Gonpo Tashi meticulously dusts off furniture and ritual utensils every morning in a dark, 12-square meters chamber with a richly-embroidered cushion on bed that has been elegantly prepared for its supposed master.
Just outside the chamber hangs a giant photo of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso as well as enshrines six Buddha statues and a yellow monk robe that Tenzin Gyatso used to wear.
Gonpo said, "I'm ready every day for the Dalai Lama's back home."
His aspiration reminded people of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong's call for the return of the fled Dalai Lama. But the hope seems narrower as the Dalai Lama was denounced by the Chinese government as a "politician in monk's robes" who is trying to split the country.
He and his supporters were blamed for masterminding the deadly Lhasa riots on March 14 last year, which killed 18 innocent people.
Gonpo, the 63-year-old stocky Tibetan, a nephew of the Dalai Lama, has patronized the birthplace of the Tibetan spiritual leader for at least three decades.
The clean but thrifty residential court, consisting of a two-story wooden house and a bright yellow prayer hall, faces 4,000 meter-high snowy Tsongkha Gyiri, a widely-deemed sacred mountain which brought about good fengshui, or fortunate geomancy, to the family of the boy who was later believed the incarnate Dalai Lama.
"Did you notice the continuous red hills within which our long and narrow valley is seated? -- They are lotus petals and the house stands on one petal," said the grizzled man, who splits time between his full-time vigil and serving the county-level people's political consultative conference, or a political advisory body to the local government.
Pointing at a small white pagoda about 200 meters away down from the residence's front gate, Gonpo said, "You know what -- that was an exact place where the Thirteenth Dalai Lama rested himself on his route from Kumbum Monastery to Labrang Monastery."
"A prophetical assertion of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama foretold reincarnation of his soul in this particular rural village," said the former primary school teacher.
THE MYTHS
One reason why the Thirteenth Dalai Lama chose to stop over, Gonpo said, was the sound relationship between the Dalai Lama and Taktser Rinpoche, a senior lama in the Tibetan Lamaist hierarchy who happened to be the eldest brother of the reincarnated Dalai Lama, who was born on July 6, 1935, with a secular name of Lhamo Thondup.
Lhamo's poor farming family was exceptionally rich in high lamas. Altogether three out of seven siblings became top lamas, with the Dalai Lama atop the pyramid of Tibetan lamas.
The boy ascended as a spiritual leader who mesmerized the faithful as well as gained mundane political celebrity in exile. He was granted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. He called himself "a simple Buddhist monk" but was accused by his homeland government of being the chief rebel and an ill-intentioned politician who promoted separatist movements in monk's robes. In many Westerners' eyes, he was no less than fodder for sound bites, photo-ops and newspaper front-page slots.
Myths have fueled the mysticism and celebrity of the Dalai Lama. One myth is that Lhamo Thondup was the only candidate for the incarnation -- the rationale of which was he inerrably identified belongings of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Though with such gifted endowments, a handful of candidates should have been selected, in line with the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, for the final pick, or even after a ritual of casting lots from the Gold Bottle in the fiercest contesting cases.
After his delegation signed with the central government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) the 17-Point Agreement on a peaceful settlement of Tibet in May 1951, the Dalai Lama telegraphed Chairman Mao Zedong to actively support the peace agreement in October, almost one year after he was enthroned. He now says the rapprochement was reached "under duress."
In September 1954, the Dalai Lama, together with another Tibetan Buddhist leader Panchen Lama, went to Beijing for voting China's top legislature and was himself elected a vice speaker. He now asserts that this was a "visit (to) China for peace talks." What the Dalai Lama did in "China" was documented much more than he now officially acknowledges as "meeting with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders." He in fact wrote a poem likening the paramount Chinese communist leader as "the Brahma," the Hindu god of creation, and "the all-mighty sun," wishing Mao "a life to eternity."
On the most intractable controversy on his falling out with the PRC central government, the Dalai Lama said, one day after the Lhasa riot on March 10, 1959, and a later publicized hand-written letter, "Reactionary, evil elements are carrying out activities endangering me on the pretext of ensuring my safety. I am taking steps to calm things down." In his official Web site, however, he states that "Tibetan People's Uprising begins in Lhasa."
The crisis led to his fleeing from Norbulingka Palace in Lhasa on March 17, 1959.
THE TALE OF A VILLAGE
As the religious leader, the Dalai Lama spent only one third of his life in the motherland and four years in the remote mud-and-stone village, formerly known as Taktser, on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Hongaizi Village, symbolic of the rough and sterile landscape of the plateau, shows little traces of the Shangri-La that filtered into Western minds since James Hilton created the surreal image of such a holy land.
