The scholar spent ten minutes explaining that he wrote his book from a historical and sociological perspective, not from a religious perspective. He based his conclusions on evidence from documents and carvings, not from oral tradition. It was good that he said this, but it didn’t matter.
As soon as his ten minutes were up, arms shot up in the audience. The first monk to stand up made a good point about something the scholar had written about the founder of the tradition. The monk’s voice became increasingly impassioned as he quoted from the book and questioned how the scholar could make such a conclusion based on the limited evidence.
Monks behind him joined in, boisterously supporting his question and clarifying. When things got too loud or animated, the administrating monks hissed and clicked and waved their hands up and down.
A couple of monks had no questions to ask, only strong condemnations and pleas, and when they finished their speeches, the audience erupted in applause.
Bodies hunched forward on chairs, jumped up and sat back down, reached eagerly for the microphone, beat fists into their own thighs, and craned to look in all directions to see what others were doing and saying. A few pointed out that Muslims would behead such a traitor.
The scholar shrank in his chair and the flesh on his face sagged more with each question. Despite his defense that he was working from a different perspective and was only presenting his opinion, he had very little to say to monks who pointed out that Buddhists and other detractors would use his work to say, “You see? Even Bönpos are calling themselves fakes!”
In the end, the scholar admitted some errors, both in his original work (which is now 30 years old, after all) and in the translation from English to Tibetan, which was assisted by Buddhist monks who may have been inept at capturing the subtlety of certain ideas and expressions.
I asked a number of monks afterwards how it went and responses were mixed. Some said he had no good answers while others said it was a success because he agreed to change some things.
A fascinating meeting of traditional and modern, orthodox and heterodox, passion and passion. Selfishly, I’m just hoping this was a positive enough encounter that the monks will be willing to work with me again.
