Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: "In Wisconsin"

Original Air Dates: July 6, 2006, and July 14, 2005

Patty Loew:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our summer season of In Wisconsin. I'm Patty Loew. This week our stories have a bit of a spiritual theme. Meet an internationally renowned religious leader, who risked his life in a journey that ended in Wisconsin. Find out what inspires this artist to create his work using a 1500-year old tradition. And visit a grotto, in the southwestern part of our state that gets thousands of visitors a year. All that, plus a visit to a state natural area that has the largest natural tall grass prairie in Wisconsin.

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant energy, offering energy saving ideas on the Web. UW Health, providing specialty and primary care for all ages throughout Wisconsin. Information on UW Health physicians and clinics, and on University of Wisconsin Hospital, is available on the Web. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing local education for the crucial occupations essential to our communities. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, communities first.

Loew:

In our first story, we meet a man whose life experience took him on an incredible journey. Geshe Sopa is a Tibetan monk and revered Buddhist teacher. Under threat of death, he fled his homeland in 1959 during the Chinese invasion. His journey eventually took him to a new home in Wisconsin.

Narrator:

Madison's Tibetan community gathers every summer to celebrate the birthday of their spiritual leader, his holiness, the Dalai Lama. They gather at Deer Park, a Tibetan Buddhist center near Oregon, Wisconsin.

Ani Jampa:

There is a very large Tibetan community here. There are over 400 Tibetans now. Deer Park serves as a very important place for them, because Buddhism is, it's just an integral part of their culture.

Narrator:

The temple at Deer Park was built in 1981 for the Dalai Lama's visit to Wisconsin. He came in part to visit a famous scholar he first met in Tibet. Geshe Sopa is the founder and Abbot of Deer Park Buddhist Center. At the age of 82, Geshe Sopa has earned an international reputation.

Jampa:

He's really a very, very famous in many parts of the world, but in Asia, I think he's just known for his superior scholarship and teaching abilities.

Narrator:

Geshe Sopa became a Buddhist monk when he was a young child. His inspiration came when visiting the monastery near his family's farm in Tibet.

Geshe Sopa:

And as a young child I would go there and in the morning, every day they had some kind of assembly hall. I would go to the balcony and look down there and there were young children and monks also sitting down there. I was looking all the time and chanting. I always wanted to be like that. So I told my father and mother I always wanted to be a monk.

Narrator:

He entered the monastery at the age of nine. At first the discipline was very hard.

Sopa:

Now I thought I don t want to stay there I want to go home and that kind of thing.

Narrator:

Geshe Sopa became a teacher himself when he was still quite young.

Khamlung Tulku:

When I first saw him, I was surprised to see how young he was.

Narrator:

Khamlung Tulku was one of his students in Tibet.

Tulku:

He was very famous, and he had a lot of students, and especially he was really good with, like, debating philosophy.

Narrator:

In addition to his fame as a scholar, Geshe Sopa had a reputation among his students for kindness.

Tulku:

He also looked after all his students, especially when they got sick. He was very kind. He would go around trying to help them out because in the monastery, we lived very simple. So he would go to make sure they had enough food.

Narrator:

One of the scholastic honors awarded Geshe Sopa was that of debate examiner of the Dalai Lama. Geshe Sopa was one of only 30 examiners selected from thousands of monks from the three largest monasteries in central Tibet.

Sopa:

Yes, honor.

Narrator:

The examiners debated complex philosophical points with the Dalai Lama, somewhat like oral exams at a western university. During the debates, Geshe Sopa saw great potential in the young Dalai Lama.

Sopa:

Oh he was very, very intelligent. He had is own two teachers in the background there and a lot of Abbots, etcetera, are sitting there, but among them he has to answer each of them whoever asks a question, he has to answer every one of them so he was very, very good.

Narrator:

The peace of monastic life was shattered during the 1950s when communist China invaded Tibet.

Sopa:

I have memories. Chinese first came to Tibet at the time of Mao Tse-tung. At that time they invaded and they said, We are coming to help Tibet.

Narrator:

Under the guise of helping Tibet, the Chinese military began to exert control detaining, torturing, and killing people, especially outspoken monks. The Dalai Lama decided to escape over the mountains to India. He hoped that by leaving he could prevent more violence. Within 48 hours of his secret flight, the Chinese began their attack on his home and other targets in the capitol.

Tulku:

There were days there with a lot of shooting. People were getting killed. We had to run out from the monastery.

Narrator:

A few days after the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet, Geshe Sopa, along with a group of his students and villagers, escaped over the mountains to India. Khamlung was 15.

Tulku:

It was very scary, because you know, Chinese can come with airplanes. It happened a lot of times. And also the Chinese Army, they came from different directions all over. They tried to block the passage to India. So that way none of us will make it out from Tibet. And so a lot of the bad news and whatever they have done won't be heard outside.

Narrator:

It's estimated that almost one-sixth of the Tibetan population, over one million people, have died as a result of the Chinese invasion. Geshe Sopa's initial feelings about the Chinese atrocities have been tempered by his Buddhist beliefs.

