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Lyonchhen’s address at Educating for Gross National Happiness conference

22 December 2009

Below is the closing remarks by Lyonchhen Jigmi Y Thinley at the Educating for Gross National Happiness conference

“Honourable Ministers, Dashos, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Kudos to our facilitator, Ivy Ang, who somehow magically and graciously opened up the space to allow that expression within an atmosphere of  complete respect, safety, and warmth, while at the same time moving us firmly forward and never compromising the need for practical action and implementation. Striking such balance is a magical skill, so if Ivy is looking for a job……, I have some thoughts……—— like maybe chairing our Cabinet meetings……

And thank you all for accepting Ivy’s invitation to express yourselves with such grace, openness, and forthrightness. Without your honest and open expression, we would not have accomplished what we have, and we would definitely not be moving forward with determination as we clearly are going to. For me, one of the most inspiring elements of this week’s deliberations has been the participation of our wonderful youth leaders—speaking out without fear or hesitation, speaking their minds so honestly and openly and respectfully, and at the same time listening and learning so intently—contributing extraordinary wisdom from a perspective no one else could have offered. I have often felt and said, wisdom is not the preserve of the old. Thank you…….!!!

At the end of such an extraordinarily fruitful and happy endeavour, is it possible that I should have any reason to sound a discordant note? But I must confess that I   do have cause to feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, and discontent.

I’m going to be totally honest about those feelings here, because one of the remarkable characteristics of this workshop has been its complete openness—not holding anything back, putting everything on the table, and expressing our deepest aspirations and concerns.

We have had such good fortune in this country to have been blessed with a century of truly enlightened and selfless monarchy caring only for the benefit and wellbeing of our people and our country, that I think all Bhutanese—not least myself—had the gravest of doubts, about our very recent transition to democracy. It was our beloved Fourth King, His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, who looked to the future and recognized that in this day and age, the transition to democracy was inevitable. Had he not insisted, we certainly wouldn’t have done it—I can say that with certainty! The irony of Bhutanese democracy is that it came not by the will of the people but by the will of the King alone! In an act of supreme selflessness, His Majesty abdicated at the youthful age of 52 and turned over his sublime office to his remarkable son — now our country’s first constitutional monarch — who demonstrates the same qualities of selfless wisdom and compassion as his father with complete respect for our new democratic processes. How fortunate we are!

Why this little interlude on democracy and monarchy in the midst of our education workshop? Simply because — quite frankly, it’s taking all of us a while to get used to this democratic idea, and the doubts have not entirely dissipated. But observing this participatory process in this room — and the seemingly natural and effortless interplay between that bottom-up bubbling of your extraordinary knowledge and experience on the one hand and action and leadership on the other hand from our Honourable Education Minister and his able colleagues in the ministry — and particularly watching and hearing these young students, I am fired with enormous hope both for our fledgling democracy and for the future of our country. I have truly this week (and maybe somewhat belatedly) witnessed personally the wisdom of our King’s insistence on this democratic transition.

In short, as the world’s youngest democracy, we have learned a lot this week about genuine participatory process…Or as Ivy puts it—“co-creating” a brilliant, compassionate, and eminently practical outcome. This workshop may have been about bringing GNH into our educational system from a substantive point of view. But I think we have also learned something this week about how to do that! And we have learned a lot more—about open participation in our new democracy, about how to cross our usual bureaucratic barriers, about how to mobilize an entire Ministry enthusiastically behind a common objective, about how to join practical action in our fledgling democratic government with our highest and most noble objectives completely transcending party politics, and much more.

That little comment on democracy and process is necessary context for coming back to my feelings of embarrassment, frustration, and discontent. And I shall  express these feelings honestly and openly.

