Born in Tibet

by Marco Pallis

  The situation was now becoming very serious for the Tibetans; nearly all those living in monasteries or towns, particularly the ablebodied, were made prisoners. The Communists now in command were completely ruthless; the whole order of behavior was changed. Those who had been established in the administration before the invasion and had had friendly relations with the Tibetans, now had no control.

  The Communist army was arriving in thousands and using automatic weapons hitherto unknown in Tibet. From their headquarters in Jyekundo and Nangchen they were sending their troops in all directions capturing the inhabitants and destroying the monasteries and the homes of the peasants. Some of the Resistance took shelter in Namgyal Tse Monastery. It was attacked by Communist troops from Nangchen and the fight went on for nearly two days, leaving most of the Tibetans dead in the monastery, as well as several hundred Communist soldiers. The whole place was looted, and the buildings destroyed. Dorlha, who had formerly been senior in the Jyekundo administration, was in command of the insurgent party; he fought with extreme bravery and then managed to escape. A few monks were able to get away and some of them discarded their robes and joined the Resistance, others were killed and the majority captured. Garwang Rinpoche, the abbot of Namgyal Tse, had disappeared after attending the meeting at Jyekundo.

  By now there was not a single monastery left to carry out its religious functions, between Dütsi Tel and China. All the districts were full of the wounded and the dying. Chinese troops were everywhere, while the people who had escaped were now starving. Women and children left in the villages were in no better plight. Many mishaps befell those who tried to escape; there were diseases and accidents, small children fell from their horses, and everywhere there was shortage of food.

  As for Dütsi Tel it did not escape the common fate. It was attacked from the north: Chinese troops broke into the library and threw out all the valuable books, tearing off their covers; the good Tibetan paper was either just strewn around or else was given as fodder to their horses. Those treasures of the shrines which were made of precious metals, such as images and lamps, were broken up and the metal was sent off to China. The precious painted scrolls were taken down and used as trays on which to serve the soldiers’ meals of meat and rice. Everything of value in the monastery was removed; they even broke into the tomb of the tenth Trungpa Tulku and left the embalmed body exposed.

  Those monks who were able to escape had no other alternative but to abandon their monastery without attempting resistance. The elderly lama who directed meditation at the retreat center was, however, taken prisoner with some ten other monks. They were confined in the gönkhang, the temple of the tutelary deities. This was the oldest part of Dütsi Tel and dated from the sixteenth century, since when it had always been used for special spiritual activities. It was half chapel, half dwelling house. The elderly lama told his fellow prisoners, “Since this building has been set aside for meditation, it should still be so used, and this experience should make us realize its true purpose. We must accept that what has happened is all part of our training in life. Indeed, this is our opportunity to understand the nature of the world and to attain a deeper level. Though we are shut up here as prisoners, our devotions should be the same as if we were freely gathered together in the assembly hall.” He went on in this way, and gradually, as this deeper spiritual teaching was put before them, his companions recovered their calm.

  The prisoners were scantily fed on a small daily portion of roasted barley (tsampa) and given hot water to drink. The younger monks who had been captured were sent out to remote valleys under an armed Chinese guard who also wore Tibetan clothes; they had to search for Tibetans in hiding and tell them that they must return to their villages. Everyone was questioned about me, but the monks themselves did not know where I might be found.

  The building itself was left intact, being used together with the surrounding houses as an army base. From there the Chinese attacked all the neighboring monasteries and villages, bringing their prisoners back to Dütsi Tel. The fort which had been there in the time of Adro Shelu-bum and had become part of the monastery, was now used once more as a watchtower.

  The Chinese army stayed at Dütsi Tel for about a month. They had intended to make it a permanent center, but on receiving orders from army headquarters they evacuated the place, carrying away everything which might be of value to themselves; the prisoners they took with them. The cattle in the district had all been rounded up and sent to Jyekundo Airport which was in a flat valley, a few miles from the town. The journey was a cruel one for the prisoners, as their captors were ordered not to delay, so they traveled night and day, with the Tibetans on foot and the Chinese on horseback. When they reached Jyekundo, the women were sent to the airport to look after the cattle; their children were taken from them and placed in communal nurseries under strangers. All able-bodied men and a few women were put on forced labor for road making and those who were too old to work were sent to concentration camps, together with those senior people who had not been shot.

  Before the armies left the district, the Communists had entered the houses of the better-class Tibetans and ransacked them; they had taken the clothes of the masters and made the servants wear them, and the masters had been forced to put on the servants’ clothes.

  The country was full of informers: The newly arrived Communist army made use of everyone who could help them, such as Chinese officials previously established in the district and Tibetan youths who had been recruited into their army when they first invaded Tibet; a number of these boys deserted to the Resistance, but those who remained with the Communists became useful as guides.

  My secretary gave me news about what had happened in the wild and sparsely inhabited country northwest of Jyekundo. The whole area, known as Changthang, is a vast plateau and exceedingly cold. Knowing that the Communists were advancing from the northeast, the people of these high regions escaped to the northwest and lived in large camps. The Chinese now sent troops to attack them, having sighted their camps from their airplanes.

