TIBETSPACE

A CHINESE MUSEUM OF TIBETAN HISTORY? THEY AREN'T KIDDING.

If you've been following the recent arguments regarding Sino-Tibetan history, and if you've realized gradually, or suddenly, that history--or what happened--amounts to little more than historiography--or how you write up what happened--then you've probably been a little confused from time to time.  Was Tibet ever an independent nation, as we currently understand the term?  If so, when?  What is the difference between sovereignty and independence?  How do we come to a reasonable estimation of these rather complex problems?  You need to read John Powers' book, History as Propaganda.  Coming in at 160 pages, and published in 2004, the book is relatively current and a manageable size.  Plus, it's clearly written.

As long as we're on the subject of history, it's worth noting that the Chinese have developed some long-range plans regarding the rewriting of their own history.  We all became so enamored of the Grace Wang story in The New York Times on April 17, that we missed the other story that ran directly beside it:  "New Museum Offers the Official Line on a Region."  Here's the second paragraph from that article, describing the contents of Beijing's first museum devoted exclusively to Tibet: 

Inside, curators will display antiquities, dynastic records and reproductions to demonstrate China’s dominion over Tibet as far back as the 13th century. Many experts question China’s historical claims, but few clouds of doubt are likely to darken the museum. Even the Dalai Lama is being edited out of the narrative.

That's right.  The Chinese are doing a Tibetan history museum.  Of course, the Cultural Revolution comes to mind here, and the reports that we've been receiving concerning the forced re-education programs currently going on in Tibet are also relevant.  To see a graphic example of history-as-narrative, have a look at the comparative numbers of the Deaths / Injured / Detained in the recent struggle.  This represents historiography in action, and as the numbers change so too does the indicated reality.  Political structures are defended, explained, exonerated, and rationalized by narrative, and a museum is one of our most powerful narratives.  Ever been to one of those old, out-of-the-way Native American museums in the West, and seen Native American culture represented by a glass case of arrowheads?  You get my point.

That's why it's important that we inform ourselves, as best we can, of the history that we're concerned about here.  The Chinese are working overtime to produce the counter-narrative of lies, misinterpretation, and unbalanced opinion.  And we have to understand where their mistakes lie, and whether they can be corrected, and if so, how so.

The best way to do that is to read.  Read the history, read the philosophy, read the  blogs.  An informed opinion is worth far more than a bumper-sticker because an informed opinion is derived from an evolving narrative, and an evolving narrative, an evolving understanding of the problem, is nothing more nor less than an evolving reality.  And who could ask for more? 

An old blues player I knew once said that if you hold a wrong note long enough, it'll eventually sound OK, and the band will adjust to your mistake.  That's the hope of the Chinese.  That we'll all eventually adjust. 

But it's best, my friend confessed, to hit the right note the first time.

The Chinese are very adept at holding these wrong notes for a very long time.  But we don't have to play along, we don't have to accept their ineptness at historical narrative.  We don't have to buy their oppressive histories.

But we do have to author our own understanding of these histories.  We do have to participate in whatever way we can. 

This, of course, is what the Chinese fear the most:  the truth of understanding.  And this is what is available to all of us who live in a liberal democracy. 

DALAI LAMA: TALKS UNDER WAY WITH CHINA

In his most recent trip to America, the Dalai Lama pressed his advantage in several ways:  a five-day talk on compassion in Seattle, a meeting with an unnamed U.S. senior representative regarding the crisis in Tibet, and a recent announcement that a group of his people are meeting with the Chinese to find a solution to the current problems.  And of course His Holiness has reiterated that he will resign if the violence continues in Tibet. 

All told, it's been an important week for His Holiness, as he begins his tour of the United States in Seattle and concludes in New York on April 22.  He seems to be ramping up the pressure, if only by confessing that there is little else now that he can do (which no one, by the way, believes).  Every day, the Dalai Lama proves himself of being entirely capable of new and vigorous tactics for increasing his leverage in the international forum.

On a related note, Wikileaks has posted a helpful gallery of photographs and videos relating to the Tibetan crisis.  Have a look at it here.

