Photograph by Yu Jian
The etymological root of the Tibetan world is “origin”. There is nothing static about this notion of origins, for this world in its vital energies is originary. It is not only a spiritual quality; it is also immediately apparent in the land, in the architecture, in the way of life. For someone who comes from a world of which the etymological root is “progress”, it is simply not possible to make use of the word “backward” in the case of Tibet. Tibet rejects the outlook of Darwin’s theory of evolution so widespread in our world. Everything in this world takes place in an untrammelled time-space, an integrated whole, a powerful consciousness of life and history. Here you might gain an immediate sense of what is known as “eternal life”. When you discover that the time shown on your watch is totally out of sync with that of the Buddhist elders seated on the stone slab at the Jokhang Temple, you begin to suspect that the time of your “progress” is in fact regressing this moment in the direction of death.
In no sense is Tibet a place where spiritual beings are ethereal like the wind. This is pure conjecture on the part of atheists living in the world of “progress”. In Tibet, a spirit is something you can meet with on the road. They are not insubstantial air: they are tangible and have all the intense reality of stone. They are things capable of inflicting injury on the wind and its ilk.
A materialist visiting Tibet who did not become—if only for a split second—a mystic would, I believe, have to be devoid of any feeling.
I do not like discussing the supernatural. Nor am I fond of poets given to liberally sprinkling their works with the word “soul”. I am certain that there is no spirit to speak of in those places where the word “soul” is spoken of with such gusto. I didn’t hear the word once during my stay in Tibet, nor did intellectuals there debate its loss. But the spirit was everywhere.
Prior to my trip to Tibet, an avant-garde friend back from New York told me that he found it surprising that there were people still wanting to go there. Surely such behaviour was well and truly passé? I didn’t quite know what he meant. Could the progress of time mean that places such as Tibet were out of date? To which parts of the globe would future ages travel? No, I felt hopelessly out of step with fashion—I had always imagined the Tibets of this world to be timeless.
Continue reading “Notes on Thick Brown Paper: In Tibet • Yu Jian (1994)” →
