Part 4 (1/2)

Though we would learn that Tibetan Buddhists have a tremendous textual tradition of their own, the daring of Buddhist metaphysics is to defy all conventions, even the conventions of Buddhism. Words are labels, and even the Buddhist teaching, or dharma, has no ultimate reality. In fact, I have heard Buddhist scholars argue that a person who says, ”I am a Buddhist,” cannot be a Buddhist, because to be a Buddhist means to have no attachment to labels.

By contrast, the rabbis were very concerned with holding on to traditional language to preserve the continuity and authenticity of their Judaism. The words chosen for a prayer represented the consensus of clal yisrael clal yisrael, the unity of Israel. The discussion was not just a wrangling among denominations, or rabbinical s...o...b..ating-though there were elements of that. Searching for the right words was a group attunement, a way to align all the energies of the Jews so they might face the Dalai Lama with a sense of unity. Now they could feel they were approaching the dialogue with integrity, working as Jews together.

6.

Contact.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, DHARAMSALA.

As we entered the guard house, just within the Dalai Lama's compound, I remembered the Hasidic tale of a young man who journeyed many difficult miles to visit his rebbe. ”Did you go to study Torah?” he was asked. ”No, I went to see how the rebbe tied his shoes.”

I was eager to see how the Dalai Lama tied his shoes. How he spoke, how he listened. I hoped to find in his gestures what it might mean to call a human being holy.

The Jewish group filled out forms, showed pa.s.sports and visas, and registered with Indian military security, a reminder that the Dalai Lama was far from home, and not entirely safe.

We crossed a courtyard to the front porch of Bryn Cottage, bordered by roses and purple bougainvillea, and entered a small anteroom. Shoshana Edelberg, a professional journalist who was normally cool under pressure, nervously fiddled with her boom mike and cords. The rest of us were armed with cameras and ca.s.sette recorders.

The Samaya Foundation videotaped the sessions. To accommodate the fixed camera, the eight Jewish delegates sat in a horseshoe pattern around the Dalai Lama.

Michael Sautman led us in to the meeting room, which was more homey than royal. The partic.i.p.ants sat in comfortable stuffed couches covered with blue cloth and the rest of us observers on folding chairs. Two stuffed armchairs were reserved for the Dalai Lama and whoever addressed him. Professor Nathan Katz would be up first, followed by Rabbis Schachter and Greenberg.

Behind the Dalai Lama's chair was a wooden shrine that looked like a fireplace mantel. On it rested twelve gold and silver bowls, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with water, as an offering, along with two vases of fresh roses and carnations. In a cabinet, behind a gla.s.s door, stood a golden icon of Avalokiteshvara. For the Tibetan faithful, the Dalai Lama himself is that Buddha of Compa.s.sion.

A curtain parted and he entered through a doorway beside the shrine. We rose to meet him, falling into a line that circled the perimeter of the horseshoe. Everyone grabbed the chance, video technicians, the reporters, Yitz and Blu's son, Moshe Greenberg, and Michael Sautman's parents.

Michael had instructed us meticulously on the protocol. Each of us approached the Dalai Lama-palms together in a sign of respect and a white silk scarf, a katak katak, draped over the wrists. The Dalai Lama took the scarf and draped it over our shoulders. Nathan Katz instructed us to remove the scarf quickly. To leave it on would be arrogant-to Tibetans the katak katak symbolized divinity. symbolized divinity.

”When you greet him,” Michael Sautman had explained, ”don't hurry. He'll want to make some contact with you. It's not just a ritual of handing him a scarf, it's a moment of human contact with him. He's just radiating then.”

My turn came. The Dalai Lama smiled, radiant, yes, beaming so that I couldn't help but smile myself. Then he gave me a sharp penetrating glance. I turned my head away. I felt a little naked, in the soul.

Now a seasoned reporter would call this purely subjective, possibly nonsensical; a psychologist might say I was experiencing anxiety-and a cynic would laugh-and I had within me all those characters.

The Dalai Lama gathered his bright scarlet robe tightly around himself, joking to Professor Nathan Katz, seated next to him, that ”it gives me some kind of warmth.” Then he turned to the group at large and spoke in a deep voice.

