Sunday, February 08, 2009

The Chinese Mask Trick


I'm no expert in the Chinese dramatic art of sudden mask changes. What I can tell you is this: that some Tibetans were familiar with it nearly a thousand years ago. This video of the Singapore-based artist “Alex the Magician” is placed here as a footnote and an introduction to a relatively short compilation of Padampa's pieces of advice, given to a select group of individuals, called “White Conch Fragments.”

Bian lian, or ‘changing face,’ is a special dramatic technique associated with Szechuan Opera in particular. I don't know how old it is, although I suppose it must be quite old. Right now I would have to say I'm sure it isn't true to say that it was first documented 300 years ago. Write us a comment if you have some clear idea. I am unsure of the real explanation for the very impressive effect, which is instantaneous, or very nearly so. What I can do is give a quote that would seem to explain it, at least up to a point. It's from an article by Wei Minglun and Yu Shiao-ling: “This change is brought about by having the actor wear several layers of facial masks, all painted on very thin paper.”

If that destroys the magic for you, so be it. I think it’s OK. What's the point of living if we can't peel away delusions and see more clearly what it’s really all about?  (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.  Go find your own answers.) We’re supposed to gain in knowledge (experience, wisdom) and find better ways to live.  I don’t know how I can explicate our human predicament any simpler (and better?) than that.  (And that was a rhetorical answer.  Go ask your own questions.)

Padampa uses it in a context of political leadership and, well, politics. Everyone knows that politicians change their faces to suit different needs and circumstances. We also know that the great changes they boast of, or promise for the future, are often little more than cosmetic or just simply false. The underlying malaise remains.  

What you will find at the link offered below is a translation-in-progress, which means I’m conscious of not succeeding in ironing out every problem, and of course — for those familiar with Padampa’s modes of expression this will go without saying —  there are lots of passages that would seem to require commentary. For the most part Padampa has encouraging words, but a couple of times Padampa lets the least hopeful cases know they’re going nowhere fast. I am completely unaware of any translation ever being made before this one, and I did it without assistants (I meant that word assistants). As for assistance, I looked for it wherever I could find it, even in YouTube, and yes, even in Wikipedia. Or, as the old Islamic saying attributed to Muhammad goes, “Seek knowledge, even in China.”  Life is, as Padampa says, “bright but not long lasting,” while the art is long. This we know, or surely ought to, even without relying on online resources.


To get there immediately, press here once or twice.

Datura, symbol of delusion



Biblio. ref.:

Wei Minglun and Shiao-ling Yu, "Pan Jinlian — The Story of One Woman and Four Me, a New Sichuan Opera," Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1993), pp. 1-48.






Dissolving the most fundamental delusion is what 'Buddha' means.  

Padampa

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Black Bodhisattvas



Two Mahāmudrā teachers. From a small 14th-century painting once in the Jucker Collection, presently in the collection of the Rubin Museum. Vairocanarakṣita, an important Indian teacher from Orissa, best known for his single-handed translations of Dohā (‘couplet’) songs of the Mahāsiddhas, is on your left, with Padampa on your right. They are identified beyond any possibility for doubt by inscriptions on the reverse side of the painting. Padampa's name is given as Dampa Gyagar Nagpo ('Holy Black Indian' —for this name, look here, on p. 32). For the full picture, look here.


I would like to dedicate today's brief blog, along with the paper linked to it, to both Martin Luther King Day, which was yesterday, and to the inauguration of the first ever African American (or as people my age will probably continue forever to say with pride and respect, disregarding the latest demands of the logo-therapists [those who believe in the theory that changes in reality are brought about by changes in terminology], black) president, which has taken place today. Like some others, I'm sure, I'm a little too old, world-weary and cynical to be a true believer in all that rhetoric of 'hope' and 'change' repeated so often in the pre-election campaign. Nonetheless I've been in an unusually optimistic mood these last few days. Even I can't make myself so cynical as to say that hope is unjustified. What is President Obama's book called, The Audacity of Hope? I see real possibilities that a black head of state — and yes, even one with faults and the ability to make mistakes — might go very far to heal the racial divide in the U.S. Racism is hardly a U.S. monopoly, but its long and shameful history of black slavery and subsequent exploitation and discrimination has practically defined the term for the rest of the globe. And beyond the U.S. borders, we can hope (and if you prefer, pray) that the Obama presidency will be instrumental in bringing richly deserved and long overdue peace to the Middle East. With peace, equality, personal growth and understanding, everyone benefits. Partisanship, chauvinism, hostility, discrimination? We know what they bring all too well.


R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Yes indeed!

It may be audacious of me to imagine the attached paper will make people think about things that so far haven't much entered into the minds of those with interests in Tibet; I mean in particular the academic Tibetologists. Although limited to a particular locale at only one point in Tibetan history, it raises issues of ethnic identity and conflict on various levels. I hope it can lead to some rethinking and creative solutions to some old problems, even if I haven't been able to propose very much along those lines. Because it is somewhat technical, I only recommend it to people engaged in Tibetan Studies, or to those who have been following the previous blogs and articles on Padampa.  I tried to make things clear/er, but it isn't for beginners.  If you think you want to read more, press here to get started. Meanwhile, whether you feel like reading it or not, remember to be thankful for air and other simple gifts.








Warmly recommended reading:

Janice D. Willis, Dreaming Me — Black, Baptist and Buddhist: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey, was first published in 2001 by Riverhead Books. The author is a professor at Wesleyan University. Written in a clear style, this book should prove appealing to practically everyone I know. Sorry, but I loaned my copy to my sister, and don't expect to see it again any time soon. Here is the kind of commercial link I don't usually like to give.


President Obama neglected to mention Buddhists in his Inaugural acceptance speech.  I don't think it means anything, and won't make an issue of it.  But Buddhism has over time achieved a high public profile in the U.S. (here's proof if any were needed), and probably deserves mentioning as much as those he did mention:  
"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth..."

One country — guess which one — felt free to edit out (to censor) parts of his speech that endangered their susceptible citizens.

I would also like to point out the website “Rainbow Dharma,” and particularly this page, "Black Buddha: Bringing the Tradition Home."  The interviewee, with the Tibetan name Choyin Rangdrol (this could be approximately translated, “The Realm of Dharmas Self-Liberated”), is a teacher of the Tibetan Nyingmapa school active in the area of Oakland, California.  I don't know much in particular about him or his teaching activities, but I'd like to learn more.  My favorite quotes: "The suffering is on both sides!" and "...being human is enough, and the rest is a footnote."

Essential reading on Padampa iconography:  Rob Linrothe, Strengthening the Roots: An Indian Yogi in Early Drigung Paintings of Ladakh and Zangskar, Orientations, vol. vol. 38, no. 4 (May 2007), pp. 65-71.

Are you wondering what the Tibetan "Obama" has to say these days?  If so, walk on over to "High Peaks Pure Earth" blog and have a look at this.


For more remarkable artworks featuring Padampa, see this link (second figure from your left; that's Virūpa on your far right... identifications for all four figures, see Linrothe's article, p. 69) and this one, too.  A small collection of Padampa  artworks are here.



§  §  §



Quotes of the day

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.



— Rev. Martin Luther King


These things are old.
These things are true.

— Barack Hussein Obama,
President of the U.S.




Full moon over the rotunda of the Capital Building 

in Washington DC on January 10, 2009

Friday, December 19, 2008

Tibschol Downloadable



This is just a brief message to announce Tibschol (Tibetan Scholarship Bibliography) has today been made available to the public for the first time ever. This is a bibliography of works (primarily journal articles, but also books, etc.) about Tibet primarily in English (and Western European languages). What that means is that it will probably be of use to a larger number of persons than the more specialized Tibskrit, which I circulated once again not so very long ago.

 (I should add that the 2009 version is available HERE and HERE).  [Sorry, these links have expired as of Sept. 2014; try doing an internet search for "Tibskrit" and it should be findable)

Some people might think that the power of internet searches has done away with the usefulness of bibliographies such as this. I don't agree. If you think it's true, I recommend that you download Tibschol and make use of it along with your internet searches and let me know the outcome of your experiment.

I will first wish you all happy holidays, safe travel, tolerable weather, good health, and happy times with people you like to be with and who feel great having you around!

Here is a long quote from the introduction followed by the download links (which should be active for the forseeable future).

This bibliography covers primarily Tibetan studies, and only secondarily Nepalese/Himalayan and general Buddhist studies. To anticipate your next question, No, this isn't a proper bibliography in the sense that I have personally inspected every single item listed here. In fact, one of the motivations, in the beginning at least, was to keep references to articles and books that I would have liked very much, but hadn't so far been able, to see. Still, the overwhelming majority of entries do indeed result from my direct perception of the publications in question.