  When the inhabitants left their villages, they had taken most of their cattle and personal possessions with them and this had made their camps very conspicuous targets for the Communist planes. Near the Lake of Heaven (Tengri Nor) there was a terrible fight; the refugees had camped beside this long lake which has a rocky mountain on one side; women and children were put behind these rocks for greater safety. The Communists attacked from three sides and the fighting went on for two days at the odds of 150 Tibetans against a thousand Communist troops. Though the situation was desperate the Tibetan men fought with such bravery that, despite many casualties, the women and children were saved.

  All these things had happened while I was at Yak, but no one had been able to communicate with me at the time.

  The bursar also told me that my mother and my two sisters had gone to visit my young brother, the abbot of Kyere, before the serious outbreak of hostilities and had stayed on there when conditions became dangerous. My mother sent me a message saying that she was relieved to think that I was in a safer place; I must not worry about her; if I had to leave the country she would be content for she thought only of my safety.

  The refugees from the area around Surmang had been alloted camping sites and grazing for their cattle by the people living near Kyere; they still thought they would be able to return to their homes and our monks also expected to go back to Dütsi Tel; all thought that the Communists’ threat to return would not be carried out. My bursar said he had done his best to encourage this belief. He had gone to Dütsi Tel himself with a few monks and found all the buildings intact, so he had arranged with some poor herdsmen still living in the neighborhood to take charge of them. At the monastery he had seen the desecrated tomb of the tenth Trungpa Tulku with the body exposed and on his return to Kyere had sent a party of monks to cremate it.

  As soon as he got back to Kyere he had called a meeting of our monks; all agreed that they should return to their monastery and had wri
tten the letter which Bursar Tsethar had brought with him. It said they hoped to resettle at Dütsi Tel and begged me to return to them; they asked me to think over the matter carefully, for if, during the life of the eleventh Trungpa Tulku, both monasteries ceased to function it would be a disaster. I asked the bursar how he had been able to travel the country in its present disturbed state; he replied that he had been aware of the danger and moved cautiously. I then asked him if other communities intended to return to their monasteries; to this he answered that, as far as he knew, no one else had such an intention. I wanted to know what were the individual opinions of my monks in regard to myself and he said that they were quite satisfied with the action I had taken to avoid danger; in fact, I had relieved them of the great responsibility of taking care of me.

  It was difficult to reply to the letter, though it was obvious that decisions could not be long delayed; I used prasena again, which indicated that I should not go to Kyere and that I should even leave my present retreat fairly soon.

  My answer to the letter was as follows: “We should not think only of the survival of our monastery, nor of my own reputation. You must see that the whole country has been devastated. If we try to reestablish Dütsi Tel the Communists will inevitably return and the suffering will only be repeated; probably we shall all lose our lives. Where I am now, we are in the province of Central Tibet; unless a change for the worse takes place here, we are in a better position than at Surmang. My monks must consider the possibility of remaining where they are or of coming to this area; I think nothing would be more dangerous than to return to Surmang.”

  I read my letter to the bursar and added, “I agreed earlier to return to Surmang, but this was in the hopes of saving our monastery. Now, if I join you, we will certainly be a target for attack from the Communists and their persecution of our people will begin all over again. They will believe that I encouraged the Resistance; this will only lead to further bloodshed. I think there is little hope of reestablishing our monastery, but I will not attempt to escape myself before I have received further information from our monks at Kyere.”

  The bursar had little to say in reply; incurably sanguine, he clung to the belief that everything would end well. He was obsessed with the calamity which had overtaken Surmang and failed to recognize the fact that the disaster was one involving the whole country. Though my companions were in favor of my leaving the district immediately, we decided that I should stay on where I was until an answer came back from Kyere. As for Tsethar, he went to Drölma Lhakhang with the monk in charge of the horses to make arrangements about our animals which were being cared for in the neighborhood; he now wanted to exchange them for money and portable articles.

  The weather was now improving and the valley where we were hiding was bursting into spring. Akong Tulku and I, sometimes accompanied by Jigme Rinpoche and his brother, used to take long walks along tracks that animals had made through the willow and juniper scrub. There was so much to see; birds, including the white goose, and many animals such as musk deer, brown bears, Tibetan pandas, and foxes were to be seen. To hear a fox barking is considered to be a bad omen in Tibet; one full-moon night after the New Year we heard one followed by the cries of jackals; the sound echoed from rock to rock and was frightening in the silence and loneliness of the valley.

