A TIBETAN ADVENTURE
On Monday 17th May, after a week in China proper, my brother and I arrived in
Lhasa airport (Gongkar), to be met with our obligatory guide and driver. The guide,
a friendly Tibetan called Tashi, presented us with a khata (ceremonial scarf) each to
welcome us, after which we were driven through delightful scenery to Tsetang, our
first overnight stop. It was a relief to be out of hectic China, at least geographically if
not politically, and to discover that I was still able to breathe at this altitude, despite
my pre-existing breathing problems. The air seemed pure and unpolluted, we were in
vast open spaces with valleys, mountains and blue rivers.
The next day, after our Tibetan breakfast of cheese, bread and jam, we met Tashi
and crossed the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra). We travelled with a few Tibetan pilgrims in
a flat-bottomed wooden boat; the river was dead calm, mirror-like and turquoise-blue
but it took us well over an hour to cross. It was solitary and still – a different world
entirely – with very few birds, just the occasional duck. We then transferred to an old
bus and travelled the remaining distance to Samye, Tibet’s first monastery, built by
the Yarlung King Trisong Detsen in the eighth century, when Buddhism became the
state religion.
Badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution, it has been extensively rebuilt. It
originally had 108 buildings (an auspicious number in Buddhism) arranged in a
mandala, with the golden-topped Ütse at the centre representing Mount Sumeru, “the
centre of the universe with a central pole indicating its precise core”. Many images of
Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) can be found here, as he and the Nyingmapa sect
were associated with Samye, although no one sect predominates now. After visiting
the 3 floors of the Utse (Tibetan, Chinese and Indian) we circumambulated the site –
of necessity in a clockwise direction.
The Great Debate between Indian and Chinese Buddhism took place here in 792.
Although the Indian monks won, Chinese influence is still detectable. In the most
revered chapel, the Jowo Khang, where a venerated image of Sakyamuni is located, I
attempted to prostrate myself in the Tibetan style: I clasped my hands together in the
prayer positions and fell to the floor to proffer my horizontal adorations but,
embarrassingly, couldn’t get up without the help of our guide and so had to resort to
the safer method of head-butting a metal bowl, which was far more dignified. The
monks were chanting loudly, using 10 foot- long metal trumpets, horns and drums,
making an unearthly sound. We saw a genuine monk’s skull-cup, butter sculptures,
fierce protector deities and benign buddhas and bodhisattvas. Many of the deities
were in the yab-yum position of sexual embrace, representing the union between
wisdom and compassion.
Next we were taken to Yumbulagang (thought to derive from the word for
Mother Deer), the first palace of the Yarlung kings on the crest of Mt. Tashitsering
and previously a palace-fortress-monastery. This edifice, like Samye, was practically
levelled during the Cultural Revolution and subsequently rebuilt. It now survives
mainly as a chapel today. It is reputed to be the oldest building in Tibet: the mythical
King Nyatri Tsenpo is supposed to have come down from heaven to build it in 127
B.C – Buddhist texts are said to have fallen down here from heaven in the 5th century.
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In reality, it probably dates from King Songtsen Gampo’s days two centuries later.
Although the new building only dates from 1982, it still retains an attraction.
There was no way I felt up to climbing up to Yumbulagang, so it was decided I
could avail myself of a yak to carry me up while Tim strode fearlessly on uphill. The
building contains chapels on 2 levels, a statue of Avalokitesvara/Chenresig and some
impressive murals. The poor yak was completely exhausted with my 14 ¾ stone
burden – I hope the poor beast didn’t suffer too much but I rather suspect he did. I got
to know yaks inside and out in Tibet. I ate them regularly for meals, yakburgers etc.
and they were everywhere to be seen.
