The Dalai Lama

by Alexander Norman

  “intimated that he”: Barry Boyce, The Many Faces of the Dalai Lama, https://www.lionsroar.com/the-many-faces-of-the-dalai-lama/ (accessed March 28, 2019).

  “a walking stick”: Pico Iyer, The Open Road (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), p. 66.

  spiritual and moral guidance: Iyer, The Open Road, pp. 75, 219, 220.

  “We were very upset”: John F. Avedon, In Exile from the Land of Snows (London: Michael Joseph, 1984), p. 333.

  bombed-out hulk: Avedon, In Exile from the Land of Snows, p. 349.

  “little better than”: William Meyers, Robert Thurman, and Michael G. Burbank, Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet (New York: Tibet House, 2016), p. 189.

  “We feel that our Party”: Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 381, 382.

  “had immersed himself”: Meyers, Thurman, and Brinkman, Man of Peace, p. 162.

  “six session yoga”: Dalai Lama, Kalachakra Tantra: Rite of Initiation, trans., ed., and intro. by Geoffrey Hopkins, enlarged ed. (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 1999), p. 382.

  subsequently published: The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1988).

  “like a figure”: Iyer, TheOpen Road, p. 74. This is a somewhat surprising admission from someone who won a Congratulatory Double First from the University of Oxford.

  a private-circulation book: Tom Clark, The Great Naropa Poetry Wars (Santa Barbara: Cadmus Editions, 1980). Trungpa can be seen in action in a number of films on YouTube. See, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgviVWanZgc.

  “I was not going”: https://archive.nytimes.com/www/nytimes.com/books.99/04/04/specials/merwin-own.html?_r=1 (accessed May 14, 2018).

  incipient fascism: https://www.cadmuseditions.com/naropa.html (accessed May 14, 2018).

  there are“none”: For one instance, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wP4rsM7AZQ.

  dogma-freespirituality: For his message more generally, see, for example, his book Beyond Dogma: The Challenge of the Modern World (London: Souvenir Press, 1996).

  “talked to her”: Mary Craig, Kundun: A Biography of the Family of the Dalai Lama (London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 323.

  “manifested the act”:The Magical Play of Illusion:The Autobiography ofTrijang Rinpoche, trans. Sharpa Tulku Tenzin Trinley (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 376.

  five-point plan: See Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows, p. 384, for details.

  Exhorting his Tibetan audiences: See Dalai Lama, The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Kyabje Ling Rinpoché (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), p. 328.

  “tormented with fear”: Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, p. 363.

  absorbed in the clear light: A clear and detailed account of the process is given in the hagiography of the Ninth Dalai Lama. See Glenn H. Mullin, The Fourteen Dalai Lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation (Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Books, 2000).

  clearly heard: Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, p. 364.

  As a sign of this: Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, p. 364.

  may also be drunk: For an account of the practice, see Nyoshul Khenpo, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage (Junction City, CA: Padma Publishing, 2005), pp. 211–12. Somewhat hair-raisingly, it describes an occasion when some visitors were so enthusiastic for spiritual nourishment that they literally tore at the flesh of a recently deceased high master.

  “with a head”: Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, p. 299.

  “free spokesman”: Speech of March 10, 1980.

  19. Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head

  one exception: See Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000), p. 7.

  “Seeing flowers of every colour”: The Magical Play of Illusion: The Autobiography of Trijang Rinpoche, trans. Sharpa Tulku Tenzin Trinley (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 291.

  “Buddhist psychology takes people.”: William Meyers, Robert Thurman, and Michael G. Burbank, Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet (New York: Tibet House, 2016), p. 197.

  “almost deserted”: Pico Iyer, “Making Kindness Stand to Reason,” in Understanding the Dalai Lama, ed. Rajiv Mehrotra (Delhi: Viking India, 2004), p. 53.

  “closer to John Lennon”: Pico Iyer, The Open Road (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), pp. 75, 158.

