David Tibet Quotes

I read complex theology, but what interests me most are the simple phrases at the heart of it.

Your gods made no sound

A man opposite me shifted his feet, accidentally brushing his foot against mine. It was a gentle touch, barely noticeable, but the man immediately reached out to touch my knee and then his own chest with the fingertips of his right hand, in the Indian gesture of apology for an unintended offence. In the carriage and the corridor beyond, the other passengers were similarly respectful, sharing, and solicitous with one another. At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they'd all but pushed one another out of the windows. Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary! That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own. The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where none had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he'd compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less. And in truth, the politeness and consideration shown by the peasant farmers, travelling salesmen, itinerant workers, and returning sons and fathers and husbands did make for an agreeable journey, despite the cramped conditions and relentlessly increasing heat. Every available centimetre of seating space was occupied, even to the sturdy metal luggage racks over our heads. The men in the corridor took turns to sit or squat on a section of floor that had been set aside and cleaned for the purpose. Every man felt the press of at least two other bodies against his own. Yet there wasn't a single display of grouchiness or bad temper

between virtue and vice, honourable and shameful, good and evil. Being neither afflicted, nor repenting whatever one may have done and, on the other hand, never being elated nor proud on account of what one has accomplished. 5. To consider with perfect equanimity and detachment the conflicting opinions and the various manifestations of the activity of beings. To understand that such is the nature of things, the inevitable mode of action of each entity and to remain always serene. To look at the world as a man standing on the highest mountain of the country looks at the valleys and the lesser summits spread out below him.

At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they’d all but pushed one another out of the windows. Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own. The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where no-one had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he’d compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less.

Nothing illustrates the CCP’s success in rewriting history more than the irony that all Han will acknowledge how the people and landscapes of Tibet and Xinjiang are so unlike them and anywhere else in China. But they will never admit that those regions have ever been anything but part of the Chinese empire.

Separating Tibetans from the propaganda that smothers them, whether western or Chinese, was one of my aspirations. But pushing aside the heavy, patterned blankets decorated with Buddhist symbols that shield the entrances to Lhasa’s teahouses did not admit me into a secret world where Tibetans spoke unguardedly. Instead, I was confronted with a passiveness completely at odds with the belligerence of the nomads of Kham and the people of Amdo. Resolving the contradiction between those two extremes was something I never managed to achieve during my time in Tibet.

All China’s minorities lack outlets of expression. Even in the multi-cultural UK, the views of the ethnic British are heard less frequently than everyone else’s. In China, it is far worse. The minorities are absent from TV shows, movies, literature, popular discourse and are mostly excluded from politics. Now what little dialogue that takes place in Tibet between the locals and the Han is being replaced by death. And despite my ambivalence towards Tibetans, that left me both depressed and unsure of what I was really doing here.

China’s Koreans enjoy advantages denied to other minorities, which only reinforces the sense that Yanbian is more like a mini-state than just another autonomous area. The most notable of these is the right to education in their own language at school as well as college. Unlike in Xinjiang, where the government has closed down Uighur-only schools, or Xishuangbanna and Tibet, where the only way to study Dai or Tibetan is to become a monk, the Yanbian government actually funds schools that teach in Korean.

Pride, anger, hatred, covetousness, sloth, stupidity are mentally rejected with the rhythmic breathing out. A man may be killed by suggestion, he may kill himself by auto-suggestion. Discussion is hardly possible with Oriental mystics. When once they have answered: "I have seen this n my meditation", little hope is left to the inquirer of obtaining further explanations. The various phenomena which the vulgar consider as miracles, are produced by an energy arising in the magician himself and depend on his knowledge of the true inner essence of things. Tibetans are a strong and sturdy people; the cold, sleeping on the ground in the open, solitude and many other things from which the average Westerners would shrink, do not frighten them in the least. Whatever those unacquainted with it may think, solitude and utter loneliness are far from being devoid of charm. But, most likely, only those who have lived through it themselves can understand the irresistible attraction that hermit life exerts on many Orientals. On mani padme hum. The simplest interpretation is: In the lotus ( which is the world ), exists the precious jewel of Buddha's teaching. Another explanation takes the lotus as the mind. In the depth of it, by introspective meditation, one is able to find the jewel of knowledge, truth, reality, liberation, nirvana, these various terms being different denominations of the same thing. Nirvana, the supreme salvation, is not separated from samsara, the phenomenal world, but the mystic finds the first in the heart of the second, just as the jewel may be found in the lotus. Nirvana, the jewel, exists when enlightenment exists. Samsara, the lotus, exists when delusion exists, which veils nirvana, just as the many petals of the lotus conceal the jewel, nestling among them. Hum! at the end of the formula, is a mystic expression of wrath used in coercing fierce deities and subduing demons. Hum! is a kind of mystic war cry; uttering it, is challenging the enemy. Tibetans affirm that through mastery over breath one may conquer all passion and anger as well as carnal desires, acquire serenity, prepare the mind for meditation and awake spiritual energy. Breath, in its turn, influences bodily and mental activity. Consequently, two methods have been devised: the most easy one which quiets the mind by controlling the breath and the more difficult way which consists in regulating the breath by controlling the mind. Liberty is the motto on the heights of the Land of Snows, but strangely enough, the disciple starts on that road of utter freedom by the strictest obedience to his spiritual guide. However, the required submission is confined to the spiritual and psychic exercises and the way of living prescribed by the master. No dogmas are ever imposed. The disciple may believe, deny or doubt anything according to his own feelings. People who habitually practice methodical contemplation often experience, when sitting down for their appointed time of meditation, the sensation of putting down a load or taking off a heavy garment and entering a silent, delightfully calm, region. It is the impression of deliverance and serenity which Tibetan mystics call niampar jagpa, to make equal, to level - meaning calming down all causes of agitation that roll their waves through the mind. A flag moves. What is that which moves? Is it the flag or the wind? The answer is that neither the flag nor the wind moves. it is the mind that moves. The fact is that Orientals, excepting vulgar charlatans, do not make a show of their mystic, philosophic or psychic knowledge. Gods, demons, the whole universe, are but a mirage which exists in the mind, springs from it and sinks into it.

