'The Open Door' by Pico Iyer
Raghavan N Iyer, who had befriended the Dalai Lama soon after the latter arrived in India, published a book The Glass Curtain in the 1960s about the spiritual and social distance between Asia and Europe.
Its foreword was written by the Dalai Lama, who had fled the Chinese occupation of Tibet and set up base in India as the spiritual and temporal leader of the exiled Tibetans. ‘The book was dedicated,’ writes Raghavan Iyer’s son Pico Iyer in his new book The Open Door ‘to a little boy called Pico and to those of his generation for whom there will be no curtain.’ In his masterly look at one of the towering religious figures of our time, Pico Iyer, best known for books like Falling off the Map, discusses a world where there are too many curtains, and how these curtains do not destroy the pragmatic hope the Dalai Lama has for a better world—and a better deal for the Tibetans, even under Chinese rule. The Open Door is Pico Iyer’s effort to investigate a complex yet charming man; the secondary title of the book, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, indicates the breadth of the book. Iyer, who has known the Dalai Lama for decades, confesses in his book that he has been ‘intrigued by the quiet revolution he was promulgating, challenging us to see politics, globalism, celebrity itself, in a larger and more spacious light.’
The writer discussed his new book with Rediff India Abroad Managing Editor (Features) Arthur J Pais in New York recently.
You have a lively anecdote early in your book that says a lot about the Dalai Lama.
This was in a book published some years ago and it was actually a French businessman, a CEO, who had conducted a series of discussions with the Dalai Lama and then published them in French. I read the translated version of it. I could tell that he was a very sincere, well-intentioned man who was clearly trying to get ideas to better the world. At one point he asked the Dalai Lama, ‘Are you more similar to John Lennon or Mahatma Gandhi?’
I’m guessing the Dalai Lama hadn’t heard of John Lennon and if he had, wouldn’t be so concerned about him. His answer, in the translated version I read, was transcribed as “?!”
So this man actually handed over to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, the full lyricsof John Lennon’s song, Imagine. So, in the translated edition that I had consulted, we have the Dalai Lama reading out aloud the song. Asked again and again what single role he chooses for himself, the Dalai Lama says, ‘I don’t know.’
You can tell from the very title, John Lennon’s song is about imagining a better world and dreaming a better world. And, although the Dalai Lama speaks very forcefully about the importance of imagining a better world, he is such a realist!
His life has not allowed him to sit on the mountain top and entertain dreams or romantic fantasies. He’s having to deal, day in and day out, with the Chinese leadership, Tibetan exiles and many other things. I think this whole question seems very remote to his experience. And, yet the questioner, the Frenchman, has many questions, probably as I have done over the years, and keeps pressing him. The Dalai Lama still doesn’t understand and the questioner explains to him a little bit about John Lennon and his vision. Suddenly, the Dalai Lama almost breaks into a digression, and says something like, ‘All I’m doing is trying very hard to help my people and they come to me with all their suffering. Sometimes, it seems almost impossible and all I can do is try but it’s very sad.’ Suddenly, in the midst of this dialogue of miscommunication, the Dalai Lama is being nothing but human and poignant. As I interpreted it, he is saying, ‘I’m just a human being, but trying my best.’
A large theme of my book is who the Dalai Lama really is. The book is also about the projections we push on to him, all of us, I think: the various roles that we wish or need for him to play; so much so, I think, we obscure from ourselves who the man is. The tangle of ideas we have... that he is another worldly figure or a God; or among the Chinese government that he is a devil and a trickster. All these ideas have nothing to do with this very straightforward man.
Tell us about him, particularly in the present context of the Chinese government blaming him as the instigator of the unrest in Tibet and provoking protests worldwide against Chinese rule in Tibet. He’s the most transparent person I have ever met; which is to say I have been investigating him and talking to him for 33 years, and when I began this book (five years ago), I assumed that I held him in high regard. ’It is tragic that the Chinese have always called the Dalai Lama a splitist’ April 21, 2008 But when you look closely at almost any person, you begin to find shadows or inconsistencies. In this case, I find no smudges on him; and in some ways, I see more than ever how the private person and the public person, of what he says and what he thinks, are entirely of one piece. And, he’s straightforward, in the sense that he is not pushing an agenda but always presents himself just as a human being, as we are, on the same level.