First the embarrassment: I am still awed by the extraordinary knowledge, talent, and experience gathered here. We have here experienced founders and principals of schools that practice the very educational approaches we want to adopt. And we have distinguished professors and authors of multiple books and articles in several languages in the most highly regarded educational journals, whose writings are used as standard texts in top universities in courses on eco-literacy, sustainability, Indigenous knowledge education, contemplative education, and holistic education. I am quite well aware that you are in huge demand to give the keynote addresses at prestigious international conferences in the international capitals of the world. And here in this tiny corner of the world, we have the nerve to cut you off after three or four minutes when you try to say a word or two. This is very embarrassing!

My only excuse is that we knew, when we started on this path, that to undertake a transformative task of this enormity—unprecedented in the world and literally with no road map—we could only do it if we had the absolute best advice and experience in the world on our side. So we went right to the top! We invited you because — to create a truly GNH-infused education system — we need nothing less than the wisest and most experienced advice available in the world. As we part company this evening—I sincerely hope only temporarily—please accept my sincere apologies for not fully and properly acknowledging and allowing expression for the depth and breadth of what each of you have to offer. There is only one solution to this that I can see—that you remain closely connected and involved with this initiative, so that we continue to draw on your generosity, knowledge and experience as we move forward. We have only just begun!

Secondly, frustration! We have listened to and been moved by such a long strand of pearls of wisdom. Over and over again, we have wanted to go further and deeper on dozens of issues, and yet at the same time, we simply had to get everything out there and on the table, and we have often sacrificed the depth and breadth we now need. This comes right back to my opening remarks, where I mentioned that ideally we need a series of many workshops spread over many years so that we can deeply explore each of the important cans of worms that we infact did. To give just a very few examples of which there are literally dozens:

  • We need a detailed and full-fledged exploration of eco-literacy and sustainability education;
  • We need one on the ecological and physical design of schools appropriate to a GNH education curriculum (we have one of the world’s experts in this area in this room);
  • We need an extensive investigation into age-appropriate methods of meditation, mind-training, and contemplative education applicable to schools, and we need to spread the awareness that profound meditation teachings and practices do not belong simply to a sectarian religion relevant only to red-robed monks, but are part and parcel of our cultural treasury that can show our youth and all human beings the clarity, insight, and open heartedness that are their natural inheritance;
  • We definitely need not one, but many workshops that look at assessment methods that are compatible with GNH principles and values;
  • We need many workshops that explore how to integrate the vast treasury of our Indigenous knowledge into our so-called ‘modern’ curriculum. Again, we have one of the world’s most knowledgeable and experienced people in this room, author of multiple curricula and books on culturally-responsive curriculum design — Dr. Gregory Cajete — right here with us, who could this week have led an entire exploration in this area.
  • And we need many sessions in which our model alternative schools are the full focus of attention. We could have entire workshops exploring the relevance of Dr Art Ong’s school or Dr. Prapapat’s school in Thailand, or of the Ross School, or Shambhala School, or Alice Project school, or Thrangu Rinpoche’s school and many others from which we have so much to learn…..

I could go on, but the point is clear. There has not been one spark of fire here this week, but very many! It is so frustrating we have not been able to allow our tinder-dry brush of eager learning to spread into a wildfire of extensive and in-depth investigation on all the vital issues raised in this workshop. Each of you here is a treasury of knowledge and experience who could, in your own right have led vitally important in-depth workshops in your particular areas of knowledge and experience. Maybe this week’s gathering undertook an utterly impossible task, and it is still beyond me how Ivy so skilfully managed to balance open expression and the airing of all key issues with enough depth and solid substance to move us forward effectively to action.

But actually, it is the immediacy and urgency that I expressed in my opening remarks — and which I know have been echoed by many here, like Dr. David Orr, in characterizing the frightening globally warmed world that our children will inherit — that urgency and immediacy are the only excuse I can offer for our failure to explore in depth all that needs to be explored and for our biting off more than we can possibly chew in a single week.

