…wherein an earnest in the extreme American journalist named Rick Ray visits His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL) in his exile home in India and questions him on topics ranging from the unexpected happiness of the the poor to how to bring about peace in the Middle East (people getting to know each other, and festivals.)
HHDL’s responses are subtle and complex even as his vocabulary is simple, even child-like; it put me in mind of Samuel Beckett getting at the essence of things when writing Waiting for Godot in French instead of his native English.
While seeing HHDL is always uplifting this relatively short film had enough material for a second story—the infinite number of ways the government of China is sabotaging and trying to wipe out any aspect of Tibetan culture. Government armies have been taking over lands since forever; the Chinese government is doing nothing new or imaginative in occupying Tibet and oppressing the native population.
Bad enough, but the film shows has the Tibetan experience of occupation has nasty twists. HHDL, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, was forced to flee when he was a boy and has to rule in exile in India. Not only can’t he return to Lhasa, but the Tibetans there will be questioned or arrested or even tortured if they possess the HHDL’s picture. In the Judeo-Christian tradition all of our Guys are dead; imagine if their reincarnations were alive and we could not even mention their name for fear of being arrested. (You’d think our holy-roller evangelicals would be all over this.)
But wait, there’s more, and this is where it gets diabolical. OK, there has to be someone to be the next person to pick the new DL. HHDL picked a little boy as the reincarnation. The Chinese government put the kid and his family under house arrest and he hasn’t been seen in years. He’s missing out on the intense education the religion requires for such an important task and position. Unlike our Ten Commandments, half of which are like, Duh, Tibetan Buddhism has over a hundred subtle lojong precepts that the holder of the position needs to have mastered. Are the Chinese providing this? Oh, no, they’re too busy parading around their own fakey-fake reincarnation kid who probably doesn’t know how to pour water out of a boot.
Why can’t the western powers stand up to China on this? It’s all so redolent of the anti-apartheid era of South Africa. (Update: Walking a now-deleted sentence back in light of finding out Apple donated $43 million to Africa via the Product (Red) campaign. Also, the HHDL isn't calling for a boycott.)
Speaking of Apple, Cockatoo was goofing around with the new iPad mini the other day. After seeing our image in the camera we in short procession purchased a pricey lotion, contact lenses, and got our hair done. If only there were some kind of ethical camera one could aim at the Chinese soldiers in the film so they could see how hideous and shameful they looked when they wailing on random Tibetans, or when a handcuffed Tibetan walked by and one of the soldiers gave him a gratuitous knock on the head.
A monk in the film was beaten and tortured by the Chinese. He made it to the Indian compound and spoke to HHDL. This monk said he didn’t want to be a monk anymore, that he wanted to fight. Even the most pacifist among us would see the point. But just like Archbishop Desmond Tutu would have done, HHDL hugged the battered young monk and talked to him for two hours on how violence would not help. With a smile the young man said he was convinced to remain a monk.
HHDL’s compassion for everyone – even the Chinese government and the Chinese people – is a force more powerful than anything in the Chinese arsenal. It lights up the world.
2006.
Recommend
p.s. Cockatoo would ask one thing of the monks and laypeople in Tibet: Please, have compassion on people you don’t know, people who you will never meet, who are rooting for you, praying for you, and hoping for you – have compassion on us and yourselves by not even considering harming yourself to bring attention to your cause. Your enemies don't care if you are no more, but your friends do. The day of celebration will come, and we want you all to see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment