Not This, Not That ~ INDONESIA AND
TURKEY
Back
in Malaysia, I made another extensive trip, and was
again requested to give talks at the Genting Highlands
casino-complex outside K.L. While in a restaurant
there, I was approached by a Singaporean named Charlie;
I told him I’d been invited to give talks in
Indonesia during the Wesak month in May, but didn’t
know where I would stay in Singapore before flying
out from there to Jakarta. He said he’d arrange
something, if it was only a hotel, and gave me his
number to call before going there. I did, and he met
me off the bus, taking me to a hotel beside a vegetarian
restaurant, where he told the people to charge my
food to him. He introduced me to his wife, Susan.
After two days there, I flew to Jakarta, and was met
by Onfat and Ros, who I’d first come to know
in ’78, and who’d organized my visit.
They had set up a program for me, and took me first
to a large temple in central Jakarta named Ekayana
Vihara, which was to be my base for the next
month. It had been established by a disciple of Ashin
Jinarakkhita, who I mentioned earlier. I was
surprised at the large number of people who attended
the services, but this was largely because religion
was strongly encouraged to counter any communist inclinations.
The heat and humidity were awful, but what to do except
endure as best I could? I didn’t have to like
it. Apart from giving talks in several places in Jakarta
itself, I was sent to other cities in Java, including
Semarang, where Vajira met me at the airport and took
me to her home, where I would stay. Now, I knew she’d
taken over her parents’ business when they died,
but wasn’t sure what this consisted of. I was
in for a surprise. Arriving there, I was struck by
what ~ to me, as a long-time vegetarian ~ was an aw-ful
smell, that of meat being cooked! This was her business:
cooking meat for sale. I thought, “However am
I going to stay here? Shall I go to stay in a temple
after all?” This was immedi-ately followed by,
“No, Vajira has been a good friend to me for
many years, and would be unhappy if I moved,”
so I stayed, and tolerated the smell; there are many
things we can do for the sake of friendship. It was
good to see her again, and she took good care of me,
making my stay very pleasant. Later, when I wrote
to her about this, she was very apologetic and said
she hadn’t realized she was inviting me ‘into
her hell,’ as she put it.
From Semarang, then, to Jogja, and between my talks
there, I was taken to visit not only Borobudur, Mendut
and Prambanan temples ~ where I’d been before
~ but also to other ancient ruins in the area; I was
surprised at how many there were. Most had been destroyed
by earthquakes long ago, but were impressive even
so. I was also taken to visit some villages in the
mountains where the people had remained Buddhists
since the collapse of the Majapahit Empire
over five centuries before. How they had held out
against the tremendous pressure to convert to Islam
I don’t know, but I was full of admiration for
them.
After a month in Indonesia, I returned to Singapore
and Malaysia again, with the idea of making a trip
to Turkey. For many years I’d wanted to do this,
feeling I’d missed something during my trips
through there before. When I told people of my inten-tion,
some of them were surprised and said things like:
“Why do you want to go to there? Turkey is a
Muslim country. There are no Buddhists there!”
“Yes, I know it’s a Muslim country,”
I replied, “and no Buddhists there ~ I’ve
been there ~ but Turks are also human beings,
are they not? If we are concerned only about people
who call themselves ‘Buddhists,’ what
kind of Buddhists are we? How many people do you know
who say they are ‘Buddhists’ but who know
nothing ~ and in fact, mis-know ~ about Buddhism?
The name doesn’t make one a Buddhist. Also,
I don’t care what people call themselves; it’s
more important what they are. Nor is it my aim or
hope to convert people to Buddhism. I’m only
concerned with people as people; in fact, I want to
help Buddhists become free of Buddhism and discover
their human-ness, for this ~ to me ~ is what it’s
all about. A name is not enough.”
So, in August ’97, I flew from K.L. to Istanbul,
and was thrilled to see the marvelous city again,
and for the first time from the air. Nor was it long
before I had a completely different impression of
the Turks than before. To overcome prejudice is always
good, as it makes the mind so much lighter, which
is what enlighten-ment is all about. I would like
to tell of some of my experiences there, but for my
story to make sense, I must start by saying that I
went in ordinary clothes, not dressed as a monk. There
were reasons for this: Firstly, had I gone in robes,
they would only have attracted unnecessary attention
and served no useful pur-pose. In Malaysia ~ and in
other countries with large Buddhist communities ~
many people are very respectful towards monks, often
without knowing anything at all about them; they react
to their appearance. Knowing this, certain persons
have dressed as monks and gone begging on the streets,
and because this has become quite common (a number
of such fake ‘monks’ have been arrested),
there are now calls for monks to carry special identity-cards.
