2. Ritual and Resistance

As a child I was particularly intrigued by vultures, which are sacred in Tibet because of the crucial part they play in disposing of the bodies of the dead. Since the ground is frozen for much of the year and too hard to dig, our community practised sky burials. When someone died, the lama who lived in the local monastery a little further down the valley would come to perform prayers. He was almost like the village priest, available for ceremonies and consolation as required. We all knew and trusted him.

Once he had finished saying the prayers for the dead, the body was bound in a shroud and carried to the charnel ground, where the covering was removed and the body chopped up. The hovering birds would swoop down out of the sky and eat everything except the bones they couldn’t break, such as the skull. Bearded vultures, native to Tibet, are the biggest of their kind in the world and they often have a wingspan of more than 2.5 metres, so they were immensely powerful. The relatives attending to the body would return after a few days and smash the remaining bones together and mix them with the brain so that the vultures would be able to eat everything.

The hope was that not a scrap of flesh would be left behind. In fact it was regarded as inauspicious if a body was not fully consumed, reflecting badly on the karmic status of the deceased. Karma is a key doctrine in Buddhism. We believe that all our thoughts, speech and actions, as well as the emotions that drive these actions, shape both the life we are currently living and all our lives to come. When we die the karma we have accumulated in this lifetime, be it good or bad, determines whether we will be reborn once more as a human being, as an animal or as a being of one of the other realms of existence, whether lower or higher. If the vultures were unwilling to consume a particular corpse, it didn’t look good for that individual’s karmic reckoning. In such cases a further purification ritual by another lama might be required, so every care was taken to allow the vultures to carry out their role.

The Tibetan approach to funerals strikes some Westerners as gruesome. Having visited the lawn-covered cemeteries of England I can see why. We didn’t regard the process as horrifying or disrespectful, though. For a start, it was by far the most efficient and hygienic approach. It represented an act of generosity to the birds, and to the interconnected world of mutual support in which we lived. And, of course, all of us believed in reincarnation, so the body was just an empty shell. In Tibetan Buddhism vultures are seen as dakinis, or angels, come to help the dead person towards a swift reincarnation. So we believe that being consumed by them is a sacred way to finish your embodied time on earth.

As a young boy I was desperate to catch a vulture. Not to kill it; I just wanted to feel the pull of that enormous, angelic power for myself. This was a foolish notion, unlikely to work out well for me, but it became a fixed idea in my mind. When I was about seven a dog died in the village and I saw my chance and enlisted my friends to help. We decided we would tie a rope to the dog’s body and when the vulture came to eat it we could drag the carcass closer to us, luring the vulture until it was near enough for us to lasso it. We thought we were quite clever to hatch such a plan, but when the vulture saw us it simply grabbed the dog and flew off with it. The bird was so powerful that all of us together couldn’t keep a hold on the rope.

I didn’t give up, however. I was still determined to catch myself a vulture. One day I noticed that a horse had died down by the river and many vultures were coming to eat the corpse. They always start with the soft internal organs, which are the most nutritious part and easily eaten. In a big animal this then creates a natural cage shape from the ribs. I watched the vultures going further and further into the carcass, and noticed that to do this, they had to fold their wings. I came up with the brilliant idea that while one of the vultures was inside the horse, eating its flesh, I would be able to put my arms around it and catch hold of it by its wings. It amazes me that I considered this plan for so much as a second given my earlier experience, which had shown me the vast strength of these creatures. Even at the age of seven I was ever the optimist about my own prowess, and always utterly unafraid.

I lay in wait and when I saw a vulture go into the dead horse’s chest cavity, I sprung onto it and managed to grab it by the wings. The vulture wasn’t going to stand for that! It was so big that it had no difficulty taking off with me still holding on to it. Terrified, I tried to keep my grip, but it freed itself and I fell to earth. And that was the end of my vulture catching, though it was just the beginning of my taste for recklessness.

When I was ten years old I experienced the first major change to the rhythm of my life. My father announced that my brother Akong Rinpoche had sent a letter summoning us to Dolma Lhakang. My brother the tulku, whom I had heard so much about, wanted to meet me! The visit would be in preparation for my joining him in a couple of years, to become his assistant. I was excited. I had never been further than the grazing lands above my village, so even the act of saddling up a horse and setting off for the four-day journey felt like an adventure.