”Welcome, our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are always very much eager to learn from your experience, and of course we are only happy to exchange our own experience with our Jewish brothers and sisters.” He reached for some neatly folded yellow cloths on the armrest of his chair and wiped his nose. ”Today I have a quite severe cold, so I hope you will not get it. I hope not to exchange this cold.”

Michael Sautman asked Karma Gelek to introduce the three distinguished abbots of Tibetan monasteries, seated just behind Nathan Katz. Karma Gelek would translate for them.

The abbots were all men of the Dalai Lama's generation. Lati Rinpoche and Jiton Rinpoche were tulkus tulkus, recognized reincarnations of distinguished lamas. In Tibet they had headed important monasteries and schools.

Geshe Lobsang was the present abbot of the Sera Je monastery, in South India, now the biggest outside of Tibet. His t.i.tle, geshe geshe, means that he had studied advanced Buddhist teachings for decades-the monastic equivalent of a Ph.D. As he stood to be introduced, he bowed with deep humility.

These men at the Dalai Lama's back represented the anchor of his tradition, as surely as Rabbi Greenberg was bound to his Orthodox community back home.

Michael Sautman suggested we go around in a circle and briefly introduce ourselves and our affiliations. Then he called on Zalman Schachter to deliver the much-debated prayer. Reb Zalman wore his black rayon, full-length liturgical robe (in Yiddish, a kappoteh kappoteh), and topped it off with a sable tail streimel streimel, the fas.h.i.+on in hats favored by the Hasidim. Zalman was, strictly speaking, no longer a Hasid, and carefully referred to himself as ”in the Hasidic tradition.” But he wore the streimel streimel, in part, he told me later, because Tibetan n.o.bility wore similar fur hats. He believed the hats derived from a common source, the Mongols, pa.s.sed on via the Cossacks and Tatars to the Polish and Lithuanian n.o.bility and thence to the Jews.

”In our tradition,” he told the Dalai Lama, ”when we meet a wise sage and king, we have to recite a blessing to thank G.o.d for the privilege, and it goes like this,” then chanted, ”Barukh ata adonai elohenu melekh haolam asher halak mikovodo umihokhmatov lebasar vdam.” The melody was plaintive and my ears, schooled by that morning's debate, could pick up a hint of regret when he hit lebasar vdam lebasar vdam, flesh and blood. He paused and the Jewish group added an amen.

While the Dalai Lama listened, he seemed to draw inward, and his face became impressively blank as if temporarily erased.

”And I will now try to say it in Tibetan.” Zalman's tone was playful, a childlike delight, and the Dalai Lama responded with a big Santa Claus laugh. Zalman chanted his more innovative prayer in Tibetan, the Dalai Lama smiling to burst throughout; at the end he applauded and commented, ”Oh, perfect.” The room filled with laughter and applause and Blu Greenberg said with some pride, ”No one else in the entire Jewish community could do that beside Reb Zalman.” I thought, yes, very few had Zalman's breadth of knowledge, intellectual nimbleness, and sense of theater.

The Dalai Lama chuckled some more, then added, in low tones, almost a whisper, ”Thank you.” After so much debate the prayers had lasted less than a minute.

The Dalai Lama formally opened the dialogue. Perhaps Karma Gelek had made him aware of the controversy over ”His Holiness,” for he told the Jews that since this meeting came from ”a genuine desire, a sincere motivation, an eagerness to learn from different traditions, there was no need for formality,” which could be a barrier, ”no need,” he said, ”for any hesitation. Whatever you feel you want to express here, please consider me as your own brother and I consider you as my own brothers and sisters. So, too, that way we can reach a deeper level.” A palpable silence followed as we took that in and then, as if to make the point, he added, ”That's all,” and everyone roared.

The constant resort to humor was an unexpected meeting of the two cultures. Joking and kidding flowed from both sides. Laughter was never far from his heart. It just rocked out of him, rumbling along quite naturally, like cool water from a deep artesian well.

