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Thank China for today's Tibet
31 March 2005
This will read like heresy to many of the followers of the politically correct version of history wherein bad and good are clearly defined, but the Chinese invasion of Tibet may prove to be the best thing that has happened to Tibet since Padhmasambahva brought Buddhism into that isolated Himalayan kingdom, about 1,300 years ago.
Don’t mistake my sentiments as sympathy for the devil. China brutalized Tibet when it invaded, and for more than 50 years has maintained an oppressive rule that has attempted to crush every aspect of Tibetan identity, to eliminate its unique culture and religion. They stand accused of torture, rape, genocide and murder. The Chinese have been there even before the death of Mao’s guiding light, Josef Stalin, but they’ve done their mentor proud. The Chinese rank up there beside the Taliban and Hitler’s Nazis in the list of oppressive, destructive, vicious overlords in this century.
But 50 years later, Tibet has spread out to the world, has passionate followers and supporters in the West, and has seen its culture become popular among millions of people outside its borders. Tibet’s spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama, is one of the most well-recognized and respected world leaders, even though he doesn’t have a country at present. Tibet and the Dalai Lama are household words in the West. The Tibetan mantra 'om mani padme hum' is even a popular choice in Western tattoo parlours.
And some Tibetan teachers have fared very well from the diaspora. They've gathered followers, set up schools, taken in heaps of donations - I don't want to sound cynical, but many of them live very material lives. In fact, sometimes the luxury seems just a little ostentatious for simple Buddhist monks... but maybe I'm being overly cynical.
Tibetan cultural items are very popular online, with dozens of e-stores selling them. There are Tibetan Buddhist sites, forums, blogs and news sites. Tibetan Buddhism has spawned hundreds of schools, centres and monasteries in the West, plus numerous magazines, newsletters and shops to cater to the booming business. There are Tibetan cultural centres and Buddhist centres in most major cities in North American and Western Europe. And everywhere they are, you'll find donation boxes and pledge forms...
Tibetan Buddhism has become Big Business, too, a somewhat disturbing trend that suggests the West has had more influence on Tibetan Buddhism than the other way around. I can hardly wait for Wal-Mart to start stocking Tibetan ritual religious items, right there beside the plastic statues of Jesus and garden implements...
There’s nothing quite as comfortable as sitting on the deck after a long day at the office, with your glass of chardonnay and your newest issue of Shambhala Sun while the sun sets over the Pacific… and you select which upscale weekend retreat you plan to attend, preferably one that requires you to actually take your Mercedes SUV out of the city, just to show it what life it like beyond the shopping malls... and maybe see how it stacks up against what the other weekend Buddhists are driving.
Tibetan monks have authored hundreds of popular books sold through bookstores around the world and online. Most of them seem to say pretty much the same thing as one another. In case you find the dense Vajrayana texts a little too theologically challenging, there's probably a westerner who has donned the robe and written a simpler, Buddhism-for-weekenders explanation you can purchase and read it in the washroom when no one's looking.
You can buy Tibetan flags, Tibetan decals, Tibetan posters and greeting cards, books, prayer shawls, singing bowls and tangkhas online, and even book expensive trips to exotic Lhasa through Expedia.com. Tibet was once a mysterious, exotic, lost world - mostly unknown, hard to get to and unfriendly when you did manage it. Now all you need is a credit card and L.L. Bean safari clothes and you're off to the mysterious Himalayas.
And in that same 50 years since its brutal invasion, China has only had its shame, and the world’s disapproval while Tibet has basked in the world's attention and delight. There are no accolades for China's behaviour or human rights record, they have garnered no respect, accumulated no followers or supporters – with the recent exception of South Africa, which helped stifle a debate on Chinese suppression of human rights in the UN. Nelson Mandela would be ashamed.
True, you can buy a lot more Chinese goods than Tibetan here - every Wal-Mart is simply crammed floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall with them, usually poorly made but cheaper than dirt. And online the Chinese are selling cheap knock-offs of Tibetan goods in what must be the most ironic marketing statement ever made. But no one with a social conscience, let alone a Buddhist, would shop at Wal-Mart... would they?
