While President John F. Kennedy was talking by phone with his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the morning of Tuesday, June 12, 1963, he suddenly exclaimed: “Jesus Christ!”

The president’s outburst had nothing to do with their conversation. Rather, he was responding to a photograph taken the day before, splashed on the front pages of the newspapers just delivered to him. The photo showed 73-year-old Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc engulfed in flames on a street in Saigon, South Vietnam while sitting calmly—it seemed—in the lotus posture. He hoped his drastic action might bring the world’s attention to what the Buddhists saw as the persecution against their religion by the Catholic regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Buddhist organizations had called for freedom from arbitrary arrest, the right to assemble in public, and an end to the supposed Catholic bias in appointing government officials.

Captured by Malcom W. Browne, the head of the Associated Press’s bureau in Saigon, the photo retains its ability to stop conversations to this day, making it an enduring symbol of the power of protest. Meanwhile, critics insist that the photo, and the reporting from Vietnam by Western newsmen including Browne, David Halberstam of the New York Times, and Neil Sheehan of United Press International, were responsible for Diem’s downfall and America’s ultimate defeat and humiliation in Vietnam.

But Browne had been determined, he insisted, only to provide his readers with a “continuous, honest assessment of the situation” in what he called “a puzzling war.” He believed that officials in Vietnam—Americans and South Vietnamese—should have tried to do the same. Browne thought that living in a free society meant a journalist had to “tell all of the people all of the truth all of the time. The newsman is obliged to fight forces that interfere with this vital process.”

Criticism continued to follow Browne. Later, when he reported on the war in the Persian Gulf in 1991, detractors back home accused him of harming the American cause in its fight against Iraq. “This is just silly, of course,” Browne said. “To the extent that America newsmen ‘took sides’ in either Viet Nam or the Persian Gulf, it was on the side of the United States.” For all societies at war, the important truth, he suggested, was the truth “that tells you ‘we are the good guys and we are winning,’ regardless of what team you’re on,” reflected Browne.

Yet as American involvement in Vietnam wound down, it no longer seemed possible “to believe in the goodness and rightness of our cause,” Browne noted. The public had been regularly promised by its government that there was “a light at the end of the tunnel”—yet victory never came. Instead of pointing fingers at the individuals who involved the country in the conflict, many in the United States decided to “blame the messengers—people like myself who had been sending back discouraging tidings of how bad things had been going,” Browne said.

The story of the monk’s self-immolation began on May 8, 1963, when South Vietnamese army and security forces had killed civilians protesting a new governmental decree outlawing the flying of the Buddhist flag on Buddha’s birthday in Hue. These killings sparked protests against the Diem government’s perceived anti-Buddhist policies.

Quang Duc’s fiery sacrifice was the latest of these protests. Thirty-two-year-old Browne captured it on a cheap, Japanese Petri-brand camera. Browne had arrived in Saigon on November 7, 1961. He had witnessed the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam grow from about 3,000 American military advisers when he arrived to more than 16,000 by the end of 1963. Tipped off about the demonstration the evening before, he was the only Western reporter on the scene to capture the horrific event on film.

The elder monk uttered no sound as the flames consumed his body, and did not change his position. But from his spot about 20 feet to the right and a little in front of Quang Duc, Browne could see that his “features were contorted with agony” and could hear moans from the crowd that had gathered to watch, as well as the ragged chanting from the approximately 300 yellow-robed monks and gray-robed Buddhist nuns who had joined the protest.

The newsman found himself “numb with shock” at the horrible scene. Though witnessing anyone commit suicide or suffer a violent death “is always a hard experience,” Browne later noted, “you can get used to it in war, but there was something special about this. It was kind of a horror.”

After about ten minutes, the flames died down and the monk “pitched over, twitched convulsively and was still.” Seemingly out of nowhere, a coffin appeared and fellow monks attempted to place Quang Duc inside. It was no use. The monk’s limbs, Browne recalled, “had been roasted to rigidity, and he could not be bent enough to fit in the casket. As the procession moved off toward Xa Loi Pagoda, his blackened arms protruded from the coffin, one of them still smoking.”

Browne’s film soon made its way from the AP bureau in Saigon to Manila with the aid of a “pigeon”—a regular passenger on a commercial flight willing to act as a courier to avoid censorship by South Vietnamese government officials. The photos were sent via the AP WirePhoto cable from Manila to San Francisco, and from there to the news agency’s headquarters in New York. There, the images were distributed to AP member newspapers around the world.

The reaction was immediate. While millions of words had been written about the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam, Browne’s pictures possessed what the correspondent later termed “an incomparable impact.”

