The Dalai Lama: Holy man or gangster?

I have always been deeply suspicious of the way history or current events are conveyed. There is so much opportunity for the entropy of the “truth” from original event to end readers of texts: texts which are inevitably just interpretations and potentially filled with biases. Thus, infamously, a factory for WMD in Iraq turns out to be a aspirin factory.

This distrust of received information began when I was a teenager and I was suspicious of the way SA history was presented at school, particularly, of course, the rosy version of apartheid. The Bantustans, we white pupils were told, were a huge favour the white government was doing for black people, giving them their own homes and countries.

Only fourteen, I was uncomfortable with the idea of police arriving at our nice white home and informing my parents we had to go live somewhere else now. Or else. So I failed to see why black people would be enchanted with the idea.

In my twenties and thirties I was keen on exploring spirituality and came to greatly admire His Holiness The Dalai Lama and his teachings. A favourite book is The Art of Happiness, written by the American psychiatrist Howard Cutler. It is a memoir about the times Cutler spent with His Holiness and his interviews with him.

Another book is The Good Heart, where His Holiness, along with senior members of his order, were invited by a Catholic order to sesshin: weeks of meditation in which he was asked to give sermons on his interpretation of the gospels and engage in spiritual dialogue.

The Good Heart is a profound book. That kind of inter-religious dialogue enthralls me, where both “sides” respect each other and look for points of harmony in their beliefs. For example, the Silence, meditation, compassion for all beings and the avowed belief in the inability to put into language sacred experiences. The latter renders various avatars like the Messiah and the Buddha as symbols pointing to a greater, inexpressible truth without violating the sanctity of these beings.

As the Dalai Lama and other commentators in the book, The Good Heart, say, the book cannot express the profound silence that descended on both Catholic and Buddhist monks during the sesshin.

I can well believe that. I went on many silent retreats in SA, the longest being a mere eight days organised by a group that welcomed anyone — so long as they had experience in meditation. But the internal peace and sense of “centeredness”, the reverence with which I looked at nature by the end of that magnificent, healing, eight days was beyond words.

My favourite picture of His Holiness, who can be a mischievous chap, is of him pulling Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s paddy-cap over his eyes at a Nobel Prize ceremony. The Dalai Lama is roaring with laughter and the Arch has a big grin on his face.

Two leaders of different faiths: two people not only tolerating each other, but secure and mature enough in themselves to poke fun at each other. They have gotten over their egos, and are thus able to contribute to the greater good of humankind, which is more to do with the true meaning of Jesus’ teaching, that a seed must die, and if it dies it will bring forth much fruit.

I was blown away by China’s take on His Holiness. I have lived here nearly four years now at this time of writing and he is re-written as a crook and a gangster and the prime instigator of the riots that took place in Tibet earlier on this year. My wife more or less believes this version of him now and it is simply a topic we do not talk about. Neither of us are religious people, by the way.

I just do believe in the sacredness of meditation and lean towards Theravadan Buddhism but I refuse to be categorised. Why?

The late Catholic spiritual leader, Anthony de Mello, well known for his exploration of Hinduism would say, and I paraphrase, as soon as you label someone or something you cease to understand that person or that thing. All you see is the label. Not the person. Not the willow tree which was that luminous being long before the word came along. You probably won’t appreciate this unless you have spent years practicing meditation.

By far the best practical book I have read on the topic of spirituality is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. The most practical book I have ever read on how to stay in the silence meditating, without the buzzing “busyness” of thinking, in a form of meditation that excludes the discursive, is Father Thomas Keating’s Open Heart, Open Mind.

I have listened to my Chinese friends respectfully on the issue of Tibet. They see it as part of the jia, the home country of China and often passionately argue that the state of affairs of Tibet prior to 1949 was far, far worse than it is today. The Lamas were deities whom people literally slobbered over, and the people were treated as mere chattels and lived in crushing poverty. They argue that since the true father country — China — has taken back the wayward child, Tibet has improved and no longer has as many problems. So they say.

I listen to them because I believe that is far more effective than a bunch of self-centered louts holding up “Free Tibet” slogans at the Beijing Olympics. This just pisses off China and the potential clampdown on ethnic minorities and rigorous policing in Tibet after acts like that would do more harm than good. I am tired of so-called Free Tibet “rebel with a cause” wannabe heroes. Which is not to rubbish the entire Free Tibet campaign: it is those banner-waving, irresponsible clowns who achieve nothing.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, has it right. He is invited to Beijing and is welcomed to stand up and give a talk — in fluent Mandarin, which the Chinese people admire and respect — to the top leadership about human rights in Tibet. That somewhat Gandhi approach, that willingness to dialogue, is really going to achieve far more for the whole of humankind in the long run than a bunch of banner-waving oafs.

The more I listen to my Chinese friends and filter the version of His Holiness I have received, the more I become uncomfortable with my Western version of the Dalai Lama. I have certainly always been uncomfortable when I see people kissing and slobbering over various lamas, who are seen as bodhisattvas, people who have stayed on earth in their fleshly, human form for the sake of suffering humanity.

I am also uncomfortable with some of the lamas’ wealth, in the same way as I am unhappy with Charismatic leaders like Ray McCauley who have an obscene amount of money as a result of him and his ilk teaching their flocks to tithe, offer and sacrifice their hard-earned salaries so they can drive Mercedes and Jaguars and live in magnificent mansions. It seems far from the Gospels and the simple lifestyle many of the early Christians advocated.

The lifestyle advocated by The Dhammapada is no different. “A rain of gold coins will not quench passion. The wise man knows, ‘Passions are passing and painful’.”

The relationship between the “Middle Kingdom” (the China that emerged over the millennia), with Mongolia and Tibet is extremely complex and interwoven. After spending quite some time reading the histories — suspicious as I am of histories in the first place — it becomes clear that the matter is not so simple as “Free Tibet”. Even His Holiness does not want that. He wants an autonomous region within the greater jia, or home, of the Middle Kingdom.

The Chinese would argue His Holiness wants this because Tibet is unable to properly govern itself. I invite readers to debate his motives.

Recently published in the China Daily is an interesting, but extremely garrulous article (worthy of a Khadija Sharife ) on the recent “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People”. The memorandum resulted from a press conference the Dalai Lama recently gave in India. The article, Ulterior motives behind Dalai’s ‘Memorandum’, truly reflects something of the intricate nature of the relationship between China and Tibet. It also portrays the Chinese propaganda about the historic Tibet which the Chinese author, Yi Du, fails to question.

Even Japan (perhaps I should not use the word “even”) has seen China as part of the broader, Asian family. When invading China in 1937, the Japanese saw China as a wayward, stupid elder brother who needed to be punished. The punishment, the invasion and occupation, should be seen as an act of love to a member of the ancient family*. (On the Chinese, Confucian concept of family or jia, see my blog Boerewors and Chopsticks: interviews with the Chinese )

So why does His Holiness not want to see Tibet actually break away from China? Is it because he feels it is ungovernable on its own? Does he not feel he and his people can govern Tibet? Or has he despaired of his country ever being able to break away from the hold of the big brother?

For example, see Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking