IN CHARM'S WAY

At this moment when the planet is writhing in the pain of mass starvation, financial upheaval and morale meltdown, His Holiness the 17^th Karmapa was miraculously released from his cage in India like a genie from a bottle. When finally, after years, he got that precious visa to America, nobody knew his visit would follow first the Olympic Torch that lit up the excruciatingly bad behavior of the Chinese inside Tibet, and then the aftermath of a monstrous cyclone and matching earthquake which, like some mad plastic surgeon, changed the face of Asia. His timing was so impeccable, he flew out of India as about five million Asian refugees were adding their muddy misery to the world’s reservoir of wretchedness.    

Was it coincidence that his Holiness’ burst of freedom coincided with thunderous cracks and cascades crumbling bits of the totalitarian cement suffocating Burma, stifling China? That he put his face in front of ours when China closed off all vision of Tibet?

It also came at the moment word went out that the masterminds of Mid-East violence had decided to turn their swords into Dow shares, for happiness was not hatching out of their havoc; perhaps they had misinterpreted Islam? While he crossed America, California officially declared it was not okay to make war on people who love each other; a Texas Bushman very publicly atoned for abetting politically motivated wrecks, lies and warscapes; the Supreme Court served up justice to those abused by corporate employers; Sex and The City came to the conclusion that caring about others beats designer labels.

This huge swing of the see-saw looked a lot like Superman was out of the phone booth and on the tipping point of the moral fulcrum. His Holiness Karmapa, 17^th in an unbroken 800-year-old lineage, is indeed supposed to be the superhuman who smites suffering. But as Peter Pan warns the Darling children about the magical Tinkerbell, you have to believe. Remember that famous scene where Tinkerbell is dying, and will survive only if enough people believe she has the power to light their way? Other characters plead with the audience to keep her alive by shouting, "I believe in fairies," and clapping, a joyful noise designed to make a passive audience newly active in the unfolding story. Transcendent power depends on willingness to concede that something grander than humdrum can transpire. Without aspiration, the heavenly won't happen on Earth any time soon.

It was not hard to want to clap and shout when Karmapa appeared. His Holiness was graced, as is often the case, by a halo of rainbows. I had just left his ceremonies at Woodstock, N.Y. and was driving over the Massachusetts border to Boston airport when two breathtakingly enormous and vivid ones miraculously arched across the sky, forcing me to swerve to a stop in the breakdown lane. I stared in awe and involuntarily shouted: “Emaho!” It turns out, from photos posted on the official visit blog, he was walking that very minute on the roof of his monastery with huge rainbows framing him. I heard there were others along the Hudson the day before, and saw photos of the ones the day after over his head in New Jersey.

His Holiness was also framed everywhere by a phalanx of protectors. He moved surrounded to the max by layer upon layer of no–nonsense body and security guards from the State Department, the Tibetan Government and the Buddhist brigades. He is dangerous because his special sacredness is the only thing both the Chinese government and His Holiness the Dalai Lama have ever agreed upon. He is already legendary for a miraculous midnight, midwinter escape from Chinese guards at his fortress/monastery north of Lhasa. At age 14, on the New Year’s eve of the millennium, he fled for his life and spent a week in secret and disguise crossing Tibet and the Himalayas by jeep, horseback and foot—his own divinations having told him it would be a go. He incredibly burst into our world simultaneous with a whole new century, the Asian one.

His Holiness does not wear blue leotards and bright red cape, only the maroon robes of a Tibetan monk. But he does possess a reportedly magical black hat and some of his predecessors have proved adept at gravity-defying tricks that dazzled emperors of China. He told us at Woodstock how as a nomadic boy, he managed to extinguish a potentially deadly hillside fire with the force of his prayers, causing his relatives to suspect he was some guru’s incarnation. Karmapa literally means embodiment of the activity of all buddhas-- the title was bestowed long before a Mongolian king created the Dalai Lama—and he is consequently supposed to be able to see the past and future as clearly as the ground under his human feet. His purpose in incarnating on Earth is to show with a human body--the most direct way to make the point-- what wisdom and unconditional compassion for others looks like.

His Holiness makes it look so good, some people seeing him in New York took to calling him His Hottiness. Twenty-two-year-old Orgyen Trinley Dorje is easily six-feet tall with the physique of an athlete and the face of a Hollywood heartthrob (lusciously full features and creamy skin). His high cheekbones and fuzz cut make him a sensation in sunglasses. I think he has been blessed with this awesome rock star presence because magnetism is supposed to be one hallmark of a genuine Buddha. People are automatically attracted, ready to listen, even serve.

Security forces were busy warding off his magnetic attraction, making people listen to “Get back!” “Open your purse.” “No cameras!” “No photo ID, no entry.” Sadly, here in Samsara high hopes serve up huge fears, so the perils of his power set off lots of alarm. His Holiness is in essence a Buddhist monk, yet he is in reality an embarrassment to the Chinese, an obstacle to the weasly Bhutanese rival for his crown, a flashpoint for Tibetans. Although he is thoroughly spiritual and artistic, he is seen as the likely successor to the more political Dalai Lama. His every move had to be cordoned, controlled, and painstakingly choreographed out of intense fear that he would be stabbed, shot or, worse, poisoned by an innocent looking cookie. Only the pre-chosen vetted could get him a glass of water. In San Francisco, his black SUV had both a police escort and tail.

