I wish I could make an instant list of things for such a purpose, but it’s surprisingly difficult. After 50 years of focusing solely  on preserving the old, trying to come up with something fresh and different and yet imbued with some cultural value, is not unlike learning to walk after being paralyzed. Well at least for me it is. But I’m certain that if we can start with just one idea, followed by yet another, and so forth – then in time, our muscles will regain their strength and suppleness and we’ll slowly regain our lost balance. And eventually, exciting new ideas will start to flow out naturally as our minds become more flexible, imaginative, and less constricted – the key mental attributes necessary in order to bring about any kind of big change.

Therefore, although I realize that we Tibetans have an innate fear of being ridiculed for coming up with non-conventional ideas, I’m going to take the plunge and run one up the flagpole, and I beg of you to indulge me for a moment before bringing it down too soon. The idea involves an event and it has to do with a Tibetan musical instrument that most Tibetans will never even touch in their lifetime – The Dungchen.

While most Tibetans only hear the Dungchen (Tibetan long horn), on rare religious ceremonies and don’t really have a close affinity with the instrument, I’ve always been fascinated by people’s stories of the challenges involved in  learning to play it, and their appreciation and fondness for the Dungchen’s unexpectedly subtle  musical attributes. The versatility and range of its timbre, its use as almost a percussive instrument in certain ritual dance music, and of course the cyclical breathing technique that allows for sustained continuous notes, give the instrument an air of drama and imbue it with a sense of awe to all Tibetans. These days the instrument is seen as being synonomous with sacred  music, but my pet theory, based on ancient petroglyph images found in Northern Tibet, of figures holding horn like instruments, is that this and perhaps some other Tibetan wind instruments have their roots in pre-Buddhist martial music, and that they were co-opted for Buddhist ritual music much later on. In either case, there is no doubt that the Dungchen goes back far into Tibetan history, and the sound of the long horn is one that is perhaps more quintessentially suited to the mountains and valleys of Tibet than any other musical instrument.

So how can Tibetans take an artifact like the Dungchen for example, and turn it into a much larger idea that people can interact and grow in many different directions? An idea that would not only allow people to appreciate the finer points of this ancient instrument, but that could help connect us to each other and to the land of our ancestors, both in exile and inside Tibet.

The answer is quite simple – Create a festival for monastic music, make the Dhungchen the center piece, hold the event at 14,000 feet above sea level, and make sure it’s on a lake that crosses the Tibet- India border.

Well a few minutes on Google Earth has yielded the perfect location. High up on the Ladakh Tibet border is a beautiful clear lake called Pangong Tso. The southern one third of the lake is in Ladakh, and the northern shores lie in Tibet where many mountain streams feed into it. The festival could take place on both sides of the border with monk musicians from Tibet and India/Nepal playing on their respective sides. Please don’t come up with the many mundane and logical reasons why such an event would be impossible, such as the area requiring special permits on the Ladakhi side, and the Chinese not allowing such an event to take place on the Tibetan side. This is not the time to think of what’s not possible, but the time to imagine the event as a perfect happening in every way possible. This is the hard part. Being negative and making compromises is the easy part.

Here’s what the festival might look like. I’ll describe it on the Ladhaki side of the lake, and you can conjure up the scene on the Tibet side yourself.

A day before the festival, Tibetans start arriving from across India and other parts of the world. There are monks from about twenty different monasteries – some groups as small as five and some comprising of as many as 30 monk musicians. The assortment of Tata Sumos, Mini buses, and chartered buses unload their passengers and cargoes of drums, cymbals, Gyalings, and of course, the Dungchens. Some of the Dungchens are wrapped in thick padding and covered in plastic sheaths, while others have been crated in wooden boxes. The monks from as far away as Mundgod, Rajpur, Dharamsala, Tawang, Gangtok, and Kathmandu, greet each other and are excited to see which monastery will emerge from the next vehicle. They examine and admire each others instruments as they’re unpacked, and engage in passionate conversation about the different musical traditions and playing techniques. By mid afternoon, almost all of the festival goers and monks had arrived, and the last of the transport vehicles were starting their journey back to Leh.

