Born in Tibet

by Marco Pallis

  Being in the neighborhood, I took the opportunity to visit the king of Lhathok. I found that his ministers were anxious for the king’s young son to be enthroned in place of his father and they wished me to conduct the ceremony. At times, the reigning king’s state of mind rendered him incapable of carrying out the responsibilities of government, hence his wish to abdicate in favor of his son. His early life had been difficult; being the youngest of four brothers, he was brought up in a monastery as he was the incarnation of a lama. However, his three brothers all died young and in order to ensure the succession he had been taken from the monastery and married to his brother’s widow. This sudden change from the austerity of monastic training to the pleasures of the palace had upset his attitude toward life. This is an example of what often occurs in Tibet among incarnate lamas who have for any reason abandoned their vocation; some have died suddenly, while others seem to lose their purpose in life and become mentally deranged, or else their whole personality changes.

  The ceremony of the young king’s enthronement was largely secular, and as a spectacle it was very impressive. The participants wore strange traditional costumes which dated from the pre-Buddhist period.

  The young king’s grandfather had been a devoted disciple of the tenth Trungpa Tulku and was a very scholarly and spiritual man. He built several centers for meditation and teaching, but what made him especially famous in his day was the fact that he had collected the great library and installed a printing press. His three elder sons before their deaths had begun to build a nearby monastery for the Karma Kagyü school, which was still under construction when I was there.

  As I was about to leave Lhathok, I received an invitation from Khamtrül Rinpoche, the supreme abbot of Khampa Gar Monastery, near Lhathok. He was the head of the Drukpa Kagyü school, which had over two hundred monasteries in East Tibet. At the same time I was asked to visit Drölma Lhakhang and Yak monasteries, both in the southwest of Chamdo province. Messengers from these two places had been sent to Surmang, so there had been a delay in their reaching me. They arrived on a day when we were all in silent retreat, and this gave me a little time to consider what I should do. A system of divination called takpa is used in Tibet on such occasions. A rosary is held in the hand, and after meditation and the recitation of a mantra, the beads are divided at random. Under the power of a particular meditation and mantra, and according to the number and conjunction of the separated portions of the beads, a result is indicated. I followed this method, and it appeared that I should visit Drölma Lhakhang; I knew that in these difficult times they were in great need of religious instruction and I was anxious to see my old friends who so earnestly begged me to go to them. I sent a messenger to Surmang to tell them of my plans.

  I had intended to go back to Dütsi Tel to make preparations for my journey but the following day a messenger came to tell me that several Chinese officials had arrived at Surmang and wanted to count the entire number of the monks, for they disbelieved what we had told them. They were saying that I had purposely been hidden, and this was causing suspicion. The officials insisted that I should be brought to them. My secretary and all the monks felt that I must certainly return, as they did not want Surmang to be the cause of trouble in the area.

  It was evident that the Communists were about to impose further restrictions and to make increasing demands upon Surmang; the monks even suspected that they might intend to arrest me. I talked the matter over with my fellow monks who were in a state of panic and, though ready to offer suggestions, they would not commit themselves to any plan: The decision rested solely with me.

  Then another messenger arrived from Surmang to say that the Communists were no longer so insistent on my immediate return and that apparently they did not intend to organize their system of collective labor for another year. Nevertheless it was beginning to look as if the time might come for us to evacuate Surmang and take refuge in Central Tibet. Needing time to meditate before arriving at a decision, I went for a fortnight to a cave near Kyere with Genchung Lama, a disciple of the tenth Trungpa Tulku who came to Dütsi Tel to give teaching when I was seven years old. At night we slept in the cave, which was about ten yards deep and during the daytime we sat at the entrance where there was a small platform. At its edge, a precipice dropped sheer down to the valley. Between spells of meditating we talked together, looking out over the landscape, and in spite of many anxious forebodings this was for us both a time of strange happiness. We spoke about the thoughts that had come to us in our meditations and shared reminiscences of some of the events in our lives and of meeting our respective gurus. I had two rather disturbing dreams. In the first I was standing on a hill above Dütsi Tel which was hidden in a cloud of dark gray smoke except for the gilded serto on the roof. In the other I saw Communists in their military uniform performing a Buddhist rite in our main assembly hall. Nevertheless I decided that there would still be time for me to visit Drölma Lhakhang and return to my own monastery before it was too late. So I sent for the necessary transport and provisions for the proposed journey. Our acting bursar Yönten brought these a fortnight later, and he told me that the Communists had left Surmang, but that in the neighboring province of West Derge they had looted and destroyed many monasteries; he added that great numbers of refugees were passing our way.

  The secretary of Kyere wanted to come with us to Drölma Lhakhang, but I thought he should stay in charge of my young brother’s monastery, in case an escape should be necessary. We started out on an auspicious day. According to custom, the monks of Kyere escorted us for the first few miles, and among those who saw us off were many lay devotees; we all felt deeply moved. My little brother was particularly unhappy, though he tried to keep back his tears. The correct farewell ceremony is that the escort stand in a group, while their leader waves a white scarf in a circular movement and gives a long whistle running down the scale. He is followed by all the group doing the same. This means “Come back again.” The party that is leaving ride round in a circle in single file and repeat this three times.