For those of you sympathetic to the Tibetan cause, you might have noticed that the Chinese voice is becoming stronger at the lower levels.  Pro-Chinese blogs are humming now, and it's clear that many Chinese are taking very seriously the Dalai Lama's power to shape public opinion.  Popular, Chinese blog-opinion, much like American blog-opinion, runs the gamut from informed to hysterical.  If you haven't looked at the Chinese propaganda website, www.anti-cnn.com, you need to visit it. 

It's difficult to engage many of these pro-Chinese bloggers because their opinions are non-negotiable.  They arrive at the discussion with opinions whose evidence lies simply in the dogmatic nature of their espousal and the volume of the voice that delivers them.  This, of course, make dialogue impossible.  And so it shouldn't be attempted.

But there are questions that should be asked in any discussion regarding the Tibetan situation.  More on that later.

Finally--The Financial Times  is reporting that the Chinese are looking to hire a major public relations firm in the wake of the Tibetan crisis.  The solution to all our major crises:  hire a PR firm. 

So it looks as though China really is ready to step into the modern world.

GANDHI, TIBET, INDEPENDENCE

It's sometimes difficult to get a handle on a man like Gandhi, particularly when someone like Samdhong Rinpoche has recommended that we ought to do just that.  Americans have to feel that the internal dialogue occurring between Gandhi and Samdhong Rinpoche is something we can only speculate on, at best.  An incarnate lama and scholar reading Gandhi, slayer of empire?  That's a fairly high-powered negotiation that Westerners can only view from afar, right?  Add to that the approaching Centenary Celebration of Hind Swaraj's publication in 2009, a celebration that Samdhong Rinpoche himself is personally helping to organize, and it slowly begins to dawn on us that we need to know a little more about this man Gandhi.  Particularly in light of the Tibetan cause.

For starters, here's what Rinpoche says about Gandhi: 

So profound and comprehensive is the purity, influence and vastness of Mahatma Gandhi's spiritual, moral, cultural, political, and educational work that it is hard to believe that so much, on such an all-inclusive and extensive plane was accomplished by a single individual in one life . . . Every word of his written works carries profound meaning of a sincere quest after truth, spirituality, and morality in private, public and corporate life.

Going through Gandhi's Autobiography recently, searching for the earliest signs of his greatness, I was struck by one thing, and one thing only.  Not his "practice," to use a favorite word among American Buddhists, nor his catalogue of "empowerments," nor his proximity to the great teachers of this time.  No, I was struck by his passion for service.  Three examples suffice.

Chapter XXII:  If I found myself entirely absorbed in the service of the community, the reason behind it was my desire for self-realization.  I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that God could be realized only through service.  And service for me was the service of India because it came to me without my seeking . . . .

Chapter XXV:  Plague broke out in Bombay about this time, and there was panic all around . . . As I felt that I could be of some help in the sanitation department, I offered my services to the State . . . I laid special emphasis on the cleanliness of latrines, and the committee decided to inspect these in every street . . . They were dark and stinking and reeking with filth and worms.

Chapter XXVI:  Such service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it.  When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit . . . But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

And so it was that before satyagraha, before the famous ashram where Gandhi lived and worked in India, before the brahmacharya vow of celibacy and the strict diet that accompanied it, before the ashram in Ahmadebad and the famous spinning wheel, before all of these highly visible and familiar images, Gandhi saw himself as a servant, cleaning latrines in times of disease and developing the humility and dedication that comes of serving "without show . . . or public opinion."

And so I can't really imagine what occurs when Samdhong Rinpoche reads Gandhi.  But Gandhi once said that the British did not take India away from the Indians; he said that the Indians had given it to them. 

My guess, my remote, middle-class American guess, is that it is very difficult to take anything away from someone who realizes the self's relation to truth by cleaning latrines and finding joy in that process. 

This, of course, is an active and productive form of renunciation. 

HIND SWARAJ, OR HOW I SPENT MY WINTER BREAK, PT. 5

The New Year in Arkansas arrived cold and clear.  Up early, I hunkered down and finished Hind Swaraj this morning just after the sun came up.  I'm happy that I undertook this little project of reading and commenting on one of Gandhi's most important books, and as we've seen, one of the most important books for all of us as we attempt to understand the Tibetans' future.  I'm thinking now about doing similar kinds of reading of other key texts that are central to the Tibetan situation.  Time will tell. 

