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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama –
Part II – 14. China’s metaphysical rivalry with
Tibet
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
14. CHINA’S METAPHYSICAL
RIVALRY WITH
TIBET
The Central Asian power which for
centuries engaged the Tibetan Buddhocracy in the deepest rivalry was
the Chinese Empire. Even if the focus of current discussions about
historical relations between the two countries is centered on
questions of territory, we must upon closer inspection regard this
as the projected object of the actual dispute. Indeed, hidden behind
the state-political facade lies a much more significant,
metaphysically motivated power struggle. The magic/exotic world of
Lamaism and the outflow of the major and vital rivers from the
mountainous countries to the west led to the growth of an idea in
the “Middle Kingdom” that events in Tibet had a decisive influence
on the fate of their own country. The fates of the “Land of Snows”
and China were seen by both sides as being closely interlinked. At
the beginning of the twentieth century, leading Tibetans told the
Englishman, Charles Bell, that Tibet was the “root of China” (Bell,
1994, p.114). As absurd as it may sound, the Chinese power elite
never completely shook off this belief and they thus treated their
Tibetan politics especially seriously.
In addition the rulers of the two
nations, the “Son of Heaven” (the Chinese Emperor) and the “Ocean
Priest” (the Dalai Lama), were claimants to the world throne and
made the pretentious claim to represent the center of the cosmos,
from where they wanted to govern the universe. As we have
demonstrated in the vision guiding and fate of the Empress Wu
Zetian, the Buddhist idea of a Chakravartin influenced the
Chinese Empire from a very early stage (700 C.E.). During the Tang
dynasty the rulers of China were worshipped as incarnations of the
Bodhisattva Manjushri and
as “wheel-turning kings” (Chakravartin).
Besides, it was completely
irrelevant whether the current Chinese Emperor was of a more Taoist,
Confucian, or Buddhist inclination, as the idea of a cosmocrat was
common to all three systems. Even the Tibetans apportioned him this
role at times, such as the Thirteenth Dalai Lama for example, who
referred to the Manchu rulers as Chakravartins (Klieger,
1991, p. 32).
We school also not forget that
several of the Chinese potentates allowed themselves to be initiated
into the tantras and naturally laid claim to the visions of power
articulated there. In 1279 Chögyel Phagpa, the grand abbot of the
Sakyapa, initiated the Mongolian conqueror of China and founder of
the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan, into the Hevajra Tantra. In 1746 the
Qian Long ruler received a Lamaist tantric initiation as Chakravartin. Further it was
an established tradition to recognize the Emperor of China as an
emanation of the Bodhisattva Manjushri. This demonstrates
that two Bodhisattvas could also fall into earnest political
discord.
Tibetan culture owes just as much
to Chinese as it does to that of India. A likeness of the great
military leader and king, Songtsen Gampo (617–650), who forged the
highlands into a single state of a previously unseen size is
worshipped throughout all of Tibet . It shows him in full armor and
flanked by his two chief wives. According to legend, the Chinese
woman, Wen Cheng, and the Nepalese, Bhrikuti, were embodiments of
the white and the green Tara. Both are supposed to
have brought Buddhism to the “Land of Snows”. [1]
History confirms that the
imperial princess, Wen Cheng, was accompanied by cultural goods from
China that revolutionized the whole of Tibetan community life. The
cultivation of cereals and fruits, irrigation, metallurgy,
calendrics, a school system, weights and measures, manners and
clothing — with great open-mindedness the king allowed these and
similar blandishments of civilization to be imported from the
“Middle Kingdom”. Young men from the Tibetan nobility were sent to
study in China and India. Songtsen Gampo also made cultural loans
from the other neighboring states of the
highlands.
These Chinese acts of peace and
cultural creativity were, however, preceded on the Tibetan side by a
most aggressive and imperialist policy of conquest. The king was
said to have commanded an army of 200,000 men. The art of war
practiced by this incarnation of the “compassionate” Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, was
considered extremely barbaric and the “red faces”, as the Tibetans
were called, spread fear and horror through all of Central Asia. The
size to which Songtsen Gampo was able to expand his empire
corresponds roughly to that of the territory currently claimed by
the Tibetans in exile as their area of
control.
Since that time the intensive
exchange between the two countries has never dried up. Nearly all
the regents of the Manchu dynasty (1644–1912) right up to the
Empress Dowager Ci Xi felt bound to Lamaism on the basis of their
Mongolian origins, although they publicly espoused ideas that were
mostly Confucian. Their belief led them to have magnificent Lamaist
temples built in Beijing. There have been a total of 28 significant
Lama shrines built in the imperial city since the 18th century.
Beyond the Great Wall, in the Manchurian — Mongolian border region,
the imperial families erected their summer palace. They had an
imposing Buddhist monastery built in the immediate vicinity and
called it the “Potala” just like the seat of the Dalai Lama. In her
biography, the imperial princess, The Ling, reports that tantric
rituals were still being held in the Forbidden City at the start of
the twentieth century (quoted by Klieger, 1991, p. 55). [2]
If a Dalai Lama journeyed to
China then this was always conducted with great pomp. There was
constant and debilitating squabbling about etiquette, the symbolic
yardstick for the rank of the rulers meeting one another. Who first
greeted whom, who was to sit where, with what title was one
addressed — such questions were far more important than discussions
about borders. They reflect the most subtle shadings of the relative
positions within a complete cosmological scheme. As the “Great
Fifth” entered Beijing in 1652, he was indeed received like a
regnant prince, since the ruling Manchu Emperor, Shun Chi, was much
drawn to the Buddhist doctrine. In farewelling the hierarch he
showered him with valuable gifts and honored him as the
“self-creating Buddha and head of the valuable doctrine and
community, Vajradhara
Dalai Lama” (Schulemann, 1958, p. 247), but in secret he played him
off against the Panchen Lama.
The cosmological chess game went
on for centuries without clarity ever being achieved, and hence for
both countries the majority of state political questions remained
unanswered. For example, Lhasa was obliged to send gifts to Beijing
every year. This was naturally regarded by the Chinese as a kind of
tribute which demonstrated the dependence of the Land of Snows. But
since these gifts were reciprocated with counter-presents, the
Tibetans saw the relationship as one between equal partners. The
Chinese countered with the establishment of a kind of Chinese
governorship in Tibet under two officials known as Ambane. Form a Chinese point
of view they represented the worldly administration of the country.
So that they could be played off against one another and avoid
corruption, the Ambane
were always dispatched to Tibet in pairs.
The Chinese also tried to gain
influence over the Lamaist politics of incarnation. Among the
Tibetan and Mongolian aristocracy it was increasingly the case that
children from their own ranks were recognized as high incarnations.
The intention behind this was to make important clerical posts de facto hereditary for the
Tibetan noble clans. In order to hamper such familial expansions of
power, the Chinese Emperor imposed an oracular procedure. In the
case of the Dalai Lama three boys were to always be sought as
potential successors and then the final decision would be made under
Chinese supervision by the drawing of lots. The names and birth
dates of the children were to be written on slips of paper, wrapped
in dough and laid in a golden urn which the Emperor Kien Lung
himself donated and had sent to Lhasa in 1793.
Mao Zedong: The Red
Sun
But did the power play between
the two countries over the world throne end with the establishment
of Chinese Communism in Tibet? Is the Tibetan-Chinese conflict of
the last 50 years solely a confrontation between spiritualism and
materialism, or were there “forces and powers” at work behind
Chinese politics which wanted to establish Beijing as the center of
the world at Lhasa’ expense? “Questions of legitimation have plagued
all Chinese dynasties”, writes the Tibetologist Elliot Sperling with
regard to current Chinese territorial claims over Tibet,
„Questions of
legitimation have plagued all Chinese dynasties”, writes the
Tibetologist Elliot Sperling with regard to current Chinese
territorial claims over Tibet, „Traditionally such questions
revolved around the basic issue of whether a given dynasty or ruler
possessed 'The Mandate of Heaven’. Among the signs that accompanied
possession of The Mandate was
the ability to unify the country and overcome all rival
claimants for the territory and the throne of China. It would be a
mistake not to view the present regime within this tradition” (Tibetan Review, August 1983,
p. 18). But to put
Sperling’s interesting thesis to the test, we need to first of all
consider a man who shaped the politics of the Communist Party of
China like no other and was worshipped by his followers like a god:
Mao
Zedong.
