My Journey to Zanskar in Search of Higher Human Potential: An Interview with Amy Edelstein
“Women in these mountains are hardy and self-assured. They were a welcome contrast to the more subservient women of the Indian plains—in many ways they are more familiar to me. But they have a freedom and confidence my culture lacks. They didn’t look over their shoulder for reassurance. They moved freely among the men, equal in a way I’d never seen anywhere else in the world; they were accorded respect.” — Amy Edelstein, Adventure in Zanskar
As empowered and independent as we women are in our time, few of us can fathom traveling solo across the globe without a plan or guide to a foreign land. It was especially hard to imagine for a 21-year-old woman in 1983, without the help of a GPS or cell phone to navigate a journey into the remote high mountains of Zanskar, India on her own.
I sat down with Amy Edelstein, author of the Ben Franklin award-winning Adventure in Zanskar and founder of Inner Strength Education, as she vividly recalled her deeply spiritual and life-altering stay in Zanskar, nearly 40 years ago.
Q:
What propelled you to travel across the globe in search of a higher purpose at that age?
A:
I was in college at the time and had great teachers but I felt like none of them were deeply wise. And it was a cynical time in the late ’70s, early ’80s. There were a lot of challenges in society and mistrust in politicians to achieve gender and racial equality, not too differently from now actually. So I was looking for a way to gain insights, a way to cultivate higher human capacity, and I chose to go to Zanskar, the oldest Buddhist valley in the world.
Q:
What were the most unexpected findings or experiences from that trip?
A:
There were a few things that touched me most deeply from that trip. They are why I felt the need to write this book after all these years. I had already traveled a great deal by the time I visited Zanskar—I’ve always loved to travel and traveled on my own so I met a lot of people on my journeys. But the people in Zanskar were the happiest people I have ever met. They were just even-tempered, genuinely happy and kind that I’m not even sure how to describe it. It was moving to be there among them. They were a culture of generosity.
At the time, there were no roads, no cell phones, no internet, and the borders of Zanskar had only just been opened (since 1976), so the West hadn't really arrived there in a big way. It was a simple life in the mountains, primarily subsisting on farming and raising animals such as yaks and mountain goats. Buddhism was a big part of their lives. Every family would send their kids to a monastery or nunnery to learn Buddhist scriptures. The valley floor of Zanskar was about 10,000 feet above sea level and just goes up from there. It can get dry, windy, and feels like a desert at times. So life is hard and everyone has to do everything, and everyone has to get along.
They believe in karma and are very aware of how their actions can affect each other, their families and their communities. They understand that a sudden outburst from losing their temper can disturb the harmony of their microcosm. Interestingly, they don’t do that through controlling their tempers or forcing their behavior, contrary to Western belief. It is a deeply spiritual understanding of how interconnected they are, as simple and effortless as our understanding of water flowing downstream because of gravity. They just know that’s the way things are. It’s deeply ingrained in them, so they are free and without fear of doing something wrong. They are very boisterous, not at all tame. The children sing, dance, roughhouse, compete, and freely enjoy themselves.
Q:
What was the biggest lesson in the way of life you feel the Western culture can benefit from?
A:
It was definitely their culture of generosity, equanimity, acceptance, and their universal view of life that is in direct contrast to ours. I’ve witnessed many losses during my stay in Zanskar. There was a herdsman whose horse got spooked one day and jumped off a cliff and died. Horses were very expensive and a big part of livelihood for the Zanskaris, but he accepted the situation with such grace and ease. It happened and it was done, and no one did anything wrong. It was nothing I had ever seen here in the Western culture where I grew up, even more so now that I live in the city on the East Coast. People are so attached to their possessions. I’ve seen people who were ready to get into a fist fight if they thought someone had touched their car. They would almost come to blows over something so insignificant.
The demonstration of that herdsman, in those moments of challenge, really shows you what’s underneath. It didn’t happen at the teachings of a retreat; not in a monastery where everyone is chanting and on good behavior because the lama is watching; it was a moment in the middle of real life, and he was living according to a set of insights he had cultivated to help him cope with life’s challenges. Here in the West, we really don’t have these tools to help us cope with loss or grief or general bad luck. We were just not taught how to do that, and as a result everyone is all over the place emotionally and unhappy.