On the other hand, in some countries, I’ve been
subjected to abuse with obscene language on the street
because of my ap-pearance: same appearance, different
reactions, and in both cases, by people who knew nothing
about me personally.
I decided to go incognito, not as a monk, but as a
human-being, and relate to people on that level, to
communicate with them by my own merit, if you will,
to make it on my own, without the robe. I’d
never done this before, but in retrospect, this was
clearly the right decision. In Malaysia, no-one ever
mistook me for a Malay-sian, nor for an Indian in
India, but I was able to blend in so well in Turkey
that people often spoke to me in Turkish, thinking
I was a Turk! And whereas I’ve quite often been
verbally abused in India, I was never once hassled
there, but experienced much kindness and helpfulness.
People would willingly leave whatever they were doing
~ their work, shops, and so on ~ and go out of their
way to direct me, often without knowing any English
and without expecting anything in return. Turks also
smile easily. It made me feel good! I do not remember
that about them from be-fore; had they changed so
much over the years, or was the change more in me?
Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was just a case of
beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
It was very hot when I got there in August, and upon
passing a travel-agency one day and noticing ads for
cheap flights, I de-cided to go to England for a month,
and bought a round-trip ticket. I called Glen, and
she got Karin to drive her to the airport to meet
me.
(At the end of ’86, feeling the strain of caring
for her husband, and wanting to visit mum in Australia,
she’d asked the doctor if he would admit Harold
to a care-center while she went, and he agreed to
do so, although it was not normal practice; “You
go,” he said, “You deserve a break.”
While there, however, her neighbor called to say that
Harold had rapidly deteriorated and so she had better
return quick, which she did, just in time to see him
before he died; he’d become like a vegetable,
knowing noth-ing; he didn’t recognize her, and
she could hardly recognize him. She told me she didn’t
grieve when he died, as she’d already done her
grieving before; it was a release for both him and
her. She had loved him so much, but just had to let
go).
Apart from doing various jobs around the place for
her, I made several trips with her, one to Chester,
and another to York, where I’d never been before
but had long wanted to go. Glen was not interested
in history ~ in fact, she wasn’t at all intellec-tually
inclined ~ but went to please me. I greatly enjoyed
visiting the marvelous York Minster and walking
around the old city-walls; we also went into the old
castle-tower, where I came upon this inscription:
“Richard I, the Lion-heart, became king
in the summer of 1189. Richard was fighting the Crusades
in the Holy Land and came home briefly for his coronation,
but returned to the war almost immediately.
“Across Europe there were massacres and murders,
and in an at-mosphere charged with religious passion,
anti-semitic riots broke out up and down England.
“In York, the Jewish community became so frightened
that they asked the royal constable for help. He allowed
some 150 men, women and children to shelter within
the castle while an angry mob gathered outside. The
Jews began to mistrust the constable and refused to
let him back in when he went out on business. The
constable asked the Sheriff of York for permission
to eject the Jews, which he granted. The unruly crowd
laid siege to the terri-fied Jews, who courageously
defended themselves for several days.
“When siege-engines were brought to knock
down the gates, many of the Jews decided upon suicide
rather than submit to the mob. A fire was started,
but rapidly got out of hand and burned the wooden
buildings, forcing the surviving families out into
the crowd where they were massacred.
“The ringleaders of the mob were a group of
noblemen who were heavily in debt to the Jewish moneylenders,
and wanted to avoid paying. They went to York Minster
and forced the custodians to hand over the details
of the debts. They gathered these together and burned
them in the middle of the church to destroy any evidence.
“The Jews probably first came to York early
in the 12th century as scholars attached to the Christian
community. The small Jewish population grew to include
physicians and landlords. The Christian creed forbade
lending for profit, so the Jews undertook money-lending
and dealing in bonds, providing private credit for
major landowners, and even the great religious houses
of Yorkshire.”
It seems that Jews first arrived in England itself
following the Norman Invasion in 1066. England has
a horrible record regard-ing its treatment of the
Jews; in fact, the persecution of the Jews of the
Diaspora began in England. Following are some details
from the Internet, in chronological order:
In the course of a generation, Jews establish
communities in London, York, Bristol, Canterbury,
and begin to prosper by trading, lending money to
the baronage, and by advancing money to the Crown
in order to secure the revenues of the Government.