According to Tibetan reports, the
occupation of Tibet by the Chinese was presaged from the beginning
of the fifties by numerous “supernatural” signs: whilst meditating
in the Ganden monastery the Fourteenth Dalai Lama saw the statue of
the terror deity Yamantaka move its head and
look to the east with a fierce expression. Various natural
disasters, including a powerful earthquake and droughts befell the
land. Humans and animals gave birth to monsters. A comet appeared in
the skies. Stones became loose in various temples and fell to the
ground. On September 9, 1951 the Chinese People’s Liberation Army
marched into Lhasa.
The Panchen Lama,
Mao Zedong, the Dalai Lama
Before he had to flee, the young
Dalai Lama had a number of meetings with the “Great Chairman” and
was very impressed by him. As he shook Mao Zedong by the hand for
the first time, the Kundun in his own words felt
he was “in the presence
of a strong magnetic force” (Craig, 1997, p. 178). Mao too felt the
need to make a metaphysical assessment of the god-king: “The Dalai
Lama is a god, not a man”, he said and then qualified this by
adding, “In any case he is seen that way by the majority of the
Tibetan population” (Tibetan
Review, January 1995, p. 10). Mao chatted with the god-king
about religion and politics a number of times and is supposed to
have expressed varying and contradictory opinions during these
conversations. On one occasion, religion was for him “opium for the
people” in the classic Marxist sense, on another he saw in the
historical Buddha a precursor of the idea of communism and declared
the goddess Tara to be a
“good woman”.
The twenty-year-old hierarch from
Tibet looked up to the fatherly revolutionary from China with
admiration and even nurtured the wish to become a member of the
Communist Party. He fell, as Mary Craig puts it, under the spell of
the red Emperor (Craig, 1997, p. 178). “I have heard chairman Mao
talk on different matters”, the Kundun enthused in 1955,
“and I received instructions from him. I have come to the firm
conclusion that the brilliant prospects for the Chinese people as a
whole are also the prospects for us Tibetan people; the path of our
entire country is our path and no other” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 142)
Mao Zedong, who at that time was
pursuing a gradualist politics, saw in the young Kundun a powerful instrument
through which to familiarize the feudal and religious elites of the
Land of Snows with his multi-ethnic communist state. In a 17-point
program he had conceded the “ national regional autonomy [of Tibet]
under the leadership of the Central People's Government”, and
assured that the “existing political system”, especially the
“status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama”, would remain
untouched (Goldstein, 1997, p. 47).
The Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution
After the flight of the Dalai
Lama, the 17-point program was worthless and the gradualist politics
of Beijing at an end. But it was first under the “Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution” (in the mid-sixties) that China’s attitude
towards Tibet shifted fundamentally. Within a tantric conception of
history the Chinese Cultural Revolution has to be understood as a
period of chaos and anarchy. Mao Zedong himself had– like a skilled
Vajra master —
deliberately evoked a general disorder so as to establish a paradise
on earth after the destruction of the old values: “A great chaos
will lead to a new order”, he wrote at the beginning of the youth
revolt (Zhisui, 1994, p. 491). All over the country, students,
school pupils, and young workers took to the land to spread the
ideas of Mao Zedong. The “Red Guard” of Lhasa also understood itself
to be the agent of its “Great Chairman”, as it published the
following statement in December 1966: “We a group of lawless
revolutionary rebels will wield the iron sweepers and swing the
mighty cudgels to sweep the old world into a mess and bash people
into complete confusion. We fear no gales and storms, nor flying
sands and moving rocks ... To rebel, to rebel, and to rebel through
to the end in order to create a brightly red new world of this
proletariat” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 183).
Although it was the smashing of
the Lamaist religion which lay at the heart of the red attacks in
Tibet, one must not forget that it was not just monks but also
long-serving Chinese Party
cadres in Lhasa and the Tibetan provinces who fell victim to
the brutal subversion. Even if it was triggered by Mao Zedong, the
Cultural Revolution was essentially a youth revolt and gave
expression to a deep intergenerational conflict. National interests
did not play a significant role in these events. Hence, many young
Tibetans likewise participated in the rebellious demonstrations in
Lhasa, something which for reasons that are easy to understand is
hushed up these days by Dharamsala.
Whether Mao Zedong approved of
the radicality with which the Red Guard set to work remains
doubtful. To this day — as we have already reported — the Kundun believes that the
Party Chairman was not fully informed about the vandalistic attacks
in Tibet and that Jiang Qing, his spouse, was the evildoer. [3] Mao’s attitude can probably be best
described by saying that in as far as the chaos served to
consolidate his position he would have approved of it, and in as far
as it weakened his position he would not. For Mao it was solely a
matter of the accumulation of personal power, whereby it must be
kept in mind, however, that he saw himself as being totally within
the tradition of the Chinese Emperor as an energetic concentration
of the country and its inhabitants. What strengthened him also
strengthened the nation and the people. To this extent he thought in
micro/macrocosmic terms.
The “deification” of Mao
Zedong
The people’s tribune was also not
free of the temptations of his own “deification”: “The Mao cult”,
writes his personal physician, Zhisui, “spread in schools,
factories, and communes — the Party Chairman became a god” (Li
Zhisui, 1994, p. 442). At heart, the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution must be regarded as a religious movement, and the
“Marxist” from Beijing reveled in his worship as a “higher
being”.
Numerous reports of the “marvels
of the thoughts of Mao Zedong”, the countless prayer-like letters
from readers in the Chinese newspapers, and the little “red book”
with the sacrosanct words of the great helmsman, known worldwide as
the “ bible of Mao “, and much more make a religion of Maoism.
Objects which factory workers gave to the “Great Chairman” were put
on display on altars and revered like holy relics. After “men of the
people” shook his hand, they didn’t wash theirs for weeks and
coursed through the country seizing the hands of passers by under
the impression that they could give them a little of Mao’s energy.
In some Tibetan temples pictures of the Dalai Lama were even
replaced with icons of the Chinese Communist
leader.
In this, Mao was more like a red
pontiff than a people’s rebel. His followers revered him as a
god-man in the face of whom the individuality of every other mortal
Chinese was extinguished. “The 'equality before god'", Wolfgang
Bauer writes in reference to the Great Chairman Mao Zedong, “really
did illuminate, and allowed those who felt themselves moved by it to
become ‘brothers’, or monks [!] of some kind clothed in robes that
were not just the most lowly but thus also identical and that caused
all individual characteristics to vanish” (Bauer, 1989, p.
569).
The Tibetans, themselves the
subjects of a god-king, had no problems with such images; for them
the “communist” Mao Zedong was the “Chinese Emperor”, at least from
the Cultural Revolution on. Later, they even transferred the
imperial metaphors to the “capitalist” reformer Deng Xiaoping:
“Neither the term 'emperor' nor 'paramount leader' nor ‘patriarch’
appear in the Chinese constitution but nevertheless that is the
position Deng held ... he possessed political power for life, just
like the emperors of old” (Tibetan Review, March 1997,
p. 23).
Mao Zedong’s
“Tantrism”
The most astonishing factor,
however, is that like the Dalai Lama Mao Zedong also performed
“tantric” practices, albeit à
la chinoise. As his personal physician, Li Zhisui reports, even
at great age the Great Chairman maintained an insatiable sexual
appetite. One concubine followed another. In this he imitated a
privilege that on this scale was accorded only to the Chinese
Emperors. Like these, he saw his affairs less as providing
satisfaction of his lust and instead understood them to be sexual
magic exercises. The Chinese “Tantric” [4] is primarily a specialist in the
extension of the human lifespan. It is not uncommon for the old
texts to recommend bringing younger girls together with older men as
energetic “fresheners”. This method of rejuvenation is spread
throughout all of Asia and was also known to the high lamas in
Tibet. The Kalachakra
Tantra recommends “the rejuvenation of a 70-year-old via a mudra [wisdom girl]"
(Grünwedel, Kalacakra II,
p. 115).