A group of clergymen in the United States used the photograph for full-page advertisements in the New York Times and Washington Post decrying American military aid to a country that denied most of its citizens religious freedoms. Vietnamese Buddhist leaders emblazoned the image on placards they carried during demonstrations. Officials in communist China used the image for propaganda purposes, distributing copies throughout Southeast Asia and attributing the monk’s death to the work of “the U.S. imperialist aggressors and their Diemist lackeys.”

When President Kennedy called Henry Cabot Lodge to the White House to discuss his ambassadorship to South Vietnam, the president had on his desk a copy of the monk photograph. “I suppose that no news picture in recent history had generated as much emotion around the world as that one had,” Lodge noted.

Browne’s photograph has become one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War, seared into the collective American conscience alongside two other AP photographs—Eddie Adams’s “Saigon Execution,” his graphic shot of a suspected Viet Cong guerrilla being summarily executed at point-blank range by a South Vietnamese police chief, and Nick Ut’s “Terror of War,” showing a naked, nine-year-old girl screaming as she runs down a road with her skin burned from a South Vietnamese napalm bombing that mistakenly hit her village.

Browne, who won a Pulitzer in 1964 for his reporting from Vietnam, was often asked if he could have done anything to prevent Quang Duc from taking his life. But Browne realized that it would have been fruitless to try to intervene. The monks and nuns gathered for the protest stood ready to block anyone who dared to interfere. When a fire truck appeared, some of the monks had leapt in front of their wheels to stop them.

Quang Duc’s sacrifice weighed on Browne, who died on August 27, 2012. “I don’t think many journalists take pleasure from human suffering,” he noted, but he did have to admit to “having sometimes profited from others’ pain.” Although by no means intentional on his part, that fact did not help, Browne noted. “Journalists inadvertently influence events they cover, and although the effects are sometimes for the good, they can also be tragic,” he said. “Either way, when death is the outcome, psychic scars remain.”

There were other deaths that Browne witnessed in Vietnam—losses that became mere “footnotes” in the history of the war compared to the “theater of the horrible” that Quang Duc’s sacrifice represented for his cause. Browne, however, never forgot them. He had learned during his career to deal with “the ugliest events of our times,” including keeping his wits as he observed the dead and wounded on a battlefield. Browne was able to do his job by “concentrating on the mechanics of news covering. I have the nightmares afterwards.”

The post The Journalist Who Photographed the Burning Monk appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

No historic plaques mark the five-bedroom home at 515 N. Crescent Heights Blvd., which sits between West Hollywood and L.A.’s Miracle Mile. But this is where the famed anti-tax activist Jarvis lived, held meetings with Gov. Jerry Brown and other California players, and organized Proposition 13, 1978’s tax-limiting ballot initiative that still dominates California politics.

Another fall fight over Prop 13 is underway. The November ballot’s Proposition 15 proposes to lift Prop 13 caps on taxing commercial properties, thus creating—depending on whom you ask—either billions of dollars for education or new burdens for businesses. So, recently, I went over to check on the historic house—and got an unexpected lesson about how California and its homes keep changing, even if its initiative politics never do.

Jarvis’s undistinguished gray house is now Nechung Dharmapala, L.A.’s Tibetan Buddhist Center. The home has been painted a distinguished shade of orange associated with Buddhism. Above the front windows, two deer surround a wheel representing the Dharma, and a small stupa—a hemispheric structure representing the enlightened mind—rests outside the front door.

Inside, bedrooms are occupied by two monks, one an administrator, and the other the center’s spiritual director. The large, high-ceilinged living room where Jarvis once conducted the angriest California politics of the 20th century has been turned into a 21st-century sanctuary for lessons on the renunciation of ego, the development of compassion, and the possibility of enlightenment for all beings.

It took more than a year to redecorate the home into Nechung Dharmapala Center. Photograph courtesy of Nechung Dharmapala Center

At first, the home’s political past and religious present seemed discordant, but the more I contemplated the place, the more I began to see the continuities and connections. Indeed, 515 N. Crescent Heights Blvd. has become a double-monument to both the perils of revolutions and the paradoxes of protection. The house’s history asks: Why do humans suffer so much in their search for the safety and stability that this world only fleetingly provides?

Prop 13 was a great victory of a conservative California revolution that promised protection—against rising taxes, especially the property taxes that raise the cost of homes and thus displace people. The paradox is that the protector Prop 13 hasn’t protected us from California’s high taxes or extortionate housing prices.

Protection is also Nechung Dharmapala’s reason for being. This Buddhist center is associated with Tibet’s centuries-old Nechung Monastery, which is the headquarters of the State Oracle of Tibet, who embodies the deity Pehar, also known as “The Protector of Religion.”

How the living room looked when 515 N. Crescent Heights Blvd. was put up for sale.

