By MARTIN J. KIDSTON,
IR Staff Writer
They warned Lobsang Samten that America was like a paper tiger: It may shimmer and shake, but in the end it will do nothing for you. They said it was China that made Tibet great, building roads and schools to align the ancient seat of Buddhism with the modern world.
But over the past 50 years under Chinese occupation, life in Tibet has changed. The land Samten once knew no longer exists, and the paper tiger he once pondered has opened its arms.
Seated beside the Wheel of Life, a mandala-in-progress at Helena’s Holter Museum of Art, Samten expressed his memories of the night his family fled Tibet. He remembered how the Chinese came in peace and how that peace turned to war, uprooting his country’s monastic way of life and, with it, its very soul.
Samten, a soft-spoken scholar ordained as a Buddhist monk, has spent most of his life in exile. He now travels internationally as a cultural ambassador. Years ago, he worked as an actor and spiritual advisor for the Martin Scorsese film “Kundun.”
It was a fitting role for a man whose life reads like a Hollywood script, full of tragedy and triumph. Vivid are his memories of 1959, the year his family fled Tibet. The journey to Nepal took two months to complete; his family sought shelter in caves along the way. Cold, tired and hungry, they reached their destination, sold what jewelry they had and purchased a tent. It would become the family home.
“No matter what I think of Tibet, it no longer exists,” Samten said, his hands resting flat on his cloak. “Tibet means to me the lifestyle of the people, not the land.”
Since the occupation of Tibet, Chinese settlers — encouraged by their government — have arrived by the millions. Today, Samten said, they represent Tibet’s majority population. Estimates place the number of Chinese in Tibet at 5.5 million compared to the 4.5 million Tibetans who remain.
Samten returned to Lhasa in 1997 to see the changes for himself. The monasteries were gone, their treasures looted. Two factories stood above the city, one producing beer and the other cigarettes. Chinese prostitutes had taken to the streets. The changes, Samten said, are ruining lives.
“It is against the law to carry pictures of the Dalai Lama, or religious objects,” he said. “Today, more Chinese are in Tibet than Tibetans.”
But the Dalai Lama has put the changes into perspective. In his 1994 book, “The Way to Freedom,” he wrote that while Tibetans are struck by the tragedy of losing their country, they remain generally free in their practice of the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings) and their pursuit of the Noble Truths.
“In whatever country we reside we have access to the Buddha’s teachings through exiled teachers,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “What is important about the presence of the Dharma is not its continuity over time, but whether or not it is present in our own minds, whether it is alive in our actions.”
Samten was ordained a Buddhist monk at the Namgyal Tantric University in Dharamsala, India. In his youth, much of what he knew about America came through Chinese propaganda. But when he arrived in the U.S. in 1988, he was pleasantly surprised by what he found. After 15 years in the U.S., he still sees it as a “dreamland country.”
Samten has also heeded the Dalai Lama’s words — that Buddhism is a treasure intended for the entire world. He founded and now directs five Tibetan Buddhist centers in the U.S. and was the first to demonstrate the sacred art of the mandala, an artistic circular representation of the cosmos and unity. Through the mandala, he said, the Buddha taught the Noble Truths, the root of suffering and the theory of reincarnation.
But for Samten, the pursuit of truth takes a lifetime to achieve. He laughingly admitted he was “still in the basement,” right where his spiritual journey began. If spirituality were a house, he smiled, moving from the basement to the ground floor is a lifetime endeavor.
“I cannot achieve the first level in this life,” he said. “I know it’s a long journey. But you go and try.”
Standing before the Mahatma Gandhi Museum in India before coming to the U.S., Samten saw the words “truth” and “god” printed in stone. He asked himself, “How do I find truth?” Today, as the mandala takes form under his steady hand, he is still searching for the answer.
“I think we live with the truth,” he said. “Then we realize the truth.”
The Noble Truths were the Buddha’s first teachings. They remain a core principle in the Buddhist faith and are intrinsic in Samten’s art. After all, he said, the Buddha represents “he who sees the truth,” and truth, he said, can come on many levels.
Samten pointed to the mandala on the table beside him. Seeing the color blue is only one form of truth. Blue, he said, is only possible from the many smaller pieces comprising the whole.
“So many levels of truth,” he said. “Truth can be one. Truth can be many.”
Samten’s references to the Dalai Lama aren’t accidental. The exiled monk holds the Lama in high regard, both as a diplomat and spiritual leader.
In his writings on opportunity, the Dalai Lama asks the reader to imagine a wide ocean with a golden yoke adrift upon it. In the depths of the ocean swims a blind turtle that surfaces once every hundred years.
“How rare would it be for the turtle to surface with its head through the yoke?” The Dalai Lama asked. “The Buddha said that attaining a precious rebirth is rarer than that.”
Samten said it’s hard to describe his reverence for the Dalai Lama.
“He’s a real human being,” Samten said. “The people see him as a living Buddha. His real life is so simple — so simple and so real.”
The Dalai Lama maintains hope that China and Tibet can reach a mutually agreeable solution to China’s occupation of Tibet. He credited international support of Tibet for influencing views inside China.
About the artist
Lobsang Samten is nationally known for his spiritual leadership and Tibetan mandalas. He is founder and director of Buddhist centers in Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut, and is currently visiting Helena as an artist in residence at the Holter Museum of Art.
At the Holter, Samten will be creating his mandala through January. Monks from the Tashi Lhumpo Monastery will visit March 13-15. The ritual dissolution of the mandala will take place on March 30.
For more information, call 442-6400.
Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or by e-mail at mkidston@helenair.com