Mao also knew the secret of semen
retention: “He became a follower of Taoist sexual practices,” his
personal physician writes, “through which he sought to extend his
life and which were able to serve him as a pretext for his
pleasures. Thus he claimed, for instance, that he needed yin shui (the water of yin, i.e., vaginal
secretions) to complement his own yang (his masculine
substance, the source of his strength, power, and longevity) which
was running low. Since it was so important for his health and
strength to build up his yang he dared not squander
it. For this reason he only rarely ejaculated during coitus and
instead won strength and power from the secretions of his female
partners. The more yin
shui the Chairman absorbed, the more powerful his male substance
became. Frequent sexual intercourse was necessary for this, and he
best preferred to go to bed with several women at once. He also
asked his female partners to introduce him to other women —
ostensibly so as to strengthen his life force through shared orgies”
(Li Zhisui, 1994, pp. 387-388). He gave new female recruits a
handbook to read entitled Secrets of an Ordinary Girl,
so that they could prepare themselves for a Taoist rendezvous with
him. Like the pupils of a lama, young members of the “red court”
were fascinated by the prospect of offering the Great Chairman their
wives as concubines (Li Zhisui, 1994, pp. 388,
392).
The two chief symbols of his life
can be regarded as emblems of his tantric androgyny: the feminine
“water” and masculine “sun”. Wolfgang Bauer has drawn attention to
the highly sacred significance which water and swimming have in
Mao’s symbolic world. His demonstrations of swimming, in which he
covered long stretches of the Yangtze, the “Yellow River”, were
supposed to “express the dawning of a new, bold undertaking, through
which a better world would arise: it was”, the author says, “a kind
of cultic action” which he “... completed with an almost ritual
necessity on the eve of the 'Cultural Revolution'" (Bauer, 1989, p.
566).
One of the most popular images of
this period was of Mao as the “Great Helmsman” who unerringly
steered the masses through the waves of the revolutionary ocean.
With printruns in the billions (!), poems such as the following were
distributed among the people:
Traveling upon the high seas
we trust in the helmsman
As the ten thousand
creatures in growing trust the sun.
If rain and dew moisten
them, the sprouts become strong.
So we trust, when we push on
with the revolution,
in the thoughts of Mao
Zedong.
Fish cannot live away from
water,
Melons do not grow outside
their bed.
The revolutionary masses
cannot stay apart
From the Communist
Party.
The thoughts of Mao Zedong
are their never-setting sun.
(quoted by Bauer, 1989,
p. 567)
In this song we encounter the
second symbol of power in the Mao cult alongside water: the “red
sun” or the “great eastern sun”, a metaphor which — as we have
already reported — later reemerges in connection with the Tibetan
“Shambhala warrior”,
Chögyam Trungpa. „Long life to
Chairman Mao, our supreme commander and the most reddest red sun in
our hearts”, sang the cultural revolutionaries (Avedon, 1985, p.
349). The “thoughts
of Mao Zedong” were also “equated with a red sun that rose over a
red age as it were, a veneration that found expression in countless
likenesses of Mao’s features surrounded by red rays” (Bauer, 1989,
p. 568). In this heliolatry, the Sinologist Wolfgang Bauer sees a
religious influence that originated not in China but in the western
Asian religions of light like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism that
entered the Middle Kingdom during the Tang period and had become
connected with Buddhist ideas there (Bauer, 1989, p. 567). Indeed,
the same origin is ascribed to the Kalachakra Tantra by several
scholars.
Mao Zedong as the never setting
sun
Mao Zedong’s theory of
“blankness” also seems tantric. As early as 1958 he wrote that the
China’s weight within the family of peoples rested on the fact that
“first of all [it] is poor and secondly, blank. ... A blank sheet of
paper has no stains, and thus the newest and words can be written on
it, the newest and most beautiful images painted on it” (quoted by
Bauer, 1989, pp. 555-556). Bauer sees explicit traces of the
Buddhist ideal of “emptiness” in this: “The 'blank person', whose
presence in Mao’s view is especially pronounced among the Chinese
people, is not just the 'pure', but also at the same time also the
'new person’ in whom ... all the old organs in the body have been
exchanged for new ones, and all the old convictions for new ones.
Here the actual meaning of the spiritual transformation of the
Chinese person, deliberately imbuing all facets of the personality,
bordering on the mystic, encouraged with all the means of mass
psychology, and which the West with horror classifies as
'brainwashing', becomes apparent” (Bauer, 1989, p.
556).
As if they wanted to exorcise
their own repellant tantra practices through their projection onto
their main opponent, the Tibetans in exile appeal to Chinese sources
to link the Cultural Revolution with cannibalistic ritual practices.
Individuals who were killed during the ideological struggles became
the objects of cannibalism. At night and with great secrecy members
of the Red Guard were said to have torn out the hearts and livers of
the murdered and consumed them raw. There were supposed to have been
occasions where people were struck down so that their brains could
be sucked out using a metal tube (Tibetan Review, March 1997,
p. 22). The anti-Chinese propaganda may arouse doubts about how much
truth there is in such accounts, yet should they really have taken
place they too would bring the revolutionary events close to a
tantric pattern.
A spiritual rivalry between
the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Mao
Zedong?
The hidden religious basis of the
Chinese Cultural Revolution prevents us from describing the
comprehensive opposition between Mao Zedong and the Dalai Lama as an
antinomy between materialism and spirituality — an interpretation
which the Tibetan lamas, the Chinese Communists, and the West have
all given it, albeit all with differing evaluations. Rather, both
systems (the Chinese and the Tibetan) stood — as the ruler of the
Potala and the regent of the Forbidden City had for centuries — in
mythic contest for the control of the world, both reached for the
symbol of the “great eastern sun”. Mao too had attempted to impose
his political ideology upon the whole of humanity. He applied the
“theory of the taking of cities via the land” and via the farmers
which he wrote and put into practice in the “Long March” as a
revolutionary concept for the entire planet, in that he declared the
non-industrialized countries of Asia, Africa, and South America to
be “villages” that would revolt against the rich industrial nations
as the “cities”.
But there can only be one world
ruler! In 1976, the year in which the “red pontiff” (Mao Zedong)
died, according to the writings of the Tibetans in exile things
threatened to take a turn for the worse for the Tibetans. The state
oracle had pronounced the gloomiest predictions. Thereupon His
Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama withdrew into retreat, the
longest that he had ever made in India: “An extremely strict
practice”, he later commented personally, “which requires complete
seclusion over several weeks, linked to a very special teaching of
the Fifth Dalai Lama” (Levenson, 1992, p. 242). The result of this
“practice” was, as Claude B. Levenson reports, the following:
firstly there was “a major earthquake in China with thousands of
victims. Then Mao made his final bow upon the mortal stage. This
prompted an Indian who was close to the Tibetans to state, 'That’s
enough, stop your praying, otherwise the sky will fall on the heads
of the Chinese'" (Levenson, 1992, p. 242). In fact, shortly before
his death the “Great Chairman” was directly affected by this
earthquake. As his personal physician (who was present) reports, the
bed shook, the house swayed, and a nearby tin roof rattled
fearsomely.
Whether or not this was a
coincidence, if a secret ritual of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was
conducted to “liberate” Mao Zedong, it can only have been a matter
of the voodoo-like killing practices from the Golden Manuscript of the
“Great Fifth”. Further, it is clear from the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s
autobiography that on the day of Mao’s death he was busy with the
Time Tantra. At that time
[1976], the Kundun says. „I was in Ladakh, part of the remote Indian
province of Jammu and Kashmir, where I was conducting a Kalachakra initiation. On
the second the ceremony’s three days, Mao died. And the third day,
it rained all morning. But, in the afternoon, there appeared one of
the most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen. I was certain that it must be a good omen”
(Dalai Lama XIV, 1990, 222)
The post-Maoist era in
Tibet
The Chinese of the Deng era
recognized the error of their politics during the Cultural
Revolution and publicly criticized themselves because of events in
Tibet. An attempt was made to correct the mistakes and various
former restrictions were relaxed step by step. As early as 1977 the
Kundun was offered the
chance to return to Tibet. This was no subterfuge but rather an
earnest attempt to appease. One could talk about everything, Deng
Xiaoping said, with the exception of total independence for Tibet.
