A Year in Tibet. Sun Shuyun

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СКАЧАТЬ we were, she would not have lost them. It had nothing to do with her supposed sins.

      After her death, I began to find out more about Buddhism. In 2000, I spent a year retracing the footsteps of Xuanzang, a Chinese monk who travelled in the seventh century from China to India and back, searching for the true Buddhism. I learned that Buddhism had little to do with the version I was made to swallow at school. I was appalled that I had been attacking it without really knowing what it was. For two thousand years, it has given generations of Chinese hope and solace; it has enriched every aspect of our life, our philosophy, our art, even our language. We would have little of a cultural heritage without it. I learned in particular to appreciate the centrality of the mind in Buddhism, and how it can be cultivated. This was not superstition. It was a way to transcend the suffering that is part of life. Things happen; what matters is how we react. I always remembered the story of the Chinese monk who was spat on by the Red Guards in a ‘struggle meeting’; he said to himself it was just raining. It might sound extreme, even absurd — but he did not take his life, as many did; he never even hated his tormentors. In the same way Grandmother could rise above her pain and return my ingratitude with love; she took my taunts as just words.

      I still have much to learn and understand about Buddhism. But one thing makes it very hard for me to embrace it, and that is reincarnation. I have so many questions about it. What is it that migrates from this life to the next? Phuntsog calls it the soul. But Buddhism denies the existence of a permanent soul because everything is transitory. It says we are merely a heap of five elements: body, feeling, cognition, mental constructions, and consciousness. The five elements are all impermanent; they are constantly in the process of becoming and changing. When questioned by a perplexed young monk, the Buddha said only that ‘karma’ passes from one life to another. He used the light of a candle as an illustration. A flame passes from one candle to another, but they are two separate entities, neither of which is permanent. It is a beautiful image, and yet, even here, there is something that has caused the flame. Something has to reincarnate. When I get back to the house, I look in the Tibetan Book of the Dead for an answer. The book comes down to us from Padam, the Indian master credited with bringing Buddhism from India to Tibet in the eighth century. It has the most vivid, thorough descriptions of the soul's forty-nine-day journey through the bardo, but its main message is how enlightenment can still be attained every step of the way, from the moment of death.

      Once enlightened, we are freed from the cycle of suffering: birth, sickness, old age, and death. In Tibetan the book is called Great Liberation by Hearing — it is hearing the book and grasping its teaching that will provide enlightenment after death. Without enlightenment, the only hope is a good rebirth.

      The Book of the Dead does say that what reincarnates is the consciousness, which is really light and energy. It acquires a ‘mental body’ that can see, hear, smell, speak, run, comprehend — and all more efficiently than humans can. But I still feel lost. Being told it is light and energy does not help me much, and a mental body with all those properties is even less comprehensible. And if enlightenment is so hard to achieve, how can a ball of light and energy manage it, and just by hearing the Book?

      I cannot help think of the titanic struggle by Milarepa after he unleashed the hailstorm and turned to Buddhism. He spent years building a stupa at the request of his master, only to be told to tear it down, return the stones to where they came from — and then start all over again. He was not offered a single word from the sacred teachings, but received plenty of humiliation and beating. In the end, the master relented and passed him the secret of attaining enlightenment in his lifetime. But even then he had to spend decades meditating in caves, with little to eat but nettles, which turned his body green, like a caterpillar. He did find his Way, and left thousands of poems, which are recited to this day. They reflect the mind of a remarkable and enlightened man.

      Dwell alone and you shall find a friend.

      Take the lowest place and you shall reach the highest. Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive. Renounce all worldly goals and you shall reach the highest one.¹⁰

      It is Sogyal Rinpoche, the great Tibetan commentator on the Book, who helps me make some sense of it. I have also brought with me his Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and am reading it in bed. I find a good metaphor in it. When you go to meet a stranger off a plane, if you have a picture, you can recognise him. Without it you do not know who you are looking for. The Book of the Dead is for the living as well as for the dead. Enlightenment comes with preparedness: you have to rid yourself of ignorance, anger, and hatred, the mind's poisons. Then you have a chance of recognising it when you encounter it in the bardo. I do not need to believe in the bardo or in reincarnation. I can take his words as advice for this world, even though that is not what he intends. For him, reincarnation is the fact of life, and death.

      Dreaming is as near as I can come to understanding the bardo. Dreams seem so clear, so vivid, so real, even if we only find them so while we are dreaming. Sogyal Rinpoche in fact compares the ‘mental body’ in the bardo with the dream body we have when we dream. But then, when we wake up, we know we have been dreaming. And we have a mind when we dream. What is it that directs the mental body in the intermediate state? He says it is the consciousness — but is there any consciousness after we die? I am slowly falling asleep; the last thing I read is Sogyal Rinpoche's remark,‘Going to sleep is similar to the bardo of dying, where the elements and thought process dissolve, opening into …’

      We get a call from Tseten two days later. He sounds calm, and not as sad as I would have imagined. He thanks us for the khata, and the money, and then apologises for turning us away. I tell him I understand. I do not even mention filming. The whole thing barely makes sense to me, but I would hate them to think I was getting in the way of their mother's reincarnation. They could not even be at the sky burial themselves. No close member of the family is allowed there; it is said that their sadness would hold back the soul and slow down its journey into the next life.

      I am not sure when we can resume our filming with Tseten. Will we have to wait out the forty-nine days, till his mother finds a new life? I am prepared to wait. I should try to think that it is nothing if there is another life to come.

      But I am not ready to give up. Phuntsog is now my hope. He knows how keen we are to film a sky burial. Whenever he is going to perform one, he lets us know, and we then visit the family and ask if we can film it. We have three straight rejections. While we are waiting for our chance, I invite Phuntsog, his wife and children to our house to get to know them better. He does not mind talking about his work. ‘It has been decided by the Buddha a long, long time ago that this is the occupation of our family. We have been doing it for many generations. Whoever needs my help, I will go and take care of their dead to the best of my ability,’ he says with a kind smile, while emptying the chang in his cup. He took the job over from his father eight years ago, and says if his sons do not get a place in college, he will pass his skills to them.

      Phuntsog enjoys the company of the living, although he has few friends. In Tibetan society, he is regarded as the lowest of the low, along with butchers and blacksmiths. I did not believe it until I was confronted with it myself. We were having some of our film characters over for a meal and I suggested we invite Phuntsog. To my surprise all the Tibetan members of the crew said it was out of the question. ‘No one will touch the food from any dish he helps himself from,’ Penpa warned me. ‘And I think he will be as embarrassed as us. Why don't we give him something instead? Like rice and butter and fruit — something he and his family can enjoy at home.’ I tried to plead with them and for the first time almost caused a revolt among my team. I had to give up. Fortunately, though, Phuntsog did not give up on us.

      Finally, three months after Tseten's mother passed away, Phuntsog came to us with news of the death of one of the local blacksmiths. He had drunk himself to death and brought ruin on his family. Some years back, he had sold his son for СКАЧАТЬ