TIBETSPACE

TEN WAYS TO FREE TIBET (4-7)

Before I list the next four ways you can free Tibet, let me say something about the first three that I included in my last posting. 

1. Jill Bolte Taylor’s video, if it does nothing else, should alert us to the accuracy of what Tibetan meditators—and their Indian avatars—have been saying for several millennia.  We’re hard-wired to look at ourselves and the world around us in two ways:  one way engages the left hemisphere of the brain, which plans, orders, graphs, plots, isolates, analyzes, and sequesters everything we do, think, figure, calculate, and say; and the other side, the right hemisphere, removes those boundaries, undoes those calculations, dissolves our sense of an isolating self, and fuzzes the boundaries of our forms, placing us in larger, inter-connected energy fields (read:  quantum field).  The news here is that these two modes of perception can be united for each other’s benefit and that this state of unity has traditionally been called Nirvana, or the removal of ignorance, but that this now turns out to be as much a neurological birthright as it does an abstract and blessed state accessible only to the super-humans of sacred literature.  For Americans, literal-minded and empirical as we are, it’s helpful to have an outline of the neurochemistry of enlightenment. 
2. Over 9 million Native Americans died because our ancestors, with whom we share a culture and a way of looking at the world, arrived on these shores.  We are implicated.  I’m not suggesting undue penance and sackcloth.  I am suggesting accuracy in our self-perceptions because the way in which we view ourselves will impact how we view those we wish to help. 
3. If Gandhi is correct—and I believe he is—then our “inward freedom” should be greatly impacted by Taylor’s video because we can now begin to think of the inner liberation that Gandhi spoke of as neurological component of our species.  Like any other adaptive mechanism in the evolutionary process, inward freedom must be evolved by each of us if we are ever going to be able to help anyone in a substantial and permanent fashion.  There are tried and true ways to do this; avail yourself of them.

And now, the next four ways that you can save Tibet.

4.  Come to terms with Jamyang Norbu.   One of Tibet’s leading intellectuals and writers, Norbu has stood defiantly for Tibetan independence in ways that are learned, well conceived, and passionate.  He is, as T.S. Eliot once said of Samuel Johnson, a dangerous person to disagree with.  Read him—start with his blog, perhaps, look at the archives for interesting topics, and pay close attention to the comments.  But most importantly, you need to read the following excerpt from the Introduction to his collection of essays, Shadow Tibet (the book I’d most recommend):

Like alternate worlds in science fiction, two distinct Tibets appear to co-exist these days.  One flourishes in the light of celebrity patronage, museum openings, career ad academic opportunities, pop spirituality and New Age Fashions.  This is the Tibet that has captured the romantic fantasy of the West and which has drawn much of the attention that Tibet receives at the moment.  Here, Tibet is far more than the issue of Tibetan freedom and represents the unrealized aspirations of the affluent and the established for spiritual solace, ecological harmony and world peace. 

And this from the first essay in the collection, “Opening of the Political Eye:”

I am on no account putting the entire blame for Tibetan political regression on our Western friends, but they did substantially contribute to it.  Usually the presence of such tourists and visitors have only a marginal effect on the society they are passing through, especially in such large countries as India.  But Tibetan society in exile was very small, poor, and because of the tremendous dislocation it had experienced, extremely impressionable.  Through their constant disdain of Western rationalism, democracy, and science, Western travelers effectively discouraged Tibetan curiosity about the West, and encouraged Tibetans to revert to their old and fatal way of dealing with reality by burying their heads in the sands of magic, ritual, and superstition.

5.  Set aside eight minutes and watch this video, although at 3 ½ minutes you’ll get the point.  What you’ll see is a film, taken 12 years ago at Harvard, of a young Tibetan attempting to tell a young Chinese what has happened in Tibet.  Standing behind and to the left of the Tibetan is an American, concerned, wanting to help, but plainly irrelevant to the important dialogue that is occurring between the two principals, the Tibetan and the Chinese.  Remember this image of the Tibetan, the Chinese, and the sidelined American.

6.  Learn to micro-meditate.  A Tibetan friend of mine who spent six years in retreat told me that Americans could benefit greatly from learning to meditate for 2-3 minutes at a time, several times a day, or as many times a day as they feel comfortable doing it.  This means stopping for a moment at your desk, or while walking to the car, and breathing in and out ten times or more, doing whatever is required to take the left hemisphere of the brain offline and encourage the right hemisphere to boot up.  It’s not hard; it’s part of our natural evolution; and it works.  Our political positions will sharpen their focus if we can calm down for a couple of minutes a day.

