In mid-June 2025, Djarga traveled to America for the first time since 2009. Driving outside of Colorado Springs, there were some houses in the trees and cliffs, and he asked, “What do these people do? They don’t seem to have any fields? Do they raise animals?” I said, “They drive into the city to work in jobs — maybe in restaurants or shops or offices.” He said, “So, they don’t have a tsowa?” A tsowa means a life. They don’t have a life? (!)
And this theme has continued, through the trip to Colorado, Maryland, New Hampshire and Boston, and back to Tibet. What is this funny idea, having (or not having) a life, which to him seems to clear and basic?
I was thinking that what he meant was subsistence farming. Only growing your own food, and building your own house, constitutes having a life. But as the year went on, I started to think that there is more to it, and actually it is quite a topical idea for these times.
I have heard various references to this idea through the year, with an urban Chinese guest saying the same thing: Urban people don’t have a shenghuo. — a life. I questioned that person. Did they mean farming and providing your own means of subsistence would be ‘having a life”? Indeed, that is exactly what they meant. But what an idea for an urbanite, much less realistic than for nomad herders.
And later, Djarga and I were discussing an idea I have been considering, the idea of trying to focus our activities and projects more firmly on the yak herding life, the nomads. We could have a few yaks down here much of the year, and get to know them, and perhaps one part of any stay would be working with the yaks. And Djarga said, “But you already do a lot of things here; you grow vegetables and make cheese. What we are demonstrating here is a tsowa. This is a life!”
So actually, I think the idea of “having a life” in a Tibetan context is indeed about providing for one’s life from the land, subsistence farming or herding, but the idea is that this is what a household and livelihood and daily action is all based off of, and that this creates a good and satisfying life. It is about focusing on the actual basic necessaries of life, such as food and a house, and finding your fun and meaning both inside of those tasks. A focus on the tsowa itself.
It is true that in the modern world, people pay oddly little attention to the basics, which are considered troublesome side matters.They heat up frozen food and hire someone to clean the house, or let it be a mess. The real stuff of their life seems to be their mental world, or their career, and pleasure and fun is separated from that, like movies or concerts or sports. But there are indeed all kinds of small matters that make up a basic daily life that can be done well, and bring great satisfaction. It is the strangest thing that these things are subsumed to a career, either for money making or for satisfaction, to such a degree that the basics fall by the wayside. And people start to think that those things are less important than the job (or the scrolling on the phone).
And oddly, this is the thing I think I am trying to show with the lodge, and the reason I chose to make my life in Tibet in the first place: because some part of me longed for a place where people focused on living. That is having good food, an enjoyable house, children. I suppose that I felt that here, unlike so much of the world, there was (and is) a belief in the basic goodness of life (rather than what so many places seem to see — troubles, competition, bad politics, etc.) It’s not that we don’t have these things, but there is still an idea that simply living and carrying on is worthwhile. It is, actually, a deep relaxation.