Thus, over the course of years,
with occasional interruptions, informal contacts sprang up between
the representatives of the Tibetans in exile and the Chinese Party
cadres. But no agreement was reached.
The Communist Party of China
guaranteed the freedom of religious practice, albeit with certain
restrictions. For example, it was forbidden to practice “religious
propaganda” outside of the monastery walls, or to recruit monks who
were under 18 years old, so as to protect children from “religious
indoctrination”. But by and large the Buddhist faith could be
practiced unhampered, and it has bloomed like never before in the
last 35 years.
In the meantime hundreds of
thousands of western tourists have visited the “roof of the world”.
Individuals and travel groups of exiled Tibetans have also been
permitted to visit the Land of Snows privately or were even
officially invited as “guests of state”. Among them has been Gyalo
Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s brother and military advisor, who
conspired against the Chinese Communists with the CIA for years and
counted among the greatest enemies of Beijing. The Chinese were
firmly convinced that the Kundun’s official delegations would not
arouse much interest among the populace. The opposite was the case.
Many thousands poured into Lhasa to see the brother of the Dalai
Lama.
But apparently this “liberal”
climate could not and still cannot heal the deep wounds inflicted
after the invasion and during the Chinese
occupation.
Up until 1998, the opposition to
Beijing in Tibet was stronger than ever before since the flight of
the Dalai Lama, as the bloody rebellion of October 1987 [5] and the since then unbroken wave of
demonstrations and protests indicates. For this reason a state of
emergency was in force in Lhasa and the neighboring region until
1990. The Tibet researcher Ronald Schwartz has published an
interesting study in which he convincingly proves that the Tibetan
resistance activities conform to ritualized patterns. Religion and
politics, protest and ritual are blended here as well. Alongside its
communicative function, every demonstration thus possesses a
symbolic one, and is for the participants at heart a magic act which
through constant repetition is supposed to achieve the expulsion of
the Chinese and the development of a national awareness among the
populace.
The central protest ceremony in
the country consists in the circling of the Jokhang Temple by monks
and laity who carry the Tibetan flag. This action is known as khorra and is linked to a
tradition of circumambulation. Since time immemorial the believers
have circled shrines in a clockwise direction with a prayer drum in
the hand and the om mani
padme hum formula on their lips, on the one hand to ensure a
better rebirth, on the other to worship the deities dwelling there.
However, these days the khorra is linked — and this
is historically recent — with protest activity against the Chinese:
Leaflets are distributed, placards carried, the Dalai Lama is
cheered. At the same time monks offer up sacrificial cakes and
invoke above all the terrible protective goddess, Palden Lhamo. As if they
wanted to neutralize the magic of the protest ritual, the Chinese
have begun wandering around the Jokhang in the opposite direction,
i.e., counterclockwise.
Those monks who were wounded and
killed by the Chinese security forces whilst performing the ritual
in the eighties are considered the supreme national martyrs. Their
sacrificial deaths demanded widespread imitation and in contrast to
the Buddhist prohibition against violence could be legitimated
without difficulty. To sacrifice your life does not contradict
Buddhism, young monks from the Drepung monastery told western
tourists (Schwartz, 1994, p. 71).
Without completely justifying his
claims, Schwartz links the circling of the Jokhang with the vision
of the Buddhist world kingship. He refers to the fact that Tibet’s
first Buddhist ruler, Songtsen Gampo, built the national shrine and
that his spirit is supposed to be conjured up by the constant
circumambulation: „Tibetans in
succeeding centuries assimilated Songtsen Gampo to the universal [!]
Buddhist paradigm of the ideal king, the Chakravartin or
wheel-turning king, who subdues demonic forces and establishes a
polity committed to promoting Dharma or righteousness”
(Schwartz, 1994, p. 33).
A link between the world ruler
thus evoked and the “tantric female sacrifice” is provided by the
myth that the living heart of Srinmo, the mother of Tibet,
beats in a mysterious lake beneath the Jokhang where it was once
nailed fast with a dagger by the king, Songtsen Gampo. In the light
of the orientation of contemporary Buddhism, which remains firmly
anchored in the andocentric tradition, the ritual circling of the
temple can hardly be intended to free the earth goddess. In
contrast, it can be assumed that the monk’s concern is to strengthen
the bonds holding down the female deity, just as the earth spirits
are nailed to the ground anew in every Kalachakra
ritual.
After a pause of 25 years, the
Tibetan New Year’s celebration (Monlam), banned by the Chinese in
1960, are since1986 once more held in front of the Jokhang. This
religious occasion, which as we have shown above is symbolically
linked with the killing of King Langdarma, has been seized upon by
the monks as a chance to provoke the Chinese authorities. But here
too, the political protest cannot be separated from the mythological
intention. „Its final
ceremony,” Schwartz writes of the current Mönlam festivals, „which
centres on Maitreya, the
Buddha of the next age, looks forward to the return of harmony to
the world with the re-emergence of the pure doctrine in the
mythological future. The demonic powers threatening society, and
bringing strife and suffering, are identified with the moral
degeneration of the present age. The recommitment of Tibet as a
nation to the cause of Buddhism is thus a step toward the collective
salvation of the world” (Schwartz, 1994, p. 88) The ritual circling of the
Jokhang and the feast held before the “cathedral” thus do not just
prepare for the liberation of Tibet from the Chinese yoke, but also
the establishment of a worldwide Buddhocracy (the resurrection of
the pure doctrine in a mythological future).
Considered neutrally, the current
social situation in Tibet proves to be far more complex than the
Tibetans in exile would wish. Unquestionably, the Chinese have
introduced many and decisive improvements in comparison to the
feudal state Buddhism of before 1959. But likewise there is no
question that the Tibetan population have had to endure bans,
suppression, seizures, and human rights violations in the last 35
years. But the majority of these injustices and restrictions also
apply throughout the rest of China. The cultural and ethnic changes
under the influence of the Chinese Han and the Islamic Hui pouring
in to the country may well be specific. Yet here too, there are
processes at work which can hardly be described (as the “Dalai Lama”
constantly does) as “cultural genocide”, but rather as a result of
the transformation from a feudal state via communism into a highly
industrialized and multicultural country.
A pan-Asian vision of the
Kalachakra Tantra?
In this section we would like to
discuss two possible political developments which have not as far as
we know been considered before, because they appear absurd on the
basis of the current international state of affairs. However, in
speculating about future events in world history, one has to free
oneself from the current position of the fronts. The twentieth
century has produced unimaginable changes in the shortest of times,
with the three most important political events being the collapse of
colonialism, the rise and fall of fascism, and that of communism.
How often have we had to experience that the bitterest of enemies
today become tomorrow’s best friends and vice versa. It is therefore
legitimate to consider the question of whether the current Dalai
Lama or one of his future incarnations can with an appeal to the Shambhala myth set himself
up as the head of a Central Asian major-power block with China as
the leading nation. The other question we want to consider is this —
could the Chinese themselves use the ideology of the Kalachakra Tantra to pursue
an imperialist policy in the future?
The Kalachakra Tantra and the
Shambhala myth had and
still have a quite exceptional popularity in Central Asia. There,
they hardly fulfill a need for world peace, but rather –especially
in Mongolia –act as a symbol for dreams of becoming a major power.
Thus the Shambhala
prophecy undoubtedly possesses the explosive force to power an
aggressive Asia’s imperialist ideology. This idea is widespread
among the Kalmyks, the various Mongolian tribes, the Bhutanese, the
Sikkimese, and the Ladhakis.
