American Buddhist Net

THIMPHU: Few Bhutanese seem to realise the great loss of Konchogsüm lhakhang, which was destroyed by fire on the afternoon of 10 February, 2010, and even fewer may have lingering pictures of this small temple. In spite of its significance, it was not an icon like Taktsang or Kurje temples. Yet, it was a small, beautiful, well designed and, above all, a very old and historically important temple in Bhutan. I always loved it for its aesthetics, antiquity and lack of opulence.

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KATHMANDU, Nepal (CDN) — Thrust from their homes in Bhutan after Buddhist rulers embarked on an ethnic and religious purge, Christian refugees in Nepal face hostilities from Hindus and others.

In Sunsari district in southeastern Nepal, a country that is more than 80 percent Hindu, residents from the uneducated segments of society are especially apt to attack Christians, said Purna Kumal, district coordinator for Awana Clubs International, which runs 41 clubs in refugee camps to educate girls about the Bible.

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9 February, 2010 - The government of India yesterday donated more than 100 books to the national library in Thimphu.

The books, most of them on Buddhism and related to Buddhist philosophy, were handed over by the Indian ambassador to Bhutan, Pavan K Verma. At a simple handing over ceremony, the home minister, Lyonpo Minjur Dorji said that the books would not only help to realise the ministry’s objectives to collect and enhance holdings, but also immensely benefit students, scholars, teachers, authors and journalists.

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1 February, 2010 - Every year, thousands of yogis, masters, scholars and practitioners of the Drukpa Kagyu religion from all over the world gather at Kathmandu, Nepal for their annual Drukpa council (ADC) to share ideas and strengthen relationships within the lineage and exchange the richness of its spiritual legacy.

It is the worldís largest assembly of masters of the Drukpa Kaguy lineage.

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28 January, 2010 - Not long ago, as darkness fell, children huddled around the fireside to listen to family elders tell fascinating stories that have traveled generations.

Today, this oral tradition is quickly being overwhelmed by images and sounds from television that leaves little to the imagination of the passive viewer.

But it’s still possible to listen to folklore, minus the flickering light of the fireside, on a computer.

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THIMPHU, Bhutan (Compass Direct News) – In this distant and isolated nation in the eastern Himalayas, known as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” almost everything looks uniformly Buddhist.

Most men and women in the landlocked country between India and China wear their national dress, and all the buildings – with their sloping walls, trefoil-shaped windows and pitched roofs – look alike, as if they were Buddhist monasteries.

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5 January, 2010 - After repeated attempts, the small Trashigang town will finally be able to empty its streets of stray dogs with the construction of a dog shelter completed recently.

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The reclusive Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is to have its first railway after its newly crowned monarch finalised a plan with India to build an 11-mile (18km) link between the two countries.

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It is a sign of the times for Bhutan that a US$9 million McKinsey consultancy report to find ways to accelerate Bhutan’s economic growth has sparked soul-searching among this isolated and mostly conservative people.

For this is a nation famed for being guided by Gross National Happiness (GNH), an economic measurement that takes into account indicators ignored by conventional GDP, from recreational time, to forest cover and emotions like anger and envy.

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24 November, 2009 - His Eminence Dzongsar Jamyang Khentse Rinpoche gave teachings in English on ‘wisdom’ to about 400 Bhutanese devotees in Thimphu from November 20-22.

Wisdom is the 9th chapter of the Mahayana Buddhist text, Jangchub Sempai Chenjug (Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life). The text was written in Sanskrit verse by Gyalshey Zhiwala (Shantideva), a Buddhist monk at Nalanda university in India around 700 A.D.

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A few years ago when the Fourth King of Bhutan voluntarily stepped down to make way for democracy, there was a spate of articles in the media about Bhutan. Almost all these articles – with a few exceptions – could be grouped into two camps: one glorified Bhutan as the last Shangri-la, the others claimed that it practiced ethnic cleansing.

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16 November, 2009 - Consecration of the 169-foot bronze statue of Buddha Dordenma, Vajra Throne Buddha, being constructed at Kuensel Phodrang in Changbangdu, overlooking the capital city, will be completed by October next year, said one of the main sponsors, Wong Kiam Seng.

Wong Kiam Seng, who is in the country, along with other sponsors from Hongkong and Singapore, said, “We’re funding it because of our compassion for Buddhism,” adding that they are happy with the progress of the project.

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KATHMANDU: Seventeen years ago, Narad Muni Sanyasi was forced to flee his native Bhutan in the middle of the night, leaving his home and all his possessions behind.

Sanyasi was one of more than 100,000 Bhutanese who fled the country when ethnic tensions flared in the early 1990s and who ended up in eastern Nepal, where they have lived ever since in camps run by the UN refugee agency.

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3 October, 2009 - In the 15th century, a Buddhist saint, Drubthob Thangtong Gyalpo, came to Bhutan and built eight iron-chain bridges across the country. What he erected were more than just bridges. For the community, it was a relic, the masterpiece of a saint, who became popularly known as Drubthob Chakzampa (Iron Chain Master).

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Nearly every immigrant group in New York City has a neighborhood, or at least a street, to call its own. But for refugees from the tiny South Asian nation of Bhutan, the closest thing to a home base is a single building in the Bronx — a red-brick five-story walk-up, with a weed-choked front courtyard and grimy staircases.