But let's cut to the chase.  The last five chapters of Hind Swaraj are in some ways the most crucial.  Ideas get clarified, terms get defined, emphases are laid down.  Chapter 17 is entitled "Satyagraha--Soul-Force," and in it Gandhi defines the term satyagraha (which is sometimes translated into English as "passive resistance") in this manner:

Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.  When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force.  For instance, the Government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me.  I do not like it.  If by using violence I force the Government to repeal the law, I am employing what may be termed body-force.  If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force.  It involves sacrifice of self.

Two phrases to remember here:  "Personal suffering" and "sacrifice of self."  They'll return as we try to understand just who can practice satyagraha.  I mentioned in the previous posting on Hind Swaraj that, as a politician, Gandhi was immune to the scandals and vulnerabilities that in American politics, for example, are always linked to money and sex.  Here in Chapter 17, Gandhi reveals chastity and poverty as being the two primary requirements for the successful practice of satyagraha:

A man who is unchaste loses stamina, becomes emasculated and cowardly.  He whose mind is given over to animal passions is not capable of any great effort . . . A married man [and woman], therefore, can observe perfect chastity . . . Just as there is necessity for chastity, so is there for poverty.  Pecuniary ambition and passive resistance cannot go well together.  Those who have money are not expected to throw it away, but are expected to be indifferent about it.  They must be prepared to lose every penny rather than give up passive resistance.

This is troubling.  Unless we're willing to give up money and sex, unless we're willing to become monks and nuns, then we're unqualified to practice satyagraha.  When Gandhi used the phrases "personal suffering" and "sacrifice of self," he meant them literally.  In Chapter XVII, he writes:  "Wherein is courage required--in blowing others to pieces from behind a cannon, or with a smiling face to approach a cannon and be blown to pieces?"  So personal suffering and sacrifice of self . . . they're the sine qua non of satyagraha.

So what do the rest of us do in the face of this austere definition?  Do we turn our backs on Gandhi's doctrine?  Do we throw his ideas away, reserving them only for the most devout among us? 

I don't think so.  Gandhi rarely talks about the mechanics of spiritual practice because he was speaking to a country of such religious diversity that these kinds of conversations would seem at least irrelevant and ultimately divisive.  But he does say this:  "Control over the mind is alone necessary, and when that is attained, man is free like the king of the forest and his very glance withers the enemy."  So to practice satyagraha, control over the mind is what we need.

Where have we heard this before?  In practically every discussion of meditation coming out of India, Tibet, China, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, Japan, America--have I forgotten one?  The point is that the project of satyagraha finally is part and parcel of the overall project of stabilizing the mind and removing its obstacles.  When this is accomplished, "personal suffering" and "sacrifice of self"--the two key elements of satyagraha--are revealed for what they are:  delusions arising from our deep-rooted attachments to self.

So--as we progress gradually along the path of clarity through meditation, we also gradually come to develop the characteristics needed to become a full-fledged practitioner of satyagraha.  Satyagraha is clearly a developed philosophy of a deeply spiritual origin, but one that has a clearly political application.  From clarity of mind comes clarity of purpose.

Perhaps most of us are not yet ready to walk with a smiling face into cannon-fire.  But maybe if a conversation among our friends turns to China and the Olympics, perhaps we might point out the human rights abuses actively pursued by the host country, and how the Tibetans are currently suffering mightily at the hands of this economic giant.  And perhaps because we know these things to be true, and because we have cultivated the smallest bit of inward stability, perhaps we can make these statements with assurance, tranquility, conviction.  And without hatred of the Chinese.  And we might even be able to add something about self-determination, Hind Swaraj, and the clear insights that lead to political justice through passive resistance.

That is a step on the satyagraha path, and one that both Gandhi and Samdhong Rinpoche would encourage us to take.

HIND SWARAJ, OR HOW I SPENT MY WINTER BREAK, PT. 4

One of the things we as Americans must continually remind ourselves about Gandhi is how widely revered he was in the twentieth century.  Google any list of important people in the century, and Gandhi is always there, sometimes first, often second behind Einstein, but never out of the top ten.  Even as unlikely a figure as Gerald Ford, when asked in the last year of his life who was the most important person of his era, responded, "Gandhi!"  I can't offhand think of a contemporary figure who commands this kind of respect--even the Dalai Lama, whom I'd be inclined to nominate, hasn't yet shown the kind of political activism that characterized Gandhi's life, and while his theory of non-violence is, of course, derived partly from Gandhi's, His Holiness hasn't engineered the kinds of highly visible confrontations that characterized Gandhi's long struggle against the British in India.