Even the Japanese made use of the
Shambhala myth in the
forties in order to establish a foothold in Mongolia. The
power-hungry fascist elite of the island were generous in creating
political-religious combinations. They had known how to fuse
Buddhism and Shintoism together into an imposing imperialist
ideology in their own country. Why should this not also happen with
Lamaism? Hence Japanese agents strove to create contacts with the
lamas of Central Asia and Tibet (Kimura, 1990). They even funded a
search party for the incarnation of the Ninth Jebtsundampa Khutuktu,
the “yellow pontiff of the Mongolians”, and sent it to Lhasa for
this purpose (Tibetan
Review, February 1991, p. 19). There were already close contacts
to Japan under the Thirteenth Dalai Lama; he was advised in military
questions, for example, was a Japanese by the name of Yasujiro
Yajima (Tibetan Review,
June 1982, pp. 8f.).
In line with the worldwide
renaissance in all religions and their fundamentalist strains it can
therefore not be excluded that Lamaism also regain a foothold in
China and that after a return of the Dalai Lama the Kalachakra ideology become
widespread there. It would then — as Edwin Bernbaum opines — just be
seeds that had been sown before which would sprout. „Through the
Mongolians, the Manchus, and the influence of the Panchen Lamas, the
Kalachakra Tantra even had an impact on China: A major landmark of
Peking, the Pai t’a, a white Tibetan-style stupa on a hill
overlooking the Forbidden City, bears the emblem of the Kalachakra
Teaching, The Ten of Power. Great Kalachakra Initiations were
also given in Peking.”
(Bernbaum,
1980, p. 286, f. 7) These were conducted in the thirties by the
Panchen Lama.
Taiwan: A springboard for
Tibetan Buddhism and the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama?
Yet as a decisive indicator of
the potential “conquest” of China by Tibetan Buddhism, its explosive
spread in Taiwan must be mentioned. Tibetan lamas first began to
missionize the island in 1949. But their work was soon extinguished
and could only be resumed in 1980. From this point in time on,
however, the tantric doctrine has enjoyed a triumphal progress. The
Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa) estimates the number of the Kundun’s followers in Taiwan
to be between 200 and 300 thousand and increasing, whilst the Tibetan Review of May 1997
even reports a figure of half a million. Over a hundred Tibetan
Buddhist shrines have been built. Every month around 100 Lamaist
monks from all countries visit Taiwan “to raise money for Tibetan
temples around the world” there (Tibetan Review, May 1995, p.
11).
Increasingly, high lamas are also
reincarnating themselves in Taiwanese, i.e., Chinese, families. To
date, four of these have been “discovered” — an adult and three
children — in the years 1987, 1990, 1991, and 1995. Lama Lobsang
Jungney told a reporter that “Reincarnation can happen wherever
there is the need for Buddhism. Taiwan is a blessed land. It could
have 40 reincarnated lamas.” (Tibetan Review, May 1995,
pp. 10-11).
In March 1997 a spectacular
reception was prepared for the Dalai Lama in many locations around
the country. The political climate had shifted fundamentally. The
earlier skepticism and reservation with which the god-king was
treated by officials in Taipei, since as nationalists they did not
approve of a detachment of the Land of Snows from China, had given
way to a warm-hearted atmosphere. His Holiness was praised in the
press as the “most significant visionary of peace” of our time. The
encounter with President Lee Teng-hui, at which the two “heads of
government” discussed spiritual topics among other things, was
celebrated in the media as a “meeting of the philosophy kings” (Tibetan Review, May 1997, p.
15). The Kundun has
rarely been so applauded. “In fact,” the Tibetan Review writes, “the
Taiwan visit was the most politically charged of all his overseas
visits in recent memory” (Tibetan Review, May 1997, p.
12). In the southern harbor city of Kaohsiung the Kundun held a rousing speech
in front of 50,000 followers in a sport stadium. The Tibetan
national flag was flown at every location where he stopped. The
Taiwanese government approved a large sum for the establishment of a
Tibet office in Taipei. The office is referred to by the Tibetans in
exile as a “de facto
embassy”.
At around the same time, despite
strong protest from Beijing, Tibetan monks brought an old tooth of
the Buddha, which fleeing lamas had taken with them during the
Cultural Revolution, to Taiwan. The mainland Chinese demanded the
tooth back. In contrast a press report said, “Taiwanese politicians
expressed the hope [that] the relic would bring peace to Taiwan,
after several corruption scandals and air disasters had cost over
200 people their lives” (Schweizerisch Tibetische
Freundschaft, April 14, 1998 - Internet).
The spectacular development of
Lamaist Buddhism in Nationalist China (Taiwan) shows that the land
could be used as an ideal springboard to establish itself in a China
freed of the Communist Party. Ultimately, the Kundun says, the Chinese had
collected negative karma through the occupation of Tibet and would
have to bear the consequences of this (Tibetan Review, May 1997, p.
19). How could this karma be better worked off than through the
Middle Kingdom as a whole joining the Lamaist
faith.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and
the Chinese
The cultural relationships of the
Kundun and of members of
his family to the Chinese are more complex and multi-layered than
they are perceived to be in the West. Let us recall that Chinese was
spoken in the home of the god-king’s parents in Takster. In
connection with the regent, Reting Rinpoche, the father of the Dalai
Lama showed such a great sympathy towards Beijing that still today
the Chinese celebrate him as one of their “patriots” (Craig, 1997,
p. 232). Two of His Holiness’s brothers, Gyalo Thundup and Tendzin
Choegyal, speak fluent Chinese. His impressive dealings with Beijing
and his pragmatic politics have several times earned Gyalo Thundup
the accusation by Tibetans in exile that he is a traitor who would
sell Tibet to the Chinese (Craig, 1997, pp. 334ff.). Dharamsala has
maintained personal contacts with many influential figures in Hong
Kong and Taiwan since the sixties.
Since the nineties, the constant
exchange with the Chinese has become increasingly central to the Kundun’s politics. In a
speech made in front of Chinese students in Boston (USA) on
September 9, 1995, His Holiness begins with a statement of how
important the contact to China and its people is for him. The usual
constitutional statements and the well-known demands for peace,
human rights, religious freedom, pluralism, etc. then follow, as if
a western parliamentarian were campaigning for his country’s
democracy. Only at the end of his speech does the Kundun let the cat out of
the bag and nonchalantly proposes Tibetan Buddhism as China’s new
religion and thus, indirectly, himself as the Buddhist messiah:
“Finally it is my strong believe and hope that however small a
nation Tibet might be, we can still contribute to the peace and the
prosperity of China. Decades of communist rule and the commercial
activities in recent years both driven by extreme materialism, be it
communist or capitalist, are destroying much of China's spiritual
and moral values. A huge spiritual and moral vacuum is thus being
rapidly created in the Chinese society. In this situation, the
Tibetan Buddhist culture and philosophy would be able to serve
millions of Chinese brothers and sisters in their search for moral
and spiritual values. After all, traditionally Buddhism is not an
alien philosophy to the Chinese people” (Tibetan Review, October
1995, p. 18). Advertising for the Kalachakra initiation
organized for the year 1999 in Bloomington, Indiana was also
available in Chinese. Since August 2000 one of the web sites run by
the Tibetans in exile has been appearing in
Chinese.
In recent months (up until 1998),
“pro-Chinese” statements by the Kundun have been issued more
and more frequently. In 1997 he explained that the materialistic
Chinese could only profit from an adoption of spiritual Lamaism.
Everywhere, indicators of a re-Buddhization of China were already to
be seen. For example, a high-ranking member of the Chinese military
had recently had himself blessed by the Mongolian great lama, Kusho
Bakula Rinpoche, when the latter was in Beijing briefly. Another
Chinese officer had participated in a Lamaist event seated in the
lotus position, and a Tibetan woman had told him how Tibetan
Buddhism was flourishing in various regions in
China.
"So from these stories we can
see”, the Dalai Lama continued, “that when the situation in China
proper becomes more open, with more freedom, then definitely many
Chinese will find useful inspiration from Tibetan Buddhist
traditions” (Shambhala
Sun, Archive, November 1996). In 1998, in an interview that His
Holiness gave the German edition of Playboy, he quite
materialistically says: “If we remain a part of China we will also
profit materially from the enormous upturn of the country” (Playboy, German edition,
March 1998, p. 44). The army of monks who are supposed to carry out
this ambitious project of a “Lamaization of China” are currently
being trained in Taiwan.
