Suppose you’re an angry Tibetan. You bash some heads in a protest. You want to take out your anger on the Han Chinese who you feel are doing better than you.
Then you ponder a bit about Tibetan Buddhism, which says that all of us will reincarnate. What happens if you come back as a loathed Han Chinese? Or vice versa. As a Han, you detest the Tibetans who destroy the stores of innocent Han in Lhasa. And what if you come back in the next birth as a Tibetan?
This comes to mind from reading part of a blog post by Tang Danhong, translated courtesy of China Digital Times. She’s a Han, a poet and filmmaker, who sympathizes with the Tibetan cause. Here’s part of what she wrote:
“For more than a decade, I have frequently entered Tibet and often stayed there for a long time, traveling or working. I have met all kinds of Tibetans, from youngsters on the streets, folk artists, herders on the grasslands, voodoo doctors in mountain villages, to ordinary cadres in state agencies, street vendors in Lhasa, monks and cleaners in monasteries, artists and writers. … Among those Tibetans I have met, some frankly told me that Tibet was a small country several decades ago, with its own government, religious leader, currency and military; some stay silent, with a sense of helplessness, and avoid talking with me, a Han Chinese, afraid this is an awkward subject. Some think that no matter what happened, it is an historical fact that Chinese and Tibetans had a long history of exchanges with each other, and the relationship must be carefully maintained by both sides. Some were angered by the railway project, and by those roads named “Beijing Road,” “Jiangsu Road,” “Sichuan-Tibet road,” but others accept them happily. Some say that you (Han Chinese) invest millions in Tibet but you also got what you wanted and even more; some say you invest in the development but you also destroy, and what you destroy is exactly what we treasure. ... What I want to say here is that no matter how different these people are, they have one thing in common: They have their own view of history, and a profound religious belief.
“For anyone who has been to Tibet, he/she should sense such a religious belief among Tibetans. As the matter of fact, many are shocked by it. Such attitude has carried on throughout their history, and is expressed in their daily lives. This is a very different value, especially compared with those Han Chinese who have no beliefs, and now worship the cult of money. This religious belief is what Tibetans care about the most. They project this belief onto the Dalai Lama as a religious persona.
Then Tang goes on to the religious aspects. What happens if my worst enemy is who I’ll end up being on the Wheel of Life in the next incarnation?
"This group of people who believe in Buddhism because they believe in cause and effect and transmigration of souls, oppose anger and hatred, developed a philosophy that Han nationalists will never be able to understand. Several Tibetan monk friends, just the "troublemaker monk" type that are in the monasteries explained to me their view on "independence": "Actually, we may well have been ethnic Han in a previous incarnation, and in our next incarnation we might well become ethnic Han. And some ethnic Han in a previous life may well have been Tibetan or may become Tibetan in their next life. Foreigners or Chinese, men or women, lovers aand enemies, the souls of the world transmigrate without end. As the wheel turns, states arise and die, so what need is there for independence?" This kind of religion, this kind of believer, can one ever think that they would be easy to control? Yet there is a paradox here: if one wants them to give up the desire for independence, then one must respect and protect their religion."
Wow, momo, regarding your comment @05:45 AM, where did you get that S#*$%!?
Posted by: lala land | March 26, 2008 at 12:48 PM
In an extremely poor country a small number of religious elites maintained a large number of lavish monastaries. High rank lamas and officials enjoyed imported luxury goods as well as sex with underage girls. People call it low-environmental impact way of life.
Posted by: LBSH | March 26, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Just to clarify: the traditional culture that is worth saving in Tibet may not be the whole tradition, but certainly their practices are worth studying in the areas of low-environmental impact householding, agriculture, healing methods, and the extraordinary spiritual practices developed after hundreds of years of spending as much on spirituality as we Americans spend on defense. The developments they have made in spirituality are time tested techniques that should not be lost.
