The Dalai Lama laughed when I asked him about lamas leaping from peak to peak. Then, he said, “What is important is not being able to do magical things but doing things that help people.” Part II of the article is about the most revered spiritual leader in the world.
In keeping with their fantastic belief system, Tibetans believed that Padmasambhava was born eight years after the death of the Buddha and was more than a thousand years old. They believed it was because of his mastery of Tantra that he was able to prolong his life. Padmasambhava enlisted the help of the adherents of Bon to subdue demonic forces while building Tibet’s first Buddhist monastery – Samye.
On a more sinister side, Tantric practitioners are said to employ magical means to destroy their enemies. According to the Hevajra Tantra, for instance, they can cast a spell on enemy soldiers who can then be decapitated in one stroke (Farrow and Menon, 1992, p. 30). The two authors also say that Tantric masters could cause such a high fever in the enemy’s body that it would vaporize. For those who claim such devastating powers, leaping from peak to peak would be a relatively minor accomplishment.
Sexual symbolism is an intrinsic part of Tantra, which sees the cosmos as a living entity full of sacred rituals and spells, secret formulas, and baffling diagrams and drawings. Female energy is considered an integral part of Tantra. The Dalai Lamas of the past are known to have practiced Tantra. It is especially true of the Sixth Dalai Lama, who was a colorful, bohemian, indulgent, and some would say, even decadent figure. There is a famous quote by him where he says, “Never have I slept without a sweetheart. Nor have I spent a single drop of sperm.” This paradox was supposed to be the Positive Sexual Yoga where the male and female energies converge but there is no ejaculation.
Tibetans who traveled to India in search of Buddhist knowledge also discovered yoginis or female tantric masters engaged in esoteric disciplines with their female disciples. Yoginis were fiercely independent women who fraternized with men who were willing to be initiated. This coming together also led to the spread of Tantric Buddhism. The Dalai Lama believes that women are more adept at secretive practices while men are better at the more public forms of Tibetan Buddhism.
Since the Dalai Lama represents the reformist branch of Tibetan Buddhism, he would never do or say anything that could alarm his growing international constituency. So, he has focused on the more cerebral and philosophical areas of Tibetan Buddhism.
Downplaying mystical powers
An interesting fallout of the fusion between Buddhism and Bonism was that many of the supernatural powers that the Bonists once ascribed to shamans and priests were now being extended to lamas, including the Dalai Lama. No wonder then that my childhood apocrypha about the Dalai Lama included stories that he had the power to destroy the entire Chinese army through these techniques. Perhaps my neighbor was better informed than I gave him credit for. If ordinary lamas could leap from peak to peak, the Dalai Lama could surely atomize an entire army. Such powers were more in the realm of fables than reality. It also begs the question: why did none of the Tantric masters in Tibet unleash those powers on the invading Chinese army?
I asked the Dalai Lama if he believed that lamas could leap from peak to peak, and he laughed aloud, perhaps the loudest I have heard in all my interactions with him. “That means I can return to Tibet anytime, you see. I just have to leap over a few peaks. That’s all,” he said, pausing and turning serious. “Tantric knowledge is a serious responsibility. I know people believe that Tantric masters have great powers. What is important is not being able to do magical things but doing things that help people,” he said.
The Dalai Lama is not given to talking about some of the more magical and mystical details of life. One conclusion one could draw is that he does not really believe in them since he has grown up in the modern age and naturally tends to be more scientific and rational in his outlook period. But that conclusion is too obvious and simplistic. The matter demands a more complex and more accurate assessment. Considering that he has kept up his faith in the core Tibetan Buddhist beliefs of reincarnation, which from a scientific standpoint itself is more incredible than lamas leaping from peak to peak, it is possible that he believes in ideas that to a rational mind defy all explanation.
Background conversations with many in the Tibetan government-in-exile revealed that the Dalai Lama has consciously chosen to distance himself from the controversial practices of Tantric Buddhism since he does not want to convey to the world the impression that he represents a dark faith that is prone to violence, black magic, sorcery, witchcraft, bizarre sexual practices, and even ritual suicide. The mysticism of the kind underscored by Tantra could work for a practitioner whose ideas and objectives are far less lofty than what the Dalai Lama stands for. Since Tibet’s leader represents the reformist branch of Tibetan Buddhism he would never publicly or privately do or say anything that lends weight to any action that could alarm his growing international constituency. For that reason, he has deliberately focused on the more cerebral and philosophical areas of Tibetan Buddhism.
The 14th Dalai Lama is not troubled by the fact that he has had to fundamentally alter the institution that he embodies. “Everything changes according to time. The institution of the Dalai Lama too should change. In my current role it is my duty to do what I am doing,” he said.
Institution of the Dalai Lama
What sets the Fourteenth Dalai Lama apart from the rest of his predecessors in matters mystical is that he lives in a world where science and technology dominate human endeavor. Notwithstanding his rational outlook on life, it is conceivable that during a different period of history, untrammeled by the forces of modernity, Tenzin Gyatso too might have had to pursue some of the very practices and rituals that he has been compelled to play down or reject altogether.
The circumstances of his life in exile and the protracted nature of his political fight have ensured that he remains trapped in what Hindus and Buddhists call samsaric or phenomenal or worldly preoccupations, where karma overrides everything else, rather than elevate them to nirvanic objectives, which are beyond karmic demands and compulsions.
The Dalai Lama himself is not particularly troubled by the fact that he has had to fundamentally alter the institution that he embodies. “Everything changes according to time. The institution of the Dalai Lama too should change. In my current role it is my duty to do what I am doing,” he said.
He does not see himself as someone torn between three competing and contradictory roles. In fact, he does not even recognize the distinction. The Dalai Lama does not necessarily share the view that he is a figure of great consequence in both Tibetan and world history. Tibetans explain this self-effacement as a very Buddhist attitude. Living without revealing one’s existence is one of the key concepts that the Buddha spoke of. On a very personal level, his rising international celebrity does not really excite him. He is more amused by it.
Photos courtesy: Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
