8

LIVING BUDDHA DATABASE

Tibet Autonomous Regional Office, No. 1 Kang’angdonglu, Lhasa,

Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China

September 17, 2014

The two most senior officials of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China were seated at each end of the long table that dominated the executive boardroom at the top of the Party’s headquarters at No. 1 Kang’angdonglu in Lhasa.

Zou Xiaopeng, the Communist Party secretary for the territory, and Jin Yui, the governor, were both ambitious men with little love for the land they ruled and even less for each other. Zou was an out-and-out Party man, hardworking, intelligent, patient, dogmatic; while Jin was his own man, venal, connected, cunning, ruthless, corrupt. Both were following one of the two well-trodden roads, that familiar yin and yang of Chinese power politics, to reach that lacquered table. Between them, on each side, were the chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Wang Maozhen, and a corpulent Tibetan monk called Geshe Shep.

With his characteristic lack of emotion, Chairman Wang, another Party man in the mold of Zou, was explaining to the assembled “Dragon Committee” how the priority project of the Religious and Ethnic Affairs section under his charge was nearing completion. Casting from a laptop to a large plasma screen on the wall, he was demonstrating his new database of “Living Buddhas,” as he called them.

“We have one thousand, three hundred, and twenty-one approved entries,” Wang reported. “All those we deem significant within this regional religious grouping. We now know everything about them.” His cursor danced energetically from photograph to photograph and section to section to highlight recorded personal details: places of residence, positions within the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism, and known loyalties and affiliations to the Party. “Such knowledge permits complete control,” he concluded.

“Good. But what happens when your ‘Living Buddhas’ are no longer living?” Governor Jin said, smiling at his own wit as Zou gave him a look of barely concealed loathing. “Do you also have complete control of their rebirth?”

Wang responded like the automaton he was to clinically explain that in case of vacancy of a registered position due to death, full details of the search process to find the replacement—he did not say “reincarnation”—would also be included and procedurally monitored. He added that all monks in the database involved in such a search process would be automatically placed under enhanced surveillance and supervision to ensure they followed approved procedure. “Nothing will now be left to either local superstition or chance.”

“Well done!” Party Secretary Zou congratulated his political understudy. “As we all know, this work is of paramount importance for the number one ethnic priority of this region: the selection, when necessary, of the next Dalai Lama. Only then will we finally rule this territory and people.”

“That splittist monk’s escape was the Chairman’s greatest mistake,” Jin interjected, desirous to irritate the staunch party man and loyalist to the memory of Mao with whom he had disagreed over policy toward the Dalai Lama for years.

“That was a long time ago. Things are far different now. Few escape today, as you well know,” Zou snapped back, instantly rising to his rival’s bait. “Beijing has granted huge investment for us to close the traditional exit routes into Nepal, Bhutan, and India. We have increased patrols, motion sensors, and UAV drones that have turned the Himalayas into a second Great Wall. In addition, heavy financial and penal sanctions on remaining family members as well as bounty payments to neighboring border authorities for the return of apprehended transients have had great effect.”

“Yet still some get away,” Jin needled.

The monk, appearing to wake from a postprandial slumber, spoke. “Yes, I heard recently that a possible soul child had gone missing in Community Work Territory 57. Did not Community Supervisor Pie Lee make a report?”

“I think you misunderstand the point, Geshe Shep,” Wang said dismissively to the corpulent monk. “Our database is now the only authority. If a vacancy is not on the list, then it does not exist. In that case we questioned the parents at length. I suspect the infant was actually kidnapped or sold by the parents because of a particular ‘difference’ in that it had red hair. I hear that people pay highly for such oddities.”

Geshe chewed on Wang’s hubris as if it was one of his five meals a day, but chose to say nothing more that might jeopardize them.

It was Zou Xiaopeng who spoke again. “Perhaps that is so, but we must also be diligent. This is a delicate moment for us all. Need I remind any of you that our territory is the key to the next five-year plan? The president has mandated the production of new power technologies as a priority to combat our nation’s pollution and to render the oil dominion of others obsolete. The extraction of lithium, graphite, and heavy earths from the Tibetan Autonomous Region has to increase dramatically as does utilization of our abundant natural water resources for additional energy. No one can be allowed to stand in the way and nothing, I repeat nothing, can be left to chance.”

“But, Party Secretary, you know well that while the Dalai Lama lives that is impossible,” Jin interjected, turning the screw of their ongoing disagreement over how best to deal with that matter.

“Patience has never been your strong point, Governor.” Zou scowled. “How old is he now, Geshe Shep?”

“Seventy-nine, I believe. Tenzin Gyatso has already outlived every other dalai lama, with the exception of the first.”

“That devil cannot live forever and when the time comes we will choose a suitable replacement from within our territories using this very database. No stone is being left unturned to prepare for this moment. Our much-loved Panchen Lama is now of age and ready to lead the process. All the registered living buddhas in this very database will fall into line if they value their freedom. Is that not correct, Geshe Shep?”

The large monk grunted his agreement as Jin pressed a button on the table and said, “Please show in the lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Yen-Tsun Lai entered to stand before the screen displaying the database.

Jin looked at his protégé and wished he could let him loose on Zou—that would be something to watch—but said, “Lieutenant, welcome. I thought the Dragon Committee, particularly Party Secretary Zou, should hear your news given the subject matter of our meeting today.”

Yama licked the dry edge of his mouth.

“I report to the Dragon Committee that a key splittist cell in Lhasa has been broken up following apprehension of the Dutch professor, Paul van der Mark, a foreign spy whose identity had eluded us for years. Fortunately, the person that he had searched for many years had also eluded him.”

“And who was that?” Jin asked, already well aware of the answer but looking at Zou to see him receive it.

“The boy the Dalai Lama chose against our wishes to be Panchen Lama.”

“Did he get close?”

Yama’s hooded eyes blinked once. “No.”

Geshe Shep stirred. “Was the Dutchman the ghost moth?”

“No,” the lieutenant said. “I am sure of that.”

“Why do you ask, Geshe Shep?” Governor Jin asked.

“The subject came up in respect to the missing child in Community Work Territory 57 that I mentioned.”

“What or who is this?” Wang demanded.

“No one knows,” the monk continued. “Many Tibetans think that the ghost moth is a tulpa, a spirit; others think it is another living Buddha, a saint even. The name has long been linked with people and precious relics from our monasteries and communities disappearing.”

“Superstitious nonsense, Geshe. It is just a myth, another code word for an all-too-human resistance,” Jin warned. “The lieutenant catches everyone in the end, and when he does you can be sure there will be no reincarnation. No one would risk such a fate twice.”

“Our inquiries of the Lhasa group have left us with many leads to follow and details of a new route through the mountains that is being used to cross into Nepal. We are monitoring them all,” the lieutenant added. “If he exists, I can assure you that the ghost moth will soon be found and destroyed.”

“Good, then you should proceed,” Zou ordered. “This is a crucial time. Nothing can be left that might jeopardize the future of this process.”

“Before I do, I would like Geshe Shep to tell me about this.” Yama passed the monk a leather notebook opened to the final inked page.

The monk looked at it, noting the brown smear of dried blood on the paper. “Did this come from the Dutch professor?”

“Yes. Do you know what it signifies?”

“Yes. I saw this likeness once before.” The monk stopped, tasting once again his bitterest shame.

“Speak, fat man,” Jin ordered.

Geshe Shep glanced nervously at Yama and immediately began to sing for his multiple suppers for the next thirty minutes. Before he had finished earning the first, Jin had beckoned Yama to his side and quietly ordered him to visit Community Work Territory 57.