Part 10 (1/2)

But the situation in the Tibetan and Jewish diaspora made for more immediate points of comparison. Like their American Jewish counterparts, Tibetan youth in India primarily attend public schools. Tsepak Rigzin, a translator for the library, told us, ”Whether a nation survives depends on how well we preserve our tradition and culture. In Indian schools we are taught Tibetan one period a day for forty-five minutes. We blame the Indian educational system, but we ought to blame ourselves. We are allowed to teach in Tibetan but don't.”

In response, several Jewish delegates praised Hebrew and Sunday School programs and offered them as a model. But Rabbi Levitt, a Sunday School princ.i.p.al herself, was less enthusiastic. She thought ”part of the reason Jews aren't Jewish anymore has been the supplementary schools.”

From my own experience, I wasn't quite as skeptical as Joy. I attended ten years of Sunday School and three or four of afternoon Hebrew school. Although I think I could have been taught better, and learned much more, the religious schooling did succeed in confirming my Jewish ident.i.ty. Especially important was my confirmation cla.s.s, which at a crucial time, ages fifteen and sixteen, planted me squarely within a Jewish social world. Somewhat providentially, I was also exposed in that setting to some truly iconoclastic Jewish intellectuals-one a rabbi without a pulpit who taught us existential philosophy with our Jewish history, and another a poet. Finally, our rabbi, Morris Lieberman-Marc Lieberman's uncle-challenged us to write down our conception of G.o.d. As I recall, my little essay was impudent and atheistic, so I was surprised when Rabbi Lieberman not only congratulated me for my honesty but also suggested I might consider the rabbinate as a vocation.

My experience may have been very unusual. I agree with Joy that too many Jewish kids find their time wasted in religious school. There's a lot of lip service in the Jewish world about the importance of education, but that's not where the money goes. After hours of boredom, week after week, a child could develop a real hatred for religion. Also, in terms of getting the basic tools-reading Hebrew, studying texts, or even learning the prayer service-my Jewish education had failed miserably. And in part to correct this failing, the more recent trend has been toward Jewish day schools. Hebrew literacy requires that kind of commitment.

But after talking to Pemo, Chodron, and Alex Berzin, I was also convinced there was a more fundamental problem: a defensive att.i.tude. Young Jews growing up in America are intellectually curious and they demand a more open-minded approach to spirituality. The questions about G.o.d that Chodron had asked should have been answered-I gathered that instead they were ignored or suppressed.

Later, over dinner, Nathan Katz and others were peppered by the Tibetans with questions about Jewish communal inst.i.tutions, ”everything from burial societies to day schools to supplementary schools, the whole gamut, federations, how Jewish federations relate to each other.” Nathan preferred this discussion to his encounters in the morning with the Jewish Buddhists and described it to me as ”more an ethnic than interreligious dialogue and in that sense more direct and more honest, more concrete.”

Paul Mendes-Flohr spoke fondly of his experiences at Camp Ramah, a Conservative summer camp that several of the Jewish delegates had once attended. The Tibetans wanted to learn more. The Jewish group promised to help bring Tibetans to observe a Jewish summer camp. This became one of the more concrete initiatives to emerge from the dialogue. It is remarkable, in fact, how many rabbis and Jewish leaders trace the origin of their commitment to summer camp.

But, in the same discussion, Zalman Schachter grew impatient with the nuts-and-bolts approach. He sensed that the secularized Tibetan intellectuals had turned their backs on the resources of their own tradition. ”The Tibetan diaspora has not yet been done as a thought form,” he told them. I believe what he meant was that they should use the mental development tools of the Buddhist tradition, such as visualization, to meditate on the exile situation, or as he put it, ”use tantra to visualize their diaspora.” This sounded a little like Zalman going to some secular Jewish community leaders and telling them they should don tefillin tefillin and daven before deciding how to allocate federation funds. Maybe that isn't a bad idea, but I have a feeling it is unlikely to happen. and daven before deciding how to allocate federation funds. Maybe that isn't a bad idea, but I have a feeling it is unlikely to happen.

