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TIBETAN EXILES IN
NEPAL |
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On October 7, 1950, the People's Republic of China, which had
concluded its own communist revolution only a year earlier, invaded - or,
as Beijing still insists, "liberated" - Tibet. The Tibetan Army was
easily overpowered, and by May 1951 Tibet was forced to sign a treaty
accepting Chinese rule, on the understanding that China would not
interfere with Tibetan government or culture.
During the following eight years, however, Chinese troops gathered in
increasing numbers in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital; Tibetan monks were
tortured, women raped and children taken from their homes for "re-education"
in China. The Chinese imposed disastrous new agricultural methods on
Tibetans, causing widespread famine. Tension mounted, fighting flared up
in the east, and in March 1959 a full-scale uprising erupted in Lhasa.
It was brutally crushed by the Chinese and thousands of Tibetans were
executed or imprisoned, while Tibet was formally annexed to China. The
Dalai Lama , Tibet's spiritual and political leader, fled to India; he
still resides in Dharmsala, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is
based. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed, making their way into
Nepal and India by various routes through the Himalaya.
For three decades, Tibet has endured outright genocide at the hands of
the Chinese: the Dalai Lama's Bureau of Information calculates that 1.2
million Tibetans have been executed, tortured, killed in battle, or have
starved or died in Chinese labour camps; during the 1966-76 Cultural
Revolution, virtually every monastery was deliberately destroyed. An
organized guerrilla movement , supported by the CIA, fought the Chinese
along the Nepalese border until the early 1970s, when the US-China thaw
led to its dissolution. Until a few years ago, Tibet's plight was
largely ignored by the major powers, but China's Tiananmen Square
massacre and the Dalai Lama's receipt of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize put
discussion of Tibetan independence back on the agenda.
Today, 15,000 out of a total of 110,000 Tibetan exiles live in Nepal,
predominantly in the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys. A large number of
these industrious immigrants have by now achieved success in the carpet
and handicrafts businesses, to the point where they can no longer be
regarded as an underprivileged group. Many are playing an active role in
establishing Boudha as a centre of Buddhist study, thus sustaining
Tibetan religion and culture until the Chinese occupation of Tibet is
ended.
Given Nepal's reliance on Chinese aid, the Tibetans are a source of
discomfort for the government. China regards the exile communities as
potential counter-revolutionary hotbeds, and exerts pressure on Nepal to
supress any political activities there. While the "Free Tibet" movement
is much bigger in India, where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile
are based, a Tibetan underground does exist in Nepal, chiefly among the
disaffected youth of the former refugee camps. Don't expect anyone to
discuss it openly, however, since Tibetan leaders have been warned that
any "political" remarks could be grounds for prompt eviction. Recent
political changes don't appear to have benefited the Tibetans, either.
Nepal's powerful Communist Party has links with Beijing and is therefore
keen to help keep Tibetan nationalism in check.
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche: A lama
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche ("Sun Lotus of the Precious One") was born in
Runying, a village about 150 miles north of Lhasa, in the year of the
Iron-Hare, 1951, the son of a recognized tulku (reincarnate lama) and an
aristocratic mother. At the age of one and a half, after successfully
completing numerous tests prescribed by Tibetan Buddhist tradition, he
was identified as the seventh incarnation of Gar Druchen, a spiritual
emanation of Nagarjuna, the second-century Indian Buddhist philosopher.
Soon after, the young rinpoche ("precious one", a title given to revered
Tibetan Buddhist teachers) was enthroned at his predecessor's monastery,
Drong Gon Thubten Dargyeling, in central Tibet.
Chokyi Nyima recalls how 35 of the monastery's 500 monks were involved
in lifelong retreats, as opposed to the more common three- to nine-year
retreats, living in caves with "no door, only a window to pass food
through, and they would never come out for the rest of their life" - a
testament to the extreme faith with which some 200,000 monks and nuns
devoted their lives in over 6000 monasteries and nunneries prior to
China's occupation of Tibet.
Following the failed Tibetan uprising and subsequent upheavals of 1959,
Chokyi Nyima and his family were whisked into exile in Gangtok, Sikkim,
where, along with 53 other young rinpoche, he studied briefly in an
English boarding school. He soon resumed his traditional monastic
education, however, and for the next fifteen years studied under a
series of famous Buddhist teachers.
Chokyi Nyima relates how one day, when he was nineteen or twenty, he and
another young tulku approached their tutor, Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the
Kagyu-pa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, with the intention of entering a
three-year retreat. "He scolded us, saying, You are foolish, you just
want to go in a cave to sleep. You are tulku, you need to save and help
the sentient beings & why do you think you are being educated like this?