Wed. 19th
We travelled for 10 hours, passing along a turquoise lake (130 kilometres long and
up to 70 metres deep). We started on a tarmac road, then a sand road, followed by a
road under construction for hours (100 kilometres), went up and around several
mountains up to a 4,600m pass in the morning, looking down on the lake despite the
bad weather conditions before driving into a small settlement, to a café which had
“the best food in town”. Tim thought it seemed like a Star Wars aliens’ café; the food
was edible, if rather expensive, but naturally the standards were very low compared to
the West. There were a few Western travellers here looking wretched and exhausted,
obviously with altitude sickness. I tried the local toilet and was charged one yuan to
share a filthy room with 2 Japanese ladies visibly dumping in open holes whilst I
urinated merrily away to their evident concern and embarrassment. After this brief
diversion we continued the drive on to a higher pass near the top of a snow-capped
mountain. The roads were slushy narrow tracks with deep ditches and a steep drop.
We had a puncture near the top of the 2nd pass after being besieged by locals trying to
sell polished stones and necklaces, (and grabbing as many of my cigarettes as they
could), with yaks pulling ploughs on tiny pockets of flat land 5,000 m. high. I loved
smoking at this heady altitude – my only remaining ambition now is to smoke at the
top of Everest. Eventually we arrived in Gyantse to sleep it off.
The highlight of Gyantse for me was definitely the Kumbum (literally 100,000
images) a 15th century pyramid-shaped chörten (stupa) with 70 odd chapels. The
artwork by Newari craftsmen is exclusively Tibetan. We went up through all the
levels permitted, but could not gain access to the 9th storey which I was particularly
keen on seeing because there is a gilded copper image there of the top-dog Vajradhara
Buddha, the embodiment of ultimate reality and the expression of the Buddhist Logos.
The Kumbum reflects all the orders of Tibetan Buddhism and is an amazing
extravaganza and phantasmagoria of beautiful and haunting artwork and deities.
Luckily it was not much affected by the Cultural Revolution. Next door is a
monastery housing a huge image of Maitreya (The Buddha of the Future). We looked
at the 14th century dzong (fort or castle) which suffered serious damage during the
British Younghusband expedition (in reality invasion) and also in the 60s and 70s.
Afterwards we travelled on a proper road though beautiful countryside – it was
extremely peaceful and there were many lovely traditional stone houses with typical
flat roofs bearing prayer-flags - on to Shigatse.
We viewed Tashilhunpo, just outside Shigatse, the seat of the Panchen Lamas –
one of the largest monastery complexes in Tibet, a monastic city in fact. It was
founded in 1447 by the nephew and follower of the reformed Gelugpa sect founder
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Tsongkhapa. This follower, Gedundrub, was subsequently and retroactively called
the First Dalai Lama. The Great Fifth Dalai Lama conferred the title of Panchen
Lama in 1642 on Chokyi Gyaltsen who became the first incumbent (with a retroactive
pseudo-lineage), becoming the second-ranking member of the Lamaist hierarchy (the
1st was of course the Dalai Lama, and 3rd was the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu of
Mongolia). The Panchen Lamas were often manipulated by the Manchus and the
Chinese after them still try to do this as a counterweight to the Dalais.
To digress, the Manchus in the Qing dynasty both patronised and attempted to
control Lamaism in Tibet and Mongolia. They may have believed in Lamaism
themselves but they knew how to restrict and control it to their advantage. They built
up a whole Lamaist centre in Beijing with at least 28, possibly 53 Lamaist
monasteries and temples there; in addition, there were about 1000 Lamaist monks
(mostly Mongols) during the 18th and 19th centuries in Beijing. Extensive Lamaist
complexes were built in Jehol (Chengde), Shenyang, Wutaishan, Dolonnur and
Huhehot with support from the Manchus, even within the Forbidden City, in 35
Lamaist chapels, where the monks prayed for the Emperor (spiritual opportunism?).
They were courted, feted and salaried by the Qing while the incarnations of Tibet and
Mongolia had to make periodic “tribute missions” to the capital. They had their own
“Living Buddha” incarnation, the Changkya /Zhangjia Khutuktu, resident at Beijing
to use in their cultural and ideological diplomacy and as counterweight to the
incarnate pontiffs of Tibet and Mongolia. The emperors popularised themselves as
incarnations of Manjusri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, in order to promote their
spiritual legitimacy and imagined connection with Khubilai Khaan. There is a picture
of Qianlong as Manjusri in the Potala.