  The reader will remember that before leaving Lhathok I had received an invitation from Khampa Gar Monastery as well as the one from Drölma Lhakhang. The former now lay on our route, and we were able to pay a short visit there. I was delighted to be with Khamtrül Rinpoche again, for we had met four years before at Khyentse Rinpoche’s monastery. I was given a warm welcome with musicians playing on the roof. The monastery had been founded in the thirteenth century and was a leading one with some three hundred monks. All the supreme abbots had been known as great scholars and teachers. One in particular had been a renowned poet and his commentaries on the art of poetry, known as khamdrel were studied in all Tibetan schools. The present incarnation (the eighth) is a scholar and an artist of the new Menri school. I found that he was building a large seminary, all the paintings, images, and decoration of which had been designed by himself. He was doing on a larger scale what I had done at Dütsi Tel and we had many interests in common. Both he and his father were known for the eccentric way in which they treated their subordinates. For instance when a hall was being built they gave no indication of what the next stage was going to be, so the builders never worked to any plan, but from moment to moment as directed. When starting on a journey they did not tell their party where they were going or how long it would take. Life was never dull in their company.

  Wishing to have some guidance on his future, Khamtrül Rinpoche wanted me to join in an advanced form of divination called prasena, which requires several days’ preparation, so we left his monastery together for a nearby retreat center where we pitched our tent in a circle of juniper and willow bushes. Khamtrül Rinpoche did not tell his monks why he was going into retreat, and they found this very strange. After devotional meditation, the prasena indicated that he should leave his monastery, but that his final destination should be India, not Central Tibet. It gave clear-cut directions about the length of time that he should stay in Tibet, the difficulties he would encounter,
and the ultimate date of his arrival in India. He wanted me to accompany him, but I felt it was essential for me to go to Drölma Lhakhang, where we were already expected.

  On resuming our journey we stopped at Jigme Rinpoche’s monastery, and he joined our party. He made arrangements for me and himself, with two attendants, to travel by mail lorry. The rest of the monks were to follow with the baggage. In the rear compartment of the lorry there were three Communist soldiers fully armed with rifles and a tommy gun; the driver also had a rifle. There had been spasmodic fighting with the Resistance on this road, so it was considered to be a danger zone. As we switchbacked on the very bad surface by hairpin bends over several mountain ranges both our luggage and ourselves were badly bumped about and my two attendants felt very sick. Each time we reached a crest the soldiers became very apprehensive about guerillas. On one mountain we passed a mail lorry which had broken down; its occupants had had to sleep in it and they told us of their terror when they had heard a gun in the night. Passing our fellow Tibetans on their horses we could not but think how much happier and more comfortable they were than ourselves.

  At Chamdo we stayed with a Tibetan official who was the senior member of the Communist district committee.

  It was a new experience for me to sleep in a modern Chinese house with electric light, but it was only switched on for about four hours each evening. The family treated our party most hospitably. The official was a Buddhist and there was a shrine room in his house. His children had just returned from China for their summer holidays. We had the impression that they had been told not to talk about their school life; they were obviously happy to be back and had immediately changed into their Tibetan clothes and wanted Tibetan food. We thought they might ignore us since we were monks, but they were particularly friendly, coming to chat with us and even asking us to bless them. The youngest boy seemed more ardently Tibetan than the others.

  The following day I walked round the town and looked at the new “people’s store.” Shopping was rather a complicated affair. First one asked if one could buy the required commodity and, if this was all right, one was given a ticket which had to be taken to another department to be stamped; finally this had to be taken to yet another department to pay the cashier who would hand over the goods. Armed soldiers were marching about the town and the Tibetans in the neighboring villages were very uneasy.

  After spending two nights at Chamdo we continued our journey in a jeep arranged for by our friend the Tibetan official. Three schoolboys on holiday from China came with us. They were more talkative than our host’s children and told us that they had not been happy. They had found the extremes of heat and cold very disagreeable, and life at school was not at all to their liking. As we passed some of the modern machinery which the Chinese had introduced into Tibet, these boys merely said how tired they were of such things, though our party was intensely interested to see them. We stopped our jeep at Gur Kyim, a town in the area of Tsawa Gang about eight miles from Drölma Lhakhang. Here the schoolboys got out and enthusiastically changed from their Chinese suits into Tibetan clothes. Jigme Rinpoche and I with my two attendants walked to the house of the head of the district who lived nearby. He had been ill for some time and did not appear, but his wife greeted us. She had expected a large party of monks on horseback and seeing only four of us on foot she immediately thought that there had been some disaster with the Communists and was relieved when we told her that the others were following more slowly on horseback with the baggage on mules. Since her husband’s illness she had taken over his work as head of the district and this gave her so much to attend to that she said she would be unable to come to receive further instruction from me, much as she would have liked to do so. So we said good-bye and were lent horses to take us to the monastery.

