A Year in Tibet. Sun Shuyun

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Loga, sitting near the stairs with a bucket of water at his side. What is going on inside that locked head? Does he know that his mother has died and her soul is struggling for rebirth? My experience of the ritual may not be all that different from his. I can follow the process, even enjoy it, but it is like watching a play in a foreign language — fascinating, but mostly beyond my grasp.

      In the midst of my distractions, I hear a loud sob. It is Tseten's sister, Samchung, from Shigatse, standing on her own in the corner, her eyes swollen with tears. Soon I see that she is not the only one crying. Dondan has tears welling up in his eyes; Tseten is wiping his face with his shawl. They all gather in front of the burning mandala — Tseten, Dondan, Samchung, and Yangdron, all weeping openly now. Mila drops five balls of tso, one red torma, and a slip of white paper into the fire. Then Tseten walks up to it, and tosses something into the flames. Before I can tell what it is, the fire consumes it. Tseten stands before the fire like a statue, his eyes fixed on the dancing flames. Just then, the sonorous long horns boom out again. The ritual is coming to an end.

      I turn back to the fire-tender for an explanation. He tells me that Mila and his family believe that up until now, the four devils who took their mother's life — the devils of air, blood, flesh, and spirit — are still badgering her soul. The devils are represented by the red torma. By chanting prayers and feeding them with tso, they hope to pacify these devils. In case that does not work, the four wrathful deities guarding the four gates of the mandala are also invoked, and asked to bring the devils under control in the flames of the red yak cowpats. At the same time, the soul of the dead, represented by the slip of white paper, is purified of its sins, and readied for its next life.

      ‘But why was everyone crying? Were they no longer worried about distracting the dead?’ I ask him.

      ‘Until today, the soul of the dead can remember its previous life. It can smell its favourite food. But from now on, the soul's karma is stronger — what the family does will not matter to it. Also this is the last time that the soul of the dead sees its family.’

      The mention of karma makes me ask something that has been troubling me. If reincarnation depends on your karma, what difference does the ritual make? Why all the prayers, all the offerings, the mandala, and the fire? A poor family cannot possibly afford them; what happens to their dead?

      My questions take him off guard. ‘It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. What matters is that you do your best. But every little helps,’ he says after a pause.

      I suppose I should not be posing difficult questions right now. I just ask if he noticed Tseten throwing something on the fire.

      He nods. ‘Perhaps photographs of his mother. They have to go. All traces of the dead must be removed. Also, after today, the family will not mention her name in the house.’

      Tseten's mother has been dead for a month, but, according to the family's belief, it is only now that she is transformed — she is no longer a mother, no longer a wife. Just as the family have tried to make the devils let go of her soul, now they too have to let her go, completely. From this point on, if they wish to mention her, they will refer to her simply as ‘the one who has passed away’, and never by using her name. It is perhaps for this reason that the Tibetan word for body is iu, which means ‘the thing that is left behind’.

      The ceremony I have been watching marks the final big push to the soul's quest for its next life. The family's faith in reincarnation is absolute, as it is among all the Tibetans we are filming. But my doubts do not want to go away. Does it never even enter their minds that there is possibly no next life? And if there is not, then what?

      Perhaps reincarnation can be seen as a state of mind, a mental construct. But I know that is not what the Rikzin family means by it, nor what Tibetans seek when they look for the reincarnate being who will be their new Dalai Lama, their supreme spiritual and political leader. Successors to the important Buddhist lineages are chosen based on the belief of reincarnation, a method that dates back to the fourteenth century. Patterns of water and clouds over a lake, dreams, and of course, wills and instructions of the incumbent incarnation lamas — these are all guides. The present Dalai Lama, the 14^th, described his selection in his autobiography: ‘The Regent saw the vision of three Tibetan letters — Ah, Ka, and Ma — followed by a picture of a monastery with roofs of jade green and gold and a house with turquoise tiles.’¹⁸ That was during the official search by a party of senior lamas at the holy lake, Lhamo Latso, about ninety miles southeast of Lhasa. The three letters indicated the region and district, where they found a monastery that satisfied the description. In the house with the turquoise tiles they found a two-year-old boy, who was declared to be the reincarnation of the 13^th Dalai Lama.

      The present Dalai Lama admits that the traditional method of selection has had its drawbacks. In the seventeenth century, for example, a young boy named Tsangyang Gyatso was believed to be the reincarnation of the 5^th Dalai Lama, one of the most potent rulers Tibet had ever seen. Born in 1683, Tsangyang Gyatso was chosen with all the usual auspicious signs: his mother drank water from a fountain and it began to pour milk; his grandfather dreamt of two suns in the sky just before his birth, and so on. But Tsangyang refused to accept his destiny. He declined to wear robes and broke all the monastic rules. Wine and women were his passions. He wrote hundreds of poems about them:

      If the bar-girl does not falter

      The beer will flow on and on; This maiden is my refuge And this place is my heaven.

      Or again:

      I seek counsel from a wise lama

      To escape from my predicament, But my mind remains captivated By my sweetheart.

      If one's thoughts toward the dharma

      Were as intense as feelings of love, One would become a Buddha In this very body, in this very life.¹⁹

      As tolerant as the Tibetans were, Tsangyang's lifestyle challenged all their beliefs — and some came to doubt that he really was the reincarnation of the 5^th Dalai Lama. He was eventually deposed and died when he was twenty-four.

      I know better than to discuss my doubts about reincarnation, and especially these thoughts about the Dalai Lama, with the Rikzin family, or even with my Tibetan crew. It is an offence to mention his name or to hang his portrait — punishable by imprisonment. A personal incident made me realise just how risky it could be. Before boarding my plane to come here I had picked up a photo book called 365 Days of Buddhist Offerings. I turned a few pages and thought the picture and the Buddhist text for each day would be inspiring. I kept it in my room, and looked at the day's page when I woke up, my morning dose of beauty and spirituality. One day a visitor to the house picked the book up. I watched as he leafed through it, interested to see what he made of it. Suddenly he stopped at one page. A look of shock and disbelief ran over his face. He quickly turned past the page as if it was contaminated. After fumbling abstractedly through the rest of the book, he went back to it and stole another glance. Then he put it down and left with the briefest of goodbyes. I wondered what had brought on that look, and went through the entire book myself, for the first time — and found a picture of the Dalai Lama. I learned a lot in that moment. Talking about him might put an end to our film. Even worse, it would put their lives at risk. So I just have to keep these ruminations to myself.

      The fire on the mandala is now just a pile of smouldering ashes. The villagers and relatives are beginning to gather round it. A young man, impatient, scoops up a handful of ashes, but they are too hot and he drops them quickly. The fire-tender rakes them over to cool them down. Mila is taking off his headdress and his robe. СКАЧАТЬ