Musician and Buddhist Nun Choying Drolma.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: SEPTEMBER 27, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 092701np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: The Buddhist Chants of Choying Drolma
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with FRESH AIR.

On today's FRESH AIR, Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma joins us to sing some of the songs that are part of her meditative tradition. Her beautiful singing was discovered by the American guitarist Steve Tibbetts, who recorded her and later overdubbed guitar. They just concluded an American performance tour. She lives in a monastery in Nepal.

Also, we meet women's basketball star Cynthia Cooper. She led the Houston Comets to the WNBA championship this year and was voted Most Valuable Player for the third time. And rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Remedy," the first CD released in the U.S. by the British DJ duo known as Basement Jaxx.

That's all coming up on FRESH AIR.

First the news.

(NEWS BREAK)

GROSS: This FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Choying Drolma, is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives in a remote monastery in Nepal called Nagi Gompa (ph). As part of her meditative practice, she sings songs that have been part of the tradition for hundreds of years. Her beautiful singing was discovered by the American guitarist and composer Steve Tibbetts.

He first heard about her on a visit to Nepal. He recorded her singing alone and with other nuns, and when he got home he overdubbed guitar and percussion on some of the songs. The results are on the CD "Cho."

Last week, as Choying Drolma and Steve Tibbetts concluded an American performance tour, they came to our studio. I spoke with Choying Drolma about the music she sings and her life as a nun.

She was born in Nepal in 1971 to Tibetan parents living in exile. Drolma is now trying to build a school for nuns in Nepal to provide basic education and basic medical skills.

Before we meet her, let's hear music from her CD with Steve Tibbetts, "Cho."

(AUDIO CLIP: Excerpt, "Cho")

GROSS: Is singing and important part of the meditation practices in your nunnery?

CHOYING DROLMA: It's a practice, definitely, but in terms of meditation, well, we have different, very different, many different levels of meditation we can go through, very primary level of meditation to advanced level of meditation, where a point comes to no meditation. But this practice is a practice where we go through a lot of visualization practice also, visualization of your own body being offered to the evil spirits and...

GROSS: Your body being offered to the evil spirits?

DROLMA: Yes.

GROSS: I don't understand.

DROLMA: The essence -- my essential practice of this is just to realize our own negative emotion as our own biggest enemy and the demon (INAUDIBLE) I mean, like, your own negative emotion is the demon. But when we do it for other -- other -- somebody else who is sick or somebody's dead, and if we feel that there's some evil spirit has stopped -- I mean, like, blocked them or harming them, what we do is, like, we go in -- we go in front and say, "OK, here you come, everybody come." I mean, "If you -- if there's anybody who likes blood, just have my blood. Everybody -- anybody you like my flesh, have my flesh."

It's kind of practicing a selflessness, you know? We are so attached to our body. We're attached to ourself, our thought, our wish. And it's just -- people -- if they understand it's essential point of practice is that to, I mean, understand yourself. But here it says, "Have everything and enjoy. Bring peace."

GROSS: Before we talk more about your life in the Buddhist nunnery in Katmandu, I'd love it if you would sing one of the songs.

DROLMA: Sure.

GROSS: And if before you sing it you could explain to us how it fits in to the meditation practice.

DROLMA: Here -- this song is a solo song where we also can sing it with the drums, but I usually like to sing it solo. It's kind of a supplication prayer to our teachers, who's been the lineage (ph) teachers. So at the beginning, it starts with Namon Guru (ph). Namon Guru means "I pay homage to my teacher," where our teacher is very considered the most, most important thing in our -- in our life, in spiritual practice.

(SINGS)

GROSS: Oh, that was really beautiful. I imagine that you learned to sing that for purposes of meditation and paying homage to your teacher at the nunnery. And you know, in the past couple of years, you've started performing, as well, with the help of Steve Tibbetts. And I'm wondering what it's like to take this meditative music and find yourself singing for other people like you're singing for us now. It must be a totally different sense.

