With UNDP in Bhutan

I just wrote this piece for the UNAC blog to talk about my experience here in Bhutan, it might be of some interest if you are interested in the work I am doing:
I write this from the tropical Southern lowlands of Bhutan, literally looking across the border to India.  The town is Phuentsholing, and I am wrapping up a 12-day trip around this beautiful and stunningly diverse country (geographically that is, while in fact it is surprisingly homogeneous culturally).  I have been travelling with 2 UN colleagues from the office we work in, in the capital Thimphu, as well as a crew from the BBS (Bhutan Broadcasting Service).

BBS Coverage of Post-2015 Consultations

We have been going around the country doing consultations towards Bhutan’s contribution to Post-2015/Millennium Development Goal planning.  With the UN having decided that they need more input from the grassroots, from people on the ground, from rural people, women, youth, and those whose voices too often go unheard, Bhutan was selected as one country where consultations would take place to listen to what these voices have to say.  As part of my Communications junior professional consultancy here, arranged through UNAC, I have had the opportunity to travel with this television crew to cover their filming of consultations that will later be aired on BBS, which are in the format of dialogues with local leaders and development stakeholders.  We have also had the pleasure of traipsing through rural areas trying to find people who would speak with us and give us their views about where they think Bhutan should be headed with its development agenda, as well as how Bhutan might be able to help shape the international development dialogue.

Consultations in Bhutan's rural areas

Bhutan is a small country with a tiny population, but it has come to play a very important role in this dialogue in recent times.  Outside of the country, when many people hear about Bhutan, the country is virtually synonymous with its unique development paradigm, Gross National Happiness.  Last year, Bhutan convened an international meeting of experts at UN headquarters in New York to discuss what truly holistic and inclusive development looks like, and to begin to explore how a new development paradigm, could be formulated.  A follow-up to this meeting was held here in Bhutan at the beginning of this year, and I was able to attend this high-level meeting of this International Expert Working Group (IEWG) as an observer for UNDP, hear the thoughts of luminaries such as David Suzuki on this matter, and cover this meeting for our website and Facebook page (UNDP Bhutan).  The Group aims to present a report to the UN General Assembly later this year which will evaluate the potential for Happiness, or in this case the somewhat equivalent term ‘well-being,’ as an alternative to the MDGs, and as a more holistic and multi-dimensional definition and aim for the global development agenda beyond 2015.

Hawk's eye view over Bhutan's development

As I head back to Thimphu in a few days, I am contemplating the report which I will write which looks to the Post-2015 consultations that I have been attending, thinking about how the Bhutanese Voice can be made heard on the international stage, as well as how important Happiness indeed is to us all.  The report I have been tasked with, and for which I have much support from my wonderful colleagues here, may be submitted as part of Bhutan’s presentation to the UN later this year, of the country’s suggestions as to how the future of global development should look, and what it should aim for.  I am amazed at the substance of this task, and that I am playing such a role in my time here as a JPC.  And I am thankful to UNAC for providing me with the opportunity to be living in this special place and contributing in such a way, not just to Bhutan, but potentially even to the world beyond it.

The Alchemy of Happiness

God has sent on Earth a hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets to teach men the prescription of this alchemy, and how to purify their hearts from baser qualities in the crucible of abstinence. This alchemy may be briefly described as turning away from the world, and its constituents are four:
•    Knowledge of Self;
•    Knowledge of God;
•    Knowledge of this world as it really is;
•    Knowledge of the next world as it really is.

- Muhammad al-Ghazali

A comparison between a late 11th century Sufi text and a 21st century Bhutanese social and philosophical paradigm, with nearly a millennia of history and a whole lot of geography and cultural disparity between them, is bound to be stretched, but as I’m always thinking about happiness these days, living in Bhutan, I thought I’d look back to this famous Sufi treatise that I read a number of years ago.  A simple Google search brought me to this quote, and it seems quite appropriate for my inner ramblings of late.

13th Century manuscript of The Alchemy of Happiness

I wanted to frame these ramblings around a remarkable day I had this last weekend: two friends of mine and I set out on a hike to a destination we would never reach.  It was car free day in Thimphu (and trust me, Thimphu-town is a very happy place on car-free day, and just lovely and community-oriented), and it took us quite some time to get out of the car-free area and find a ride to where we wanted to go.  Eventually we were picked up, not by a taxi, but by a dusty man who we mistook for a farmer or rural ‘peasant’ at first, but who slowly transformed himself before our eyes.  I suspected there was something going on almost right away, as I was riding in the front seat of his van with him, a large wooden phallus on the dashboard in classic Bhutanese style, and I could tell he was obviously educated as he had a wonderful command of English.  He was obviously a philosopher who was quite skeptical about GNH as a guiding philosophy, or at least of the Government’s ability to live up to it.  He himself had retired from the civil service to work at an environmental and cultural conservation institute, and be closer to the people and on the ground where happiness really happens.  Yet, he kept pointing to his rusty old van as a sign of the lack of happiness, as if he would somehow be happier if he had something newer, better, cleaner, faster.  When al-Ghazali defines the alchemy of happiness as ‘turning away from the world,’ I think one might consider that the state of their vehicle has little to do with their actual state of happiness, but I digress.  I was happy for the ride, regardless.