A total of 256 villagers are now living in the same place that the highest Tibetan spiritual leader was born. More than 70 percent of the 54 families own televisions and 61 percent have telephone landlines. The village also sees 10 cell phones, 16 motorbikes, one car but not a single Internet-linked computer. Gonpo purchased the village's only private car, an economical 2003Daihatsu Charde.
Tsering Kyi, mother of a nine-year-old school girl whose family is living 150 meters from the Dalai Lama's old house, displays a picture of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in her spacious living room.
She said, "It's not unusual that we're living here and our family's fortune largely bets on what jobs that my husband is able to find out of the village."
Unlike Tsering, many villagers believe the surrounding red hills crouch themselves like a giant lion, one of the auspicious tokens in Ping'an, an overwhelmingly farming county which saw in 2007 gross domestic product per capita at 1,500 U.S. dollars against the country's average of 2,600 U.S. dollars.
Gonpo's income comes from the public office he has served since1998 and donations from the Dalai Lama followers. Gonpo spent at least 500,000 yuan (73,200 U.S. dollars) in house maintenance in recent years.
A "POLITICIAN MONK"
As one leading figure of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, believed an incarnation of Chenrezig, stands as deity of compassion and a visible embodiment of Tibetan Buddhists' faith.
Only three of the 14 reincarnations meaningfully ruled Tibetans, and the throne of the Dalai Lama was historically bolstered by China's central governments of various dynasties. The reincarnation conducted by Rinpoches and the accreditation from the imperial authority are inseparable parts of the whole system ensuring legitimacy of the Dalai Lama and his ruling in Tibet. An angry Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) once decreed to stop reincarnation of a rebellious Tibetan Buddhist lama, which left his sect dying out.
Gradually rising as a regional spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama sweated for his long journey to the world stage, with his first trip outside China and India to two Buddhist countries of Japan and Thailand in 1967, the first European trip in 1973 and the first U.S. one in 1979, the year in which the United States and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations.
Going into exile subsequently made him a star. In all the 104 awards or honorary doctorates he has collected from around the world, 103 were granted after he fled China. Rubbing elbows with him somewhat became a fad or a manifestation of moral dignity.
The "simple Buddhist monk," who was said to wake up usually at 3:30 a.m. and spend his first four hours every day in meditation, frequently indulged his secular enjoyment in being interviewed by world top media outlets.
An online U.S. Department of Justice document recorded the Dalai Lama's visit to the United States from April 10 to 24 in 2008. During the two-week trip, the monk, often with his brand bigsmile and deep laugh, talked politics and China's "crackdown" on the March 14 Lhasa riot in NBC, CBS and NPR, to just name a few. He also met with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky, who contributed to an op-ed piece to the Washington Post the day after their rendezvous.
The spiritual leader's "sideline" activities supplemented his full-time job, prayer offerings and religious teachings which were mainly arranged by the New York-based Office of Tibet and beefed up by lobbying of pro-independence groups.
Such efforts paid off. The Dalai Lama said in his latest statement on March 10, "The fact that the Tibet issue is alive and the international community is taking growing interest in it is indeed an achievement."
Influenced by his highly politicized inner circle and interest groups, the Dalai Lama, willingly or not, interwove both religious and political faces. Before his fleeing half century ago, he consulted the Nechung Oracle for the Buddha's advice. Before teachings in recent years, the self-claimed tolerant spiritual leader usually asked Dorje Shugden worshippers not to attend his ceremonies. Those who propitiated the particular Tibetan deity protested against the Dalai Lama's discrimination, which was similar to political partisanship and runs against his announced commitment to "promoting religious harmony."
TIBETAN HERITAGE IN THE BIRTHPLACE
Gonpo, who enjoyed two visits with the Dalai Lama -- each lasting for one hour -- in the 1990s in Dharamsala, India, decorated the prayer hall wall with delicate thangkas, or cloth painting scrolls bearing images of the successive Dalai Lamas and Tsong Kha Pa, the Gelug school founder back in the fifteenth century.
"These beautiful thangkas cost me roughly 10,000 yuan," Gonpo said.
What he spent was ridiculously reasonable for the top paintings created by an artistic tribe that usually served top Tibetan clerics and noble families in the feudal era.
The artists to whom Gonpo attributed were monk painters who cultivated artful skills while practicing Buddhism at Senggeshong Mago Monastery in Huangnan.
Artist Konchok Tashi basked in an afternoon sunshine outside his lamasery, which harbors 160 monks.