Then Zalman scolded the monks as well, advising them to serve as ”spiritual uncles” to Tibetan families. He suggested his pet idea of a Pa.s.sover seder as a way of remembering the life of the Buddha. He also proposed that the monks create a new initiation of householders, ”Empower them for household puja puja. The question of the householders has to be taken deeply into consideration. You have disenfranchised them.”

I wondered if that criticism was fair. Perhaps Zalman was forgetting that there are major householder traditions alive and kicking in Tibetan Buddhism, in sects other than the Dalai Lama's. There are married lamas in the kagyu kagyu lineage-so not all teachers of Tibetan Buddhism are monks. Moreover, the problem may not be as simple as creating new prayers or rituals for the home, or household lineage-so not all teachers of Tibetan Buddhism are monks. Moreover, the problem may not be as simple as creating new prayers or rituals for the home, or household puja puja. The young people in exile, exposed to modern science and secular education, often feel that all religion is superst.i.tion.

I could see Yitz growing increasingly annoyed while Zalman was scolding. Finally he broke in, ”We don't want to get a report that you are running for Dalai Lama!” It was the most open moment of tension among the Jews that week.

But Karma Gelek, who represented the official exile government, showed no sign of annoyance. ”They are good ideas,” he said, ”but there is a lack of funds, or there are means but a lack of ideas. There is a brain drain,” he added. Some Tibetans had complained to us that their best religious teachers were going to the West and teaching foreigners.

Karma Gelek spoke of a generation gap between those born in Tibet and those born in exile. ”It's beautiful in this modern world, they think, so it's easy to forget your history because many people think you are born in this world, one life and that's it. We've been doing this for only thirty years. You are right,” he said, addressing Zalman. ”The family has a great responsibility. They used to be happy just to send them to any school. Now they ought to think differently. To save our Tibetan freedom by saving our culture. We may have a free Tibet back, but if it's totally different, then I personally would not want it back.”

As for monks acting as spiritual uncles, Karma Gelek sounded defensive. Unlike, say, Catholic monks and nuns, there is very little tradition among Tibetan monks for doing social work. Still, Karma Gelek said, ”There are many secular works. Whatever they are doing, it's a personal sacrifice. They could stay in the monastery and have a good life.”

I came away with a better sense of the real divisions and tensions in the Tibetan exile community-the pressures the Dalai Lama faces on a day-to-day basis. It was one thing to maintain nonviolent ideals in the abstract, another when dealing with nitty-gritty politics and facing strong discontent. Yitz had raised the question of democratizing and renewing religion with the Dalai Lama, and now I was seeing how difficult that task might be. Many young Tibetans born in exile blamed their plight on the failures of the religious leaders.h.i.+p.

The secular Tibetans in exile resemble my parents' generation in America, who grew up during the Depression. Both are children of immigrants, eager to a.s.similate into the prevailing culture. Their values include working hard and making it in the material world. Both generations embraced a modern, scientific worldview, turning away from anything that resembled superst.i.tion. They found their ident.i.ty in the exoteric-politics and ethnicity, not inner religious experience.

For instance, I had occasion after my return from India to meet with a geshe geshe living in Canada, who was sent to establish a Tibetan Buddhist temple there. He told me that most of his students were Westerners, that the local Tibetans were too involved with establis.h.i.+ng themselves as immigrants to devote themselves to religion. They mainly came to the temple on special holidays, such as the Buddha's birthday. This reminded me of my parent's generation again: the shuls were full to bursting on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but empty the rest of the year. living in Canada, who was sent to establish a Tibetan Buddhist temple there. He told me that most of his students were Westerners, that the local Tibetans were too involved with establis.h.i.+ng themselves as immigrants to devote themselves to religion. They mainly came to the temple on special holidays, such as the Buddha's birthday. This reminded me of my parent's generation again: the shuls were full to bursting on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but empty the rest of the year.

Obviously, determinedly secular people are tough to reach in any case. But Zalman was asking Tibetan monks like Karma Gelek and Laktor to shoulder unaccustomed burdens at a time when they worried most about simply preserving the tradition.