China is the target of international protests, boycotts, censure and disapproval. Chinese leaders, in their ill-fitting Maoist suits, don’t attract fawning hordes of fans and well-wishers like the Dalai Lama or Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. No one wears an I Love Deng Xiaoping button on their lapel. There are no nostalgic international festivals celebrating the Cultural Revolution. The glitterati don’t hold banquets and massive public ceremonies for surly Chinese leaders (never forget, however, that on the anniversary of the Tienamen Square massacre, US President Bill Clinton ordered Chinese food sent to the White House to show where the administration’s sympathies lay).
China is a moral and political outcast while Tibetans – especially their spiritual leaders – are treated like pop stars or royalty. Except, of course, among Wal-Mart shoppers who value cheap Chinese goods over a conscience...
In fact, the only people who seem to like the Chinese today are those capitalist CEOs who delight in closing factories in Canada and the USA so they can move production to China and make more money for themselves and their shareholders. And of course the unemployed workers left behind can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart because they're trying to make ends meet on pogey or McJobs... Pardon me if I sound like Michael Moore, but given a choice between, say, welcoming a leader from the country my job and my family’s future went to, or the Dalai Lama, I can tell you who I’d prefer to shake hands with!
And none of this would have happened if China hadn’t been such a petty, ignoble and mean bully in 1950. And continued to be one for the next 55 years.
Tibet was a backward, feudal theocracy when China invaded. Tibet resembled medieval Europe more than a 20th century nation. China’s goal was quickly made evident: to wipe out Tibetan culture and religion and turn all the inhabitants into more Mao clones. In a short span, the Chinese had closed and destroyed hundreds of monasteries, imprisoned or enslaved thousands of monks, raped nuns, smashed ancient cultural and religious sites (there’s that Taliban streak again), and forcibly relocated thousands of Chinese to settle in Tibet.
But squeezing Tibet didn’t crush it. Tibetans squirted out of China’s grasp like toothpaste from a tube. After only a short hiatus, this diaspora quickly organized a government in exile. The Tibetan public relations machine started cranking out material to inform the world of its plight. After initially rejecting the United Nations, Tibetans started using it to grow international support against the Chinese occupation. ANd then the glitterati made Tibet its personal cause (Scientology having waned among the spiritually fickle pop stars...)
Momentum built slowly, but inexorably. It wasn’t long before Tibetan priests and monks were spreading out into the West to establish schools of their own, bringing often eclectic and idiosyncratic versions of Tibetan teachings with them. The cryptic Tibetan Book of the Dead became a bestseller. The mystery and magic of Shangri-La preceded these teachers and in less than a generation, Tibetan Buddhism went from the obscure, superstition-and-myth-dense fringe to centre stage in the spiritual community.
Tibet became a cause. And as soon as it hit Hollywood, it became a Cause. Capital C. With the glitterati paying homage to the Dalai Lama at lavish well-publicized events, and Hollywood movie houses cranking out heart-rending celluloid like Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, the Cause quickly went from fad to fashion. Those who walk in the shadow of the glitterati soon turned in step to follow their screen idols into worship. (Hey, Brad, wasn't that guy Heinrich you played a Nazi...? Nice role model, eh? Oops. Sorry, not supposed to mention that... maybe the producers should have done some homework first...)
If this sounds pretty cynical, it is, at least somewhat. Among the sincere, the humble and the wise teachers who spread out from the mountain fast, there were also some hucksters and con men who knew how to play the Tibetan card to its maximum advantage. Westerners, eagerly seeking some point of purchase on which to escape the raging tide of materialism and consumerism in their culture, grabbed onto anything Tibetan as the spiritual lifeline. In some cases, both sides were sincere. In others, it helped if the seeker was a little too gullible to ask a lot of questions. Or call it trusting.
