Education in support of the revival

Numerous reconstructed monasteries, colleges (bshad grwa) and meditation schools (sgom grwa) across the Tibetan areas engage in transmitting “tradition” to the new generations. This traditional alternative is important to many, who cannot relate to the secularized, politicized and sino-centrist state education model.³⁵⁵ What is more, the training of future leaders is important for reemphasizing the collective self-esteem as well as maintaining cultural continuity. Kapstein asserts:

Where the national destiny is regarded as peculiarly tied to a specific religion, the religious elite also may become focal points of national feeling. Something of this sort has occurred in the renewed valuing of higher religious education in Tibet.³⁵⁶

Due to the renewed educational efforts launched after 1978, several Tibetan lamas have developed into renowned gurus and become tutors to Han Chinese disciples, just as previous Tibetan clergy provided spiritual service at Chinese courts. This is an important factor in restoring ethnic pride while Tibet regains its special place in its own traditional mythology as the source of Buddhist teachings.

One of the most interesting features of today’s revival of religious education is its non-sectarianism. This approach was especially valid in 1980’s, in the period directly following the end of the Cultural Revolution when Tibetan clergy first joined their forces together to

354 Peng Wenbin 1998: 187.

355 Compare Kolås & Thowsen 2005: 221-240 on Tongren in Qinghai. Costello 2002: 221-240.

356 Kapstein 1998: 143.

revive the collapsed lineages and restore the broken cultural continuity. The next chapter especially focuses on the example of Karma nor bu bzang po, whose Ris med-contextualized training in the pre-Mao days enabled him to transmit a whole variety of rituals and teachings to disciples of different affiliation, and in this way, to greatly contribute to the revival of the practices of hermitism.

IV.8. Conclusions

This chapter has provided a theoretical and factual framework for religious practices revived since the 1980s across the Tibetan Plateau, but especially in Khams, as well as to roughly depicted its most significant aspects. For all the uniqueness of this revival, it is also essential not to perceive it as an isolated phenomenon, rather to contextualize it within a broader framework of processes occurring in greater China and even on global scale, in view of the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism as a world religion.

The entire revival process in the Tibetan territories of the PRC does not simply add up to a collective effort to resume existence from that moment, where indigenous culture was brought to a halt and discontinued by foreign invasion and political domination. Rather, it should be understood precisely in terms of a reaction to this influence: the development of the revival is directed by the urgency to create an indigenous response to the recent eradication of traditional culture during the Cultural Revolution as well as the ongoing Chinese hegemony.

The long-term reaction of Tibetans to the process of introduction of the “civilizing projects” was a rapid intensification of ethnic consciousness, a phenomenon observable also via the example of other minzu of the PRC and inevitable as a chthonic response of self-definition and comparison to “others.”³⁵⁷

The concentration of ethnic awareness became possible, because Tibetan civilization had been able to survive both the constant attempts at its substitution and the destructive acts during the Cultural Revolution. That last and relatively recent historical period marked a succession of actions which aimed at the complete annihilation of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, since China’s minority groups were a conspicuous example of the malfunction of civilizing attempts.³⁵⁸

I considered the current revival in the light of several theories, three of which emphasized survival, regeneration and continuation. Mostly due to the biological survival of individuals who had been trained to remember the past, tradition could be re-emphasized again through

357 Kapstein 1998: 143.

358 W. W. Smith 1994: 61.

the gradual reconstruction of society on the community level. Hobsbawn and others have claimed that one of the primary functions of tradition is to emphasize the cohesion of groups.³⁵⁹ This overlaps with Harrel’s understanding of the first stage of developing ethnic consciousness, which deals with an awareness of belonging to a group.³⁶⁰

If many post-colonial communities are free to express their “cultures of aspiration” and to determine the modes of resuming cultural activity, Tibetans are not in power to design their future, and their efforts are limited by the framework of current state policies. However, progress has never been their major cultural concern. In pre-modern Tibet, like in many other traditional societies where religious cosmology plays a major role in organizing social relations, emphasis was laid on identity, the primal interest of religion. The focus on identity stands in sharp opposition to Chinese state practice, which demands a dedication to rapid advancement. Since the Tibetan collective self-awareness is tied to theory and practice of Vajrayāna Buddhism, the contemporary revival of religion is simultaneously a revival of ethnic identity.