They aimed to oversee, regulate and restrict the unfettered growth of religion on
the other hand. In the late 18th century they instituted the famous “Golden Urn
Ceremony” whereby the major incarnations, including the top 3: the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas and the Jebtsundamba Khutuktus were to be selected by lot from
ivory tablets placed in a golden urn (usually 3) under the supervision of Manchu
representatives either in Tibet (for the Dalai) or Beijing (in the Yong He Gong.). In
practise it was not always used in Tibet e.g. the last 2 Dalais avoided it but Beijing’s
recognition was always required in theory. To avoid strong conglomerations of
spiritual and secular power in Mongolia, the Jebtsundambas had to come from Tibet
by imperial decree from the 18th century.
Therefore it is evident that the contemporary Chinese policy of restriction and
recognition is within the earlier imperial tradition. The communist government made
a big show of recognising the Karmapa lama recently, hoping to use it as a
propaganda offensive, before his recent flight to India. It is challenging the Dalai
Lama’s authority to select a Panchen Lama and has selected its own incumbent in
opposition to the Dalai Lama’s choice. The difference is that whereas during the
Qing, Tibet was de jure a protectorate of China as far as the Chinese were concerned,
de facto it had quite a fair degree of autonomy, now Tibet is de facto a part of China.
Back to Tashilhumpo. The Panchen Lamas are considered by some to be actually
superior to the Dalai Lamas in spiritual rank, as the latter are incarnations of a
bodhisattva (Avalokitesvara) whilst the Panchen Lamas are regarded as emanations of
the Buddha Amitabha.. This is arguable because the devotion to Avalokitesvara in
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Tibet is intense and both deities belong to the same Lotus Family. The original
building of Tashilhunpo contains a 26 metre high statue of Jampa (Maitreya), the
Future Buddha, built in 1914 by the 9th Panchen, for which 300kg. of gold and 150
tons of copper and brass were used: it is the largest gilded statue in the world. There
are mausolea for the remains of previous Panchen Lamas including one for the 10th on
which the Chinese government spent 7.75 million dollars; the walls are painted with
real gold buddhas. As mentioned, there are 2 Panchen lamas now – one recognised
by the Dalai Lama, one by the Chinese government. The former’s whereabouts are
unknown but he is presumed to be under house-arrest somewhere, whereas the latter
must be undergoing spiritual and political training before he is allowed to take up his
residence at Tashilhunpo. Will there be 2 Dalai Lamas, when the present 14th
incumbent dies? A disturbing possibility.
Friday 21st May
We left Shigatse, driving in the direction of Lhasa via mountain passes and saw
from the car a sky burial: the traditional Tibetan practise of leaving the dead out high
up to be devoured by vultures, possibly an echo of Zoroastrianism? We also observed
a Bön monastery in the distance; although most Western writers cast aspersions on
this indigenous religion, in fact it is not just shamanism or animism, but a highly
developed and sophisticated religion. Admittedly it borrowed from Buddhism, but
Buddhism also borrowed from it. Founded by a certain Shenrab (who as Shenrab
Miwo became one of the 4 transcendent Lords of Bön), in a land called Tazig
(obviously reminiscent of Tajik) in the West, a semi-paradisiacal land which may
possibly be equated with Persia, it does seem to have Manichaean traces. Shenrab
became a king, supposedly, of this area and Bön developed its own deities and
incarnations. The counter-clockwise swastika (unlike the Buddhist clockwise
version) is a Bön symbol of eternity. Likewise circumambulation in Bön monasteries
is always in an anti-clockwise direction.
A diversion meant that there would be an extra 130 kilometres to go (340
altogether). We crossed the first pass at 4700m, after which the wheel bearing needed
repairing by the driver before we reached the next pass at 5,300m. where I had a
lascivious smoke-break and we were pelted by snowballs. The road was blocked by a
huge boulder, which we just managed to negotiate without dropping into the abyss.