Of course, the protector Pehar couldn’t stop Chinese communists from destroying Nechung Monastery and Tibet’s other religious sites after the 1949 revolution. But therein lies the paradox. The communists’ attacks on religion actually protected the faith. Tibetan Buddhists fled, spreading their teachings and establishing centers around the globe, eventually reaching Howard Jarvis’s front door.

Jarvis’s Tudor-style house was built in 1925, according to county records. Jarvis, a Utah native and “jack” Mormon (he drank cheap vodka he carried in his briefcase), bought it in 1941 for $8,000. He stayed there for the rest of his life, through at least one renovation and three marriages, the last to Estelle Garcia.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Jarvis held court in a big comfortable chair, smoking a cigar and eating Estelle’s corn soup, while distinguished visitors sat on simple sofas. The house was filled with energy and the conviction that a handful of people, without holding office, could upend the world.

“There were some curses, but no prayers,” recalls the Jarvis aide Joel Fox, who also served for a time as president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which remains a force, leading this fall’s campaign to fight Prop 15, and thus protect Prop 13.

Prop 13 governs modern California because it controls the money: Specifically, it requires a two-thirds popular vote to raise local taxes, and a two-thirds vote of the legislature to raise state taxes. But most Californians associate it with its property tax provisions, which cap overall taxes and allow for the reassessment of properties at market value only when they are sold.

When Prop 13 passed, Jarvis’s 3,000-square-foot home, on a 5,900-square-foot lot in a desirable part of L.A.’s westside—which he’d bought nearly 40 years earlier—was assessed at less than $60,000. Its annual tax bills, based on that low base, would stay below $1,000, even as neighboring homeowners paid 10 times that. In 2005, the home assessed value for tax purposes was $75,854; in 2006, after Estelle died (Jarvis himself died in 1986), it was reassessed at $1.25 million.

The house was sold in 2008 according to county records, and put up for sale again in 2013—as Tibetan Buddhists were growing desperate in their search for an L.A. headquarters.

The Nechung Kuten, who is also the Chief State Oracle of Tibet, had visited L.A. in 2007 and 2009 and called for the establishment of a center where Tibetans, Mongolians, and Westerners could study and practice Buddhism in a non-sectarian way. A donor stepped forward to fund a center, but finding the right place—with both a big gathering room and small bedrooms quiet enough for monks—was hard. Until a real estate agent took them to 515 N. Crescent Heights Blvd.

They bought the house in 2013 for $1.38 million. It took more than a year to redecorate the home in a Tibetan style, construct the shrine, and install the Buddha statues. In 2014, the center opened, and the space is often full.

In COVID, resident teacher Geshe Wangchuk has started conducting his lessons online. Photograph courtesy of Nechung Dharmapala Center

In Jarvis’s old living room, resident teacher Geshe Wangchuk now presides. He became a monk at age 12 (with ordination at the Nechung Monastery in Dharamsala, India) and arrived at Nechung L.A. in 2016. He’s skilled not only in explaining Buddhist philosophy but in the creation of sand mandalas and butter sculptures.

During the pandemic, Geshe Wangchuk shifted his daily practices and weekly teachings online. On Saturday mornings this summer, I watched him instruct, via nechungla.org, Zoom, and Facebook, a highly diverse group of Californians. The lessons leaned on a text, “The Three Principal Aspects of the Path,” by Je Tsongkhapa, a 14th-century teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. One passage presented a particular puzzle:

Furthermore when appearance dispels the extreme of existence,
And when emptiness dispels the extreme of non-existence,
And if you understand how emptiness arises as cause and effect,
You will never be captivated by views grasping at extremes.

I wondered if a mind could really be that open. Does avoiding extremes require feeling empty and uncertain about whether you actually exist? And how, I asked, might I apply such enlightenment to 515 N. Crescent Heights Blvd. or any of the extremes of today’s California?

The team at Nechung L.A. had no idea of the house’s history and knew nothing of Jarvis. In a conversation with Nechung L.A.’s board secretary, Tenzin Thokme, I found myself starting to explain Prop 13, and then why Prop 15 is in the news. But my explanations were mostly just questions. Might Prop 15 pull a few billion more dollars out of commercial property and into the schools? Or might the initiative’s many exemptions be exploited by wealthy property owners? Might this measure at the very least make a symbolic strike against Prop 13—or will the whole exercise just reinforce Prop 13’s power?

But if I understood Geshe Wangchuk, the recognition that I have more questions than answers is OK. Because uncertainty about what comes next, for me or for a proposition or for a house, might be the most powerful answer we ever get. Je Tsongkhapa taught it best 600 years ago: “If the entire object of grasping at certitude is dismantled, at that point your analysis of the view has culminated.”

