The book shows that the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, has something to say, something important for the future of humanity, writes Claude Arpi
The Heart Is Noble
The Karmapa,
Author: Ogyen Trinley Dorje
Publisher: Shambhala, Rs 499
Do you remember the Karmapa’s great escapeIJ On January 5, 2000, at the height of the winter, a 15-year-old monk arrived in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, after a Bollywood-type escape across the highest Himalayan passes. The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, holder of a 900-year-old lineage, drove straight to the palace of the Dalai lama who immediately received the red-faced boy, offering him protection.
On his way to India, Ogyen Trinley may have dreamt that once he reached his destination, his life would be simple; he would meet his religious teachers and soon return to his predecessor’s seat, in Rumtek, Sikkim. It was not to be, as his arrival in India got entangled with Sino-Indian relations. When he left his monastery of Tsurphu in Central Tibet a week earlier, he probably did not foresee these difficulties. Perhaps because his story was so unbelievable, the Indian Government had some hesitation to grant him refugee status. Some even believed that he had been ‘planted’ by the Chinese to create confusion in Sikkim, the traditional seat of the Karmapa lineage.
Having closely followed the story from the beginning, when I opened the Karmapa’s new book, The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out, the past events came back to my mind. However, as I was going through this book, I realised that the young monk had walked a long journey since 2000. Pages after pages, one encounters a mature thinker. The difficulties that the young lama had to face seem to have left no scar on his psyche; on the contrary, he has been able to ‘digest’ the toughest experiences and analyse them ‘inside out’.
The background of the book is a month-long dialogue between the Karmapa and a group of American university students who visited him in May 2011 at Gyuto Ramoche Monastery in Sidhbari near Dharamshala. It is there that the 29-year-old lama has found a ‘temporary’ refuge. Though the Karmapa often tells the students that he does not give them a ‘religious’ teaching, the Buddhist themes of temporariness, interdependence and compassion pervade through the book. The message is simple and secular.
The 12 chapters deal with subject like ‘Our Shared Ground’, ‘A Meaningful life: Anything Is Possible’, ‘Healthy Relationships: Orienting Ourselves toward Others’, ‘Gender Identities: It’s All in the Mind’ or ‘Consumerism or Greed: Contentment is the Best Wealth’. It is obvious that the Karmapa has studied the ‘modern’ world “inside out”. Chapter 7 elaborates on his favourite topic, ‘Environmental Protection: Cultivating New Feelings for the Earth’. He warns his students not to confuse economic success with personal happiness: “Just because we have a market economy, does not mean we need to have a market society.” I believe the Karmapa would have voted for the Bhutanese ‘Gross National Happiness’, which seems to have been rejected by the new Government in Thimbu. Such a pity!
We have recently seen the outcome of lopsided development in Uttarakhand. “If I have the opportunity, I would like to restore the natural environment in the Himalayas and Tibet, and to especially protect the forests, the water and wildlife of this region,” says the Karmapa.
His language always remains simple. The first day, he told the US students: “My formal study has been in Buddhist philosophy and religion, so I may use some Buddhist terms on occasion... Please do not take my words to be an authoritative representation of what the Buddhist texts say.” He always encourages his interlocutors by telling them that human beings are far more powerful than they usually believe. “We individuals can become part of the solution when we recognise this power and start to use it together,” says he.
Being the 17th of a long chain of reincarnations and the spiritual head of one of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, he admits that he has certain responsibilities, “because I received the name and position of Karmapa”. He, however, is quick to add: “We all have responsibilities based on what we receive from the world.” His starting point is “interdependence with others and the planet”. He believes that if each human being can increase his or her love and compassion towards others, the planet will face less conflicts. In conclusion, he outlines what he calls “a kind of humanist spirituality”. Though he sometimes uses Buddhist concepts, he says that to look at the world wisely and to live our own beliefs do not require any particular religious affiliation. For him, actions should only be “a logical consequence of the interdependence that binds us to others and to the planet”.
Then there’s another aspect of the Karmapa’s personality — his sense of humour. Probably due to the format of the transcribed talks, his charming smile can be seen only to the cover of the book. When I had interviewed him, I discovered a young man, deeply interested in Indian culture, art and the environment of the Himalayas. He was able to see the deeper meaning of the controversies that had surrounded him since his arrival in India. When I told him that during a public function in Dharamshala, he had made everyone laugh and asked him what place he gave to humour in life, he answered: “There was nothing much left for me to say. I had to make some jokes,” and he laugh. The Karmapa later rectified: “No, no, no. But humour is important in life. To be too serious in life is not good; it can make life seem miserable.”
The Heart is Noble shows that the Karmapa has something to say, something deep and important for the future of humanity.
The reviewer is an expert on Tibetan affairs