Bhutanese Quotes

(It’s a good thing the gho is so handy, because all Bhutanese men are required to wear one during business hours. Bhutan is the only country in the world with a dress code for men.)

The average Bhutanese knows much more about the world than the average American...(for Americans)It is more comfortable to watch fake news about celebrities than to know what's happening in China or southern Sudan. But events happening in China or Sudan affect us so much more because they are real.

I heard came from a potbellied Bhutanese hotel owner named Sanjay Penjor. GNH, Penjor told me, “means knowing your limitations; knowing how much is enough.” Free-market economics has brought much good to the world, but it goes mute when the concept of “enough” is raised. As the renegade economist E. F. Schumacher put it: “There are poor societies which have too little. But where is the rich society that says ‘Halt! We have enough!’ There is none.

the Bhutanese scholar and cancer survivor. “There is no such thing as personal happiness,” he told me. “Happiness is one hundred percent relational.” At the time, I didn’t take him literally. I thought he was exaggerating to make his point: that our relationships with other people are more important than we think. But now I realize Karma meant exactly what he said. Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction. Connective tissue. Well, are we there yet? Have I found happiness? I still own an obscene number of bags and am prone to debilitating bouts of hypochondria. But I do experience happy moments. I’m learning, as W. H. Auden counseled, to “dance while you can.” He didn’t say dance well, and for that I am grateful. I’m not 100 percent happy. Closer to feevty-feevty, I’d say. All things considered, that’s not so bad. No, not bad at all. Waterford, Virginia, July 2007

The stripes of a tiger are on the outside; the stripes of a man lie inside.

wife, Halpern, a writer and scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, profile a Bhutanese refugee community in New Hampshire (p. 25) for

The greatest religion gives suffering to nobody,” reads a weather-beaten sign, quoting the Buddha, at Chele La pass, the highest motorable point in the country, near Paro. This maxim is everywhere evident. As a Bhutanese friend and I walked in the mountains one afternoon, he reflexively removed insects from the path and gently placed them in the verge, out of harm’s way. Early one morning in Thimphu, I saw a group of young schoolboys, in their spotless white-sleeved ghos, crouching over a mouse on the street, gently offering it food. In Bhutan, the horses that trudge up the steep trail to the Tiger’s Nest monastery are reserved for out-of-shape tourists; Bhutanese don’t consider horses beasts of burden and prefer not to make them suffer under heavy loads. Even harvesting honey is considered a sign of disrespect for the industrious bees; my young guide, Kezang, admonished me for buying a bottle of Bhutanese honey to take home. (Chastened, I left it there.) In

Bhutanese believe that economic development should never come at the cost of their people’s happiness. Therefore, in every trade deal the government enters into (for example, the sale of hydroelectric power to neighboring India), culture is valued more than cash.

You outclassed all other artists. Artist Doden, the greatest Bhutanese artist of this generation, an annual winner of all art competitions was second to none but you for once! Many saw greatness in you, Drugyal! Many did. Am I just allowed to let that amazing talent in you slip, all because we earn less? I will give in my everything, and you give in yours. The first paintbrushes I bought you, you gave me an album. I still have it. The second paint brushes I gave you, you gave me a thousand American dollars. I’ll always be proud of you. You deserve this. I’ll manage everything, you just keep dreaming and working towards it. Remember, Drugyal, you are all I have, and I’ll give everything you need. Not just paintbrushes, much much more than that.

The Wheel of Life is painted on the outside walls of many Tibetan and Bhutanese monasteries in order to educate people in the basics of Buddhism. Yet it is not often found in Japan. In fact, Japanese Buddhists don't think or talk much at all about rebirth in the Six Realms. When they do talk about the afterlife, they tend to speak of becoming a Buddha, attaining Nirvana, or going to the Pure Land—expressions that they often use rather vaguely to mean roughly the same thing.

Anger is a golden opportunity to practise patience.

If your leader turns into a dog, be sure to ask why he is wagging his tail.

If you don’t communicate well, you will disturb the minds of others. If you don’t know how to listen you will disturb your own mind.

Your father’s work often looks easy, as your mother’s delicious cooking can seem easy too. Both happen because of skill and hard work.

On the one hand, the very criteria by which they exited China was that they were not Tibetan. On the other hand, by almost every measure—language, culture, centuries of intermarriage, and their recognition of the Dalai Lama as their ruler—they were Tibetan. The Dalai Lama’s tone in his letter to the Khaches was to fellow Tibetans. This was not a letter that could have been sent to others who might have witnessed the excesses of the Chinese, such as the Nepalese, Ladakhis, or Bhutanese. The Dalai Lama approached the Khaches as Tibetans, as the Tibetan government had for centuries.

In America, few people are happy, but everyone talks about happiness constantly. In Bhutan, most people are happy, but no one talks about it. This is a land devoid of introspection, bereft of self-help books, and woefully lacking in existential angst. There is no Bhutanese Dr. Phil. There is, in fact, only one psychiatrist in the entire country. He is not named Phil and, I am sad to report, does not even have his own television show.