June26

Through My Eyes

Saturday June 26

(We continue to listen to the Dalai Lama as he tells of his remaining days in Peking.)

" The day before I was due to leave China to return to Tibet, that is during the spring of 1955, I was attending a meeting of the Steering Committee. Liu Shao-ch'i, who was presiding over it, was halfway through an oration when suddenly my security officer burst in and came running to see me. 'Chairman Mao wants to see you at once. He is waiting for you,' he said. I did not know what to say. I couldn't just get up and leave the meeting, and Liu showed no sign of drawing breath. 'In that case,' I replied, ' you will have to go and have me excused.' This he did straight away.

We went directly to Mao's office, where he was indeed waiting for me. It was to be our last meeting. He announced that he wanted to give me some advice about government before I went back to Tibet, and proceeded to explain how to organise meetings, how to draw out people's opinions and then how to decide on the key issues. It was all excellent information and I sat busily taking notes, as I always did whenever we met. He went on to tell me that communications were a vital ingredient in any form of material progress and stressed the importance of seeing to it that as many young Tibetans as possible were trained in this field. He added that whenever he passed anything on to me, he wanted to be able to do so through a Tibetan. Finally, he drew closer to me and said, 'Your attitude is good, you know. Religion is poison. Firstly it reduces the population, because monks and nuns must stay celibate, and secondly it neglects material progress.' At this I felt a violent burning sensation all over my face and I was suddenly very afraid. 'So,' I thought, 'you are the destroyer of the Dharma after all.'

It was by now late in the evening. As Mao spoke these fateful words I leaned forward as if to write something, half hiding my face. I hoped that he would not sense the horror I felt: it might have broken his trust in me. Luckily, Phuntsog Wangyal was not, for some reason, interpreting between us on this occasion. Had he done so, I am sure that he would have discovered my thoughts-especially as we invariably discussed everything afterwards. Even I could not have concealed my feelings for much longer. Fortunately, Mao ended the interview after only a few more minutes. I felt a tremendous sense of relief when he stood up to shake my hand. Amazingly, his eyes were full of life and he was completely alert, despite the late hour. We went outside together, into the night-time quiet. My car was waiting. He opened and closed the door for me. As the vehicle began to move I turned to wave. My last sight of Mao was of him standing out in the cold with neither hat nor coat,waving.

Fear and amazement gave way to confusion. How could he have misjudged me so? How could he have thought that I was not religious to the core of my being: What had caused him to think otherwise? Every move I made was recorded, that I knew: how many hours of sleep I took, how many bowls of rice I ate, what I said at every meeting. No doubt a weekly report on my behaviour was sent for analysis and then submitted to Mao. That being so, he surely could not have failed to notice that every day I spent at least four hours in prayer and meditation and that furthermore, all the time I was in China, I was receiving religious instruction from my tutors. He must have known too that I was working hard towards my final monastic examinations, which now could not be very many years away, six or seven at the most. I was perplexed.

The only possible explanation was that he had misinterpreted my great interest in scientific matters and material progress. It was true that I wanted to modernise Tibet in line with the People's Republic and true also that my cast of mind is basically scientific. So it could only be that, in his ignorance of Buddhist philosophy, Mao had ignored the Buddha's instruction that anyone who practises the Dharma should test for themselves its validity. For this reason I have always been open to the discoveries and truths of modern science. Perhaps this is what tricked Mao into thinking that my religious practices were nothing more to me than a prop or convention. Whatever his reasoning, I now knew that he had misjudged me completely.

Next day, I left Peking for the return journey to Tibet. Progress was faster than it had been on the previous year now that the Qinghai highway had been completed. On the way , I took the opportunity to stop for two or three days at a time in different places so that I could meet with as many of my countrymen as possible and tell them something of my experiences in China and what hope I had for the future. In spite of having to revise my opinion of Mao, I still felt that he was a great leader and above all a sincere person. He was not deceitful. Therefore I was convinced that as long as his officials in Tibet carried out his instructions, and provided he kept firm control of them, there was good reason to be optimistic."

( Incredible that the Dalai Lama could have maintained a sense of optimism in the face of his experiences! I promise to add more tomorrow...)

*( please click here to read of the day with me )

* This is from the book Freedom in Exile The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama by Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth

Dalai Lama of Tibet.

( Please see my spinning for you!)

( Tahshi Deleh gentle one! Kehrahng kusu debo yinpeh? I began the day in our studio spinning for you and mixing the clay a bit then had to go to have my teeth worked on again as one of the fillings fell out which isn't unusual. After that I headed to the Grove to spray some more. With us pulling strongly together it went quite well; we've sprayed almost half of the trees in a few hours! It wasn't our warm and bright future day of course, but it was beautiful up in the Grove and the skies were wonderful! I've added a length of hose so that Mom's wagon with it's now heavier load doesn't have to be moved as often. After that I returned to our studio to work around the trees and native plants near the studio. Groundhog or Racoon have been climbing in the trees to inspect the growing fruit. I'm not sure which. Perhaps both. Yikes! They bend the branches over a lot so I've tied the branches with the tree tie material to support them. After that I returned to our studio to work on our a land of Tibet. Two as one we've fixed a few more mistakes on the pages as usual. I'm going to put the pages up on our infosite; I'll put this up for now so we can rest.

And so, as always we'll continue two as one on to tomorrow

my one gentle beautiful patient swift dream bright

long dark mane in sunlight

so for now I bid goodnight...Simjah Nahngo!)