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The fear, suspicion, and ill will, if not active hatred, that Burmese Buddhists bear toward Muslims is pervasive. It is a kind of ideological indoctrination that permeates the society in ways both subtle and overt. Buddhists across Burma (also known as Myanmar)—whether they are Buddhist monks, nuns, or laity—have expressed fear that their Burmese Buddhist identity is under threat of extermination. In Myanmar, it is popularly understood that to be Burmese (the nation’s largest ethnic group) is to be Buddhist. As such, a threat to Burmese Buddhism is seen as an existential threat to the nation.

The escalating persecution and genocide of Myanmar’s Muslim minority, the Rohingya, has deep roots in the country’s Buddhist institutions. The Ma Ba Tha that U Rarzar refers to translates to Association for the Protection of Race and Religion. It is well-known for its community outreach programs, legal clinics, donation drives, and its advocacy for Buddhism. Its membership consists of both monastic and lay Buddhist members.

The Ma Ba Tha is also known for its members’ active persecutions of the Rohingya Muslims in far western Burma’s Rakhine State. The attacks against the Rohingya in recent weeks have aroused international condemnation of Burma’s military government and of Aung San Suu Kyi, the formerly revered Nobel Peace Prize-winning politician who is Burma’s de facto civilian leader.

The Ma Ba Tha has been among the most vocal promoters of the notion of an imminent Muslim takeover in the country. In order to address these concerns, in 2015 the Ma Ba Tha supported the passing of four laws, collectively known as the “Race and Religion Protection Laws.” These laws were specifically designed to control the Muslim population’s growth through regulating birth rates, marriages, and conversions. Yet even with these laws in place, there is a rising fear and anxiety among Burmese Buddhists, who believe that the Muslim threat of extermination is nigh.

In fact, the country’s statistics show no such threat. Home to 55 million people, Myanmar has a population that is roughly 88 percent Buddhist. During the 1970s and 80s, the Muslim population stood at 3.9 percent. In the most recent census data from the Burmese Ministry of Labor, in 2016, the Muslim population had risen to 4.3 percent. However, the largest concentration of Muslims in Myanmar is the Rohingya, who have lived in Rakhine State, on the border with what is now Bangladesh, since the 1800s. While their numbers have increased over the years, their proportion of the national population has remained relatively constant.

If these numbers are accurate, why do Myanmar’s Buddhists exhibit such anxiety and fear?

Part of the answer lies in history. During the British colonization of Burma (1824-1948), there was a steady flow of South Asian immigrants into Myanmar. The British interpreted the developing South Asian Muslim community as evidence of modernization. Unfortunately, this colonial preferential stereotyping also divided South Asian Muslims from their Burmese Buddhist counterparts.

The British occupation of Burma, promotion of Christianity, and the lauding of non-Burmese Buddhists, sparked organized Buddhist responses, such as the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA), which sought to revitalize Burmese Buddhism. At the same time, South Asian Muslims were derided with the derogatory label “kalars,” due to their religion and darker skin color. Burmese Buddhists viewed South Asians as both polluting the reputation of the country, and as contributing to the eradication of Burmese Buddhists within their own country.

In the 1930s, Burma began boycotting “Indian goods.” Authoritative organizations such as the Legislative Council of the Governor of Burma characterized the continual immigration of South Asians as turning Burma into a dumping ground. The racialization of South Asian Muslims was not unique to Myanmar. In other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, South Asian Muslims and Malay Muslims have been labeled with the derogatory term khaek, another reference to skin color.

From the 1930s onward, there were periodic anti-Muslim riots and pogroms. According to Nyi Nyi Kyaw, a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, at the National University of Singapore, who has written extensively on the history of anti-Muslim feelings in Myanmar, the Burmese Buddhist attacks focused primarily on the South Asian Muslims, such as Bengali Muslims. Many of these people emigrated from the Indian state of Bengal and what is now Bangladesh. These attacks continued throughout the Burmese military junta’s reign, from 1962 to 2011.

This background becomes crucial in understanding the power behind the recent Rohingya narratives in the media. When high-ranking Buddhist monks such as U Wirathu remind their Buddhist audiences about the dangers of Islam, and reference the kalars—likening the Rohingya to wild dogs or African carp—they are making use of a well-rehearsed racist narrative. This racism fuels fears of pollution, and stokes the fires of hatred and desire to commit violence. It also allows the Burmese Buddhists to see the Rohingya as the “Other:” a caricature of the foreign as sub-human, with very little moral worth.

This campaign of dehumanization has been disastrous for the Rohingya. After widespread anti-Muslim violence in 2012, the Burmese government placed many Rohingya in camps. Despite severe criticism from international organizations including Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, and Amnesty International, the government forced more than 120,000 Rohingya to live in cramped spaces, without sufficient food, water, or medical attention. In 2014, The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof identified these areas as concentration camps and noted that physicians, including Doctors without Borders, were removed from the camps and not permitted to re-enter.