Posted by: momo | March 26, 2008 at 07:04 AM
It is bad to build roads in Tibet. The Tibetans were poor but the monks were also poor. The Dalai Lama had to put up with hundreds of mice and rats in his bed when he was a child! The monks and nuns have one robe each (unless he or she applies for special permission) and they eat one bowl at mealtimes. The Tibetans laughed when the Chinese told them they were oppressed because they thought it was a joke. Then the Chinese massacred and tortured them, forced monks and nuns to have sex with each other at gunpoint, and forced them to shoot people. The "development" of the area destroys the natural environment and the traditional culture. If there was any altruism involved, the Chinese would have found a way to show it. The "development" is only necessary for the installation of Chinese culture.
Posted by: momo | March 26, 2008 at 05:45 AM
haha, China will never let lamas run themselves and raise money for themselves... There is no civic organizations in China today that is totally indepedent of state... Chinese Communist Party either directly controls or keeps an eye on everything. To be self-sufficient, autonomous, and indepedent is to be very un-PRC...
Posted by: Xing Chen | March 25, 2008 at 07:48 PM
There is a distinction between ethnicity, cultural preference and spiritual inclination.
Just as there are nominal Christians, Jews and Muslims, there are nominal Buddhists. They might call themselves Buddhists, eat vegetarian, perform rituals and go to temples, but they know nothing about the Buddha's teachings.
Buddhism is all about living a peaceful and happy life through purification of one's own mind, to clear away cravings (desires, greed, attachments, clinging), aversions (fear, impatience, anger, hatred, ill-will) and delusions (ignorance, superstitions, ideologies, self-righteousness).
The Tibetans who allow their anger and hatred break out into riots and violence are not Buddhists at all. They are just Tibetans, like anyone who fails to observe the Golden Rule: whatever one finds hurtful do not do it to other people.
The Dalai Lama is a real Buddhist who follows the Buddha's teachings of compassion and wisdom. He calls himself a simple Buddhist monk but his wishes are not fulfilled. He bears the burden of wearing a political hat imposed on him as a child by the Tibetan political system. And too bad the Chinese government find it convenient to tar him in the same brush with the rioters.
Posted by: Franz | March 25, 2008 at 04:50 PM
"If you call destruction of 90% of all monasteries and temples, kicking out lamas from their monasteries and leave their religious practices, forbidding most males from joining monasteries is "free to practice". You have to realize that, traditionally, large percentage (25% to 50%) of Tibetan boys become lama."
Bill, what is the source of the above information?
Sounds like what you are saying is things in Tibet never change and should not change. Let the majority of men be lamas and the rest be serfs and let Tibet remain poor? Are you saying developing economy, building roads etc. in Tibet are bad?
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Posted by: Pffefer | March 25, 2008 at 04:09 PM
Oh, another "free to practise" issue. What would the Catholics think if the Chinese government insist that they pick the Pope for them ? That's what Chinese government did for the Tibetans.
Posted by: Bill | March 25, 2008 at 01:09 PM
Ever since the Chinese walked into Tibet there has been nothing but humiliation of Tibetans,their Buddhism,their Spiritual leader.It saddens me to think that the world has just kept silent about every issue.Its not that they are ignorant but seriously constipated to help by protests and other forms of pressure.China want to desptroy this peaceful culture althogether. C.R.PATEL,Columbus,Ohio
Posted by: crpatel | March 25, 2008 at 01:06 PM
"I always thought Tibetans were free to practise Tibetan Buddhism and it seems to me the only thing the government is putting a lid on is publicly worshipping Dalai Lama. Am I wrong?"
If you call destruction of 90% of all monasteries and temples, kicking out lamas from their monasteries and leave their religious practices, forbidding most males from joining monasteries is "free to practice". You have to realize that, traditionally, large percentage (25% to 50%) of Tibetan boys become lama.
Religion is a very major part of live in Tibet. Tibetans live and breath Buddhism - and their version of it, which was spread to Mongolia and Manchuria. And the Mongolians and Manchurians brought the Tibetan version of Buddhism to China, to join the other versions.
No, I won't call that "free to practice".
Posted by: Bill | March 25, 2008 at 01:05 PM
"Suppose you’re an angry Tibetan. You bash some heads in a protest. You want to take out your anger on the Han Chinese who you feel are doing better than you."
I think the economics angle is way over played in this incident. Money is not the only thing to the Tibetans. It is not even an important thing. Religion is. Just like religion was in the 6-12th century in Europe, and 21st century in Middle East.
