Tibet: People and Place

Tibetan Buddhism was, until recently, the major form of religious belief and practice throughout the regions where Tibetan civilization prevailed. Beginning sometime prior to the seventh century CE, Buddhism began to make its appearance in Tibet, and it developed from that time to become the major religious orientation of the Tibetan people. In its prime, Tibetan Buddhism was one of the world's most vital, diverse, and spiritually profound traditions. After some fourteen centuries of free and well-favored development, Buddhism and indeed Tibetan civilization as a whole suffered calamitous attack under the 1949 Chinese invasion and subsequent political appropriation and repression of Tibet. 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 into exile. Among these were many gifted teachers who have, since the 1960s, been presenting their traditions to the rest of the world. There are now hundreds of groups of non-Tibetans practicing Tibetan Buddhism, on virtually every continent, in every major city, and in many out-of-the-way places; and the tradition is studied in many colleges and universities, both Western and Asian.

Tibetan civilization flourished throughout an extensive portion of Asia, including both the region we think of as Tibet proper, "political Tibet," and also other areas extending into other political entities. These include principally portions of Assam in the east, Bhutan, Sikkim, and parts of Nepal to the south and southwest; and Ladakh to the west. Although heavily damaged in Chinese-occupied Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism continues to be practiced in these other Tibetan cultural locales.

Tibet proper is bordered on three sides by stupendous mountain ranges, from twenty thousand 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 (see map). These mountains are completely impassable for most of the year and even in the best of seasons presented the traveler with dangerous and sometimes insurmountable obstacles. Although open to the east, the seemingly endless deserts, plains, and lower mountains meant that anyone wishing to travel from Central Tibet to Beijing, for example, could plan on an eight-month journey. While these physical barriers did not completely isolate Tibet from the rest of the world, they certainly impeded outside influence. Tibet's relative isolation was reinforced by cultural and geopolitical factors. Up until the Chinese invasion of 1949, Tibet had functioned as a kind of buffer between British India to the south, Russia to the north, and China to the east. These great powers preferred a steady state in which outside meddlers did not enter Tibet and thus kept it cordoned off. Within Tibet itself, the highly conservative religious culture was not welcoming to outsiders. The combined result of geographical, political, and cultural factors meant that up to the middle of the twentieth century, Tibetan civilization was able to develop its own unique character and to suffer the encroachments of modernity in a much more gradual and incidental way than most other traditional cultures.

In order to understand the character and diversity of Tibetan Buddhism, it is important to know something about Tibetan geography, as it has impacted Tibetan politics, society, and culture. The territory of Tibet proper may be divided into 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 it is bitterly cold and swept by fierce winds. Although in the past no one lived there, it was periodically visited by hunters and by traders seeking salt, soda, and borax. The middle third of Tibet, although still high and cold, is made up of rolling hills and grasslands, interspersed with lofty mountain ranges and great lakes. Here Tibetan nomads, incredibly hardy and tough, tended their flocks of yak, sheep, and goats, living in felt tents year round, and moving with the seasons to find the best pasture lands. The southern third of the country is composed of a series of river valleys that, although still high, are (because of their more southerly latitude) relatively moist, temperate, and fertile when compared with the rest of Tibet. It was in this southern third of Tibet that most of its some three million people lived, in hamlets, small villages, and a few larger towns, supporting themselves mainly by farming.

The inhabited regions of Tibet were quite diverse in social and political configuration, and this diversity was reflected in the arena of religion as well. Central Tibet, made up of the districts of U and Tsang along with several other provinces, was a particularly rich farming region, and the location of the greatest population density and the largest towns. Society here was defined by large estates owned by wealthy nobility, and also by landed peasants and landless fieldworkers. Owing in part to its concentration of people and its relative wealth, Central Tibet was politically the most centralized of the Tibetan regions and also socially the most hierarchical and stratified. This region and particularly Tibet's largest town, Lhasa, was the seat of the Dalai Lama and the site of his famed residence, the vast Potala, with its thousands of corridors, rooms, and temples. Central Tibet and Lhasa were also the stronghold of the Geluk school and included the largest monasteries in the country. It was here that, since the seventeenth century, the Tibetan central government was located, headed by the Dalai Lama and staffed by monks of the ruling Geluk sect and nobility loyal to them. The Sakya school was also strong in Central Tibet with its central seat in Sakya.

East Tibet, known as Kham, includes the valleys of several great rivers (the Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze) and the pastureland between them. Although more spread out, Kham had a population roughly equal to that of Central Tibet. Owing to its proximity to China, a number of important trading routes lay in Kham, along with several major towns including Derge and Chamdo. Kham was politically more decentralized than central Tibet, and its different regions were governed sometimes by hereditary princes and sometimes by lamas from their monastic seats. The Nyingma and Kagyu schools were particularly strong here, with a few medium-sized monasteries in the valleys and numerous retreat centers in the surrounding hills and mountains.

