Stirring Point

*Below is part 1 of a subsequent piece I’ll publish next week, detailing the feeling and essence of Bhutan as a traveler traversing its landscape.

I want to write about Nepal and share the wonders I saw during my recent visit. I want to describe the sensation of seeing my first rhino in the wild or how the tops of the elephant grass in Chitwan National Park tickled the sky’s underbelly around sundown. I want to detail the sensation of the billowing smoke as it filled my lungs from a nearby funeral pyre during a Hindu cremation ceremony. But Bhutan, like the moon in a solar eclipse, casts an ominous shadow over Nepal. It absorbs all of the light in the sky, erasing the stars and flooding the atmosphere of my imagination. Nepal is unique, no question. Bhutan, on the other hand, is a modern-day enigma. Like Cuba, it appears to have been lost in time, as if it somehow belonged on the surface of another planet.

Bhutan is an easy place upon which to cast projections. Despite being sandwiched between China and India, it’s never been colonized or conquered. The snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas form a natural border wall with Tibet to the north. The country’s heart is mostly forested, with dense pine, brown oak, and juniper trees. The southern foothills along India’s border are filled with lush sub-tropical forest. Prayer flags bind the national landscape like ligaments and tendons. Ornate dzongs (Buddhist monasteries) built of wood and brick function like joints between connecting valleys and villages. The roadside is largely pristine, littered only with the smiles of curious, passing faces that meet and hold the traveler’s gaze. On the surface, it all appears as if it were an archetype for a model nation: peaceful, calm, and functional. It’s only when we scratch the coin edge against the lottery ticket of reality that we have a chance to see the nation as it truly is—striving and improving, but wholly imperfect.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve dreamt of Bhutan, and like most dreams, my thoughts were mostly projections. My perceptions were immature, half-baked impressions of some distant Candyland, immune to the modern ills of consumerism. I, like much of the rest of the Western world, turned Bhutan into Shangri-La, ignoring thousands of years of contrary evidence that human nature is conflicted, greedy, and combative. The nation is best known for exporting images of its Gross National Happiness (GNH) program, an index used to measure and improve the well-being of its citizens. A Sustainable Development Fee (SDF) of $100 per person per day is levied on visitors to keep tourist volumes low, thereby protecting its natural resources from being overrun. Its vibrant national dress (ghos for men and kiras for women) is delicately woven and worn by most people, most of the time, helping to preserve an important part of its heritage. The country is known for its benevolent monarch, who strolls the grounds of the parliament complex without fanfare or drives himself around Thimphu (the nation’s capital) like any ordinary Joe, accessible to all he meets. But while the above are tent poles that hold up an image of Bhutan from afar, the reality of day-to-day life is filled with societal challenges.

The country is only now transitioning from a “least developed country” to a “developing country.” Until the mid-1960s, infant mortality was higher than 20%. Much of the rural healthcare system was woefully inadequate. Due to mountainous terrain and a prior lack of international investment, transit infrastructure kept travel tenuous and unreliable. When the country finally opened its borders to trade, immigration, and tourism in the 1960s, the welfare of its citizens slowly began improving. Progress came at the cost of tradition but was necessary to ensure the foundation of hierarchical needs. Even with the establishment of stable social services, the country has faced internal conflicts over identity, homogeny, and culture. The projections made by western outsiders about this hidden Himalayan kingdom are not entirely false, but they are myopic. From the 1960s to the present, immigrants from Tibet and India have helped to create a more diverse society. True, diversity creates a distinct tapestry of value within a country. From new perspectives to methodological advancements, diversity provides more than simply new foods and unique arts. When ethnicities are not treated equally, however, tensions rise. Battles between ethnic Nepalis and Bhutanese reached a boiling point in the 1990s, resulting in tribal violence that left a deep but quiet scar across the nation’s belly. Talking about those events still causes some trepidation among the Bhutanese population. And recognizing its problematic history during this period forces the nation to soften its grip on the controlling narrative it typically projects—one it’s not quick to relinquish.

But its history of flaws makes its current state of well-being even more appealing. Despite the calls for modernity and the scars of its past, Bhutan retains a firm belief that happiness is a form of human rights and works tirelessly to maintain this focus. The challenges of the past or present are no reason to throw up one’s hands in disgust when planning for the future. Lasting happiness and contentment are fleeting states that necessitate considerable effort to cultivate. I understand that the words “lasting” and “fleeting” appear to be contradictory in this context. The Bhutanese government understands this apparent contradiction as well. But Bhutan, as a Buddhist nation, recognizes the importance of developing mindfulness muscles in order to access joy in the absence of external stimuli. One is capable of recognizing thoughts as just that—thoughts—arising and passing away. And when this happens, the swell of attachment recedes in the moment. Less attachment equals less desire. Less desire breeds more contentment. The whole process is a rewiring of our responses to thoughts and perceptions. Bhutanese people appear to carry this tool at their fingertips, born from a lifetime of practice paired with government outreach efforts.

I asked a local colleague why so many people appear to be happier than what I see in the outside world.

“They practice Budda nature. “Not all, but many,” said my colleague. “They also feel that the government truly cares about the people and the land. The land belongs to the people. It must be protected. If it’s destroyed by endless development, what does that tell the people? It’s not perfect, but intentions are good and corruption is nonexistent.”

They feel the government cares about their people. What a novel concept. 

The population of Bhutan is just shy of 778,000 people. It’s the 137th-smallest country in the world. Governing a country of this size bears no comparison to trying to govern the 340,000,000 people in the U.S. But there are things we can learn from them.

• Mindfulness is a tool we should be giving to our children. It exists outside religious boundaries and does not require any pious affiliations.
• The mental health and well-being of our citizens are national priorities that require proactive outreach—not simply something we do in response when things go sideways.
• Our land belongs to future generations and gives everyone the opportunity to feel the cleaning tonic of nature. While preservation and conservation come at an economic cost and new development is inevitable and necessary, we must be diligent in not selling off the natural world for short-sighted economic gains.

To see Bhutan and to breathe its air reminds us how being stewards of nature rather than total consumers of nature is possible. It reminds us that the god of money should not be our sole focus while we exist on planet Earth—that contentment sourced from within is an endless vault of riches there for the taking.

Bhutan is imperfect but striving, like we all should, towards a sense of balance. It may not last this way forever, but that shouldn’t undermine its efforts today.