And so, in that context, it is ironic and tragic in a way that the Chinese have always called him a splitist. His main thesis is inter-dependence, that we are all intertwined; that is part of the Buddhist way of approaching the world. It is exactly the opposite
of splitist. The Chinese call him an enemy of the Tibetan people, though they have watched him work day and night helping the Tibetan people. He does not believe in enmity; he actually says that if you think somebody’s your enemy, that is the product of your thinking. And that means we can change our attitude and try to turn the enemy into a good person. So you have this poignant situation, especially vivid in recent weeks: The Dalai Lama extends the hand of dialogue and says, ‘I think of the Chinese as friends and brothers and sisters and neighbours.’ But the Chinese call him ‘a jackal in a monk’s robe... an evil spirit with the face of a human and the heart of a beast.’
So, you have this situation where one party is extending a hand, and the other party is picking on him, and all he can do is to keep extending the hand and hope they come to their senses. My reading of the Tibetan situation is that in any situation in our lives, if one person is suspicious he or she projects that distrust onto others; the slippery person sees everyone as a slippery person and the honest person sees everyone as an honest person; there’s nothing the honest person can do except just remain himself fully. And that’s what the Dalai Lama has done consistently.
You also talk about how the Dalai Lama serves two constituencies: His own people and the world. In the context of your question, probably what I am saying is that the world wants and needs him almost to be a global, spiritual godfather, somebody who travels around the world ministering to our needs. The metaphor that I use throughout the book, you know, is that of a physician. I think of him really as a doctor, making house calls, asking people in New York, Tokyo, Delhi, wherever, what ails them and trying to offer whatever he can without saying that that it will be effective. He has become over the years an ecumenical, enlightened, far-sighted spiritual figure traveling around the world and tending to us and giving us what he can. But he is also trying to speak for the 6 million Tibetans who are trapped in Chinese occupied Tibet. He speaks to me very forcefully when I’m in Dharamsala, where thousands of foreigners meet for his annual teaching in late February and March and sit in freezing cold. It is a very uncomfortable situation where 6,000 to 8,000 people are cramped into a little courtyard.
But many foreigners endure that day after day and on March 10, every year, the Dalai Lama comes into that courtyard and delivers something of a State of the Nation address, a political message to his people. One way or another, the Western audience happens, traditionally, not to show much concern for his political message. The political and the spiritual are in contradiction to each other, they think. But I think the large part of the power in him is that his political message comes 100 percent out of his spiritual principles. And that’s what makes him such a liberating and interesting figure on the global stage. Isn’t it true that many young Tibetans consider the Dalai Lama as being too benign, too soft, and they are very impatient with his conciliatory attitude towards Beijing?
Yes, that’s very pronounced in Dharamsala. I think Tibetan people are in some ways divided, because within the Tibetan system he is a God; the incarnation of the God of compassion; they instantly and always defer to him. I almost never heard a Tibetan say anything against the Dalai Lama; but they speak more and more against his policy, his principles of forbearance and tolerance towards the Chinese. The younger Tibetans who are criticising the Dalai Lama and who are impatient with him have not seen Tibet, whereas the Dalai Lama has been working very hard and negotiating with China for 58 years. He spent a whole year traveling across China in 1954, and apart from any other thing, I think, he has a much keener sense of who the Chinese are and how to deal with them to lead his people out of exile. I think his heart bleeds as mine does when I hear those cries of frustration. It’s completely understandable: the impatience of all the Tibetans in exile who think, how can we sit by while our country is being destroyed, piece by piece, and while our cousins are being imprisoned and our loved ones being suppressed? He feels exactly the same thing but he understands more deeply, I think, that if you were to confront China or engage in any kind of violence against China, it will only bring much more suffering to the Tibetans—and the Tibetans have suffered so much already.
