The Buddha incarnate is coming to Scotland … and he needs your help, says author Isabel Losada. Here, she recalls her quest to assist Tibet’s resistance to Chinese rule and how she came face to face with the great man
THE Dalai Lama is a dangerous man. The Chinese are right about that. But they’ve got the wrong reason. He isn’t dangerous because he wants to “break up the great motherland” and give Tibet back to the Tibetans; he’s dangerous because he teaches compassion. It’s compelling, you see. This is what happened to me. I went into a bookshop one day and accidentally picked up an autobiography of the Dalai Lama, who was smiling at me like Santa Claus after a close shave. It had lots of interesting bits about Buddhism: an easy religion, I considered – one where you don’t have to go to the effort of believing in God. Anyway, he looked friendly, so it seemed to solve the problem of which book to buy. Big mistake.
As an author, I was hunting around for my next project. My last book, The Battersea Park Road To Enlightenment, tackled happiness and I’d tried every weird and wonderful course out there. Readers enjoyed it – critics accused me of navel gazing. I loved the readers but couldn’t really disagree with the critics. It would be hard to write a book about the pursuit of personal happiness without a thorough investigation of one’s navel. I’d changed myself; now I wanted to experiment with changing the world.
I’d chosen the subtitle: A Beginner’s Guide To Changing The World. It would be an exploration of the question – “What can one person do to make a difference?”. I even had a structure planned: the old prayer – “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” It would be an easy project.
But that was before the Dalai Lama came along. I read his book and thought: “What can I do to help Tibet?” I had my project. I’d call the book For Tibet, With Love. That was the end of life as I had known it.
The first part seemed easy … go to Tibet and learn for myself. Ha! Do you know anyone who has been to Tibet? If so, they must be saintly, mad, or very dim. In my case it was the third.
It wasn’t that I didn’t listen to the experts’ advice – the ones, for example, who said I could die of altitude sickness. I listened. I just chose to think that I would be an exception. It took actually being in Tibet and experiencing drowning in air to find out that they were right.
If they had told me the pilgrims weren’t allowed to sit down in front of their most holy temple, or that Chinese soldiers strutted about like the British colonialists in India in days of yore, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I saw it. And when a Tibetan monk asked in a hushed whisper if I had “a Dalai Lama photo” I said no, because I’d been advised that to grant his request could result in him being imprisoned and tortured. I knew that this was true, because I’d smelt the fear in him.
So I came back to grapple with the second part of the challenge. The “courage to change the things I can”. Notice the nasty little assumption in this prayer: that you actually can change something. About the Chinese occupation of Tibet?
So I started. Heaven help the Tibetans – as though a communist government claiming to be the protectors of Tibetan Buddhism while simultaneously trying to wipe out “medieval superstition” weren’t enough. As though the killing of what some estimate at over a million of their people weren’t enough, they also have the well-meaning idiocy of the Western world to deal with. And here was another absurd English person who had decided to “help the Tibetans”.
I went on demonstrations and contemplated the merits of being arrested. I shouted: “Free Tibet, China Out!” along with others at the bemused policewoman standing outside the Chinese Embassy. I joined the Free Tibet Campaign, Tibet Society and Tibet Foundation. I joined everything. One particularly compassionate Tibetan even invited me on the Tibetan community picnic. I listened, learned and gradually, I grew less dim.
I started to listen to what was being done and to question what was most effective. I interviewed Tibetan experts and the Chinese ambassador, annoyed a lot of people and, gradually, hatched a plan. If the Chinese government is ever to take talks with the Dalai Lama seriously, they need a reason. Pressure from a government. The message I wanted to pass to Downing Street was: “Reward the Dalai Lama.” In the middle of a war on terror, I didn’t think any further explanation was necessary.
So we draped a 15-metre banner down Nelson’s Column and had a stunt man jump from the top with a small parachute. We were very successful – getting pictures of the Dalai Lama across the international media. We made a website and loads of ripples. Lovely, satisfying ripples. But we sure didn’t rock any boat.
A month after all this, I had to honestly ask myself what had changed. Maybe some Tibetans in exile had felt encouraged to see the cause on the headlines – maybe at the Tibetan government in exile office in India, someone had read about it and smiled. But as a world-changer, I was a bit of a disaster.
So I moved on to the wisdom to know the difference. There was only one person I wanted to ask. Yes, that same smiling monk I warned you about. I had written, and because Tibetans are absurdly compassionate people, I was granted an audience. I woke up one morning, in what felt like a dream, knowing that I was about to meet The Dalai Lama. Have you ever actually pinched yourself to check you are awake?
I was a self-conscious, quivering wreck as I was shown into his room; but still determined to ask my questions with my tape recorder running. Then the man walked in. Simple monk? My foot. Don’t believe this piece of misinformation he puts out about himself. I’m not given to reading “auras”, but even I could feel something decidedly weird and new-agey coming from somewhere.
As he looked at me, it was as if he was looking through binoculars the wrong way around … as if there were light years between us. Yet, there was an extraordinary warmth. I forgot who and where I was, and what I was doing there. He smiled patiently: “You wanted to ask me something?”
“How do we know the difference,” I mumbled, “between what we can change and what we can’t?” He smiled. “Through experiment. Research. Calculate what you can achieve on a mental level, then experiment.” I glanced at my notes: “What can one person do?”
“If the individual acts, society is changed. Society is a combination of individuals. Sometimes people feel a problem is too huge and even though you see something wrong, something that needs changed, they think – too huge. But one person can make a difference. This is very important. The Tibet question is not just about human rights … it’s much more. Compassion.”
That word again. That oh-so-gentle little teaching that he’ll slip in when he comes to Scotland, and which will have a subtle and profound influence on all who hear him.
But now I’m going to give you my plan. Because I didn’t stop there. I’m still thinking about what one person can do to make a difference. And I have an appeal. To Scotland – and to you. I’ve worked it out now: what you can do.
There are only 129 MSPs and you each have a right to speak with at least one of them. Don’t send paper (politicians hate it.) Please do this. Visit and talk with them, and ask these questions: “How can we in Scotland support the Dalai Lama? How can we lead the UK in putting real political action behind supporting him? How can we make sure all the world sees that he must be rewarded for non-violence before he dies? How can I, as your constituent, help you?”
How else are things to change? What a fine position we English are in to act as mediator between the Chinese government and the Tibetan government in exile. We’d look rather daft trying to help the Tibetans escape from under the control of a distant city. Anyway, Tony Blair is too busy shaking hands with the new Chinese premier. But his diary was to full too meet the Dalai Lama. Maybe he’s in meetings trying to think of new ways to fight the war on terror. You’d have thought someone in the Foreign Office might have pointed out that a quick chat with the world’s leading proponent of non-violence might have been a good idea.
There is no hope for us down here. But you Scots are about to welcome the Dalai Lama to your country. I challenge you to act, and put Westminster to shame. The future of Tibet, the life teachings of the Dalai Lama, the pursuit of the non-violent path in the war on terror and in international relations … it’s all in your hands.
For Tibet, With Love: A Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World is published by Bloomsbury on June 7. Isabel Losada will be speaking at Ottakar’s, Buchanan Street, Glasgow at 6.30pm on June 7. (For free tickets contact 0141 353 1500) and Ottakar’s, George Street, Edinburgh at 7pm, June 3 (for free tickets, contact: 0131 225 4495)
