Tragedy in Crimson

I staggered sleepily over to the window of my guesthouse in Dharamsala, the Indian hill station, and peered down at the monsoon-season storm clouds already gathered over the Kangra Valley below. The deep-throated sound of monks chanting their early morning prayers drifted up from the Tsuglagkhang Temple complex, which sits on a saddle leading to the forested knoll where the Dalai Lama has his office and residence.

I trundled down to the Coffee Talk Cafe on Temple Road and ordered a cappuccino and waffles with honey and jam. Itinerant Tibetan vendors were busy pushing their carts into place along the other side of the road to sell turquoise and coral jewelry and other wares to the Indian tourists flocking up from the broiling heat of the Punjab, the adjacent province in India's north, abutting Pakistan, known for its punishing extremes of temperature. The street scene was endlessly fascinating. Tibetan monks walked by, some noisily in groups, others in bowed-head solitude. Tibetan women in brightly colored striped aprons chattered loudly as they strolled by the backpackers and travelers arriving from all over the globe. When I turned around, the towering Dhauladhar Mountains provided a majestic backdrop. Not far behind them lay the border with China and Tibet.

Close to the appointment time, I walked down the hill through the temple grounds and out into a large courtyard. Further on was the yellow compound of the Dalai Lama, in front of which stood well-armed Indian security guards. The Indian government provides the same level of security to the Dalai Lama that it gives to cabinet secretaries and senior members of its own government. Off to one side is an entry hall, where both Tibetan and Indian security agents question visitors. A couple of days earlier, I had arrived for a meeting with the Dalai Lama's personal assistant and had forgotten my passport. They let me through only after questioning me at length, examining various press cards, and calling the assistant himself. Even though they recognized me this time, they flipped through every page of my passport and asked me further questions. After I removed keys and coins and other items from my pockets, a guard frisked me with a thoroughness I had only experienced at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport. He patted around each leg and then felt my buttocks, groin, chest, and back. Satisfied with my harmlessness, they allowed me to gather my tape recorder and digital camera from the tray that had emerged from an X-ray machine, and signaled for me to walk to a yellow waiting hall.

I took a seat in an octagonal-shaped room, one of several waiting halls. A slight breeze came in through the open windows. Around me, a handful of women spoke in Chinese. Many of them clutched plastic bags of items like notebooks and incense. Soon, at least a dozen other people filled the cushioned benches against the walls of the small room. I wondered if all were going to see the Dalai Lama and if my meeting would be shorter than the planned forty-five minutes. I reviewed my questions and waited about twenty minutes before one of the Dalai Lama's polished young aides, Tenzin Taklha, appeared at the door and motioned for me to follow him. Tenzin spoke to me in American-accented English acquired during his childhood in New Jersey. His father was the Dalai Lama's elder brother, so today his boss is not only the most renowned Tibetan lama, or Buddhist teacher, on the face of the Earth but also his uncle.

Obtaining a meeting with the Dalai Lama—a pre-eminent religious figure who has risen to become a global icon of humanistic values—was not as difficult as it might seem. Eight months earlier, I had sent a letter to the Dalai Lama's office in India identifying myself as a journalist based in Beijing. I would soon be concluding a six-year stint as bureau chief in China for the third-largest chain of dailies in the United States, McClatchy Newspapers. I explained that I wanted to end my Beijing assignment with a book about the Tibet issue, written from the perspective of a journalist who had traveled to nearly every corner of China and was well aware that any book about the future of Tibet would also be about China's more muscular role in the world. A few weeks later, I turned up in India for a news event and made my pitch in person. I was in no hurry for the interview because I had much reporting still to do. A little more than six months later, I was beginning the book in earnest and sent an email to one of the Dalai Lama's top aides. Almost immediately, I received a response from Tenzin Taklha saying that an interview was scheduled for a date six weeks off. He suggested that I limit my questions and give him a heads-up about the topics. "Let me warn you that His Holiness tends to give lengthy answers to questions. This may result in you not being able to ask all your intended questions within the allotted interview time."¹

I did as I was asked and prepared questions on Tibet's restive social situation and on the growing apprehension among Tibetans over the eventual death of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, a septuagenarian who has entered his twilight years. Tibetans revere and venerate the Dalai Lama as a god-king, viewing him as a physical and spiritual manifestation of an aspect of the Buddha himself. I'd seen them break into tears or fall on the ground in prostration on seeing him. They believe that as a reincarnation of thirteen previous Dalai Lamas, he embodies the vast wisdom and insight of all of his predecessors.

