Free Tibet

Despite all the feelings of goodwill surrounding the visit of the Dalai Lama to the University of Oregon, not quite everyone on campus was so thoroughly enamored by the unprecedented visit by His Holiness.

For some Chinese students at UO, the Dalai Lama is an “enemy to Chinese,” according to The Emerald, the independent news organization on campus. (Full disclosure: I was a reporter for The Emerald -- formerly the Oregon Daily Emerald -- for several years as an undergraduate at UO). From the point of view of some Chinese students, Tibet is a province of China and its people are in rebellion.

However, most Tibetans disagree with this perception; they feel they are an autonomous country that China has invaded illegally in violation of international law. A quick review of Tibetan history appears to support this stance. Tibet has primarily been its own country since roughly the time of Christ.

Though Tibetans and Chinese have been fighting for centuries, other cultures have also laid claim to Tibet -- the Mongols, Indians and Nepalese. In 1950, when it was clear that the People’s Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong would defeat the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek, Tibet expelled both sides in the dispute.

When Mao assumed power, the Chinese government moved to secure Tibet quickly, assuming sovereignty in a “Seventeen Point Agreement” that the Dalai Lama -- as both temporal and spiritual leader -- refused to acknowledge. During a rebellion in 1959, His Holiness fled Tibet along with 100,000 other Tibetans and established a government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.

Since then, the Chinese government has destroyed over 6,000 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and shrines and millions of Tibetans have died. Today, more than 300,000 Chinese soldiers remain in Tibet. Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation is exemplified by cases of self-immolation by Tibetan monks, the most outward sign of protest.

The real question here is who invaded Tibet? The Chinese? Or the communists? The government in China is radically different under the communists and unaccepting of religion. But even the Dalai Lama believes that Tibet needs the support of China’s central government. In turn, China needs to respect Tibet’s own culture and diversity.

But back to the issue of the Dalai Lama on campus as it relates to international students from China: some are concerned the UO will be dropped from the Chinese Ministry of Education’s list of accredited universities, but others are less concerned: “America is a kind of like ‘freedom country,’” one international student from China told The Emerald. “So people can do anything they want because it is legal.”

Freedom, huh? Irony aside, that kind of sums it up, doesn’t it? Most Tibetans -- including His Holiness -- would likely agree.

Educating Tenzin

One of the more compelling questions about His Holiness is this: Just how is a Dalai Lama -- the one who is revered by all Tibetan Buddhists -- chosen?

The short answer is: his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. But the story is much more complex.

The Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of those who have been exempted from the circle of life and death.

When the 13th Dalai Lama died at the age of 57 in 1933, a search party was organized by the Tibetan government to find the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

As the 13th Dalai Lama was lying in state, his head was discovered to have turned from facing south to northeast. Shortly after that, the regent -- himself a senior lama -- had a vision of a three-story monastery with a turquoise and gold roof with a path running up a hill, along with a small house with strangely shaped gutters.

As a result, the search party was sent to the northeastern province. As they searched the neighboring villages, they saw gnarled branches of juniper on the roof of a house and they were certain the new Dalai Lama would not be far away.

Approaching the house of the parents of the 14th Dalai Lama, the group asked to stay the night but did not reveal their purpose. The leader of the party then pretended to be a servant and spent much of the evening observing and playing with the youngest child in the house. The child seemingly recognized the servant as a lama, and the next day the search party left, only to return a few days later.

This time they brought a number of articles belonging to the 13th Dalai Lama, along with several items that did not. In every case, the toddler correctly identified those items that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, saying: "It's mine. It's mine." This convinced the search party that they had found the new incarnation, and it was not long before the boy from Takster was acknowledged as the Dalai Lama.

Eventually, the boy -- along with his parents and a large group consisting of the search party and other pilgrims -- ventured to Lhasa to begin to receive his primary education. In accordance with tradition, His Holiness forfeited his given name -- Lhamo Thondup -- and assumed his new name, Tenzin Gyatso.

