The Dalai Lama

by Alexander Norman

  Right away the new regent, installed in early 1941, determined that Reting should have nothing further to do with the young Dalai Lama. Partly this was due to Reting’s behavior. But one thing that seems particularly to have concerned the new regent was his former student’s dabbling in Nyingma teachings and practice.

  Since the demise of the Great Thirteenth, a major development within Gelug circles was the increased popularity of devotion to the protector deity Dorje Shugden, claimed guardian of the legacy of Tsongkhapa. It was held that Shugden took severe exception to anyone belonging to the Gelug school who took Nyingma teachings, and Reting had done just that. In 1937 he had sought out a reclusive Nyingma hermit* to initiate him into the mysteries of dzogchen, a set of esoteric practices said to have been brought to Tibet by Padmasambhava, the eighth-century wonder-worker and saint known as the Lotus-Born. The new regent was, by contrast, determined that the young Dalai Lama should not be exposed to heresy of this sort. He therefore appointed as assistant tutor, alongside himself as senior tutor and Ling Rinpoché as junior tutor, the charismatic young Trijang Rinpoché, an aristocrat with fine manners and a large following among the upper echelons of Lhasan society. In common with both regents and with Ling Rinpoché, the new assistant tutor was a student of the most renowned lama of the early twentieth century, Phabongka Rinpoché, and of them all, none guarded his legacy so zealously. The reason this was so significant is that Phabongka Rinpoché was the deity’s chief advocate and cheerleader.

  Whereas Ling Rinpoché, who came from a humble background, was distinctly otherworldly, Trijang Rinpoché was more outgoing, with a much-admired talent for his ability simultaneously to compose and recite religious verse—​a kind of spiritual rap, if that is not too profane an analogy. And he too was an accomplished mystic. A somewhat alarming example of his powers is seen in his foreknowledge of the death of those with “perverted intentions”: whenever he dreamed of yaks, sheep, or some other living creature being killed in connection with a given individual, it was a sure sign of that person’s imminent demise. This he attributed to “the wrathful assistance of the protector,” Dorje Shugden, to whom he was especially close. In another dream, he “saw a platter with many frogs on it.” Two of these jumped out from under the cloth covering the platter, and, he recalled, “I could see fresh red sores on their backs,” while the rest of the frogs became “soft and mushy.” This he understood as a sure sign that he would soon recover from a severe illness. But an even more remarkable sign of Trijang’s spiritual attainments was his ability to influence the weather. In his autobiography he records how on one occasion, after he had given a short teaching while traveling, a black cloud suddenly formed, and his party was caught in a hailstorm that hurled down particles of ice “the size of dried apricots.” The thunder and lightning were so violent that it felt as if the sky and earth were being rent asunder. Inside the tents, sparks of fire and a smell like gunpowder seemed to presage a thunderbolt. At once the Rinpoché made an offering to the local spirits and sought the aid of the protector deities by making a tea offering to them. But though he recited the prescribed mantras and undertook the requisite visualizations as best he could, nothing had any effect. It was only when he burned some fresh excrement (presumably his own) that the gods relented. “Immediately the sky above became clear, like the opening of a skylight.”

  Unfortunately for the young Dalai Lama, this new appointment served only to increase the burdens he faced. As Trijang Rinpoché recalled in his autobiography, “His Holiness seemed a bit shy on my first visit, as his personal attendants had apparently mentioned that Trijang Tulku had a short temper.” It seems indeed that Taktra Rinpoché was concerned at the boy’s tendency to misbehave. “On the advice of the precious regent . . . I maintained a serious expression and did not smile.” Yet he was even colder toward Lobsang Samten, whom he would scold “with a grave countenance, chiding him for distracting his younger brother.”