Buddhist authorities have fostered another narrative in Burmese history: the invasion and pollution of the Burmese Buddhist female body. With Myanmar’s Race and Religion Protection Laws, the Ma Ba Tha made women’s bodies the staging ground of a battle for Buddhism. The “Religious Conversion Law” “protects” Burmese Buddhist women from marrying Muslims and converting to Islam. U Wirathu has delivered sermons claiming that the Muslim strategy is to convert Buddhist women, impregnate them, and raise Muslims as enemies against the country. This tactic has not been overlooked by Hindu nationalists in India, who recently made allegations of Muslim plots to “seduce” their women.

Women’s bodies are not only protected, they are revenged in this narrative, with violent retaliation for the “pollution” of Burmese Buddhist womens’ bodies. The most recent chapter of anti-Muslim violence began in June 2012, over allegations that Rohingyas had raped a Rakhine Buddhist woman. Even though there was no legal verification of the attack, the Rakhine Buddhists burned the villages of the Rohingyas. More than 100,000 Rohingya became refugees by the end of 2012—and were soon placed in Myanmar’s concentration camps.

In his book Colors of Violence, Indian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar examines the roots of Hindu-Muslim violence in India. He argues that during a conflict, an attack on a female body escalates a conflict and dissolves any possibility of civil discourse. Kakar writes: “Rape makes such interactions impossible and turns Hindu-Muslim animosity into implacable hatred.”

The violence also focuses on Rohingya female bodies. Burmese Buddhist soldiers have raped Rohingya women as a means to exert their dominance. While Buddhist monks like U Wirathu allege that the Rohingya are raping Burmese Buddhist women, there have been steady reports coming from UN-sanctioned shelters of Rohingya women being raped by Burmese Buddhist soldiers. Annette Ekin, reporting from a Bangladeshi shelter for the Rohingya, details 20 year-old Ayesha Begun’s recounting of soldiers killing the men, tearing a baby away from a mother, and gang-raping Ayesha and the other women. The New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman narrates an equally brutal example with a young Rohingya woman called Rajuma.

It would be easy to discount the atrocities taking place in Myanmar as an aberration. Unfortunately, the country’s history offers a very different assessment. Sadly, this is not a new issue. It is but a new chapter of Buddhist-inspired violence, racism, and sexist rhetoric. The actions do not reflect a new development in Buddhism, or a unique strain within Burmese Buddhism.

Whether it is Japanese Zen Buddhist masters, Tibetan lamas, or Sri Lanka monks, history provides examples of Buddhist religious authorities engaging in violence, and supporting wars and conflicts. In addition they have a tradition of methods in which Buddhists support gender discrimination and military forms of governance.

I cannot emphasize enough that these dark elements do not reflect general Buddhist sentiments on a global level. More than 1 billion people practice some form of Buddhism. The vast majority of them actively support peace and contemplative behavior. But that generality does not mean that Buddhists are immune to racist tendencies, acts of rape, and other forms of violence. Instead, atrocities such as those in Myanmar serve as a grim reminder that humankind is vulnerable to vices, regardless of religion or nationality.

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Martin is best known for her sublime abstract paintings of grids and lines, which at first glance may look like hand-drawn ledgers. Her early work from the 1950s and 1960s is mainly black, white, and earthen tones. In her long career, Martin did not solely rely on a monochromatic palette—she went into color, in a subdued way, in the 1970s—but she did return to it again and again.

After seeing “Agnes Martin,” the breathtaking retrospective of her work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through Sept. 11), a show that reminded me of the extraordinary beauty and discipline of her art practice, I wanted to explore some possible reasons why.

I found a clue in the opening lines of “The Untroubled Mind,” Martin’s thoughts from 1972, when she was returning to making art again after a hiatus of several years. These thoughts were recorded like a poem, in phrases, and read like a quiet but self-assured manifesto.

People think that painting is about color
It’s mostly composition
It’s composition that’s the whole thing.
The classic image—
Two late Tang dishes, one with a flower image
one empty. The empty form goes all the way to heaven.

The reference to the Tang dynasty of China is not accidental. In her writings and interviews, Martin often cited the strong influence of Asian philosophies. “My greatest spiritual inspiration came from the Chinese spiritual teachers, especially Lao Tzu,” she once said. Lao Tzu (now Laozi) has been generally accepted as author of the famous Tao Te Ching and founder of Taoism. In the same statement she also mentioned the influence of Buddhism, especially the Zen branch. Scholars can only conjecture as to where she picked up this knowledge, but it had a deep impact on her painting and her discipline.