He knows that China does not take well to advice from outside and will retaliate. He knows it from his own experience. He’s trying very, very hard to protect the Tibetan people from what he knows will happen if they make gestures that the Chinese will suppress. The Dalai Lama is a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi -- and younger Tibetans want the Dalai Lama to be a rebel and bring down the Chinese as Gandhi brought down the British...
In recent times, I’ve been actually thinking of Mahatma Gandhi, one of his great pillars and role models. And, of course, Mahatma Gandhi was able to lead the Salt March and non-violent protests against the British. One advantage that Gandhi had over the British was the force of numbers. Britain, during the Raj, controlled India but there were just a few thousand British in India. When many, many people went on strike or made protest marches as Gandhiji recommended, they could severely throw off the economy of the Raj and the way the Raj functioned.
Whereas within the Tibetan situation, you have 6 million Tibetans in a country of 1.2 billion Chinese. And the Tibetans are surrounded by the Chinese. In Tibet itself there are millions of non-Tibetans now. If the Tibetans lead a strike or boycott or protest or whatever, none of that is going to dent or affect the Chinese government at all. So, there’s no sense in following a Gandhian model in that way. It’s not going to work in such different circumstances.
I think the Dalai Lama is the most far-sighted and the most realistic politician that I’ve met. But, at the same time, if I were a Tibetan, I can understand why they feel that terrible sense of helplessness, watching from afar that their country is almost obliterated. I think, once a Tibetan in exile goes to Tibet and once he sees it closely and spends a lot of time among the Chinese, he may come out with a perspective that could be realistic and may be worth considering; but not until then.
Does he think of his death—and what could happen after he passes away? He is very realistic in that way, too, and I cite in my book a conversation that I had with him about three years ago in which I ask him exactly that question. He said that when he dies, about 60 to 70 percent of people support his non-violent policy but that leaves 30 to 40 percent who don’t. There’s nothing he can do to protect the Tibetan people against attack. Very interestingly, the first thing he mentioned was India, his responsibility to India as the very generous host to Tibetans for almost 50 years now. He reminded me that India has so graciously extended itself to the Tibetans as a displaced spiritual people. When the Tibetan people in India become politically agitated, that makes problems for India as well as for the Tibetans in China.
Often, the Dalai Lama puts India into his thinking and makes sure he doesn’t do anything bring complications to India. At the same time, one of the striking things about him is that for four decades, he has been working very carefully, laying the foundation as to what will happen after his death. And he knows certainly that the Chinese will anoint a little boy as the next Dalai Lama, perhaps the child of Communist parents. This Dalai Lama has done all kinds of things to preempt that possibility. For example he is saying that the definition of the 15th Dalai Lama is somebody who entirely may not follow the course of the 14th Dalai Lama; he has also been saying that the next Dalai Lama may be born outside Tibet and China. Or there may not be a 15th Dalai Lama at all. He has really thought it through carefully, how to protect his people and the world from that choice. I am confident he has set in place, in ways I don’t know, some things for the succession and the continuation of his policy. He is in a bit of conundrum because he has been setting up a democratic constitution for the Tibetans that they never had before.
