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Tenzin Choegyal,
the Dalai Lama's Brother 81
By
LobeliaToadfoot
A Group Interview
in Dharamsala
I was with a
sangha staying in Dharamsala, India, a Tibetan exile community where the
Dalai Lama lives. Our group was split into two guesthouses; the one I
stayed at belonged to the local maharaja, and the other belonged to the
Dalai Lama’s sister-in-law, Rinchin Kunin, who runs the Tibetan Nuns
Project (www.tnp.org), a program that helps exiled Tibetan nuns gain an
education equal to that of monks.
One evening, we
gathered into the guesthouse’s living room to have a talk with the Dalai
Lama’s brother, Tenzin Choegyal. Like the Dalai Lama, he was identified
as a reincarnate lama at an early age, but he ditched the post because
it didn’t suit him. I was one of the first people in the room, and I
plopped down on the floor. Shantum, our teacher and travel guide, walked
up to the dais in the bay window and pulled up a seat for our Tibetan
visitor, but Tenzin Choegyal mischievously plopped down in the center of
the couch next to David and grinned.
I looked up at
Tenzin Choegyal from about three feet away and couldn’t help but stare:
the Dalai Lama was in disguise! I thought he looked remarkably like the
Dalai Lama, except he had short hair instead of a shaved head, and
instead of red robes he wore Western pants, an oxford shirt, and a brown
jacket with the message “SF San Francisco” on the upper left side. He
wore squarish glasses like the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum had said something
to the effect that Tenzin Choegyal isn’t very sociable and spends a lot
of time in retreat, so I had visualized a crazy, stern, cave-dwelling
yogi with long braided hair and traditional Tibetan clothing. In the
course of the discussion, we learned that he’s sixty-one years old. He
looks a lot younger than his seventy-three-year-old brother and still
has totally black hair.
Shantum introduced
Tenzin by saying, “This is my teacher. Well, a friend.”
Tenzin said, “A
friend who led him astray!” He even sounds a lot like the Dalai Lama!
Well, his voice isn’t quite that deep, and his English is more fluent.
Members of the sangha asked him questions, and he happily, eagerly,
answered.
“Some people think
Buddhism is pessimistic, because it talks about suffering. All spiritual
traditions talk about suffering. If you mention spiritual traditions,
people automatically think of fighting,” he said. He mentioned that
religions become political parties, for there is tremendous division
instead of uniting, and this is a big challenge we have at this age.
It’s a great time to make amends, to transform. He condemned political
parties as being about selfishness and imposing one’s view on others,
including through money. It’s no wonder I now refuse to even try
associating myself to a political party; actually, I think it is very
limiting and narrow-minded to do so.
Shantum introduced
Paula as the rabbi who took the Three Refuges, and Tenzin said, “Should
we throw a party?”
Tenzin Choegyal is
so not a fan of blind faith, which is something people have if they
don’t examine or analyze things; I think that is connected to
fundamentalism.
“May I ask a
question?” Richard asked.
“No, you may not,”
Tenzin joked.
“Is the
empowerment ceremony appropriate for householders, or just monastics?”
(The Dalai Lama did the empowerment ceremony for at least a couple days,
in addition to teachings.)
“The empowerment
ceremony is OK for householders.”
“I’d like to ask
you a personal question,” Etiel said.
“No personal
questions!” Tenzin joked with a grin.
“Why didn’t you
remain a monk?”
“I wasn’t up to
the task. It was like wearing the skin of a tiger.”
Tenzin Choegyal
told us a lot about himself, about his life, and about how different his
views are from his brother’s. While he’s a big fan of nonviolence and
dialogue, he’s not so serious a fan of the monastic system, which has a
lot of power. While he does believe in reincarnation, he doesn’t have
faith in the Rinpoche system of identifying little kids who are
supposedly reincarnations of specific lamas. As he pointed out,
everyone’s reincarnated, not just lamas.
“Our community
still suffers from following rituals and not looking at the creed. It’s
not about religion but psychology.” He mentioned that meditation is
about attempting to lose negative thoughts. What a challenge, given the
conditioning we grow up with!
“I have no
authority except my big ego.”