We proceeded to get stuck in a mountainous traffic jam which several vehicles
(lorries, army vehicles, coaches) were in the same situation and consequently had a 2
hour wait. Eventually we turned the corner to find cars, Landcruisers and a lorry
buried in the mud. Half a dozen of these were permanently stuck; we tried to get
through but were stuck in deep mud ourselves until at last six Chinese helped to push
us out. The shaky and bumpy road continued until eventually we reached a real road;
half the journey had been on a mud road. After 11 hours on the road we arrived at
Lhasa, “the home of the gods”.
Sat 22 May
We visited the Potala: a stunning, monumental showpiece of Tibetan architecture
with 13 storeys and a thousand rooms, which has received a 4 million dollar
restoration from the Chinese. It was begun in the 7th century for King Songtsen
Gampo, who is considered by the Tibetans to be an incarnation of the ubiquitous
Avalokitesvara /Chenresig (like the Dalai Lamas and not forgetting the monkey
ancestor of the Tibetan race). The Karmapa Lama, who escaped to the West recently,
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is also reckoned an emanation of this deity. Even the name Potala derives from the
sacred mountain abode in South India of Avalokitesvara and the Hindu god Shiva.
The Potala contains the chörten tombs of 8 Dalai Lamas who moved here from
Ganden from 1649. It was a palace, an administrative and potitical centre, a fortress
and the Dalai Lamas’ personal monastery. The most revered statue is, naturally, an
image of Avalokitesvara, the much-mentioned bodhisattva of compassion. This
image was “born naturally from the snake’s heart sandalwood tree” and brought to
Tibet from Sri Lanka in the 7th century. One Buddha is made of 2 ½ tons of gold, one
pure silver and all the precious stones imaginable adorn the various different
artefacts, including 3-dimensional mandalas as are objects, purportedly, from the time
of Sakyamuni. We climbed to the top and admired the impressive view of the city.
The Red Palace was mainly the religious part of the building, while the White Palace
had a more administrative purpose. Although obviously no longer a religious and
political centre (the monks inside look really bored) and it does have the air of a
museum, it is completely unforgettable.
If that wasn’t enough, we went to Sera Monastery in the afternoon, by which time
Tim was severely Buddha’ed out. This is one of the Gelugpa’s great 6 institutions
and one of the 3 great monasteries around Lhasa (the others are -: Ganden, the main
seat of the sect, badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution and Drepung, Tibet’s
largest monastery , formerly with 10,000 monks). It was founded in 1419 by a
disciple of Tsongkhapa and although in earlier days the number of its monks reached
over 5,000, now it has only about 800. It somehow managed to escape the worst of
the ravages of the Cultural Revolution and is now one of the best-preserved in Tibet.
It is comprised of the Great Assembly Hall (Tsokchen), 3 monastic colleges (formerly
5) and 30 residential units. The most sacred object here is an image of Hayagriva (the
horse-headed protector deity). We witnessed a collection of monks ostensibly
debating on Buddhist philosophy, but it seemed almost certain that they were doing
nothing of the kind, just having a good time.
The monks looked well looked after and contented, as far as we could judge.
Quite a few even had mobiles, an expression of the meeting point between
consumerism and Lamaism, as also are the internet cafes, ice- cream parlours and
cable TV, but it should be emphasised that there is much poverty as well, particularly
in the countryside and several beggars in the towns.
By this time Tim was nursing a headache, doubtless induced by the pervasive and
unavoidable stench of yak butter-lamps, the most common offering in the temples.
The whole city stank of rancid butter but I had grown pleasantly accustomed to it, so
Tim stayed in the Landcruiser while I visited the Summer Palace with Tashi.
The Norbulingka (Jewel Park) comprises 4 major palaces and was the official
summer residence of the Dalai Lamas since the middle of the 18th century. The whole
area is a delightful mix of trees, gardens, palaces, ponds and Chinese-style pavilions.