Nathan Katz, a bearded and rotund professor of Religious Studies from the University of South Florida, spoke first. He wished to demolish Rudyard Kipling's old saw that ”East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” Instead, as a student of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish religion, Katz believed that Judaism and Buddhism had contact in the past. ”The ancient Greeks,” he declared, ”knew about the Buddha. Ancient Israel also knew about India. The Buddha and our King Solomon share legends. Words from Sanskrit and Tamil are found in our ancient holy book, the Bible. We construct memory in the present, and by constructing memory we create our ident.i.ty. What we remember constructs who we are, and that's an insight of Buddhist philosophy also. What we forget also makes us who we are. Both of us, Jews and Tibetans, have forgotten we go back a long way together. It's only recently that we've forgotten.”

Since we had all come thinking that this dialogue was unprecedented, Nathan was challenging some basic a.s.sumptions. In support of his argument, he reeled off intriguing evidence of contacts in the ancient world between Jews and Buddhists.

He noted that certain words in the Bible such as the Hebrew for ginger and ivory have Sanskrit roots. (Interestingly, so does pilpul pilpul!) He pointed to the trade between Israel and India in the time of King Solomon. He said that the tale of the judgment of Solomon also appears in the Jataka tales, stories of the Buddha's previous incarnations. He explained that the basic Buddhist concept of shunyata shunyata, or emptiness, which derives from Indian philosophy, was carried by a Jewish scholar into the Arabic world where it became the mathematical zero. The Arabic numerals were transmitted to the West by way of a Dominican monk. As Nathan suggested, the peregrination of zero from Hindu to Jew to Arab to Catholic monk represents a strong refutation of Kipling: ”Jews were the first refugees to come to India [in the year 70 C.E. C.E.]. You are the most recent religious refugees to India. We both found havens in this tolerant land.”

Given the burning cars and angry students we'd seen on the way up, I put a few mental quote marks around ”tolerant land.” But for all of its history, India has been highly tolerant of its Jews. Nathan had personal experience of this, for he had spent a Fulbright year in Cochin, researching a remarkable settlement of Jews on the south coast of India, who date back at least a thousand years. Moreover, as Katz explained, over the centuries there have been Jewish settlements in most of the regions surrounding Tibet, including China, Kashmir, India, and Mongolia. Hebrew ma.n.u.scripts dating back to the eighth century have been discovered in Tibetan monasteries of Kucha in Mongolia. In the ninth century, a Muslim philosopher from Central Asia, al-Buruni, noted that the Jewish word for G.o.d cannot be p.r.o.nounced and compared this to ”the Hindu word Om Om and the Buddhist word and the Buddhist word shunyata shunyata because because shunyata shunyata is beyond our language and the Hebrew G.o.d is beyond our language.” is beyond our language and the Hebrew G.o.d is beyond our language.”

Still, Professor Katz had to admit that Tibetans and the Jewish people have no recorded history in common. As the Dalai Lama had noted in greeting the Jews the day before at the All Himalayan Conference, ”There's no word in Gujarati for snow. No word in Tibetan for Jews.” But Katz suggested that perhaps what had been lost was the memory of contact.

This seemed a highly speculative proposition for the moment, and I felt somewhat skeptical. In popular culture, imagination has sometimes run wild-there is a book floating around by a Russian author claiming proof that Jesus had spent his lost years in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery! It was only when I returned to Delhi and toured some of its shrines with Nathan Katz, that it would seem more plausible to me that Jews and Tibetan Buddhists might well have interacted, and even had a dialogue, four hundred years ago.

Throughout the presentation, the Dalai Lama fixed his attention on Nathan unwaveringly. I saw again how the master tied his shoes. It's not that he was always equally animated or fascinated by what he heard-but he always seemed completely there for the speaker, completely absorptive.

At the end of Nathan's talk, the Dalai Lama paused a few moments, digesting all he had heard, and then responded point by point.

