Ubush Darzhinov, About the Fate of the Kalmyks

The Oirats helped the Gelug school of Buddhism, of which the Dalai Lama is the head, come to power in Tibet. The Kalmyks took upon themselves a lot of sin by killing monks from other Buddhist schools. Ubush’s grandmother used say to him that the Kalmyks were atoning their collective sin. In Kalmykia it is believed that whenever a new Dalai Lama ascends to his throne, his first prayer is dedicated to the salvation of the Kalmyks. The tragic exodus of at least half of the Kalmyks to Dzungaria in 1771, the Civil War following the Bolshevik revolution that had a negative effect on the Kalmyk population, the exile of the entire Kalmyk population in 1943-1957, and today mass work migration out of Kalmykia: all these only prove that the Kalmyks indeed have a difficult karma. According to Ubush, karma is like an energetic field. It has positive and negative charges. In order to improve their karma, people should do good deeds, for example feed dogs, give seats to the elderly, read prayers etc. At the end Ubush reads an extract from a poem by Jangar Nasunov titled ‘On the Cart’.Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin