Losar eCard

What makes this year different from other years?

By now it would appear that the movement to give up Losar — Tibetan New Year — celebrations has gained considerable momentum among Tibetans everywhere.  Some may see contradictions in today's blog, or even reactionary impulses. I fail to see any. Losar observances will without doubt be carried out in every Tibetan home this year more or less as they always have been.  The very idea that there won't be any Losar is, let's admit it, a little bit like calling off Christmas in a Christian community. Not very likely. But I think what we are going to see this year are less of the public 'celebratory' parts of Losar than usual.  The simple reason is the grief of the previous year (unless you've been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, you'll know its reasons). For more on the problems with New Year this year, read this blog by Agam's Gecko. The news from Lhasa and eastern Tibet in recent days is disheartening. Don't think for a moment that anything about the Tibet situation has been resolved. Not at all. When Beijing isn't displaying its anxiety, it's indulging in denial. And if you have questions about what Tibetan New Year is, or in more ordinary times would be, there might be a few answers in this post from last year.

If you have Tibetan friends, why not send them a Losar eCard on or before the new moon of February 25th? I wasn't able to get my Tibetan fonts to work together with photoshop, but perhaps you will have more success with that. If you would like to add your own message to the card, download this uninscribed version by double-clicking and sliding it onto your computer desktop

Then import it into Photoshop and see what you can do with it. Or take your own photo of an ox-like creature if you don't think highly of mine. I know a lot of you have been searching the internet in vain in hopes of finding Losar eCards. I know. I have my sources.  

But now that I look, I see there are a couple of ready-made cards for the Earth Ox over at "Tibet Cafe." Never mind. I spoke too soon. It happens.

If your Tibetan friends are living a place without fast internet connections, do them a favor and print your cards out on photo paper and drop them in the mail.  If you act quickly there may still be time.

This Losar will begin the 23rd year of the 17th rabjung.  Some have developed the custom to number the year from the first year in the reign of the first Tibetan Emperor Nyatritsenpo.  They would call it the year 2136. If you have read this far, consider this to be my Losar eCard to you this year. We'll just leave it without any labels, or call it Tea-Coloured Light.  Let's say its rays symbolize hope in all its audacity.

Padampa's Animal Kingdom — Part One

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In this and upcoming blogs, I will attempt what I’m hoping will be an interesting experiment.  No, I mean for you, not for me. Yes, of course I have been interested in Padampa and the Peacemaking Collection*  for about 25 years. When I first saw those five volumes on the library shelves I wanted more than anything to read and understand what was written in them.  But my attempts failed rather miserably.Meanwhile I did quite a bit of reading of 11th-12th century Tibetan texts, familiarizing myself with early Tibetan vocabulary (the myth of Classical Tibetan's unchanging nature being little more than what I just called it, a myth). Over the years, each time I went back to the Peacemaking Collection it made more sense to me. This gradual process of finding more sense in it still continues today. Someday I hope to report my complete success. But you know what they say, don't you?  "Hope [not hair] sprouts eternal."

*My name for it.  'Peacemaking' translates Zhijé (Zhi-byed), name of a school of Tibetan Buddhism that preserved Padampa's teachings.

Padampa was a lot more complicated and interesting person than has been generally recognized, even among the experts.  Much of what we think we know proves only partly right or entirely mistaken.  We do get startlingly clear glimpses from time to time of who he was and what he was up to, so long as we stick with the earliest sources. He is best remembered in both Tibet and the world as author of the Tingri Hundred (Ding-ri Brgya-rtsa), a set of couplets that has survived in collections of various length and content.  Its English translation was edited and published long ago by an Oxford-educated American by the name of W.Y. Evans-Wentz.  

We say Padampa died in 1117 CE, but this consensus is based on unexamined faith in the Blue Annals coupled with ignorance of other sources like the Gya Pö Yigtsang, which seems to give the date 1108.  These days I'm thinking that it ought to be either this or  1105 (one 12-year cycle earlier, this date actually occurs in one chronology), since a somewhat earlier date makes better sense in light of his contacts with western Tibetan kings.  