Many apparently paranormal phenomena and amazing deeds attributed to supernatural powers can be partly explained - as Alexandra David-Neel herself pointed out - as the effects of mental training. Through concentration an extraordinary force can be developed which produces a form of energy.

The secret of the psychic training, as Tibetans conceive it, consists in developing a power of concentration of mind greatly surpassing even that of men who are, by nature, the most gifted in this respect. Mystic

habits and innate tendencies, which are part of his present mind, and have been developed in the course of successive lives whose origin is lost in the night of time. On the other hand, the master must warn his disciple to be on his guard against accepting new beliefs, ideas and habits as groundless and irrational as those which he shakes off.

The discipline on the "Short Path"is to avoid imagining things. When imagination is prescribed, in contemplative meditation, it is to demonstrate by that conscious creation of perceptions or sensations, the illusory nature of those perceptions and sensations which we accept as real though they too rest on imagination; the only difference being that, in their case, the creation is unconsciously effected. The Tibetan reformer, Tsong Khapa, defines meditation as "the means (The word used by the author is khungs, which means the "source," the "origin." The quotation is taken from the work called The Lamp of the Way. A similar definition is found in the Yoga sûtras of Patanjali) of enabling oneself to reject all imaginative thoughts together with their seed." It is this uprooting of the present "imaginative thoughts," and the burning of their "seed," so that no fanciful ideas may arise in the future, that constitutes the "clearing" which I have just mentioned.

Two exercises are especially prescribed by the adepts of the mystic path. The first consists in observing with great attention the workings of the mind without attempting to stop it. Seated in a quiet place, the disciple refrains as much as he can from consciously pointing his thoughts in a definite direction. He marks the spontaneous arising of ideas, memories, desires, etc., and considers how, superseded by new ones, they sink into the dark recesses of the mind. He watches also the subjective image which, apparently unconnected with any thoughts or sensations, appears while his eyes are closed: men, animals, landscapes, moving crowds, etc. During that exercise, he avoids making reflections about the spectacle which he beholds, looking passively at the continual, swift, flowing stream of thoughts and mental images that whirl, jostle, fight and pass away. It is said that the disciple is about to gather the fruit of this practice when he loosens the firm footing he had kept, till then, in his quality of spectator. He too — so he must understand — is an actor on the tumultuous stage. His present introspection, all his acts and thoughts, and the very sum of them all which he calls his self, are but ephemeral bubbles in a whirlpool made of an infinite quantity of bubbles which congregate for a moment, separate, burst, and form again, following a giddy rhythm. The second exercise is intended to stop the roaming of the mind in order that one may concentrate it on one single object. Training which tends to develop a perfect concentration of mind is generally deemed necessary for all students without distinction. As to observing the mind's activity it is only recommended to the most intellectual disciples. Training the mind to "one-pointedness" is practiced in all Buddhist sects. In Southern Buddhist countries — Ceylon, Siam, Burma — an apparatus called kasinas, which consists of clay discs variously coloured, or a round surface covered by water, or a fire at which one gazes through a screen in which a round hole is pierced — are used for this purpose. Any of these circles is stared at until it is seen as clearly when the eyes are shut, as when they are open and actually looking at it. The process does not aim at producing an hypnotic state, as some Western scholars have said, but it accustoms one to concentrating the mind. The fact that the subjective image has become as vivid as the objective, indicates — according

