Tibetan Foothold

by Dervla Murphy

  I’m less confident about the second drama’s popularity abroad. Personally I enjoyed it as much as the first production, but it is difficult to be objective when one has seen it while sitting among people to whom it is the re-enactment of a personal tragedy. It could be regarded as propaganda, if judged exclusively on the political level. Yet seen immediately after the drama on the coming of Buddhism to Tibet it seemed to me that here we were merely witnessing folk-art in the making. One feels that if both these productions are taken abroad the performances should be given on the same evening with only a short interval, so that their basic affinity could be appreciated. Optimists can then reflect that if by some happy chance Tibetan culture is preserved this drama will be part of it three hundred years hence. And pessimists can sadly savour it as the worthy culmination of a great artistic tradition, doomed by the events it depicts.

  The acting in this production was superb – so good that during the earlier scenes one simply lived with the family concerned through all their terror and suspense. At first it seemed that these impeccable performances must be due to the exiled actors’ sympathetic identification of themselves with the characters – yet the Chinese soldiers were equally brilliantly portrayed. And the term ‘brilliant’ is justified, for this play, which could well degenerate into melodrama of the ‘Titus Andronicus’ variety, provides a severe test of ability. Too crude a gesture, too violent a reaction or too shrill a voice could ruin everything, but though the necessary intensity was maintained throughout each harrowing incident emotions were never exaggerated. As the two daughters of the hero and heroine stood rigidly in a corner, their faces hidden, while the Chinese soldiers argued about what should be done with them, all the girls’ tension was transmitted to the audience by a clenching and unclenching of the hands and a few furtive, affectionately protective gestures towards each other – a stroke of genius in the same class as King Lear’s oft-repeated ‘Never!’

  During these scenes I occasionally glanced at the audience and was moved to see the men and women of the older generation quietly weeping – though even here that curiously misplaced laughter, common to theatre audiences all the world over, was heard amongst the younger generation.

  Unfortunately the climax is blatant propaganda and dramatically inept; if the play ended with the scene where the guerrillas swear to regain Tibetan independence there would be a sense of dignity and hope. Yet I feel that we should not apply our standards to such a drama. The final scene, portraying the defeat of numerous Chinese soldiers by a handful of Tibetan guerrillas, gives a disingenuous twist to history – but the audience take immense pleasure from the mowing down of the Chinese. Everyone claps wildly, shouts encouragement to the guerrillas and laughs uproariously at the Chinese ‘corpses’ lying strewn about the stage – while the boys stand up and pretend to fire imaginary guns in support. Clearly this catharsis is necessary to the refugees and we are hardly justified in criticising anything that relieves or consoles them.

  On the way down to Macleod Ganj Oliver and I again enjoyed many of the songs from the plays, as the audience enthusiastically provided encores. In the Bazaar we caught up with a party of ayahs and urged them to accompany us via the Top Road to the Nursery, which is shorter than the Low Road through Forsythe Bazaar. But no – they insisted that the Top Road was haunted by countless evil spirits and were definite that they would prefer to go the long way round. So we set out to brave the demons on our own – though the only ones that worried us were the savage Himalayan bears, which are by far the most dangerous animals in India and are unnervingly numerous around here.

  On our way we saw a spectacular display of blue sheet lightning playing along the southern horizon, throwing its wavering uncanny brilliance into the depths of the Kangra valley.

  3

  The Book of the Dead

  19 AUGUST

  It’s been very wet again these last few days but we’re keeping up the bathing routine. The annoying thing is that the children’s clothes can’t be washed yet, because of the weather, and as the scabies-mite secretes itself in the seams of garments there’s no hope of conquering the disease until it’s possible to boil the clothes regularly. On the whole we find it best not to stop and think about the overwhelming numbers we’re coping with – it’s so disheartening to know that even though we are all working all out all day most of the children are being neglected in some respect. One gets fonder and fonder of them on closer acquaintance.

  Yesterday afternoon, when I was writing here in our room, a five-year-old-boy-friend came to visit me. (Juliet was out: otherwise he wouldn’t have been admitted.) Having exchanged the normal civilities and made the required sympathetic comments on his scabies-infested behind (the poor little devil can hardly sit down) I gave him a banana and resumed writing while he explored the room. Then he approached me again and picking up my box of matches opened it upside down so that all the matches fell out. I feigned not to notice but immediately he picked up every match, looking carefully around to make sure that none were lost and, having replaced them in the box, put it back beside me. In my experience you never have to tell a Tiblet the correct thing to do – they know it already. Which almost makes one believe in reincarnation!