My father had some business to take care of near the monastery. He was going to trade salt, which could not be obtained in that area, for white barley, which is particularly good for making tsampa. We set off in a westerly direction accompanied by twelve yaks, loaded with sacks of salt. The first night away we stayed with a nomadic family in the area my mother came from. The following day we had to travel through dense forest and cross a river. I couldn’t swim and I recall my terror when our horse, which my father had tied me to, began to drift downstream from the narrow crossing point. My father managed to drive the beast on to reach the other side, but I was cold, wet and scared when we struggled out of the water. The second and third nights we spent with other families we vaguely knew, and then, on the fourth day, we began to ascend towards the desert plain where Dolma Lhakang was located, at 4,500 metres above sea level. We left the tree line far behind us and I began to feel overwhelmed by the eeriness of the barren landscape. I just wasn’t used to it at all, and I felt small and out of place. We had to cross a deeply frozen lake and I recall our yaks putting their heads down and scraping their horns over the ice, bellowing as if they were calling to some lost companions below the surface.

My first view of the monastery is engraved on my mind. Its central temple building was the largest structure I had ever seen, an adobe construction of pinkish plaster over strong stone walls, its surface rough, the roof made of wood. There was a huge wooden double door set right in the centre of the building. As we approached, across the boulder-strewn terrain of grey rock, the pink walls seemed to glow.

I was still feeling a bit sorry for myself and I had no idea what to expect from the meeting that awaited me. But when my father and I arrived, and once the monks had welcomed us, they told us that Akong Rinpoche was not there. He was away with another young lama called Trungpa Rinpoche, receiving teachings from their guru called Shechen Kongtrül Rinpoche, and nobody could say when he might be back. I didn’t really mind too much, though I could tell my father was disappointed. These things were inevitable in a society where there was no method of long-distance communication except letters delivered by hand.

My father left me in the care of Akong Rinpoche’s tutor for a couple of nights while he went off to do his trading. The man was very kind to me but I did not feel comfortable alone in this new environment. There was nobody to play with since I was the only child there, and I missed my mother’s embrace. There was no point in waiting beyond the time required for my father’s business, since my brother might not be back for weeks or even months; so after my father’s return to pick me up we set off. That return journey was nowhere near as exciting!

When we got back to our village I was ready to forget entirely about the adventure. Going off to see the world hadn’t been that much fun, in my opinion, and I was glad to be home with my family and friends. I wanted nothing more than to resume my happy life and forget all about Dolma Lhakang. But my father had different ideas. He set about teaching me to read and write Tibetan, since I would need to be literate when my brother summoned me again to go to him. The training in the routines and procedures of the monastery would be intense, I was told, so it was essential to be ready.

I still couldn’t imagine the life that supposedly awaited me. Going away, even for that short time, had made it clear to me that I belonged in Darak. So what need did I have for reading and writing? My father would set out the rice paper, the ink in its copper pot and pens made from bamboo with a sharpened tip. I would study in an unenthusiastic way until the first opportunity for release presented itself – when he left the room to attend to something my mother was saying, for example. Then I would slip out in search of my playmates. I wanted to please my parents, but I wanted much more to indulge myself.

This rebellious streak was a defining feature of the first half of my life. On those tedious afternoons in Darak I discovered I had a knack for escaping from whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing. I spent the next thirty years as an escape artist from any situation or expectation that didn’t suit me.

Naturally enough it enraged my father to have to come looking for me out in the fields or in the basement of some neighbour’s house. One day, tired of dragging me back to my studies, he hit me on the head with a stick. Tibetan parents generally provide a very nurturing environment for their children, but at this time corporal punishment was still the norm for serious misbehaviour. Unfortunately, on this occasion my father’s aim was off and he accidentally hit me in the eye, which swelled up so badly that it provoked my mother’s fury when she saw it. She was so upset that she insisted that there would be no more lessons. I was delighted, but it made my life very difficult when I arrived at Dolma Lhakang and embarked on my studies there, for which I was totally unprepared.

Not long after I was released from the burden of study, it was time to begin the preparations for Losar, or Tibetan New Year, which was the highlight of our community’s year. This holiday typically falls in February or early March in the Western calendar and can last for more than two weeks. I loved it and looked forward to it for months. All normal routines were relaxed, the grown-ups were always in an excellent mood and we got to wear our fanciest clothes, use our nicest things and eat the best food of the entire year. I had a little Mongolian hat decorated with a coral-coloured stone that I was extremely proud of, and a silver food bowl that I was only allowed to use at New Year.

Before the festivities began we would clean our house thoroughly and bring in fragrant woods for burning as smoke offerings. My mother, Auntie and sisters would have been preparing food for days in advance. The custom was to eat fried dumplings made from wheat flour mixed with dried cheese and yak butter and shaped into squares. I loved them more than any food in the whole world. They were served with the meat from a yak’s head, which was also a delicacy eaten only at Losar. Those yaks’ heads were kept aside throughout the winter until it was time to prepare them. The hair was burned off down at the riverbank, the heads then brought back to the house and the meat chopped up small and cooked for the Losar festivities. We had lots of krapse, twisted dough biscuits that were deep fried. And for the grown-ups there was chang, barley beer, which was brewed only at New Year. As Buddhists, consumption of alcohol was not done regulary. At New Year it was drank but rarely at other times.