If you read the middle chapters of Hind Swaraj, you see that the Gandhi was an unlikely hero for mid-century America.  Against modern civilization of all sorts--railroads, lawyers, doctors, all forms of rapid transit and communication--Gandhi rose to prominence as America feverishly embraced the developing technology that would set our country on its characteristic path.  But Gandhi's message, the deep logic behind his disavowal of civilization, was purely ethical, and it must have struck a responsive chord throughout a country founded by a self-exiled band of Pilgrims on the run from religious persecution in England.  "Civilization," Gandhi writes in Chapter 13, "is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty."  Civilization, then, in Gandhi's eyes, has little to do with the finer things of life; civilization is a mode of conduct, a way of being in the world that aptly reflects, and makes available, one's proper duty.  Civilization, then, is primarily ethical.  In the thirties and forties in America, on the eve of the Second World War and in its dire aftermath, this would have resonated with many Americans.

What Gandhi has to say about swaraj itself speaks directly to the Tibetan cause as   well.  In Chapter 14, "How Can India Become Free?" Gandhi wrestles the notion of independence away from the British and turns it over squarely to the hearts and minds of each individual Indian citizen:

The swaraj that I wish to picture is such that, after we have once realized it, we shall endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to do likewise.  But such swaraj has to be experienced, by each one for himself.  One drowning man will never save another.  Slaves ourselves, it would be a mere pretension to think of freeing others.

Gandhi's idea of freedom and independence--and how we most effectively lead others to it--shares much with the Tibetan notion of the Bodhisattva ideal that tirelessly points out the futility of leading others toward wisdom and enlightenment before you yourself have achieved these goals.  But most importantly, and most characteristically for Gandhi, swaraj concerns an inner independence, a personal integrity that is the only rational basis for an authentic national independence.  It is entirely typical of Gandhi, and of much traditional Buddhist philosophy as well, to undertake institutional reform though inner renovation, through a sustained attention to one's inner dynamics.  Real political reform, Gandhi argues, begins with an unrelenting introspection.  And this particular internal investigation is made even more difficult by the agressive forces of modern civilization that are engulfing and submerging the inner voice that Gandhi would have us hear.

Non-violence arises out of this viewpoint naturally because Gandhi argues that by directly experiencing swaraj--a distinctly non-violent operation--the Indian people will either expell the English or absorb them.  Either alternative is acceptable.  The Indian people will expel the British because the sickness of empire cannot survive in the midst of a strong vital population possessed of this inner swaraj, and they will absorb them because such inner strength is a human birthright, and once it is witnessed, it is strongly desired.  But none of the political, social, or economic aspects of swaraj will last if they are not built upon a solid foundation of inner swaraj.  That is the lynchpin of Gandhi's program, and surely this is what draws Samdhong Rinpoche back to this text, time and again, as he contemplates Tibet's future relationship with China.  Before the agreements are signed, before the decision is made between autonomy and independence, what is needed are a Tibetan people possessed of this inner swaraj.

If we wonder why Gandhi has largely fallen out of the public discourse in this country while he still retains such a vital presence in much Asian thinking and writing on nationality and political identity, the answer is not difficult to ascertain.  Without radical campaign finance reform in this country, our national candidates can only feign intellectual independence; as long as they are owned by the lobbyists for our major corporations, the ones that fund their elections, our best and brightest can only alter their lines slightly from the original scripts written by the monied conglomerates that put them in power.

What causes American politicians to fall from grace?  Money and sex, both of which, when they become destructive, are fueled by greed.  Gandhi lived in poverty and had taken vows of celibacy, after fathering with his wife Kasturbai four sons, one of whom died young (he'd married at 13.)  Compared to most contemporary politicians, Gandhi was scandal-proof because he'd embraced an idea that has long been absent from the American political scene:  practice what you preach.  I am unaware of any candidate in our current race for the presidency that has disavowed sex and embraced poverty.  Their diatribes on morality and economic hardship are largely meaningless.  And at some level, the American public knows this, and knew this when Gandhi was alive, and recognized radical authenticity when they saw it, and so voted Gandhi one of the two or three most important people of the century.