Maroon, yellow and black: impressions from the annual foundation day picnic at TCV
by Kåre Hitland

It is around two o’clock on the day of the annual picnic and I feel my brain is a bit loaded with impressions. Parades and dances and now Tibetan opera. It is sung in Tibetan, which I don’t understand, so it’s a bit hard to keep up the concentration. Luckily, my Tibetan friend has said that he is not too fond of opera either, so I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong as I pull back from the crowd and start to read a magazine about the Tibetan’s Children’s Village instead.

I realize that there is something strange about the crowd as well. I am not the only one who doesn’t pay full attention to the opera. In fact, most of the crowd is looking in the opposite direction, towards the offices behind the courtyard. Something must be about to happen and I do have a suspicion of what. So I join them and wait.

And yes – you can see a movement start in the crowd. Security guards are paying close attention to what is happening - and there he comes into view: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, on his way down to the car that will bring him back to his residence.

There is something magical about him. What are the words they use here? He has a strong presence? He radiates positive energy? Indeed. He does affect people. I see people hugging each other after he has left, others crying.

Someone is breathing heavily and yet others are just rendered speechless. And it is their emotions, more than his presence, which touches me. This is beautiful!

The day had started long before this. Today, I actually woke up at six o’clock in the morning, as I had promised to meet my friends at 07:30 (and I am VERY slow in the morning). Waking up at six is pretty nasty – bordering on plain evil – when you are used to sleep until nine or ten. But for just one day I guess I can live with it.

We started walking up to the children’s village around eight and just followed the crowd that was moving up. Up there, it seemed as if the entire community had gathered. People were crowded everywhere, but eventually my friends managed to find a free spot to sit, on the opposite side. The weather was absolutely fantastic and my friends had brought chai. So we just sat down and waited for the display to start.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived and found his place under the Tibetan flag. Then the show started with a parade and marching bands. After this there was a performance of traditional Tibetan dance and after that again there were speeches. The stage was far away and the sound came from a loudspeaker somewhere else, so it was a bit difficult to determine exactly who was speaking. I tried to listen carefully, and also to watch the reactions in the crowd, so I wouldn’t miss His Holiness’s speech. I also realized that I didn’t know what his voice sounds like, which made it even more difficult. Is this him? No, that was the prime minister, my friends explained. Is this him? No, that was someone else.

Then someone started to speak. And suddenly there was no doubt. The words were in Tibetan, so all I could relate to was the voice that spoke. And what a voice! Deep, certain and powerful. Strong as a rock. It seemed to rumble, as if it resonated from deep down in the speaker’s stomach, if not from the bedrock below, or the earth itself – it takes only a tiny bit of imagination for that to seem likely.

I was told that he was speaking about the relation between Buddhism and reality, but as I couldn’t follow the speech myself, I could only listen to it as if it were music. And as I let it fill me, I seemed to remember having heard a similar voice sometime before. What if this voice belonged to someone dressed in black? I remember a commentary I once read: “No matter what you think – Johnny Cash is more man than you are.” But I think the writer would have had to make an exception for the man who this voice belongs to.

I suspect my thoughts are somewhat inappropriate, maybe even a bit ‘gonzo’. But then I summarized the situation: The weather is nice, we have chai and everybody is happy. And Buddhism is about the mind with all its faults and errors and this is what came out of mine just now.

So I just accepted myself, put on my shades and leaned back in the sunshine. I listened to the sound of the earth and dreamt of another time – another life –when the man in black could meet the man in maroon and yellow, and they could together bring culture and enlightenment to San Quentin Prison, and to the rest of the world.

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