Tibetans and Jews, and Hindus and Muslims for that matter, all face similar problems of preserving religious traditions in the contemporary world. The zeal to preserve could lead to conflict with others, to violence and war. That was brought home to us dramatically as soon as our meeting with the Tibetan intellectuals broke up.

Tsangpo, our travel guide, came to us with some bad news. While we'd been in dialogues about pluralism, India had plunged into crisis. A group of Hindu fundamentalists was marching on a mosque in Ayodha, in a bordering state southeast of Dharamsala. The Hindu militants claimed the site as the birthplace of Lord Rama. Rajiv Gandhi had predicted two weeks before our arrival that the issue would bring down the government of Prime Minister V. P. Singh, already under pressure due to the violent demonstrations over his affirmative action scheme. These new demonstrations touched on the fear of religious civil war that has hung over Indian politics since independence in 1947.

The demonstration was scheduled for Tuesday, the same day as our planned departure, and the Indian government planned a curfew and restrictions on travel for that day.

The history of Muslim-Hindu relations is full of both extremes: great mutual tolerance and fanaticism. The very recent development of a militant Hindu fundamentalist movement is especially dismaying, because Hinduism has traditionally been one of the most tolerant of world religions.

For me, the whole situation as we discussed it echoed an incident a few weeks earlier on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There, in a confrontation between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators, nineteen Arabs had been killed. That confrontation began when Palestinian wors.h.i.+pers at the Al-Aqsa mosque showered stones and rocks on Jews praying at the Western Wall below them. That stupidity was met by an overreaction on the part of the Israeli police.

Both Muslims and Jews consider the same site, the Temple Mount, to be sacred ground, just as now Muslims and Hindus were claiming the same temple site in Ayodha. The question is, what role should religion play in such conflicts? It seems to me that very often in Israel, religion exacerbates the conflict on both sides. Yet in the deeper, inner core of Judaism, there is a sweeter wisdom that knows better. For instance, Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem, is fond of citing the Orthodox belief that the Third Temple of Jerusalem is not something that can be built by a contractor. Rather, it floats in heaven and will not descend to earth until G.o.d is good and ready. That wisdom could temper the pa.s.sions that would claim holy ground at the cost of human blood.

But a strong case can also be made that organized religion is the problem, not the solution. That in part was Yitz Greenberg's point, that if religion continues to exacerbate conflict and hatred in the world, then religion itself, in his words, ”will go down the tubes, and good riddance.”

Just to add a little more complexity to the argument, there is the current impa.s.se between the Tibetans and Chinese. In this case there is currently no common religious ground. Once, long ago, when China was a Buddhist country, the Dalai Lama of Tibet was especially respected by the Chinese emperor, so that their relations.h.i.+p was known as ”priest and patron.” As a result, Chinese armies did not cross over into Tibet, nor Tibetan armies into China.

But since the Chinese Communist revolution in 1949, all that has gone by the board. The Chinese have completely abrogated seven hundred years of mutual respect by simply annexing Tibet militarily. Attempts at negotiation have proven fruitless. From their MarxistLeninist perspective, the Dalai Lama is a feudal leader and the Chinese are simply bringing progress to a backward, superst.i.tious land. The spiritual riches of Tibet are entirely invisible to them, and their concrete manifestation, including six thousand monasteries, have been reduced to rubble, or used as granaries and stables.

Recently, it is true, the Chinese have begun allowing Tibetans to rebuild a few of the monasteries-but mainly so they can be shown to tourists. The Chinese sell tickets for the visits, as in an amus.e.m.e.nt park, and administer the new monasteries under their department of antiquities. They continue to view Tibetan religion as backward superst.i.tion.

So on the one side there is a powerful empire with a purely materialistic ideology backed by an overwhelming military force, and on the other is the Dalai Lama, primarily relying on his spiritual principles and the support he can gain from international public opinion.

I think it is a difficult question whether the Dalai Lama's religious vision is truly adequate to the moment of history he finds himself in. If, for instance, one imagines that in 1947-when Israel was attacked by six Arab armies-that the young state had been led by a mystically minded rabbi, instead of a pragmatic secularist like David Ben-Gurion, the outcome might have been less favorable.