The 44-year-old Esoteric Buddhist splits every year into one half of esoteric studying and the other half of aesthetic painting.
Learning from his late father, Konchok now trains five apprentices to hand down the Tibetan craftwork now designated by the government as one national intangible cultural heritage.
"I'm the best of the best," said the dark-skinned monk who enthusiastically displayed one of his artworks in his sunny living room. "I would ask for 30,000 yuan for the piece that I worked for two years."
Using a Samsung cell phone sometimes in chatting with his colleagues, Konchok often drove his 2006 Kia Cerato to buy daily necessities in a nearby town.
"I still feel scared when driving to big cities like Xining because I cannot figure out Chinese characters on highway signs," the monk said.
Illiteracy of the written Chinese, nevertheless, did not hinder his outreach. He won three awards from national and provincial arts exhibitions and developed wealthy clients in Beijing and Guangzhou, for thangkas' cultural and original uniqueness.
He paid his own way to India in December 2004 to attend one of the Dalai Lama pray offerings and to visit his younger brother. The younger brother sneaked into the Indian borders ten years ago and is now studying Buddhist dialectics in a lamasery near Dharamsala.
Amid thousands of followers at the humid event in Dharamsala, Konchok for the first time approached to the aura of the Dalai Lama. Months later, he was sick and obeyed his fellow monks' advice on resorting to the mythical Medicine Springs, just ten kilometers downhill from the Dalai Lama birthplace.
He siphoned raw water for consecutive seven days, with the largest one-time dose of seven kilograms, which left him lax.
"The Medicine Springs are called the panacea but full recovery requires frequent visits in three years," Konchok said, adding that his sickness offered him no mood in paying homage to the Dalai Lama house, though it was only ten kilometers away.
REBIRTH AND EMPTINESS
What Konchok really good at is painting Buddhas and the Sacred Lake, which are always themes of Tibetan cultural works. The Sacred Lake is Lhamo Lhatso in southern Tibet.
After the Thirteenth Dalai Lama died, the regent, himself a high lama, looked into the waters of Lhamo Lhatso. Together with other auspicious signs, the regent allegedly saw a three-story monastery with a turquoise and gold roof and a path running from it to a hill. The direction the dead Dalai Lama faced indicated his reincarnate would be from northeast of Lhasa, the seat of the Dalai Lama.
Lhamo Lhatso was believed vital to the most mythical reincarnation system in which high lamas claimed to be reborn and continue their important work. The reincarnated, also known as tulku, were usually searched within the Tibetan areas by senior lamas surrounding the deceased tulku.
The gold-roofed monastery appeared in the Sacred Lake was Serdong Chenmo Hall at Kumbum, whose importance was decided by the status of the holy site where Tsong Kha Pa was born. Top clerics from Lhasa believed the soul boy would live within a one-day horseride from Kumbum.
In explaining the sophisticated reincarnation system, Kumbum's Dzongkhang Rinpoche said, "Tulku is reborn again and again in the life circle till the eternity of being Buddha."
"It's inappropriate to call tulkus living Buddhas because Buddhas need not to be reborn," said Dzongkhang Rinpoche, echoing similar remarks made by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
"History tells that the search of the reincarnated soul boy was usually centered on Tibet and went no farther than Mongolia," Dzongkhang Rinpoche said.
The 67-year-old Rinpoche, however, ruled out possibility of soul reincarnation before the previous lama died.
"There is but one soul that can find rebirth," Dzongkhang Rinpoche said.
"Every Tibetan aspires that continuous rebirth of great souls would lead to creation of Buddhas," he said, adding that every Buddhist was terrified of going to Hell.
A 35-year-old Rongwo monk said he was frequently haunted by the fear of Hell. "Go to Heaven, or go to Hell, no doubt on our choice. We have to do something for toeing lamas' lines to avoid bad karma," the man said.
Li Bade, a 76-year-old Tibetan abbot who for 25 years has overseen Chorten Ki Monastery which was famed for the visit of the Third Dalai Lama, said he was satisfied with almost everything today, generous financial support from the faithful, enough food, good health service in community and effective communication.
"The world is now more like what Buddha describes in sutras that all beings and events are relational and interconnected to a state of eternity, or emptiness," he said.
"The only discontent for me," the abbot said, "is the hustling highway down the hill."
His hill-perched hut oversaw the trunk highway extended to the holy city of Lhasa.
(Xinhua correspondent Qian Rong in Qinghai Bureau contributed to the story. Write to Yu Zheng at yuzheng@xinhua.org.)