A few, but not many, general anthropological articles, or otherwise not especially relevant items, are included. I hope this won't irritate anyone.

Articles in non-Tibetan languages are the main emphasis, although I have included Tibetan language articles that have appeared in the proceedings of the IATS (International Association of Tibetan Studies).

I include as well Euro-American books that would very likely not be readily available in local libraries, which means in particular older and less-known travel literature, books by members of the Younghusband Expedition and the like.

There is some, but not very much, missionary, mountaineering and specialized geological literature (these have never been at the center of my personal research interests). If these are your main interests you will proably find better bibliographies elsewhere.

The word 'scholarship' in the title is used loosely, with the intention that the emphasis should be on articles in specialized periodicals and collective publications of some degree of scholarly repute; the secondary emphasis is on works that, regardless of (or because of) the metaphysical/materialist assumptions or the methodologies employed, ought to be interesting to serious researchers and academics. (Inclusion here does not mean I approve of or otherwise endorse the content. Sometimes the very badness of a publication is enough to make it interesting or remarkable.)

As far as general Buddhist studies are concerned, the emphasis is on published texts and translations of individual Kanjur and Tanjur works (although a separate bibliography, with diacritic marks, which supplies greater coverage for these has been made, entitled "Tibskrit Philology." It has already been available for free download on the internet, the link given above).

There is less emphasis on East and Southeast Asian and Sri Lankan Buddhism, and on general Indological works (a bit stronger on Central Asian and Indian Buddhism).

References to literature in Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Russian languages are all given at second hand. Be warned.

American master's theses and doctoral dissertations are usually, but not always, accompanied with their UMI (University Microfilms International) purchasing numbers.

I estimate that there are at present at least 17,000 entries. Hence it would seem to be larger than Halvard K. Kuløy & Yoshiro Imaeda, Bibliography of Tibetan Studies, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1986), which contains 11,822 entries. (There is, however, much in the Kuløy/Imaeda bibliography that is not included here, and vice versa; I have only on occasion made use of the Kuløy bibliography while making my own, so one ought to consult both bibliographies.)

Unfortunately, the bibliographical database "Karma dgon Tibetan Bibliography: by Erwan Temple has according to my latest information been "deactivated." It was once available at this website: http://www.bibliographietibet.org/. Although it was only possible to search through keywords or author names (and impossible to see the entire bibliography all at once), it was (and probably is) a quite extensive listing (one source estimated it had about 40,000 records!). If it were still available, or if it eventually becomes available again, I would certainly suggest using it as an alternative place to turn in order to find things that are not to be found here, or as a way of verifying or filling out bibliographic details.

I am aware of a few other major bibliographic resources, but since these are only supplied in return for payment, I will not advertise them here. I have neither purchased nor made use of any of them.

If you are fortunate to have a good research library nearby, it is likely it will have the otherwise quite expensive book by Julie G. Marshall, Britain and Tibet, 1765-1947: A Select Annotated Bibliography of British Relations with Tibet and the Himalayan States including Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, Routledge/Curzon (New York 2004). As may be known from the subtitle, this is a specialized bibliography. I sometimes wish I owned a copy.

For more bibliographical resources for Tibetan studies, see this link.

Diacritics: Please note that certain diacritical marks in common use for Sanskrit transcriptions have simply been omitted (for typographical reasons going back to the time the bibliography was first started, but also because these may not translate into different software environments unless they are equipped for Unicode fonts). Hence, both ´s ('s' with slash mark above, in case it doesn't display properly) and .s ('s' with dot below) are represented by simple 's' (except where the original title in fact uses the 'sh' spelling). Dots above or below 'h,' 'n' or 'm' are omitted. For an example: Astamangalakamâla, in which the 2nd & 3rd letters ought to have dots beneath, and the 7th letter a dot above. Length-marks are represented by "ˆ" above the lower-case vowel, but omitted above capitalized vowels (example: Acârya, in which the initial letter ought to have a length-mark, but does not).

In order to make word searches more effective, Tibetan-language proper names & book titles have been repeated in my own preferred way of transcribing them (employing Wylie system with dashes), and "keywords" (which may include proper names) have often been added (especially when the title is in a language other than English).



So if you are ready for it, go to Tibschol by pressing HERE and following he links you will find there.  In any case, have fun with it. It is free and will continue to be free forever.


TIBSCHOL is unfortunately unavailable at the moment (September 2010), but I will try to have a working link up again soon.   


Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Tingri Hundred


Padampa in his Zhijé form (and not the 'Cutting' or Chö form) is, in recent times, mainly depicted with the very interesting gesture shown above. It seems to be unique to him, and I've never been able to locate a reasonable explanation for it that carries with it much conviction. If it was made with the right hand alone it would be the ubiquitous Teaching Gesture. (I think the gesture actually works well for many non-Buddhist Euro-types, too, since it looks like 'putting a fine point' on something, or just making a particular point [a 'micro-grip' for holding tiny objects]. It's not just an 'OK,' even if it does look similar, and even if we might find connections here, too, if we reflect awhile. I don't think it an accident that Europe somehow and somewhat shares this understanding with Tibet... Perhaps another time. Meanwhile, see and compare the picture down below.)

I imagine, although I have no proof for it, that the left hand exactly mirroring the right doubles the emphasis on his role as a teacher. But not only that, it seems to be saying that you receive double the teachings from him. At first you have a superficial understanding, and only later on and gradually, if at all, it hits you that he taught with something deeper in mind than you at first imagined. So to speak, the 'inner guru' kicks in. That is just my thought at the moment, and I may come up with a different explanation tomorrow.

The most famous literary piece by far among all the works associated with Padampa is the one known to every Tibetan as The Tingri Hundred. It exists in quite a few recensions, as often happens with extremely popular works, and not just in Tibet. It was written in verse in the form of couplets, about a hundred of them in this case (there is an obviously somewhat shorter version of this set of couplets called The Tingri Eighty). Each couplet ends with the same three syllables, the exclamatory Tingriwa (Ding-ri-ba). Since I need a term for these, I'll just call them Tingriwa couplets.

One way among others to divide the different recensions is to look at this verse (no. E16) to see if it has the word for 'monkey' (spre'u) or the rather similar, but only in its written form, word for 'rhinoceros' (bse'u, which I take to intend bse-ru) I think the monkey version makes better sense, but that's rather beside the point here.
In the forest fastness the monkey [or rhino] thinks it's happy,
but the edge of the forest is ringed with fire, my Tingrians.
We'll call those the monkey and rhino versions.  I only give this as one example among many others, just so nobody will imagine that the text was ever set in stone for all eternity.  Like texts throughout Eurasia in earlier centuries, the manuscripts were alive and evolving beings.

The earliest English translation of this work has helped to promote a rather unfortunate misconception.  The Evans-Wentz publication has Tingriwa translated as "Tingri folk."  This lends the impression that Padampa's words were addressed to the peasant villagers in Tingri. Actually, if they were spoken by Padampa at all, they were spoken to his meditation disciples at Tingri Langkhor, then and now a hermitage located an uncomfortable distance away from the main town.  They were not spoken to the 'folk' and do not belong in the category of folklore.  Another thing to observe about Evans-Wentz's version is that it attempts to use rather archaic English of the King James Biblical variety, making Padampa sound like the proverbial but eccentric prophet crying in the wilderness.  Well, in a way and to some degree I suppose he was.

I imagine you might have been a little surprised when I suggested, just now, that they might not be by Padampa.  Let me rephrase that.  All the versions that we have today were most definitely inspired by Padampa, who was the first to pronounce verses in the just-described form. Padampa spoke the original Tingriwa couplets. The second person to compose them was Padampa's immediate disciple Kunga, who pronounced no fewer than 118 of them just before his own death only 7 years after Padampa's. The odd and interesting fact is that only a very few of the Tingriwa couplets in the popular collections available today are actually found in the sets pronounced by Padampa and Kunga (these two latter preserved only in the Zhijé Collection). The simple solution to this problem is just to say that it's very likely that the collections we have today were not in fact by Padampa, but appeared at a later date in Tibetan literary history.  This idea might be supported with the information that, to the best of my knowledge, the very first Tibetan-authored work to quote any of the verses from the Tingri Hundred is one by the author of the most famous Tibetan history book, The Blue Annals.  That means Gö Lotsawa, in his commentary on the Ratnagotravibhaga.  You can find the verse Gö Lotsawa quotes at no. E20 in our text of The Tingri Hundred.
Escorted by your Lama you will arrive where you want to go.
As your fee, pay your trust and veneration, my Tingrians.
What that means is that the earliest citation of a couplet resembling any of those we have in our Tingri Eighty or Tingri Hundred collections (both of them include this verse, but the sets of Tingriwa couplets in the Zhijé Collection do not have it) is in a composition dated to 1473 CE.  The other known verse citations date between the 18th century and the present.  There are quite a few of these, testifying to the popularity of our collection in the last three centuries.