Since Buddhism's appearance in Tibet around the seventh century, its followers have uniquely come to believe that a few hundred senior lamas, or tulkus, have mastered the death and rebirth process, choosing the manner of their rebirth and returning continuously to help humanity achieve enlightenment. Over the centuries, Tibetan Buddhism branched into four major schools, and the most revered in the largest Gelugpa tradition are the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. By the seventeenth century, the Dalai Lama was established as the predominant political and spiritual power in central Tibet. In recent times, nearly all followers of Tibetan Buddhism, regardless of tradition, have come to venerate him as a savior being, and his prominence has grown far beyond the arc of the Himalayas.² In the world at large, although not in China, the Dalai Lama is an admired moral figure who espouses nonviolence and encourages humanity to cultivate loving kindness. He circles the globe several times a year meeting world leaders, elevating awareness about China's chokehold on Tibet, and speaking on pressing universal concerns such as global warming and nuclear proliferation. He's impishly good-humored and a media darling, winning headlines and television airtime wherever he goes.

But for all of the Dalai Lama's global fame, Tibetans are no closer to winning greater freedom under China. And China energetically vilifies him, calling him a diabolical mastermind who seeks to sever Tibet from the bosom of the motherland. In recent times, China has used its growing economic clout to threaten any nation that receives the Dalai Lama, warning of economic consequences. Even model democratic leaders of countries like South Africa and Costa Rica have heeded the warnings, urging him not to come or canceling his visa. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama's eventual death will mark a watershed, ridding China's ruling party of a prominent global critic beloved in many parts of the world, but also potentially radicalizing Tibetans despairing over their lack of a freer homeland.

Tenzin Taklha walked me to a spacious waiting room adjacent to the Dalai Lama's reception hall, up a hillock. Around the knoll were dramatic views of the valley dropping sharply below and the seventeen-thousand-foot peaks behind. Crows cawed from the wooded thickets around the complex, and hawks soared in the sky overhead, gliding on summer thermals. Tall, thin evergreens, known as deodars, cloaked the hill. I saw no monkeys as we walked, but I knew they were not far away. Buddhist chanting could be heard from the temple down the hill. The chanting was peaceful and resonant, reassuring in its baritone fullness. I was led into an empty room with many divans and coffee tables, and windows on all sides. Several people stopped by to assure me the interview would commence shortly. I looked out the windows to see a group of visitors lined up, ready to receive a brief blessing. Before I had time to think much about it, I saw the Dalai Lama amble up a driveway toward the line. He was grinning slightly, pressing his palms together in front of his chest in greeting. The visitors bowed slightly and expectantly, some wiping away tears. He walked slowly up the line, exchanging a few words with each one, clasping their hands between his, touching the packages of items that they had brought for him to bless. Before the Dalai Lama reached the end of the line, an aide signaled for me to enter his special reception room and wait for him there.

The room was simple and comfortable. A green Tibetan carpet covered much of the floor, and eleven thangkas, large embroidered religious scroll paintings depicting images of Buddha or other deities, hung from the walls. Two couches and four easy chairs in beige upholstery filled the room. A few other simple chairs were set against a wall. Fresh yellow flowers in modest vases graced several windowsills. An aide signaled for me to sit on the couch, indicating that the Dalai Lama would occupy a chair next to one end. I stood to await him. Three of the Dalai Lama's top aides entered first, including two personal secretaries and a Mandarin-speaking expert on Tibetan affairs. Then he entered smiling, squeezed my outstretched hands briefly, and sat. He wore his trademark crimson robe, with a mustard-colored tunic showing at the shoulder. Even his socks were crimson, and on his feet were lace-up brown leather shoes, which he did not remove. His left wrist bore a loose-fitting watch with a metal band. He wore the watch so that the dial rested on the part of the inner wrist where nurses often check one's pulse. Although he had been briefed already, I explained that I was an American journalist finishing a lengthy tour in China and writing a book on Tibet.