As the jumble of tents start to be pitched, they create a quilt of bright synthetic colors on the lakes shore, punctuated by the few large Khaki hued army tents that were brought by the four larger monasteries, their rivalry apparent by the distance they chose to pitch their tents from each other.

By early evening, as the temperature started to dip, the aroma of chopped onions and Thukpa broth boiling, slowly emanated from the canteen tents, accompanied by the sound of large gas burners and the rapid random rhythms of many cleavers at work.  From a distance though, you could only hear the horns and drums practicing, in short bursts and single beats, more it seems as tests for the instrument’s tone and pitch than for playing full pieces. For the six hundred or so lay Tibetans who had gathered to attend the event, there were many surprise reunions, shared stories of how each had heard of this event, and confessions of the secret fascination that the Dungchen had held for each of them. Ngawang Khechog la, the New Age Didgiridoo and Dungchen player was in a canteen tent, looking a little desperate to find some vegetarian fare, and telling a reporter from the Voice of America that the festival was like a dream come true for him. A team from TIPA had come to record the event for their audio archive and were busy testing their equipment with a lot of ‘testing one two three’s. And most surprising of all, there were twenty 11 year old children from a school in Kalimpong, brought there by Gen Yangchenla, their music teacher, who describes herself as a lover of all music and a Dungchen freak. She had somehow persuaded her school to allow her to teach monastic music appreciation as part of the music curriculum. And one Tibetan NGO had brought twenty five elders in their 70s and 8os from settlements located in the hot plains of South India. These folks had transformed tropical jungles into farmland back in the 1960s, soon after their arrival from Tibet, and had spent their lives in places like Mundgod, Byllakupe and Hunsur. None of them had ever thought that they would see the Tibetan plateau and a crystal clear lake like this before they died. These old Tibetans didn’t sleep that night. They sat under the million stars in wonder, mumbling Manis, and every few minutes pointing excitedly at a shooting star, and occasionally glancing across the lake, hoping for a glimpse of a light although they were told that the Tibetan side of the shore was much too far to be visible.

As dawn broke silently, the only sound was that of shallow water lapping gently on the pebble beach. And as people started to crawl out of their tents one by one, they were struck by the pink sunlight painting the peaks of the surrounding mountains and the crystal clear water of the lake which was still in shade.  The Dzari Mountains in the distance seemed close enough to touch and flocks of black necked herons landed and then took off again from the lake.  As the minutes passed, the sky seemed to transform itself with great urgency, changing the lake from turquoise blue one minute to dark blue the next, and then to a mirror reflecting the now pale yellow and purple mountains.

People were milling around the tea tents, their breath visible in the chilly air, and once armed with a hot mug of satisfying  Tibetan tea and a Sankar Bhaley, they started to walk down to the shore to sit in small groups around a low platform stage covered with a canopy, just a few feet from the water’s edge.  Everyone wore thick jackets and some had brought their blankets with them as the temperature had yet to be lifted by the morning sun.  A breeze was blowing that made the red, blue and yellow awning fabric on the canopy rise and fall like a spectators doing the wave in a sports stadium. Then one by one, people started to stand up as they noticed the single file of monks approaching from behind, each carrying their instrument, or in the case of the Dungchens, two monks on either end of the horn.  The monks found their seating area which was located to one side of the canopied stage, and the organizers of the event quietly and efficiently served them steaming hot Bocha. In fact this was almost the first time in the last two days that one had barely noticed the organizers at work – the arrival of all these people and the setting up of the camp had happened so seamlessly and efortlessly, almost as if the six hundred or so people attending had done it before.