An interesting aside is that David Ben-Gurion studied Buddhism seriously. In 1961, during a visit to Burma, the Israeli leader spent two days in conversation with Burmese monks, and told a biographer that he ”got some new insights in talks with U Nu, prime minister of Burma at that time, a scholarly and devout follower of Buddhist moral teachings.” Elie Wiesel pa.s.sed on to me further details, which he had on good authority. Ben-Gurion peppered U Nu with questions. Finally the Burmese leader said, ”There is a man in Ceylon who is a great teacher, and he can answer your questions.”

”What language will we speak?” Ben-Gurion asked.

”What else?” U Nu replied, ”Yiddish.”

It seems the guru in question was a Jew who had studied Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It's possible he was Nyanoponika Thera, a German Jewish refugee and author who is considered one of the most erudite monks in the Theravadan tradition-yet another major JUBU.

So maybe in exchange with Ben-Gurion, it might be a good idea for the Dalai Lama to study a little Zionism. It's not that I doubted the profundity of Tibetan Buddhism, or its deep consolations for the Dalai Lama's religious followers. Even having lost their land, their temples, and their monasteries, a thorough understanding that the nature of things is impermanence provides them with a powerful acceptance. Yes, Karma Gelek had told us with some pride at a dinner held the night after we'd arrived, ”We have been able to reestablish two hundred monasteries in India, Nepal, and Bhutan, and because of the success of establis.h.i.+ng monasteries, we don't worry about the disappearance of our culture from the surface of the earth.” This intrigued Blu Greenberg, because it seemed to imply that the new could subst.i.tute for the old. She asked if the Tibetans had a concept of ”holy s.p.a.ce, sanctified s.p.a.ce,” like Jerusalem for the Jews or Rome for the Catholics.

To Karma Gelek, ”holy s.p.a.ces are symbols rather than the essence. We don't believe,” he said, ”in untransportable holy s.p.a.ce.”

Karma Gelek said the Dalai Lama had once told a refugee community that ”you don't have to worry if everything is destroyed in Tibet-such as thangka thangka paintings or statues of the Buddha-because if a person treasures the real holy thing in himself, he can reproduce the spiritual objects because they come from the spirit within the person.” paintings or statues of the Buddha-because if a person treasures the real holy thing in himself, he can reproduce the spiritual objects because they come from the spirit within the person.”

This is very beautiful, but I can see where younger militants, such as Lhasang Tsering, might find this approach counterproductive, if the goal is to get back the actual land of Tibet. It's not the kind of religious philosophy that would encourage people to fight for their homeland.

This philosophy would seem to work against a Tibetan Zionism. Karma Gelek indicated that if people fail to stay with the essence of their religion, and instead cling to an exoteric ident.i.ty, or if people mix up their religion with politics, they are themselves the greatest enemies to the survival of the inner meaning of their faith.

Jews have faced such choices again and again in their history, and I don't think there's any single lesson to draw. In the debate between pure idealism and impure action, sometimes the Maccabees have won, and sometimes the hasids hasids or saints. For centuries in Europe accommodation and humility, and a focus on community spiritual life, helped Jews survive. Today the dominant reaction to the Holocaust has been that Jews must fight, must use violence, if necessary, to ensure survival. And now many thoughtful Israelis, such as Paul Mendes-Flohr, worry very much about the effect on young people raised in a life of constant conflict. But only a handful, and they would be considered marginal, would be willing to entrust the fate of Israel solely to G.o.d's hands. or saints. For centuries in Europe accommodation and humility, and a focus on community spiritual life, helped Jews survive. Today the dominant reaction to the Holocaust has been that Jews must fight, must use violence, if necessary, to ensure survival. And now many thoughtful Israelis, such as Paul Mendes-Flohr, worry very much about the effect on young people raised in a life of constant conflict. But only a handful, and they would be considered marginal, would be willing to entrust the fate of Israel solely to G.o.d's hands.

As to our own more immediate fate, Tsangpo, our travel guide, helped us discuss travel alternatives. The railroad was out, too many terrorist attacks. As foreigners, we would be obvious targets. We might be stranded in Dharamsala for a week or so, unless we chartered a plane. Michael Sautman promised to look into it.