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THIMPU: In an effort to bridge the gap between Bhutanese youth and the understanding of Buddhism, a prominent Rinpoche interacted with school students at a talk in Thimphu yesterday and answered an unexpectedly long list of questions on Buddhism.

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NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A strong earthquake rocked Bhutan on Monday, blocking access roads in the mountainous Asian kingdom and killing at least eight people, the country's home minister told CNN.

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19 September, 2009 - The 9th Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) Conference, that ended yesterday, has made a series of recommendations to promote and simplify the national language so that people not only speak it but also find it easier to read and write it.

In total, the 75 experts and members attending the conference made 62 recommendations ranging for simplifying the language, making the curriculum uniform and interesting to future policies and plans.

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Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan

Delhi (AsiaNews) – Bhutan’s democratisation is all for show; it exists only “on paper” and is of little relevance to the population, this according to Karma Duptho, secretary of the Druk National Congress (DNC), a Bhutanese political movement operating in exile. He has harsh words for the Bhutan government on a number of issues, from Nepali refugees to the free press, from an independent judiciary to respect for human rights and religious freedom, issues that have not yet found a solution in the small mountain kingdom in the Himalayas, caught between China and India.

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The second film from Khyentse Norbu (The Cup), and the first film ever to be shot in beautiful Bhutan (no irony), tells of a lowly government official who, posted in a remote mountain village, wants desperately to be elsewhere: "There's nothing here, no movies, no restaurants, and most of all, no cool girls." A narrow window of opportunity opens on his dream of going to America, and he moves to squeeze through it with his spotless white athletic shoes, his blue suitcase, and his trusty boombox and tapes ("Gotta go, gotta get out, gotta get outta here!"), but he misses the one-a-day bus and is stranded on the road in the company of a shrivelled old apple peddler and a Buddhist monk.

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THIMPHU, Bhutan (Reuters) - Bhutan has warned its citizens over cutting down thousands of young trees every year to make prayer flags, a threat to the tiny kingdom's lush scenery and the government's duty to bring "Gross National Happiness".

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When sentiment clashes with common sense, something’s got to give Environment : Part III September, 2009

Bhutan’s verdant forests, whose coverage the Constitution mandates should not be less than 60 percent for all time to come, is under tremendous pressure from the soaring demand for prayer flags that dot the country’s hills and valleys.

Although no studies have been carried out on the impact on the forest by felling trees for flag posts, statistics with the department of forest show that thousands of trees are felled every year to meet this demand.

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Bhutan has made its people's happiness a national priority. But a spate of suicides suggests it is struggling to cope with the modern world

For the emergency department of Bhutan's largest hospital, last Tuesday was a pressing day. In the space of a few hours six people were rushed in, all suspected of having tried to commit suicide.

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As refugees depart for U.S., camps in Nepal foster nascent resistance

THIMPHU, Bhutan--The impressive necklace of cliff-perched fortresses that dot this Himalayan nation's mountainous perimeter are a testimony to Bhutan's long-standing effort to keep out foreigners.

In the 1980s, however, the tiny Buddhist nation of just 600,000, sandwiched between the People's Republic of China and India, found itself with what it considered to be a foreigner problem.

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The socio-economic development paradigm of gross national happiness (GNH) is suitable for a country like Japan, said Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley, at a conference in Fukuoka, Japan.

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Dual role of teacher-counsellor has to be done away with

13 August, 2009 There is a vast unmet need for counselling in Bhutan, which far exceeds current capacity, says a report compiled by Naropa university in the USA. The study was conducted earlier this year by a psychologist from the American “Buddhist inspired” university.

The report states that the current teacher-counsellor model prevalent in Bhutanese schools is not adequate, especially in providing personal counselling services, which address, for instance, emotional issues.

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Ganga Chamlagai was just 8 years old when his family and thousands of other Nepali-speaking people were expelled from their native Bhutan in the early 1990s.

The ruling monarchy had declared a nationalist society in the small Asian country tucked between China and India. And Chamlagai's people, the Lhotsampas — an ethnic group that settled in the southern parts of Bhutan in the late 1800s — became the target of racist policies. New rules banned them from speaking their language and practicing their Hindu religion.

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For almost four minutes Bhutan will bear witness to a cosmic wonder of the world

21 July, 2009: A few hours after the sun comes up tomorrow, darkness will descend, temperatures will drop and, for about four minutes, it will feel like night, even stars may be visible, as the moon completely eclipses the sun.

...The total solar eclipse tomorrow corresponds to 30th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar (nam gang). The director of the National Museum in Paro, Khenpo Phuntshok Tashi, in an article said that the period provides a “rare and special opportunity for Buddhist lamas to practice and dedicate positive blessings for the world through meditation, recitation, and performance of pujas”.

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1 July, 2009 - With an increasing incidence of human-wildlife conflict, the first question hour session of the third National Assembly discussed this old and protracted issue again.

Member of parliament (MP) from Sibsoo constituency in Samtse, Durga Prasad Chhetri, informed the house how an elephant had killed a 75-year-old woman in Sibsoo on Monday. Also, an elephant destroyed a man’s house on the same night in Hangey village.

...Home minister, Lyonpo Minjur Dorji, said that the ministry did not have a budget set aside for compensation and, on the other hand, as a Buddhist nation, wild animals could not be killed in retaliation or to prevent attack.

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The authorities in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan say that they are increasingly worried about a recent spate of suicides.

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