The Open Road

by Iyer, Pico

  I sometimes feel, in fact, that the very high air, intensity, and magic of Tibet have a transformative effect on many of those who visit it even on the page (or in the mind). I have tried in this book to be a general reader speaking to other general readers, and bringing little more than the curiosity and interest of a journalist who has never practiced Buddhism and knows little about it but is intrigued to see how it might expand the thinking of anyone, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. For those who wish to turn to books of real authority and wisdom on the subject, though, I would like to salute, and to direct readers toward, some of the works that have most deeply instructed me and brightened my life.

  In relation to the life and lives of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the place to start is surely his second autobiography, Freedom in Exile, a vivid and characteristic blend of human reminiscence and sharp-eyed philosophy and politics, and In Exile from the Land of Snows by John Avedon, which, after twenty-five years, remains unsurpassed in its account of both Tibetan culture and its recent history. At a time when not many people had even heard of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama or were concerned about Tibet, Avedon gave himself so fully to these worlds that he discovered more, perhaps, than anyone had a chance to do thereafter.

  Martin Scorsese’s film Kundun offers a mesmerizing evocation of the Dalai Lama’s years in Tibet (closely monitored by the man himself) and a searching view of how to hold to something worthwhile in the middle of the world’s challenges and confusions. Other warm and humane perspectives are offered by the Dalai Lama’s mother, Diki Tsering, in her book Dalai Lama, My Son; by his eldest brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, in the book he cowrote with Heinrich Harrer, Tibet Is My Country; and by his younger sister, Jetsun Pema, in Tibet: My Story. The Dalai Lama’s first autobiography, written in 1962, My Land and My People, offers an invaluable look at how he thought and saw his life soon after he came into exile, and Michael Goodman’s The Last Dalai Lama, though less reliable in terms of details and nuances than much that has come out since, remains a vibrant and thoughtful account that feels right in both tone and proportions.

  For a fine and sympathetic description of the whole of the Dalai Lama’s family and the continuing and spirited debates between its members, Mary Craig’s Kundun is hard to beat.

  When I am trying to get a general, nontechnical feel for what the Dalai Lama is striving to share with the wider world, the first books of his I turn to are Ethics for the New Millennium and The Universe in a Single Atom, which, respectively, show clearly and fully the moral vision he is trying to take around the world and the scientific explorations that most excite him. He devoted a great deal of time and attention to both works, and it seems safe to assume that both offer a highly accurate record of what he really wishes to communicate. An early collection of his, Kindness, Clarity, and Insight, compiled after his first travels to the United States, remains invaluable, and among the many remarkable books that have arisen out of particular teachings, the ones I have heard those close to the Dalai Lama most recommend include The Four Noble Truths (a general introduction to Buddhism), The Good Heart (in which the Dalai Lama addresses Christians on the Gospels), and Destructive Emotions (recording a seminal Mind and Life Institute meeting in which scientists and philosophers came together to see what reflexes and impulses tear us apart).

  Other books that have helped me understand both Tibetan Buddhism and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s particular vision of transformation include Robert Thurman’s characteristically inspiring Inner Revolution and Matthieu Ricard’s Happiness, a clear and serene handbook to thinking differently about your life and embarking on the business of transformation, which offers some of the spaciousness of its author’s retreat in the Himalayas. Howard C. Cutler’s The Art of Happiness is rightly renowned for giving the Dalai Lama a chance to address specific case studies brought to him by a Western psychiatrist, and Victor Chan’s The Wisdom of Forgiveness gives us an intimate and completely convincing view of the man by whom so much of the world is fascinated.

  As a glimpse into the Dalai Lama’s day-to-day life—and, more mysteriously, into the person who moves through it—Manuel Bauer’s book of documentary photographs, A Journey for Peace, is impossible to better.

  The history of Tibet is a field that has drawn more and more arresting minds to it in recent years, to supplement some of the formative early work of scholars such as Giuseppe Tucci, Hugh Richardson, and David Snellgrove. Tsering Shakya’s The Dragon in the Land of Snows is an extremely solid and balanced account of Tibet’s history since 1947; Melvyn C. Goldstein’s The Snow Lion and the Dragon is both unsentimental and rigorous; Donald S. Lopez Jr.’s Prisoners of Shangri-La is a questioning look at the myths that surround Tibet, by a scholar who has long shown himself to be deeply sympathetic to Tibetans.