  “zone of peace”: The speech was delivered on September 21, 1987. The full text may be found at https://www.dalailama.com/messages/tibet/five-point-peace-plan.

  In response: This was witnessed by several foreigners. Various contemporary accounts of these events exist, of which the reports in the New York Times are the most comprehensive.

  It seems likely: An overview of events may be found in Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 414–16.

  “divorced”: Chinese source quoted in Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows, p. 422.

  Within minutes: See Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, new ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 83.

  one of them a policeman: I am grateful to Professor Robbie Barnett for drawing this incident to my attention.

  “the whole of Tibet”: The full text of the Strasbourg Statement is available on the Dalai Lama’s official website at https://www.dalailama.com/messages/tibet/strasbourg-proposal-1988.

  later claimed: See Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, p. 139, n. 24. For others openly critical of the Dalai Lama, see Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows, p. 524, n. 88.

  “personally” speaking: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 287.

  unknown how many died: https://www.nytimes/com/1990/08/14/world/chinese-said-to-kill-450-tibetans-in-1989.html (accessed May 24, 2018).

  “no longer excited”: Adapted from Mary Craig, “A Very Human Being,” in Understanding the Dalai Lama, ed. Rajiv Mehrotra (Delhi: Viking India, 2004), p. 72. His actual words were “no more excited.”

  Nobel Prize: One pleasing bonus of his subsequent visit to Norway to attend the award ceremony was the opportunity it afforded the Dalai Lama to fulfill a lifelong wish to ride in a reindeer sleigh when he visited the Sami people in Lapland. Meyers, Thurman, and Burbank, Man of Peace, p. 219.

  “extreme regret”: See Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 1989, https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/1010/odali.html (accessed February 7, 2019).

  “As I stood there”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 290.

  “bent down to adjust”: Craig, “A Very Human Being,” p. 72.

  “no handlers, advance men”: Douglas Preston’s article about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Santa Fe in April 1991, from which this account is drawn, is widely available on the Internet; see, e.g., “The Dalai Lama’s Ski Trip,” Slate.com.

  “dialogue with the Dalai Lama”: A May 28, 1993, White House report to Congress on China’s most favored nation status extension lists “seeking to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives” as a favorable step China should take to ensure MFN renewal. See https://www.savetibet.org/policy-center/chronology-of-tibetan-chinese-relations-1979-to-2013/ (accessed April 29, 2019).

  manifest humility: I was one of them. See Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (London: Rider, 1996).

  “bartered away his honour”: Article by Li Bing in Tibet Daily, quoted in Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head: Tightening Control in Tibet, 1994–1995 (New York: Human Rights Watch, March 1996), p. 18.

  “To kill a serpent”: This saying was the inspiration for the title of a 1996 report published jointly by the Tibet Information Network and Human Rights Watch, Asia. Its author (now Professor), Robbie Barnett, kindly drew my attention to weaknesses in an earlier version of t
his paragraph.

  “The purpose of Buddhism”:Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head, p. 18.

  an extremely risky move: The story is told variously in Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile;Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head; Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon; and, most authoritatively, in Isabel Hilton, The Search for the Panchen Lama (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000). Chadrel Rinpoché was sentenced to six years in prison.

  explosion of a bomb: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/30/world/bomb-at-government-offices-wounds-5-in-tibetan-capital.html. See also the relevant Tibet Information Network reports.

  beatings and electric shocks: For firsthand accounts, see “Torture,” section 2 of part 2, in Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head. See also Palden Gyatso, Fire Under the Snow: The True Story of a Tibetan Monk (London: Harvill Press, 1997).

  20. “An oath-breaking spirit born of perverse prayers”

  threw out as rubbish: Raimondo Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon (New York: Tibet House US, 2013), p. 198.

  by Indian intelligence: Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon, p. 242.

  “bloodbath”: Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon, pp. 201, 292–93.

  A fracas broke out: Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon, p. 201.