  This particular Tiblet – a skinny little chap, loaded with disease – is the one to whom my heart has been lost, against all the rules. Granted it is wrong to have favourites: from both the workers’ and children’s points of view it could easily lead to real unhappiness. Yet when one Tiblet attaches himself to you quietly but firmly such counsels of perfection are soon forgotten. The best I can do now is to refrain from giving Cama Yishy preferential treatment when dispensing food or treats – which will be easy, as I myself don’t wish to discriminate, nor does Cama Yishy seek favours of this kind. Already it’s recognised in the camp that we are special buddies but no resentment or jealousy is ever shown on that account. It’s almost as though the rest of the children know intuitively that I don’t love them any the less for being attached to him in a rather different way. He accompanies me on my ‘ear-rounds’ from room to room, and if for some reason I happen to appear at an unexpected time, when he is not on the scene, the other eight or nine Tiblets, who habitually form my ‘Personal Bodyguard’, will shout for him and leave a space vacant on the bench beside me, fully accepting his right to sit closest to ‘Amela’.

  In comparison with other Tiblets Cama Yishy is reserved and undemonstrative though his occasional outbursts of affection have an intensity rare among these children. At times it’s very difficult to believe that he’s only four or five years old. (One never knows a Tibetan’s exact age: this was a matter of little importance in Tibet and ages, if reckoned at all, were counted as from the beginning of the New Year after birth – so a child born at the end of January would be described as a year old when only a fortnight old.) His intelligence is remarkably acute, his thoughtfulness astonishing, his manners have a casual sort of graciousness, his self-possessed gravity – as he sits apparently contemplating The Wheel of Life – is quite startling and, though he’s anything but precocious in an unpleasant way, he often gives me the curious feeling of being in the company of an adult.

  Almost from the moment of my arrival – long before I had got to know any individual child – Cama Yishy purposefully singled me out and skilfully appropriated a ridiculous amount of my affection before I had realised what was happening. In this sense I did not ‘make a favourite’ of him – he made himself a favourite of mine. Yet that is really a silly distinction; clearly our mutual affection developed because we each had something the other lacked – as happens in most human relationships that matter. Cama Yishy’s need to belong securely to one person was for some reason greater than that of the other Tiblets, who usually appear to be satisfied by affectionate cuddles from all and sundry. This need of his can also be deduced from the fact that, unlike most Tiblets, he has a special friend who came with him to the camp about a year ago – since when neither of them has seen their parents.<
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  Now Cama Yishy delights in helping me by fetching things I need, counting pills – which he does very seriously and efficiently – and generally acting as my lieutenant in organising the impossibly long queues of ear-cases and in tracking down children who should be in their room-queues but aren’t. Frankly, I can’t feel too guilty about our friendship. Whatever the heartache on both sides when we part, I know that we will have given each other something valuable, and I can’t believe that it would have been kinder to ‘slap him down’ at the outset – even if I were temperamentally capable of doing so. Life would be just a neutral wasteland if one always ran away from the joys of love merely because one knew that pain and grief might be involved too.

  20 AUGUST

  I must admit that I tend to smile at the notion of not killing a louse because it might be your grandmother. Yet my conversations with English-speaking Tibetans have revealed that their imaginations can deal more effectively with the concept of reincarnation than ours can with the theory of an immortal soul – though they do get rather bogged down when they come to consider Nirvana, since the sort of freedom which it promises is not among the natural desires of human nature. It’s interesting to observe how much closer the Buddhist vision of an afterlife is to the Christian view than either is to the Muslim – despite the similarities of Islam and Christianity. And one can’t deny that were an objective choice possible the Muslim paradise is the one most people would choose as their final destination.

  Many Westerners, including myself, can’t resist the temptation to be unkindly witty at the expense of the theory of reincarnation, yet in our more fair-minded moments we must admit that it merits as much serious consideration as any other attempt to explain Man’s destiny. And in fact, when it is presented coherently by someone like the Venerable Dr Walpola Rahula, non-committed people who believe in some form of spiritual force may well agree that there ‘could be something in it’.

  Dr Rahula writes:

  … a being is nothing but a combination of physical and mental forces or energies. What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the non-functioning of the body? Buddhism says ‘No’. Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the world. This is the greatest force, the greatest energy in the world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth.

  Now another question arises: If there is no permanent, unchanging entity or substance like Self or Soul, what is it that can re-exist or be reborn after death? Before we go on to life after death, let us consider what this life is, and how it continues now. What we call life … is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die. When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, Obhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay and die. Thus, even now during this lifetime, every moment we are born and die, but we continue. If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can’t we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or a Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body?

  When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life. In a child all the physical, mental and intellectual faculties are tender and weak, but they have within them the potentiality of producing a full-grown man. Physical and mental energies which constitute the so-called being have within themselves the power to take a new form, and grow gradually and gather force to the full.

