Happy Birthday, Your Holiness

His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2011. Photo by Bonnie Jenkins. Source: https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/mandala-issues-for-2011/october/remembering-the-kindness-of-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-and-the-courageous-people-of-tibet/

On July 6, 1935, the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara emanated into a small village in Amdo, Tibet. The child was recognized as the fourteenth Dalai Lama and enthroned as the leader of Tibet on his turning fifteen years of age, three years ahead of schedule. 

With no exposure to the geopolitics of the world at the time and an inquisitive and far-reaching mind, Tenzin Gyatso assumed the duties of a leader of a state that was on the precipice of destruction. Mao Zedong and the People’s Republic of China had already made overtures and incursions to “peacefully liberate” the Tibetan people and bring Tibet back into the Motherland.

There are enough lies in that last sentence to choke ten chickens. Yes, the PRC’s army had invaded Tibet; but this was no peaceful liberation of a people who were not part of China in the first place and therefore, required no reclamation by the People’s Republic of China. The status of Tibet has been fraught throughout her history, but assuredly, not as a Chinese province. Certainly, the Tibetan people are not of Han stock and even though borders were historically porous in Eastern Tibet, Amdo and Kham are most assuredly not Chinese.

That His Holiness is a remarkable person goes without saying and simply saying it is a masterclass in itself of understatement. But to be thrust into the position of a head of state and your primary goal is to ensure the well-being of your people and protecting them from the invasion by the world’s most populous country led by one of history’s most notorious and ruthless dictators would, I think, cause most people to waver and think twice about showing up to the office. 

However, from what I’ve seen, heard, and know of His Holiness, while he may have personally had some doubts, he was not going to be deterred from working for the benefit of the Tibetan people under his aegis. Additionally, it is important to emphasize this: he was (and remains) concerned for the well-being of the Chinese people, as well. If anything, his training by some of the greatest teachers in Tibet’s monastic tradition served him well in generating a heart that places others before oneself. This may require a little unpacking.

Like most realized beings, putting others’ well-being before one’s own desires is not a simpleminded matter of self-abnegation, abasement, or breast beating ruefulness. It is simply based on recognizing that there is no higher calling than to work for the well-being of others from a perspective of an awakened mind. There is not an exact translation of “bodhichitta” in English, really. “Bodhi”, related to “buddh” connotes clarity or wakefulness. “Chitta” is mind, but not just the cognitive mind; chitta isn’t limited by function or framework. If we are to look for a more exact or more close approximation, we would do well to use caps: Mind. In this way, Mind is all, and ever awake. And an awakened mind is not going to be limited by accepting the impermanent or momentary as definitive, it is not going to be swayed by appearances, and it is going to manifest in harmony, as compassion toward all beings. No event, situation, or milieu is going to disrupt it. 

The ethics of Buddhism, generally speaking, rest on developing this mind (or shall we say, Mind) and acting in accordance with an “enlightened” perception. There may be those who say, well, “bodhichitta” is a Mahayana term not used in Theravada or “early Buddhism”. This is a valid, scholarly response; but I would argue that you can’t have Buddhism without this motivation. The Pali canon may not have the term, but that motivation is inherent in all teachings of the Buddha. In any case, Buddhist ethics are constant across the various schools. The Noble Eightfold Path lays out quite well, wholesome steps for engaging with the world and supporting the existential engagement and encounters with Being itself. You cannot separate the mind of awakening from the motivation and action of compassion. 

This is what supported His Holiness’s ability to engage with someone as intimidating (for most of us) as Mao and continue to go to toe to toe with Communist China at a time when the PRC was more aggressive at expanding its territory through the use of hard power than in more recent times, having become more subtle in utilizing economics, trade, and investment as more sophisticated weapons to broaden and deepen its reach across the world. Of course, it goes without saying that invading a country like Tibet is straight out of a schoolyard bully’s playbook.