We were victims of our own social and cultural prejudices. We saw the east, the orient as mysterious, dark, magical and steeped in mystical tradition far deeper and wiser than anything we had in our own past. We accepted the plate as served, without asking what the mystery meat really was. Of course, we had dined off the leftovers from TV evangelist shysters for years, so we were used to being fed in the dark like mushrooms...
Surprisingly, many clear-thinking westerners, people known for their logic, skepticism and even cynicism, shelved their doubts and accepted everything Tibetan at face value. The whole megillah. No questions asked. Some of it was beautiful, brilliant, powerful stuff, opening windows in our hearts and minds. We reeled from the blast of light that shot into our lives when the Dalai Lama spoke of compassion, caring and peace.
But we didn’t even blink when the teachings turned to the murky fields of superstition, the demon-filled darkness that accumulated into Tibetan Buddhism from the ancient animistic Bon religion. We were merrily spinning prayer wheels or buying imitation tangkhas online, never once asking why a spiritually advanced culture would resort to primitive oracles and seers.
Tibet changed the West. It was like a spiritual tsunami that broke on our disgruntled shores. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Westerners opened up to the new religious concepts, taking the ideals of the Dharma, the Eightfold Path into daily life. And like a ripple from a rock thrown into a pond, the wave carried others into other corners of Buddhism: Zen, Pure Land, Theravada and more.
But Tibet has more panache than all the rest combined. Who is the Buddhist leader in Thailand? Who is the head of the Pure Land School in Japan? Who is the most prominent member of the Dogen school of Zen? Who is the spiritual leader of Tibet?
One out of four isn’t terribly good. But none of the rest have such good press agents as HH.
In all fairness, the Tibetan diaspora has also changed Tibetans, perhaps even more than they have changed us. They encountered the marvels of the modern age: refrigeration, automobiles, cell phones, credit cards, medicare – who would want to go back to herding yaks and living in a yurt after that? Even if the Chinese did install electricity and street cars in Lhasa, it pales in comparison to any western city as far as modern conveniences go.
And if Tibet was handed over today, how would the experience in the West change the returnees? Would the streets of Lhasa be clogged with SUV drivers yattering away on their cell phones while they toyed with their GPS? Would those abandoned monasteries become hotels for yuppie travelers looking for an “authentic” experience? Would Tibet see such a popular demand for icons and religious instruments they’d have to turn to China to have them manufactured (oh wait, that’s already happening – just check eBay and you’ll see!)? Would there be factories cranking out mass-produced nylon prayer flags and plastic prayer wheels for the tourist trade? Would there be a Tibetan TV network with flaccid sitcoms with synthetic laugh tracks and phony “reality” shows to entertain the bored masses? Would there be a Bardo Beer and maybe a Bardo Lite?
In a sense, a similar thing happened with Israel. After the 48 war, the faithful made the visit to ha eretz, but didn’t stay in the dusty kibbutzim to help pick watermelon. They stayed in hotels, left donations, and returned to their cozy Manhattan apartments. And when there was trouble, they simply put an extra $100 onto the pledge at the High Holidays, without making the trip. Sorry, there's that cynicism again.
Israel is a Cause, too, but most of its supporters don’t get their hands dirty with the reality. Of course, if Tibet started fighting with its neighbours, it might be the same.
So it might be with Tibetans, should their land ever return to them. Tibet has become a larger-than-life mythology that reality might bring crashing down.
Without the Chinese occupation Tibet wouldn’t be a Cause, just another backwater to pump foreign aid into and a place where aid groups could help natives build outdoor toilets. So maybe things work out they way they should. At least we know Osama won't be welcome there under the Chinese occupation (well, we hope not... where does he get his weapons from, anyway?).
Tibetan Buddhism has a diamond core that resists any challenge to its integrity, that shines with a pure white light that pierced a million cynical Western hearts. Tibetans are, for the most part, warm, open and genuinely beautiful people. But we wouldn't know that, wouldn't know anything more about them than we do about, say Paraguay, Liechtenstein, or Kirghizia if it hadn't been for the Chinese invasion forcing so many Tibetans on the lam.