Sopa:

Fear and of course anger sometimes but anger has no meaning. We have a religious attitude and His Holiness himself has taught a lot of people (about non-violence). People still want to fight or something he said that kind of attitude is not good so people should be peaceful and gentle.

Narrator:

After living at refugees in India for two years, the Dalai Lama asked Geshe Sopa to take some of his students to America to continue their studies while learning English. They spent five years at a monastery in New Jersey, then Geshe Sopa received a very different type of teaching offer. In the mid 1960s, he took a job at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In the first multinational Buddhist PhD program in the nation. They needed someone who knew the Tibetan language.

Jo Elder:

He was teaching assistant in Tibetan. And the analog I would say would be, if the classics department invited the Pope to come and be a teaching assistant in a Latin course.

Narrator:

Geshe Sopa's scholarly skills were soon put into practice in the classroom. He added Tibetan Buddhist Theory and Philosophy to his curriculum.

Elder:

His real skill would be to take a passage from a text, and then zero in on the key words and zero in on the meanings of the words. And this essentially was the nature of his scholarship. But to watch him take this and focus, and focus, and focus was something that is a long-standing Tibetan tradition, and just very different from the way most of us do our scholarship.

Narrator:

Analyzing Tibetan texts may seem like hard work, but Geshe Sopa often shows his students a softer side.

Jampa:

He is very funny, and that's part of his wonderful teaching method is his great sense of humor. So he loves to say to his students, now we're chewing on the hard bones. Now you know what it's like to chew on the hard bones. And students will laugh and laugh. And it's just -- it's a wonderful technique to help us along on the path.

Narrator:

Ani Jampa was one of his graduate students.

Jampa:

During the lunch hour, he would have the graduate students come by and he would share his lunch with them. I remember the brown paper towel. He'd give us each a little napkin and divide his sandwich up to share with us. And just with that twinkle and warmth of his expression, he was just so kind to all of his students.

Narrator:

Student interest soon overwhelmed the confines of Geshe Sopa's classes at the University. He founded Deer Park Buddhist Center in part to answer their needs. Today, students travel from many nations to sit in on his teachings.

Dechen Rochard:

He's a spiritual master, and I think anybody from any religious background could learn something that would help them in their own practice. So I've come here because he's a great scholar, one thing. Secondly, because he is a person with great experience.

Narrator:

Geshe Sopa never intended to leave Tibet. It was only due to the tragedy of war and exile that his spiritual gifts have spread beyond the borders of his home. He is said to be a very realized Buddhist, which means he lives his beliefs, beliefs centered on compassion for the suffering of others.

Jampa:

His ultimate wish is for all living beings, all sentient beings to obtain freedom and, you know, permanent cessation to suffering and emancipation. I mean, that's his whole purpose for being, is for him to try to bring about that in other people.

Sopa:

This is always my wish, that s all. That is only a mere wish.

Loew:

We go now to southwestern Wisconsin. That's where thousands of people travel each year to walk through what's known as the Dickeyville Grotto. It was created by piecing together interesting items from around the world. Sit back and enjoy the tour.

Marge Timmerman:

The Dickeyville Grotto was built by Father Mathias Wernerus in 1925 and was completed upon his death in 1931. The good friend that he had done a favor for gave him a statue of Jesus and Mary, and he was wondering how to display it for the public to see. And being from Germany, he decided to build a grotto to house the statue.

Monsignor James Gunn:

The word grotto itself means a small, cave-like structure. Grottos were very common in Europe, and it comes out of the natural experience of some of the local geography of the German people. They used to build little shrines and put a statute of a saint, a crucifix of Christ. It was a way of invoking God's blessings on their work, their labor, and their fields, and their homes. There was a time after World War I, a real time of fear and worry of people who were German who were Catholic as well. One of the concerns that people had was that it was a time for them to say that we can truly be good Catholics, and we can be as well good patriots of this country. And so Father Wernerus built that into what the grotto was all about, they really tried to stress their connection with liberty and unity, and working together with all people to build up this nation.

Timmerman:

He had a dream to build this. It was his life's work, and it sort of snowballed and he kept building and building.

Gunn:

Father Wernerus seemed to have this master plan that he held in his mind and in his heart, and there never seemed to be any blue prints. There didn't seem to be any drafts or drawings of this particular grotto available anywhere. He had this in mind and he knew exactly what he wanted to do, probably like many of the great artists.

Timmerman:

It was a community project. People were anxious to help him. They were there to help.

Henrietta Hauber:

We were in school, and he would need help to wash rocks or clean something, and the kids could come from school over in the basement and help clean up all that stuff, which was a big deal for us kids to get out of school, you know. They'd work all winter in the basement of his house. Oh, his living room, he had no living. It was just rocks and rocks and cement. And he put that all together, and in the spring he'd come out and put it up and it all fit.

Henry Melssen:

And sometimes he worked until late at night, but he'd go right out the next day again. And sometimes on the grotto he'd put stuff up there, and if he didn't like it, he put somebody up there with a chisel and took it off and he'd put it up the way he wanted.