  Some of the classic old books to read on Tibet before the Chinese occupation are Sir Charles Bell’s work on the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and his country; Peter Hopkirk’s entertaining popular history of early Tibetan exploration, Trespassers on the Roof of the World; Alexandra David-Neel’s richly colored accounts of her trips; and, of course, Heinrich Harrer’s immortal Seven Years in Tibet. Scott Berry’s A Stranger in Tibet, on the eccentric Zen monk Ekai Kawaguchi and his early ramblings around the country, has long been a personal favorite of mine, and in the early years of this century two excellent books have helped us to see and feel what Tibet is really like under Chinese rule: Patrick French’s agonized but deeply scrupulous Tibet, Tibet and Robert Barnett’s careful and fair-minded Lhasa: Streets with Memories. I have enjoyed, too, reading about modern Tibet as it strikes such contemporary Chinese visitors as Ma Jian, in Red Dust, and Xinran Xue, in Sky Burial (as well as such early visitors as F. Spencer Chapman, Peter Fleming, and Lowell Thomas Jr.).

  Isabel Hilton’s The Search for the Panchen Lama remains the definitive work on the sudden death of the Tenth Panchen Lama and the tangled search for his successor, and Mick Brown’s Dance of 17 Lives provides a vivid and engaging look at the Karmapa legacy and its present complications. Thomas Laird’s 2006 book, A Story of Tibet, in which the author gets the Dalai Lama to travel through the whole of Tibetan history from his perspective, already seems to me one of the essential and irreplaceable books in the field, and allows one to hear and feel the Dalai Lama’s particular voice with unique immediacy.

  For an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, I am grateful to many books, perhaps the most detailed and scholarly of which is Thupten Jinpa Langri’s Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy. Karen Armstrong’s Buddha is a no-nonsense small biography of Gautama himself, as seen by a onetime nun and scholar of many religions, while Pankaj Mishra’s An End to Suffering is a more probing and wandering look at his life and influence today by a thoughtful traveler. Huston Smith’s work on Buddhism is as lucid and inspired as his work on every other major religious tradition.

  Some of the most spirited works I’ve read on Buddhism in the West include The Buddha from Brooklyn, by Martha Sherrill, Dragon Thunder, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian, Shoes Outside the Door, by Michael Downing, and Crooked Cucumber, by David Chadwick. Rick Fields told the story of Buddhism coming to the West superbly in How the Swans Came to the Lake, Jeffery Paine retold it entertainingly in Reenchantment, and the works of Stephen Batchelor, Steve Hagen, Mark Epstein, and many others have brought complicated practices and ideas wonderfully into my reach.

  Two of the most stirring and radiant works on the Buddhist path I have ever read—and reread and reread, at least five times each over the last twenty years—are Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, about his discovery of Buddhism and reality in the high Himalayas, and Andrew Harvey’s A Journey in Ladakh, about his encounter with Tibetan Buddhism and some charismatic souls in northern India.

  It should be obvious from the pages that precede this that one of the main things I have attempted in this book is to bring the Dalai Lama out of Tibet and Buddhism and into the larger community of ideas and thinkers, to show how much and how often
his interests chime with those of other traditions and explorers. I have tried, for that reason, to include quite a bit of the warm and inimitable voice of Desmond Tutu in this book, as well as the ideas of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s good friend and colleague Václav Havel; I also wanted to see how the Dalai Lama’s words and ideas could be explained and reflected back to us in different forms by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, by the Dalai Lama’s younger brother, Ngari Rinpoche, and by the Buddha himself.