So maybe the Chinese did the world an unwitting benefit, even if they didn't do one to the Tibetans themselves. And if the law of karma has any validity, the Chinese themselves will suffer for their acts of oppression.
Don’t mistake my sentiments as sympathy for the devil. China brutalized Tibet when it invaded, and for more than 50 years has maintained an oppressive rule that has attempted to crush every aspect of Tibetan identity, to eliminate its unique culture and religion. They stand accused of torture, rape, genocide and murder. The Chinese have been there even before the death of Mao’s guiding light, Josef Stalin, but they’ve done their mentor proud. The Chinese rank up there beside the Taliban and Hitler’s Nazis in the list of oppressive, destructive, vicious overlords in this century.
But 50 years later, Tibet has spread out to the world, has passionate followers and supporters in the West, and has seen its culture become popular among millions of people outside its borders. Tibet’s spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama, is one of the most well-recognized and respected world leaders, even though he doesn’t have a country at present. Tibet and the Dalai Lama are household words in the West. The Tibetan mantra 'om mani padme hum' is even a popular choice in Western tattoo parlours.
And some Tibetan teachers have fared very well from the diaspora. They've gathered followers, set up schools, taken in heaps of donations - I don't want to sound cynical, but many of them live very material lives. In fact, sometimes the luxury seems just a little ostentatious for simple Buddhist monks... but maybe I'm being overly cynical.
Tibetan cultural items are very popular online, with dozens of e-stores selling them. There are Tibetan Buddhist sites, forums, blogs and news sites. Tibetan Buddhism has spawned hundreds of schools, centres and monasteries in the West, plus numerous magazines, newsletters and shops to cater to the booming business. There are Tibetan cultural centres and Buddhist centres in most major cities in North American and Western Europe. And everywhere they are, you'll find donation boxes and pledge forms...
Tibetan Buddhism has become Big Business, too, a somewhat disturbing trend that suggests the West has had more influence on Tibetan Buddhism than the other way around. I can hardly wait for Wal-Mart to start stocking Tibetan ritual religious items, right there beside the plastic statues of Jesus and garden implements...
There’s nothing quite as comfortable as sitting on the deck after a long day at the office, with your glass of chardonnay and your newest issue of Shambhala Sun while the sun sets over the Pacific… and you select which upscale weekend retreat you plan to attend, preferably one that requires you to actually take your Mercedes SUV out of the city, just to show it what life it like beyond the shopping malls... and maybe see how it stacks up against what the other weekend Buddhists are driving.
Tibetan monks have authored hundreds of popular books sold through bookstores around the world and online. Most of them seem to say pretty much the same thing as one another. In case you find the dense Vajrayana texts a little too theologically challenging, there's probably a westerner who has donned the robe and written a simpler, Buddhism-for-weekenders explanation you can purchase and read it in the washroom when no one's looking.
You can buy Tibetan flags, Tibetan decals, Tibetan posters and greeting cards, books, prayer shawls, singing bowls and tangkhas online, and even book expensive trips to exotic Lhasa through Expedia.com. Tibet was once a mysterious, exotic, lost world - mostly unknown, hard to get to and unfriendly when you did manage it. Now all you need is a credit card and L.L. Bean safari clothes and you're off to the mysterious Himalayas.
And in that same 50 years since its brutal invasion, China has only had its shame, and the world’s disapproval while Tibet has basked in the world's attention and delight. There are no accolades for China's behaviour or human rights record, they have garnered no respect, accumulated no followers or supporters – with the recent exception of South Africa, which helped stifle a debate on Chinese suppression of human rights in the UN. Nelson Mandela would be ashamed.
True, you can buy a lot more Chinese goods than Tibetan here - every Wal-Mart is simply crammed floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall with them, usually poorly made but cheaper than dirt. And online the Chinese are selling cheap knock-offs of Tibetan goods in what must be the most ironic marketing statement ever made. But no one with a social conscience, let alone a Buddhist, would shop at Wal-Mart... would they?
