Shortly before I left Australia at the beginning of the year, I was approached at a Buddhist gathering by a woman who was preparing to open a new preschool ( named Blue Lion) in Singapore under the auspices of our common teacher Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. She asked if I might write a few songs specifically to fit into the curriculum of their new school.
“Sure,” I agreed. I mean….how hard can it be? Write a couple of ditties for small children.
Zoom calls are the flavour of the year, and it was on one of these strange methods of communication that I learned the full scope of what I had agreed to. An old friend of mine, Heather Sanche from Vancouver Island, is designing the curriculum and has big ideas when it comes to music.
“Well, we need one for packing away the toys, another for lining up, and another one before they eat their lunch,” she explained.
“Okay so three songs….that should be okay.” I replied
“Oh no, we need one for each theme as well, like impermanence and community. And then we want some for the ceremonies too.”
By the time we had isolated every nook and cranny of the curriculum which required a song, we were at a count of 16. I remember muttering something about it being a 70’s double album, however having worked with a committee some years back trying to establish a Buddhist primary school in Lismore, I know how difficult it is to get something like that off the ground.
I was happy to volunteer, but that is a lot of songs!
Home studio
Wherever I travel in the world, I bring the bare essentials to do home recordings, but I need help to produce a song to professional quality. I enlisted my mate Gary Dyson from London, well-known for his beautiful voice and innovative dance tracks, to help in production. He was happy to assist, but strapped for time as the UK was just opening back up from Covid suspension. That was when we learned that all the songs were to be translated into Chinese, so we would have 16 more versions to record!
I needed some help, so applied to the Khyentse Foundation in the USA for a grant, given that they were already supporting the preschool. Luckily, they could see the value of the project and approved my application….on condition that I write a few more songs for the Middle Way School near Woodstock.
With a modest payment available, I approached a young musician and producer in New York named Max Milner, who is bringing his huge talent to the project.
Even though the team in Singapore are translating the songs
into Chinese, and we can use the same music track, I still need somebody to
record the Chinese versions. I decided to contact a rap artist/comedian from
Shanghai named Tadi, who magically appeared in Bodh Gaya, India a couple of
years back, when I needed somebody of just his talents for a big show I was
running. Tadi wrote straight back to me saying, “You won’t believe this! Two
weeks ago, I opened a new recording studio designed especially for children and
families. I have kids coming in to sing every day and we are looking for
original material for them to record.”
So, despite the Covid doom and gloom, the future of Buddhist songs for children is looking bright! If you would like more information, please follow my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/simonthomasmusic/ or visit me on Bandcamp https://simonthomasmusic.bandcamp.com/. I will make all the songs available by donation when they are ready.
It all started way back in 2003. I was living the self-sufficient dream at Vajradhara Gonpa in the jungle-clad hills of sub-tropical Australia when my Bhutanese meditation teacher, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, accepted a dinner invitation. At some point, he nipped out to use our home-built composting toilet, and I guess he was impressed – so impressed that 11 years later, when I asked if he needed help with any volunteer jobs, he recalled the occasion.
“I have a monastery in Eastern Bhutan,” he told me. “We have enough toilets for the monks, but when we hold a big ceremony, there are so many visitors who make a terrible mess with their business. Can you build an ecologically sustainable toilet as an example to the villagers?”
Holy crap
“Ah, I’m better with solar than with faeces….”
“Electricity is not important,” he assured me. “Not while South Asia is drowning in its own shit.”
“So…..how many people are we talking about?” I hesitate to ask.
“We don’t know – about 5000….maybe ten.” Oh dear, that is a lot of pooh.
Although this sounded like a shitty task, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is a wonderful place, which usually costs USD250 per day just to visit, so I agreed to give it a try. I mean – how hard could it be?
Famous last words
Chokyi Gyatso Institute, Dewathang
In April 2014 I made my first visit to the charming Chokyi Gyatso Institute in Bhutan’s remote far-east. I found a picturesque monastery which clings to the side of a precipitous ridge high above the hamlet of Dewathang. With every inch of usable land already occupied with buildings, I was offered an impossibly steep site 100 metres down a treacherous track from the lowest building in the complex. The monk in charge of construction assured me that with retaining walls and a decent staircase, they could create a workable site. I reluctantly agreed, then tasked him with site preparation.
What could possibly go wrong?
I returned in January 2015 to discover that the monks had engaged some local stone masons to build their own wayward idea of composting chambers, despite having not even seen my plans. They had also poured a slab on top, and were about to set to work on the building above. An engineer quickly determined that compost toilet mark 1 would collapse under its own weight in no time, so I ordered its demolition and engaged a building contractor.
Compost toilet mark 1
If at first you don’t succeed….
Three months is a very short time in Bhutan, but we managed to get a fair portion of the building completed before my visa expired, so I left the crew there to finish off the job. Meanwhile, I had time to write this little ditty about my time there.
Dewathang Ditty (The Rice Song) by Simon Thomas
Disaster strikes
Dewathang is one of the wettest towns on earth with an annual rainfall is 5.5 metres. The great flood of July 2015 was quite an event, and the resulting landslide ran straight through the nearly completed toilet block mark 2, destroying it beyond repair.
Toilet mark 2 kaput
Compost toilet mark 3
Turd time lucky
On my next visit, I was pleasantly surprised to be offered another site, closer to the temple and somewhat more stable than the first. Due to the complications of getting anything done in this far away outpost, my visa again expired shortly after construction began. The plan was that I should return before the first usage of the facility to prepare the compost chambers with organic material, and check that the work had been properly completed. I was shocked some time later to be informed that the toilets had been opened up for use, and that they were getting rather smelly. No wonder! Without the correct preparation, they were crapping into an empty concrete room.
handing over the keys
Young monk loads mulch in the chambers
The final preparation
So it was that in December 2017, I headed back to Dewathang to sort out the mess. After a month of repairing faults and problems, almost 4 years since the original idea was flown, I handed over the keys to what probably qualifies as the most expensive toilet in Bhutan!
These monks are stars!
As part of the Lhomon Education initiative, I was invited to conduct a song writing workshop with the young monks at the institute. Check out this great song which they wrote and performed themselves to celebrate the theme of healthy living. Please share!
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