  Over the years I was pursuing all these themes, I constantly read and returned to such writers as Graham Greene, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Merton, Leonard Cohen, Aldous Huxley, Emily Dickinson, William James, Stephen Mitchell, Somerset Maugham, Robert Stone, Annie Dillard, Etty Hillesum, and many others to try to give a larger framework for the essential—and highly universal—ideas being advanced by the Dalai Lama; and in 2005–06 I flew all over the world, while following the Dalai Lama, to see U2 give concerts in New Jersey, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. In his constant work and interviews, Bono, U2’s lead singer, has seemed to be laboring sincerely and tirelessly on behalf of many of the same principles that the Dalai Lama elucidates so richly, especially a sense of global community, of social justice, and of responsibility toward the poor everywhere, lit up by an infectious and alert challenging of his own assumptions (and his tendencies toward self-righteousness). Listening to the soaring anthems of U2—and seeing how thoughtfully the group advances the evergreen problems of living a life of conscience and spirit in the world—lifted my heart, sent me spinning across the room, and helped me clarify my ideas about a man who stands, I think, in a network of others, from Gandhi and King to unknown inspirations in the future, for possibilities that lie outside Tibet, beyond Buddhism, and further than the purview of any single life.

  IN GRATITUDE

  It must be evident that my first debt of thanks in writing a book like this belongs with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who not only gave me much of his precious time over many years, allowed me to travel with him, even said (characteristically) that “it would be a privilege to help with any information,” but who also—more importantly, and typically again—always gave me the sense that he didn’t want a flattering or needlessly sympathetic account of him and his life (even though he did cherish precision, fairness, and a sense of responsibility). It’s rare to meet someone, especially someone in so delicate a political position and so much in the public eye, who so clearly likes to be challenged, questioned, even proven wrong. And it’s still rarer—and maybe this is part of the reason I wrote this book—to meet someone who holds to such high standards of rigor and analytical clarity and scientific impartiality, while also remaining such a warm and vibrant model of humanity and kindness.

  In the same light and spirit, I am deeply grateful to the members of the Dalai Lama’s family who gave me their time—and always their hospitality—such as his younger sister, Jetsun Pema, and many in the family circle. It will be evident to any reader of this book how much I owe his younger brother, Tendzin Choegyal—alias Ngari Rinpoche—who was always ready to answer any question, to invite me to his terrace for long talks, to tease me about my hair (or lack of it), everywhere from California to India, for several decades. Mr. Choegyal was always hardest on me (true to his brother’s teaching) when he thought I was giving institutional Tibet—or himself—too easy a time and not being strict enough in my challenges of them.

  It has been a huge delight and privilege, for more than a quarter of a century now, to work with those in the Dalai Lama’s private office, who themselves have taught me so much about patience, kindness, and consideration, starting with the irreplaceable Tenzin Geyche Tethong. There are few jobs I can think of more difficult than trying to allocate the time of one of the most sought-after people on the planet and, more than that, working with someone who always speaks for the highest standards of openness and candor. Tenzin Geyche-la has somehow done all this, on many continents, for more than forty years, and in the process become something of a miraculous presence in my life; whatever was happening, and whatever request I threw at him, there was his steady, kind, and imperturbable voice at the other end, trying to see what he could do to make everyone happy. Anyone who has watched the Fourteenth Dalai Lama working with his longtime secretary and translator has seen what often feels like two expert musicians in perfect sync, each reading the other’s cues or taking over an original melody from the other, and both knowing the other so well they seem to read each other’s mind. Those of us who talk to the Dalai Lama often feel we learn something about wisdom and clarity from the people at his side.

  In this context, I have been thrilled, over the past decade or so, to get to know and work with Tenzin Taklha, as elegant and sweet a presence as I have met on my travels, and someone who manages, as private secretary, somehow to be both a consummate professional and an always human, smiling face and protector; and in recent years Chhime Choekyapa has become a perfect colleague, brisk, friendly, and always ready to cut through red tape to get to the essential. Thubten Samphel, in the Department of Information and International Relations, has been a kind and loyal friend for years, tirelessly answering my every question with great efficiency and accuracy, and many others in the Tibetan world, from the Office of Tibet in New York to the entire staff of Tibet House in Tokyo, have touched me deeply by constantly asking how they could help, what I might need, what solutions they could come up with. Tempa Tsering, Geshe Thupten Jinpa Langri, Geshe Lhakdor, Geshe Dorji Damdul, Kusho Paljor-la, and too many others to name have helped round out both my understanding of Tibet and a sense of warm community, for me and many others.

