China systematically dismantles heart of Tibetan Buddhism

LARUNG GAR (China) — Atop a hill, a growling chain saw drowned out loudspeakers broadcasting a lama’s chants from a nearby temple.

The chain saw, wielded by workers demolishing a row of homes, signalled the imminent end of thousands of hand-built monastic dwellings at Larung Gar, the world’s largest Buddhist institute.

Since its founding in 1980, Larung Gar has grown into an extraordinary and surreal sprawl — countless red-painted dwellings surrounding temples, stupas and large prayer wheels. The homes are spread over the walls of this remote Tibetan valley like strawberry jam slathered on a scone.

Larung Gar has become one of the most influential institutions in the Tibetan world, the teachings of its senior monks praised, debated and proselytised from there to the Himalayas. In recent years, disciples have popularised a “10 new virtues” movement based on Buddhist beliefs, spreading its message across the region.

Now Chinese officials are tightening control over the settlement, in what many Tibetans and their advocates call a severe blow to Tibetan religious practice.

On a recent afternoon, workers in hard hats were dismantling cells that monks and nuns had built along a ridge. As they tossed aside wooden beams and plastic sheeting, nuns picked through rubble looking for their belongings. Men who appeared to be plainclothes police officers looked on from a bench across the street.

Hundreds of Buddhists had already been forced out of the area. A monk watching the destruction from a ledge said he was staying in a home across the valley. Like others interviewed for this story, he spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal from the authorities.

“I heard my home will be demolished,” he said. “I don’t know whether I’ll be allowed to stay.”

Tensions between Tibetans and the Chinese government have been high since a widespread uprising across the Tibetan plateau in 2008. Suppression of their culture and religious life remains at the heart of Tibetans’ grievances, and restrictions at important religious institutions like Larung Gar stoke that resentment.

Many Tibetans say they fear the erosion of their language, traditions and ways of worship. China still denounces the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, and bans his image throughout the region.

Some estimates put Larung Gar’s population at 20,000, many of them clergy who have flocked there from far corners of the vast plateau. Buddhist practitioners who are Han, the dominant ethnicity in China, live alongside Tibetans in the settlement, which is a winding 16-hour drive from the provincial capital, Chengdu.

Interviews with residents at Larung Gar and reports from Human Rights Watch, Radio Free Asia and overseas pro-Tibet groups indicate that officials intend to reduce the settlement’s population to 5,000 by late next year through mass evictions. During the summer, officials began deporting monks and nuns who were not registered residents of this area, Garze prefecture of Sichuan province, which includes a large section of the traditional Tibetan area of Kham.

Tibetan users of WeChat, a popular Chinese social networking app, have said that those evicted must promise never to return. As of last month, as many as 1,000 people had been forced out, residents and human rights groups said.

In June, an article on a state-run website quoted a local party official, Mr Hua Ke, as saying that authorities were not driving away residents or destroying their quarters. Rather, he said, they were overhauling the crowded settlement “to eliminate hidden dangers and safeguard the personal safety and property of the monks and nuns”.

When the demolitions began this summer, officials closed the area to foreigners. Police set up checkpoints outside the valley. But last month, a New York Times reporting team of three managed to enter Larung Gar.

A major checkpoint on the road was unattended, and the Times team boarded buses at the mouth of the valley that went into the heart of the settlement. Chinese tourists were also visiting, many drawn by the chance to see a sky burial, an outdoor Tibetan funeral ritual in which a man cuts up a body so that vultures can feast on the remains.

At noon, crimson-robed nuns flocked to a gathering at the main nunnery. Among the winding alleyways, clergy walked in and out of their homes, little more than shacks built with wooden beams and sheets of metal and plastic. Monks speaking Mandarin — probably ethnic Han — were digging a sewage canal.

It looked like daily life, nothing out of the ordinary, until the Times team reached a large prayer wheel on a main road winding up the valley’s north wall. Next to the wheel, four workers in hard hats were standing atop a home, ripping off the metal roofing. Nearby was a plot of dirt with rubble from another demolished home.

At the top of the ridge, a long stretch of homes were being torn down by workers. A chain saw could be heard, and a yellow earth digger was nearby.

This destruction was occurring in a part of Larung Gar with particular religious significance. The homes had been built across from the valley’s highest stupa, which pilgrims and residents circumambulate, often while spinning hand-held prayer wheels.

The government says the settlement is crowded, and it is. There are open sewage drains and trash pits. In 2014, a fire destroyed about 100 homes. But Tibetans say officials could build newer, cleaner enclaves rather than evict people. The government’s real aim, they believe, is to weaken centres of power that can rival it.

Mr Elliot Sperling, a Tibet scholar who taught at Indiana University, shared the Tibetans’ view of the motives behind the demolitions.

“The party sees Tibet, inside and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, as one of the more volatile regions and does not take kindly to alternate sources of authority, including moral and behavioural authority, and clearly the growth of Larung is problematic,” Mr Sperling said. THE NEW YORK TIMES