  As there is no permanent, unchanging substance, nothing passes from one moment to the next. So quite obviously, nothing permanent or unchanging can pass or transmigrate from one life to the next. It is a series that continues unbroken but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it is not the same flame nor is it another. A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person. Similarly, a person who dies here and is reborn elsewhere is neither the same person, nor another. It is the continuity of the same series. The difference between death and birth is only a thought-moment: the last thought-moment in this life conditions the first thought-moment in the so-called next life, which, in fact, is the continuity of the same series. During this life itself, too, one thought-moment conditions the next thought-moment. So from the Buddhist point of view, the question of life after death is not a great mystery, and a Buddhist is never worried about this problem.

  As long as there is this ‘thirst’ to be and to become, the cycle of continuity goes on. It can stop only when its driving force, this ‘thirst’, is cut off through wisdom which sees Reality, Truth, Nirvana.

  As the latter part of this exposition implies, Buddhism holds a man entirely responsible for his own spiritual development, in direct opposition to the Christian teaching that he is dependent on Divine Grace for the right use of his Free Will. It is this recognition of what Carl Jung calls the ‘self-liberating power of the introverted mind’ that impresses a Westerner as the most valuable – to him – ingredient of Buddhism, and though it would be psychologically impossible for most people bred in our traditions genuinely to embrace Buddhism there is no reason why the limitations of Western extroversion should not be corrected by an acquaintance with Eastern introversion.

  For those who cannot bring themselves to regard seriously the transmigration of human souls to animal bodies there is an alternative interpretation of the doctrine of rebirth held by leading Buddhist philosophers in opposition to the popular belief. This interpretation, as given by Dr Evans-Wentz, maintains that

  just as the physical seed of a vegetable or animal organism … is seen by the eyes to be capable of producing after its own kind only, so with that which figuratively may be called the psychical seed of the life-flux which the eyes cannot see – if of a human being it cannot incarnate in … a body foreign to its evolved characteristics.

  Degeneration … is, of course, concomitant with cultural neglect; but … the flowering plant does not degenerate into the apple, nor into the corn, nor one species of animals into another, nor does Man degenerate into anything but the savage man – never into a subhuman creature.

  And this view, so obvious to us but so contrary to the majority beliefs of Buddhists everywhere, was strongly upheld by one of Tibet’s most distinguished scholars, the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Sandup, who wrote: ‘Intellects able to grasp Truth do not fall into the lower conditions of existence.’

  However, it is doubtful if this interpretation of the doctrine will ever supersede popular beliefs, with their ban on the taking of life. One result of this ban particularly impresses me here. I’ve often seen boys catching a moth or beetle or worm, closely but gently examining it and then releasing it completely unharmed; this makes quite a contrast to the attitude of Western boys who, as Shakespeare noted some time ago, delight in torturing such creatures.

  21 AUGUST

  The most harrowing aspect of life here is the children’s emotional suffering. Sometimes one feels that the orphan minority are the best off: they can at least become adjusted to having no family. Parents visit the camp regularly and when they have left one sees anguished little boys and girls looking bewildered and obviously feeling betrayed by their parents’ departure without them.

  This morning two mothers came, found their little sons (which is not always easy in such a crowd) and then sat under the big tree in the middle of the compound with the boys standing beside them. As I passed on my way to the Dispensary not a word was being s
poken or a movement made, but tears were silently streaming down those four faces. Both boys are very bad scabies cases and on seeing me one of the mothers beckoned and pointed to her son’s leprous-looking body, gazing up at me with a mixture of reproach and appeal. Then I really wished that I could speak fluent Tibetan, to reassure those women that we were doing all in our power for their children. After tea I saw the mothers going away, looking quite cheerful again. That’s the extraordinary thing about Tibetans – despite their soft, affectionate natures they seem able to get on top of a situation that would reduce others to shreds. Yet this doesn’t lessen the tragedy of it all; when I say that they looked ‘quite cheerful’ I mean that they were laughing and talking with the ayahs – but you could still see the unhappiness in their eyes. It isn’t difficult to imagine what it must take to stay on top of this sort of situation. And I prefer not to imagine the effect of these upheavals on the children.

  We had a crisis here today. I sensed it at once when I entered the Dispensary this morning and as the hours passed it became increasingly apparent, with teachers, carpenters and cooks frequently going into huddles to discuss something and ayahs sobbing in every second corner. At last Tenzing – one of the teachers from the Upper Nursery, who speaks a little English – came down to explain the mystery to us. Apparently Mrs Tsiring Dolma has just had a row with Mr Kundeling, the Education Minister, and as a result she has flounced off to Delhi, saying she’s ‘never coming back no more!’ All the Nursery staff were called to a special meeting at the Upper Nursery last night to have the news broken to them, and the ayahs, who are deeply devoted to Mrs Tsiring Dolma (whether on religious or personal grounds is a moot point), immediately declared that if she wasn’t staying here they weren’t – after which the meeting broke up in disorder. Tenzing thinks that if she doesn’t return this camp may be closed within six months. But my personal opinion is that she’s bluffing and will return in due course, having made this strategic move to show how essential she is here.