Later in life Martin repeatedly spoke of the need for humility and ego-lessness, which is in sync with Taoism’s call for naturalness and simplicity. And as an adult, she meditated regularly, a Zen practice. She advocated looking inwards and of emptying the mind, tenets of Zen monks, some of whom became known for their monochrome painting. (She famously refused to accept awards or honorary degrees because, she said in an interview, “I don’t really think I’m responsible, so I don’t accept any awards.”)

In the late 1950s, Martin had moved to New York City at the urging of her dealer, Betty Parsons. However, she left in 1967, packing up her things and going on a road trip for 18 months. She eventually settled in New Mexico, and reducing the distractions of daily life—diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, she had had more than one breakdown while in New York. In 1973, she announced her return to the art world with a series of 30 monochromatic screenprints, “On a Clear Day.” Each print is composed of thin black lines in grids or horizontal lines. “These prints express innocence of mind,” she wrote in 1979. “If you can go with them and hold your mind as empty and tranquil as they are and recognize your feelings at the same time you will realize your full response to this work.”

In this latter period, she often said that her work was about happiness, perhaps her way of describing inner peace. I find that looking at her work demands focus and shutting out distractions. Your eye swims around the soft lines, simple forms, and translucent pastel colors, until your mind finally comes to rest. The newly re-opened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art very deliberately sets her work apart, presenting seven of her paintings in an octagonal room, with seating in the middle, a kind of Martin “chapel” which facilitates quiet and contemplation.

Basic black-and-white drawings and paintings show composition most clearly. She must also have appreciated Chinese brush painting, which is traditionally done with a soot-based ink with highly flexible brushes. Arne Glimcher, her longtime dealer and friend, recalls in Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances that in the 1980s he had sent her a book on such work. On his next visit he saw “a series of grey canvases, each with diluted India ink washes under pencil grids, some with horizontal lines and others with vertical and horizontal lines.” Martin said to him, “Imagine yourself one of those little Chinese men in a brush painting and get into those boxes and look around.”

She did take up color—pastel washes worked into bars and grids, perhaps a reflection of the New Mexico sky and landscape. Still, I find it interesting that towards the end of her life she went back to the monochromatic palette in such important works as “Homage to Life” and “The Sea,” both from 2003, a year before she died.

In the latter, the black is intense, and the composition insistent—it is mostly black, with thin white horizontal lines pulsing across the large, 5-foot-by-5-foot canvas. Something in the slight irregularity of the white lines gives them a sense of movement, of surging rhythm, as of ocean waves that can be ever changing and yet patterned at the same time. It’s true, Martin had long avoided representing the outside world, and was more concerned with the truth within. Still, I do not think she could turn her back to the world completely—she just had to represent the elemental in her own way.

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This possible failure to reincarnate by the Lama, who turns 80 in July, has not pleased the Chinese government. Last year, after the Dalai Lama intimated during a BBC interview that the institution of the Dalai Lama may have outlived its usefulness, the Chinese government said there definitely would be a successor to the 14th Dalai Lama. And that the next Lama will be selected by the Chinese Communist Party.

Conflict between Tibet and China over the selection of Dalai Lama, the highest figurehead in Tibet since the 17th century, is not new. For the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama is a cultural hero with ancient and imagined origins and the spiritual authority of centuries of tradition. What is unique about the Dalai Lama is that he is a political ruler selected not through heredity or popularity, but through reincarnation.

Buddhists believe that all living beings are trapped in an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth called saṃsāra. We are thus impelled by the force of our mental, verbal, and physical actions, often referred to as karma, accumulated over infinite lifetimes.

According to this belief, we are reborn into one of five or six possible realms of existence, including those of hells, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, and gods, depending on the nature and strength of our karmic latencies. (In other words, how much good or bad stuff we each did.)

Reincarnation has to do with the cycle of sorrow and loss that occurs when inhabitants of these realms unwittingly accrue powerful psychic tendencies that lead to new births, pleasant or unpleasant, in accordance with the subtle and complex workings of their karma.

The uniquely Tibetan institution of the tulku, or “reincarnated lama,” is based on the Mahāyāna concept of the bodhisattva—who are teachers thought to be virtually identical to fully enlightened buddhas, capable of using remarkable spiritual powers to guide sentient beings in a variety of situations.

One such power is the ability to choose the circumstances into which they are born, based on the needs of specific suffering beings. In fact, the word tulku literally means “emanation body” and is a common term in Mahāyāna philosophy to refer to the “human” or “earthly” guise assumed by a Buddha to assist living beings.