In 1997, the Kundun wrote to the Chinese
Party Secretary, Jiang Zemin, that he would like to undertake a
“non-political pilgrimage” to Wutaishan in Shanxi province (not in
Tibet). The most sacred shrine of the Bodhisattva Manujri, who from a Lamaist
point of view is incarnated in the person of the Chinese Emperor, is
to be found in Wutaishan. Thus for the lamas the holy site harbors
the la, the ruling energy
of the Chinese Empire. In preparing for such a trip, the Kundun, who is a consistent
thinker in such matters, will certainly have considered how best to
magically acquire the la
of the highly geomantically significant site of
Wutaishan.
The god-king wants to meet Jiang
Zemin at this sacred location to discuss Tibetan autonomy. But, as
we have indicated, his primary motive may well be an esoteric one. A
“Kalachakra ritual for
world peace” is planned there. Traditionally, the Wutai mountains
are seen as Lamaism’s gateway to China. In the magical world view of
the Dalai Lama, the construction of a sand mandala in this location
would be the first step in the spiritual conquest of the Chinese
realm. Already in 1987, the well-known Tibetan lama, Khenpo Jikphun
conducted a Kalachakra
initiation in front of 6000 people. He is also supposed to have
levitated there and floated through the air for a brief period
(Goldstein, 1998, p. 85).
At the end of his critical book,
Prisoners of Shangri-La,
the Tibetologist and Buddhist Donald S. Lopez addresses the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s vision of “conquering” China specifically
through the Kalachakra
Tantra. Here he discusses the fact that participants in the
ritual are reborn as Shambhala warriors. “The Dalai Lama”, Lopez
says, “may have found a more efficient technique for populating
Shambhala and recruiting troops for the army of the twenty-fifth
king, an army that will defeat the enemies of Buddhism and bring the
utopia of Shambhala, hidden for so long beyond the Himalayas, to the
world. It is the Dalai Lama’s prayer, he says, that he will some day
give the Kalachakra
initiation in Beijing” (Lopez, 1998, p. 207).
The “Strasbourg Declaration” (of
June 15, 1988), in which the Dalai Lama renounces a claim on state
autonomy for Tibet if he is permitted to return to his country,
creates the best conditions for a possible Lamaization of the
greater Chinese territory. It is interesting in this context that
with the renouncement of political autonomy, the
Kundun at the same time articulated a territorial expansion for the
cultural autonomy of
Tibet. The border provinces of Kam and Amdo, which for centuries
have possessed a mixed Chinese-Tibetan population, are now supposed
to come under the cultural political control of the Kundun. Moderate circles in
Beijing approve of the Dalai Lama’s return, as does the newly
founded Democratic Party of China under Xu
Wenli.
Also, in recent years the
numerous contacts between exile Tibetan politicians and Beijing have
not just been hostile, rather the contacts sometimes awake the
impression that here an Asian power play is at work behind
closed doors, one that is no longer easy for the West to understand.
For example, His Holiness and the Chinese successfully cooperated in
the search for and appointment of the reincarnation of the Karmapa,
the leader of the Red Hats, although here a Kagyupa faction did
propose another candidate and enthrone him in the
West.
Since Clinton’s visit to China
(in 1998) events in the secret diplomacy between the Tibetans in
exile and the Chinese are becoming increasingly public. On Chinese
television Clinton said to Jiang Zemin, “I have met the Dalai Lama.
I think he is an upright man and believe that he and President Jiang
would really get on if they spoke to one another” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, July
17, 1998). Thereupon, His Holiness publicly admitted that several
“private channels” to Peking already existed which produce “fruitful
contacts” (Süddeutsche
Zeitung, July 17, 1998). However, since 1999 the wind has turned
again. The “anti Dalai Lama campaigns” of the Chinese are now
ceaseless. Owing to Chinese interventions the Kundun has had to
endure several political setbacks throughout the entire Far East.
During his visit to Japan in the Spring of 2000 he was no longer
officially received. Even the Mayor of Tokyo (Shintaro Isihara), a
friend of the religious dignitary, had to cancel his invitation. The
great hope of being present at the inauguration of the new Taiwanese
president, Chen Shui-Bian on May 20, 2000, was not to be, even
though his participation was originally planned here too. Despite
internal and international protest, South Korea refused the Dalai
Lama an entry visa. The Xchinese even succeeded in excluding the
Kundun from the Millennium Summit of World Religions held by the UN
at the end of August 2000 in New York. The worldwide protests at
this decision remained quite subdued.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and
communism
The Kundun’s constant
attestations that Buddhism and Communism have common interests
should also be seen as a further currying of favor with the Chinese.
One can thus read numerous statements like the following from His
Holiness: „The Lord Buddha
wanted improvement in the spiritual realm, and Marx in the material;
what alliance could be more fruitful?” (Hicks and Chogyam, 1990, p.
143); “I believe firmly there is
common ground between communism and Buddhism” (Grunfeld, 1996, p.
188); “Normally I describe myself as half Marxist, half monk” (Zeitmagazin 1988, no. 44, p.
24; retranslation). He is even known to have made a plea for a
communist economic policy: “As far as the economy is concerned, the
Marxist theory could possibly complement Buddhism...” (Levenson,
1992, p. 334). It is thus no wonder that at the god-king’s
suggestion , the “Communist Party of Tibet” was founded. The Dalai
Lama has become a left-wing revolutionary even by the standards of
those western nostalgics who mourn the passing of
communism.
Up until in the eighties the
Dalai Lama’s concern was to create via such comments a good
relationship with the Soviet Union, which had since the sixties
become embroiled in a dangerous conflict with China. As we have
seen, even the envoy of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Agvan Dorjiev,
was a master at changing political fronts as he switched from the
Tsar to Lenin without a problem following the Bolshevist seizure of
power. Yet it is interesting that His Holiness has to continued to
make such pro-Marxist statements after the collapse of most
communist systems. Perhaps this is for ethical reasons, or because
China at least ideologically continues to cling to its communist
past?
These days through such
statements the Kundun
wants to keep open the possibility of a return to Tibet under
Chinese control. In 1997 in Taiwan he explained that he was neither
anti-Chinese nor anti-communist (Tibetan Review, May 1997, p.
14). He even criticized China because it had stepped back from its
Marxist theory of economics and the gulf between rich and poor is
thus becoming ever wider (Martin Scheidegger, speaking at the Gesellschaft Schweizerisch
Tibetische Freundschaft [Society for Swiss-Tibetan Friendship],
August 18, 1997).
Are the Chinese interested in
the Shambhala myth?
Do the Chinese have an interest
in the Kalachakra Tantra
and the Shambhala myth?
Let us repeat, since time immemorial China and Tibet have oriented
themselves to a mythic conception of history which is not
immediately comprehensible to Americans or Europeans. Almost nobody
here wants to believe that this archaic way of thinking continued to
exist, even increased, under “materialistic” communism. For a
Westerner, China today still represents “the land of materialism”
vis-à-vis Tibet as “the land of spirituality”. There are, however,
rare exceptions who avoid this cliché, such as Hugh Richardson for
example, who establishes the following in his history of Tibet: “The
Chinese have ... a profound regard for history. But history, for
them was not simply a scientific study. It had the features of a
cult, akin to ancestor worship, with the ritual object of presenting
the past, favorably emended and touched up, as a model for current
political action. It had to conform also to the mystical view of
China as the Centre of the World, the Universal Empire in which
every other country had a natural urge to become a part … The
Communists … were the first Chinese to have the power to convert
their atavistic theories into fact” (quoted by Craig, 1997, p.
146).
If it was capable of surviving
communism, this mythically based understanding of history will
hardly disappear with it. In contrast, religious revivals are now
running in parallel to the flourishing establishment of capitalist
economic systems and the increasing mechanization of the country.