Nathan Katz found the political chaos astounding. This was not the India he knew and cherished. He felt there was ”a vastly higher level of confrontation and violence, misery. It's a much angrier place than it was twenty years ago, much less charming, much uglier, much more crowded and, paradoxically, less poor.”

For that evening, the Tibetans had invited us to dinner and a show in McLeod Ganj. Most declined, already exhausted by the intensity of the past twenty-four hours, but I was game. The buffet-style meal was served outdoors in a long tent. In chilly mountain air, I was able to sample delicacies like hard-boiled eggs cooked in pastry and Kentucky fried yak, as well as my favorite, mo-mos mo-mos-Tibetan kreplach. Then, in a rather rough-hewn auditorium, I saw native Tibetan dances and music-very loud in the horn and cymbals department-with colorful red fringe hats, dragon costumes, and lots of stomping boots. The racket temporarily blasted away all worries and fears.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, TIBETAN CHILDREN'S VILLAGE After Sunday morning prayer and breakfast, we learned from Michael Sautman that a charter plane would not work out. We would leave Dharamsala Monday evening, right after our session with the Dalai Lama, and drive all night, hoping to slip into Delhi ahead of the curfew declared for Tuesday at 7 A.M. A.M.

With that settled, Paul Mendes-Flohr, representing the newly formed Israeli-Tibetan Friends.h.i.+p Society, and Yitz and Blu Greenberg, who serve on the board of the American Jewish World Service, an international relief agency, met with some Tibetan government officials to discuss how Israelis could a.s.sist the Tibetans. One possibility was sending Israeli technicians to help the Tibetans set up a cheese-making business. In a nation that reveres the cow, this technology was not highly developed, and the Tibetans might find a niche among hotels and restaurants that catered to foreigners. The strangeness and specificity of such a connection delighted me. The Tibetans, like the Jews, are able entrepreneurs. Apparently, for instance, because of the rug trade, the Tibetans have become the wealthiest people in Nepal. Some have joked that they are the Jews of the East.

After lunch we drove beyond McLeod Ganj to the Tibetan Children's Village, a large orphanage complex with a school and a handicrafts center. For many years the orphanage had been run under the watchful eye of the Dalai Lama's younger sister, Jetsun Pema. The kids live in crowded conditions, in small cottages sponsored by various international relief agencies. The Catholic charities have been especially helpful. Each cottage houses twenty or more kids supervised by a Tibetan couple. We toured a group nursery for infants and toddlers, and Blu Greenberg, a Jewish mother to the core, fussed that all the children were not was.h.i.+ng their hands after going to the bathroom.

But though the conditions were crowded and difficult and the Tibetans could certainly use more help, the children I saw were bright and cheerful. I'd brought a Polaroid camera and took several pictures of smiling groups in front of their cottages, which I gave to them for keepsakes. Especially in the early years of exile, many of the adults got sick due to the harsh conditions of life in India. Yet even thirty years later, a new generation of refugees continues to make its way to Dharamsala. Sometimes Tibetan mothers will make the arduous trip out of faith, to leave some of their children to be raised under the guidance of His Holiness. Some children make the trip themselves. I met a young man of sixteen working in the s.h.i.+pping department of the handicrafts center at TCV. As he wrapped a handmade Tibetan carpet in paper and tied it up, he told me of his journey by foot at the age of twelve over the Himalayas and into India. He had left with the blessing of his family. He told me he preferred life here in the orphanage under the care of the Dalai Lama to living under the Chinese. He hoped eventually to go on to college.

His cheerfulness, and the rather matter-of-fact way he related what must have been an incredibly arduous and dangerous journey, reminded me of my father's father-who as a young man left the Russian Pale for America.

That evening we were entertained by a show in the orphanage's auditorium. The pageantry combined East and West-a group of sixyear-olds sang a patriotic song at the end of which a banner bearing an image of the Dalai Lama was unfurled and confetti was thrown. An adolescent girl gave an impressive recitation of a Gilbert and Sullivan number. The children at TCV study in Tibetan for grades one through five and then switch to English for secondary education, in order to prepare themselves for Indian society. There are no Tibetan universities in exile.