Dalai Lama faces question of a lifetime
The Dalai Lama prepares to speak at the Long Beach Arena, as Geshe Thupten Jinpa, his principal English translator, looks on. Photo
His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, wearing the maroon robes of a “simple Buddhist monk,” mounted a stage and bowed to a large, standing audience, as he has so many times before. Once again, the 76-year-old spiritual leader moved to a chair, removed his shoes, drew up his legs and crossed them. Once again, he spoke patiently and methodically about compassion and peace of mind.
Thus did the 14th – and possibly last – Dalai Lama offer the flavor of Tibetan Buddhism to a western audience, spread across the folding chairs and rising bleachers of the Long Beach Arena.
Beneath the golden glow of a towering painting of the Medicine Buddha, the Dalai Lama spoke to 10,000 listeners about a worldwide need for tolerance between nations, religions, believers of all stripes and nonbelievers.
He assured his audience that no religion, including his own, is meant to be universal. He urged all believers to throw themselves into their paths, to truly believe — Buddhists in karmic law and sensual moderation, Christians and Muslims in a creator God.
He urged all people to steadfastly cultivate “warm-heartedness,” which can be spread from one person to others, exponentially, across the surface of the earth.
He spoke with the humility of a monk, and the quiet authority of a being who, according to his followers, has reincarnated 14 times as the Dalai Lama, an earthly manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, a heavenly being of limitless compassion.
From his frequent humor and his unhurried attention to the needs of the people before him, it would be hard to guess that Tibetan Buddhism stood near a crossroads, with the 600-year old institution of the reincarnated Dalai Lama soon to hang in the balance.
Yet, as the mountain plateau of Tibet is overrun by the power of the Chinese government, the structure of Tibetan Buddhism is being systematically disbanded. Chinese leaders have said that after Tenzin Gyatso’s death, they will take it upon themselves to identify the Tibetans’ next Dalai Lama.
Before that can happen, high Tibetan lamas will convene in little more than a decade – perhaps in their capital-in-exile in India – to decide whether the 14th Dalai Lama should reincarnate as the 15th Dalai Lama.
During what Buddhists call this “degenerate age,” when delusion waxes and enlightenment wanes, the Chinese continue to overrun the tiny plateau fastness and impose their will on the religious authority that once governed it.
In response, Tibetans within their land, and those in exile, continue to resist Chinese defilements of their culture. In the past year more than 30 people have set themselves afire in protest, and at least 20 have died.
The Dalai Lama bows to his audience. Photo
Spiritual center
It was not always this way.
For centuries Tibet, the “rooftop of the world” with its oxygen-starved altitudes, sheer mountain ranges and stark white skylines, stood as a spiritual center, far above the machinations of international powers.
Monasteries dotted the land. Strings of pendant-like prayer flags fluttered, carrying the wishes of Tibetans on the wind to the rest of the world. The hands of monks and nuns turned giant cylindrical prayer wheels, enjoining the winds to convey the root of happiness to the world below.
For a time, the mightiest temporal power in the land was Tibetan Buddhism.
Indian Buddhism had begun making peaceful inroads into Tibet about 200 years after the birth of Christ, influencing the shamanistic Bon religion, elements of which would eventually be folded into what would become Tibetan Buddhism.
The institution of the Dalai Lama arrived with its first incarnation, Gedun Drupa, in 1391.
In the 17th century, the fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, known as the “Great Fifth,” became the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, with the agreement of the chief military power, the Mongols. He founded education centers and began building the landmark Potala Palace.
The Great Fifth united temporal and spiritual power in Tibet, and spread the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, which is simple in its non-dogmatic practicality, yet rich with a multidimensional mythos of the miraculous.
Ten thousand people look on. Photo
Enter the world
During the time of the 13th Dalai Lama, as the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the shifting sands of international struggle began to blow across the spiritual bedrock of Tibet, which found itself squeezed between the designs of Russia and British India.
Tibet survived successive invasions by the British and the Chinese. Emerging with his political power enhanced, the 13th Dalai Lama instituted modernization measures, trying to remove some features of the Tibetan monastic system, introducing Tibetan currency, establishing a post office and strengthening the nation’s military force.
After he died, Lhamo Thondup, who would become Tenzin Gyatso, was born to a poor farm family in a small village in the northeastern province of Amdo.
When the boy was 3 years old, seekers of the Dalai Lama’s new incarnation followed various signs, and the vision of a high lama, to Amdo.
When the toddler saw the leader of the party, he is said to have called out the name of his monastery. The boy also passed a test by correctly identifying objects that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, saying “mine.” The boy was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama.
China invaded Tibetwhen he was a teenager, and he was called upon to take the nation’s political reins. He would engage in peace talks with Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Chou Enlai.
In 1959, during a military suppression of a Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama escaped into exile to live in Dharamsala, India. He continued meditating, teaching, and working on behalf of the six million Tibetans, Buddhism, world peace and individual happiness. His international recognitions include the Nobel Peace Prize.
He has moved to democratize the government-in-exile with elected leaders, stepping down from the temporal part of his position as Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama addresses reporters. Photo
Next lifetime
Forty-three years ago, he said publicly that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnations should continue only if that will benefit the Tibetan people. Since then, the Chinese government has named its own Tibetan high lamas, and Chinese officials have said they will identify the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
Near the end of September 2011, the Dalai Lama said that “as the degenerate age gets worse,” and reincarnations of high lamas are recognized for political purposes, “huge damage has been done” to the Tibetan Buddhist way.
“The enforcement of various inappropriate methods for recognizing reincarnations, to eradicate our unique Tibetan cultural traditions, is doing damage that will be difficult to repair,” he said, in a statement translated to English and other languages from his native tongue.
“Moreover, they say they are waiting for my death and will recognize a 15th Dalai Lama of their choice. It is clear from their recent rules and regulations, and subsequent declarations, that they have a detailed strategy to deceive Tibetans, followers of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the world community,” he said.
“When I am about 90 I will consult the high lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, the Tibetan public, and other concerned people who follow Tibetan Buddhism, and re-evaluate whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not,” he said.
If the tradition does continue, he said he will leave “clear written instructions” about how to recognize the 15th Dalai Lama.
‘I am nobody’
At a press conference the day before his Long Beach talk, he was asked about the possibility of a next life as someone other than the Dalai Lama. Would he return to earth as someone else? Would he continue to manifest as the celestial Avalokiteshvara?
He seemed to find the question amusing in its concern for a decision that need not be made for several years. The prospect of shedding yet another human body seemed to be a small matter for one so timeless. And deciding how to pack one’s bags for a reincarnation trip years away seemed of little moment to one whose attention stands so fully focused on the work of the present.
In short, he was not caught up in what the Buddha called the suffering of impermanence, which includes excessive clinging to things that must, by their temporal nature, come to an end – such as the institution of the Dalai Lama.
He expressed his continued hope for Tibet, and pointed to some Chinese moves for reform, including the removal of hard-liner Zhang Qingli as party secretary for what is now called the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
“When I am around 88 or 89 or 90, then I will convene another meeting, then I will ask all the majority if they want to keep this institution continuing or not,” he said, in Tibetan-accented English, punctuated by the castanet clicks of photographers’ cameras.
Before that, it seemed, there was no reason to discuss his next incarnation.
“I am nobody,” he said.