  One of my very first Tibetan friends and contacts, whose company I still treasure, was Tenzin N. Tethong, then the representative of the Dalai Lama in New York and later head of the government in exile’s Cabinet. The current prime minister, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, was also kind enough to talk to me during a busy time in his schedule.

  Beyond all the official contacts, the entire family of Tibet in exile has taken me in, as it has thousands of others, teaching us in a living way what the Dalai Lama means in speaking of the globe as a large “human family.” Rinchen Khando Choegyal and her family, Kelsang Chukie Tethong, Tsering Drolkar Taklha, and so many others have somehow made us feel that it is their joy to look after us, and asked for nothing in return.

  In Dharamsala, the extraordinary staff of Chonor House, beginning with its manager, Dechen Maja, and its longtime receptionist (now our good friend) Dawa Dolma, have made Hiroko and me want to spend all our springs there, for months at a time, imagining ourselves in old Tibet; and down the road, Ashwini Bhatia and Angus and Zos and their staff (especially Lobsang) have transformed our lives, thanks to the Moonpeak Café. Lhasang Tsering, with his wonderful Bookworm shop, was always extraordinarily generous and forthright in sharing with me—and all foreigners—his powerful and eloquent opposition to his government’s positions, and Lung Ta restaurant became another home away from home. Jagmohan Gupta, at Ways and Means Tours, always found a way to get us to Dharamsala (as did the great and legendary office manager of Time’s New Delhi bureau, Deepak Puri, who seems to hold up much of the Time-Life empire and, I sometimes suspect, most of India single-handedly); and such new friends around the Norbulingka Institute as Dolmakyap Zorgey, Kim Yeshi, Jeremy and Pippa Russell, and Thubten Tsewang have always opened their elegant doors to us. The calm and unshakable miracle workers who run the Awasthi Cyber-Café, the staffs at Pema Thang Guest-House, Kashmir Cottage, the Namgyal Café, Khana Nirvana restaurant, the Current Event, and Ashoka restaurant, as well as many other favorite haunts, surely know how much they are loved and appreciated around the world.

  One of the magical things about being around the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans is that they have become a focal point and a meeting point for some of the most interesting souls I have met, and a great global community has begun to form around those interested in their ideas, which has made many of us feel
at home everywhere. I consider myself lucky to have met so many talented, committed, and selfless individuals through my contact with Tibet. Some of them—Robert Thurman, Richard Gere, Martin Scorsese, Melissa Mathison, Matthieu Ricard—have become quite well known; many others are less celebrated but no less inspiring. Every day, it seems, my in-box is filled with greetings and news from people I’ve met through Tibet, whether their names are Darlene Markovich or Sole da Silva or Yusuke Memoto or Vivian Kurz. I consider myself lucky to have got to spend time in Dharamsala with Brigitte Lacombe and her inimitable assistant Gustav Bruns, with Martine Franck and Steve Lehman and ageless Rosette Jein from Paris; and in the larger circle of those who work with the Dalai Lama, it has been great fun to get to know the superbly gifted and engaging Manuel Bauer and such good-natured and companionable colleagues as Howard Cutler, Victor Chan, and Rajiv Mehrotra.

  I owe heartfelt thanks to Justin Williams, met by chance in a Dharamsala restaurant one day, for teaching me, with great gentleness and unpretentiousness, what the meditative tradition in Tibetan Buddhism is all about, and to Huston Smith, for sharing with me his experiences of talking to the Dalai Lama over a period of forty years. In my own hometown, I had the good fortune to meet José Cabezon, holder of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama chair in Tibetan Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara; José was strikingly generous in offering the fruits of his scholarship and his experience to a stranger. Keido Fukushima-roshi, in Kyoto, has offered me a cherished glimpse into the Zen tradition (as well as a lifelong partner). And Leonard Cohen, over many years, has given me a radiantly calm, eloquent, and gracious vision of what Buddhist discipline, humility, and attention are all about (in life and on the page).