	Through My Eyes Saturday June 26 (We continue to listen to the Dalai Lama as he tells of his remaining days in Peking.) " The day before I was due to leave China to return to Tibet, that is during the spring of 1955, I was attending a meeting of the Steering Committee. Liu Shao-ch'i, who was presiding over it, was halfway through an oration when suddenly my security officer burst in and came running to see me. 'Chairman Mao wants to see you at once. He is waiting for you,' he said. I did not know what to say. I couldn't just get up and leave the meeting, and Liu showed no sign of drawing breath. 'In that case,' I replied, ' you will have to go and have me excused.' This he did straight away. We went directly to Mao's office, where he was indeed waiting for me. It was to be our last meeting. He announced that he wanted to give me some advice about government before I went back to Tibet, and proceeded to explain how to organise meetings, how to draw out people's opinions and then how to decide on the key issues. It was all excellent information and I sat busily taking notes, as I always did whenever we met. He went on to tell me that communications were a vital ingredient in any form of material progress and stressed the importance of seeing to it that as many young Tibetans as possible were trained in this field. He added that whenever he passed anything on to me, he wanted to be able to do so through a Tibetan. Finally, he drew closer to me and said, 'Your attitude is good, you know. Religion is poison. Firstly it reduces the population, because monks and nuns must stay celibate, and secondly it neglects material progress.' At this I felt a violent burning sensation all over my face and I was suddenly very afraid. 'So,' I thought, 'you are the destroyer of the Dharma after all.' It was by now late in the evening. As Mao spoke these fateful words I leaned forward as if to write something, half hiding my face. I hoped that he would not sense the horror I felt: it might have broken his trust in me. Luckily, Phuntsog Wangyal was not, for some reason, interpreting between us on this occasion. Had he done so, I am sure that he would have discovered my thoughts-especially as we invariably discussed everything afterwards. Even I could not have concealed my feelings for much longer. Fortunately, Mao ended the interview after only a few more minutes. I felt a tremendous sense of relief when he stood up to shake my hand. Amazingly, his eyes were full of life and he was completely alert, despite the late hour. We went outside together, into the night-time quiet. My car was waiting. He opened and closed the door for me. As the vehicle began to move I turned to wave. My last sight of Mao was of him standing out in the cold with neither hat nor coat,waving. Fear and amazement gave way to confusion. How could he have misjudged me so? How could he have thought that I was not religious to the core of my being: What had caused him to think otherwise? Every move I made was recorded, that I knew: how many hours of sleep I took, how many bowls of rice I ate, what I said at every meeting. No doubt a weekly report on my behaviour was sent for analysis and then submitted to Mao. That being so, he surely could not have failed to notice that every day I spent at least four hours in prayer and meditation and that furthermore, all the time I was in China, I was receiving religious instruction from my tutors. He must have known too that I was working hard towards my final monastic examinations, which now could not be very many years away, six or seven at the most. I was perplexed. The only possible explanation was that he had misinterpreted my great interest in scientific matters and material progress. It was true that I wanted to modernise Tibet in line with the People's Republic and true also that my cast of mind is basically scientific. So it could only be that, in his ignorance of Buddhist philosophy, Mao had ignored the Buddha's instruction that anyone who practises the Dharma should test for themselves its validity. For this reason I have always been open to the discoveries and truths of modern science. Perhaps this is what tricked Mao into thinking that my religious practices were nothing more to me than a prop or convention. Whatever his reasoning, I now knew that he had misjudged me completely. Next day, I left Peking for the return journey to Tibet. Progress was faster than it had been on the previous year now that the Qinghai highway had been completed. On the way , I took the opportunity to stop for two or three days at a time in different places so that I could meet with as many of my countrymen as possible and tell them something of my experiences in China and what hope I had for the future. In spite of having to revise my opinion of Mao, I still felt that he was a great leader and above all a sincere person. He was not deceitful. Therefore I was convinced that as long as his officials in Tibet carried out his instructions, and provided he kept firm control of them, there was good reason to be optimistic." ( Incredible that the Dalai Lama could have maintained a sense of optimism in the face of his experiences! I promise to add more tomorrow...) ( please click here to read of the day with me ) This is from the book Freedom in Exile The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama by Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. ( Please see my spinning for you!) ( Tahshi Deleh gentle one! Kehrahng kusu debo yinpeh? I began the day in our studio spinning for you and mixing the clay a bit then had to go to have my teeth worked on again as one of the fillings fell out which isn't unusual. After that I headed to the Grove to spray some more. With us pulling strongly together it went quite well; we've sprayed almost half of the trees in a few hours! It wasn't our warm and bright future day of course, but it was beautiful up in the Grove and the skies were wonderful! I've added a length of hose so that Mom's wagon with it's now heavier load doesn't have to be moved as often. After that I returned to our studio to work around the trees and native plants near the studio. Groundhog or Racoon have been climbing in the trees to inspect the growing fruit. I'm not sure which. Perhaps both. Yikes! They bend the branches over a lot so I've tied the branches with the tree tie material to support them. After that I returned to our studio to work on our a land of Tibet. Two as one we've fixed a few more mistakes on the pages as usual. I'm going to put the pages up on our infosite; I'll put this up for now so we can rest. And so, as always we'll continue two as one on to tomorrow my one gentle beautiful patient swift dream bright long dark mane in sunlight so for now I bid goodnight...Simjah Nahngo!)