dozens of doozies

on a forgotten internship, tibet and the mother

Dec 07, 2022

For a brief stint in college, I interned at a documentary film company in Albany, California called Frame of Mind Films. I had no practical experience or studies in film, but was looking for opportunities to enter the media making world after theorizing over it for years. I thought I could learn from a company whose values I aligned with, one which produces stories that “embody and inspire a generosity of spirit; born out of a fundamental love for developing and fostering our human potential for good.”

The craigslist ad I responded to had some phrasing around “stories that impact our human condition and challenge our global consciousness,” so I was immediately pulled in. I walked a half mile and took two buses to get to their offices. I remember one time it rained so diagonally and so hard, I was drenched up to my knees and the faux fur trim on my hood dripped water into my turtleneck. I was so miserable, but I stuck it out.

The company was working on a series of films about women in Tibet. They were at varying levels of development and post-production some 12+ years ago, and I was fascinated by how they told stories of non-violent resistance to Chinese occupation. I heard a few stories about the Executive Producer and founder’s meetings with the Dalai Lama and the care with which she built relationships throughout her productions. In the short time spent with them, I was thoroughly impressed by the intention and effort toward the preservation of Tibetan history and the legacy of its women in exile.

The synopsis of the three films in that series are below:

A Quiet Revolution begins on March 12, 1959 when 15,000 unarmed Tibetan women took to the streets of Lhasa to oppose the violent occupation of their country by the Communist Chinese army.
For the first time on film, three generations of Tibetan women and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama tell the story of one of the great movements of nonviolent resistance in modern history.
From the streets of Lhasa to their principal refuge in Dharamsala, India, the stories that live at the heart of this film offer an intimate and direct experience of what it is to lose everything and begin anew.
Ama Adhe recounts 28 years spent in a Chinese prison and the deep faith that allowed her to survive the ordeal as she teaches new generations of young refugees. Dolma Tsering describes sacrifices her parents made as exiles so that she might become first a teacher and then a member of Parliament, and Tseten Choeden, born and raised in exile, ensures that her Tibetan birthright is passed on to her own children as she wrestles with a culture in transition.
After 50 years in exile, His Holiness the Dalai Lama pays tribute to the courage of these remarkable women and their ability to keep their cultural legacy intact for generations to come.

Women of Tibet: The Buddha’s Wife explores the radical changes women and men experience on the quest to become fully realized human beings. Forced by the demands of modern living we delve into what it means to follow a spiritual path while reexamining traditional roles. This film seeks to shed light on what happens when two primal forces, the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine, begin to work together to create a more harmonious and peaceful world.

Gyalyum Chemo: The Great Mother recounts the compelling life story of Dekyi Tsering, the mother of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The Tibetan people call her “Gyalyum Chemo” or “Great Mother.” During the course of her long and extraordinary life, she gave birth to sixteen children, seven who survived, three of whom were recognized as incarnate lamas, and one who has been recognized by millions around the globe as one of the world’s leading ambassadors for peace.
Dekyi Tsering’s story embodies the generosity and wisdom of the “Great Mother” archetype in action. By following the journey of her life and times, we can see the gifts that mothers can and do give when there is nothing left to give; how a mother’s love survives regardless of loss; and how simple gestures of encouragement and support can profoundly impact the course of one’s life. These are the qualities of motherhood that not only keep a family together, but have also helped to keep a nation together as it faced cultural genocide and exile. They are also the qualities that helped inspire the strength to preserve culture, family, and tradition while in exile.

Over the last year of sabbatical, I’ve been quietly digging through my archives and completely forgot about this moment in time learning about Tibet and documentary film making. I finally watched the completed film on Gyalyum Chemo two nights ago with my mother.

We learned about Gyalyum Chemo’s humble life as a farmer and how kind and gracious she was to the people of Tibet once her son was recognized as the 14th incarnate Dalai Lama.

When I went down a digital spiral on Gyalyum Chemo, I came across an interview the Dalai Lama did with a woman known as “The Mother,” and became fascinated by her story too. Originally named Mirra Alfassa (1878-1973), she was born to an Egyptian mother and Turkish father shortly after they settled in Paris. She was said to be a gifted child with extraordinary “inner experiences,” and eventually became a collaborator of the spiritual teacher, Sri Aurobindo, whom she recognized as a mentor in her visions as a child when she visited him in Pondicherry, India in 1914.

The two worked all their lives for the materialization of a mode of consciousness beyond the “mind,” called the “Supramental” or Supermind. This mode of consciousness would not only bring about a new iteration of our human species, but a “modification of the whole terrestrial creation.” The Mother carried on this work after Sri Aurobindo’s death, and eventually came to envision the construction of an international township in 1968 called Auroville. The township would be a place of experimentation and innovation on collectivity—aptly described as a type of “divine anarchy.”