  It was the middle of summer and the country was looking at its best with every kind of flower in bloom, but on the day of our arrival it turned cold with rain and sleet storms. The monastery had prepared a grand ceremonial welcome which was carried out in spite of the weather. Akong Tulku led the procession holding incense sticks, followed by musicians and monks carrying banners, and a monk holding an umbrella walked behind my horse. On arrival I asked Akong Tulku to find two messengers who could be sent to Tsurphu Monastery near Lhasa, with letters to Gyalwa Karmapa, Jamgön Kongtrül of Sechen, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who were all there together. My letters gave news of the conditions prevailing in East Tibet and of my arrival at Drölma Lhakhang. I asked Gyalwa Karmapa to counsel me how I should act, whether we should continue to maintain Surmang, or escape to Central Tibet. I wanted to know what I must say should anyone ask me to advise them, either at Drölma Lhakhang or in any other part of East Tibet. I added, “Anything you tell me I shall treat in complete confidence; I need your guidance more than ever.”

  I expected it would be about three months before I could get any answers, though I told the messengers to make all possible haste.

  For the next ten days I gave talks and public and private instruction to both monks and laity and asked Akong Tulku and some of the lamas to continue the teaching after I had left. There were so many wanting to receive personal instruction that my monks had to keep order among them and arranged for them to queue up. At times the monks in charge lost patience, for which they had to be admonished. As for myself, I got no respite and even had to carry on with teaching while taking my meals.

  My bursar Tsethar now arrived at Drölma Lhakhang. He told me that the monks at Surmang were becoming anxious lest I might leave them and escape to Central Tibet. Although the Communists continued to threaten drastic changes, they had not actually carried them out and the monks had begun to take less notice of their menace. Since everyone hoped that Surmang would be able to carry on as before, they wished me to return as soon as possible, and this was also his own view. He also believed that he was responsible for what I should do. I told him that I had written to Gyalwa Karmapa asking for his advice; I personally felt that there was a very live menace from the Communists. We were continually receiving further news of the destruction of other monasteries in East Tibet and we should take this as a warning. In my talks at Drölma Lhakhang I had stressed the importance of preparing for great changes in Tibet, saying that we might be very near the time when our world, as we had known it, would come to an end. This disturbed the bursar, who continually tried to convince me that all would go on as before.

  While we were at Drölma Lhakhang, we received an invitation from the abbot of Yak Monastery, Yak Tulku, to visit that place and asking me to give the wangkur of the Treasury of the Mine of Precious Teaching (Rinchen Terdzö), the same that I had given at Drölma Lhakhang when I was fourteen years old. On my accepting, many abbots and lamas belonging to the different schools in the neighborhood assembled at Yak; including the Yak monks, some three hundred were prepared to attend the initiation rite. The preparations were soon made and we began the wangkur with Genchung Lama giving the preliminary authorization (the kalung).

  As I was expected back at Surmang my time was limited, so to hasten matters we began the wangkur at five in the morning and went on till late at night. To begin with it was hard work, but after a month I settled down to the routine, and when my attendants became overtired I arranged for them to work in shifts. Following this program we completed the wangkur in three months.

  During these months many devotees came to see me bringing gifts. My bursar became responsible for these and bartered many of them for horses, yaks, dris, and sheep so that when we returned to Surmang they could be used for the upkeep of the monastery. This distressed me; I felt that some of the gifts should be distributed among the needy and the rest should be converted into money. My bursar was obstinate; he thought my real intention might be to escape without informing Surmang, in which case money and portable possessions would be of greater use to me. Our relations did not improve.

  About a month after we had begun the wangkur we heard a rumor that a large party of refugees had arrived at
Gur Kyim, and the following day I received a confidential message from Khamtrül Rinpoche saying he wished to see me but did not want anyone else to know about it. It was however necessary for me to tell Yak Tulku, and through him this information, though supposed to be confidential, spread like wildfire, so that when I interrupted the wangkur to make a journey everyone knew where I was going.

  When I met Khamtrül Rinpoche he had discarded his monk’s robes, and together with his attendants was in ordinary Tibetan dress; and for the first time, I was aware of the effect on the personality of a man of no longer being clothed according to his vocation: It was only too clear that he was in disguise. He told me that he had had to leave his monastery under the pretense that he was going on a short pilgrimage; he had only informed his secretary and a few senior members of the monastic council of what he was about to do, so that the thirty monks who accompanied him knew nothing. They had already gone some distance when he told them that they had left their monastery for good. A renowned yogin called Chöle, who was the head of the retreat center of his monastery, was also in the party as well as two young tulkus in whom there were great hopes for the future; their parents had been left behind.

  Khamtrül Rinpoche again asked me to join him in using prasena to check whether he was taking the right course. The same answer came, namely that he must proceed without hesitation, but difficulties might arise when he crossed the frontier into India. However, if he followed the fixed timetable and did not depart from it, all would be well. Again and again he asked me to go with him, but this was impossible because of the work I had already undertaken. I told him about my own difficulties, to which he replied that I must not allow myself to be held back because of other people. We said good-bye, hoping to meet again in India. The indication that the prasena gave was proved to be right when, as he was about to leave Tibet, the Chinese tried to stop him; but in the end he was allowed to proceed with all his baggage. His was the only party from East Tibet which succeeded in taking baggage with them. He is now in India as a refugee.