Born in Tibet

by Marco Pallis

  A messenger came from the army camp, which was about a quarter of a mile away, to tell us to go on to the camp where we would be looked after. When we reached it we were shown into the dak bungalow which was entirely built of bamboo and the walls were covered with basketwork. Everything was beautifully arranged with bathroom, etc., and a fully equipped kitchen. We were told that we must rest and were given rice and tinned food. We discovered that it was the adjutant of the Indian regiment stationed there who was personally looking after us; he spoke Tibetan fluently and asked for all our names. He understood that we had been abbots of important monasteries and told me that he had been privileged to meet many lamas who had come by this pass and that he himself was a Buddhist.

  January 19. In the morning the adjutant came with his senior officer. They made a list of everything that we had brought with us and asked particulars about the route that we had taken and at what date we had left our monasteries.

  January 20. The adjutant brought us temporary permits to show the Indian authorities at the airport. He explained that they had little food to spare at the camp as they were rather short themselves; but he gave us what he could and told me that we should always stay in the local dak bungalows. Before leaving he asked for my blessing.

  January 21. The road here was much better; and the bridges more strongly built with steel cables. On the way, we met an Indian official traveling on his district rounds, with no less than five porters to carry his baggage. He was very sympathetic about our having had to leave our own country and assured us that the Indian government would look after us, just as they were looking after the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees. His interpreter, the headman of the local village, looked very proud of himself in his uniform. This was the country of a primitive tribe who worship nature spirits and the whole atmosphere here seemed quite different from anything we had known before, with no obvious influences either from Tibet or the Indian side. There was much greater poverty in the villages and the dak bungalow where we stopped for the night was very small. There were, however, a few people here who had worked in India among Tibetans, and I asked them to teach me a few useful Hindi words.

  January 22. We reached the town of Tuting round about midday and were shown a bamboo shelter where we could stay the night. Due to the rainy weather, here too there was a shortage of food and we were told that if we could manage on our own small supplies it would be a good thing. In the town there was a large camp of different races, all engaged on building houses for the army and the government officials in the area. There were quite a number of shops and small restaurants, and we were able to buy a few necessities, changing our Tibetan coins into Indian currency.

  January 23. No one knew how we could get to India proper, for there was a waiting list for the few airplanes flying to and fro. However, we no longer felt anxious: We were free at last and were able to wander about the town at will. I was struck by the fact that people here were much gayer and more cheerful than in the Communist-controlled Tibetan towns. As we were having our midday meal, a messenger came to tell us to go down to the airport, as there was every possibility that we would get a lift that same evening. A tractor arrived with a trailer behind it, into which we all bundled. The winding road led through a valley and we came to the gate of the airport. It was built in decorative Tibetan style, surmounted by the ashoka emblem. We disembarked and waited. No one knew of any airplanes likely to arrive that day. The evening drew in and it was quite dark. A jeep came to take me to see the local district administrator; he gave me a bag of rice and a few vegetables and apologized that supplies were so scanty and the accommodation so limited. However, he was sure that the plane would come the next day. He asked me to leave my blessing in the place, that things should go well. I thanked him and presented him with a white scarf. We spent that night in the hut.

  January 24. In the morning an official came and read out a list of our names. He told us that we would be given priority on the next plane. It arrived that morning and, since it was a transport plane, its cargo of building material was first taken off and seats screwed in afterward. There was only room for six of us: myself, my own attendant, Yak Tulku and his attendant, Tsethar, and Yönten; the rest of the party followed in a second plane that same day.

  This, our first flight, was a strange new experience, skimming over cloud-covered mountains, seeing far below us the small villages and footpaths leading up to them; only by the moving shadow of the plane on the ground could we gauge how fast we were traveling.

  We thought about the teaching of impermanence; this was a complete severance of all that had been Tibet and we were traveling by mechanized transport. As the moments passed, the mountain range was left behind, and the view changed to the misty space of the Indian plains stretching out in front of us.

  Ugyen Tendzin had waited until he had taken the last fugitives across the Brahmaputra backwater; then he escaped himself. It had been easier for him to travel as a single man and he had followed the Brahmaputra all the way and reached India about a month later. Some of Repön’s party, including himself, succeeded in getting away from the Chinese camp and arrived in India some months later, where he is now.

  A few of the refugees from Drölma Lhakhang, after crossing the backwater, managed to escape capture and they also made their way to India.

  Lama Riwa’s party which had stayed at Rigong Kha and went on by the Yigong Valley were all captured by the Chinese, but escaped, reaching safety after a very difficult journey.

  Nothing has been heard of Karma Tendzin, the queen of Nangchen and her party, nor of Lama Ugyen’s group of monks who went to the pilgrimage valley.

  The banner of victory.

  Song of the Wanderer in Powo Valley1

  To the one greater than all the gods, beyond compare,

  O Padma Tri-me, remembering your deep kindnesses,

  Sad songs of love and irresistible devotion,

  Among the rocks and snows and lakes, well up in me.

  I see the snowy mountain reach to heaven

  Pagoda-like, the clouds are its necklaces;

  But when the red wind of evening scatters them,

  How sad to see its body naked and bare.