The Dalai Lama, specifically, is understood to be both the cosmic bodhisattva of compassion and, according to myth, the spiritual progenitor of the Tibetan race. He’s also believed to be the reincarnation of a fifteenth century Buddhist master of the Geluk sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

The traditional method by which the Dalai Lama and other high tulkus are discovered is elaborate and cryptic. Dreams, visions, divinations, and oracles play a significant part in determining where to search for the new incarnation. Monks charged with the responsibility for finding their master’s young embodiment attempt to identify one or more candidates of a suitable age and temperament, who may well have displayed unusual signs or spiritual tendencies at an early age.

The candidates are then subjected to a series of “tests”—such as identifying persons or personal possessions—that had some connection to the previous incarnation. Once a clear favorite emerges, the matter is subjected to a series of divinations (such as a form of dice divination known as “mo” or consultations with trance-mediums who channel supernatural spirits), after which a final decision is announced.

Although the general procedure is the same regardless of the tulku being sought, in the case of the Dalai Lama the process is particularly rigorous, since so much rests on the outcome.

Naturally, the Dalai Lama’s prominent political role has attracted the interest of a variety of parties outside the religion. For centuries, there has been Chinese and Mongolian interference in the ostensibly “spiritual” selection process of the Dalai Lama and other tulkus.

In the 16th century, for strategic reasons, the Tumed Mongol leader Altan Khan chose to support the Geluk sect in Tibet against competing religious sects, and named the monk Sonam Gyatso the first “Dalai Lama,” a term that can be loosely translated to mean “oceanic wisdom.” In return Sonam Gyatso declared Altan Khan to be the reincarnation of his famous predecessor Kublai Khan (1215-1294), thus legitimating the latter’s claim to power. After Sonam Gyatso’s death, Altan Khan’s great-grandson, Yonten Gyatso (1589-1617), was named the 4th Dalai Lama.

Later, in the 17th century, Lajang Khan (d. 1717) of the Qoshot Mongols deposed and likely assassinated the sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706), and installed his own candidate as the “true Dalai Lama.”

More recently, after the present Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government began to reassert its influence in Tibetan religious affairs.

In 1992, the Chinese government allowed representatives of the Kagyu sect from the Tibetan exile community in India to identify and enthrone a boy from eastern Tibet as the reincarnation of the Karmapa Lama, head of the Kagyu School and the third most important tulku in Tibetan Buddhism.

Remarkably, the candidate, Orgyen Trinley Dorje (1985- ), was confirmed by both the PRC and the office of the Dalai Lama in an unprecedented accord.

After living under strict Chinese government supervision at Tshuphu Monastery for seven years, the young Karmapa escaped to India. Denounced by the PRC, he now lives not far from the residence of the current Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. In fact, some speculate that the Dalai Lama may be grooming the young Karmapa (now 30) to serve as the Tibetan religious figurehead after he passes away.

Another remarkable example of the increasingly blatant tendency of the PRC to manipulate the outcome of important tulku selections occurred in 1995 with the case of the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama and his associates in India, together with Chadrel Rinpoche, the then-abbot of Tashi Lhunpo, the home monastery of the Panchen Lamas, had been secretly attempting to identify the rebirth of the previous Panchen Lama, and in fact had confirmed the boy Gendun Choekyi Nyima (1989-?) as the tulku.

When the Dalai Lama’s office unilaterally announced the boy to be the authentic reincarnation, the Chinese government immediately placed him and his family, as well as the abbot Chadrel Rinpoche, under house arrest and put forward its own candidate, Gyaincain Norbu (1990- ), as the genuine tulku.

In an effort to legitimize its choice, the Chinese government employed the ancient “Golden Urn” practice, during which names and birthdays of the individual candidates, inscribed on metal or ivory slips, are drawn from an urn. Since that time, the PRC has taken every opportunity to promote Gyaincain Norbu as the “public face of Tibetan Buddhism.”

The PRC’s Panchen Lama was educated in China, speaks Chinese as his first language, and is a high level Communist Party official who serves on several important committees and resides primarily in Beijing, visiting Tashi Lhunpo only once or twice a year.

Tibetans both in exile and in Tibet generally view Norbu with disdain, as an interloper or worse, and see the “Golden Urn” method of selection to be a corrupt contrivance historically used by the Chinese to manipulate the outcome of the search.

Whether or not the “Chinese” Panchen Lama is accepted by a majority of Tibetans, his case provides a clue how the PRC may behave when the present Dalai Lama dies. The government has already demonstrated a willingness to manipulate the process of recognition and appointment in the cases of the current Karmapa and Panchen Lama, and there is no reason to believe they will not do something similar in the case of the Dalai Lama, where the stakes will be much higher.

The Chinese government is playing the “long game” in its political strategy to dominate Tibet, and is willing to wait, for generations if necessary, until traditional Tibetan culture and its institutions are nothing but distant memories in order to achieve that aim.

