Manhattan’s Park Hyatt, where His Holiness stayed until July 8, became a site of pilgrimage. There were political implications, too.
by Ugyen Gyalpo
The periphery between 6th and 7th Ave and 57th and 58th Street, where the Park Hyatt Hotel is located in Manhattan, New York was transformed into a holy pilgrimage site for a couple of weeks by Tibetans and Buddhists alike, since His Holiness the Dalai Lama stayed in the hotel until July 8 during his pre/post knee surgery recovery phase. Hundreds of Tibetans did the circumambulation called Kora in Tibetan around the hotel, as one would do around a holy pilgrimage site.
As I was doing my own kora with my family, thoughts started bouncing off and I was visualizing this huge stupa replacing the Hyatt glassed building. A small makeshift shrine was built using the poles of the scaffoldings towards the entrance of the building and was decked with Khatas, white ceremonial scarves. Devotees of the Dalai lama from Tibetans to Mongolians, Bhutanese to Taiwanese were seen prostrating three times in front of the building, much to the curiosity of bystanders and hotel guests alike entering and exiting the premise.
Ever since His Holiness arrived in New York after almost a decade, a sense of jubilation has enveloped the Tibetan psyche. At the same time though, to witness the hope and symbol of Tibet succumbing to the forces of ageing and impermanence, visuals of him struggling to get off a chartered plane, his hands and body shouldered by his aides, images of him being wheelchaired into the hospital for a knee surgery later on, have added to mixed emotions of sadness as well, even though His Holiness has time and again reassured the Tibetan people that he would live up to the age of 113, and he is sound and healthy.
Behind the presence of His Holiness and the gust of strong emotions it has generated, is the simmering question of the sudden resurgence of Tibet’s case in the geo-political arena, catapulted by a major Bill for Tibet passed unanimously by both houses of Congress, the surprise visit of a U.S Congressional delegation to India to meet the Dalai Lama and hand deliver a copy of the Bill yet to be signed into law by Biden amidst vehement condemnation from the Chinese. The visit of the Dalai Lama to the U.S for surgery followed soon after at a time when all of this was happening and can’t be ruled as a mere coincidence.
Just like Tibetans are circumambulating the Hyatt hotel in New York where the Dalai Lama is staying, the U.S government is revisiting and re-orbiting around Tibet’s case that was left in the back burner for dead for decades. At a time when China’s rise has become an existential threat, using and weaponizing Tibet, China’s Achilles heel, to push China on the defensive has become a timely master stroke for the U.S, fueling another T, Tibet, after Taiwan with ignition of its ambiguous policies, reeling China on the political edge.
The rebranding so to speak of Tibet’s status to further the interest of the U.S, from recognizing Tibet as a part of China for decades to a divergent turn of designating Tibet now as an “unresolved conflict,” is a huge parabolic shift in the U.S policy against China.
I am not a political pundit but I think that the arrival of His Holiness the Dalai lama to the U.S is not a coincidence limiting the visit for just a knee surgery, but rather a precursor to major political optics set in stones aimed to infuriate China directly, when His Holiness may be invited to the White House for the signing ceremony of the Tibet Resolve Act. Can you imagine the geo-political fallout such an optic could cause with China-US relationship, resurrecting the Dalai Lama as the de facto leader of Tibet?
But in all honesty, given how Tibet is thrown at the brink of extinction, total annihilation of its identity, culture and civilization, any news of Tibet on the global scene helps to keep Tibet alive and relevant.
But the unmistakable thought of Tibet being used as a pawn in the political chess game again, just like how CIA had used Tibetan resistance force during the height of the Cold War era and later deserted after Nixon and Kissinger kissed us goodbye, can’t be filtered out from our bruised sentiments. It’s still raw in our minds. But at this point, Tibet has nothing to lose. We have lost everything except for hope.
Recently, on a trip to Italy on a water taxi ride from the island of San Marco, Venice to Lido, I met a British older gentleman, his face as plum as a tomato with blonde hair waving as our boat sped by, and he said with profound sadness, “What happened to Tibet was very unfortunate.” The look on his apologetic face seemed to tell how the international community had failed the Tibetan people.
In the truest sense, Tibet has become a case of sky burial—with the dead body of Tibet being chopped off to feed the greedy hungry vultures of today.