"I hope you're not brainwashed!" he blurted out, laughing heartily and clapping his hands together.³

The Dalai Lama spoke in conversational English, occasionally omitting a needed verb or mangling syntax and switching into Tibetan, looking to an aide for a colloquial translation. He turned attentive, asking when the book would be published and suggesting that a Chinese version would be useful. "The Chinese people have the common sense. So if they've got true information, then they will use common sense. But some of their leaders, hard-liners, one part of the brain where common sense develops is missing." Again, he laughed with gusto.

I told him of the travels I had undertaken in Tibetan areas, and we entered a discussion about the dramatic civil unrest that erupted across much of the Tibetan Plateau in March 2008. The unrest was intense and widespread, marking the greatest challenge by Tibetans to Chinese rule since the Dalai Lama had fled into exile nearly a half century earlier. The protests began peacefully, but in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, rock-throwing mobs upended and torched cars, set bonfires, and left city streets in smoldering rubble, shocking many Chinese with the intensity of their anger. Following the Lhasa rioting, largely peaceful demonstrations broke out in more than a hundred other locations over subsequent weeks. Beijing immediately barred foreigners from entering Tibet, and tens of thousands of security forces poured onto the Plateau.

Curiously, a majority of the protests occurred a great distance from Lhasa, at the far reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, outside of what Beijing calls the Tibet Autonomous Region, unfolding in ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces. I asked the Dalai Lama why those areas had shown such restiveness. He whispered something in Tibetan to one of the three aides in the room, and a map was quickly brought to a table. He then offered several explanations. Regional Communist Party officials in central Tibet exert "very, very tight control," he said. He paraphrased the Han Chinese party boss who was in charge of the Tibet Autonomous Region at the time, Zhang Qingli, who reportedly said after the Lhasa riot that those Tibetans who needed to be executed would be executed, a pledge carried out over the next year or so.

The Dalai Lama pointed to the outlying areas of the Tibetan Plateau. "These are the real border areas with China for last seven hundred years. These people are toughened. Before 1950, this area was controlled neither by Tibetan government nor by Chinese government. Warlords [controlled it]," he said. "They were something like semi-independent." Living in chaotic border areas for centuries has made Tibetans there rugged and even belligerent. "In these areas," he said, pointing to a Tibetan area of modern southeastern Qinghai province, "there's a saying that if the men of the household don't go out and rob and steal, then they aren't real men." He chuckled. Party officials in outlying areas, he added, have a history of more lenient control, and Tibetans can communicate with each other about their grievances in less fear. So after the initial spasm of violence in Lhasa, word spread more quickly in outlying areas, and they rose up peacefully.

I asked him about who would lead the struggle to protect Tibet culture and Buddhism once he passes from the scene. The Dalai Lama quickly began citing a number of young lamas. At the top of his list was the Karmapa, the twenty-something leader of one of four main streams or lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the Karma Kagyu school. Handsome and charismatic, the Karmapa fled to India in late 1999 and has become very popular among Tibetan exiles. The Dalai Lama named others. "Many of these lamas have great potential," he said. Some remain working quietly in Tibet, fluent in Chinese and Tibetan, familiar with social conditions on the Plateau, and waiting for the right moment to seek exile or disposed to remain under watchful party eyes. He didn't immediately touch on a central question—his own reincarnation—a matter that deeply unsettles Tibetans these days and could have ramifications for the future of China.

The Dalai Lama was born in mid-1935, and the day when he may slip off to what Tibetans call the "heavenly fields" may not be so far off. Tibetans universally hope that religious tradition will follow its course and senior lamas using omens, oracles, and other hints will identify a young lad as his reincarnation, eventually installing him as the Fifteenth Dalai Lama. Many Buddhists believe that sentient beings endlessly cycle to new births. Tibetan Buddhists uniquely believe that a tulku, or reincarnation of a great Buddhist master, can channel his mind stream (similar to spirit) to a new life, a young boy who will share his enlightenment. Generally, an aged Dalai Lama leaves some sign or hint, perhaps contained in a poem, about where to hunt for his reincarnation. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama has said it is up to Tibetans themselves if they think the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue. The reincarnation would come outside of China, where freedom is greater, he has said, and could even occur in a mystical process known as madey tulku, in which his successor is reborn while he is still alive, giving himself an opportunity to train the boy.