The Tem­ple Con­ver­sa­tion at Gangtey Monastery

We fol­low Kar­ma with antic­i­pa­tion as he search­es the tem­ple itself for our con­tact and even­tu­al­ly approach­es a young monk. The monk nods and imme­di­ate­ly begins to set up a small plat­form and lay out floor mats in front of it. Slow­ly it dawns on us that our con­ver­sa­tion is going to take place in the mid­dle of the tem­ple. Here and there, guides are explain­ing the space to their guests, and over the next hour we keep catch­ing curi­ous, furtive glances. Then Dor­ji Lopen Ugyen Son­am comes towards us with a warm smile, takes his seat and, with an invit­ing ges­ture, shows us to our places on the mats. It is with­out doubt the most remark­able ‘meet­ing room’ of all our con­ver­sa­tions so far. If we’d read this scene in a nov­el, we would have thought it was made up.

The day before, we had mar­velled at the fes­ti­val in the court­yard of Gangtey Goen­pa and watched the dancers stride out of the tem­ple. Now we are sit­ting inside it our­selves, drink­ing tea and delight­ed to see our host savour­ing the gifts we brought him as we talk: Mozartkugeln and Appen­zeller Biber­li. He speaks Dzongkha, Kar­ma trans­lates into Eng­lish, and so what we relate here is a para­phrase rather than his exact words.

Let­ting go at the core

His first words con­cern our jour­ney. That we decid­ed to come to Bhutan for our stud­ies is no coin­ci­dence, he says, but the expres­sion of a karmic con­nec­tion. You do not need to know exact­ly what you are look­ing for in order to be on a good path.

He then leads us straight to the essence of Bud­dhism and, with­out our hav­ing asked, gives us his answer to our ques­tions about expec­ta­tions and flex­i­bil­i­ty. Every­thing in life changes. Suf­fer­ing begins where we cling to what is imper­ma­nent and try to hold on to it. Lib­er­a­tion comes when we man­age to stop cling­ing to fleet­ing plea­sures and accept the nat­ur­al flow of change. Who­ev­er under­stands this sees the peo­ple who suf­fer and strug­gle for their suc­cess­es, and feels com­pas­sion for them, for all beings, ani­mals includ­ed. From this inner free­dom from expec­ta­tions, he explains, a kind and patient atti­tude grows. You per­ceive oth­er peo­ple and their con­cerns more clear­ly, neg­a­tive ener­gies dis­ap­pear, and above all you feel your own strength and a deep sense of hap­pi­ness.

He describes in very con­crete terms what this atti­tude looks like in every­day life. Every morn­ing, before the monks unlock the door and go out, they first think of oth­ers, so that they begin the day with exact­ly this mind­set. All the good we do for oth­ers, in thought, word and deed, con­tributes to our own hap­pi­ness.

The same frame­work for all

From here, we delve into life in the monastery. There is no age lim­it for enter­ing; any­one can join of their own free will at any time. From then on, the same con­di­tions apply to every­one. Whether a small boy or an old­er monk, all eat what every­one eats, pray when every­one prays and fol­low the same dai­ly rhythm. The only dis­tinc­tion lies in their edu­ca­tion, which is tai­lored to each individual’s start­ing point and abil­i­ties. The young monks do not return to their par­ents; the old­er monks look after them.

When we ask how busi­ness and Bud­dhism go togeth­er, he answers with ethics: under­stand­ing what is good and what is bad, no cor­rup­tion, no steal­ing. This atti­tude, he says, is passed on by par­ents at home and by teach­ers at school.

GNH, Gele­phu and our book

The monk stands ful­ly behind Gross Nation­al Hap­pi­ness and Gele­phu Mind­ful­ness City. Both, he says, are ini­tia­tives of the King, and he regards the Fourth King, who found­ed GNH, as an ema­na­tion of the Bud­dha of Com­pas­sion. These projects help the peo­ple and the coun­try; they reflect val­ues that are deeply root­ed in fam­i­lies, and so hap­pi­ness will mul­ti­ply. Gele­phu will suc­ceed, he says, because it car­ries Bud­dhism and GNH along with it.

He then wants to know how we will talk about GNH and Gele­phu once we are back home. We tell him about our book, about the par­al­lels we see, and that our con­ver­sa­tions in Bhutan have above all con­firmed our think­ing and added sub­tle nuances to it.

After ask­ing whether we will come back to Bhutan, he leaves us with a per­son­al mes­sage: Write your book with­out expec­ta­tions, nei­ther of mon­ey nor of fame. Let it find its own way, and when obsta­cles arise, over­come them. Then it will reach those it can help. When we explain the moti­va­tion behind our book, he says there is noth­ing greater than that. And with this, the con­ver­sa­tion comes full cir­cle.

Final­ly, he sur­pris­es us by sug­gest­ing that we take a pho­to with him in the tem­ple. Some­thing that is nor­mal­ly not per­mit­ted thus becomes a love­ly ges­ture from our host for the road ahead.

What organ­i­sa­tions can learn from this

A monastery is not an organ­i­sa­tion like any oth­er, and much of what we heard is deeply root­ed in Bud­dhist belief. What can be trans­ferred is not the teach­ings them­selves, but the ques­tions they raise. These are our learn­ings from this con­ver­sa­tion:

It is not striv­ing that is the prob­lem, but cling­ing. Goals and ambi­tion are part of every organ­i­sa­tion. Dif­fi­cul­ties arise where we cling to growth, sta­tus or a par­tic­u­lar out­come. Where does striv­ing turn into greed for us, and how would we notice?

Stay­ing open to what emerges. How much clar­i­ty about goals does change need? Too nar­row a pic­ture of the out­come can pre­vent some­thing bet­ter from emerg­ing. Open­ness does not mean arbi­trari­ness, but the will­ing­ness to let go of one’s own pic­ture when the path demands it.

The inten­tion before the door. The monks think of oth­ers before they open the door. With what inten­tion do we begin the work­ing day, go into a meet­ing, enter a dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion? Lead­er­ship begins before the first action.

Think­ing, speak­ing and act­ing in har­mo­ny. What the monk describes as thought, word and deed, we call integri­ty, one of the three qual­i­ties of good lead­er­ship that Lhatu Lhatu at the GNH Cen­tre also high­light­ed. A sim­ple touch­stone for organ­i­sa­tions: do our val­ues, our mis­sion state­ment, our atti­tude and the way we put them into prac­tice fit togeth­er?

The same frame­work, dif­fer­ent guid­ance. In the monastery, the same con­di­tions apply to every­one, but guid­ance is tai­lored to each person’s stage of devel­op­ment, and the expe­ri­enced take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the younger ones. While an entire gen­er­a­tion is miss­ing in many Bhutanese offices, here the chain is intact. How con­scious­ly do we guide the younger ones in our organ­i­sa­tions, and who feels respon­si­ble for doing so?

Val­ues grow in every­day life. The atti­tude the monk speaks of is passed on at home and at school, not through guid­ing prin­ci­ples on paper. This con­firms what we expe­ri­enced at the Loden Foun­da­tion: val­ues take shape through role mod­els, in every­day inter­ac­tion and in the way we wel­come new peo­ple into our midst.

With what inten­tion do we open the door each morn­ing – and what are we still hold­ing on to, when it is long past time to let go?