Timmerman:

Father Wernerus used anything and everything that anybody gave him, donated to him, brought to him. He used even broken dishes and jewelry and things of a personal nature. The balls are round gear shift knobs. Apparently they didn't work for him Henry Ford, so they sent them to Father Wernerus. There are rocks from all 48 states that there were then, and glass from the kilns in Indiana. There are things from all over the world, not only the United States, plus things from Europe and the Catacombs. He had plans to do more, because when he was working on the patriotic shrine, he told the boys, wait until you see the next one. It will be even better.

Father Wernerus was out on a sick call, and it was cold weather and raining and sleeting, and he got very wet and developed pneumonia. He died quite suddenly, but the parish and the community were just, you know, all very, very saddened by his death and felt they lost a good friend. Each year, we have about 60,000-plus visitors, and they come with families. They are senior citizens, people from all over the United States, people from Europe, religious people, people who have no beliefs, probably people looking for something a little more in their life. They are awed with the grotto, no matter where they come from or what their reason is.

Gunn:

I think one of the real miracles are the places that people find a sense of peace and contentment, and in many ways a real sense of meditation here. It seems to be a real place that God is present and that nature and people seem to unite in a real sense of harmony.

Timmerman:

I love the grotto, and I think I know a little of what father Wernerus felt, because the pride is there. Once you've worked for it, you're very, very proud of it. You just have a sense of pride of, Where are you from? Dickeyville. Oh, the home of the grotto.

Loew:

You can find more information about how to visit the Grotto by checking out our web site at wpt.org/InWisconsin. Once there, you will also see more about all of this week's stories. You can access streaming video of past reports. Again, the address is wpt.org/InWisconsin.

Loew:

Time now to head into the Wisconsin Public Television video vault for our next story. This Wisconsin Retro selection first aired in 1987. It features a Madison artist who paints in a 1500- year old tradition called iconography.

David Giffey:

Well, iconography is a spiritual past. Again, life itself is a spiritual path. And for whatever reasons, I've found it necessary for many years to try to pursue the spiritual path. I have a real, my system of beliefs seems to have pretty much always have included the need to practice something spiritual. I was a naive artist. Very naive. I had never studied art formally, although I think that my years as a journalist, photo journalist, and so forth kind of oriented me to visual things. But I didn't know anything about painting. I was a Grandma Moses painter. The first painting I made as an adult was a scene of the farm on which I grew up in Fond du Lac County. I eventually phased myself out of naive art, because I learned how to paint. There's no going back in a certain way.

The most important thing I learned from the monks of Greece was to make myself available to learn how to paint in a certain manner, with certain materials, and also to learn how to pray and meditate.

When I paint an icon, I do it in the manner in which it's been done for centuries. I make a drawing, first of all, to determine the composition. And then a cartoon or a sketch of the exact size that the painting will be. I transfer the sketch, the cartoon onto the surface upon which it will be painted, be it canvas or board or wall or whatever. And then the painting begins. This is liturgical art. It has an absolute function. It's not whimsical at all. It's not to say the artist doesn't have freedom. I mean, I have to interpret what I do, use my own limitations, my own skills or lack of skill or whatever to produce this art. But at the same time, it is liturgical. It's an essential ingredient to eastern Christian worship. I've had people complain, Americans who sort of have lost contact with that part of Christian history ask me, for example, why did you paint Mary? She had such a Mediterranean face. As is she was supposed to have an Anglo Saxon face, I guess.

The Orthodox in Madison, it's the only orthodox church in Madison. People of all ethnic groups worship there. My presence in that church initially was as a parishioner. At that time, this was in the early 1970s, I was learning iconography myself. I had no idea that I would eventually paint churches. But coincidentally, that church was remodeled and rebuilt and made into a very beautiful and traditional building with a lot of white walls and ceilings. And then as I grew in my proficiency and was able to paint, it pretty much followed that I ended up painting there. And I hope to continue for many, many years doing portions of ceilings and walls of that church. Every inch of an Orthodox church is intended to be decorated with icons. The fact I'm Irish and paint Greek Orthodox churches, and had certain experiences in my life may be a bit unusual. But from my vantage point, it seemed to be absolutely natural and normal. So I don't find it unusual at all. I would find it unusual not to do what I do. This seems to be the natural outgrowth of the whole combination of experiences and elements that make up me, and I can't explain it any other way.

Loew:

We recently spoke with artist David Giffey, who tells us he is still painting churches and also public murals. Among his works Giffey created two large murals in Madison's Aldo Leopold School. Although they are not church paintings, they feature the same techniques. That's our program. Thanks for joining us. And thanks to Olbrich Botanical Gardens for hosting us this week. We leave you with Avoca Prairie State Natural Area in Iowa county. See you next time. I'm Patty Loew.

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant energy, offering energy saving ideas on the Web. UW Health, providing specialty and primary care for all ages throughout Wisconsin. Information on UW Health physicians and clinics, and on University of Wisconsin Hospital, is available on the Web. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing the people of Wisconsin with the knowledge and skills that they need for the economy of tomorrow. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, communities first.