When we look at the end of the work, we find a colophon in the form of a stanza which would seem to tell us that some unnamed person 'compiled' or 'arranged' it (if that is the right understanding for the verb bkod in this context, since sometimes it can mean 'composed').

Many verses gently encourage ethical behavior, but some of them are just so blatantly moralizing (particularly some of the verses near the end, which anyway are missing from some of the published versions), I can't believe Padampa actually taught them in Tingri (see couplets E95 through E98). It just wasn't his style. And his students, all serious Buddhist meditators, didn't need to be told to try and be good people.  Or to shun evil companions.  Really not.

The irony is that Padampa's best-known legacy is not our best guide to his actual teachings.  That guide would be the Zhijé Collection itself.  (If it weren't for some other Zhijé collections of comparable age and quality that lie unpublished and inaccessible in Lhasa libraries, we might say with justice that the Zhijé Collection is the only thing there is.)


It shouldn't be cause for any wonder that a recurring theme of the verses is death. It is a Last Will and Testament, after all. I hope that hearing that word won't scare you off. That would be unfortunate.
A flower one moment fine, the next moment all dried out,
there’s no relying on the body, my Tingrians.

– Couplet E30 of The Tingri Hundred.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
  Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
 Tomorrow will be dying.

The message of this verse that opens Robert Herrick's famous poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" — the same verse makes a cameo appearance in that 1989 Robin Williams movie, The Dead Poets Society — is that young people had better hurry up and get laid while they still have it in them. Padampa's verse uses the death imagery of the faded flower to encourage renunciation of worldly life. Herrick equips his verse with the same imagery to encourage young people to dive headlong into it. Same medium, same poetic flower imagery... opposite messages. Which I suppose is one reason Padampa, with his strong-minded advocacy of the life of renunciation, of meditation in solitude, is not likely to find multitudes of ready listeners in our day. My position is that even an imagined renunciation can do much to promote ethical reflection by people who find themselves, willingly or not, caught up in the flow (and of course the ebb) of life. In that spirit, I think anyone can appreciate at least some parts of The Tingri Hundred. I'm not alone here thinking we simply must think more about what we're doing and why. Am I?

And before sending you off to read the translation, assuming you're prepared to do that, I'd like to say that these critical reflections of mine about authorship have no bearing whatsoever on the Buddhist truth and/or spiritual authority of the text itself. It is great Tibetan poetry, a monument to the Tibetan language, a source of wisdom regardless of your ideas about religion, and a trigger for reflection on life, no matter who wrote it when. Feel free to think as you like.

The message as well as the language of this Last Will is naturally a little solemn, and rather unconsciously I have preserved a degree of solemnity in the translation, using words like savor and imbibe instead of taste and drink.  But on occasion there is a breath of lightness and ease, a bit of almost-casual colloquial expression. I've tried to supply some of these moments, too, to the best of my ability, not always in the same places though. Nothing in these translations is final. Like everything else, it's a continuing process.

Perhaps for a later blog I'll try to finish up my translation of Padampa's original set of a dozen or so Tingriwa couplets and give more evidence for, and develop further, the ideas I've put forward here.  Don't neglect to breathe.  I've got a few other things to do meanwhile.



READ MORE...

Carpe Diem: Poems for Making the Most of Time. Posted at the official website of the Academy of American Poets, here.

'Gos Lo-tsâ-ba Gzhon-nu-dpal, Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi 'grel bshad de kho na nyid rab tu gsal ba'i me long, Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhâgavyâkhyâ, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Franz Steiner (Stuttgart 2003), at p. 53 is the quote of Padampa's verse. K-D Mathes' translation of couplet E20 has just been published in his monumental translation of that just-mentioned work under the title A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Go Lotsawa's Mahamudra Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, Wisdom (Boston 2008), p. 262:
If you commend yourself to the lama, you reach wherever you like.
People of Dingri, show devotion and respect to the lama [who is like your] feet.


Chapter 17, "The Gesture of Thought, the Sign of Logos," contained in: H.P. L'Orange, Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning (Oslo 1953), pp. 171-197.  
"The scroll [or book] in the left hand contains the written speech; the gesture of the right one expresses the realization of the written in the living word."


Portrait of L. Gernier, 
a professor of theology from Basel, 
painted by J.R. Werenfels.



 
Follow me on Academia.edu