Although dating from the time of the 7th Dalai Lama (1703 – 57) originally, the main
palaces and buildings were built during the 20th century by the 13th and 14th Dalai
Lamas. I visited the Kelsang Potrang complex, built in 1755, and the New Summer
Palace. The latter contained, amongst the usual religious paraphernalia -: a Phillips
gramophone with many 78 r.p.m. records, an old Russian radio, an art-deco bed and
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the first Western-style toilet in Tibet (with British plumbing) – all exactly as they
were left by the 14th Dalai Lama when he fled in 1959. There were photographs of
the Panchen Lamas but conspicuously none of the Dalai Lamas (it is still illegal to
possess a picture of the Dalai Lama).
Sunday 23rd May
This was our last full day in Tibet, so we walked to the Jokhang, the “cathedral”
of Lhasa, built for King Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century. Unfortunately, most of
the images, of which there are an abundant number, date from since 1980 after the
onslaught of the Cultural Revolution. Much genuine religious devotion was evident
there. Not only is it the earliest temple in Tibet, it is undoubtedly the holiest temple
and it houses the holy of holies, the Jowo Sakyamuni, an image of the historical
Buddha brought to Tibet from China by Songtsen Gampo’s Chinese princess-wife,
Wen Cheng, as her dowry. It is believed to have been made in Sakyamuni’s lifetime,
in India and is made of gold, silver, zinc, iron and copper encrusted with jewels
(diamonds, rubies, lapis lazuli, emeralds, coral, turquoise etc.), depicting the Buddha
at the age of 12. The temple is always packed with pilgrims who queue up to touch
the knees of the statue with their heads and drape white khatas (scarves) around its
neck.
In one chapel, there is an image of the 1000 – armed and 11-headed
Avalokitesvara (again!) whose original reputedly appeared miraculously in King
Songtsen Gampo’s time. In another, the tantric deity Samvara, thought to be a
Buddhist version of the Hindu god Shiva and the tantric manifestation of
Avalokitesvara, is on view. In yet another, Palden Llamo, the chief protectress of
Tibet is to be seen amongst much else. We ascended to the golden roof-tops which
are beautifully adorned with mythological birds and animals and from where there is a
grand view of Lhasa, including the Potala.
After this the only thing to do was to have a wild night out at the Crazy Yak
restaurant with traditional Tibetan dancing and music, not to mention a couple of
Tibetans in a yak-costume, a cross between a pantomime horse and a Chinese lion,
madly leaping around the bewildered clientele. This was washed down with yakbutter tea, Tibetan barley beer (chang) and assorted tidbits.
Next morning, after being presented with valedictory khatas, we drove to Gongkar
and caught the plane to Chengdu, where we changed planes for Beijing.
Altogether, the holiday adventure was a turning-point in my life, which opened up
vast new horizons for me and changed my life dramatically in a positive way.
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Illusion and Reality
I couldn’t believe it was true that I was really going to Tibet and suspected a trick
till the last minute, when waiting for a plane to China at Heathrow Airport. I was also
convinced that, if I did go, I would die in Tibet. My breathing problems were quite
acute and I had the vague prescience that I would be recognised as a major
incarnation before this happened. Since 1980 I have always believed myself to be the
rightful 9th incarnation of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the Mongolian spiritual leader,
despite hearing that a Tibetan was enthroned in Mongolia recently in that capacity.
Self-recognition is sometimes encountered: could the claimant be false – an impostor?
Or could there be more than one incarnation of the same lama? This has definitely
happened before – on one occasion there were 5 incarnations of a spiritual hierarch.
With schizophrenia there is no difference between thinking and knowing and I was
absolutely sure of my own divinity – I ascended to the heavens in my imagination.
In Tibet the relative reality of the everyday world disappears. The self does not
exist in Buddhism; in Tantrism, Buddhahood within everyone can be achieved in one
lifetime. Reincarnation happens but this is like one candle giving a light to another.
