Tibetan Buddhist Politics at Tashilhunpo Monastery

  Shigatse, China
Saturday, July 22, 2006

Although most people consider the People's Republic of China as an athiest state, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party has joined the religious fray: indoctrinating monks, rebuilding monasteries, and choosing the Panchen Lama, the second highest spiritual leader in Tibet and head of Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. Now, they are waiting for the Dalai Lama to pass away so they can pick his successor.

The Dalai Lama, however has said that his successor will be born outside of China. As a tulku or reincarnated lama, he has that type of control.

Yesterday I went to China Post to mail CDs of photographs from the last month. "There are no political or religious photographs in here, are there," asked the customs officer?

"I'm just a tourist," I said, "but part of being a tourist means pictures of monasteries."

Some of those photographs were from Tashilhunpo Monastery, where I was interested in learning more about politics and religion, China Post be damned.

Throughout the monastery, in most temples and altars, was the photograph of the Chinese-appointed 11th Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu. Reports show that monks at Tashilhunpo Monastery and elsewhere have been reindoctrinated in order to accept the CCP's Panchen Lama.



People in Tibet aren't buying this crap. Photographs of the new CCP Panchen Lama are rare outside of monasteries, where they are forced to display them. Photographs of the Dalai Lama-chosen Panchen Lama, Gendun Chokyi Nyima, are banned and unavailable in Tibet, as he was kidnapped as a child by the Chinese Government. He is still missing.

Photographs of the 10th Panchen Lama, however, are everywhere. At one point, he was unpopular and also not the real choice of the Dalai Lama, then a young lama forced to accept the 17-point Agreement with China, including that he recognized the Chinese choice for Panchen Lama.

Then why is the 10th Panchen Lama so popular?

Because he confronted the Chinese government on many occasions. Because he rebuilt monasteries and created children's newspapers. Because, over time, he began to embody the aspects of a reincarnated Panchen Lama, even though he was the CCP's choice.

When he said "Tibet has paid a price that could never be met by the development achieved over the last 30 years," he went too far, however. Five days later he was dead, supposedly poisoned. The body was checked only by a doctor flown from Beijing, so questions remain: poison, heart attack, something else?

The same thing has happened with Dalai Lamas. Many were controlled and killed in their youth by Manchurian regents, who installed several Dalai Lamas. From the 9th Dalai Lama to the 12th Dalai Lama, none lived past twenty-one years of age. The present Dalai Lama was smart to have fled Tibet: he knew that history can easily repeat itself.

I wondered: what did the monks think when they viewed the CCP Panchen Lama's photograph every day? What was their "re-education" like? Did the CCP Panchen Lama feel like a puppet, under house "arrest," or was he too isolated amongst Chinese officials to know?

Any way you look at it, what happens when the Dalai Lama passes away will be pivotal for Tibetan Buddhism and politics.

Knowing this, my visit to Tashilhunpo Monastery was slightly sickening, although the sights and smells of the place are tangible and impressive (see photographs): the reliquary stupa of the 10th Panchen Lama, the world's largest gilded copper image of Maitreya, intricate murals and statuettes. The Panchen Lama both Dalai Lama and CCP appointed were perhaps somewhere in Beijing, out of sight, but not minds; Tashilhunpo was an empty shell.

Perhaps the entrance fee is being used to pay the guards who keep the real Panchen Lama under arrest. And China can claim that they are open to religion: they appointed a Panchen Lama, they are rebuilding monasteries, they are the ultimate authority in Buddhism: an insidious control that hides behind the veil of tourism, perhaps more damaging in the long-term than the Cultural Revolution.