The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One (8 page)

It is hoped that enough has now been said by way of setting the stage for the Lama Trungpa’s reminiscences: Those are given with typically Tibetan matter-of-factness; he neither tries to feed the reader with opinions nor does he, for the sake of logical coherence, introduce information gathered after the event; the inevitable gaps in one man’s experience are left, just as they were, unfilled. All the author does is to relate whatever he himself saw, heard, and said; as each day brought its fresh needs and opportunities, he describes how he tried to act, adding nothing and omitting nothing—the lama obviously has a most retentive memory for detail. Surely this way of presenting facts makes the documentary value of such a chronicle all the greater, illustrating, as it does, all the hesitations and uncertainties of a situation no one was prepared for, the doubts, the changes of plan, the conflicts of advice, out of which gradually grows the firm resolve, carrying out of which forms the second and most dramatic part of the book.

The first appearance of the Communists on what previously seemed like an idyllic sense is typical, it occurs almost casually: When they turn up one day people ask themselves what this means, but when nothing very unpleasant happens—none of the expected looting by the soldiers, for instance—everyone soon settles down again to his usual preoccupations. The soldiers pass on; the incident is half-forgotten. It is only some pages later that one discovers them again, first just across the Tibetan frontier at Chamdo, and long afterward in occupation of Lhasa, but how they got there one is not told. After a time one guesses that Tibet has capitulated, but is given few details simply because those actually involved in these events were often too cut off in their own locality to obtain a bird’s-eye view; we in England, watching the international scene from afar were, in some respects, better able to build up a general picture.

In fact, as the book shows, it was by no means easy for people in those remote districts immediately to form clear ideas about the nature of the new order in China. Moreover this also partly explains why the Tibetan government itself, while the Communist threat was developing, was rather hesitating in its reactions; a temporizing policy, so often resorted to by small nations facing pressure from a great power, may well have seemed preferable to crying Tibet’s wrongs from the housetops regardless of consequences. The Lhasa government has been criticized, with a certain justice, for lack of initiative in face of a danger calling for swift decisions; but it is only fair to make considerable allowance for circumstances, material and psychological, that were inherent in the situation from the very start of the crisis.

The above remarks have somewhat anticipated on the sequence of events. The point I am trying to make is that it necessarily took some time before the author, young as he was, or his senior advisers were able to gather any precise impressions of what was to be expected under Communist rule. As the story unfolds we see an initial bewilderment gradually giving way to acute discomfort which in its turn becomes a sense of impending disaster. We hear that fighting has broken out in a certain valley, yet the adjoining valley may still be seemingly in enjoyment of its habitual calm, with everyone there intent on peaceful tasks—adding a wing to the local temple perhaps or preparing for the reception of a revered spiritual master. Eventually, however, the more wide-awake characters in the book begin to realize that this is no passing crisis: Tibet and its cherished way of life are facing a catastrophe without parallel in the past, one that no policy of “wait and see” will enable one to live down. It is a time for far-reaching decisions if certain values, as well as one’s own life, are to be preserved: Here again, one is allowed to see into the conflict of outlook between those who cling to the belief that this trouble, like others before it, will blow over if only people will have the patience to sit tight and those others who think that their imperative duty is to carry whatever they can of Tibet’s spiritual heritage to someplace where the flickering spark can be rekindled in freedom; flight to India, the Buddha’s native land, seems the only remedy left to them. These two much-canvassed points of view become focused, in this story, in the persons of the author himself and his elderly bursar, a well-meaning man not wanting in devotion, but typical of the mentality that is forever fighting shy of any solution that looks like becoming irrevocable. There is much pathos to be gathered from these repeated encounters between youthful virility ready to take the plunge and inbred caution for which “stick to familiar ways and wait” is the universal maxim to fit every unprecedented emergency.

About the actual escape there is no call to speak here, except by remarking that at least one reader, while following this part of the story, has been repeatedly reminded of those young British officers of the late nineteenth century who found themselves launched by fate into positions of unusual responsibility at remote outposts of the empire: One meets here the same readiness to take crucial decisions time and again, the same light-hearted spirit maintained over long periods of suspense and danger, and in more critical moments, a similar capacity for instilling courage into the timid and endurance into the weak by the well-turned appeal, the timely sally—all these qualities were displayed by the chief actor in this drama in a completely unself-conscious manner.

But after making this comparison, one still has to admit a certain difference, itself due to a very great difference in the respective backgrounds. This can be summed up in the fact that in the one case, aptitude for leadership rests on an acceptance of what are predominantly “Stoic” loyalties and values—Marcus Aurelius would have shared them gladly—whereas in the other, it is from the heart of contemplation that this strength is drawn forth; the center of allegiance lies there, thus endowing whatever action has to be taken under pressure of necessity with an unmistakable flavor of “inwardness.” It is the lama who, speaking through the man, delivers his message and that is why, over and above its human and historical interest, this book has also to be treated as a Buddhist document in which much may be discovered by those who have the instinct to read between the lines. It is noticeable that whenever a pause in the action occurs there is an almost automatic withdrawal back into contemplation; the mind wastes no time in dwelling on its anxieties but finds within its own solitude, as well as in the stillness of nature, the means of refreshment and renewal.