DROLMA: In a way, different, yes. But on the other hand, it is always our -- depend on our -- you know, whatever -- whenever we do this, I mean, our motivation there or our practice or our visualization is always the same thing. But the different is the outer environment. I mean, like, we have people looking at all, oh, hundreds of people down there staring at us. But before I start to sing, I feel that. I feel a little strange. I mean, sometime maybe I -- when I think very positively, I feel good that I'm getting a chance to let them hear these sacred songs. But once I start it, I'm all in my state, my natural state.

GROSS: My guest is Ani (ph) Choyang Drolma, and she's a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives in Katmandu. Her parents are exiles from Tibet who have been living in Nepal since, I guess, the late 1950s.

You were how old when you came to the monastery?

DROLMA: I was 13.

GROSS: Thirteen. And how did you know you wanted to be a nun at the age of 13? That seems so young.

DROLMA: To be honest, when I first became a nun, I really didn't much know about being a nun. But it was just to make -- it was just an excuse to get out of the life which I was living.

GROSS: What was it about -- what was it about the life you were living that you wanted to get away from?

DROLMA: I had a very hard life. I was young, and my family -- the financial condition wasn't that great. As being the oldest daughter in the family, I was supposed to do all the housework, cleaning, washing, cooking and taking care of two younger brothers.

And well, those things were not that really difficult part for me, but the most difficult part for me was -- my father was a little aggressive man, very -- I mean, I should say very aggressive. Right now I understand that he worked so much, he works -- he's a sculptor. He makes Buddhist statues. He -- whole day he works with the fire and chemical. And by end of the day, he's kind of really, really tired and confused, and very small thing made him really angry. And he used to kind of physically -- well, he used to beat me. And not only that, like, I didn't see any harmony between my mom and dad, also.

And not only that, like, I also saw my mom giving birth to my younger baby brother, which was very, very fearsome because my baby brother came in the wrong way. And our financial condition was not that great to take my mother to hospital, so we had our baby younger brother born in Nepal -- I mean, in home -- at home.

And my father and my father's friend, another one lady and me, three of us were there to help my mother giving birth to the baby brother. Since it came out the wrong way, it took so long, and my mother was losing a lot of, I mean, blood. I mean, as a kid, I was seeing everything. I was -- I was so afraid that my mother was going to die. I mean, I never could imagine that giving birth to a baby was that kind of tremendous amount of pain and difficulty.

Anyway, just I saw my father and that other lady putting their hands inside and then pulling out the baby. By the time baby came out, it was dead and -- but still, like, my mother was kind of -- when my father told her that "Your baby's dead," my mother said, "Please don't try to" -- you know, like, tell my father that not to cut the...

GROSS: Umbilical cord?

DROLMA: Yes. And she wanted to have the baby. My father understood that, and then he gave the baby to my mother. My mother, what she did was, like, she tried to clean up the mouth and nose both first, and she started sucking from the mouth and blowing through the nose. Somehow, like, first the baby had some marks on her neck, at the -- in neck, and eyes was closed, ears were closed, nose were closed.

I mean, it was dead. But after several times she did that, and the baby started, like, moving and cried. It's not only that -- and then, like, she had difficulty in having the -- after baby comes out, there's another thing has to come out.

GROSS: The placenta.

DROLMA: Yeah. So didn't come out, and she was losing a lot of blood. So finally, like, we ended up, like, taking her to the hospital. So she survived, but all the process was so fearful.

GROSS: Did the baby live?

DROLMA: Yes. He's now 19 years old. And it's just the experience which I was going through was, like, too much for me because I was -- my age and my experience was, like, not dones (ph).

GROSS: Is this a kind of difficult thing that girls come to the nunnery because they -- their -- a parent beats them or because...

DROLMA: No, not necessarily...

GROSS: ... life is...

DROLMA: ... all the time.

GROSS: This was unusual?

DROLMA: I think. I mean, normally, most nuns who become nuns are their, like, parents' wish because parents are very religious.