China is the target of international protests, boycotts, censure and disapproval. Chinese leaders, in their ill-fitting Maoist suits, don’t attract fawning hordes of fans and well-wishers like the Dalai Lama or Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. No one wears an I Love Deng Xiaoping button on their lapel. There are no nostalgic international festivals celebrating the Cultural Revolution. The glitterati don’t hold banquets and massive public ceremonies for surly Chinese leaders (never forget, however, that on the anniversary of the Tienamen Square massacre, US President Bill Clinton ordered Chinese food sent to the White House to show where the administration’s sympathies lay).
China is a moral and political outcast while Tibetans – especially their spiritual leaders – are treated like pop stars or royalty. Except, of course, among Wal-Mart shoppers who value cheap Chinese goods over a conscience...
In fact, the only people who seem to like the Chinese today are those capitalist CEOs who delight in closing factories in Canada and the USA so they can move production to China and make more money for themselves and their shareholders. And of course the unemployed workers left behind can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart because they're trying to make ends meet on pogey or McJobs... Pardon me if I sound like Michael Moore, but given a choice between, say, welcoming a leader from the country my job and my family’s future went to, or the Dalai Lama, I can tell you who I’d prefer to shake hands with!
And none of this would have happened if China hadn’t been such a petty, ignoble and mean bully in 1950. And continued to be one for the next 55 years.
Tibet was a backward, feudal theocracy when China invaded. Tibet resembled medieval Europe more than a 20th century nation. China’s goal was quickly made evident: to wipe out Tibetan culture and religion and turn all the inhabitants into more Mao clones. In a short span, the Chinese had closed and destroyed hundreds of monasteries, imprisoned or enslaved thousands of monks, raped nuns, smashed ancient cultural and religious sites (there’s that Taliban streak again), and forcibly relocated thousands of Chinese to settle in Tibet.
But squeezing Tibet didn’t crush it. Tibetans squirted out of China’s grasp like toothpaste from a tube. After only a short hiatus, this diaspora quickly organized a government in exile. The Tibetan public relations machine started cranking out material to inform the world of its plight. After initially rejecting the United Nations, Tibetans started using it to grow international support against the Chinese occupation. ANd then the glitterati made Tibet its personal cause (Scientology having waned among the spiritually fickle pop stars...)
Momentum built slowly, but inexorably. It wasn’t long before Tibetan priests and monks were spreading out into the West to establish schools of their own, bringing often eclectic and idiosyncratic versions of Tibetan teachings with them. The cryptic Tibetan Book of the Dead became a bestseller. The mystery and magic of Shangri-La preceded these teachers and in less than a generation, Tibetan Buddhism went from the obscure, superstition-and-myth-dense fringe to centre stage in the spiritual community.
Tibet became a cause. And as soon as it hit Hollywood, it became a Cause. Capital C. With the glitterati paying homage to the Dalai Lama at lavish well-publicized events, and Hollywood movie houses cranking out heart-rending celluloid like Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, the Cause quickly went from fad to fashion. Those who walk in the shadow of the glitterati soon turned in step to follow their screen idols into worship. (Hey, Brad, wasn't that guy Heinrich you played a Nazi...? Nice role model, eh? Oops. Sorry, not supposed to mention that... maybe the producers should have done some homework first...)
If this sounds pretty cynical, it is, at least somewhat. Among the sincere, the humble and the wise teachers who spread out from the mountain fast, there were also some hucksters and con men who knew how to play the Tibetan card to its maximum advantage. Westerners, eagerly seeking some point of purchase on which to escape the raging tide of materialism and consumerism in their culture, grabbed onto anything Tibetan as the spiritual lifeline. In some cases, both sides were sincere. In others, it helped if the seeker was a little too gullible to ask a lot of questions. Or call it trusting.
We were victims of our own social and cultural prejudices. We saw the east, the orient as mysterious, dark, magical and steeped in mystical tradition far deeper and wiser than anything we had in our own past. We accepted the plate as served, without asking what the mystery meat really was. Of course, we had dined off the leftovers from TV evangelist shysters for years, so we were used to being fed in the dark like mushrooms...