7.  Memorize this fact:  At least 80% of the human population lives on less than $10 a day.   My guess is that many of you who are reading this blog live on more than $10 a day.  I do.  Materialism in America seems to have hit epidemic proportions, which is one of the reasons the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and devastating the culture.  But it is important that we remember this fact for two reasons:

a.    We begin by acknowledging our privilege and, like anyone who has great stores of resources that others need, we become more likely over the long run to part with some of those resources in creative, effective ways.  So acknowledge your privilege on a daily basis.
b.    Realize that, as Americans, your first-hand knowledge of materialism and its effects, both desirable and undesirable, is unequaled by any other culture in the world.  Tibetans, for example, know nothing about the dangers of materialism, and if you survive it, like any survivor, you can talk with authority about its devastating effects and its potential remedies.  That many Americans have felt that Tibetan culture holds just such a remedy is perhaps understandable in this context.  And whether or not Tibetans will be able to resist the Westernization that is occurring in India remains to be seen.  My prayers are with them.

In my next posting, I'll finish the 10 ways you can free Tibet, and follow that with a general discussion of the list.

TEN WAYS TO FREE TIBET (1-3)

I continually meet people who want to “do something” about Tibet and the Tibetans.  And who wouldn’t?  An entire people committed, particularly over the last 700 years, to the principles of non-violence, whose homeland has been occupied with varying degrees of brutality over the last half century, and whose leader has become not only an adroit ambassador for his country, but one of the most revered spiritual figures in the world . . . What’s not to like?  And don’t forget:  George Lucas, in Return of the Jedi (1983) had those cute little Ewoks speaking Tibetan. 

So if you google the phrase, “help Tibet,” you’ll get over 8.5 million hits.

Take your pick.  Many of these organizations have made substantial contributions to the Tibetan cause, and there’s a lot you can do that will make a difference.

But having been involved over several decades now, and with dramatically varying degrees of commitment, to understanding what Tibetan culture might reasonably offer Americans, I wanted to offer my own Ten Ways to Free Tibet, and then be done with it.  It’s not a manifesto; it’s not a declaration.  It’s just a list of suggestions that are offered here as tentative answers to persistent questions. 

My working plan:  In this posting I’ll list three suggestions; in the next posting, four; and in the third posting, three, making for a total of ten.  I’ll eventually offer a bit of commentary, a very little commentary, on each item, hoping to provide a picture of the overall conceptual structure that stands behind the entire set of ten.  But for now, here are the first three ways to free Tibet.

1. Set aside 20 minutes and watch the following video. It's a recording of a talk given by Jill Bolte Taylor at a TED Conference on February 27, 2008.  (If you're unfamiliar with TED, correct that problem asap.  Their website contains a library of TED talks, and they're routinely amazing, jaw-dropping, and inspiring.)  Dr. Taylor, a neuroanatomist, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage in the left hemisphere, and her description of this experience lays the scientific groundwork for Americans to approach and potentially understand one of the most important legacies the Tibetan philosophers have left us.  Warning:  Don't even think about starting this video if you don't have twenty minutes to give to it because you'll completely ignore whatever you were supposesd to be doing.
2. Memorize this fact:  Before Western explorers arrived in America and began its colonization, noted anthropologist Henry Dobyns estimated the population of Native Americans to be approximately 10 million.  By the end of the 19th century, the number had dwindled to 250,000.  Over 9 million Native Americans perished as a result of our arrival on these shores.
3. Memorize this quotation by Mahatma Gandhi:  "The outward freedom . . . that we shall attain, will be only in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment" (from The Essential Gandhi, ed. by Louis Fischer with a Preface by Eknath Easwaran,  p. 165.)

So, the first three ways to save Tibet.  Four more in the next posting.  Stay tuned.

HYDRO-POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

You can do a lot of things with water, and recently China and the Bush administration have become the connoisseurs of the pain and suffering that water, or the lack of it, can bring.  China is moving along with its plans to build a hydro-electric dam across the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, potentially wreaking havoc on the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh , and since the Justice Department was forced today to release its Top Secret CIA documents on water-boarding and other forms of torture, the Bush administration seemed equally fascinated with the destructive capacity of water. (China's plan has been in the works for several years.  Read a fuller account here.)

Two modern imperial powers, equally intent on maintaining their empires through coercive means.  And with Obama's decision today not to prosecute CIA officials who were responsible for this brutality, the United States gives up much of its credibility in negotiating with nations like China whom we accuse not only of tolerating, but actively indulging, conduct that violates our fundamental human rights. 