His Holiness took birth to help all humans find happiness, yet one condition of his visa seems to have been no media mention, no headlines—no inflaming the infectious attraction. Word of his visit had to spread by mouth, email, and the intuition known as the Tibetan telegraph. The Colorado venue was sold out in almost seconds. Twenty-eight hundred people crowded into a Seattle theater on a Saturday morning, more than seven hundred invited guests made their way to Woodstock, NY mountain top on a chilling rainy Wednesday. Despite the secrecy surrounding his flash touchdown in San Francisco, dozens and dozens of Tibetans, spiffed up in traditional finery, lined the sidewalk to get a glimpse of him. For a Buddhist, his coming was the rapture. It definitely created lots of happiness.

The street mobs and packed audiences were composed of true believers, but the Dharma Karmapa embodies is a red alert, an all points bulletin that this 22-year-old Tibetan was whatever anybody wanted him to be. Because we only see what we know enough to look for, his reflection in the mind’s eye varied from viewer to viewer, in the way he looks to the Chinese like a traitor while he seems a savior to us. Some saw the Karmapa as a hotly handsome twenty-two year old or at least an energetic young man exuberant from the novelty of freedom. Others noticed a reserve, dignity and intelligence that was preternatural for a male of so few years. Some saw only the fuss his extraordinariness was causing. Who knows if other drivers even saw those Mass. Pike rainbows and if they did, what thoughts they had of them.

Karmapa’s noble presence and graceful command of it inspired many people to see him as hope for humanity, and to stop everything to serve voluntarily, like feudal vassals to the lord of their manor. Dozens of Dharma students donated time, money, energy and even an airplane to keep his visit flowing, ordinary people like my goddaughter Tashi who served on his personal care staff in Manhattan, and Steve who got up at dawn several days in a row to ferry lamas across the Catskills from an outlying dormitory to Karmapa’s monastery, then waited until dark to take them back. People like Damtsig who tirelessly gave five full days she needed for her job and children to clean and cook for His Holiness’ one-hour visit to a San Francisco monastery, and the male nurse Greg who took vacation days and flew at his own expense to Seattle to stand guard for a day.

Believers generously set up a blog so everyone could follow in his footsteps via daily posts of words and photos; videos were rushed to You Tube. All this selflessness was His Holiness bringing Dharma to life. Every which way they could, people passionately exchanged themselves not just for this one other, but for all the others who would benefit from his teaching and the radiance of his holy presence. The enormous possibility he represents must have really resonated, for he certainly got a lot of hits on You Tube.

So many gave so much so Karmapa could have a little happiness of his own. It had been his lifelong aspiration to come to America, he said over and again. Perhaps he felt born with a connection because the previous Karmapa died here, right in the heartland of the country. I heard him exclaim how joyful he was at actually being here, feeling free for the first time. And that was before he ate cheesecake, went to Disneyland, and spoke to a large audience of his most affluent and ardent supporters in their native Chinese.

Of course some people only saw themselves in all of this. Karmapa’s American sojourn ignited noxious explosions of ego in some of the most pious looking Buddhists I ever saw. They asked not what they could do for Karmapa, but what he could do for them. Not just exiled Tibetans who bitterly complained that Karmapa had time to go to Disneyland but not accept a khata and bless them. (Tibetans have been known to injuriously mob high lamas they worship to get personal blessings, so security was charged with keeping them at bay.) I watched mind training flee minds as so-called dharma students who did not lift one pinky to participate in the preparations planted themselves in front and center seats saved for volunteers and benefactors. With hands full of dirty dishes, I watched them stampeding to stuff themselves with what had been Karmapa’s feast, so that those who had spent two days preparing and were struggling to clean up didn’t get a crumb.

A few days later in Seattle, according to the blog post, Karmapa said we have experienced in the West so many external advancements and technological benefits, but also a corresponding increase of fear and suffering in people's minds. This is related to our inability to cherish others -- our pattern of clinging solely to our own concerns, the habitual "me and mine" mentality. If we are not aware of how our happiness depends upon others and we do not work to benefit others, we end up with a society full of people who think only about themselves and act in ways that cause harm to themselves and those around them.

His Holiness also spoke of how the world we live in is getting smaller and smaller due to technology and globalization, so individual actions have a much greater effect on the global village, the whole of humanity. Consequently, people can no longer afford to cling to their particular views or self-centric identities -- not even the limited notion of "being a Buddhist." We need to think in larger terms. In other words, what needs to be supersized in all this shrinking is our mind.

At every stop, His Holiness expressed giddy but profound gratitude to everyone who helped make his first visit to America possible.Then in the end, he said he didn't quite realize how truly happy he was until someone showed him photographs from his tour, and he saw that he was smiling in many of them. The Karmapa said this surprised him, as he does not normally smile a great deal. Indeed an International Herald Tribune reporter recently referred to him in Dharamsala as stubbornly solemn, even downright dour. His Holiness went on to say his happiness during his travels in America came from the fact that everyone around him was also happy and smiling -- a further illustration of his teaching that our happiness depends upon others.

Each time he said his dream to visit America had now miraculously come true, Karmapa also generously dedicated to others--the Buddhist way of sharing-- his good fortune. “This is the result of my unwavering aspiration,” he explained, “and it can happen as well to you, if you believe strongly that it can. I wish for every one of you that your own dreams and aspirations quickly come true.” Inevitably everybody gasped and clapped, drawn into the action with that joyful noise of wanting to believe.

~Sandy Garson
"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/

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