  This lake of liquid sky, the earth’s great ornament,

  The measure of the fullness of my mind—

  When fish and otter fight there for their lives,

  How many drops of blood are spread upon it.

  Mortal, yet once we enjoyed the masquerade;

  Now we see clearly all things perishing.

  The Powo Valley is a charnel ground,

  I, Chögyam, will leap and dance toward the east.

  The red-headed vulture on the graveyard tree,

  The crocodile who sleeps in the graveyard waters—

  How brave they are, devouring human corpses,

  Not knowing another preys on their own dead flesh.

  In this dark age, when nephew slaughters uncle,

  And neighbors all are barbarous enemies

  And everywhere the poison fog seeps irresistibly;

  I call time and again upon my Guru Father,

  And his face of kindness, real beyond alteration,

  Unborn, undying, rises from my heart.

  Out of all time, he utters the highest teaching,

  And I go forth to freedom, his only son.

  1. The Powo Valley is the name given to the whole surrounding district; Padma Tri-me is the personal name of my guru.

  Epilogue to the 1977 Edition

  PLANTING THE DHARMA IN THE WEST

  SEVENTEEN YEARS AFTER my departure from Tibet, I am writing this in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, where I am conducting the 1976 Vajradhatu Seminary for 130 advanced students, instructing them in meditation and the journey of the three yanas. Looking back, my thoughts are filled with appreciation for my teachers and tutors and the powerful world of Tibet. There is some sense of desolation, of aloneness, but I would not call it nostalgia. I have never felt nostalgic abou
t anything. What I feel now is a sense of maturity.

  My stay in India from 1959 to 1963 was filled with fascination and inquisitiveness. By contrast to the medieval world of Tibet, India was a very modern place. Here for the first time I had contact with Westerners, and I realized that it was absolutely necessary for me to study their language in order to spread the dharma. During this period I served as spiritual advisor to the Young Lamas Home School, a role to which I was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Forced from their homeland, many of my people seemed to have scattered their spirit and dignity; without the presence and activity of His Holiness’s Tibetan government-in-exile, things would have been much worse.

  While in India, I had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Nehru as well as President Radhakrishnan. Both were impressive men, philosopher-statesmen who combined, with no incongruity, spiritual quality and political ability. Outstanding among the many Westerners I met was Freda Bedi, now Sister Karma Kechog Palmo, who worked with the Central Social Welfare Board of the Indian government overseeing the Tibetan refugees. She extended herself to me as a sort of destined mother and savior. In Kalimpong I met John Driver, a man who impressed me both by his insight and brilliance as well as by his remarkable devotion to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He tutored me in English and definitely inspired me to go eventually to Europe to teach. At the same time, I realized there was much more to learn about Western culture. Through John Driver, Freda Bedi, and the Tibet Society of the United Kingdom, I received a Spalding sponsorship in 1963 to attend Oxford University, with Akong to accompany me. We sailed from Bombay to Tilbury aboard the P & O Line, an exciting journey made even more so by being completely surrounded by Westerners.

  My first impression of England was that it was very clean and orderly and, on the whole, very strange—unlike anything I had ever seen before. Arriving at Oxford was a moving experience. Coming from Tibet and India, one’s preconception of the West was of a stark modern realm, but it turned out to have its own dignified culture, which I began to appreciate while living and studying at Oxford. My stay there was quite good, apart from the air pollution, and I learned a great deal. Among other subjects, I studied comparative religion and philosophy; with John Driver’s help, the reading of Plato and other Western philosophers became fascinating, in spite of my difficulty in following some of the lectures. The fine arts in particular intrigued me. The manner in which recent Western art cut through all hesitations to freely express whatever strange things came out of one’s head was certainly different from the oriental tradition in art. Occasionally, I visited London and the museums.

  But there was also a sense of dissatisfaction. My ambition was to teach and spread the dharma. I was strongly encouraged by visits to Prinknash Monastery and Stanbrook Abbey, which demonstrated that the contemplative life could be carried out in the West. With the great help and inspiration of Esmé Cramer Roberts, the first edition of Born in Tibet was published in 1966. Nevertheless, there was as yet no situation in which I could begin to make a full and proper presentation of the teachings of Buddhism. This now began to change. Ananda Bodhi, senior incumbent of the English Sangha Vihara and founder of a Buddhist contemplative center in Scotland called Johnstone House, proposed turning the direction of the House over to myself and Akong. The Johnstone House trustees invited us up to conduct a retreat. At once the fresh air and beautiful rolling hills of Dumfriesshire invigorated me and filled me with joyous expectation. After a series of further visits, Johnstone House was finally turned over to us and we moved in, giving it the name of Samye Ling Meditation Centre. This was a forward step. Nevertheless, it was not entirely satisfying, for the scale of activity was small, and the people who did come to participate seemed to be slightly missing the point.