That's why when the Hans think that they are doing Tibetans a favour by building the railway, the Tibetan thinks that is desecrating their land. Shipping white rice from central China is not a good thing to the Tibetans. It's like bring Big Mac to China, and to the Inuits. It is seen as hazard to their health by the Tibetans, and seen as a great favour done to the Tibetans by the Hans.
Posted by: Bill | March 25, 2008 at 12:54 PM
``they believe in cause and effect and transmigration of souls, oppose anger and hatred"
I do not know the cultural background of the author, but this is exactly what the generation of my grandma believes in main stream Han chinese too --- I think Buddhism is the main-stream religon for han chinese as well. Go visit some cities in china to find out the buddhilism history. I am not going to name them here, but check with your frineds if you have any.
In the city I am from, I even once went to a christan church just to see how it looks like. and this was many years ago.
What I learnd over the past ten years from the west culture is the importance of a positive attitude. But probabaly, for a journalist a negative attitude is more important.
Posted by: Y | March 25, 2008 at 03:54 AM
I do not think there is any hatred from other ethnic groups toward Tibatant and vise versa.
All the chinese people suffered throughtout the history. The most recent sufferrings since 1949 include (1) Korea war; (2) Cummuninst party's (Mao's) huge mistakes between 1950s and 1970s. They did great harm to Han culture as well other culture, similar in comparison to what happened to native americans in the early history.
The West has been correcting their mistakes by paying back to native people, which is a great thing to do.
But for what have happened in the chinese culture, I hope that the West stop assuming they are in a position to help. First, the communist party of china itself is evolving just like the capitalism societies have been adapting to make the west world better and better over the past two centuries (I learnt this last fact from chinese highschool textbooks). Secondly, probably the more helps the west world tryies to offer, the more sufferrings there will be.
I strongly believe that the chinese people (and people in other part of the world as well) have the wisdom to resolve their problems in the most apporpriate way.
By the way, it is sad to see that most of the media's interests today is the protests rather than the Olympics torch relay itself. Olympics is a party of thw whole world, and the host of this party this year is China.
We should appreciate those guys there for hosting the party --- at least that is what I do whenever I am invited to a party, small or big, and I usually also ask before I go if it is a formal party.
Posted by: Y | March 25, 2008 at 03:32 AM
This is an interesting thing to discuss, even though I have not read Mrs Tang's whole article yet, and I probably am not going to read it any time soon.
What does the bible say about this?
Posted by: Y | March 25, 2008 at 03:03 AM
If you read the whole text, you'll realize that Tang is more a Buddhism sympathizer than Tibetan sympathizer. Her point can be simply put as "if DL's back, the unruly Tibetans will be tamed" and we can go on to do what we like. This is the message a lot of Chinese Tibetan lobby want to get over. The problem is "DL Clique" is DL's one-man show, but not his one-man shop. The people under his wing have an agenda much bigger than "meaningful autonomy" and "preserving culture". He has never distanced himself from these people. Nor will he.
Posted by: LBSH | March 25, 2008 at 01:14 AM
Pffefer,
Well what we should do is stop requiring lamas to attend "patriot education" session allow free and open display of Dalai Lama's image.
On the other hand, we phase out the state subsidies to Monasteries. Let the devout support the expense of running the Monasteries and livelihood of their Lamas.
In pre-1959 days, Monasteries are large land owners. That's no longer the case. We should opened up land to Han farmers and ranchers. Monasteries' funding will gradually dry up as local Tibetans will be hard pressed to support them. And their influence will wane.
Maybe in the beginning, Lama will continue to incite the populace against the Chinese rule, but that's what we got PLA for.
Posted by: Cao Meng De | March 24, 2008 at 11:57 PM
Tang's piece is excellent. However I am puzzled by this-"if one wants them to give up the desire for independence, then one must respect and protect their religion." What exactly should the government and Han Chinese at large do to respect and protect their religion? What does that mean, "protecting their religion"? I always thought Tibetans were free to practise Tibetan Buddhism and it seems to me the only thing the government is putting a lid on is publicly worshipping Dalai Lama. Am I wrong?
Posted by: Pffefer | March 24, 2008 at 11:03 PM