Amdo, in northeastern Tibet, was inhabited mostly by Tibetan nomads with their flocks and also by Mongolian herdsmen who were likewise followers of Tibetan Buddhism. It is here that the sacred lake of Kokonor is found and also that Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Geluk sect, was born. Owing to its ever-moving nomadic population, Amdo was less politically centralized than either Central Tibet or Kham, and the various nomad groupings were mostly self-governing. Owing to Geluk conversions in the area, the Geluk sect was particularly strong, having a number of large monasteries. The Nyingmapas were strong here as well and also had a number of large monastic establishments.

The other Tibetan cultural regions existing today outside of the areas of Chinese occupation show similar social, cultural, and political diversity. Tibetan areas of India and Nepal are mostly agricultural in nature, with the various schools all represented. Bhutan and Sikkim have populations composed of Tibetans, partly Tibetanized hill peoples, and immigrants from Nepal. These are also primarily farming areas and have been dominated by the non-Geluk orders. In the more mountainous areas, until the Chinese occupation closed the routes to Tibet proper, trade provided a major form of livelihood.

Thus it was that although Central Tibet was nominally the seat of the ruling Geluk sect, in fact the various regions of Tibet were quite autonomous both politically and culturally. Several factors contributed to this relative independence. For one thing, the large distances and relatively poor communication between Central Tibet and the various other regions meant that each area was able to develop its own character. In addition, the various Tibetan regions were culturally diverse, each with its own particular history, its own way of speaking, and its own dress, food, artistic traditions, and so on. Furthermore, different Tibetan regions predominated in one or another types of social setup: some were relatively populous, centralized agricultural states; others were still agricultural, but more sparsely populated and spread out; still others were essentially nomadic; and others were urban, containing merchants, the nobility, government officials, artists, with the social diversity implied by such a mix. The relative independence of the different areas was also encouraged by the fact that the style of Buddhism followed in the different regions differed, as did local shamanic ritual practices. Finally, Tibetans as a people tend to be fiercely independent and are not particularly amenable to outside control of their affairs. A Golok (or Golog), from northeastern Tibet, gives expression to this sense of independence—even from the Geluk rule from Central Tibet—in this speech quoted by John Rock:

You cannot compare us Golog with other people. You obey the laws of strangers, the laws of the Dalai Lama, of China, of any of your petty chiefs. You are afraid of everyone. And the result is that you are afraid of everything. And not only you, but your fathers and grandfathers were the same. We Golog, on the other hand, have from time immemorial obeyed none but our own laws, none but our own convictions. A Golog is born with the knowledge of his freedom. . . . Our tribe is the most respected and mighty in Tibet.

In spite of all this diversity, certain patterns bound Tibetan civilization together more or less as a unified whole. Primary was, of course, the Tibetan language, spoken throughout these various areas, in various dialects. Second only to language, Tibetan culture was unified and defined by Tibetan Buddhism itself, providing a history, a worldview, and a manner of living more or less characterizing all Tibetans, including those who were not nominally Buddhist, principally the followers of Bön. Institutionally, the culture was bound together by the importance of monasteries, whether large or small, to every Tibetan whatever their region or manner of livelihood. Even—perhaps particularly—among the nomads, the monasteries played a central role, not only for religious purposes but for the medical services its lamas could provide, mediation in times of dispute, protection in conflict, storage of grain, and so on.

A correct understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, both in its homeland and in exile, is not possible without an appreciation of the diversity of Tibetan culture as well as its unity. It may be argued that the dharma throughout Tibet has, as is often said by Tibetans, to have "one single taste." At the same time, it is clear that there is no one style or tradition of Tibetan Buddhism that can stand as a standard for the rest. The more scholastically and politically oriented Geluk school is no more definitive of Tibetan Buddhism than the more meditative lineages of the Nyingma and the Kagyu. Those who lived in the huge monasteries of Central Tibet could take no particular pride of place over meditators residing in small hermitage communities or the solitary hermits living walled up in a cave, in retreat until death. The strength and vitality of Tibetan Buddhism lay, perhaps, in its ability to include and accommodate so many different manifestations of human spiritual aspiration and practice.

In an age in which world culture is becoming more and more standardized, this is certainly a point worth considering. Buddhists in Tibet might disagree over which view was the more profound or which approach the most effective, but few would dispute that the very fact of religious diversity in Buddhist Tibet came directly from the hand of the Buddha himself, as one of his greatest gifts to his followers. With this view in mind, then, let us consider the rich and varied landscape of Tibetan Buddhism, both as it existed in its homeland and as it is now beginning to flower in the modern period in the rest of the world.