I cannot state often enough, too, that we moderns don’t seem to realize how isolated Tibet was politically. It’s too long a tale and resources are easy to find regarding Tibet’s relationship with its neighbors through the centuries, but between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Tibet’s regional influence decreased and the country’s leadership was not as forward thinking as one might hope. Led by one or two visionary Dalai Lamas (the Fifth and the Seventh come to mind), Tibet was mostly ruled by the whims of a variety of regents. It is not too much of a stretch to say that the capital of Lhasa as the center of power was met with resistance in the outer provinces and the various schools of Buddhism that had at one time or another held sway over the country found themselves at the mercy of the Gelug sect, the school of Tibetan Buddhism to which the Dalai Lamas adhered and by with their temporal sovereignty was endowed. 

But the world had changed drastically by the end of the nineteenth century and Tibet found herself part of “a”, if not, “the”, Great Game. The British invaded in the early 1900s with the Younghusband Mission with an eye to expanding the Empire beyond India. This would prove untenable for the British, but it is likely that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama knew this. Another remarkable leader, Thubten Gyatso realized that if he was to bring Tibet into the new century, he would have to forge ties with larger and better equipped partners. The realpolitik at the Lhasan court during this time is the stuff of movies. Suffice it to say, that His Holiness the Thirteenth had an arduous time of trying to curry alliances with Russia at a particularly volatile time in that country’s history, assuage Britain’s imperial designs, and frankly, keep China out of the equation, given that the earlier part of the century was fraught with the end of the dynastic era, the rise of a fragmented republic, and possessed of leadership that did have an eye toward subsuming Tibet. To that end, in 1913, Tibet drafted its Declaration of Independence and reclaimed its own sovereignty after having been under the suzerainty of the Manchus.

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama died too soon his plans for modernization realized. His regents were not progressive thinkers nor were they necessarily honorable men. Indeed, his death was kept form the public until the fourteenth successor had been found in Takster Village. 

The world roiling from Depression and a global conflagration was probably not well-understood by the average Tibetan. Nevertheless, His Holiness did stay abreast of scientific advances and his inquisitive mind would not stop him from absorbing the news of the day, regardless of how far away from Lhasa it might be. One suspects that as a youngster, even, he had some idea that the events shaping the world would eventually come to the Himalayan kingdom’s doorstep. 

In one sense, that was literally the case with Heinrich Harrar showing up and becoming a kind of unofficial tutor to the young leader. A Nazi who escaped India to find himself in Lhasa, his story is recounted in his book “Seven Years in Tibet” and the movie of the same name, and I believe Harrar was quite genuine about the change to his character that happened during his time in Tibet. In any case, we begin to see that His Holiness was open to ideas and people across a broad spectrum of experience. 

As valuable as that openness is, inheriting a country in a postwar era undergoing rapid transformation and power grabs by the powerful and not necessarily benevolent tested the young monk’s mettle. No doubt, being denied assistance by the United Nations was an additional blow, and with the Chinese aggression and hostility growing in response to his approaches to a kind of detente with Mao, the writing was very much on the wall. Tibet was doomed and the Dalai Lama was targeted for disappearance, if not assassination. 

The tale regarding the people’s defense of the Potala Palace and His Holiness’ escape to India is moving and tragic to the point of breaking the heart each time you read it or hear of it. The story is only amplified by those of others who made their escapes, as well, and magnified over decades of people fleeing abuse; marginalization in their own land to torture and execution for wanting to preserve their culture, their livelihood, and their religion. 

Tibet, to be sure, was no Shangri-la of enlightened - that word again - religiosity and political leadership. Life expectancy was short, western medicine forbidden, medieval (at best) punishments were exacted for the most minor of crimes, and at different points, forced conversions to the ruling school of Buddhism and a civil war that broke out in the mid-1800s. However, this would have of necessity had to end, one way or another. Had the Thirteenth Dalai Lama survived a few years longer, it’s possible that Tibet would have had a more robust infrastructure and perhaps stronger regional alliances with India (Russia, once Lenin established his dominance, would likely have been out of the question) and perhaps, Britain. The Tibet that Tenzin Gyatso would have inherited would have been ripe for reform and by all accounts, that is what he had in mind.

It is ludicrous to assume as the CCP would have it (and even a few Western commentators seem to hold) that Tibet would continue being a feudal enterprise. Unlike, say, China’s Mao, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was and still very much is, driven by that twin engine of wisdom and compassion. Plus, his utter curiosity about the world around him would have changed the playing field in terms of Tibetan society, particularly regarding education. However, this we will never know.