Now, there is a democratically elected government in exile, with its own parliament and a prime minister. The fact of the matter is, customarily the Tibetans only listen to the Dalai Lama. His prime minister is a monk too and a wonderful gentle spirit, a real devotee of Gandhi. Whatever he says now, the Tibetans will listen to him, but not the way they listen to the Dalai Lama. He has to find a way to appoint or find somebody that the Tibetan will listen to as they listen to him. I am sure he has found a way to do it. It is a conundrum. He has also been trying hard to topple himself (EM>chuckles). How, and why? He is the rare leader in the world trying to depose himself. For years he has been telling his people, please take responsibilities for yourselves, please exercise democracy. He tells them, I want to give power to you, and they say, no, no, we must give power to the Dalai Lama. Every time he holds a vote for a new leader, they say, oh, no, no. We want our leader for ever to be the Dalai Lama. Your book paints him as a realist, and also a very shrewd person. Many people may think he is a great spiritual being but naive politically, or they may look at him as an unworldly monk who is out of his depth in politics. And one of the things I remind readers is that he is the single most seasoned political leader in the world. He has been leading his people for 67 years, longer than Fidel Castro or Queen Elizabeth or anybody. And as I mentioned earlier, he was dealing with Mao Tse Tung and Chou En Lai and he was receiving messages from FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America’s president from 1932 to 1945), serious tactical requests during World War II. The Dalai Lama has seen a civil war erupt around Lhasa when he was 11 years old. Since the time he was an infant really, he has to deal with, day in and day out, political challenges within the Tibetan community, and, of course, across the world. I would say he is very shrewd and very, very practical and looks at the situation clearly and objectively and tries to come out with a very good response. And that is one reason why the Chinese keep insulting him, because they don’t have a legitimate grievance to bring against him. I think they are fearful.
What mandate did you give yourself when you started to write this book? I wanted objectively to investigate his many positions and bring all the challenges to him that I could, philosophically, politically, culturally and otherwise. One thing that struck me most was the Dalai Lama’s favourite words: Investigate, analyse, research and explore. That is one reason he calls himself a scientist, and that is what he is doing with everything. In response to recent demonstrations by the Tibetans he said, let us investigate, I want to see the reality, I don’t want to hear more opinions, let us know clearly what is going on. And in his school of Buddhism, the most famous practice is ritual debating where one monk puts forth one position and the other monk puts forth another, and they engage in this dialectical exchange.
I noticed that this habit is very strong in the Dalai Lama. He loves being challenged and he talks to people who come at him with challenges, and some other points of view, whether they are scientists or Catholics or Buddhists or atheists. So I thought the best service I could do to the readers in some ways was that I could take to him his own ideas, see if they can be challenged. I was not going to give them a free ride. People know at this point that the Dalai Lama is a warm, kind and charismatic person. Sometimes that very warmth and charisma prevent us from really thinking about what he is saying. In this book, I decided that I did not really want to get into his personality or biography much, for it is covered very well in Hollywood movies.
I wanted to see what lay behind him and beneath him in the way of his ideas. And in my own case, 20 years ago when I would go to listen to the Dalai Lama speak, I would often come out and say, what a great sense of humour he has, or what a kind and attentive person he is—how very unselfconscious he is. All that is true. But I would not really digest at that time what he was really saying in a practical and philosophical way. So I thought this time, that is what is more important about him. He is a mortal being, he is not going to be around for ever. But his ideas could stay on. And there is one chapter in my book, called The Politician, which is really the description of the events the whole world has been following in the last few weeks. These events are about a call for dialogue with the Chinese and with the people who are calling for confrontation with the Chinese. And they are also about the Dalai Lama talking about patience and forbearance. While he believes that the confrontation with the Chinese will not bring Tibetans any good, he seeks out dialogue with the Chinese leaders in the hope that perhaps one of them would understand the plight of the Tibetans and do something about them. Having a global dialogue is very important to him, and he travels across the world making connections with people and discussing a wide range of topics from the Tibetan issue to metaphysics and ecology.
I write in the book of how shrewdly he has made friends in Hollywood, and how people like Richard Gere are helping his message get to a global audience better than any national politician could. Philosophers, scientists and religious people across the world, the Dalai Lama discovered over three decades ago, could talk to people in the far corners of the world and enjoy real dialoguers and exchanges, even as governments were constrained by their wish not to antagonise the richest market in the world. Despite your long acquaintance with him, what surprised you about the Dalai Lama while you were working on this book? How deep and precise his words are in English. Sometimes he sounds so simple, some people take his words to be simplistic. Take for example the declaration he made over 20 years ago: I am a simple Buddhist monk. Some people may think he