Even though I am very happy that you have a willingness to go on a
retreat at such a young age - on the one hand it is a good quality, but
on the other hand it is not good enough !'" Finally sealing Chokyi
Nyima's future, Gyalwa Karmapa said, "I think it is your karma to teach,
especially to foreigners. You will go to Nepal and help your father (Urgyen
Rinpoche) build a monastery." Chokyi Nyima still fondly recalls the
wisdom of his teacher: "His mind was like the ocean, whereas our minds
were but a drop in that ocean."
In 1974, Chokyi Nyima came to Boudha to help his father build the Ka
Nying Shedrupling Monastery, and soon after, on the instructions of
Gyalwa Karmapa, was made its abbot. Ka Nying Shedrupling today houses
some 120 monks and lay people, who are dedicated to preserving and
spreading Tibetan Buddhism through traditional wood-block printing of
pechha (Tibetan liturgical texts), translating and publishing Buddhist
books in English, and maintaining a large library of books on Buddhist
topics.
Following the wish of his tutor, Chokyi Nyima began teaching not only
the local community but also a growing number of foreigners. "I like to
find out what kind of people they are, why they came here and what they
are searching for," he says. In fact, one of his first Western dharma
students is now undertaking a three-year retreat at a Buddhist centre in
Scotland. Tibetan Buddhists aren't surprised by the spread of Buddhism
in the West, for they regard it as the fulfilment of an eighth-century
prophecy attributed to Guru Padma Sambhava, the legendary founder of
Buddhism in Tibet: "When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels,
the Tibetan people will be scattered across the face of the earth, and
the dharma will come to the land of the red men."
One morning, during one of his daily public audiences, where there are
invariably two or three Westerners, Chokyi Nyima explains his thoughts
on the increasing number of Westerners interested in Tibetan Buddhism.
Thoughout the informal talk he is occasionally interrupted by pilgrims
and the faithful coming to receive his blessings and exchange kata, the
white scarves Tibetans give as an offering of good luck. "I've found
that the teachings are touching more and more people from different
countries, because they ring true," he says. "Many Westerners,
especially the younger generation, are putting more faith in Western
science only to discover that there are still many unexplained things.
But because they have grown up with the idea of always searching for new
answers to old phenomena, they usually have a very open mind. This is
very much like what the Buddha said: Don't take my word for it, but find
out the truth for yourself.'"
To this end, one of the aims of Ka Nying Shedrupling, as well as of many
other monasteries, is to make Mahayana Buddhism readily available in the
West. In Chokyi Nyima's words, "If peace comes to every individual, then
there will be no conflicts, no problems, because nowadays too many
people think often only of themselves. That's why we train more monks to
be sent all over the world to help others to share their knowledge of
the peace and caring message of the Buddha."
The often serious tone that Chokyi Nyima uses to make a point never
overshadows his humble and good-natured personality. As we leave the
morning teaching, he gives us a mischievous look and says, "You must
meditate! Don't be lazy and forget what I've said," throwing three
oranges at us from a pile given as offerings.
Andy Balestracci
Gen Tashi: A Khampa
A boyishly trim man with a chiselled jaw is making the last stitches on
a brown chuba (Tibetan wrap-around dress). "There! In time for Losar
(Tibetan New Year)," he says to a Manang woman, who is wearing several
raw-looking chunks of turquoise and coral strung around her neck.
"Please, won't you -"
"No, I said no. Your aunt will just have to wear something else. It's
two days to Losar, and you want me to stitch another chuba ? It's Losar,
woman; we Tibetans drop all work. You go home and get the altars
prepared, and leave me to my preparations."
Gen Tashi takes off his thick glasses, revealing curiously brown-bluish
eyes. He bought the round-cut glasses in Lhasa on his way back from his
hometown a few years ago; folding them, he puts them away with great
care.
In the same room sits a younger man, Karma, shaking out black snuff onto
his thumb from an aspirin bottle. He inhales with gusto, then digs out a
square piece of woollen cloth from under the rug on his bed to blow his
nose. "Drop everything, do your puja, and enjoy yourself at Losar - it's
only once a year," he tells the woman.
"All right, all right. Losar is Losar I know," she says, laughing. "I
won't bother you anymore. Tashi delek (Good day) to you - but please,
after Losar & " And with her new chuba wrapped in newspaper under her
arm, she leaves Gen's workroom.
For a man of 70, Gen Tashi cuts a trim figure. He sits cross-legged,
ramrod straight. When people comment about his lithe figure, he says he
is light because of his daily kora (circumambulations) around the
Swayambhu hill. "The kora make you feel you can walk on and on," he
says.