GROSS: Right.

DROLMA: And they want their children to be religious person. And on the other hand, people realizes the suffering of being in the worldly activities, and they think, like, renunciation is the best way to accomplish peace. That's how they go to a nunnery.

But for me, it was just, like -- just, like, going -- experiencing a lot of things like that, and one day I was, like, feeling so sad. I was -- I had a fear that I have to live a life like my mom's, like, grow up, get married. I couldn't have any better example of a man beside my father. So I thought maybe I will have a husband like him and then just, I mean, give birth to babies, and that's the limit of the life. I didn't wanted that life, but I didn't know any alternatives, either.

So I just talked to my mother about it, and then my mom says, "You don't have to live the life if you don't want to." And she just gave me the idea to become a nun.

GROSS: Well, did a nunnery seem like the only alternative way out?

DROLMA: Yes. When my mom told me that I can become a nun, I said, "How I can become a nun?" She said, "There's a very -- the very wonderful teacher nowadays in Boda (ph)" -- that's a place, area, called Boda, Bodanot (ph), where the -- where it is -- has the biggest stupa in the world, I think.

And I went to him. I said, "I want to take refuge. I want to become a nun." And they all laughed because I was young. I was almost around 10 years old. But finally, he accepted me. And I came back home, and I told my parents. I said, "I'm a nun now. You can't keep me home. You have to let me go to a nunnery, otherwise you'll be committing a sin."

But somehow, our family condition was, like, that, and they didn't have anybody to help them. They still kept me for another three years, and was still continuously -- in continuing the same old life, I was. And I became little older. I was -- I became even more rebelling.

GROSS: Rebellious?

DROLMA: Rebellious. I said, "I'm going to a nunnery. You can't keep me here." And I -- no matter how much my father was, I mean, like, angry or, you know, aggressive, I always tell -- I told him that "You let me go to a nunnery, or you kill me."

GROSS: Wow. Those are strong words.

DROLMA: So I think finally, he was -- he got fed up with me and then let me go to a nunnery.

GROSS: My guest is Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. Her singing is recorded on the CD "Cho." We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(ID BREAK)

GROSS: My guest is Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. She lives in a monastery in Nepal. Her singing is recorded on a CD called "Cho."

What's a typical day like for a 13-year-old in a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery?

DROLMA: Well, first of all, I really -- now I appreciate my father very much. I really thank him for treating me like what -- I mean...

GROSS: For treating you harshly.

DROLMA: Yes. I really do because...

GROSS: Because you feel like you found your calling because of...

DROLMA: Yes. Because of that treatment, I felt like I want to go somewhere where I found the most, most, greatest, wonderful teacher, who -- he taught me the meaning of life. He taught me to love my parents.

At the beginning, I used to hate my father a little bit. I had -- I used to have some question, like, well, is he really my father? You know, because I used to compare myself to other children because they -- like, children who had always had new dresses on New Year, and they never had to work.

They were never beaten by their parents, never -- they had a lot of toys. I used to love to have, I mean, like, doll, but I never had one. So but still I never complained to my father because, you know, in a way I think I understood the situation maybe, or maybe I didn't dare to ask.

But my teacher really, for a couple of years, oh, he let me live a -- really returned my whole childhood. I was able to play around. I really was like a child. I was very naughty, I should say!

GROSS: Doing what?

DROLMA: Well, hanging around everywhere and not studying. I was really, like, free, like a bird out of cage.

GROSS: So he must have felt -- your teacher must have felt you needed that.

DROLMA: Of course. He's omniscient. He must have understood everything, so -- and then slowly he taught me very nice, in a very simple way, never put me in a kind of a boundary, saying that "This is you have to do" or "That is you have to do." But very, very unnoticeably, something which you can experience or feel it, you know, but not -- nothing like "This is it. That is it." You know? Never like a class or anything like that.

But slowly, with his blessing, with his compassion, I really started to learn and then started appreciating being a nun, started to understand what are the rules of being a nun, what is the purpose of being a nun.

