LETTER
(TibetanReview.net, Mar26’24)
All who were watching the ongoing Tibetan parliament session might have wondered with bated breath when MP Jamphel Tenzin stood up to declare that what he was going to address the House about would be done with a deep-seated feeling. I was very excited. Would it be that he had come to know from some secret source that China was showing a liking for the middle way policy? Or would it be that China was cowering in a corner upon hearing the thunderous call in the Parliament for Rangzen? Of course, he has all the reason in the world to have strong feelings about these two incompatible issues.
But I was very disappointed. What he said was meant to impart a lesson to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on doing effective communication. The written message that His Holiness had sent to Kollegal Tibetan Settlement on its Golden Jubilee celebrations didn’t have the teeth to effectively put his views across to the people, he said. The thing about regionalism deserves a more powerful medium to be communicated to the people – that of spoken words, he added. Ando so, the written message didn’t cut any ice for MP Jamphel Tenzin.
Instead of calming him down, the written message has worked him up enough to compel him to take the centrestage in the Parliament to introduce His Holiness as another topic for deliberation – something no MP has dared to do so far. Once MP Monlam Tharchin dragged Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche’s name to the Parliament as a topic for discussion, MP Konchok Choedon faithfully followed him. Who will be the “bravest” monk MP from amongst the “brave” monk MP’s to take the baton from MP Jamphel Tenzin who has chosen His Holiness as the topic for parliamentary debate?
I have never imagined that monks in our monasteries have been reading Shakespeare’s works, especially Julius Caesar. It seems that MP Jamphel Tenzin has been and he is enormously impressed with the power of Mark Anthony’s speech and its effect on the people.
He told the House how he wished that His Holiness had used his public teaching platform at Bodh Gaya to say what he did in his written message to the Kollegal Tibetan settlement. With thousands of his followers eagerly thirsting to hear him, It appears that His Holiness should have seized the opportunity and addressed the massive crowd thus: “Friends, Tibetans, my countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to exhort you to discard from your heart and mind the shameful clinging to narrow, divisive regionalist thinking…” Our MP thinks this would have worked like magic on the people and they would have become strongly and inseparably united there and then, our most venerable monk MPs included.
Mere written words read out by a lowly local leader has apparently no effect on the people and our honourable MP feels that it had no result in the Kollegal Tibetan settlement. And he said he was flabbergasted when someone at the celebrations gathering even tried to explain that part of the message where His Holiness talked about the need to discard Cholkha regionalist attitude. However, MP Jamphel Tenzin felt that he himself could, with impunity, comment on the “wrong medium” that he thinks His Holiness had used to talk to his people. Perhaps, this double standard is a privilege that only the “brave” monk MP’s are entitled to.
There is power in speech which written words don’t have, it seems. When the monk MP’s thunderously condemned the Nechung Oracle, the middle way policy and Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the rest of the MPs looked for a cover to hide, not daring to utter a word of protest. And their speeches have such power that the Speaker is hypnotized into letting them go on and on.
Our MP Jamphel Tenzin knows the power of spoken words from his experiences in the Parliament. Our education minister looked as if she was looking for a hole in the floor of the Parliament House to disappear into when MP Konchok Choedon cornered her. Our monk MP Jamphel Tenzin knows this aspect of the power of spoken words too.
When our MP Jamphel Tenzin was lecturing about how he wished His Holiness had preferred speaking to writing, I was secretly thinking how lucky His Holiness was that MP Jamphel Tenzin didn’t remember all the written March 10 statements that he had issued when he was in power. The Nechung Oracle just behind the Parliament House might have come to the rescue of His Holiness by clouding MP Jamphel Tenzin’s mind for a moment, it seems. If Jamphel Tenzin had his memory intact, he might have held His Holiness responsible for the middle way making no headway. All those powerless written March 10 statements distributed and read loud in all the places outside Dharamsala apparently did no good to the Tibetan cause. Had His Holiness made himself present in all the places at the same time and delivered verbally all his March 10 statements, Rangzen would have been ours a long time back, or so goes the logic of our MP Jamphel Tenzin.
As the written message from His Holiness for the Kollegal Settlement’s 50th anniversary function seems to have left no impression on MP Jamphel Tenzin, Gaden Phodrang would do well to schedule a visit by the MP so that he can hear His Holiness repeat to him the part of the Kollegal message which he seems to like and which he wanted announced thunderously from Bodh Gaya to all the people. But there is one snag here. Will a Rangzen champion feel comfortable being at Gaden Phodrang – the fountainhead of the middle way policy?
And when MP Jamphel Tenzin praised His Holiness as a person with very good knowledge of religion and politics, was he being honest? Or was he being simply sarcastic? Who knows, except Jamphel Tenzin himself. Has the Buddha not said something like: Nothing is hidden to oneself; one is a mirror to oneself.
— Norbu Tsering
Toronto, Canada
Former Lecturer at Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, Leh; Principal at TCV, Ladakh