HOLY GOALIE

His Holiness the Dalai Lama was dutifully in Berkeley April 25 to help the American Himalayan Foundation raise more money at a splashy event. But as usual when he comes to town, he also dutifully visited his own people. Somewhat hastily, the local Tibetans in exile arranged a public audience, and sold tickets to cover its costs. I was thrilled to be invited to it by Tibetan friends, for it isn’t everyday you get a legal way to eavesdrop on private conversation.

Mongolians were there too, a surprising lot of them, easy to distinguish because they wear pointed little caps that are distinctly not Tibetan. Their vanguard had specifically been invited to His Holiness’s last Tibetan assembly two years ago, and he started that one by forcefully insisting both groups recognize each other as inseparable family, if not sisters and brothers as he called them, then at least first cousins who share a common cultural and religious bloodline. Was it not, after all, the Mongolian emperor who gave the Dalai Lama his name, nine incarnations back? His Holiness implored the two groups to stick together to keep their common culture from falling apart in exile. He suggested Tibetans establish a community center where Mongolians would be welcome, and recommended using it to set up mother tongue language classes for children born here, social gatherings and artistic programs, anything to keep their culture on life support.

This reminded me that more than twenty years ago, His Holiness began a concerted campaign of consulting Jewish organizations for advice on how a people can survive whole in the tatters of Diaspora. Evidently His Holiness noticed Jews seem to excel at hanging on to their Jewishness wherever they end up. Among the anti-assimilation lessons he learned was the value of inculcating children both at home and away in an essentially parallel universe of specifically Jewish community centers, day or overnight camps, and nursery schools. At one point, I was asked to link the education director of the Tibetan Children’s Villages, headquartered in Dharamsala, with various American camping associations, Jewish and not, so the Tibetans could send teachers over to work as summer counselors, getting first hand, how-to experience in campfire circles, color war, arts and crafts, and volleyball.

This year’s program began with Tibetans proudly telling His Holiness they raised half a million dollars for a community center, most of it from two large, well-known foundations. Then they showed off their newly established Sunday morning language and cultural classes with a children’s chorus, all three dozen members dressed in one form or other of chuba. A few plucked Tibetan “guitars”, blew into wooden flutes, or banged drums as the rest serenaded His Holiness not just with folk songs, but with the free Tibet’s anthem. That of course brought down the house and a lot of tears. His Holiness seemed very moved.

I say “seemed” because the Tibetans in charge of this event decided to stuff all us “yellow hairs”, or Westerners, up in the peanut gallery of the venue’s balcony. In surprisingly blatant discrimination, Tibetans and Mongolians were sent through one entrance, Westerners forced to go around the block to another. We all actually met in the middle of the courtyard where security lines were also segregated, at least until they stopped moving and a concerned monk began directing westerners into the Tibetan/Mongolian lines, churning up the sort of pandemonium sadly common to Tibetan gatherings in Asia where frantic pushing and shoving frequently causes injuries.

I stood in line over an hour for an event that took maybe 35 minutes, these words of Tibetan friends echoing in my mind: "We don't mind. We'd stand for two days just to see His Holiness pass by in a car." The security check that had been holding it up cleared away all cameras, backpacks and bottles of water. All tickets were for general seating, but the left orchestra section was strictly reserved for Mongolians, the center for Tibetans, and the balcony for the rest of us, called in the signage: Westerners and Dharma students. It was packed. Rumor had it the Tibetan section was way oversold.

The mistress of ceremonies proudly announced the Tibetan flag was flying high over Berkeley, and the theater resounded with enthusiastic cheering for the city council. Only six weeks before, the California state legislature had been blocked by its Chinese-American members from acknowledging March 10, the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese genocide. That’s how easily the flow of Chinese money drowns American morality these days, making us complicit in their crimes. Here's to Bezerkly’s defiant tradition of free speech!

The Tibetans introduced their latest venture, a quilt project for which all families in exile in California have been invited to sew a square with the names of relatives killed in the uprising for independence, or the ongoing genocide. The initial quilt was unfurled and presented to His Holiness who politely held it up for all to see. From my far perch, it looked to be white on the edges with red and blue squares arranged within. The wicked part of me realized how Americanized this project was because the Tibetans weren’t making carpets. But this fleeting thought was quickly replaced by one about how increasingly urgent His Holiness' aspiration has become for exiled Tibetans to find ways not only to refresh the world’s memory about their plight, but to keep alive their own of Tibet. Of their genocide the Jews could proclaim Never Again! But Chinese’s new monetary muscle means for the Tibetans, Ever Again, which means His Holiness is now a goalie stuck in the cage smacking back to fend off the opposition’s efforts to score. Dutifully responding to his plea to Tibetans making their way to the freedom of America to use that freedom to tell Tibet’s story, my Khampa goddaughter recently launched Voices of Tibet, a project dedicated to interviewing on videotape the remaining survivors of the great escape to give their great grandchildren and the rest of us authentic, uncensored history. You can read all about it at www.Voices of Tibet.org.

Finally His Holiness spoke. You never know what he’s going to say, so I leaned forward to hear as best I could. He went straight into a new and ingenious save the culture tack. Mongolians and Tibetans, he started, surprisingly adding Nepalese and Indians, even people who live inside the traditional borders of China, “when we study and practice Buddhism, we are all one, the same, without nationality to separate us.” Reminding everyone in the audience that Buddhism was inherent in Himalayan culture, perhaps its common cause,--he mentioned Ladakh in India and ancient kingdoms like Mustang in Nepal which are far from Mongolia-- he urged more and more serious Dharma study. “Buddhism has no nationality,” he repeated. “In this, all of us become one.” Of course he meant Tibetan Buddhism, implying Tibetan culture could be kept alive in the entire swath of the Himalayas as well as the entire swath of the Americas--anywhere people, for instance, chant Om Mani Padme Hung or present a khata.

The Dalai Lama went on to say accurate understanding of the Dharma of Nagarjuna and Shantirakshita—the Indian Buddhadharma that became the Mahayana and made its way to Tibet to turn into the Vajrayana, could only come from being as close to the lineage origin as possible. Since the Sanskrit or Pali or subsequent Indian original teachings had been lost to time and the Muslim invasion, the closest we come today would be original translations of Marpa and others into Tibetan. Therefore to study Dharma properly means learning Tibetan. This is a canny way to keep the language alive, one that my teacher also tries on grounds that every subsequent translation into whatever dialect or language alters the true meaning in the same way subtle shifts happen in, say, whispering down the lane.

Lastly, His Holiness reminded the Tibetans that when they came out of Tibet, peacefully settled around new monasteries, and went quietly about their Buddhist business, they were very much on moral high ground. Thus they easily earned the world’s sympathy. To keep that means keeping the moral high ground, allowing absolutely no slippage from best behavior. “This is all we have left,” he warned. “I am personally not bothered by the Chinese more and more fiercely calling me names because this is all they have left. It is a sign of weakness. Even the Chinese people have begun to see the justice of our cause. So we must continue it as we have done, nonviolently with the moral force of our excellent conduct.” The applause was deafening.

The Dalai Lama bowed and left.

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

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