Me, I am a middle person, a kind of GNH follower. Not a fanatic in everything, and not so indifferent. I am on my way; doing all to assimilate and conform in life. That’s me.

Three Cunning Men

This is a very humorous short story told by my mother when I was a kid. I think many of us have heard it before. Though the story is very popular, I have not seen any written record in any language. I have briefly and roughly reproduced the story here.

Three men: A threadlike neck, a scrawny chest, and a lanky leg decided to go for a picnic. They clear-cut that no one should know about their secret plan for the picnic.

So, one day, they went inside a big forest.

Lunch soon was made ready by all of them. It appeared very luscious and every one of them was keen to taste it first.

“Let me see if the salt is all right,” thus voiced Threadlike neck. The Threadlike neck frisked for a large portion of meat and gulped, but rather a bone. The bone got stuck in his threadlike throat, and soon succumbed to death.

The next man, Scrawny chest called out to his friend, “Now, only, two of us are here to eat this tasty quantity,” and he slapped his hand hard and fast on his chest, and his scrawny ribs splintered and he also soon die.

Now the third man, the Lanky leg, discerning he was the only one to eat. Happiness knew no bound. He jumped and pranced shouting, “Me, only me.” But his lanky leg couldn’t withstand his dancing, broke and die.

Thus, the story of three cunning men’s meals was left to birds and animals in the forest.

The story teaches us a good many lessons. One such is below:

Braggart, enviousness, and meanness are garbage of foolish people.

 

Uniforms to Help Financial Crunch

In this what is called the financial crunch or crisis, one must be ever careful of the cash transaction. Money has become tight now. One must know what to buy. The boiling desires of want one has been reduced with the economic inflation in the country. With no increase in salary and slashing the government budget in all developmental activities, money has become really hard to get now. The real problem is rupee shortage against our Ngultrum. The government report shows a scary picture of taking some five or more years to recover from this financial crunch. Millions of debt are still to be cleared and on the other hand, millions of our paper are floated in bordering towns, now useless. I was told by one storeman in Jaigion that these papers were said to be eaten by rats inside their cupboards. That’s it. I don’t really understand. Now the cost of everything has skyrocketed. On the other hand, millions of the rupee are earned every day from power export.  It is difficult to comprehend the economic situation now.

At this juncture, some schools in Bhutan have come up with a good idea to help themselves, and to teach our people how awfully bad it is to spend our money across the border- buying more than what we need. Teachers' dress have widely become popular in schools for instance. Darla MSS is the living example; teachers have come up with wearing a dress during their working hours. Excellent! It helps; it helps not only individually but also financially. It helps one’s family, it helps society, and it helps the government. The help may be a tip of an iceberg, but it still makes difference. Our ladies workers have kiras comp. anywhere. They tend to buy very expensive kiras and tegos almost every month to show off to their friends. It is expensive. To curb these trends and not to have many kiras useless as one useful dress, this uniform, I think is a good idea. But there are again personal rights, freedom to choose, freedom to wear but that is another side of the coin. Our male workers are done with five or six ghos in a year, and they don’t need to dress as such. They have dresses already. Their ash-white or ash-black or blue ghos are enough. There is one Lopen in Darla, who always wears ash-white gho a whole year-round. That is too much. And there was one southern Bhutanese (my) math teacher in Jigme Sherubling HS, in Khaling who had just one whit-ash gho for two years. I remained there for only two years, I didn’t expect he would have continued with that one gho only, but I was really struck when I saw the school magazine of one of the schools (name withheld), seated in the middle with his old white-ash gho, that man has become principal! He is a sucking calculating man, I guess. He really understands plus and minus.

Hyped-up, I counted my ghos. I breathed; I have not been a real jerk on ghos. Within eight years of my earning, I have 16 ghos staffed inside the cupboard’s shelf. It barely filled the whole step of the shelf no. 1. Not so much I thought poor, I have given many old ghos to my people. I remember clearly, I have given almost seven or more of now. I am not a gho freak. I have only two very expensive ghos; one Lungserma, given by my parents, and Sershog gho forcefully bought to me by my wife. These two expensive ghos are staved and bedded inside the suitcase. I hope they wouldn’t lay eggs and double. The last time she gave a look at them, there were some bugs creeping in-between. Soon, they will make a home out of my precious, but useless ghos. Like all men, my favorite ghos are plain ash-blue, ash-white ghos made from across the borders. I have five or more ghos in these colors and I am afraid that some people may feel that I have learned from my math teacher of Khaling.

