Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet

Directed and written by Luc Schaedler

First Run Pictures

R1 DVD

In Tibetan and English, with English subtitles.

Some years ago I had the fortune of coming across a challenging book by Donald J Lopez called Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (University of Chicago Press 1998). Lopez argued that Tibetan Buddhism is totally misunderstood in the west and so many of the interpretations given to Tibetan Buddhism are actually new age in origin. He gave his book the title Prisoners of Shangri-La as he felt Tibetans were imprisoned by the dream westerners have of a utopia above the clouds, a bit like that seen in the movie Lost Horizons and seduced by the exoticism of a strange and non theistic religion.

This contradiction between western projections about Tibet and the real Tibet is the most obvious when it comes to Buddhist history. We could honestly say that most Westerners see Tibet through rose tinted glasses. Robert Thurman, a high respected American Buddhist academic, for example, once stated that Tibetan religious festivals were like a long version of Woodstock! A simple comparison may suffice. In Western Buddhist centres men and woman both receive teachings and philosophical and practical Buddhist teachings are offered to the public. Tantric initiations are readily available and generally it is seen as a fairly flexible spiritual system with few “moral” demands. The Tibet of old is idolized as a great spiritual oasis and His Holiness the Dalai Lama is seen as the shepherd of a state in exile. The reality is a little more challenging. Tibet was a religious bureaucracy, some 25% of the state were in monasteries and hence families were left in poverty. It had a skeleton standing army with all the resources of the state oriented towards the monasteries which also controlled all education. Since the monasteries worked hand-in-hand with local commercial interests, corruption was ripe. The population was given no Buddhist education; this was reserved for the monks alone. The most a seeker outside the monastic system could hope for was a good reincarnation if they financially supported their local monastery. The Tantric teachings Westerners are so fond of were only available to monks who came top in their class after 12 years of monastic training! The Dalai Lama was seen as a god king, an incarnation of Chenrezig, whose word was law and understood to be that of the Buddha. This was no democracy. There was regular fighting between sects, including brutal suppression of dissent opinions even including beatings, killings and burnings of monasteries. (Zen Buddhism, for example, was banned). For quite some time the ruling sect in Tibet had been the Gelug (a strict celibate sect) so sex laws were strict, misogyny and homophobia was rampant and other sects, especially the Nyingma were persecuted. As can be readily seen this is the model of what in the west we could call a “Medieval and Feudal” society, very different from Western perceptions of Tibet as a Shangri-La.

In Angry Monk Luc Schaedler brings the viewer head to head with this other Tibet. He examines its history and shows the constant “give and take” between Tibetan and Chinese culture and slowly and carefully brings the viewer into an appreciation of a very different understanding of the Tibet question.

He wants us to realize that when China entered Tibet, it was at a pivotal period in Tibetan history. The old Buddhist leaders were intransigent to internal change and brutally suppressed those who advocated change, so some form of change was inevitable and a necessity for the good of the Tibetan people.

The central story of Angry Monk is about Gendun Choephel - a liquor-imbibing, sexually progressive Tibetan rebel. He rejected the monastic ideal of being detached from the world and created the very first Tibetan translation of the Kama Sutra. In the 1940’s in frustration with the Tibetan authorities he became active in the Tibetan Revolutionary Party, which advocated overthrowing Tibet's Buddhist leadership. A rather talented artist, he designed the group's logo, a sickle crossed by a sword. For all his trouble he landed in a Tibetan prison for three years.

Choephel died in 1951 but became a hero to many everyday Tibetans who began to realize that the Old Tibet was too slow to change and that revolution was inevitable, from inside or outside. His biography is still a bestseller among Tibetans who now see him as a freethinker who stood up against a corrupt hierarchy when nobody thought it was possible to do so.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Choephel’s life was his research into Tibetan history. In a period when the monastic version was the only one available, he wrote a political history of Tibet that gave a very different version of Tibet's relationship to China.

This is a fascinating documentary which challenges many preconceived ideas about Tibet. It is filled with superb cinematography as well as rare archival footage. Schaedler doesn’t offer a lot of answers and in many ways we are left pondering the future. China has now turned Tibet into a militarized zone and yet the Tibetan government in exile is still firmly in the hands of a religious hierarchy. So what is the hope for a new Tibet ? This is a fascinating and thought provoking documentary.

Reviews appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content. We recommend you download the free digital edition (or buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy Magazine.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the front page of Synergy Magazine Website or click the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com