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Beyond hearing birds chirp among a grove of trees or wind rustling the leaves, it’s quiet at the monastery. It’s a place for seekers of peace and tranquility and where I go to contemplate my path through life and make sense of it.

In 2012, while I was in between jobs, my mother, a Buddhist and meditation practitioner, invited me to check out Middle Land. She started visiting the monastery in 2010, two years after it was established by Master Wei Chueh, who has founded more than 100 Zen centers across the world.

I was initially uncertain of what I was going to find at the monastery. But on my first visit to Middle Land, my anxiety slowly wore off as I took in the small garden with cacti, plants, and flowers and the gentle smiles of the monks. Before entering the monastery, visitors take off their shoes and put on a pair of red slippers. The reception area is lined with bowls inscribed with phrases like “peace and clarity,” or “good fortune and prosperity.”

When you first enter, you pass a room on the right decorated with golden Buddha statues where monks teach meditation classes and lead religious ceremonies. The first time I saw the meditation room, it appeared to be lit up, glistening from the yellow mats on the floor. Filled with natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows and the spicy smell of incense, the place felt welcoming.

Since that first visit, I have returned to Middle Land for community events like Thanksgiving, where we do the American holiday with an Asian twist. Think tofu made to taste like chicken with a side of stir-fry noodles and vegan cookies for dessert. The meal is always vegetarian because Zen Buddhists believe they should not take a life, but they celebrate the holiday to respect the customs of the United States. The American tradition of giving thanks is a philosophy that harmonizes well with Buddhism.

I also went to the Lunar New Year celebration last February, where families and individuals gathered to make cabbage-mushroom-carrot-tofu dumplings by hand and to share a hot pot of tofu, tomato, corn, and other assorted vegetables at long tables. All the items tasted fresh and light, a healthy alternative to the usual Lunar New Year fare of roasted duck and broiled fish. I prefer to spend the holidays here rather than at a Chinese restaurant: The environment is serene and peaceful compared to noisy eateries filled with callous waiters.

These communal gatherings give students a chance to talk to each other about the challenges of staying focused in meditation and how it helps them to cope with difficulties such as losing a family member or adjusting to new jobs.

Apart from these gatherings, the attraction that draws me back to the monastery is the free weekly meditation class. I’ve seen how attending the class every week has helped my mom, a librarian at a community college whose patience is tested daily by harried students, professors, and other patrons, become more positive and calm in her daily life.

Zen—or Chan, as it is called in Chinese—meditation focuses on turning the eye inward in order to gain insight into the nature of existence. The monks teach techniques that include breath counting and mindfulness of the breath. They speak of the path to enlightenment with an emphasis on self-reflection.

At the beginning of class, students sit on yellow mats and, with each breath, count from 1 to 10 mentally and exhale about a dozen long breaths per minute. We then walk in a circle and focus on our breath with each step we take. After the meditation exercises, we listen attentively to the monks as they tell stories relating to pillars of Zen Buddhism and enjoy “blessing” cookies (fortune cookies with words of encouragement printed on snippets of paper)

Since its inception, the monastery has welcomed individuals of all belief systems, faiths, and cultures. The name “Middle Land” is a direct translation from Chinese—and the place truly lives up to its name by creating a common ground for meditation in a tranquil environment.

The monks, who hail from Puli Township in Nantou County, Taiwan, teach anyone who walks through the door—and people come from as near as Claremont and Fontana and as far as Malibu. The classes are offered in both English and Mandarin Chinese. My mom and I take the English classes, along with people from a mix of backgrounds. There are college students and retirees. There are Protestants and Catholics looking to incorporate meditation into their daily lives. There are even elementary-school-age kids who come on Sunday afternoons for the crafts and meditation exercises. These young kids have an amazing ability to sit still with good posture—a feat that many adult students grapple with.

I’ve found myself drifting back to Middle Land during times of stress. The meditation room feels sacred and sheltered, and it allows me to reflect on my day, ruminate on relationships with friends and family, and work through feelings of pent-up frustration without distraction. When you’re angry, sometimes you can say something that is hurtful or untrue. Meditation helps calm my mind so that I won’t engage in that kind of behavior.

The last time I visited the temple a few weeks ago, I felt frazzled. I was rushing from Costa Mesa to downtown Los Angeles in traffic, trying to get to a meeting for a digital media conference I was helping to plan. At the same time, I was frantically trying to find time to finish a story about a society dinner in Costa Mesa and write an in-depth article about a three-generation farming family from Northern California.

But, when I arrived at the temple, time seemed to stand still, and I was forced to take a 45-minute break from my phone. I took a deep breath. I just turned 26; my life doesn’t have to be complicated; and I’m lucky that I have certain privileges in the U.S. that other people do not have. The next breath came a lot more easily.

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