That a mind so attuned should harbor no enmity in return for injuries received seems only logical; in this respect the present history may well be left to speak for itself. Buddhism has always had much to say, not only about “compassion” as such, but also about what might be called its “intellectual premises,” failing which that virtue can so easily give way to a passional benevolence that may even end up in hatred and violence; this has been the persistent weakness of worldly idealists and of the movements they promoted. For compassion (or Christian charity for that matter) to be truly itself it requires its intellectual complement which is dispassion or detachment: a hard saying for the sentimentalists. Though feeling obviously has a place there too, it can never afford to bypass intelligence—as if anything could do that with impunity! This is a point which Buddhism brings out with implacable insistence: From its point of view compassion must be looked upon as a dimension of knowledge; the two are inseparable, as husband and wife. All this belongs to the basic tenets of the
mahayana
or “great way,” of which the Tibetan tradition itself is an offshoot; Tibetan art is filled with symbolic delineations of this partnership. It is important for the reader to be made aware of the fact that these ideas pervade the entire background of the author’s thinking, otherwise he will miss many of the finer touches.

It would be ungrateful to terminate this introduction to a remarkable book without some reference to the lady who helped the Lama Trungpa to put down his memories on paper, Mrs. Cramer Roberts; in fact, but for her encouragement in the first place, the work might never have been begun. In interpreting what the lama told her of his experiences she wisely did not try and tamper with a characteristically Tibetan mode of expression beyond the minimum required by correct English; in all other respects the flavor of the author’s thought has been preserved in a manner that will much increase the reader’s ability to place himself, imaginatively, in the minds and feelings of those who figure in the narrative; a more inflected style, normal with us, could so easily have covered up certain essential things. For the fine sense of literary discernment she has shown we all have to thank Mrs. Cramer Roberts, as also for the unstinting devotion she brought to her self-appointed task.

M
ARCO
P
ALLIS

Acknowledgments

T
HIS BOOK WAS BEGUN
spontaneously as an authentic record of the wisdom and culture which existed in Tibet for so many centuries, and of the events of the last decade during which the Communists have destroyed everything its peace-loving people held dear.

Living in East Tibet the author was a witness of these tragic happenings of which the world outside is largely ignorant.

We would like to offer our grateful thanks to Mr. Gerald Yorke and Mr. Marco Pallis for the great help that they have given us to bring the book to completion. Mr. Yorke saw the script in its early stages, and not only introduced it to the publishers, but made many useful suggestions. Mr. Pallis when consenting to write the foreword, devoted many weeks to the work of finally putting the book in order.

We also thank Lieut. Colonel F. Spencer Chapman and Major G. Sherrif for allowing us to use some of their Tibetan photographs.

C
HÖGYAM
T
RUNGPA

E
SMÉ
C
RAMER
R
OBERTS

February 1966

Oxford

How to Pronounce Tibetan Names and Words

I
T IS OBVIOUSLY
impracticable here to aim at the kind of accuracy that would satisfy an expert in phonetics: The use of numerous small additional signs, for instance, such as one finds in serious grammars, would complicate the issue too much for ordinary readers. Therefore one must try to limit oneself to whatever the Latin alphabet, coupled with a few rather rough and ready explanations, will give; in fact, a reasonable approximation can be obtained by this means, as is the case with most foreign languages; the reader should find no trouble in applying the following hints concerning Tibetan pronunciation.

Vowel sounds:
These include the five open vowels,
a, e, i, o, u
which should be sounded as in Italian: A final
e
should never be muted, it is open like the rest; the Tibetan name
Dorje
does
not
rhyme with “George”; in French it would be written as “Dorjé.”

To the above five should be added two modified vowels,
ö
and
ü;
these should be pronounced as in German.

These seven sounds give the complete vowel range.

Consonant sounds:
Here the problem of transcription is somewhat more difficult. The prevailing dialects of Central Tibet, where the capital Lhasa is situated, and of eastern Tibet where the author belongs, contain a number of consonant sounds which, to a European ear, sound almost alike; there are, for instance, two kinds of
k
, two of
t
, and so on. Short of using an elaborate system of diacritic marks, puzzling to a nonscholar, one is compelled to make do, in many cases, with a single letter where Tibetans would use two. The reader need not be troubled with these fine distinctions.

In the case of aspirated consonants such as
kh, th
, and so on
both
letters have to be sounded separately; they do not fuse to make an entirely new consonant as in the English word
the
for instance, or the Greek name
Thetis. Sh, ch
should, however, be sounded as in English.

Note:
There is no sound like our
f
in Tibetan.
Ph
, whenever it occurs, follows the rule as above,
i.e.
both letters are sounded as in
map house
.

Special attention must be drawn to combinations such as
tr, dr
in Tibetan: The author’s name, Trungpa, is a case in point. The fact is that the
r
is not sounded independently; it only affects the preceding
t
or
d
by lending to it a slightly “explosive” character. What one has to do, in these cases, is to press the tongue hard against the palate, while sounding
t
or
d
as the case may be; it sometimes helps to
think
of an
r
while so doing. (In Tibetan quite a number of such letters exist, such as
gr, tr, br
, etc., which are all pronounced similarly; but obviously this aspect of the matter will only concern students of Tibetan who, in any case, will use the Tibetan alphabet.)