  The next day a messenger came to tell Jigme Rinpoche that his sister was dying; he and his brother left at once, saying that if his sister recovered he would return. A few days later he sent to tell us that his sister had died; her body had been cremated, but he would very much like me to perform the funeral rites. He said that on his return to his family’s house he had realized how very cold we were in the Valley of Mystery and, since his house was a large one, he could hide me there without difficulty. He would let others know that he himself was engaged in special devotions and must remain in retreat, so no one would know that I was there. I was of course to travel by night; he also asked Akong to come with me. My attendant monk was delighted at this invitation, though he admitted he had made much progress in meditation in the solitude of the valley. I myself felt no inclination to go; we had grown fond of the place. I had been able to work a good deal, but had not finished a book I was writing on meditation, showing its gradual development up to the final fruition.

  Jigme Rinpoche had been so exceedingly kind to us that I thought we must accept his invitation for a short time; we knew that his sister had been a nun and a very saintly woman. We asked the young monk who had come with us to the valley to look after our things; the landowner had sent an old nun to attend to the yaks, so he would not be left entirely alone. As we started on our journey, I had a presentiment that we would not return to the valley that had sheltered us so well.

  The snow on the pass was very deep and I had to walk behind my horse, holding on to its tail to pull me up the slope. On reaching the summit, we ran into a blizzard; the prayer flag on the cairn was all but torn away by the wind and only just showed above the deep snow. It was even more difficult going down the other side of the pass. I had to walk in front of my horse, holding on to the reins; the horse, being steadier than myself, was able to act as a brake in case I slipped. We traveled all through the day and reached the landowner’s house toward evening; there we waited till it was quite dark. He himself wanted me to return at once to the shelter of the valley, for he thought there could be no safer hiding place from the Chinese. The night became colder and colder; it was pitch dark, but our guide knew the way and, hurrying along, we reached Jigme Rinpoche’s house before the dawn broke.

  The warmed rooms were welcome, though our frozen hands and feet tingled painfully; the contrast between our primitive life in the valley and the comfort of Jigme’s house could hardly have been greater. It was a very quiet place; since the funeral rites were in progress no visitors called; but from the windows we could see the constant stream of Communist troops and lorries going along the road on the other side of the river.

  This sudden change in our surroundings did not seem to suit my health, and after we had performed our devotions for a week, Akong Tulku’s bursar arrived; he consulted with Jigme Rinpoche and they decided that, since I was not well, it would be unwise for me to undertake the strenuous return journey to the Valley of Mystery. They thought that there were equally good hiding places within easier reach. In fact, there was a cave I had long wanted to visit, so I asked them if they thought it would be suitable as a hiding place; to this proposal they agreed and said they would make the necessary arrangements.

  Akong Rinpoche went home to his monastery and I left with my attendant for the cave, starting off at midnight; our guide was an elderly nun from one of the Drölma Lhakhang nunneries. As we could not reach the place before daybreak we rested on the way in another large cave on the south side of Mount Kulha Ngang Ya. The road ran beside the mountain, but the cave was so high up that we had to climb beyond a moraine to get to it. It had two divisions, an upper and a lower, we put our horses in the lower one. We were not able to light fires for fear that they would give away our position, but we had plenty of dried meat and cheese with us, and our saddle rugs were useful for bedding. As soon as it became dark we resumed our journey; there were villages on the way and we passed by one of the local nunneries. Akong Tulku had arranged for some of his monks to get our cave ready, and when we reached it we found a fire already lit and food and bedding laid out.

  The cave of my choice had been discovered by Lama Möntruk; his story is remarkable. He was born in the late nineteenth century in an area on the borders of Assam where the people believe in nature spirits, which they propitiate by animal sacrifices. This had distressed Möntruk from his early childhood and while still young he decided to leave his home. He pretended to be going on a hunting expedition and walked toward the Tibetan border; on his way there he came to the retreats of several Tibetan hermits. They told him about Thöga, a lama of Drölma Lhakhang, who had founded the four nunneries in that district. All he heard from the hermits enc
ouraged him to seek out Thöga Rinpoche who became his guru.

  After three years training under this master he undertook a long retreat and, being accustomed to climbing, he searched the nearby mountains for a suitable cave. Mount Kulha Ngang Ya seemed a good situation so, using a pickax, he started to hollow out a cave in the rock. After a day’s work he had got through about a yard when he came to an opening into a natural cave with a hole in the roof that could serve as a chimney. A tunnel let to a second cavern, with a natural window looking out on a steep and inaccessible part of the mountain. Lama Möntruk remained there to meditate for the rest of his life.

  We found the cave wonderfully warm; for fuel, we burnt a plant called gongmo potho, which grows in strange woolly clusters between the rocks; the nuns gathered it for us. A mountain stream ran nearby. This was an ideal place for working on my book, as there were no interruptions and no great hardship from the cold; the only drawback was that I had nowhere to walk so that I lacked exercise. The nun remained with my attendant, to cook and look after me; the two lived and slept in the front cave which was also our kitchen. After a week, however, I found the constant ministrations of the good nun somewhat distracting; I wanted to be left alone to meditate. When she told me about another cave some three hours’ ride farther on, on Mount Kyo Rinchen Pungpa, which with its surrounding villages was owned by her family, I sent word to Akong Tulku to have my horses brought to me and we moved on again.