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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 should 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 most
beautiful 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. 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 sometimes he
allowed to be carried away to make declarations of solidarity with the
Dalai Lama. 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.
Back to Contents
Next Chapter:
15. THE
BUDDHOCRATIC CONQUEST OF THE WEST
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