  “We have already offered”: Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon, p. 352.

  justifying his position: See https://www.dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden/speeches-by-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama/dharamsala-teaching.

  “When I was small”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 234.

  a hundred million times: If, as seems plausible, he was able to do so at a speed of one hundred recitations per minute, this would have taken a little under seventeen thousand hours—two entire years of his life. For an authoritative biography, see Thupten Jinpa, Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows (Boulder: Shambala, 2019).

  “harmful activities”: http://www.dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden/historical-references-historical-references-fifth-dalai-lama. See also the relevant section in Samten Karmay, The Illusive Play: The Autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama (Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2014).

  “took a sword”: Joseph F. Sungmas Rock, “The Living Oracles of the Tibetan Church,” National Geographic 68 (1935): 475–86. In the article, Rock uses his own phonetics and a Sinicized version of his name, but it is clear that he is referring to the Shugden oracle. He refers to the gurgling sound, said to represent the kathag stuffed down Drakpa Gyaltsen’s throat, that the medium emitted. Rock published photographic evidence of several knotted swords in the magazine.

  poised to move in: René von Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods Are Mountains (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1956), p. 210.

  “lapping up” his teacher’s urine: https://www.dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden/speeches-by-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama/dharamsala-teaching. See also the quotation in Georges B. J. Dreyfus, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), p. 62, where the anecdote is mentioned of a high lama drinking from his guru’s chamber pot.

  unsurprising to learn: A Reuters report published in December 2015 offers hard evidence of China’s involvement in the Shugden controversy: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-dalailama.

  planned to murder: Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon, pp. 310–12.

  21. Tibet in Flames

  “stepping into”: https://www.lionsroar.com/gays-lesbians-and-the-definition-of-sexual-misconduct/ (accessed March 29, 2019).

  “delights listeners”: Pico Iyer, The Open Road (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), p. 146.

  making a case: Amnesty subsequently found that the issue fell outside its purview of “grave violations of fundamental human rights.” See https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/152000/asa170141998en.pdf (accessed April 29, 2019).

  “delved into his small shoulder bag”: Thupten Jinpa, “The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Monastic Academia,” in Understanding the Dalai Lama, ed. Rajiv Mehrotra (Delhi: Viking India, 2004), p. 200.

  some light moments: The story is told at https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/warum-der-dalai-lama-einen-weinberg-im-wallis-besitzt-ld.1397292 and https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/schweizer-wallis-der-weinberg-des-dalai-lama.1242.de.html?dram:article_id=336905.

  “is of poor scientific taste”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jul/27/research.highereducation (accessed February 21, 2019).

  “inner space”: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “Neuroscientists Welcome Dalai Lama with Mostly Open Arms,” Science 310 (November 18, 2005).

  “I believe him to be”: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/28/world/clinton-china-overview-clinton-jiang-debate-views-live-tv-clashing-rights.html (accessed April 13, 2019).

  a rival: The story of the two rival candidacies is well told in Mick Brown, The Dance of Seventeen Lives: The Incredible Story of Tibet’s 17th Karmapa (London: Bloomsbury, 2005). Arguably there is room for a second edition, given that the “Tibetan” Karmapa has acquired a Dominican passport, to the evident annoyance of the Indian government, while the “Indian” Karmapa, in defiance of tradition, has taken a wife. The controversy over who should inherit the previous Karmapa’s wealth continues at this writing.

  “numerous”: https://www.savetibet.org/policy-center/chronology-of-tibetan-chinese-relations-1979-to-2013/.

  the Lhasa mosque: See The Economist, March 19, 2008.

  claims about video: I recall the Dalai Lama himself telling me about this at the time, though whether he had seen them himself is not clear.

  it seems unlikely: The best account of the unrest available in English, which is also a political manifesto, is The Division of Heaven and Earth: On Tibet’s Peaceful Revolution by Shokdung, trans. Matthew Akester (London: C Hurst Publishers, 2017). There are also several authoritative eyewitness accounts in contemporary newspapers, notably the New York Times, The Guardian, and The Economist.

  the Dalai Lama was admitting: See the Daily Telegraph, November 3, 2008.

  extremely hard to maintain: I am grateful to Professor Robbie Barnett for drawing this remark to my attention.

  the silent film: The Gould film is accessible on YouTube.

