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ABSTRACT
Despite exposure to political violence, many Tibetans in the diaspora avoid framing past experience in terms of trauma. Instead, they deploy shared cultural understandings often infused with Buddhist doctrine, to reframe loss, violence and displacement. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic research in Dharamsala, India conducted in the Tibetan language, this article investigates how Tibetans utilise everyday cultural wisdom framed by lojong (mind-training) teachings to cope with adversity. Here, compassion practices serve to orient members of the diaspora towards recovery even, and perhaps, especially, when they are struggling. In this article, I argue that this cultural form of resilience is better conceived of as a practice of agency than a mental health practice, despite a global interest in adapting meditation and mindfulness for use in clinical settings. This study also challenges theory on structural violence and social suffering, which tends to overemphasise victimhood, bypassing the ordinary (and extraordinary) ways that people find agency.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this research comes a Lemelson Society for Psychological Anthropology Award, Fulbright, SYLFF, and the Mellon Foundation. Special thanks to my Tibetan research assistant who will not be named to protect his identity, and to my friends and neighbours in Dharamsala for graciously sharing their stories.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. A pseudonym, as with all names herein.
2. A pseudonym.
3. Part of traditional vinaya vows stipulate a monastic should not consume intoxicants.
4. Breaking samaya is to go against one’s root lama or teacher.
5. The ‘eight worldy concerns’ (Tib: jig rten chos brgyad) are related to avoiding pain, criticism, and blame, and seeking out fortune, praise, and pleasure.
6. Scholars including Holly Gayley (Citation2016) and Carole McGranahan (Citation2010) have shown how traditional Buddhist values as ‘non-violence’ become increasingly prominent in framing Tibetan resistance discourse within global politics.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sara E. Lewis
Sara E. Lewis is the Elisabeth Luce Moore Postdoctoral Fellow in religion, medicine in healing in the Department of Religion at Wellesley College. She is an anthropologist of religion and medicine with a geographic specialisation in Tibet and South Asia.