The aim is to realise transcendence by ritual and meditation, to escape rebirth in the
heavens, hells and human/animal world and attain Buddhahood. Of course, like the
self, the buddhas and bodhisattvas do not really exist or at the most they exist and do
not exist at the same time: reality is sunyata or emptiness but this is meant in a
positive, not nihilistic, sense. Visualisation of deities and even becoming the deities
before transcending them and the dualities of this world, beyond samsara and nirvana
into the ultimate bliss that conceptual thought cannot apprehend. If there is no self in
Buddhism (and also schizophrenia), anatman, barriers between people melt away, the
subject-object, this-other distinction fades away. This is akin to what Schopenhauer
means when talking about the fallacy of individuation and Wittgenstein’s belief that
the “I” or self is not part of the world but its limit and that there is no knowable
subject to possess experience. In the Daoist Liezi “Individual identity is an illusion
and the birth and death of an individual are merely episodes in the endless
transformation of the qi” The khutuktus or incarnations are more advanced in their
path than most, but Buddhism enjoins salvation for everyone in the democratic
ideology of the Mahayana. The buddhas represent “vortices of awareness” and
energies – they are not gods in the Judaeo-Christian sense. The human projections on
to the world are a cornerstone of our misunderstanding of the universe. Kant
demonstrates how human “knowledge” is projection, not necessarily reality. All
human thought is divided into anthropocentric, a priori categories and forms of the
intuition: space, time, causality, substance, modality, relation etc. which we impose
onto phenomena. Life is an energy exchange.
The Jebtsundamba Khutuktus, my lineage, are incarnations of Vajrapani, the
bodhisattva of energy, who was originally equated with Vajradhara, the Buddhist
Logos and embodiment of the principle of Buddhahood. There is also a connection
with Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future; in Chinese legal sources the Jebtsundamba
Khutuktus fulfil the role of his incarnation as a bodhisattva, before he ushers in a new
Messianic era as Buddha. Vajrapani is seen as a Buddhicized version of Indra, the
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Hindu king of the gods in Ancient India, possibly equivalent to Zeus or Thor. Like
them he wields thunderbolts, a potent symbol in Lamaism, representing ultimate
reality. Moreover, Chingis Khaan has a link with the Jebtsundambas: not only were
the first incarnations of the Jebtsundambas found amongst his descendants, in the
family of the Tusheet Khans, but also Chingis Khaan is seen as an incarnation of
Vajrapani.
In Chengdu, Sichuan, we were bumped off the plane and had to spend an awful
day and night in a trashy hotel with noisy shouting inmates and staff. Every word
they uttered I construed as an abusive malicious comment about me. I felt terrible,
under attack again. One evening in China, listening to the Chinese radio stations on
FM, I interpreted everything I heard to be about me. Who was this weird fat foreigner
and why was he allowed to come to China? They were talking about my family
background and medical history. Dr Ledger was involved in top-level talks with the
Chinese government – everything confirmed my suspicions. “He thinks he is an
incarnation of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu and is seeking recognition in Lhasa, a plot
by the “splittist” Dalai Lama to recover genuine autonomy and religious freedom for
the Tibetan people. He must be stopped, helicoptered out. He is not a normal person
but has a “spiritual illness”. He is slow, thick, his mind is clogged with material
addictions but he has been planning for 50 years to come and embarrass the Chinese
government and plant his spiritual essence in Tibet”.
In the cars provided with the Chinese guides and drivers I thought they were
slagging me off constantly. Also in Tibet but this was not quite so bad.
In Tibet one day I saw the ceiling of the hotel room turn into a vivid series of
visions. It was like a private film of my own making, although rather disconcerting
and alarming. I could see myself travelling into the snowy mountains with nomads,
yaks and scenery in full detail, a constantly moving record of events in Tibet.
Although it only lasted one evening, it nearly started up again several times. Tim was
quite concerned. Nevertheless, the experiences I enjoyed have enabled me to derive
maximum benefit and advantage from this life of experience and also empowered me
to cope with my illness.
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