Considering his present occupation and boyish good nature, it's hard to
believe that Gen spent more than a decade as a guerrilla fighter just
south of the Tibetan border. He was born to a peasant family in the
valley of Gyelthang, at the southeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau
(the district is today part of the so-called Tibetan Autonomous
Prefecture of Dechen). At the age of 14 he became a monk at Gyelthang's
Sumtseling Monastery, which at the time supported 2000 monks, and for
the next 18 years spent at least part of each year at the monastery
observing special prayers and liturgies. For the rest of the year, when
he was old enough, Gen went on family trading trips east to Dali and
Lijiang in Yunnan (China), and west to Lhasa and southwest Kalimpong in
Sikkim, where Chinese tea and Indian cotton and manufactured goods were
traded. The trade helped finance Gen's monastic exams and initiations.
Chinese troops marched into Gen's district in 1954 and began imposing
exorbitant taxes on traders, though they held back from enforcing
immediate political changes. At the time of the 1959 uprising, Gen - who
had just turned 36, an age considered inauspicious by Tibetans - and his
family were on a butter-buying trip near Lhasa, attempting to raise
money for their lama's examinations. Joining other Khampas (people of
Kham, a province in eastern Tibet) caught away from home by the
uprising, Gen rushed to help guard the Norbu Lingka, the Dalai Lama's
summer palace in Lhasa, until the Dalai Lama could escape. Anticipating
reprisals from the Chinese after the uprising, Gen fled south to
Gangtok, Sikkim, where he and many compatriots found work building
mountain roads.
Later the same year, the news of a re-formed guerrilla movement known as
the "Four Rivers and Six Ranges" reached Sikkim. Gen and a dozen fellow
Gyelthangbas quickly joined up and were deployed to Mustang, the arid,
rugged area north of Pokhara, where he participated in a variety of
sabotage activities against the Chinese garrisoned across the border in
Tibet. "I became good at hiding arms and ammunition underground," he
says, not with bravado but with a sigh at being engaged in martial
activities anathema to his vows as a Buddhist monk. (Several years have
passed since he relinquished his vows.)
But lacking in international support, the guerrilla operations in Nepal
gradually petered out, and the military camps became semi-permanent
settlements. Gen dropped out of the movement and took up tailoring,
earning a living by sewing chuba for the camp. Finally, after twelve
years in Mustang, he and Karma, a fellow Khampa, together with Karma's
wife, decided to move down to Kathmandu: their lives and the struggle
didn't seem to be leading anywhere.
What had it all been for? "Well, we carried the hope that we could
return to our fatherland," says Gen, for the first time showing emotion.
For their new lives in the capital, they found themselves hopelessly
handicapped. By then, the efforts of other Tibetans to turn the folk art
of carpet-weaving into a commercially viable venture was paying off;
most of them were no longer refugees. In contrast, Gen, Karma and his
wife had to adjust to a new environment, learn a new language and start
from scratch. The only livelihood they could turn to was stitching
chuba.
For years they were barely able to make ends meet, but recently Karma
has started earning large commissions selling antique carpets. Now only
Gen needs to stitch chuba, while Karma's wife manages the household. She
and Karma have a twelve-year-old son, Dhendup, who attends a Tibetan
school in the valley. Unlike Gen and his parents, Dhendup can write and
speak in English, Tibetan and Nepali. He calls Gen grandfather.
Among the shrinking number of first-generation Tibetan exiles in Nepal,
especially those of Kham, Gen's story is a common one. Many spent a
large part of their adult lives fighting for their country. Now, with
just as much hope, though perhaps with less urgency, they still look to
the day when they can return to their homeland. Until then, they
continue to circumambulate and pray and work for their younger ones.
Kesang Tseten
Getting involved
To get involved in the Tibetan cause, contact:
Australia Tibet Australia Council, 16-22 Wentworth Ave, Surry Hills,
Sydney (tel 02/9283 3466).
Ireland Tibet Support Group Ireland, 120 Upper Glenageary Rd,
Glenageary, Dublin (tel 01/285 3443).
New Zealand Friends of Tibet New Zealand, PO Box 5991, Auckland (tel
09/436 066).
UK Tibet Support Group UK, 9 Islington Green, London N1 2XH (tel
0171/359 7573); Office of Tibet, 1 Culworth St, London NW8 7AF (tel
0171/722 5378).
USA International Campaign For Tibet, 1825 K St NW, Suite 520,
Washington DC 20006 (tel 202/785-1515); Office of Tibet, 241 E 32nd St,
New York, NY 10016 (tel 212/213-5010).
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