Surprisingly, many clear-thinking westerners, people known for their logic, skepticism and even cynicism, shelved their doubts and accepted everything Tibetan at face value. The whole megillah. No questions asked. Some of it was beautiful, brilliant, powerful stuff, opening windows in our hearts and minds. We reeled from the blast of light that shot into our lives when the Dalai Lama spoke of compassion, caring and peace.
But we didn’t even blink when the teachings turned to the murky fields of superstition, the demon-filled darkness that accumulated into Tibetan Buddhism from the ancient animistic Bon religion. We were merrily spinning prayer wheels or buying imitation tangkhas online, never once asking why a spiritually advanced culture would resort to primitive oracles and seers.
Tibet changed the West. It was like a spiritual tsunami that broke on our disgruntled shores. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Westerners opened up to the new religious concepts, taking the ideals of the Dharma, the Eightfold Path into daily life. And like a ripple from a rock thrown into a pond, the wave carried others into other corners of Buddhism: Zen, Pure Land, Theravada and more.
But Tibet has more panache than all the rest combined. Who is the Buddhist leader in Thailand? Who is the head of the Pure Land School in Japan? Who is the most prominent member of the Dogen school of Zen? Who is the spiritual leader of Tibet?
One out of four isn’t terribly good. But none of the rest have such good press agents as HH.
In all fairness, the Tibetan diaspora has also changed Tibetans, perhaps even more than they have changed us. They encountered the marvels of the modern age: refrigeration, automobiles, cell phones, credit cards, medicare – who would want to go back to herding yaks and living in a yurt after that? Even if the Chinese did install electricity and street cars in Lhasa, it pales in comparison to any western city as far as modern conveniences go.
And if Tibet was handed over today, how would the experience in the West change the returnees? Would the streets of Lhasa be clogged with SUV drivers yattering away on their cell phones while they toyed with their GPS? Would those abandoned monasteries become hotels for yuppie travelers looking for an “authentic” experience? Would Tibet see such a popular demand for icons and religious instruments they’d have to turn to China to have them manufactured (oh wait, that’s already happening – just check eBay and you’ll see!)? Would there be factories cranking out mass-produced nylon prayer flags and plastic prayer wheels for the tourist trade? Would there be a Tibetan TV network with flaccid sitcoms with synthetic laugh tracks and phony “reality” shows to entertain the bored masses? Would there be a Bardo Beer and maybe a Bardo Lite?
In a sense, a similar thing happened with Israel. After the 48 war, the faithful made the visit to ha eretz, but didn’t stay in the dusty kibbutzim to help pick watermelon. They stayed in hotels, left donations, and returned to their cozy Manhattan apartments. And when there was trouble, they simply put an extra $100 onto the pledge at the High Holidays, without making the trip. Sorry, there's that cynicism again.
Israel is a Cause, too, but most of its supporters don’t get their hands dirty with the reality. Of course, if Tibet started fighting with its neighbours, it might be the same.
So it might be with Tibetans, should their land ever return to them. Tibet has become a larger-than-life mythology that reality might bring crashing down.
Without the Chinese occupation Tibet wouldn’t be a Cause, just another backwater to pump foreign aid into and a place where aid groups could help natives build outdoor toilets. So maybe things work out they way they should. At least we know Osama won't be welcome there under the Chinese occupation (well, we hope not... where does he get his weapons from, anyway?).
Tibetan Buddhism has a diamond core that resists any challenge to its integrity, that shines with a pure white light that pierced a million cynical Western hearts. Tibetans are, for the most part, warm, open and genuinely beautiful people. But we wouldn't know that, wouldn't know anything more about them than we do about, say Paraguay, Liechtenstein, or Kirghizia if it hadn't been for the Chinese invasion forcing so many Tibetans on the lam.
So maybe the Chinese did the world an unwitting benefit, even if they didn't do one to the Tibetans themselves. And if the law of karma has any validity, the Chinese themselves will suffer for their acts of oppression.
