Conflict of Interest

“This is the day we have feared ever since the year of the Metal Tiger. Messengers have just arrived at the village with news that the Red Army has marched on Lhasa. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has been forced into exile. A division of the Red Army is traveling here, to Jangtang province. At this moment they are only half a day’s travel from Zheng-po.”

Paldon Wangpo and I can’t resist exchanging glances. In just a few sentences, Lama Tsering had told us that everything about our world had been turned upside down. If His Holiness has been forced to flee from the Potala Palace, what hope is there for the rest of Tibet?

“We must assume that the Red Army is coming directly towards Zheng-po,” Lama Tsering continues quickly. From outside we hear one of the women villagers wailing. “If they travel through the night, they could arrive by tomorrow morning. Definitely, they could get here within a day.

“In other parts of our country, the army is destroying monasteries, looting their treasures, burning their sacred texts, torturing and murdering the monks. There’s little doubt they have the same intentions for Zheng-po. For this reason, the Abbot is asking us to evacuate.”

“Evacuate?” I can’t co

ntain myself. “Why don’t we stay and resist?”

“Tenzin Dorje I have shown you the map of our neighbor China,” he explains. “For every soldier they have sent to Tibet, there are ten thousand more soldiers ready to take their place. Even if we wanted to, this is not a struggle we can win.”

“But-”

Paldon Wangpo reaches out, putting his hand over my mouth.

“Fortunately, our Abbot and the senior lamas have been preparing for this possibility. Each of the monks has a choice: you can return to your village and continue to practice the Dharma in secret. Or you can join the senior lamas in exile.”

He holds up his hand, gesturing we shouldn’t yet reply. “Before you say you want to join us in exile, you must realize this is not some great adventure. Traveling to the border will be dangerous—the Red Army will shoot dead any monks trying to leave. Then we must try to cross the mountains on foot. For three weeks we will have to travel very long distances, living off only the food we can carry. We will have to endure much hardship and pain. Even if we finally arrive in India, we don’t know if the government will allow us to stay, or will send us back over the border.”

“But if we return to our villages and continue to wear our robes,” interjects Paldon Wangpo, “the Chinese will find us anyway, and punish our families for keeping us.”

Lama Tsering nods briefly.

“If we disrobe, we would be breaking our vows.” Paldon Wangpo has always been a sharp debater. “Either way, we would lose you as our teacher.”

“What you say is true,” Lama Tsering agrees. “This is a difficult decision even for a lama, and you are novice monks. But it is important that you choose, and do so quickly. Whatever decision you make,” he regards each of us in turn, “you will have my blessing.”

From outside comes the pounding of feet as people hurry past. There can be no doubting the crisis we’re facing.

“I am now an old man, seventy four years of age,” Lama Tsering tell us, kneeling down to continue packing a leather bag which is lying on the floor. “If I had only myself to think about, I might go into hiding and take my chances with the Chinese-”

“No lama!” I exclaim.

Next to me, Paldon Wangpo looks sheepish. He has always been embarrassed by my impetuosity.

“But the Abbot has asked me to play an important part in the evacuation.”

“I want to come with you.” I can hold back no longer, no matter what Paldon Wangpo thinks.

“Perhaps you like me as a teacher,” cautions Lama Tsering. “But as a fellow traveler it will be very different. You are both young and strong, but I may become a liability. What happens if I fall and hurt myself?”

“Then we will carry you across the mountains,” I declare.

Beside me Paldon Wangpo is nodding.

Lama Tsering looks up at both of us, an intensity in his dark eyes I have seen only on rare occasions.

“Very well–” he tells us finally. “You can come. But there is one very important condition I have to tell you about.”

Moments later we are leaving his room for our own, having promised to return very quickly. As I make my way through the turmoil in the corridor outside I can hardly believe the condition that Lama Tsering has just related. This is, without question, the worst day in the existence of Zheng-po, but paradoxically for me it is the day I have found my true purpose. My vocation. The reason I have been drawn to the Dharma.

Opening my door, I look around the small room that has been my world for the past ten years; the wooden meditation box, three feet square. The straw mattress on the baked earth floor. My change of robes, and toiletry bag—the two belongings we are allowed at Zheng-po.

Not only is it hard to believe that I will never again sit in this meditation box, never again sleep on this bed. It is even more incredible that I, Tenzin Dorje, a humble novice monk from village of Ling, have been accorded one of the rarest privileges of Zheng-po. More than that—one of the most important tasks of our entire lineage. Together with Paldon Wangpo, and under the guidance of my kind and holy teacher, we are to undertake the highest and most sacred mission of the evacuation. It means that our flight from Tibet will be much more important—and more dangerous. But for the first time ever I know, in my heart, that I have a special part to play.

My time has come.