Matrimandir, the ‘soul’ of Auroville via Shutterstock

Mirra took to the work of nurturing and mothering a community around the philosophies she dedicated her life to. In 1973, when the Dalai Lama visited Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram, he had a brief chat with The Mother (Mirra) just 10 months before her passing. Below is the transcript from the foundation dedicated to Aurobindo and The Mother’s work together:

On 18 January 1973, the Mother was visited by the Dalai Lama. His questions were put to the Mother by Dr. Kireet Joshi, the then Registrar of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, who in turn conveyed the Mother’s replies back to the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama’s Interview with the Mother:

Dalai Lama: It is my dream to have the perfect economic development of Tibet, the perfect organization, the efficiency that we find in Communism, but all this based upon, founded upon the Buddhistic qualities of Compassion and Love, so that the people in power do not degenerate into corruption. What is Mother’s view of this dream, and whether such a thing will be realized in Tibet?
The Mother: It is not a dream. It will naturally be. But the time it will take, I do not know. This is something like what Sri Aurobindo has said about the Supramental.
Truth, Love, Compassion will give a basis to the new creation. It is not birth but the value of men that should give the right to authority.
If the teaching of Sri Aurobindo can spread over the world, and if there is the full manifestation of the Supramental, then the Supramental will be the power of the liberation of Tibet.
It is bound to come, it will come; but if it goes as it is going now, it will take hundreds of years. But if the Supramental is manifested, it may come quick. Quick does not mean ten or twenty years — that would be almost miraculous.
Kireet Joshi: But the Supramental is now working very powerfully.
The Mother: It is, it is working. It will be manifested with enough power when the right people have the authority.
For the moment, it seems that the opposition, the falsehood attacks with full power before dying. Never, never have men lied as much as they are doing now. It seems the old habit comes spontaneously. But it must be broken.
We are at a very … what we could call an unpleasant moment of the history of the earth. It is interesting because the action is very powerful, but I can’t call it pleasant.
But I have told you that already; I wrote it.
[Message of November 26, 1972: “Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be. It is only the Truth that can save us; truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the Truth or being destroyed.”]
Kireet Joshi: Yes, Mother. The Mother has given the message.
Dalai Lama: As for myself, I have no desire to continue in power in the Government. For I feel that the Government involves so much of conflicts of parties, and the necessity of taking sides with one party against the other…
The Mother: One can govern without taking sides. That is the mistake of all the governments; they reduce their capacity tremendously.
But beyond the mind, there is a higher and deeper consciousness — they would find a Consciousness in which one can make use of all the capacities. It is a question of the consciousness being broad enough, so that each capacity can be put in its place in order to make a general harmony.
Dalai Lama: There is good will, there is sincerity among people all over the world, but the number of such people is not large. Will they be able to have an effect to change the conditions of the world?
The Mother: It is bound to change; it is bound to change. Only, if the people are sincere it will shorten the time; it will go faster if the people are sincere.
The first and indispensable step is to stop all falsehood. Falsehood is all that contradicts in us the Presence of the Divine.

When I read this, I feel the Dalai Lama’s sincerity and vulnerability and The Mother’s gentle guidance in the conversation.

It is also just chilling to read this from 1973. Over the past few years, there’s this constant eerie sensation of the relevance / presence of past historical moments. Time wrinkles these calamities side-by-side in such a spooky way. The presence of this falsehood The Mother shares is now fake news, the falsehood of politicians who are invited to tables to negotiate on topics of human progress while committing the most atrocious sins against humanity. Still happening.

I keep wondering what it takes for these patterns to shift.

According to the Freedom House 2022 report on Global Freedom, Tibet tied Syria and South Sudan as the least free country in the world in terms of political and civil liberties. The authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party has completely obliterated Tibetan culture. President Xi Jinping has even made remarks and legal moves to assert claim over Tibet’s spiritual and political sovereignty by allowing the Chinese Communist Party to pick the next Dalai Lama. By law, China must approve of all high appointments, but the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama refuse this procedure.

There are many people who cite the spiritual crisis of our times as a deficit of the “divine mother” archetype on Earth. The work of resistance, truly, is nothing without mothers. The gestation, nurturing, messaging, gathering and capacity building of movements is both a deeply maternal and spiritual process. I chose to live with my mother for a year and a half to better understand and heal the relationship with that core teacher. We aren’t all perfect, but there is so much to learn from both the darkness and the goodness in the journey of motherhood.

Re-scripting this relationship is a cellular process at times, conversational other times, mediated through media on occasion, but mostly just a process of complete presence. As I write this, I turn to her and ask how we can keep faith in such trying times. She says a bunch of things in English at first, and then she recites a poem in Farsi and laughs. I don’t need to know exactly how it translates, I just find comfort in her unwillingness to flinch at a crumbling reality.

I am consistently reminded by her to not flinch in the face of terror, or the repetition of harsh events. We’ve personally been through dozens of doozies, but it gets better and easier every time. “Focus on that.”

Anyway, those are some thoughts for today. I skipped yesterday’s post because I was tired. It felt much better to lay on the couch with a blanket and listen to the rain than force something out. I will make it up though, and not in an annoying way!

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