What we do know is that in the more than sixty years since his flight and that of 100, 000 other Tibetans, plus over a million dead owing to the ravages of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the various crackdowns on Tibet since the 80s, His Holiness has continued to make himself available to any and all, Tibetan’s and non-Tibetans alike. I have issues with his shift in a political stance from full independence (Rangzen) to the Middle Way approach in attempting to work with Chinese leadership over the past forty years beginning with Deng Xiaopeng; but I certainly applauded his desire to step down as the head of state and let the government in exile find its way as a democratic institution. 

All of that is politics and governance. More to the point is that Tibet continues to face an existential threat. The Chinese government has stated that it will choose its own Dalai Lama an Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism to recast it as an ancient Chinese religion. China has been hugely successful in Sinicizing Tibet to the extent that many maps have the Chinese names of provinces, towns, and villages with the Tibetan name in parentheses, if at all. The Tibetan language is not publicly taught, Tibetan folk music and song has been replaced with “patriotic songs of the Motherland” and Tibetan culture mostly erased. 

It is of little concern to China if the West knows the true history of Tibet; the CCP’s work is changing Tibetans into loyal Chinese. It is frighteningly possible that they may do so, given the amount of surveillance and enforcement against criticism of the state levied against the population throughout the Tibetan plateau. It is conceivable that in the not so distant future, Tibetans will be shocked traveling outside of China to find counter-narratives to the state’s official history but by then, one assumes the CCP’s indoctrination will be so thorough that such narratives will be framed as “anti-China propaganda by Western academics”. 

Additionally, it needs to be said that, sure, the PRC government has built up and improved infrastructure on the plateau, but at what cost? Nomads have been moved off the land into de facto reservations, monasteries continue to be destroyed or repurposed, and even though the standard of living for Tibetans has been raised generally, they are still considered second rate citizens in their own country. 

China’s use of civic improvement is their greatest tool for getting what they want. Tibet has been their great experiment and the CCP has learned from its failures and successes in Tibet how to move forward in other countries in the region like Nepal and further Southeast, like Myanmar. Admittedly, they still take a heavy hand with India in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh, and have challenged Bhutan’s borderland, but for the most part, their use of quid pro quo - we give you roads and electricity, you give us what we want (omerta and no criticism) and we’ll get along just fine. Tibet was not even afforded that much grace.

Given the foregoing, it is easy to despair for Tibet’s future. Absent genuine action against China on a number of fronts, or a sea change in PRC leadership, it is difficult to see the way forward or a future in which Tibetans can maintain and regain what has been lost. There have been a number of think pieces about China’s current place in the world and the amount of international distrust the PRC evokes. Xi is the latest in a lineage of gangsters and it is galling that no one has come to break up the gang. 

It might be that, as some have suggested, the CCP is fraying and will fall form within, but that doesn’t ensure that any new government will change its tune on Tibet.

Or perhaps, what will save Tibet is the resilience that one sees in the person of His Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama; a resilience based on teachings that value the well-being of all sentient beings, the compassion to embrace all as dear to oneself as a child to a mother, and the wisdom to choose the path that leads to a better future. 

If anyone deserves a happy (re)birthday, it is Tenzin Gyato Chenrezig. He has uplifted so very many, inspired many more, and never met anger with anger or hatred with hatred. There’s much we can (continue to) learn from his example, his being. 

གངས་རི་རྭ་བས་བསྐོར་བའི་ཞིང་ཁམས་སུ། །

ཕན་དང་བདེ་བ་མ་ལུས་འབྱུང་བའི་གནས། །

སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་དབང་བསྟན༵་འཛི༵ན་རྒྱ༵་མཚོ༵་ཡི། །

ཞབས་པད་སྲིད་མཐའི་བར་དུ་བརྟན་གྱུར་ཅིག །

For this realm, encircled by snow-covered mountains,

You are the source of every benefit without exception.

Tenzin Gyatso, you who are one with Avalokiteshvara, 

May you remain steadfast until samsara’s end..