“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama XIV
I like the quote from the Dalai Lama, “Be kind whenever possible…”. In other words, it is possible to always be kind… but there may be a price to pay.
Jampa’s fate confirms the aphorism that when you are a sheep among wolves, you should be as shrewd as a snake. Jampa was a young Tibetan monk who lost all possibility to ever again stay in any Buddhist temple after he returned from India from his pilgrimage to honor the Dalai Lama.
Jampa is a common Tibetan male name. It means “loving kindness”, derived from the Tibetan name for Buddha Maitreya.I met Jampa in 2003, when I visited the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, Gansu Province, with a friend. He was a Lama from a small temple tucked in the remote mountainous Qinghai Province that neighbors Tibet. We befriended Jampa and kept in contact with him. At the time, he was 25 years old, tall and handsome, smiling kindly and singing joyful Tibetan songs all the time.
In 2004, Jampa invited my friend and me to visit his temple; we met his teacher (addressed as a live Buddha) and stayed a couple of days with his mother and sister. Tibetan parents are always proud of sending and supporting their sons to study or serve in monasteries. Jampa’s mother showed us some pictures of Jampa and his deceased father, and photos of Jampa with some high-rank monks (addressed as either master or live Buddha in Tibet). Jampa’s mother told us, “Jampa has a big wish…”, but she did not tell us what that wish was. My friend asked her whether she wanted to visit Beijing, the capital of our country. She grinned and shook her head. She said, “I want to go to Lhasa.” That is the capital of Tibet.
In 2005, my friend and I donated money for Jampa’s first visit to Beijing. For the first two days, he was very excited. We took him to the Great Wall and Yonghegong, the only Lama Temple in Beijing. On the third day, though, he looked perplexed and a little bit anxious. He told us he wanted to go home and raise some funds to pursue his Buddhist studies at a monastic institute in Tibet. I gave him two thousand yuan (about US$290 at that time), almost my whole year’s income. He thanked me and left for home.
For one year since he left Beijing, I didn’t hear from him. In 2006, my friend told me he had secretly crossed the Tibetan border and gone to India to worship the Dalai Lama. He tried to call me from Tibet, but the call did not go through. I was shocked and frightened. If the government found out I had given him money to go see the Dalai Lama, I would be either fired or sent to jail. From that moment on, I never picked up his phone calls.
The spring of 2007 came very late. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (George Orwell). My phone rang and showed an unknown phone number. I checked the area code; it was from Tibet. I didn’t answer the phone; I said to myself, “I don’t know anyone in Tibet; it must be someone dialing a wrong number.” One week later, I ran into my friend. She worked for a government-run publishing house specializing in publications in minority languages. She said she also had gotten a call from Tibet; it was Jampa’s sister.
According to his sister, Jampa had successfully crossed the border, stayed in Nepal for two days and got to Dharamshal, India (which often is referred to as “Little Lhasa”). He received Dalai Lama’s prayers and studied there for a year. Jampa was happy, but he missed his mother and sister. He dreamed of going back home to see his mother and then return to India to continue his learning. He was so naïve; he was caught by Chinese Customs agents when he attempted to return to China.
Jampa was arrested and sent to prison. Nobody knew where he was.Six months later, my friend got some inside news (from a colleague’s friend who was serving in the army at the border) that Jampa had been behind bars for three months and was forced to sleep with women. He had been forced to break this important chastity vow for monks and would never be accepted into monastic life ever again. I don’t have hard evidence, but I firmly believe this is what happened to Jampa.
One day, in the summer of 2007, my cell phone showed another number from Tibet. When I picked up, I heard a ‘click’ – someone hung up; I “knew” it was Jampa. To this day, I haven’t been able to overcome my guilt of having failed Jampa…and I’m so sorry!
In China, out of fear, I locked my friendship with Jampa in some deep recesses of my mind, never letting the memory come out. In the United States, I learned that this phenomenon is called repressed memory. As I write Jampa’s story, I’m trying to cleanse myself of that poignant, heart wrenching feeling of guilt.
In his eye-opening novel 1984, George Orwell wrote, “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” I never cease to be amazed at how a totalitarian government can successfully control the individual and collective memory of its people…as it happened with me.
In 2012, I was invited to a dinner party with the Chinese ambassador to a Western country and his assistants. A businessman had asked me to interpret for him. At the dinner table, the Chinese ambassador openly asked the businessman, “What do you think of Tibet and the Dalai Lama?” That businessman started his answer with “Tibet is a beautiful country.” For the next two hours, the Chinese ambassador and his assistants bombarded him with propaganda about how Tibet is part of China and the Dalai Lama is an anti-Chinese separatist who uses religion as a facade to engage in activities aimed at splitting China.
The Chinese government carries out a relentless campaign against the Dalai Lama as shown on its official website:
“[T]he central government adopted an attitude of patient waiting towards the Dalai Lama after he fled abroad. His position as a vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee was preserved until 1964. However, surrounded by foreign anti-China forces and Tibetan separatists, the Dalai Lama completely renounced the patriotic stand which he once expressed and engaged in numerous activities to split the motherland.” (http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/tibet/9-3.htm)
This statement begs the question “Why did the Dalai Lama decline to return to China even when the Chinese Communist government openly claimed that he was welcome back to Tibet and his high position with the National People’s Congress Standing Committee was preserved?”
Jampa was just one of the many ordinary Tibetans who long to freely practice their religion and honor their religious leader. His overly trusting nature partially caused his tragedy.
Jesus once said to his disciples, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
Jampa was definitely a sheep among wolves, but he failed to be as shrewd as a snake… and it cost him dearly.
When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. (Matthew 10:23)