GROSS: Could I ask you to sing another song for us?

DROLMA: Sure.

GROSS: You've brought with you a bell and...

DROLMA: Dummer (ph), we call it.

GROSS: And that's the drum, the dummer?

DROLMA: The drum, yes.

(SINGS)

GROSS: Choying Drolma is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives in a monastery in Nepal. She'll be back in the second half of the show. Her CD with the American guitarist Steve Tibbetts is called "Cho" and it's on Hannibal Records.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(ID BREAK)

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. She lives in a monastery in Nepal.

The American guitarist and composer Steve Tibbetts has recorded her singing songs that are part of her Buddhist tradition. He's overdubbed guitar and percussion on some of the songs. Their CD is called "Cho."

Now, your teacher, who you were very close to, you were his assistant from when you were 13 till his death, I guess, in 1996...

CHOYING DROLMA, "CHO": Yes, that was 1996.

GROSS: That was -- so that was how many years, about 10 -- more than 10 years.

DROLMA: More than 10 years, 12, almost 13. Twelve.

GROSS: Do you wonder what he would have said about you performing?

DROLMA: He would have laughed, definitely. "You crazy?" he would tell me.

GROSS: But you think he would have allowed -- you know, accepted it and encouraged you to do it?

DROLMA: I mean, he was positive about it, you know. What...

GROSS: Was he alive when you started doing this?

DROLMA: Yes, we did the recording, I mean, with his permission. I mean, before, when first -- I was more shocked than my teacher was. I mean, when I receive his mixing up and everything, when I listened to it, I...

GROSS: When you received Steve Tibbetts' version of your songs with his music...

DROLMA: Music, yes.

GROSS: ... mixed behind it, yes.

DROLMA: Yes, I never expected that, and I was shocked. Really, honestly, I was pretty shocked. And I said, you know, Uh-oh, what is this? But when he said, "Let's make album," and I wasn't going to decide what I was, I mean, saying yes or no. I went, definitely went to teacher, and I said, "What do you think of making an album, you know, like, it will be able to reach out to a lot of people." And he was very positive that these sacred prayers are very blessingful. We believe that you can liberate people by letting them hear the sacred songs, you know.

So that was the positive thought he had, he give to me. So I was very positive since that.

GROSS: Can you give us a sense of what a typical day might be like for you now in the nunnery?

DROLMA: For me?

GROSS: Yes.

DROLMA: I'm now more as a staff. I mean, I -- individual practices, of course, as -- that's very necessary in our life. We try to practice as much as possible. But still, I'm not a diligent person, and what I try to do is, like, try to find what's there happening in the nunnery, is there anything I can do, like it -- mostly what I do is, I see if anybody's sick or anybody needs anything medically.

Like, we have 15 nuns in three-year retreat, and I take -- I try to check whether everything is fine with them. If any of them are sick, I go down -- because I drive a Jeep. I'm the only nun who drives in the fall (ph), I think, probably, I'm the only nun who is driving (INAUDIBLE). So I can go down and get a doctor, and, you know, understand what doctor say is what's the problem, everything.

So that kind of thing I do. And I really am on focusing very strongly into my project also, which makes me spend a lot of time (INAUDIBLE)...

GROSS: The project of starting a school.

DROLMA: Exactly.

GROSS: Could you sing one more short song for us?

DROLMA: Sure.

GROSS: Introduce it for us?

DROLMA: This is a song where you would invite all the evil (ph) spirits and tell them that, You might have been my parents, since we believe that we have taken many, many rebirths, and any life -- anybody could have been our parents or our child. So it's kind of a life circulation, and I want to repay your kindness. And since many years, since long time I've been so attached to my body, myself, and that cause me still remain in this world of samsara.

GROSS: Is that the materialistic world?

DROLMA: Yes, materialistic world, which was so much focused outside, and then our negative emotion when the life mostly (ph) and which was full of suffering. And let me just clear my debt and bring peace and by -- with the peace you receive, I pray that you all take the rebirth in the realm of Buddha and all the male in the realm of Buddha, all the female be reborn in the realm of Tara (ph). That's a Ladastara (ph).