  In 1968 I was invited by the royal family of Bhutan to pay a visit—I had been providing tutoring in Buddhism to the young crown prince, Jigme Wangchuk, now the king of Bhutan, who was then studying at Ascot. Before reaching Bhutan, I stayed for a few days at the Central Hotel in Calcutta where I had the good fortune to meet Father Thomas Merton. He was in Calcutta attending some kind of collective religious conference, and he was appalled at the cheapness of the spiritual values that various of the conference participants were advocating. Father Merton himself was an open, unguarded, and deep person. During these few days, we spent much time together and grew to like one another immensely. He proposed that we should collaborate on a book bringing together sacred writings of the Catholic and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. Father Merton’s sudden death shortly thereafter was a tremendous loss, to me personally and to the world of genuine spirituality.

  Traveling on to Bhutan, I was warmly greeted by Her Majesty the Queen. Throughout my visit Her Majesty, who is now the Queen Mother, accorded me overwhelmingly kind hospitality. Also, the royal family had selected as their spiritual advisor Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, whom I now met again with a very full heart.

  Of tremendous significance to my future activity were the ten days of this visit which I spent in retreat at Tagtsang. Tagtsang is the place in Bhutan where, over a thousand years ago, Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) first manifested himself in the wrathful form of Dorje Trolö and subjugated evil forces before entering Tibet. Since I had never been to Central Tibet or seen the great holy places of Guru Rinpoche or of the Kagyü forefathers, this visit to Tagtsang was very moving for me. The place is spacious and awe-inspiring, and one can still feel the presence of Guru Rinpoche. During my retreat there I was able to reflect on my life and particularly on how to propagate the dharma in the West. I invoked Guru Rinpoche and the Kagyü forefathers to provide vision for the future. For a few days nothing happened. Then there came a jolting experience of the need to develop more openness and greater energy. At the same time there arose a feeling of deep devotion to Karma Pakshi, the second Karmapa, and to Guru Rinpoche. I realized that in fact these two were one in the unified tradition of mahamudra and ati. Filled with the vivid recognition of them and their oneness, I composed in two days the Sadhana of Mahamudra, of twenty-four pages. Its purpose was to bring together the two great traditions of the Vajrayana, as well as to exorcise the materialism which seemed to pervade spiritual disciplines in the modern world. The message that I had received from my supplication was that one must try to expose spiritual materialism and all its trappings, otherwise true spirituality could not develop. I began to realize that I would have to take daring steps in my life.

  Returning from Bhutan through India, I was delighted to meet again with His Holiness Karmapa and also His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I also made the acquaintance at this time of Mr. James George, the Canadian High Commissioner to India, and his wonderful family. Mr. George is a wise and benevolent man, an ideal statesman, who holds great respect and faith for the teachings of Buddhism.

  I returned to Samye Ling, reflecting on the experience of Tagtsang. One positive message which awaited me was the approval of my application for British citizenship. This I felt very good about, as a confirmation of my appreciation for English culture and, on my side, as a gesture toward working with the occidental world and its own valid traditions. I was proud to become a British subject and resident of Scotland, and I was in fact the first Tibetan ever to become Her Majesty’s British subject.

  Nevertheless, there remained some hesitation as to how to throw myself completely into proclaiming the dharma to the Western world, uprooting spiritual materialism and developing further compassion and affection. I went through several months of ambivalence, of feeling pushed forward and pulled back simultaneously, unable to respond clearly in spite of a series of small warnings. Then driving one day in Northumberland, I blacked out at the wheel of my car, ran off the road, and smashed through the front of a joke shop. I was brought to Newcastle General Hospital. In spite of the pain, my mind was very clear; there was a strong sense of communication—finally the real message had got through—and I felt a sense of relief and even humor. Twenty-four hours later, awakening suddenly, I found that
my left side was paralyzed.

  When plunging completely and genuinely into the teachings, one is not allowed to bring along one’s deceptions. I realized that I could no longer attempt to preserve any privacy for myself, any special identity or legitimacy. I should not hide behind the robes of a monk, creating an impression of inscrutability which, for me, turned out to be only an obstacle. With a sense of further involving myself with the sangha, I determined to give up my monastic vows. More than ever I felt myself given over to serving the cause of Buddhism.

  I decided at this time to marry a young lady of the Pybus family, a very devoted Buddhist who inspired me in my work. She, with her problems of departing from her culture to become a full-fledged Buddhist practitioner, and I, also desiring to transcend cultural boundaries, both felt it a good idea to be married and provide a united front in devoting ourselves to the cause of buddhadharma. Her name was Diana Judith, innocent and cheerful. We were married at the registrar’s office in Edinburgh, to the consternation of her mother and other family members. Her father had died a few years earlier, but apparently he had been an open-minded man who was intrigued with Buddhism and had given Diana a few hints about the existence of Buddhist wisdom before his death. (Recently Mrs. Pybus, Diana’s mother, moved to the United States and, meeting her for the first time, apart from a brief encounter before the marriage, I found that she is a magnificent woman of tremendous energy and insight. We now enjoy a close relationship, and her dignity and breadth of vision have enhanced my world.) After our marriage, Diana took my family name of Mukpo, which is the name of one of the six major tribes of Tibet. My family is descended from the famous Lord Mukpo, Gesar of Ling.