  This was evidently the beginning of a somewhat irksome period in the young boys’ lives, though from his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, we gather that the Precious Protector’s natural ebullience prevented him from ever falling into despondency. Clearly one who enjoyed the rough-and-tumble of boyhood play, the Dalai Lama relates a forbidden game that involved placing a wooden board at an angle and running at it as fast as possible to see how far he and Lobsang Samten could jump. He was also fond of soccer, despite this too being forbidden out of religious scruple. When the British mission had introduced the sport to Lhasa some years previously, the monasteries, seeing the enthusiasm that Tibetans quickly developed for the game, were appalled. Correctly seeing it as an agent of foreign influence and change, they likened it to “kicking the Buddha’s head,” and soon after, the civil authorities instituted a public ban.

  If the Precious Protector was at times a somewhat unruly student, he could, as we have seen, conduct himself with becoming gravity. In December 1942, a pair of American spies from the Office of Strategic Services (one of the organizations out of which the CIA was subsequently created) paid the Dalai Lama a visit in the Potala. Disappointingly for them, the protocol of the day demanded that the Precious Protector receive them in silence and that they leave him in silence—though this was clearly not the case when Thomas Manning met the six-year-old Ninth Dalai Lama in 1811. As Captain Ilya Tolstoy (a grandson of the great Leo) wrote, he and his companion were “immediately impressed by his young but stern face and not at all frail constitution.”

  Tolstoy and his companion, a Captain Dolan, had come to Tibet in the hope of surveying an overland route between India and China that could be used to supply the Chinese Nationalists against the Japanese, who had recently invaded large parts of China. The usual route across Burma had been cut when the Japanese ousted the British from that country. The Tibetan route was never used, but the connection thereby established with the United States came soon enough to have important consequences for the Dalai Lama. In the meantime, however, it was the gifts the Americans brought that were of most interest to the boy. Alongside a signed photograph of President Truman, a model of a nineteenth-century sailing ship executed in silver, and several pieces of glass, it was the multi-movement Patek Philippe pocket watch that pleased him the most. (By chance he had sent it for repair in Switzerland at the time of his flight into exile in 1959 and still has it in his possession.)

  In fact, the two OSS men were not the only Americans in Lhasa during this period. The photographer Archibald Steele, who had happened to be in Kumbum at the time of the Dalai Lama’s discovery, visited in 1944 on assignment for the Chicago Daily News. From his reports it is clear that, outwardly at least, an atmosphere of calm prevailed in the Tibetan capital while the Second World War raged far away. Noting that when an enterprising trader brought a consignment of motorcycles to Lhasa, it took only one incident of a government minister’s horse being frightened for a ban to be proclaimed, Steele had no reason to doubt the senior government minister’s claim that, really, “nothing ever happens here.” Events such as the Dalai Lama’s removal from the Potala to the Norbulingka Palace on the eighth day of the third month, the Festival of Mahakala, were in any case of far greater import to Tibetans than what was going on in the world on the other side of the Himalayas. For the Dalai Lama, too, the weeks that followed were most enjoyable. It was during this time that he had the pleasure of watching the theatricals that were held outside the palace grounds. Besides operas and cham, the religious dances famed for the acrobatic whirling and leaping of the performers, there were also satires in which the players dressed up as members of the aristocracy and lampooned them. “It was,” as the Dalai Lama recalled in his autobiography, “such a happy time!”

  Yet beneath Lhasa’s calm exterior, an explosive confrontation was brewing. At the beginning of the Dalai Lama’s ninth year (1944), the Nechung oracle had warned of looming obstacles that could harm the Precious Protector. In the Buddhist view, an “obstacle” is a spiritual circumstance likely to produce a
negative impact on one or more individuals if not cleared by means of appropriate action. In the case of a high lama, this would normally take the form of a long-life ceremony, during the course of which the protector deities are besought to intervene on his behalf to clear away accretions of negative karma. It might be thought that as a manifestation of a bodhisattva, the Dalai Lama would be impervious to such hindrances, but that is not the case. Because of his exalted position, he is in fact especially vulnerable. Moreover, the greater the perceived danger, the greater the spiritual firepower that needs to be deployed in his defense. It was at this moment that, sensing an opportunity, the self-exiled Reting made a move. Given the nature of their deep spiritual connection, he could plausibly advance himself as the right person to intercede on the Dalai Lama’s behalf. It was now three years since he had given up the regency, and this being the standard length of time for an important retreat, his reappearance in Lhasa should cause no surprise. Taktra, however, suspecting correctly that Reting was hoping to reassume the regency, did not respond to his overtures.