Finally a young man dressed in jeans and a black North Face down jacket climbed up on the stage and briefly introduced himself and the organizing group, which he said started as a facebook fan page with two members, who he said, ‘had a thing for the Dungchen’. He thanked everyone for coming to the event, and expressed a special Thuche che to the monks and monasteries for agreeing to come to Pangong Tso to play their music, although he said, all of monasteries had to be assured several times over that the festival invitation wasn’t a practical joke. He then looked across the lake, and said that he hoped there was a similar festival camp on the other side, and that ‘Dungchen across the Lake’ was dedicated to the Tibetans inside Tibet and that it was like an arm reaching across the lake to them.  His speech was short, had a point, and seemed to be spontaneous. One Amala from Dharamsala whispered to the person next to her that some Chidue members could learn a thing or two about giving speeches from this nice Bhu la.

But just as the ‘Bhu la’ had started to introduce the first musicians – monks from a remote  monastery in Tawang, the crowd’s attention was caught by a Land Rover coming down the steep and dusty road above the camp, and finally stopping at the edge of the audience. The doors swung open and out came a group of Indians dressed in trendy urban safari gear. The event organizers had arranged for the permit office in Leh to not issue passes for Pangong Tso for the two days of the festival, but apparently this group had connections in high places.

On their part, the Indians, who had come to see a lake in the middle of nowhere, seemed completely taken aback by the sight of hundreds of tents and all these people congregated at the lake’s edge, not to mention the sight of two hundred red robed monks holding musical instruments. The Tibetans closest to the Indians explained what was going on, and the man on the stage continued on by asking the Tawang monks to take the stage.  But just as they were setting up their instruments, and one young monk started to give a little background to his monastery and the musical traditions practiced there, people in the crowd  started glancing back towards where the Indians, where there seemed to be some soty of commotion.

What had happened was that the Indians had taken out their cameras the moment the monks took to the stage, and started clicking away. By force of habit some of the nearby Tibetans smiled for the photographers and posed for them also, making peace signs and with some of the younger ones holding what looked like hip hop poses seen on MTV. It was a tourist meets Tibetan moment that could have taken place anywhere in India, Nepal or even Tibet.

But then something happened which had not occurred ever before. One of the organizers went over to the Indians and very politely asked them to refrain from shooting photographs, and explained that the event was not meant to be a display of culture, but a living of it, and that it wasn’t a tourist event.  A couple of the Indians immediately took offence and said ‘Hare what the fuck yar’ and ‘are you telling us that we can’t take photos in our own country’, when there was a ‘shhh’ sound from the other side of the Land Rover. It was an older Indian man and he was holding his finger up to his lips . The other Indians went quiet as he then proceeded to slowly screw the lens cap back on his Nikon, and sit down cross legged on the very spot where he was standing. The others reluctantly followed suit although somewhat reluctantly and with some cursing under the breath, ‘bloody Tibtis yar’. Attention slowly returned to the fluttering canopy and the seven monks sitting underneath it.

As if on queue, as the last head had turned around to face the stage, the breeze died down, causing the running ripples on the lakes surface to become smaller and smaller. Moments later, the lake had turned into a still mirror, reflecting the purple mountains across the lake whose sunlit tops looked like they were dipped in liquid gold that was running down the sides. And as the valley was slowly started to reflect back the glowing  mountain sides, the cascading sound of rolling cymbals started to rise and fall as if to mimic the stilled ripples of a few moments ago.  Then a single beat of a hide drum, followed by a sequence of beats with diminishing spaces between the notes, like the settling of a bouncing ball followed.  The cymbal movements responding and playing off the drums like two spinning tops circling each other. And then the wailing sound of the Gyalings, a clarinet like instrument, took the music to a more defined space, evoking both grand majesty and distant melancholy, if such a thing were possible, and kept it there with its sustained quavering notes that seemed to climb higher and higher, suggesting a heralding, a call to prayers, or a procession.  The rapt audience was now tense with anticipation and kept their eyes on the two monks who had placed the mouthpieces of their Dhungchens on their lips for a while now.