  22. The Magical Play of Illusion

  his viceroy: Widely believed to have been the Great Fifth’s natural son, Desi Sangye Gyatso, known to his contemporaries as Flat-Head, was a great figure in his own right. Formerly a monk, he was a polymath and a lifelong scholar. He was also an accomplished athlete and archer. It is further reported that “of the noble ladies of Lhasa and those who came there from the provinces, there was not a single one whom [he] did not take to bed.” Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives: A Study of Pemalingpa (1450–1521) and the Sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706) (London: Kegan Paul International, 1989), p. 123.

  “sacred or holy”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 296.

  not a vegetarian himself: He explains that this is on advice of doctors, following a bout of hepatitis. His continued meat eating may also have something to do with the fact that it is recommended for those engaging in the practices of highest yoga tantra. See John Crook and James Low, The Yogins of Ladakh: A Pilgrimage Among the Hermits of the Buddhist Himalayas (1997; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2012), p. 89.

  he admits that: Daniel Goleman, A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 146.

  “become one of”: Robert Thurman, Why the Dalai Lama Matters (New York: Atria, 2008), p. 57.

  “the impulse for helping”: Dalai Lama, Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, ed. Thupten Jinpa (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), p. 16.

  partook of Holy Communion: Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (London: Hutc
hinson, 2016), p. 182.

  homeless shelter: Goleman, Force for Good, p. 146.

  changing to another: See Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000), p. 238.

  contact between the two traditions: It is well known that there were Christian communities living in both China and Central Asia during the first millennium. There is also written evidence of a Christian mission to Tibet as early as the eighth century. The Chaldean Christian patriarch Timothy I, writing to his friend Severus, mentions that he is preparing to anoint a metropolitan for the “Land of the Tibetans.” See Alexander Norman, Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama (New York: Random House, 2008), p. 30 and note.

  smiled at him: Personal communication.

  one of the biggest surprises: Pico Iyer, The Open Road (London: Bloomsbury 2008), p. 77.

  “great authority”: Thupten Jinpa, “The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Monastic Academia,” in Understanding the Dalai Lama, ed. Rajiv Mehrotra (Delhi: Viking India, 2004), p. 205.

  “Suddenly”: Thurman, Why the Dalai Lama Matters, p. 189.

  Christopher Hitchens: In Salon magazine (https://www.salon.com), July 1998.

  Europe is for Europeans: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dalai-lama-europe-refugee-crisis-immigration-eu-racism-tibet-buddhist-a8537221.html. His saying so recalls the seventh-century stone pillar in Lhasa which claims that China is for the Chinese and Tibet for the Tibetans, as well as the slogan “Tibet is for Tibetans” chanted outside the Norbulingka in March 1959.

  being a “ham”: Ann Treneman, writing in TheTimes of London, May 23, 2008. See also the summary at the end of a Xinhua News Agency article referencing the Daily Mail, http://www.gov.cn/english/2008-12/12/content_1176383.htm.

  mentally disturbed: Iyer, Open Road, p. 238; Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: Why Compassion Is the Key to Greater Wellbeing (London: Piatkus, 2015), p. 44.

  It is even rumored: I am grateful to Professor Robbie Barnett for drawing this to my attention.

  might have met: See https://www.ndtv.com/book-excerpts/president-xi-was-to-meet-me-in-delhi-in-2014-but-dalai-lama-exclusive-2037863?fbclid=IwAR1vEKVngMFlEKdsjTIzUkOTr-D2FwazS0hT06d4eejvifu8gWmiVI6I-H8. It should be noted that the Dalai Lama’s office has since downplayed the significance of the story.