  The reason for Taktra’s silence is not hard to determine. Not only was he intent on keeping his position for personal reasons, but also Reting had further alienated himself from the government by maintaining independent contact with Shen Zonglian, the suave Harvard-educated representative of the Chinese Nationalists who had been stationed in Lhasa since 1937. Reting’s continued closeness to the Dalai Lama’s family was a further source of dismay. The yabshi kung had by this time also become deeply unpopular. Keenly aware of his status, the Dalai Lama’s father never failed to exercise the privilege of having people on horseback dismount when they encountered him in the street. On one occasion when someone failed to do so, he had the man flogged. On another, he confiscated the rider’s horse (even though the man was sick and unable to walk). He had, as a result, recently been publicly censured by the National Assembly for bad manners.

  Most concerning of all was the confluence of these two associations. Following private discussions between Reting and the Chinese representative, arrangements had been made for Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, now seventeen years of age, to be sent to China to be educated. And not only that, but also he would be enrolled in Nanking University as a special student under the direct sponsorship of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek himself. Astonishingly, this meant that the Dalai Lama’s brother would become the houseguest of the president of China.

  Gyalo Thondup first met the Generalissimo and his American-educated wife soon after arriving in Nanking. Thereafter he was a frequent guest at their house. “They came to treat me as a son,” he wrote many years later. Finding them “unfailingly warm and gracious hosts,” he “visited their home frequently and often dined with them on the weekends.” What especially impressed him about the couple was how well they treated their staff and how austerely they lived. “Dinner at the home of President and Madam Chiang was,” he recounted, “invariably simple.”

  Given this level of intimacy, it is clear that the Generalissimo had marked Gyalo Thondup as an important future ally. No doubt when the Dalai Lama attained his majority, Gyalo Thondup would have been put forward as the Chinese president’s personal representative in Tibet, responsible for seeing to the implementation of the Nationalists’ five-races policy, zhonghua minzu, whereby the Han, Manchu, Tibetan, Hui, and Mongol peoples would unite to form the Chinese nation.

  Taktra could do nothing about Reting’s arrangement with the Chinese on Gyalo Thondup’s behalf, but he could continue to ignore Reting’s pleas for a meeting, while the ex-regent himself fretted and began to plot.

  Meanwhile, the young Dalai Lama continued his education and attended the daily tea ceremony. Then at night, he and Lobsang Samten would listen in gleeful terror to the ghost stories told by the “sweepers”—the serving staff—in the Potala. And he would count down the days to his mother’s next visit.

  8

  ✵

  Trouble in Shangri-La: Devilry and Intrigue on the Roof of the World

  When Reting resigned the regency, Taktra had wasted no time in eliminating his predecessor’s allies in government. Nonetheless, Reting still had powerful supporters. In the eyes of the people, nothing could detract from the fact of his childhood miracles, nor from his gift of the return of the Dalai Lama. When he finally reappeared in Lhasa in December 1944 in the company of a large and splendid retinue, it was only a matter of time before open confrontation would break out between the present regent and his predecessor. For his part, Taktra Rinpoché had no intention of relinquishing his position.

  As for any opinion the Dalai Lama might have had, he was not consulted. Although he was required to attend the morning tea ceremony that brought together all the government’s senior members, his role in affairs of state at this stage was minimal and purely formal. All that was demanded of him was that he be a good pupil and study hard. And this, indeed, was a matter of some concern to Taktra. The reports reaching him from the Dalai Lama’s tutors were far from encouraging. It was therefore decided that the boy must be separated from his brother, Lobsang Samten, who was instead enrolled in one of Lhasa’s few (private) schools.

