Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on
the “outdated” Tulku system in Tibetan Buddhism
August 22,
2016 by
Justin Whitaker Patheos
In a long
(4000+ word) post on facebook yesterday, the Buddhist teacher
and filmmaker, well known for his wit and sense of humor, speaks
about the need for reform in the system of reincarnated teachers in
Tibetan Buddhism known as tulkus.
Titled
“Time for radical change in how we raise our
tulkus,” the document has eight sections. Excerpted here
are those sections with key points and quotations.
The
document itself was prompted by the choice of Jamgon Kongtrul
Rinpoche to leave his role as a tulku,
writing, “with a
difficult heart, I have chosen a different lifestyle and will study
and pursue my dreams of becoming a doctor.” The young
tulku wrote,
further:
Now I have
reached a state where it’s unbearable, I have been restricted to
fulfill my dreams and have not been allowed to take responsibility
and stay in peace and I feel I am a burden to all.
I have made
this choice as the last resort and I had tried every possibilities
to avoids this choice but now I am tired of all these problems
repeating and them using the same excuse over and over again! I
doubt you all will understand my choice but I hope you
do.
Dzongsar
Khyentse follows his mention of this event by comparing the life of
the tulku in his day, which consisted of a list of deprivations,
“eating nothing but rice and potatoes for up to a year,
travelling on India’s cheapest public transportation, sleeping on
railway platforms, having no more than 10 rupees in our pockets for
six or seven months.” By comparison, he writes,
“our present generation of tulkus is utterly spoiled and
has the easiest ride.”
However,
Dzongsar Khyentse recognizes that life is still not easy for the
contemporary tulku and that current conditions in some ways are
much worse. They live in a faster paced world with a brighter
spotlight (read Dzongsar Khyentse’s
Social Media Code of Conduct), meaning a reassessment of the tulku system and training is in
order.
Why
our young tulkus need training
Here
Khyentse explains that tulkus, while believed to be reincarnations
of a previous master, still need to be brought up in the
fundamentals of life in the contemporary world. They may possess
lifetimes of spiritual knowledge, but, “Moving from one
life to the next is not like moving from one room to another. There
have been tremendous changes over time, which require new forms of
training if tulkus are to manifest their true nature and qualities.
Blind student adoration, often arising from cultural
preconceptions, conceals from us the need to re-examine the
training these young tulkus actually need.”
He notes
that this applies to those who are “genuine reincarnations” as
opposed to those who may have been given the title for different
reasons. In either case, he concludes, good training is
needed.
Fundamental flaws in current pedagogy
Khyentse
follows here with more specific problems – including those of the
past that have been remedied over time, “if merely because
teachers could today go to prison for the way they used to raise
us. There may be no beatings today, and there may even be weekend
holidays, plenty of family visits, and lots of
toys.”
However,
turning again to the way that Tibetan Buddhism, and with it the
young tulkus, has been thrown into the international spotlight,
Khyentse says that the expectations of so many people becomes a
pressure like no other. This, he says, can make tulkus,
“end
up isolated and imprisoned in one of the loneliest and most
alienating zones imaginable.”
Misguided focus on image and wealth – a formula for
pressure
Khyentse
here notes the “world’s growing materialism and affluence” which
have “found their way into our monasteries” and the lives of young
tulkus. Countering this he proposes no radical asceticism, but
rather modes proposals such as re-examining Tibetan Buddhist
behavior during winter gatherings in Bodhgaya, a site holy to
Buddhists from around the world.
“I
often wonder what other Buddhists, like the Theravada
practitioners, think of our lamas sitting on thrones that may even
be higher than some of the Buddha statues.”
Bodhgaya, he continues, “would be a good
place for our lamas to start practicing simplicity and
humility!”
“In
short, besides inadvertently turning our young tulkus into spoiled
brats, the current focus on wealth and privilege as part of tulku
training is anathema to Buddhist pedagogy and its core
values.”
The
prison of privilege
Tulkus can
become “attractions” at monasteries, used to attract practitioners
and thus coming to be seen as “assets to monasteries.” The titles
and adoration come without responsibility. “With so much
wealth, privilege, and adoration as the prize, it’s no wonder we
now find so many parents eager to have their kids enthroned as one
high lama or another. Little do they know how much their children
will suffer.”
This
suffering, Khyentse writes, comes from their lack of normal human
development, including the trials of dealing with hormones and
other worldly realities.
Breeding ground for hypocrisy
This
mixture of outer adoration and inner suffering leads to various
types of hypocrisy, including the imposition of celibacy on them
from a young age. Khyentse points out that it is not permissible to
impose this on another person and that even the Buddha only became
a renunciant -by choice- after having a wife and child.
Pedagogy for today’s world and for the
future
This is
where Khyentse’s writing becomes clearly prescriptive, pointing out
concretely what needs to happen next, from the basics of sharing to
more complex activities. “When they are served and offered
everything, many of these tulkus never learn even the simple human
knowledge of sharing, and end up ill-equipped to live in the world.
They not only need leadership training, but need a basic course in
human relationship.”
Just
regular child rearing skills are often missing in monasteries, a
fact that should be remedied in the years to come. Secondly, a
reverence for the teachings -and elder teachers- seems to have been
lost of late (again, in the place of superficial ceremonies and
high thrones and attracting the faithful).
Social and cultural barriers to a genuine tulku training
pedagogy
Here
Khyentse writes that “a large reason for the situation can
be attributed to traditional societies like the Tibetan and
Bhutanese, which are a complex mixture of heartfelt devotion and
outdated cultural baggage.”
“There’s
even an eastern Tibetan saying that was used to scold me when I was
growing up, that lamas should be like a gold statue – meaning we
should sit very still, not look right or left, and act more like a
precious object than a human being. There’s another saying that a
snow lion must remain as a snow lion in the high mountains, because
if he comes down to the ground, he will be mistaken for a
dog.
These
two idioms really say it all, revealing not only how lamas are
actively discouraged from mingling with ordinary people but also
how obsolete is our traditional pedagogy for raising lamas for a
contemporary society.”
In
opposition to this, Khyentse suggests that lamas (teachers) need to
become aware of contemporary society, with its particular forms of
suffering. This way he (or rarely she) can better teach those who
are suffering and he can understand the need to change or look
past the superficial aspects of the tradition.
Stuck in a time warp
Khyentse
suggests that the training system of today is stuck in the 1930s or
1940s, out of touch with the realities of the 21st century. This is
a systemic problem that results in tulkus having needlessly
difficult lives.
Aspiration
for our upcoming tulkus
Finally,
Khyentse offers praise for Jamgon Kongtrul’s decision insofar as it
could serve the survival of the tradition in ways that a tulku in
monks robes could not. In fact, he says that he instructs teachers
and friends not to encourage non-Tibetans to wear
Tibetan clothes. Seeing Buddhists “in army uniform, suit
and tie, or other normal dress sends the message that Buddhism can
be practised by everyone.”
The
dressing up of converts in Tibetan clothing he identifies with “a
cultish atmosphere” and describes it as “introverted
exclusivism.”