I wrote earlier about China and America belonging to the small group of barbarous nations who still practice capital punishment and carry it out in some places with a kind of righteous gusto.  Now I write about China and America belonging to that same group of barbarous nations who have been caught red-handed in violation of fundamental human rights and who decide to do little about it. 

Whether we prosecute or not, though, the fact remains that our country is guilty of human rights violations; and that our administration's disapproval of the Chinese torture of Tibetans is hypocritical, at best, and feigned, at worst. 

As a country, we argue now against human rights violations from a weakened position.

But there is another side to this issue that indicates some real progress in our country's support of human rights.  It is important that President Obama allowed the release of these sensitive documents; he did not extend Bush's rampant abuses of executive privilege.  He decided, in fact, not to fight the ACLU in their FOIA filing, and in doing so, he allowed the working manual for our little shop of horrors to become part of the public domain.  Surely, he felt that a simple revelation of these documents was enough, that if the goal is to stop such abuses in the future, and not to punish those who formulated and implemented these horrors, then such a public revelation will make it much more difficult for this to occur in the future.  And so we must read these documents, and make them part of our historical knowledge; we must enter them into the record of our national consciousness, making this inhumane practice less likely to rear its ugly head in the coming century.

It's the least we can do.

VIDEO: TIBETAN REFUGEES, PART 2

Below, the second part of the Martini documentary on the Tibetan refugee experience:

GETTING READY FOR THE MEETING IN DHARAMSALA

As the November 17th meeting in Dharamsala approaches, there are several things that we might read to prepare ourselves to understand whatever resolutions are reached on that fateful day.  I've already recommended Shadow Tibet, and I'll recommend it again:  there are essential pieces posted there.  Also, much discussion has appeared recently concerning rangzen (independence), the Middle Way approach, and the Dalai Lama's role in leading the Tibetan people through the coming months and years.  The following website contains both clear explanations of the relevant ideas, and it also has helpful links at the bottom of the page to the original speeches where His Holiness articulated his founding ideas (click here). 

MORE ESSENTIAL READING FROM JAMYANG NORBU

Many of the readers of this blog regularly visit Jamyang Norbu's blog, Shadow Tibet, and will aready know that Jamyang la has recently posted an essay on the November meeting in Dharamsala.  If you haven't already read  "Making the November Meeting Work," please stop by and have a look at it.  It's always a pleasure to agree with Jamyang la--paraphrasing TS Eliot on Samuel Johnson:  Jamyang la is a dangerous man to disagree with--and in this recent piece, he makes many of the same points I've made in this blog concerning the importance of the upcoming meeting.  Of course, Jamyang la makes his case with far greater knowledge and authority than I am able to do, so many thanks to him for his sharp insights into the Tibetan political process.  As Americans, looking from the outside in, we stand to learn a great deal from columns like these.  Again, many thanks to Jamyang la for his time and effort in writing this piece.

Also, you will learn a great deal as well from the comments added by Jamyang la's readers . . . they are a diverse and opinionated group, so leave time for them too.

MAJNU KA TILLA AND BUDH VIHAR GIVEN A STAY OF EXECUTION

Two important Tibetan settlements in India, which had been threatened with demolition, were given a reprieve yesterday by the Indian government.  Begun in 1959 on the banks of the Yamuna River, Majnu Ka Tilla has long been a major seat of Tibetan culture in the country's capital, and all supporters of Tibet should be delighted that the Indian government has decided to allow these intrepid refugees to continue to reside in their homes.

'CHINA-WATCH' ADDED TO TIBETSPACE

An article of faith:  I believe that mindlessly opposing China and Tibet damages the Tibetan cause in the long run, while at the same time hindering movements within China for an open society.

Another article of faith:  I also believe that awareness of human rights violations and our capacity to do something constructive about these violations begins with information.  Clear information, divorced from political motivation, broadens our consciousness concerning human suffering.  Period.  And this, in turn, increases our fundamental stores of compassion.  Luckily, there's a one-stop website that will help us with our task of increasing awareness:  Human Rights Watch.  Stop by often, subscribe to its feed, read its stories, imagine that the characters of those stories are your family members. 

The fact that they happen to be other people's family members, after all, is simply an accident of birth.

To add my own small effort to the global project of raising awareness, I have added a new feature to TIBETSPACE that I have named China-Watch.  Here I will post links that highlight China's increasing use of preemptive anger, the kind of anger that gives rise to those ominous pronouncements promising China's stern disapproval if a certain course of action is undertaken by a member of the international community.  Particularly actions regarding Tibet or human rights.