Usually we just say Padampa was an Indian and leave it at that. True, he was born in South India, probably in coastal Andhra, son of a brahmin sea captain (I know, I know, brahmins aren't ever supposed to leave Mother India...). But he was also a great traveler. He traveled the entire length and breadth of India. During his three extended periods of residence in Tibet he became so proficient in the local language that his followers could state proudly that, unlike teaching sessions with other Indian masters, "none of the fuzzy approximations of translation intervened."  He was Indian, but he could have taken Tibetan citizenship, no problem, although he didn't place much store in such things as societies and kings.

For today, I would like to concentrate less on the author and more on the metaphors. First of all, I use the word 'metaphor' only for convenience, in a *very* broad sense. Padampa often spoke in statements what may often seem, at first, cryptic without good reason.  Some look like insoluble riddles, others brief allusions to lengthy parables. Eventually, if understanding comes at all, one begins to recognize that these are usually more and less extended analogies for such things as: the teacher-student relationship, the value of renunciation, meditative experiences, and ways of dealing with the afflictive mental events that Buddhists call kleshas.  I think these topics cover the majority, perhaps as much as ninety percent.  I doubt this will be clear to anyone upon a first reading of the Root Text.  So let this be a hint.

There are two sources that I will be using for the animal metaphors.  The first, which I will call for simplicity the Root Text is what we will look at today.  The second can wait awhile.  Both are preserved in what I call the Peacemaking Collection, published with a preface by Barbara Nimri Aziz. A few years ago I received via the National Archives in Kathmandu a microfilm of the manuscript that was used as the basis of that publication. In general I feel I have successfully dated the scribing of the manuscript to within a decade of the year 1250, and identified it as a copy, probably very nearly identical in its title content, of an unavailable ‘golden’ (gold ink) manuscript scribed between the years 1207 and 1210 CE. (The argument is complicated, but I'd gladly post that paper for you if you wanted me to.)

My instructions for you, if you choose to follow them, are marvelously simple.  Go ahead and do your best to figure out what Padampa is expressing in his animal metaphors. If you can read the Tibetan original text (here unfortunately supplied in tiny Roman letters) you might have a slight edge over others, although I'm not completely sure of it. Once you have read them through a time or two,  go to the very bottom of the page and open the attachment you will find there. A file should open up for you. This contains the same set of animal metaphors, only this time supplied with footnotes that may aid comprehension of a certain number of the metaphors.  How are you at untying knots?

If this doesn't work for you at all, well, not to put it too bluntly...  It isn't for everyone. You have to have the taste for it.  You have to have the drive.  Don't worry about it.  In any case, I'd be happy if you would let me know how it goes.

Click on these words to get started

Things to read if you can (be sure that a bigger bibliography is on its way):

W.Y. Evans-Wentz, ed., “The Last Testamentary Teachings of the Guru Phadampa Sangay, according to the Late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering,” contained in: The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, Oxford University Press (Oxford 1970; first published in 1954), pp. 241-252.

The Hundred Verses of Advice from Padampa Sangye to the People of Tingri Explained by Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, translated from the Tibetan by the Padmakara Translation Group, Shechen Publications (Kathmandu, no date).  Most highly  recommended!

NOTE:  Some Sufi felt free to hang the verses up on his internet site, but I recommend getting the inexpensive book, which contains the explanations of the verses by the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.  So does the Sufi.

Rudolf Kaschewsky, Die Lehrworte des Pha-dam-pa, contained in: R. Kaschewsky, et al., eds., Serta Tibeto-Mongolica (Wiesbaden 1973) 171-204, with the text in the form of a photocopy of a woodblock print at pp. 174-183.

Neldjorma Seunam Ouangmo, translator, Le Testament Spirituel: Les cent préceptes de Ding-Ri, Dernières recommandations de Pa Dampa Sangyé, Editions Yogi Ling (Evaux-les-Bains 1997).

Kurtis Schaeffer, Crystal Orbs and Arcane Treasuries: Anthologies of Buddhist Tantric Songs from the Tradition of Dampa Sangye, Acta Orientalia, vol. 68 (2007), pp. 5-74.

David Molk and Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche, translators, Lion of Siddhas: The Life and Teachings of Padampa Sangye, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2008).

These Padampa blogs are dedicated to S.R.A.  She knows who she is.

Everybody knows that ice is water.  Still, we often forget that before it can do what water does it has to melt.  

(— A Padampa paraphrase)