The humble Au Lam

This man, Au Lam, wore the dust of humility, literally, and convinced us to come with him to a very important puja (offering/ceremony) that was happening at a local monastery.  When we arrived we drove past literally hundreds, if not thousands of people lined up to make their offerings, and right into the temple proper where we parked and entered.  Before I knew it, Au Lam had dusted himself off and donned a red kabney (a sign of nobility, if not actual recognition by the Bhutanese Royalty), and we were suddenly ushered into the VIP area where we were served tea and snacks by the monks.  We hardly knew what was going on, and how we’d gotten there.

Offerings to us from the monks, rather than vice-versa

The day was quickly transforming into one of those magical and timeless moments that are somehow stitched within the fabric of time: once you enter in, you just have to ride it through and not fight against it.  Fight it, and you’re likely to lose your shot at happiness in that moment, however fleeting.  Surrendering to it is part of al-Ghazali’s ‘knowledge of this world as it really is,’ as well as ‘knowledge of the next world as it really is,’ I would imagine.  These moments might just be a little taste of that ‘next world’ peering forth into this one.  I tasted it in the tea and zao (roasted rice) of that moment, but then we were ushered away by Au Lam towards our next destination.

Though he promised to take us to our desired destination, he offered another detour which we could not refuse: Dechenphhu Lakhang, a very important temple to the guardian spirit of the Thimphu valley, not to mention all of Bhutan and of the whole world.  This is indeed one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, temple I have seen in Bhutan so far, and it reminds one that the Bhutanese, while devoutly Buddhist, have proven their worth as warriors again and again.  Thus, this temple has been rebuilt in all its glory after the His Majesty the Fourth King’s battle against Indian insurgents who had entered Bhutan and were infringing on her sovereignty.  And its symbolism goes back, of course, to the many incursions of the Tibetans into Bhutan, and the strength provided to the Bhutanese by their protector spirit, honored in this temple.  And it continues to inspire the Bhutanese today, who still visit this temple en masse to honour this protector, who eventually transformed into a rock that is enshrined at the temple’s entrance.

The immaculate Dechenphhu Lakhang

Going back to al-Ghazali, we can recall that one of the messages of the Alchemy of Happiness is that self-discipline and asceticism are the real and true path to happiness (not fancy vans or heaps of cash).  Now, Bhutanese know this, and thus they keep the monastic tradition alive here as much as anywhere, even while they make offerings to their warrior protector spirits.  But the real job of these warrior spirits is to keep alive the possibility and potential for the monks and faithful to themselves create the conditions for happiness to be met through prayer, meditation, offerings, etc. (and this is also the express and admirable goal of the Government, it must be said). 

One thinks back to the famous saying of the Islamic Prophet, having just come back from a battle, that ‘we have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.’  In this time when this term is so misused and misunderstood, we might be reminded that the greater jihad is the internal one, the one that, when one’s surroundings are peaceful, can lead to inner peace and happiness, the only peace and happiness that are lasting and real.  This is what al-Ghazali is referring to when he speak of ‘how to purify their hearts from baser qualities in the crucible of abstinence.’  All true battles, internal or external, involve a quality of abstinence, of not desiring or fighting for more than our fair share.  Asking for too much is the source of too much death and unhappiness.

Sunset on a glorious day.

 To wrap up, then, Au Lam then dropped us at the base of the mountain we had set out to climb, and left us with organic broccoli from his very own dusty garden, of course refusing any sort of donation or gas money, though he’d taken us far out of his way.  Recognizing that we were now well into the afternoon, and the battle need not be fought this day, we elected to climb the lower peak to a more accessible Cherry monastery, which proved stunning and beautiful, of course.  We sat at the top, looking down over the Thimphu valley, with our new friends: A few Bhutanese pilgrims, a lovely Tibetan mastiff, and some deer-goat-donkey-takin hybrids (not sure what these guys were, but they were cute), eating banana chips, dried peaches, fresh broccoli, and various snacks.  Our timeless moment was coming to an end as was the day, and we were drawn back into the city for a great dinner, to be followed by the challenges of this world re-manifesting themselves as we tried to cut down a steep grassy bank and became trapped for a while in the darkness, fighting the outstretched grasp of thorny plants along the way.  But we did battle with those external demons to finally reach the bottom, a bit scratched, but safe and smiling, ready to return to the real battle of seeking true and lasting happiness, through the purification of the heart and abstinence from desires for that which we do not need .. well that’s happiness for me anyway.

Hello curious friend, have you found the way to Happiness?