In 2006, Buddhist monk Lobsang Phuntsok felt called to leave a life as a spiritual teacher in the US (Boston) and return to the region of his birth to try and rescue children from suffering. Since then he has created a unique community in the foothills of the Himalayas called Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for ‘The Garden of Love and Compassion'), which provides a permanent home for about 90 orphaned or abandoned children all learning to live compassionately.
Lobsang has channeled his own unhappy childhood into an opportunity for these ‘uninvited guests of the universe’ to avoid a similar fate. Driven by a longing to experience being part of a family, he has become for the children at Jhamtse Gatsal something he never had – a father.
They called him ‘daddy’.
Perched on a remote mountaintop and surrounded by poverty, today the community is stretched beyond capacity and Lobsang faces the heartbreaking task of weighing the requests he receives for new kids to join. During the film ‘Tashi And The Monk’, a film made by British filmmaker Andrew Hinton and German filmmaker Johnny Burke, he is confronted by the very real consequences of his decisions:
a local eleven-year-old boy who he turned down two years ago for a place in the community commits suicide. In a nearby village another young boy’s father dies suddenly and his family, unable to cope, pleads with Lobsang to take him in. Within the community he is challenged by concerns from staff that any further expansion will compromise their ability to help the kids they already have.
Perreault Magazine - 24 -
TASHI AND THE
MONK
the POWER of
COMPASSION
BY BRIGITTE PERREAULT