And then, there it was. Barely audible at first. A faint tremor of a long note that sounded more like prayer flags fluttering in a strong gust than anything else. And then two deep blasts of ripping notes cut through the shimmering accompaniment music and took the crowd back with their perfect intensity and controlled aggression.  The monk’s rendition of the Dungchen’s entrance to the music was immaculate, and all at once, it was clear to everyone there that they were at the only place to be at that moment.

And as the other instruments respond to the Dungchen’s regal call, they formed a wall of sound that ascended from crescendo to crescendo, seemingly beckoning the Dungchen to ride the currents of sound they were generating.  The two young monks put their lips to the brass mouth pieces again, and at the end of that bar, joined the symphony with a series of beautiful and delicate sustained notes, each ending with them receding as if into the distance. To some the pomp and circumstance of the music conjured up images of the six thousand monasteries that used to adorn the Tibetan landscape. To others,  the primordial sound of the music made them reflect on the will and tenacity of the billions of Tibetans who over many tens of centuries turned the highest plateau on earth into a beloved nation.

And to the 11 year old students from Kalimpong, who were mesmerized by the music, they were hearing exactly what their teacher told them they might hear if they were very good and listened very very carefully to the Dhungchen – the sound of a giant horned eagle soaring high up where the lapis sky meets black space.

After 50 years of Chinese control over Tibet, one might say that we are in a ‘checked’ position, and at this stage of a chess game, it’s  extremely dangerous if one doesn’t reassess the whole game, think ahead, and find new strategies. And today, with the position we are in and a China that is different than a mere 10 years ago, new idea that has the potential to create both space and forward motion for Tibetans is going to have to be radically different and bold, and not just a cosmetically touched up old idea.

Here’s where things stand as I see it, and how we might proceed in a completely different manner than the 2008 Big Meeting in order to find fresh insights and ideas needed to chart a new direction for Tibetans.  There may be a less difficult and radical way than I what I’m proposing below, but I’ll leave that for my next blog post.

Tibetans have made enormous efforts and sacrifices in trying to  overcome the many problems they confront today, almost all of which have their roots in the way that Beijing has exercised its rule in Tibet over the last 50 years. And while Tibetan society has  shown tremendous resilience in surviving the decades of attacks on their religion, society and way of life, they have not succeeded in gaining even the minimum political autonomy necessary in order for them to have control over their own cultural and religious lives.

Disappointingly and predictably, decisions made at the 5th Tibet Work Forum that took place in Beijing in March 2010, focused solely on economic development to remedy the ‘Tibet problem’, and didn’t include any new thinking and initiatives to address the many deep-seated problems that lie behind the region wide protests of 2008.

It is Beijing’s continuous insensitivity, whether conscious or not, to the discontent resulting from its misrule in Tibet, and its unwillingness to let Tibetans have any meaningful say in how they are ruled that gives me a growing sense that things may not turn out well after all, despite all our hopes and dreams. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting more cynical, but it’s been dawning on me lately that sometimes best efforts and best intentions may not be sufficient, and that continuing to repeat them without any change in course or thinking, may simply lead to an irreversible depletion of resources, spirit, and time.

So the question then becomes, what are the options open to Tibetans and can we find a better strategy to bring about positive change, and perhaps even more importantly, can we see an entirely new way of thinking about Tibet that can open up possibilities for productive activity immediately. The answer is no – we can’t.  We can’t conceive a new way of seeing Tibet and a direction towards that vision that is audacious and bold enough while standing in our present shoes. A rabbit cannot lay eggs. The degree of shift in thinking I’m imagining is well beyond the matter of whether Tibetans want independence or autonomy, especially as those options don’t seem to exist in reality. Not to preclude any ideas and areas of thinking, but merely to suggest how wide the scope of thinking can encompass, I’m imagining the possibility of considering the happiness and development of Tibetan society, China itself, and the world in general, as a possible canvas upon which to imagine a better outcome for all parties.