For instance, the disciple has chosen a tree, as an object of meditation, and has identified himself with it. That is to say that he has lost the consciousness of his own personality and experiences the peculiar sensations that one may ascribe to a tree. He feels himself to be composed of a stiff trunk with branches, he perceives the sensation of the wind moving the leaves. He notes the activity of the roots feeding under the ground, the ascension of the sap which spreads all over the tree, and so on. Then, having mentally become a tree (which has now become the subject) he must look at the man (who has now become the object) seated in front of him and must examine this man in detail. This done, the disciple again places his consciousness in the man and contemplates the tree as before. Then, transferring his consciousness once more into the tree, he contemplates the man. This alternative transposition of subject and object is effected a number of times. This exercise is often practiced indoors with a statue of a stick called gom shing (meditation wood). (Properly speaking, the gom shing is merely a stick at which one gazes to obtain fixity of mind. The burning incense stick is a variety of gom shing. A burning incense stick is also used in an obscure or completely darkened room to dispose the mind to meditation.

Some lamas have told me that the aim of these practices can hardly be explained, because those who have not felt their effects could not understand the explanations. One attains, by the means of these strange drills, psychic states entirely different from those habitual to us. They cause us to pass beyond the fictitious limits which we assign to the self. The result being that we grow to realize that the self is compound, impermanent; and that the self, as self, does not exist. One of these lamas seized upon a remark I had made as an

Amongst these causes, the first and more easily discernible ones are those which have arisen, in the mind of the doer of the action, the conscious will of doing it. To these causes Tibetans assimilate those which, even unknown to the doer, have put into motion some forces which have led him to perform the action. Both kinds are styled gyu, "immediate or principal cause." Then, come the outside causes, not originating with the doer, which may have helped the accomplishment of the action. These are called kyen. (As an instance, the seed is the rgyu of the plant. The soil and the various substances which exist in it, the water, air, sun, the gardener who has sown the seed, etc., etc., are rkyen (pronounced gyu and kyen))

The remote causes are often represented by their "descendants." (In Tibetan rigs. As an instance: the milk is present in the butter or cheese, the seed is present in the tree born from it. Tibetans freely use these illustrations) These " descendants"are the present conditions which exist as the effects of bodily or mental actions which have been done in the past, but not, necessarily, done by the doer of the present act himself. So, when concentration of thoughts is mentioned here below as the direct cause of a phenomenon, one must remember: first that, according to Tibetan mystics, this concentration is not spontaneous, but determined; and secondly, that beside this direct apparent cause, there exist, in the background, a number of secondary causes which are equally necessary to bring about the phenomenon. The secret of the psychic training, as Tibetans conceive it, consists in developing a power of concentration of mind greatly surpassing even that of men who are, by nature, the most gifted in this respect. Mystic masters affirm that by the means of such concentration of mind, waves of energy are produced which can be used in different ways. The term" wave" is mine. I use it for clearness sake and also because, as the reader will see, Tibetan mystics really mean some "currents" or "waves" of force. However, they merely say shugs or tsal (Written rtsal) that is to say, "energy." That energy, they believe, is

Then he began the ritualistic dance, turning successively towards the four quarters, reciting "I trample down the demon of pride, the demon of anger, the demon of lust, the demon of stupidity.

The years between the end of the Second World War and 2010 or 2011, Pinker designates the long peace.19 It is a peace that encompassed the Chinese Communist revolution, the partition of India, the Great Leap Forward, the ignominious Cultural Revolution, the suppression of Tibet, the Korean War, the French and American wars of Indochinese succession, the Egypt-Yemen war, the Franco-Algerian war, the Israeli-Arab wars, the genocidal Pol Pot regime, the grotesque and sterile Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, ethnic cleansings in Rwanda, Burundi, and the former Yugoslavia, the farcical Russian and American invasions of Afghanistan, the American invasion of Iraq, and various massacres, sub-continental famines, squalid civil insurrections, blood-lettings, throat-slittings, death squads, theological infamies, and suicide bombings taking place from Latin America to East Timor. Alone, broken, incompetent, and unloved, the Soviet Union lumbered into oblivion in 1989. The twentieth century had come to an end.