On New Year’s Day my whole family would rise early and get dressed in our finest clothes. We then prepared the house by putting out all the softest cushions and the delicate woven rugs we kept for special occasions and for receiving guests. Once everything was ready we sat down to celebrate. For the first two days our immediate family feasted together. Then the other families in the village would arrive, one by one, to celebrate with us. Each day brought a different family, and the celebrations went on long into the night. The adults got a little tipsy and there was music played on flutes, mouth harps and a guitar, with everyone dancing in our big living room. When the party was finished each person was given one square dumpling and a portion of the rich yak meat to take home with them. Meanwhile, every other family in the village was doing the same. It was a whirl of socializing as each family went visiting. When I look back on it now, it must have been quite a feat to schedule all those visits so that there were no empty houses or others where four families had pitched up together. No wonder it took us weeks to get round everyone!

The festivities closed with a religious ceremony in which the whole village took part. We put up a huge baa, or yak-skin tent, and invited our local Lama, all the local Sangha (monks and nuns) from the nearest villages, and any other learned person who was able to read fast. They all came to take part in reading the Kangyur (the sacred texts, containing the Buddha’s teachings, considered very precious and holy) for the benefit of us villagers. In return, every family chipped in to provide them with the very best food we could offer. When the reading was complete and we had eaten the closing meal, we felt ready to start the new year.

This was the rhythm of existence throughout my childhood. Our community farmed and harvested, rested and feasted. I felt that I was a living part of the fabric of the interconnected world, and I was happy. I credit this with creating an inner core of stability and faith that has never left me, even in my most challenging or confused moments.

It seems to me that human beings thrive when we feel part of a bigger whole. The moment we realize that we are part of the air we breathe and the earth we stand on is a breakthrough that creates a spontaneous wave of compassion and respect for all living beings and the natural world that sustains us. Nothing and nobody stands alone. This wave of loving kindness towards all beings rebounds and envelops us too, and brings about a sense of deep gratitude. Human life is particularly precious to us Buddhists simply because human beings are capable of grasping these truths, which gives us a unique opportunity to learn something about the nature of reality and of the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth we call samsara. This in turn lays the foundation for escaping from suffering’s hold over us and taking tentative steps in the direction of liberation. One important part of this process is to learn to appreciate the present moment for all its possibilities. Drink deeply from the cup when times are good and use those moments to foster habits of awareness and positivity, because easy times cannot last for ever.

When I was about seven or eight years old I witnessed something so out of place, so unprecedented, that I stood and stared. A column of Chinese soldiers came marching through our valley and into our village. They wore crisp uniforms with metal buttons that gleamed in the sunlight and their arms and legs swung in time as they moved. I was impressed by their smartness. When I looked at our clothes I saw that they were ragged by comparison and I felt scruffy for the first time in my life. Who were these people and what were they doing here? I had never seen a stranger before but I wasn’t scared, just fascinated.

The adults were less taken in. They must have received word that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had launched a military strike on the town of Chamdo in October of 1950, though there had been no talk of it in front of us children. The Communists had come to power in China the year before and the liberation of Tibet was one of the regime’s highest priorities. It didn’t take them long to launch an invasion. I had no idea, but the poorly equipped Tibetan army had already been overrun and these soldiers were on their way to Lhasa, having received orders from Peking that military force would not be required for the time being. Negotiations with the Dalai Lama’s government were about to be opened.

The adults set about performing a ritual to drive the Chinese away. Normally, when dignitaries visited our village the elders performed the sang, fragrant smoke offerings from which we expected would come limitless good things for our guests. Instead, the clay pots were filled with burning animal dung. I remember that the stench filled the whole village, so that I felt sure the smart visitors would retreat in disgust. But they stayed put. Seemingly they didn’t know they were being insulted and just thought we had stinky rituals.

Then one of my neighbours began a traditional expulsion ritual called dogpa that involves clapping the hands vigorously and chanting a mantra invoking protective deities. We all joined in, clapping loudly at the soldiers. I wasn’t sure why it was necessary to drive these people away but I clapped anyway. To our dismay the men broke into wide smiles and began to clap back at us. As it turned out, clapping is a sign of welcome in Chinese culture. I remember the confusion among my family and neighbours. These strangers seemed impervious to our rituals of resistance. It must have felt like a moment of pure powerlessness to the adults, though the whole incident was just baffling to me.

The soldiers left us after the clapping died down and, as far as I was concerned, life returned to normal. In retrospect, this was the first sign that my world, seemingly eternal and unchanging, was on the brink of being erased.