These threats, of course, reveal many things about China's aging leadership:  their paranoia, their bullying mentality, their neurotic obsession with Tibet and His Holiness--particularly with his universal popularity--and their fear of other countries deciding to support many of the concerns that are central to his platform:  human rights, non-violence, egalitarianism, and compassion. 

And of course these domineering qualities are part and parcel of all totalitarian regimes. 

But in this case, one of the victims of Chinese oppression--the Tibetan people--have something that many such victims do not have.  They have an international voice, and it is in the spirit of deepening the context for that voice that I offer China-Watch.

MIRACLE IN MONDGOD?

As you're anxiously awaiting the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, you might want to consider what's been happening at the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Mondgod, South India.  (Drepung Loseling is currently the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world, named for its famous predecessor in Tibet.) 

The first thing you need to know is that the Gaden Tripa (holder of the Ganden throne) is the title of the spiritual leader of the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism (the Dalai Lama is the temporal leader of the Gelugpas, and hence is of a higher order politically,  and hence, more visible in the public eye, but a notch below the Gaden Tripa in spiritual terms.)  Because the position is not an incarnation, but an office awarded both by reputation and examination, and because they serve for set terms, there have been many more of Gaden Tripas than Dalai Lamas.  The current holder is the 101st in the line.

The second thing you need to know is that the 100th Gaden Tripa, Lobsang Nyima, died on September 14 of this year.  Except that he didn't.  Not exactly.  He entered on that day a state of advanced meditation known as thukdam in the Tibetan tradition.  It is during this state that advanced meditators, accomplished practitioners who have, in effect, practiced dying for years, are able to meditate on the "clear light stage," and oversee the dissolution of mind and body as they prepare for their next incarnation. 

And here's where things get interesting from the Western perspective.  In South India, with its substantial humidity and, at best, temperate climate, Lobsang Nyima's body remained pliable and undecayed for 18 days as he practiced his meditative exercises.  Of course, from the Western perspective, he died on September 14--no observable heart beat, no observable respiration, no ocular activity.  But no decay, no odor, no slumping, no rigor mortis.  For 18 days.  There's the rub.

Personally, I have little trouble accepting thukdam as a spiritual fact, a phenomenon that's still in the cue of Facts To Be Proven Within the Narrow Spectrum of Western Empiricism.  Also, I met Lobsang Nyima in May, 2007, when he was very old and somewhat ill; he was an extraordinary person, and that was apparent even to me, with my set of dull Western receptors. 

Lobsang Nyima's thukdam has caused quite a stir within the monastic community at Drepung Loseling Monastery, and Geshe Dorjee, here in Fayetteville has kept me informed of its progress over the past three weeks.  (Nyima was one of Geshe Dorjee's teachers, and always spoke of him with that deepest fondness that Tibetans reserve solely for their most influential teachers.) 

Various doctors, of course, have congregated around Lobsang Nyima recently, briefs are being written, and you can read a fuller report here.  For more on this particular holder of the throne, click here.

Finally--while Tibetans are deeply impressed by this accomplishment, they don't view it as a miracle, by any stretch of the imagination.  It's closer to how we view Gebreselassie's latest world record in the marathon--a feat reserved for the few, one that demands enormous discipline and ability, but one that is clearly within the realm of our fundamental potential.  Inspiring, in a word.

There's a big difference between the unreachable miraculous and the achievable inspiring.  Let's concentrate on the latter, as we anticipate the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

THREE EVENTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

Postings have been sparse recently due to a dramatically increased work-load regarding all things Tibetan at the University of Arkansas, but several things have occurred recently that are worth considering.  I will also post the next two installments in my post-Olympics series as promised in the previous entry, but I won't get to it until October.  In the meantime, have a look at these items.

First, the Dalai Lama has approved a request to have an emergency meeting of the Tibetan Parliament in November.  The rift between His Holiness and those who argue for autonomy and those who favor independence is receiving greater attention these days, so stay tuned for developments on that front.  This could be a significant meeting.

Second, and for what it's worth, the U.S. Senate has become active once again on behalf of Tibet and the Tibetans.  Resolution 643 was introduced by Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) and was approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate on September 17, 2008.

Third, and most tragically, serial bomb blasts ripped through parts of New Delhi several days ago.  The blasts occurred in traditionally Tibetan areas, and the Indian Mujahideen has been blamed for it.