For a transformation of the magnitude required for a total game change, we must first face ourselves in the mirror and understand our own motivations, fears and aspirations, and the reasons behind our hopes and actions to date. We also need to develop deep and accurate insights into China’s motivations, fears and aspirations regarding Tibet, and also that of many important nations that have a stake in what happens to Tibet. And the only way to start doing all of this is to first stop doing everything.  Cease all actions and activities, including thinking the way we are accustomed to doing on all matters concerning Tibet, and take a complete time out. Use the time to learn how to rock climb, speak Swahili, or dig a 50 feet deep hole in the ground and then fill it back up again, a few times. For institutions and groups, the downtime time can be used to take stock of capabilities and resources, and do housecleaning and streamlining. But no new action or work is to be undertaken. All office emails must be set to auto vacation notices.

No matter how this period of suspended animation is used, the important thing would be to not engage in any thinking or action related to Tibet. No movement.

Finally, when enough time has passed, and people begin to feel a little distance from their projects and plans, then that would be the time to begin a new re-engagement with the work of Tibet – with fresh eyes and open minds. Ironically this sounds a bit like the desired mental state of the re-education process that the Chinese use on people to try and get them to believe and do things that go against their core beliefs. But in this case, it would be a re-education created of our own volition and for our own purpose.

So what happens next and when can it start happening you ask. The answer – not so quick please.

We need to recalibrate the time frame of our expectations. Every year since 1959, we’ve functioned on a one year plan in dealings with China and the situation in Tibet -  always with the wishful hope that things would get better the next year. At least that’s been the thinking of the exile administration and society. Well that’s not been proven to be true 50 times in a row, and it’s wasted a lot of time and prevented us from seriously considering important long-term planning on many fronts.

It’s time to change this unrealistic and unproductive way of viewing the future. We need to think in terms of short, medium, and long-term goals. Short could be as brief as a week, and long could span 50 years or more. These time frames need to come within our awareness and under our control.

Once our thinking on time becomes less constricted and more encompassing, then the next step in our re-engagement would be to gather as much information and insights on all aspects of the Tibetan situation – from all vantage points and all considerations. Only after we develop a whole new and more comprehensive understanding of where Tibet and the Tibetan cause stands, and the weaknesses and strengths of different paths towards change,  can we then move forward with the next phase – the articulation of long, medium and short-term goals. And finally, once these first two steps have been completed with the widest and deepest consideration of all factors, than the process of distilling clear, simple and single-minded strategies for implementing these goals can begin.

Of course not every single Tibetan needs to go through all the steps but it would be important for people to go through the first step of softening their long-held beliefs and convictions, so that they may become more open to considering the new ideas that will emerge as individuals and groups begin to brainstorm and incubate their ideas.

Once the ideas are culled down to three or four through discussion and debate,  than they can be presented to His Holiness for his consideration. I feel certain that Gyalwa Rinpoche would welcome Tibetans finally shouldering their responsibility and taking such a historic initiative, and that the teams presenting the ideas would be granted the opportunity to have open and frank exchanges of views with His Holiness. There is no doubt that His Holiness’ wisdom and experience will add greatly to the fine tuning of the final platforms, not to mention the fact that his involvement and input would insure wide acceptance and support of them amongst Tibetans inside Tibet and across the world.

The final selection of the winning strategy could be done in a number of different ways which are not important to discuss at this point. But no matter how it’s accomplished, what would emerge could be a bold and fresh new way of seeing the Tibetan situation and a better future for the Tibetan people, along with clear goals for near and distant futures, and a strategic idea that can guide the work of all Tibetan efforts both inside Tibet and in exile.

Part 2 of this topic will explore how to approach and manage the three steps of the re-engagement process.