Happiness is the Gift of Life

We celebrated International Happiness Day on 20^th March. To mark this, I have a very short story told by my mother. I have briefed it here: In one urban center, let's say, Thimphu, there lived two boys; one was from a rich family and the other from a poor family. One common thing they had was undying friendship, they were friends. Rich had everything, poor nothing, except his kind parents and two brothers. Likewise, the rich boy had parents and three brothers.

One day the poor boy visited the rich boy’s house, and he saw that the rich boy’s family was not very happy. Each member did their own work. Brother busied himself with computer- playing games. Mother was playing card games with a group of men and other children were fighting, and the father was quarreling with mother. The house was not clean. The poor boy was not even asked to sit. Although they had everything, they didn’t have happiness. The house was in mess. When the poor boy came back, he was heavy-hearted, he learned one thing, and although he had nothing in his home he had happiness. His family stayed happily. They shared everything together. The house was filled with care and love. It was a cleaned house. It was a happy family and a happy home. The poor boy understood one thing then, that happiness was the gift in life, given by god to them. And there was nothing better than happiness in life.

Kidnapping is a Huge Business in Sarpang

No wonder, everything happens for money. One would sell one’s father, mother, brother, sister…etc for money. One would kill, murder, and transform one’s beliefs for money. Never wonder, one could do everything under the sun, just for money. Because of all these things, I have begun to lose trust and I am a tough guy to take into consideration. I seldom believe anybody easily-to let the cat out of the bag. And it’s very hard to count on people like that sometimes. Anyways, people have become evil now. There is an old Buddhist saying, it says that the world does not change, it’s the people who change. Time tells it so.

Sarpang kidnapped cases have become a little curious. Within a short span of time - three months, four kidnapped were executed. And it was executed very badly. It was like casual, easy kidnapped. A taxi driver was dragged from the broad road for more than three weeks. An old man like my father, 60 years or more was beaten and pulled out in the evening from his house for another three weeks. And very recently, a student in the bar was kidnapped in broad daylight in Sarpang town. The good thing was everyone saw the shot, but nobody even dared to fart. And police…everyone knows, police work is to chase the dogs, during this student kidnapped time, police may have been snoring with their unloaded guns pointed towards their two big eggs.

Not so much to worry about. The deals will be on very soon and you get the people back, though mentally tortured and sickness that would exhaust throughout the life. The ransom price tag for that taxi driver was a bit lower than that old man. And I think there will be a hike in price for that boy. There is no fixed price as such. Inflection and deflection keep on going. The last price for an old man was Nu. 5,00000/- Five lakhs is so much for a poor student now. I hope our government negotiates the price tag and brings the boy back safe home.

But seriously, border areas have become unsafe places to live in. Commodities may come cheap but one has to risk life to live. Sarpang, P/ling, Samtse, S/jongkhar, Ngalam, that fall bordering India have become dangerous places to live in. People have no mind of peace; nobody knows who the next victim is. Some media reports show how worried people are about their security. The last time, some officials from Assam visited Sarpang and have promised that such an incident wouldn’t be repeated. Despite this assurance, it goes on very violently. How ashamed is it? Can we believe people now? I bet you, don’t believe it so easily.

Now, stop playing blame games. Every one of us must be alert. Carry patang or knife inside your gho. Or learn taekwondo or martial arts. Be in groups of trusted people. Travel together with known people. Of all, our government must do something very quickly. That something could be a higher and tight security alert, secret agents in different places, and tight border security.

Our border with India is very porous that makes it easy to escape many goondas after creating enough problems inside. Even a single mosquito shouldn’t pass from the borders. But as per the police, the apprehended lists last time, some mosquitoes are already in our land. They have made a partnership kind of business with Indian counterparts. Business is business after all. The sons of the kingdom of Bhutan want to abduct their own people. There is a Dzongkha saying, “Zayang bangchung nang za, awa tang yang bangchung nang tang.” The rough adaptation could be, “Eat from the plate and defecate on the same plate.” So we are here, you don’t have to go far in search of the soul, the soul is very much in you. The deadliest enemy comes from the most knowest and friendliest people. Bhutan, it’s our own people, and it’s a real shame for all of us. We believe in good; our farmers are humble, happy, we believe each other. But what makes them turn their world, I think it’s money. Don’t crave too much. We are GNH country. No wonder.