MYSTIC THEORIES AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING THE religious world in Tibet, generally speaking, is divided into two sections. The first includes those who advocate the strict observance of moral precepts and monastic rules as the means of salvation, the second is formed of those who prefer an intellectual method which frees its followers from

all laws whatsoever. Nevertheless there exists no rigid division between these two categories. Though their respective theories are always a favourite subject of controversy between the followers of the two schools, it seldom happens that one stands in the position of a harsh, pugnacious adversary towards those in the opposite camp. Even the monks attached to morality acknowledge that a virtuous life and the monastic discipline, though of great value and advisable for the many, are but a mere preparation to a higher

In a little known fact, many Muslims from China, Xinjiang, and Tibet had chosen to settle in Saudi Arabia, often out of political expediency, and appeared to be prospering.

In an effort to encourage the uprising in Tibet, U.S. State Department officials in 1959 urged Chiang to offer recognition of “Tibet as an independent state” to solidify anti-Communist activities in Tibet.79 While Chiang did not in the end agree to this, the Nationalists did offer the roughly one hundred Khaches ROC citizenship and passports (they had left India prior to being granted Indian citizenship).

It was not just the manner of their arrival—traveling in government-assigned trucks instead of stealing across the Himalayan passes on foot—that separated them from their Tibetan Buddhist compatriots. Certainly, both groups shared a desire to extricate themselves from their desperate situation in Tibet, but the manner in which they were received in India quickly divided them. The Tibetan Muslims, by asserting and receiving formal acknowledgment of their Indian ancestry, arrived in India effectively as Indians, not Tibetan refugees. The consequences of this differentiation began to be manifested almost instantly, as they crossed over the mountainous pass into India. Greeted as Indians, not Tibetans, as citizens, not refugees, as Muslims, not Buddhists, the Khache faced a very different set of circumstances, choices, and reception in post-Partition India than did the Buddhist followers of the Dalai Lama.

While the Khaches regarded their Indian citizenship as a political means to a desired end, the Tibetan Buddhists saw their refusal of Indian citizenship as evidence of their commitment to an independent Tibet. Their defiant rejection of citizenship served as a means by which their loyalty to Tibet was authenticated.

While the Khaches regarded their Indian citizenship as a political means to a desired end, the Tibetan Buddhists saw their refusal of Indian citizenship as evidence of their commitment to an independent Tibet. Their defiant rejection of citizenship served as a means by which their loyalty to Tibet was authenticated. Not surprisingly, then, to be a refugee was, by definition for the Tibetan Buddhists (and their supporters), to be a Tibetan.

Their harsh reception in Kashmir unsettled the many Khaches who had come to believe a myth of their own making, that as Khache they were Kashmiri. The contradiction between the case the Indian government made for their departure from Tibet, based explicitly on their Kashmiri heritage, and what they encountered when Kashmir refused to accept them as Kashmiri deeply disoriented the entire Khache community.

Today, most Khaches in Srinagar prefer to be called “Kashmiri,” and they bristle at any implication that they are Tibetan. As one Tibetan Muslim explained, “In Tibet we are called Kashmiris and in Kashmir we are being called Tibetan.”113 When asked to comment further by a Kashmiri newspaper reporter, one elder Khache explained, “We are basically Kashmiri, but people still call us Tibetans, which hurts us.”114 Another puts an even a sharper edge to his response, “Don’t call us Tibetans. We are not refugees. We are Kashmiris.”115 One could perhaps dismiss these responses as a reflection of lingering fears from a bygone era if such distinctions did not remain of consequence. When asked, many younger Kashmiris expressed disbelief and even exasperation about their parents’ or grandparents’ decision to settle in Kashmir, a place where they were unwelcome, even as other Khaches lead relatively more prosperous lives in Kathmandu, Kalimpong, and Darjeeling. Like many second-generation immigrants, this younger generation feels only a distant tie to their grandparents’ homeland. “Even if tomorrow Tibet might be liberated from China, we will stay here only,” said twenty-year-old Irfan Trumboo.

By early May 1959, it became clear that the Chinese could not stem the tide of refugees, nor would they passively accept that India was offering sanctuary to the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetan refugees. It was then that Nehru, for the first time as prime minister, candidly asserted that India had to adhere to its basic values and beliefs “even though the Chinese do not like it.”7 With this assertion, and in the face of China’s virulent anti-Indian rhetoric, Nehru assented to providing accommodation and material relief to the Tibetan refugees who had begun to find their way into India. Within the month, the Indian government had begun to issue “Indian Registration Certificates” to the more than 15,000 Tibetans who had entered the country. By the end of 1962, when the Chinese had effectively sealed the Indo-Tibetan border, no fewer than 80,000 Tibetans had traveled by foot from Tibet, with most of them settling as resident refugees in India.8 China regarded India’s actions in providing asylum for the Dalai Lama and the multitude of refugees who flowed into India in the months and years following the March Uprising as prima facie evidence of India promoting Tibetan independence.

If you wish to share the petals of this amazing prophecy, be timely in arranging your compassionate attendance. This