And the only antidote that I can offer actually depends entirely on you: — If you stay involved and connected with us, and if we can go further and deeper together, we will definitely attain the depth and breadth that have largely eluded us this week, and that will allow all your sparks of wisdom to ignite a firestorm of understanding, wisdom, and action to move us quickly and deeply to our desired goals. Please think of this week as only a beginning. That is the simple truth. If we can keep the A-Team on board — and you are the A-Team! — we can surely maintain our pace of forward movement without sacrificing depth, and attain our goals fully and completely, without compromising integrity.

Thirdly, discontent! In our bygone days and even centuries of remote Himalayan isolation, we Bhutanese were perhaps more content than we are now — even blissfully ignorant of the shallow, materialist greed that was consuming the rest of the world and destroying communities, Indigenous peoples, and the planet’s most precious natural resources. Here, in a corner of the high Himalayas, our pristine old-growth forests, mountains, and rivers, abundant with wildlife and unparalleled natural wealth, healing medicinal herbs and majestic aesthetic beauty, were truly our home — providing comfort, solace, and all the necessities of life. We were blissfully unaware of the rape of land and people in distant places.

But we can no longer feign ignorance even if we wished. Our Himalayan glaciers are melting at such an alarming rate — not due to any particular action of our own — that we are faced with potentially devastating glacial lake outbursts that can destroy entire communities in our fertile valleys. This is not theory. It’s started to happen! And we know that, as this glacial melting continues at a rate so much faster than even the most eminent scientists could have predicted, it is not only our own lives and livelihood in Bhutan that are threatened, but those of the billions of people downstream — nearly half the world’s population that depends on our Himalayan rivers. So now we have to give explicit expression to what used to be just natural instinct — as in our climate change declaration that I read to you yesterday and just despatched to Copenhagen, that the Kingdom of Bhutan solemnly vows always and in perpetuity to remain a net carbon sink — never to emit more greenhouse gases than we can absorb.

In this world, how can we not be thoroughly and utterly discontent? Even if we were to achieve everything here in Bhutan that we have set out to do in this workshop, we would still have to feel entirely discontent. I’ll feel discontent until every one of your own countries convenes all its school principals, teachers’ college instructors, and teachers to engender the very values and actions we have discussed in this workshop. So my discontent stems very simply from the reality that we here are not separate from the world. Of course, our ancient Buddhist teachings on the interconnected nature of reality, have always told us this. But somehow, our geographical and even self-imposed isolation here in the high Himalayas for a long time appeared to provide an escape route of perhaps illusory contentment that enabled us to avoid facing the reality we can no longer avoid today.

In this case, the only antidote I can think of is simply that, here in Bhutan, we do what we have set out to do in this workshop with complete integrity— as fully and genuinely and whole-heartedly as humanly possible….. and then hope that others pay some attention, draw some inspiration, and do it on their own home turf. Margaret Mead once said that the only way change ever happens is through the inspiration of a small number of dedicated people. Maybe — and I hope it is not too presumptuous to express this hope — the same might be true for a small nation like ours.

I have never ever believed in preaching or telling others what they should do. In fact, that would be utterly presumptuous in our case, because the truth is that I see the world reflected in the very developments that scare me right here at home — like the rapid replacement of a convivial pedestrian culture by a car culture to which I referred at our opening ceremony. So it is quite literally true that all we can ever do is try to act decently ourselves, set as good a personal example as we can, and to acknowledge honestly when we fall short, as we so often do. But I know that my own discontent, and hopefully that of all our people, will not dissipate so long as our eyes and ears are open to suffering anywhere in the world.

And so I am left this week with deep embarrassment, frustration, and discontent!

At the same time, I promise you we will do the very best we can with the treasure you have left us. We are blessed with wonderful and inspired leadership in our Education Ministry — a Minister, Secretary and director of Education who deeply understand and appreciate what you have given and who are fully committed to the GNH-inspired education path we have now charted. We will study carefully all you have said and offered, read the proceedings, use the outcomes of all the breakout groups, and put all this into action as best we can.