There was a deep sense of non-separation, of all things. It wasn’t that the mountains were there, the Zanskaris were there, and I was here. It even applied to my past, present, and future. In that sense of non-separation, where everything is a continuous flow, I experienced the release of so much love. There was no lack, no distance, and no loneliness.
Q:
Could you share any misconceptions we may have here in the U.S. about Buddhism teachings?
A:
I think that one of the misconceptions people have about Buddhism is that it’s a little cold and detached. Maybe because images of Buddha are often depicted in stone statues somewhat personalityless, that the idea of calm or equanimity is associated with lack of warmth or spontaneity. Whereas the people I’ve met along my journey who lived most deeply in Buddhist teachings, whether they are monks or nuns or the everyday Zanskaris who lived a regular life all exhibited the most warm and huggable humanity. That detachment is a detachment from anger, greed, remorse, negativity, depression, but it’s very much embodied in the warm-bloodedness of their life. The Buddhist practitioners I’ve met were fun, spontaneous, playful, and fully enjoyed life.
Q:
How did the love you felt there differ from the love you’ve experienced or were taught growing up?
A:
There was a deep sense of non-separation, of all things. It wasn’t that the mountains were there, the Zanskaris were there, and I was here. It even applied to my past, present, and future. In that sense of non-separation, where everything is a continuous flow, I experienced the release of so much love. There was no lack, no distance, and no loneliness. There was also no intimacy, only connection. There was just so much release of love that is transparent and effervescent and light. Its quality is very difficult to describe.
Q:
How did the trip change your life back then, and how does it influence the life you live now?
A:
My trip to Zanskar was actually a segment of my overall long stay in India. I had spent a total of 4 years mostly in Northern India, traveling back and forth between there and the U.S. researching and studying Eastern Philosophy and Western Philosophy. My interest has always been finding ways to release the highest human potential, and eventually I took what I’ve learned from those years and founded the nonprofit organization Inner Strength Education.
To be honest, it really doesn’t feel like much time has passed. I feel so much gratitude and love for that time and the people there, but it also doesn’t feel like I need to go back to it. My experience felt so full that it’s become a living part of me. Its essence is very much alive with me because of what it stood for—an understanding of what creates goodness, harmony, and possibility. That’s something that’s always living and not embedded in a memory.
So the book was actually really easy for me to write even after all these years, and I wrote it during a very busy time, in the middle of the pandemic. Our nonprofit Inner Strength Education, which teaches mindfulness to high schools, became twice as busy because there were so many mental health needs. It was such discouraging times for all of us, seeing the world in turmoil, that it felt right for me to outpour and share that particular experience.
I really just want to encourage everyone to go for what you feel is most important about a human life. I don’t mean in ways of trying to be happy by getting this and that, but really being inspired about how precious human life is and allowing your curiosity to take you to experiences you can’t even imagine. To live life in a way that you’re truly fulfilled, not defined by the perfect job, or the perfect marriage, or the perfect body, but to connect to the intangible quality of an irrepressible joy.
I think what the world needs most right now is that connection to that preciousness and sacredness of being alive, because that’s what’s really going to get us out of the mess we are in right now.
Amy Edelstein, educator, author, and public speaker is a powerful communicator of ideas and beliefs that can help us transform ourselves and the culture we live in.
In 2014, Amy founded the Inner Strength Foundation, a non-profit organization that has trained 17,000 inner-city teens in mindfulness and systems thinking. Amy began her own mindfulness practice in 1978 and has been an avid explorer of these tools ever since, studying in depth and then teaching in half a dozen countries around the world. She received a Philadelphia Social Innovation Award for her organization’s work in Violence Reduction and her free mindfulness mobile app for teens, Inner Strength VIBE, won 2021 best non-profit mobile app. Amy is a Cornell University College Scholar, cofounder of the learning platform Emergence Education, and author of six books including several #1 Amazon bestsellers and the Ben Franklin award-winning Adventure in Zanskar and the IPPY award-winning The Conscious Classroom. More at www.AmyEdelstein.com and www.InnerStrengthEducation.org.
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