Happy 90th Birthday, Tenzin Gyatso!

 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Karanayaka, India, 1998. Photograph by Richard Avedon.

For as long as space endures,

For as long as sentient beings remain, 

May I, too, remain to dispel 

The miseries of the world.

                - Shantideva, Bodhicaryavatara/Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva, 10: 55

If I recall correctly, this is your favorite verse from Shantideva. It encapsulates all anyone needs for altruistic motivation. It may be the pithiest distillation of what makes Buddhism worthwhile. This verse is the felt embodiment of bodhicitta, the mind of awakening; it figures you would favor it.

You are also fond of describing yourself as a simple Buddhist monk. Having met other simple Buddhist monks, this is both slightly tongue-in-cheek, but oddly, also spot-on.

Thrust into political leadership of a country besieged and invaded from without by Tibet’s neighbor The People’s Republic of China, at the age of 15, automatically renders your circumstances far more complex and complicated than any other monk on the planet. Navigating geopolitics and fighting to preserve your people and their culture from utter destruction likewise adds more to a simple monk’s calling.

Yet this is where you embody your training. The single-minded concentration, the special insight, and most of all the generation of the motivation “to dispel the miseries of the world” have sustained you and those of us who admire you for decades. 

Your Holiness, I am no one’s idea of a good Buddhist. I have huge issues with aspects of doctrine, I question the validity of textual historicity regarding various figures, and I am not really as kind or compassionate, and certainly not wise, as I would like to be. Nevertheless, you set an example for all of us to follow.

And not just Buddhists. Your depth of character and resilience in the face of obstacles to Tibet and her people’s existence would be honorable enough, but that you genuinely bear no ill will to the oppressor, that you are able to look at this world with seemingly limitless love, may be the only goal we should all strive for. I’m speaking for myself, of course! Foolish guy that I am.

How many times have I seen you? I really have no idea. My friend Pasang and I made an informal pact to see you once a year, but that was in America and sometimes, there’d be doubling up. In India, though? I lost count. Your public teachings were frequent and then, there was the Kalachakra in Bodhgaya. I think about these moments because I want to hope that they were effective.

It’s ludicrous to assume that immersing oneself in dharma yields no result; to be sure, I have seen a marked lessening in reactivity, hopefully a greater generosity of spirit, and a less abrasive or snarky demeanor. For your part in all this, you have my gratitude. But you have more than my gratitude in terms of how you present yourself to the world in the face of adversity and how you genuinely do not seem to think about yourself, at all. 

It is this latter that many of us find daunting. The world demands a hard shell of protection for the fragile ego and sense of self, as amorphous as that may be. Actually, it’s not the world, is it? It’s merely us. The human realm is fraught with the squandering of immense riches on nonsense. We are lost in confusion and the solution is found right inside us. But finding the wherewithal to let go of our clinging to false views of self and other, to cherishing ourselves and our needs above everyone else’s is, well, a challenge.

I suspect at different points, you wondered if there was some way to take a page from the Sixth Dalai Lama and just go off into the world, roam, meet people, write poetry. Or not. You’ve confessed to having a temper and I’ve heard stories, though I’ve never seen it for myself, but I almost take solace in knowing that you have a temper.

Obviously, a temper doesn’t mean you’re angry or consumed by anger, but I’d be shocked if even you didn’t find anger an appropriate reaction to the injustices in the world. I imagine that you might get testy with people who just “don’t get it” sometimes, as well. 

All of this is so minor, though, and only interesting from a purely human, all too human, perspective. It is more of the moment to learn from your example to navigate this world with increasing degrees of patience, tolerance, and grace, even as it seems their opposites are prevailing. I actually don’t believe they are. In some places, sure, but in others, perhaps not.

Ninety. I first saw you when you were sixty, or so. I remember you saying something about staying in the world till you were a hundred (or more?) That would be lovely, of course, but when you have to leave, go and come back as quickly as possible. 

I recall you also saying that you wondered if you should be the last Dalai Lama or in the event that the lineage continues, perhaps the Dalai Lama should return as a woman! It’s going to be difficult finding someone as progressive as you, I fear. 

Although, truth to tell, maybe not. When your predecessor passed, he had plans to modernize Tibet and bring her into the 20th Century. You yourself wanted to pick up that gauntlet and introduce democratic reform (which, to be sure, eventually happened in exile), so there’s no reason why your successor wouldn’t be equally progressive. Honestly, I don’t really want to think about that right now.

Ninety is a long life and yours has been exemplary. I know, I know, I hear all the detractors getting ready to whinge on about Dorje Shugden, about your representing a feudal order (as though that would have continued), and so on. I’d like to challenge them to ask how they would have negotiated with every Chinese leader from Mao on to Xi. I’d like to know how they would have maintained their equanimity in the face of greeting refugees day after day and hearing tales of torture, oppression, and despair. 

None of these people have a clue what the Dalai Lama means to the Tibetan people. I may have issues with how the Gelugpa came into power, how the Great Fifth unified Tibet, and I have a huge issue with how the historical difficulties that Tibet faced throughout its history are presented and how ignorant many are of that history, but all of that fades out when we come to 1950 and the years following.

You were a teenager promoted to being your country’s political head of state and its pre-eminent religious leader in one package. In the ensuing decades, we have seen Tibet come into sharp focus and for a brief moment, after Mandela was freed and apartheid ended in South Africa, something similar could possibly happen to Tibet. I honestly do not have that much hope. However, I feel that as long as the Dalai Lama endures, hope remains. There is no rationale for saying that, it’s altogether a feeling, a sense that because the Dalai Lama is part of the Tibetan DNA, Tibet will survive. 

All of this is worldly stuff, though. It’s your birthday and I can’t help but see you in the form of the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara, the Hearer of All Cries, of whom you are an emanation. I cannot not see you in this way and this surprises even me.

Your Holiness, a number of my teachers have long since passed into parinirvana. I realize the truth of impermanence when I call them to mind and reflect on their teachings and conversations shared. Fortunately, my contemporary and younger mentors are still here, and so, too, are you.

I think when I reflect on the limitless and still unfolding blessings of the teachings, time falls away, and recognition like light at dawn comes that the teachings are no one person’s possession or provenance. However, sometimes the vessels for those teachings more directly embody them and the transmission is less about the words than the meaning. You are certainly such a vessel, Tenzin Gyatso Chenrezig.

Thus, for that realm encircle by snow-covered mountains, 

You are the source of every benefit and blessing. 

You who are one with Avaloikiteshvara, 

May you remains steadfast until samsara’s end.