But please know that this workshop has already been transformative in so many ways. I have seen many in our own leadership present in this room—who maybe entered this Phuntsho Pelri basement with considerable scepticism early in the week—embrace this GNH-inspired path forward as a direct result of their experience here this week. I can’t put my finger on exactly what inspired them. It may even have less to do with substance than with the palpable dynamism in this room throughout this week. I felt that wonderful energy personally every time I came in to join you. But I have also had detailed daily briefing sessions to catch me up on all I missed due to the National Assembly sessions. And I know from all I have heard that you have been on the edge of your seats for a good part of this past week. That dynamism doesn’t happen from being “nicey-nice”—in the words of one of our esteemed participants—but from being as open-hearted and honest as you have been. That atmosphere itself is a model of the GNH-inspired education system we want to see.

When we meet with our school principals and teachers’ college instructors just six weeks from now, I am determined we will bring this very atmosphere to that gathering. We will begin with the heartfelt assumption that the principles and values of Gross National Happiness exist deep in the hearts of all our school principals and teachers. We will elicit from them the wisdom that is already in their minds and invite them to put that wisdom into action in their own schools. What is different now is both the invitation we are extending as a result of the inspiration from this workshop and the extraordinary resources of knowledge and experience you have shared with us this week that provide, which are now available to us, and which provide the means for implementation. What we now need to do—with your further assistance—is to pass all this along to our principals and teachers.

Allow me to conclude by going back to square one, returning to our initial aspiration: — our discussion on how might a GNH-educated graduate manifest in practice? At the end of our week together, it still feels somewhat easier to describe what such a graduate is not. We know that what we want to see is very different from the economic animal that conventional educational systems so often seem to nurture, where success is measured by money, career, acquisition, fame, power, and self-aggrandizement.

Knowing how different our vision and goals are, we know with certainty that what we want to see is nothing less than transformative — graduates who are genuine human beings, realizing their full and true potential, caring for others—including other species—, ecologically literate, contemplative as well as analytical in their understanding of the world, free of greed and without excessive desires; knowing, understanding, and appreciating completely that they are not separate from the natural world and from others; — in sum manifesting their humanity fully.

I suppose the ultimate test is that a GNH-inspired education graduate will sleep soundly and happily at the end of each day knowing that she or he has given all to their families, to their communities, and to the world. If we and our young do not have this firm commitment, there is literally no future. In the end, a GNH-educated graduate will have no doubt that his or her happiness derives only from contributing to the happiness of others.

I do know one thing without the shadow of a doubt: — You workshop participants and observers have manifested just that quality and understanding for this entire week — the very quality and understanding we want most to see in our GNH education graduates. Without that quality and understanding deeply rooted in your hearts and minds and work and lives, there would be nothing to have kept you in this room all week, let alone on the edges of your chairs, nor would you have even thought to undertake this arduous journey for the purpose of assisting and advising us.

By my own assessment tool, just described, you are indeed models of the GNH graduates we want to see. And therefore, as successful graduates, you all deserve the well-earned reward of the soundest and happiest good night’s sleep tonight. May your own example and generosity this week spread, — like the wind-borne seed that greeted you in your hotel rooms on arrival,— not only to every classroom in the Kingdom of Bhutan but to the far corners of the world.

May your remaining days here in the Kingdom of Bhutan be filled with joy and may you have a safe and easy trip home. On behalf of His Majesty, of the people of Bhutan, and particularly of our young citizens in whose hands our future rests, THANK YOU!

TASHI  DELEK”

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Comments

2 Responses to “Lyonchhen’s address at Educating for Gross National Happiness conference”

  1. dorji on December 23rd, 2009 10:36 pm

    I just hope Mr. JYT will stop talking GNH and starts walking GNH.

  2. Dorjee on December 27th, 2009 10:25 am

    I believe His excellence spoken words about GNH will not remain as Utopian issue.

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