“Identifying with
religion gives you pressure to identify yourself,” said a sangha member.
“Labels are very
misleading. If you identify with the label, attachment comes,” Tenzin
Choegyal said. He talked quite a bit about labels, including money,
which is just paper, but we’ve labeled it and given it the meaning of
currency, so we accept it. “How do you remove the label? If you
skillfully handle it, it’s OK. All names are labels. Even a label is
subjective. All depends on how we handle it.” He said, “I think I’m
talking like a wise person, but I’m not.” But he wasn’t done with labels
yet, saying that “I” and “myself” are just labels; “it’s functional, but
it lacks all substantiality.”
“We tend to return
to events that are pleasant and block out unpleasant events. It goes to
things not being the way we want.” I guess that’s how people are
nostalgic; they remember a vacation or even childhood and focus on the
good parts.
He said, “I don’t
like rituals…I don’t like temples.” At some point in the conversation,
he said, “I’m kind of a nut, you know.”
John said, “All of
us are in some continuity of mental balance.”
Richard asked
about depression and meditation, and Tenzin said to embrace it.
“Probably it’s grounded in self-centeredness.” Tenzin experienced
depression during the winter (seasonal affective disorder). Depression
is physical and mental, interdependently between the physical and
spiritual. He went to doctors, was diagnosed as bipolar, which is both
depression and mania. A doctor treated him with lithium. “Incidentally,
the greatest deposit of lithium is in Tibet.” It helped and people were
encouraging. Depression is what drove him to a regular meditation
practice, and he’s feeling so much better because of it. Now he’s
focused on studying the dharma.
“When people are
desperate, thoughts are going everywhere. Then I became interested in
Buddhism and it helped. People who become depressed are undisciplined.
We are meditating all the time, but not properly.”
“What if you were
in that role [Rinpoche], and it was discovered you were bipolar?”
someone asked.
“They’d know they
made a mistake,” Tenzin replied. “We are all reincarnates from previous
lives—identifying reincarnation, it only exists in Tibet, and I don’t
know why—this continuity of the practice and to a particular lineage. In
history, it became a problem. I personally don’t feel it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Look at me….
There are many loopholes—it is not handled properly, a tulku [one who is
identified as a reincarnate lama] becomes a symbol of earthly existence.
When I talk like this, people think I’m a traitor.”
“Do you discuss
this with your brother?”
“He accepts.”
“There’ve been a
lot of books written on mindfulness,” Richard said.
“And they made a
lot of money,” Tenzin said with a grin. He encouraged us to read root
text. As a Theravada practitioner, I translate that as, in particular,
the Pali Canon, which is more or less the words of the Buddha, passed
down for centuries. He added, “We should read more deeply and study more
deeply.”
Marsha said, “Your
wife is a delight. How did you meet her?”
“I don’t think
she’s a delight,” Tenzin said. They met in Darjeeling when she was in
college, in 1964.
“Are there
arranged marriages in Tibet?”
“It was
self-arranged.” He added that they first met in a movie theater; the
film was George Scott Flimflam Man.
Someone asked him
about nonviolence, and Tenzin said, “Nonviolence—most people think it’s
passive, but it’s active. You’ve got to have the right understanding.”
He went on to talk
about attachment and emptiness, and dependent origination, not to
mention impermanence and our failure to recognize things as impermanent,
which leads to suffering. “If you have tremendous anger, impermanence
means it’ll go away.” Rather relevant to his comments about political
parties, Tenzin talked about how attachment means that “lots of
arguments take place.”
“What are your
views on vegetarianism?” Natalie asked.
“I’m strictly
nonvegetarian.” He added, “I think it’s very desirable to be vegetarian.
But you must get requirements for your body. Among Tibetans—Younger ones
are becoming vegetarian, it’s becoming more common. Tibetans subsist on
carbohydrates in monasteries, some have overweight, have diabetes, not
enough exercise.” Tenzin said. “Three cheers for vegetarianism!”
“In attachment to
the Tibetan land, is there a difference between generations?” Paula
asked.
“I have walked on
the soil of so-called Tibet. Yes, there is a difference. Sons and
daughters have not been there, and it’s all a mind thing.”