Acknowledging one’s own difference in relation to others is the second important step to developing ethnic consciousness. The CCP’s “civilizing projects” failed in Tibetan areas also because they strongly emphasized and evaluated the difference between the center (Han/Chinese and Marxist/Maoist) and the periphery (Tibetan/Buddhist). This caused the dissatisfaction that Wallace compares to the distress experienced by a biological organism exposed to harmful conditions that compromise its health and well-being. Others have evaluated this anxiety in terms of an “identity crisis,” stressing the aggravation and perplexity that appeared among Tibetans as a result of forceful implementation of government policies and Han discrimination, characteristic of state practice in relation to minorities in the PRC.

Nevertheless, the revival of Tibetan culture began as a collective effort to alleviate the critical condition or reconcile modern dilemmas; as a native project, focusing on and expressing ethnic sufficiency.

Bellah has remarked that since it is a secular ideology, communism is focused on progress.

The Chinese presence has not only brought the dominance of foreign culture and political thought, but it has also impelled the rapid modernization of life, understood as a complete transformation of the society and all of its endeavors. With its focus on traditional identities, the ethno-religious revival becomes critical for the Tibetan minority since it presents a valuable offer of life choices relevant in their present situation.

359 Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983: 25.

360 Harrell 1995: 29.

In one of his essays, Appadurai claims that history should not be understood as random inspiration of the past for present action, rather as a resource regulated by a variety of conventions set forth by a given society. In this sense, the current revival of religion is also a skillful reemployment of past authority to negotiate with the official historiography of the state. Here, religious symbols are used as a rhetoric device to reclaim the Tibetans’ rights to their native territories and to contest their status as an underdeveloped minority. This practice is equivalent to a revivalist tendency which Robert Bellah terms as neotraditionalism.

The same author observes that in many pre-modern societies, certain factions of the religious elite remove themselves from participation in mundane activities in order to immerse in ascetic practice, prescribed by their tradition, and that these subgroups are held in highest esteem by the society.³⁶¹ The ethos of Tibetan clergy relies on renunciation, which is expressed even more effectively today, since the revival has triggered a vast hermitic movement. Neotraditionalist in basic orientation, the agencies of the new leaders are reminiscent of both earlier waves of Buddhist renaissance in Khams and the surges of religious revitalization that occurred in the beginning of the 20^th century across Asia.

Although Buddhism played a role that was more directly engaged in social problems of the day in Sri Lanka, Burma or Korea, all of these cases, including the Tibetan revival, exemplify the advocacy of chthonic values in the face of colonialism and decline of traditional morality.

Cyclic cosmology and stress on historical continuity, as described by Hoffman, describe attitudes and ideas concerning the vulnerability of Tibetan religion and culture. It is not so much that the Tibetan version of determinism creates passivity, but rather points to the inevitability of neotraditionalism as an antidote to the aggravated concerns of rupture. The

“civilizing projects” of the state have not yet been abandoned, and the commercial interest in Tibetan tradition merely complicates the efforts for revival. Hence the importance of the new Tibetan leaders, the religious elite; they are the ones empowered to perform the “memory of tradition,” as proposed by Flood.³⁶² Again, the society entrusts them with the ability to recall the authority of the past and to insist on a continual connection with indigenous history. Not only does this strategy render the roots of the native culture valid and renegotiates the claims for territory, but most of all, within the discourse perimeters permitted by the state, it restores Tibetans’ liberty to determine their own future, independently of shifting government policies.

Such is the significance of the schooling of a new elite, which centers around the symbols for

361 Bellah 1965: 179.

362 Flood 2004.

ethnic, historical and ritual power. The following section of this work takes a closer look at an instance of such a training facility.

In the supreme power place of Khams, sKyo brag Chos ’khor gling

[Exists] the oral tradition of flying yogins [and] the dharma [of their] pith instructions.

When holders of the lore of this lineage,

Rich with the wealth of devotion associate with helpers,

In the temple of freedom from delusion arising from the [accomplishment of] the four occasions,³⁶³ Effortless wisdom, free of all attachment, will spontaneously manifest!³⁶⁴

sKu rgyal (b.1935)