  This was a serious blow. Now the two brothers saw each other only once a month. “When he left after each visit,” the Dalai Lama wrote in adulthood, “I remember standing at the window watching, my heart full of sorrow, as he disappeared into the distance.” In place of his brother, his serving staff—the monk “sweepers” who cleaned the rooms and served as waiters—became the Dalai Lama’s playmates. These uneducated men from lowly backgrounds were his constant companions, and it is largely thanks to them that the Dalai Lama can look back fondly on this period of his childhood. “They were full of fun and joy . . . always joking,” he declared. Somewhat unexpectedly, the games they played mostly involved pretending to be soldiers. It turns out that many of the men had been recruits in their youth and had trained in British army drill. They taught the Precious Protector how to stand to attention and present arms using pieces of wood for guns. Then “we would march [around] the gardens.” They would also fight mock battles in the Norbulingka park, while back at the Potala, where to go outside meant only to go out onto the roof, the young Dalai Lama would spend hours engrossed in copies of Life magazine, with their dramatic pictures of the world war just concluded, and fashioning squadrons of tanks out of tsampa dough.

  The sweepers were also an inexhaustible source of stories and folktales, of which Tibet has a generous supply. Popular motifs include shape shifters and talking animals, wicked stepmothers and benevolent strangers, scurrilous monks and beautiful goddesses, hermits in caves and wandering minstrels, foolish girls and fortune-tellers, not to mention the ghosts and demons whose capricious nature is the bane of Everyman’s life. There were also stories concerning the Potala itself—about the great birds that would come and carry off small boys, and about Arko Lhamo, the merest mention of which occasioned terror in the boy’s innermost being. This was a demon spirit said to occupy a storeroom in the dungeons below.

  The looming dispute between the Taktra government and the former regent came a step closer when Reting called on the government to drop charges against some monks from his alma mater, Sera Che, one of the colleges at Sera Monastery.* They had been accused of beating a government debt collector—with, among other weapons, a leg of dried mutton—so badly that he died of his wounds.

  Here it is important to say something about loyalty in traditional Tibetan culture. As in medieval Europe, ties between individuals as well as with the institutions that gave them a home were sacrosanct. Not only were ex-students morally obliged later in life to contribute materially to their monastery, but also they had an obligation to defend its honor as staunchly as if it were their own family. In the traditional view, this extended to the shedding of blood where necessary.

  Even though the Sera monks were charged with manslaughter, Reting Rinpoché was determined that Sera Che should not lose face and be forced t
o hand the accused over for questioning. Had he been successful in reclaiming the regency, this would have been a relatively easy matter to arrange. But the fact that he had failed to do so did not lessen the obligation he felt, and he continued to support the Sera authorities in what became a trial of strength with the government.

  The standoff continued throughout the whole of 1945, coming to a head only as the Great Prayer Festival of the following year approached. This was to be the first in which the young Dalai Lama would act in an official capacity. It was therefore essential that there be no disruption or break with protocol. Knowing this, the abbots of Sera announced that the monastery would not participate in the forthcoming ceremonies unless the charges against their monks were dropped. At the same time, weapons were distributed throughout the monastery in case the government should decide to try to apprehend the presumed culprits by brute force. The monastery leadership was convinced that the case did not lie within the government’s jurisdiction and was a matter for themselves alone. In other words, what lay at the heart of the dispute was the question of the central government’s right, and indeed its ability, to impose its authority on individual monasteries.

  The government, for its part, refused to budge. As a result, none of Sera’s monks were present at the opening ceremonies of the New Year festival. When the government subsequently announced that the case could be postponed if the monks attended as usual, the Sera abbots interpreted this move to mean that the case would now be settled in their favor. The monks duly came to Lhasa and were present at all the remaining New Year ceremonies.