I meet with a compatriot

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the benefits of being an American in Kalmykia is that I'm a bit of a rarity. People are interested in why I'm interested in their little corner of the world, how I first came to hear of Kalmykia, and especially what my impressions of Elista and the Kalmyk people are. That said, I'm not the only American here in Kalmykia. In fact, I'm not the only Coloradan, or even the only Boulderite (by the way, is there any other town of 100k people that has its own noun...that should tell you something right there).

Telo Tulku Rimpoche has been the leader of Kalmykia's Buddhists for the past 16 years. He was born in Philadelphia and at the age of seven was sent to a Tibetan monastery in India to begin his training as a monk. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after he went to India), he was recognized as the reincarnation of Telo Rimpoche. His family now lives in Colorado, and he divides his time between there and Elista, although from what I gather he also makes frequent trips to India. He suggested that we hold our next interview on the Pearl Street Mall, Boulder's main commercial pedestrian strip, and after the fact (as I enjoyed some dotur ["Immediately after the sheep’s carcass was carved, the Kalmyk used to cook all internal organs, including, liver, kidneys, heart and lungs. This dish (dotur) used to be a meal for a whole village."] at Valeriy's friend's birthday) I was thinking maybe at Chipotle. That would be both convenient and tasty; I don't think I've gone without a burrito for this long since my year-off trip to New Zealand.

I met with the Rimpoche in his office at the main khurul. He speaks English like the native speaker he is, though I'd be interested to know what other languages he knows. Without question Kalmyk and Tibetan, and I have heard him converse more than adequately in Russian, too. Our conversation was 'off the record', to borrow the terminology of the fourth estate, and was primarily about the revival and development of Buddhism in Kalmykia. I won't bore you with the details, though there are a couple of points worth mentioning. First, Telo Tulku Rimpoche, like others I've spoken to here in Kalmykia, emphasized the importance of the Dalai Lama's visits for Kalmyks. His last visit was in 2004 (he was also here twice in the early 1990s), and this trip played a central role in getting the khurul built. As the Dalai Lama ages, Buddhism is entering a period of uncertainly, and from what I gathered Kalmykia, being the only officially Buddhist territory in Europe, will play a key role in that future. The Rimpoche also railed against meditation, at least as it has been appropriated in western societies; in his view, it's become more like daydreaming, and not an mentally active reflection on one's existence. Here's a picture of the two zemlaki (Russian for compatriots, although it has a specific association with the land).