The memoirs of this intelligent and resourceful man make for fascinating reading. Arjia Rinpoche, the son of Mongolian nomads, opens his narrative by explaining how his life as a reincarnate lama began at age 2, when a search committee (arriving on horseback!) selected him to study the Buddhist sutras en route to becoming the abbot of the great monastery at Kumbum. We see him as a playful, even ordinary, boy in a distant world of traditional devotions, butter sculptures and sand mandalas.
Yet Rinpoche is not fated to live a contemplative, or even traditional, life. Destiny, in the form of Mao's Great Leap Forward (1958-61), dispersed the religious communities, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) regarded Tibetan monks as traitors. Only with the elevation of Deng Xiaoping, when Rinpoche was in his late 20s, were Buddhists assured that "anti-revolutionaries would be rehabilitated to normal life." But what, Rinpoche asks, in such a world, was normal life?
If the first half of Rinpoche's compelling story is about survival, the second is, well, about survival. We read how this de-robed monk assumes positions of influence in Lhasa and Beijing, working as a liaison between the religious community and party officials who wish to turn religion into a "living museum." Monks are given scripted lines to recite in public dramas that affirm China's celebration of its ethnic diversity.
Rinpoche becomes adept at negotiating the intricacies of the Chinese bureaucracy. A clever administrator, he is effective at securing funds from Beijing to rebuild wrecked temples. When he is named representative to a religious congress in Nepal, his movements and statements, like those of his peers, are carefully monitored by party handlers. Yet when a security officer mislays a briefcase containing classified documents, the lamas help him to find it, and so gain face. Rinpoche's network of contacts among the Chinese is such that he is even recruited by the Communist Party (he gently but firmly declines).
Rinpoche's delicate maneuvers -- remaining loyal to the Dalai Lama while obeying party dictates -- ultimately become impossible to perform as China asserts the right to name lamas, in effect, to secularize an ancient belief system. Refusing to become a frontman for Chinese policy, Rinpoche reluctantly chooses exile, where, in Bloomington, Ind., he leads curious Hoosiers through ancient wisdom ceremonies. "Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama's Account of 40 Years under Chinese Rule" is a dynamic tale of impermanence and fidelity -- the story of Tibet embedded in the story of a man.
Thomas Zelman teaches English at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.