Admittedly the Han Chinese are as a people very much oriented to
material things, and Confucianism which has regained respectability
in the last few years counts as a philosophy of reason not a
religion. But history has demonstrated that visionary and ecstatic
cults from outside were able to enter China with ease. The Chinese
power elite have imported their religious-political ideas from other
cultures several times in the past centuries. Hence the Middle
Kingdom is historically prepared for such ideological/spiritual
invasions, then up to and including Marxist communism it has been
seen, the Sinologist Wolfgang Bauer writes, “that, as far as
religion is concerned, China never went on the offensive, never
missionized, but rather the reverse, was always only the target of
such missionizations from outside” (Bauer, 1989, p. 570).
Nevertheless such religious imports could never really monopolize
the country, rather they all just had the one task, namely to
reinforce the idea of China as the center of the world. This was
also true for Marxist Maoism.
Let us also not forget that the
Middle Kingdom followed the teachings of the Buddha for centuries.
The earliest evidence of Buddhism can be traced back to the first
century of our era. In the Tang dynasty many of the Emperors were
Buddhists. Tibetan Lamaism held a great fascination especially in
the final epoch, that of the Manchus. Thus for a self-confident
Chinese power elite a Chinese reactivation of the Shambhala myth could without
further ado deliver a traditionally anchored pan-Asian ideology to
replace a fading communism. As under the Manchus, there is no need
for such a vision to square with the ideas of the entire
people.
The Panchen
Lama
Perhaps the Dalai Lama’s return
to Tibet is not even needed at all for the Time Tantra to be able to
spread in China. Perhaps the Chinese are already setting up their
own Kalachakra master,
the Panchen Lama, who is traditionally considered friendly towards
China. „Tibetans
believe,” Edwin Bernbaum writes, „that the Panchen Lamas have a
special connection with Shambhala, that makes them unique
authorities on the kingdom.” (Bernbaum, 1980, p.
185). In addition
there is the widespread prophecy that Rudra Chakrin, the doomsday
general, will be an incarnation of the Panchen
Lama.
As we have already reported, the
common history of the Dalai Lama and the ruler from Tashi Lunpho
(the Panchen Lama) exhibits numerous political and spiritual
discordances, which among other things led to the two hierarchs
becoming allied with different foreign powers in their running
battle against one another. The Panchen Lamas have always proudly
defended their independence from Lhasa. By and large they were more
friendly with the Chinese than were the rulers in the Potala. In
1923 the inner-Tibetan conflict came to a head in the Ninth Panchen
Lama’s flight to China. In his own words
he was „unable to live under these troubles and suffering” inflicted on him by Lhasa
(Mehra, 1976, p. 45). Both he and the Dalai Lama had obtained
weapons and munitions in advance, and an armed clash between the two
princes of the church had been in the air for years. This exhausted
itself, however, in the unsuccessful pursuit of the fleeing hierarch
from Tashilunpho by a body of three hundred men under orders from
Lhasa. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama was so enraged that he denied the
Buddhahood of the fleeing incarnation of Amitabha, because this was
selfish, proud, and ignorant. It had, together
„with his sinful companoins, who resembled mad elephants and
followed wrong path,” made itself scarce (Mehra, 1976, p.
45).
In 1932 the Panchen Lama is
supposed to have planned an invasion of Tibet with 10,000 Chinese
soldiers to conquer the Land of Snows and set himself up as its
ruler. Only after the death of the “Great Thirteenth” was a real
reconciliation with Lhasa possible. In 1937 the weakened and
disappointed prince of the church returned to Tibet but died within
a year. His pro-China politics, however, still found expression in
his will in which he prophesied that “Buddha Amitabha’s next incarnation
will be found among the Chinese” (Hermanns, 1956, p.
323).
In the search for the new
incarnation the Chinese nation put forward one candidate and the
Tibetan government another. Both parties refused to recognize the
other’s boy. However, under great political pressure the Chinese
were finally able to prevail. The Tenth Panchen Lama was then
brought up under their influence. He was thus with some
justification described as a marionette of Beijing. After the Dalai
Lama had fled in 1959, the Chinese appointed the hierarch from
Tashilunpho as Tibet’s nominal head of state. However, he only
exercised this office in a very limited manner and was persuaded to
make declarations of solidarity with the Dalai Lama on several
occasions. This earned him years of house arrest and a ban on public
appearances. Even if the Tibetans in exile now promote such
statements as patriotic confessions, by and large the Tenth Panchen
Lama played either his own or Beijing’s part. In 1978 he broke the
vow of celibacy imposed upon him by the Gelugpa order, marrying a
Chinese woman and having a daughter with her.
Shortly before his death he
actively participated in the capitalist economic policies of the
Deng Xiaoping era and founded the Kangchen in Tibet in 1987.
This was a powerful umbrella organization that controlled a number
of companies and businesses, distributed international development
funds for Tibet, and exported Tibetan products. The neocapitalist
business elite collected in the Kangchen was for the most
part recruited from old Tibetan noble families and were opposed to
the politics of the Dalai Lama, whilst from the other side they
enjoyed the supportive benevolence of Beijing.
As far as the Tibetan protest
movement of recent years is concerned, the Tenth Panchen Lama tried
to exert a conciliatory influence upon the revolting monks, but
regretted that they would not listen to him. “We insist upon
re-educating the majority of monks and nuns who become guilty of
minor crimes [i.e., resistance against the Chinese authorities]" he
announced publicly and went on, “But we will show no pity to those
who have stirred up unrest” (MacInnes, 1993, p.
282).
In 1989 the tenth incarnation of
the Amitabha died. The
Chinese made the funeral celebrations into a grandiose event of
state [!] that was broadcast nationally on radio and television.
They invited the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to the burial which took
place in Beijing, but did not want him to visit Tibet afterwards.
For this reason the Kundun declined. At the same
time the Tibetans in exile announced that the Panchen Lama had been
poisoned.
The political power play entered
a spectacular new round in the search for the eleventh incarnation.
At first it seemed as if the two parties (the Chinese and the
Tibetans in exile) would cooperate. But then there were two
candidates: one proposed by the Kundun and one by Beijing.
The latter was enthroned in Tashi Lunpho. A thoroughly
power-conscious group of pro-Chinese lamas carried out the
ceremonies, whilst the claimant designated by the Dalai Lama was
sent home to his parents amid protests from the world public. At
first, Dharamsala spoke of a murder, and then a kidnapping of the
boy.
All of this may be considered an
expression of the running battle between the Tibetans and the
Chinese, yet even for the Tibetans in exile it is a surprise how
much worth the Chinese laid on the magic procedure of the rebirth
myth and why they elevated it to become an affair of state,
especially since the upbringing of the Dalai Lama’s candidate would
likewise have lain in their hands. They probably decided on this
course out of primarily pragmatic political considerations, but the
magic religious system possesses a dynamic of its own and can
captivate those who use it unknowingly. A Lamaization of China with
or without the Dalai Lama is certainly a historical possibility. In
October 1995 for example, the young Karmapa was guest of honor at
the national day celebrations in Beijing and had talks with
important heads of the Chinese government. The national press
reported in detail on the subsequent journey through China which was
organized for the young hierarch by the state. He is said to have
exclaimed, “Long live the People’s Republic of China!” (Tibetan Review, November
1994, p. 9).
What a perspective would be
opened for the politics of the Kalachakra deities if they
were able to anchor themselves in China with a combination of the
Panchen and Dalai Lamas so as to deliver the foundations for a
pan-Asian ideology! At last, father and son could be reunited, for
those are the titles of the ruler from Tashilunpho (the father) and
the hierarch from the Potala (the son) and how they also refer to
one another. Then one would have taken on the task of bringing the
Time Tantra to the West, the other of reawakening it in its country
of origin in Central Asia. Amitabha and Avalokiteshvara, always
quarreling in the form of their mortal incarnations, the Panchen and
the Dalai Lama, would now complement one another — but this time it
would not be a matter of Tibet, but China, and then the
world.