The curriculum was the same as that of all monks pursuing a doctorate in Buddhist studies -- logic, Tibetan art and culture, Sanskrit, medicine and Buddhist philosophy. The final and most difficult focus (and hence, most important) includes five categories: the perfection of wisdom; the philosophy of the Middle Way; the canon of monastic discipline; metaphysics; and logic.

Tenzin Gyatso completed his doctorate when he was 25 years old.

During the final examinations, he was queried by 30 scholars on logic, and debated 15 scholars on the subject of the Middle Path. Finally, 35 scholars tested his knowledge of the canon of monastic discipline and the study of metaphysics. Conducted before an audience of monk scholars, His Holiness passed the examinations with honors.

Far-Flung Friends

For me, one of the more interesting storylines about the Dalai Lama is his relationship with Heinrich Harrer, one of four men who first scaled the formidable north wall of The Eiger (above) in the Swiss Alps.

As a youth, Harrer was an Olympic-caliber skier, but mountain climbing was his true passion. Having climbed the fearsome vertical cliffs of the North Face of The Eiger (documented in his book, “The White Spider”), Harrer won a spot on a Himalayan expedition to the Diamir Face of the Nanga Parbat in Kashmir in 1939.

While enroute, the four-man team led by Peter Aufschnailer was placed under the “protection” of British solders in Karachi, Pakistan. Two days later, England declared war on Germany. As Austrians, all were sent to British prisoner-of-war camps near Bombay, India.

However, Harrer and Aufschnailer eventually escaped after several attempts and found their way to Tibet, their only possible avenue of escape -- one that would have been impossible to all but trained mountaineers. Arriving in the capital of Lhasa, the pair became salaried employees of the Tibetan government.

Harrer later became tutor to the XIV Dalai Lama in English, geography and science. The two would remain lifelong friends. He documented his experiences in his book “Seven Years in Tibet," which became a bestseller in the U.S. and was the basis of the 1997 film of the same title (above) featuring Brad Pitt in the role of Harrer.

In a foreword in the book, His Holiness writes that “Harrer has always been a friend to Tibet. His most important contribution to our cause introduced hundreds of thousands of people to my country.” In 2002, the Dalai Lama recognized Harrer with the Light of Truth Award for his efforts to bring the situation in Tibet to international attention.

Bodhisattva, Take Me By The Hand

Tenzin Gyatso – the XIV Dalai Lama – was born to a peasant family in a small village called Takster in northeastern Tibet in 1935. Recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, His Holiness is the living manifestation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who chose to reincarnate to serve the people.

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being, one who is on the path to becoming a Buddha. According to tradition, a bodhisattva must journey through at least 10 “grounds” or “bhumis.” At the first ground, the bodhisattva must travel five paths toward accumulation, preparation, insight, meditation and practice.

After navigating the ten grounds, a bodhisattva is said to achieve great joy in seeing the benefit for all sentient beings. The bodhisattva is stainless, in the sense of being free from the stains of immorality, and luminous -- the light of Dharma is said to radiate for others from within. The emphasized perfection in this ground is patience.

A key ground: attainment of the ability to help sentient beings achieve maturity while not becoming emotionally involved when such beings respond negatively -- a difficult task. The emphasized perfection in this ground is meditative concentration.

After the 10 bhumis, according to Buddhist tradition, one attains complete enlightenment and becomes a Buddha. Yet it’s not enough for a bodhisattva to upholed the precepts of Buddhism; there are times when they must be broken. When that happens, it must be with the acknowledgement of whatever consequences will follow.

So what is a bodhisattva? You could define one as a true adult. That is, many people in the world act like children. Today, most people who are called adults are only pseudo-adults. Physically, they grow up and become adult but spiritually, too many people never mature to adulthood. They don’t behave like adults in their daily lives.

A bodhisattva is one who sees the world through adult eyes and whose actions are the actions of a true adult. Bodhisattva, would you take me by the hand?