Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
week in lowland Manas National Park, learning about its wildlife and management. But we
also wanted to see Bhutan's mountain rarities, so our soon-to-expire travel documents forced
us to move to higher ground. Bumthang, at 2,400 meters above sea level and about 66 kilo-
meters east of Trongsa, was the next destination.
The highway climbed once again into the conifer forest as it undulated toward this moun-
tain town famous among Buddhist historians and religious experts. The next day we hiked
through a majestic hemlock and juniper forest to a monastery perched on top of a mountain,
where the resident lamas scattered grain to attract several species of rare Himalayan pheas-
ants that lived under their protection. For monks and monasteries to offer sanctuary to en-
dangered wildlife is common across the Himalayas. When George Schaller and Peter Matth-
iessen went on their search for the snow leopard, they made their base camp a remote mon-
astery in the western Nepal Himalayas. There, the head lama had issued a hunting ban. I
had seen the results of a similar kind of ban at Tengboche Monastery, below Mount Everest
in Nepal, where musk deer and rare pheasants walked without fear of humans because of a
lama's decree.
Our next destination was one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the country. Dating
from the sixteenth century, this shrine celebrates the arrival of Buddhism to Bhutan via
Buddhism's ambassador Guru Rinpoche. The old monastery was empty at the time of our
visit, closed for restoration. At a larger, more active monastery nearby, hundreds of maroon-
robed monks chanted in the prayer rooms, milled about the courtyards, or basked in the sun-
shine. Mincha gave us a guided tour and a discourse on monkdom. “Through teachings and
meditation,” he said, “the lamas seek to cultivate the qualities of gentle kindness, unshakable
serenity, and wisdom. Eric, you would benefit by trying it.”
Even before Mincha's suggestion, I had been contemplating the interplay of Buddhist
teachings and conservation biology. Tara Brach's topic had suggested that by offering gen-
tleness and peaceful compassion to all beings, animals as well as humans, the Buddhist philo-
sophy offers a trustworthy route to happiness that is quite different from the route most
Westerners follow. Buddhism replaces the pursuit of materialism with a core philosophy of
nonattachment and an acceptance of the impermanence of all things. A viewpoint shaped by
gentleness and kindness toward all beings—that was how Buddhism could inform conserva-
tion biology, it occurred to me. Bhutan's government tried to live that philosophy and had
established a unique nation on Earth that is kind to its rare creatures.
I remembered Tim Flannery, the New Guinea mammal expert (chapter 2), and his story
predicting the decline of rare mammals there when local animists gave up their old hunting
taboos upon their conversion by Christian missionaries. The spread of Buddhist doctrine, as
much a gentle philosophy as an organized religion, seemed to have the opposite effect. Here
in Bhutan, and in Buddhism in general, the guiding principle was compassion for all living
things. Thus a monk spreads grain for rare pheasants. A monastery protects the home range