“I think human
beings are going through an evolution. I don’t think one hundred years
ago people talked about this,” someone said.
“Jews did—going back to the land,” Paula said.
“Everyone in the
world thinks Tibetans are perfect!” Tenzin said with a laugh. “If Tibet
becomes peaceful, where spiritual pursuit is encouraged, I’d go for it.
Otherwise, I’m happy elsewhere.” Someone asked him why people think
Tibetans are perfect, and he said, “I think it’s because of the novel
Lost Horizons by James Hilton.”
He mentioned that
he thinks a family person has more compassion than a sangha member; if
you’re around difficult people rather than secluded, then you have
on-hands experience practicing compassion and all. This has certainly
occurred to me often enough, but if you’re in such a painful situation
that you’re crippled with depression all the time, you’ve got to get out
of that unhealthy situation; I don’t think that meditation alone is
enough in abusive situations.
Tenzin is highly
critical of the Tibetan monastic system and explained that it’s
intellectual understanding rather than practice. They do practice
meditation and chanting, but that’s not the same thing as experiencing
equanimity when mean people are attacking you. It’s much more
challenging to practice when you’re not in a monastery. He said some
people join the monastery because they get free food. Basically, there
are some things he likes about Tibetan Buddhism (otherwise he wouldn’t
be so into studying the dharma now), and other things he doesn’t like
about Tibetan Buddhism. He would like practice to be more secular.
“Mishandling
freedom is a universal problem,” Tenzin said, reminding me how
unfathomably hypocritical war-mongering white male Americans are with
their talk of freedom, when obviously they don’t even know what it
means. “The most difficult thing to do today is how to handle freedom.”
“I can’t resist…”
John said.
“Go ahead. Use
your freedom,” Tenzin said.
John is critical
of the level of monasticism and the Dalai Lama’s support of this. He
called it “confinement of thought of the worst kind.” He said, “Isn’t
this monasticism a cancer to the Tibetan cause?”
“I share your
view,” Tenzin said. “In monasteries we have trouble with discipline. Are
these people genuine?” John mentioned that nobody agreed with him about
this, but as it turned out the Dalai Lama’s brother agrees with him.
“Shantum, why did
you bring him to this kind of teaching?” Tenzin asked with a grin.
I really know
nothing,” Tenzin said. “My ignorance—I’m an exhibitionist. I like to
show off. I’m quite sincere in my feeling. I try to call a spade a
spade.”
Tenzin said, “The
Tibetan issue—it’s a small speck.” This has occurred to me often enough,
like when I’ve donated to the International Campaign to Tibet, even
though I don’t think that organization is half as important as the
Global Fund for Women. “The Tibetan problem comes from carelessness, not
caring, so what does it say?”
“Why did the Dalai
Lama mostly read from the Dhammapada?” someone asked, referring to the
teachings that we were attending that week. Several people expressed
dismay that the Dalai Lama did this.
“I think we should
go on strike?” Tenzin said. Someone asked if he has discussed this with
his brother, but he said, “Since the teachings, I haven’t seen him. I’m
a crowd-shy guy.”
He also said, “I
think it’s a genuine grievance here.” For those who don’t speak Tibetan,
the lack of commentary is not fair.
“He’s teaching
primarily for the Tibetan community,” Shantum said. Some Tibetans are
illiterate or barely literate, or otherwise have reasons why they won’t
ever get a hold of the Dhammapada; Westerners on the other hand can
easily get the book in English at a bookstore or library.
“But that doesn’t
help these people,” Tenzin said. “I’m listening at home on the FM. I
thought it was odd that he didn’t explain for two days…in his
commentary, tremendously powerful.”
Tenzin said, “For
people who are interested in spiritual tradition, study it, and study it
in groups, with no leader.”
After a little
more discussion, Tenzin asked, “Any more questions?” He looked around
the room, but we were silent. “I think everyone is shocked.”
Our lively and
enthusiastic discussion lasted at least two hours.
The discussion
went to plans for having dinner at the other guesthouse. “Can someone
give me a ride?” Tenzin asked.
“No, you have to
walk.”
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