The Communist Party of
China
The Communist Party of China’s
official position on the social role of religion admittedly still
shows a Marxist-Leninist influence. “Religious belief and religious
sentiments, religious ceremonies and organizations that are
compatible with the corresponding beliefs and emotions, are all
products of the history of a society.
The beginnings of religious
mentality reflect a low level of production... “, it says in a
government statement of principle, and the text goes on to say that
in pre-communist times religion was used as a means “to control and
still the masses” (MacInnes, 1993, p. 43). Nevertheless, religious
freedom has been guaranteed since the seventies, albeit with some
restrictions. Across the whole country a spreading religious
renaissance can be observed that, although still under state
control, is in the process of building up hugely like an underground
current, and will soon surface in full power.
All religious orientations are
affected by this — Taoism, Chan Buddhism, Lamaism, Islam, and the
various Christian churches. Officially , Confucianism is not
considered a faith but rather a philosophy. Since the Deng era the
attacks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution upon religious
representatives have been self-critically and publicly condemned. At
the moment, more out of a bad conscience and touristic motives than
from religious fervor, vast sums of money are being expended on the
restoration of the shrines destroyed.
Everyone is awaiting the great
leap forwards in a religious rebirth of the country at any moment.
“China’s tussle with the Dalai Lama seems like a sideshow compared
to the Taiwan crisis” writes the former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, Yoichi
Clark Shimatsu, “But Beijing is waging a political contest for the
hearts and minds of Asia's Buddhists that could prove far more
significant than its battle over the future democracy in Taiwan”
(Shimatsu, HPI 009).
It may be the result of purely
power political considerations that the Chinese Communists employ
Buddhist constructions to take the wind out of the sails of the
general religious renaissance in the country via a strategy of
attack, by declaring Mao Zedong to be a Bodhisattva for example (Tibetan Review, January
1994, p. 3). But there really are — as we were able to be convinced
by a television documentary — residents of the eastern provinces of
the extended territory who have set up likenesses of the Great
Chairman on their altars beside those of Guanyin and Avalokiteshvara, to whom
they pray for help in their need. A mythification of Mao and his
transformation into a Bodhisattva figure should become all the
easier the more time passes and the concrete historical events are
forgotten.
There are, however, several
factions facing off in the dawning struggle for Buddha’s control of
China. For example, some of the influential Japanese Buddhist sects
who trace their origins to parent monasteries in China see the
Tibetan clergy as an arch-enemy. This too has its historical causes.
In the 13th century and under the protection of the great
Mongolian rulers (of the Yuan dynasty), the lamas had the temples of
the Chinese Buddhist Lotus sect in southern China razed to the
ground. In reaction the latter organized a guerilla army of farmers
and were successful in shaking off foreign control, sending the
Tibetans home, and establishing the Ming dynasty (1368). “This
tradition of religious rebellion”, Yoichi Clark Shimatsu writes,
“did not disappear under communism. Rather, it continued under an
ideological guise. Mao Zedong's utopian vision that drove both the
Cultural Revolution and the suppression of intellectuals in
Tiananmen Square bears a striking resemblance with the populist
Buddhist policies of Emperor Zhu Yuanthang, founder of the Ming
Dynasty and himself a Lotus Sect Buddhist priest” (Shimatsu, HPI
009).
Many Japanese Buddhists see a new
“worldly” utopia in a combination of Maoist populism, the
continuation of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, and the familiar
values of (non-Tibetan) Buddhism. At a meeting of the Soka Gokkai
sect it was pointed out that the first name of the Chinese Premier
Li Peng was “Roc”, the name of the mythic giant bird that protected
the Buddha. Li Peng answered allegorically that in present-day China
the Buddha “is the people and I consider myself the guardian of the
people” (Shimatsu, HPI 009). Representatives of Soka Gokkai also
interpreted the relationship between Shoko Asahara and the Dalai
Lama as a jointly planned attack on the pro-Chinese politics of the
sect.
Like the Tibetans in exile , the
Chinese know that power lies in the hands of the elites. These will
decide which direction future developments take. It is doubtful
whether the issue of national sovereignty will play any role at all
among the Tibetan clergy should they be permitted to advance into
China with the toleration and support of the state. Since the murder
of King Langdarma, Tibetan history teaches us, the interests of
monastic priests and not those of the people are preeminent in
political decisions. This was likewise true in reverse for the
Chinese Emperor. The Chinese ruling elite will in the future also
decide according to power-political criteria which religious path
they will pursue: “Beijing clearly looks to a Buddhist revival to
fill the spiritual void in the Asian heartland so long as it does
not challenge the nominally secular authorities. Such a revival
could provide the major impetus into the Pacific century. Like all
utopias, it could also be fraught with disaster” (Shimatsu, HPI
009).
The West, which has not reflected
upon the potential for violence in Tantric/Tibetan Buddhism or
rather has not even recognized it, sees — blind as it is — a
pacifist and salvational deed by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in the
spread of Lamaism in China. The White House Tibet expert, Melvyn
Goldstein, all but demands of the Kundun that he return to Tibet. In
this he is probably voicing the unofficial opinion of the American
government: “If he [the Dalai Lama] really wants to achieve
something,” says Goldstein, “he has to stop attacking China on the
international stage, he has to return and publicly accept the
sovereignty over his home country” (Spiegel 16/1998, p.
118).
Everything indicates that this
will soon happen, and indeed at first under conditions dictated by
the Chinese. In his critique of the film Kundun, the journalist
Tobias Kniebe writes that, “As little real power as this man [the
Dalai Lama] may have at the moment — as a symbol he is unassailable
and inextinguishable. The history of nonviolent resistance is one of
the greatest, there is, and in it Kundun [the film] is a kind
of prelude. The actual film, which we are waiting for, may soon
begin: if an apparently impregnable, billion-strong market is
infiltrated by the power of a symbol [the Dalai Lama] whose evidence
it is unable to resist for long. If this film is ever made, it will
not be shown in the cinemas, but rather on CNN” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, March
17, 1998). Kniebe and many others thus await a Lamaization of the
whole Chinese territory.
A wild speculation? David
Germano, Professor of Tibetan Studies in Virginia, ascertained on
his travels in Tibet that “The Chinese fascination with Tibetan
Buddhism is particularly important, and I have personally witnessed
extremes of personal devotion and financial support by Han Chinese
to both monastic and lay Tibetan religious figures [i.e., lamas]
within the People's Republic of China” (Goldstein, 1998, p.
86).
Such a perspective is expressed
most clearly in a posting to an Internet discussion forum from April
8, 1998: “"Easy, HHDL [His Holiness the Dalai Lama]", it says, “can
turn the people of Taiwan and China [into] becoming conformists of
Tibetan Buddhism. Soon or later, there will be the Confederate
Republics of Greater Asia. Republic of Taiwan, People's Republic of
China, Republic of Tibet, Mongolia Democratic Republic, Eastern
Turkestan Republic, Inner Mongolian Republic, Nippon, Korea ... all
will be parts of the CROGA. Dalai Lama will be the head of the
CROGA” (Brigitte, Newsgroup 10).
But whether the Kundun returns home to the
roof of the world or not, his aggressive Kalachakra ideology is not a
topic for analysis and criticism in the West, where religion and
politics are cleanly and neatly separated from one another. The
despotic idea of a world ruler, the coming Armageddon, the world war
between Buddhism and Islam, the establishment of a monastic
dictatorship, the hegemony of the Tibetan gods over the planets, the
development of a pan-Asian, Lamaist major-power politics — all
visions which are laid out in the Kundun’s system and
magically consolidated through every Kalachakra initiation — are
simply not perceived by politicians from Europe and America. They
let the wool be pulled over their eyes by the god-king’s professions
of democracy and peace. How and by what means His Holiness seeks to
culturally conquer the West is what we want to examine in the next
chapter.
Footnotes:
[5] The
demonstrators burnt down a police station and a number of
automobiles and shops. Between 6 and 20 Tibetans were killed when
the police fired into the crowd. Some of the policemen on duty were
also Tibetan.
Next
Chapter:
15. THE
BUDDHOCRATIC CONQUEST OF THE WEST
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