Indestructible Truth (eBook)

Tibet:People and Place

TibetanBuddhism was, until recently, the major form of religious belief and practicethroughout the regions where Tibetan civilization prevailed. Beginning sometimeprior to the seventh century CE, Buddhism began to make its appearance inTibet, and it developed from that time to become the major religiousorientation of the Tibetan people. In its prime, Tibetan Buddhism was one ofthe world's most vital, diverse, and spiritually profound traditions. Aftersome fourteen centuries of free and well-favored development, Buddhism andindeed Tibetan civilization as a whole suffered calamitous attack under the1949 Chinese invasion and subsequent political appropriation and repression ofTibet. At the same time, as is often said, Tibet's loss was the world's gain,for since the Chinese occupation hundreds of thousands of Tibetans fled intoexile. Among these were many gifted teachers who have, since the 1960s, beenpresenting their traditions to the rest of the world. There are now hundreds ofgroups of non-Tibetans practicing Tibetan Buddhism, on virtually everycontinent, in every major city, and in many out-of-the-way places, and thetradition is studied in many colleges and universities, both Western and Asian.

Tibetancivilization flourished throughout an extensive portion of Asia, including boththe region we think of as Tibet proper, 'political Tibet,' and alsoother areas extending into other political entities. These include principallyportions of Assam in the east, Bhutan, Sikkim, and parts of Nepal to the southand southwest, and Ladakh to the west. Although heavily damaged inChinese-occupied Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism continues to be practiced in theseother Tibetan cultural locales.

Tibetproper is bordered on three sides by stupendous mountain ranges, from twentythousand to nearly thirty thousand feet in height—,in the south the Himalayas,to the west by the Karakoram range, and to the north by the Kunlun range (seemap). These mountains are completely impassable for most of the year and evenin the best of seasons presented the traveler with dangerous and sometimesinsurmountable obstacles. Although open to the east, the seemingly endlessdeserts, plains, and lower mountains meant that anyone wishing to travel fromCentral Tibet to Beijing, for example, could plan on an eight-month journey.While these physical barriers did not completely isolate Tibet from the rest ofthe world, they certainly impeded outside influence. Tibet's relative isolationwas reinforced by cultural and geopolitical factors. Up until the Chineseinvasion of 1949, Tibet had functioned as a kind of buffer between BritishIndia to the south, Russia to the north, and China to the east. These greatpowers preferred a steady state in which outside meddlers did not enter Tibetand thus kept it cordoned off. Within Tibet itself, the highly conservativereligious culture was not welcoming to outsiders. The combined result ofgeographical, political, and cultural factors meant that up to the middle ofthe twentieth century, Tibetan civilization was able to develop its own uniquecharacter and to suffer the encroachments of modernity in a much more gradualand incidental way than most other traditional cultures.

Inorder to understand the character and diversity of Tibetan Buddhism, it isimportant to know something about Tibetan geography, as it has impacted Tibetanpolitics, society, and culture. The territory of Tibet proper may be dividedinto three roughly equal sections. The northern third of the country is a vast,uninhabited desert, cut by mountain spurs and ranges. For most of the year itis bitterly cold and swept by fierce winds. Although...