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How a layman sees the Dalai Lama

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-13 19:30

The artists to whom Gonpo attributed were monk painters who cultivated artful skills while practicing Buddhism at Senggeshong Mago Monastery in Huangnan.

Artist Konchok Tashi basked in an afternoon sunshine outside his lamasery, which harbors 160 monks.

The 44-year-old Esoteric Buddhist splits every year into one half of esoteric studying and the other half of aesthetic painting.

Learning from his late father, Konchok now trains five apprentices to hand down the Tibetan craftwork now designated by the government as one national intangible cultural heritage.

"I'm the best of the best," said the dark-skinned monk who enthusiastically displayed one of his artworks in his sunny living room. "I would ask for 30,000 yuan for the piece that I worked for two years."

Using a Samsung cell phone sometimes in chatting with his colleagues, Konchok often drove his 2006 Kia Cerato to buy daily necessities in a nearby town.

"I still feel scared when driving to big cities like Xining because I cannot figure out Chinese characters on highway signs," the monk said.

Illiteracy of the written Chinese, nevertheless, did not hinder his outreach. He won three awards from national and provincial arts exhibitions and developed wealthy clients in Beijing and Guangzhou, for thangkas' cultural and original uniqueness.

He paid his own way to India in December 2004 to attend one of the Dalai Lama pray offerings and to visit his younger brother. The younger brother sneaked into the Indian borders ten years ago and is now studying Buddhist dialectics in a lamasery near Dharamsala.

Amid thousands of followers at the humid event in Dharamsala, Konchok for the first time approached to the aura of the Dalai Lama. Months later, he was sick and obeyed his fellow monks' advice on resorting to the mythical Medicine Springs, just ten kilometers downhill from the Dalai Lama birthplace.

He siphoned raw water for consecutive seven days, with the largest one-time dose of seven kilograms, which left him lax.

"The Medicine Springs are called the panacea but full recovery requires frequent visits in three years," Konchok said, adding that his sickness offered him no mood in paying homage to the Dalai Lama house, though it was only ten kilometers away.

REBIRTH AND EMPTINESS

What Konchok really good at is painting Buddhas and the Sacred Lake, which are always themes of Tibetan cultural works. The Sacred Lake is Lhamo Lhatso in southern Tibet.

After the Thirteenth Dalai Lama died, the regent, himself a high lama, looked into the waters of Lhamo Lhatso. Together with other auspicious signs, the regent allegedly saw a three-story monastery with a turquoise and gold roof and a path running from it to a hill. The direction the dead Dalai Lama faced indicated his reincarnate would be from northeast of Lhasa, the seat of the Dalai Lama.

Lhamo Lhatso was believed vital to the most mythical reincarnation system in which high lamas claimed to be reborn and continue their important work. The reincarnated, also known as tulku, were usually searched within the Tibetan areas by senior lamas surrounding the deceased tulku.

The gold-roofed monastery appeared in the Sacred Lake was Serdong Chenmo Hall at Kumbum, whose importance was decided by the status of the holy site where Tsong Kha Pa was born. Top clerics from Lhasa believed the soul boy would live within a one-day horse ride from Kumbum.

In explaining the sophisticated reincarnation system, Kumbum's Dzongkhang Rinpoche said, "Tulku is reborn again and again in the life circle till the eternity of being Buddha."

"It's inappropriate to call tulkus living Buddhas because Buddhas need not to be reborn," said Dzongkhang Rinpoche, echoing similar remarks made by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

"History tells that the search of the reincarnated soul boy was usually centered on Tibet and went no farther than Mongolia," Dzongkhang Rinpoche said.

The 67-year-old Rinpoche, however, ruled out possibility of soul reincarnation before the previous lama died.

"There is but one soul that can find rebirth," Dzongkhang Rinpoche said.

"Every Tibetan aspires that continuous rebirth of great souls would lead to creation of Buddhas," he said, adding that every Buddhist was terrified of going to Hell.

A 35-year-old Rongwo monk said he was frequently haunted by the fear of Hell. "Go to Heaven, or go to Hell, no doubt on our choice. We have to do something for toeing lamas' lines to avoid bad karma," the man said.

Li Bade, a 76-year-old Tibetan abbot who for 25 years has overseen Chorten Ki Monastery which was famed for the visit of the Third Dalai Lama, said he was satisfied with almost everything today, generous financial support from the faithful, enough food, good health service in community and effective communication.

"The world is now more like what Buddha describes in sutras that all beings and events are relational and interconnected to a state of eternity, or emptiness," he said.

"The only discontent for me," the abbot said, "is the hustling highway down the hill."

His hill-perched hut oversaw the trunk highway extended to the holy city of Lhasa.

 

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