This style of response derives partly from his monastic training. The gelukpa gelukpa sect is very proud of its debating tradition. The Dalai Lama had made sure to house the monks' debating school, the Inst.i.tute of Buddhist Dialectics, close to his home. Later that afternoon we would see the debating monks in action, which made a nice Tibetan bookend to the Jewish debating I'd observed all morning. In fact, as Professor Katz pointed out, the Tibetans and Jews are the sole religious traditions that incorporate formal debate as part of their religious training. As a very young man, the Dalai Lama had faced down the sages of Tibet in a daylong demonstration of his debating prowess. The requirement to absorb complex arguments and respond with appropriate quotations from Buddhist texts generously sharpened his powers of memory. Talmudic training has a similar effect, judging from the quotations that I'd heard flying around Kashmir Cottage. sect is very proud of its debating tradition. The Dalai Lama had made sure to house the monks' debating school, the Inst.i.tute of Buddhist Dialectics, close to his home. Later that afternoon we would see the debating monks in action, which made a nice Tibetan bookend to the Jewish debating I'd observed all morning. In fact, as Professor Katz pointed out, the Tibetans and Jews are the sole religious traditions that incorporate formal debate as part of their religious training. As a very young man, the Dalai Lama had faced down the sages of Tibet in a daylong demonstration of his debating prowess. The requirement to absorb complex arguments and respond with appropriate quotations from Buddhist texts generously sharpened his powers of memory. Talmudic training has a similar effect, judging from the quotations that I'd heard flying around Kashmir Cottage.

But while Jews keep ties to the ancient world, it struck me in that room how much the Tibetans still belong to it altogether. Like the tallis, the Tibetan monk's robe is first cousin to the toga, and gelukpa gelukpa pedagogy harkens back to the days of the first-century rabbinic sages. One morning in Dharamsala I was awakened near dawn by a woman's chanting. I listened for about a half an hour, impressed by the length of her prayers. But Nathan Katz explained she was actually chanting a Buddhist treatise on mindfulness, which she had mindfully engraved in her memory, page after page. I thought of the pedagogy harkens back to the days of the first-century rabbinic sages. One morning in Dharamsala I was awakened near dawn by a woman's chanting. I listened for about a half an hour, impressed by the length of her prayers. But Nathan Katz explained she was actually chanting a Buddhist treatise on mindfulness, which she had mindfully engraved in her memory, page after page. I thought of the tannaim tannaim, who recited Mishnah in the early Talmudic academies before the oral law was written down. Again and again through contact with the Tibetans, I would feel in touch not with something exotic, but with an ancient memory in my own tradition suddenly springing to life.

The Dalai Lama's extraordinary ability to memorize and repeat every point he was told was also an act of respect. As was another gesture that I'd noticed with other Tibetans, which contrasted greatly with our conversational habits in Jewish culture: How kind it is, to take just a minute to reflect before responding to a question. It was a habit I vowed to cultivate.

After his talk, Nathan Katz pointed out that many Jews have studied Tibetan Buddhism. He asked the Tibetans to reciprocate and send some graduate students to his university to study Judaism. The Dalai Lama responded positively. As for the hypothesis of earlier contacts, the Tibetan leader admitted, with perhaps a hint of irony, ”This is very, very new to me.”

Although highly speculative, Nathan Katz's presentation had been animated and useful. By suggesting that history itself is always under construction, he made me more conscious of the history about to be constructed before our eyes when the more formal lecturing gave way to real give-and-take.

7.

The Angel of Tibet and the Angel of the Jews.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, DHARAMSALA.

I don't know if anything could have prepared us for what happened in the next hour. The Dalai Lama threw a curve, and Zalman gracefully caught it. Together we entered unfamiliar realms, the four worlds of the kabbalah.

For months Zalman Schachter-Shalomi had prepared himself in his daily prayers and thoughts for this encounter, which he thought of crucial importance. ”I was aware that inside of me there was a movement preparing for this event. All my reading, dreaming, talking with students and friends, praying and meditation, checking my chart for transits, reflecting on, discussing and packing the gifts, and sharing with other partic.i.p.ants.” This preparation was part of what Zalman called ”getting there in kavvanah kavvanah before actually arriving” in Dharamsala. before actually arriving” in Dharamsala.