GROSS: OK.

DROLMA: That's a prayer you'll hear.

(SINGS TIBETAN PRAYER)

GROSS: Choying Drolma is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives in a monastery in Nepal. Her CD with the American guitarist Steve Tibbetts is called "Cho," and it's on Hannibal Records.

Coming up, women's basketball star Cynthia Cooper.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Choying Drolma
High: Choying Drolma is a Tibetan Buddist nun who practices a contemplative system of Buddhism called Cho. As part of that system, she also sings religious songs and chants. Their music was recorded by guitarist Steve Tibbetts who then created guitar arrangements around it. The result was the CD "Cho." Drolma is currently on tour with Tibbetts and her fellow nuns.
Spec: Music Industry; Religion; Choying Drolma; Steve Tibbetts

Please note, this is not the final feed of record

Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: The Buddhist Chants of Choying Drolma

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: SEPTEMBER 27, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 092703NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: "Remedy": A Review
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:52

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

GROSS: The British duo known as Basement Jaxx, Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton, became well known for the intense dance party nights in Brixton music clubs, where they were DJs. People in England responded to the team's mixture of everything from disco beat to flamenco guitar.

Basement Jaxx has just released its first full-length CD in America, called "Remedy." Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "REMEDY," BASEMENT JAXX)

KEN TUCKER, ROCK CRITIC: The first thing you notice about the music of Basement Jaxx is its lightness, its playfulness. So much dance and techno music sounds like notes strung together by a computer, untouched by human consciousness, let alone a sensibility with humor.

For this reason, the Jaxx sound is positively exhilarating. Listen to a track like "Jump and Shout," featuring a vocal by someone named Slarta John (ph).

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "JUMP AND SHOUT," BASEMENT JAXX)

TUCKER: This CD, called "Remedy," offers an alternative to current dance music, real warmth, real melodies, real vocals, all without forsaking the rhythms that keep people moving on the dance floor.

Much of the music has the heat and intensity of old Chicago house music from a decade ago or more.

Here's the album's first single, called "Red Alert."

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "RED ALERT," BASEMENT JAXX)

TUCKER: That cut features a vocal by the singer Blue James and owes a debt to George Clinton's P-Funkiness, as well as invoking now-obscure disco divas such as Gwen McRae (ph) and Anita Ward. To paraphrase Anita Ward's biggest hit, the best of Basement Jaxx can really ring your bell.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "REMEDY," BASEMENT JAXX)

TUCKER: Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe refer to their music as "punk garage," emphasizing its artful slapdash quality. What they've really done is create one of the few CDs that holds up both on the dance floor and in the privacy of your own home.

Basement Jaxx's closest stylistic colleagues, the Chemical Brothers, have had their music hijacked by TV commercials and teen television dramas, where the beats have come to signify both hipness and easy alienation.

Basement Jaxx is offering, as its album title says, a remedy for this. Listen to them now before they pop up as the sound track to a goopy love scene on "Felicity."

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for "Entertainment Weekly." He reviewed "Remedy" by Basement Jaxx.

FRESH AIR's interviews and reviews are produced by Naomi Person, Amy Sallett (ph), and Phyllis Meyers (ph), with Monique Nazareth, Ann Marie Boldanado, and Patty Leswing (ph), research assistance from Helen Wang (ph). Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

I'm Terry Gross.

We'll close with music by Aretha Franklin. She has a new autobiography and will be our guest one day next week on FRESH AIR.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "YOU SEND ME," ARETHA FRANKLIN)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Ken Tucker
High: Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Remedy," the first full-length CD released in America by the British duo Basement Jaxx, consisting of the two DJs Simon Ratcliffe & Felix Buxton.
Spec: Music Industry; Basement Jaxx; Entertainment

Please note, this is not the final feed of record

Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: "Remedy": A Review
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.