In this way, the Jewish community serves a vital role
for the State treasury. As a result, the Crown protects
the Jewish financiers and their assets.
In order to finance the tremendous expense of
the Crusade, the Jews were assessed higher rate of
taxation than rest of England: i.e. Jews were taxed
1/4 of their moveable property while rest of England
was assessed 1/14.
Although Jews constituted less than 0.4% of English
population, the Jews contributed 8% of the total income
to the Royal treasury.
1194. This is the year in which the Crown establishes
Exchequer of the Jews.
The Exchequer of the Jews is a catalogue of all Jewish
holdings in England. This registry allowed the Crown
to systematically exploit Jewish resources by arbitrarily
collecting taxes upon the revenues that the Jewish
community collected from those resources.
The Jews responded to this tax upon their revenues
by charging higher and higher rates of interest on
the loans that they extended to their customers. This
hike in interest rates only increased the unpopularity
of Jewish money-lenders in general.
The Jews effectively became pawns of the Crown in
a kind of per-verted "trickle-down economics"
whereby the Jews indirectly collected taxes for the
Crown: by selectively taxing the Jewish financial
wealth at higher and higher rates, Jews were forced
to charge more and more interest, and the borrowers
were forced to pay more and more money. This structure
of exploitation inevitably propped up the coffers
of the Crown.
1217. This is the year that English Jews were made
to wear yellow badges to identify them as Jews.
It is perhaps inevitable that this yellow badge, which
functions as an obvious marker of the status of the
Jew as an alien within English so-ciety, will bring
to mind the yellow stars that Jews of Europe were
forced to wear during Nazi occupation in World War
II.
The fact that Jews were set apart from the rest of
English society with this visible marker sets the
stage for their increasing segregation and persecution.
1255. This is the year in which Jews were once again
accused of a case of "blood libel"
This case involves the death of Hugh of Lincoln.
The facts of the case are that Hugh, a young Christian
boy, ran after a ball and fell into a Jewish cesspool.
He drowned there and his body was found 26 days later,
during the Jewish wedding of a prominent Rabbi.
The fact that a large congregation of Jews had come
to Lincoln to cele-brate the Rabbi's marriage fueled
Christian speculation that the Jews had killed the
boy as part of some bizarre ritual ceremony.
As a result of the accusations of "blood libel"
that arose in the wake of the death of Hugh of Lincoln,
100 Jews were executed.
The story of Hugh of Lincoln is celebrated in The
Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. "The Prioress's
Tale" tells of a young Christian innocent who
is singing some Christian hymn while walking through
the Jewish sec-tion of town. The Jews, presumable
outraged at the boy's Christian pi-ety, slit his throat
and dispose of the body. But the boy keeps singing
even after death, which allows his body to be discovered.
The super-natural nature of the boy's singing ensures
his eventual canonization as a saint.
1265. This is the year in which the rising influence
of Italian bankers begins to make the financial services
of the English Jews superfluous.
The fact that the English Crown now turned away from
the English Jews and sought financial aid from the
Italian bankers paved the way for the waning influence
and importance of the Jews in English soci-ety. The
Jews, in effect, were of less use to the Crown, so
that Crown had less interest in maintaining and protecting
Jewish rights.
1269. This is the year in which Jewish rights are
gradually restricted.
The Crown no longer allowed Jews to hold land, nor
were Jews al-lowed to bequeath money to an heir: Jewish
children could no longer inherit the money of their
parents. In effect, a Jew was a royal serf whose money
was absorbed by the Crown upon death.
1290. This is the year, under reign of Edward I, that
all Jews are ex-pelled from England.
Although some Jews managed to stay in England
by hiding their iden-tity and religion, the overwhelming
majority of Jews - about 16,000 altogether - were
forced from England. Many made their way to France
and settled there.
But this expulsion led to three and a half centuries
- 350 years - of Jewish exile from England.
This fact is vitally important to understanding the
relationship be-tween Shakespeare, Elizabethan society,
and anti-semitism, because Shakespeare and his contemporaries,
who lived roughly between 1580 - 1620, had never seen
a Jew in their lives. All the Jews had been ex-pelled
about 300 years before Shakespeare was born!
Although much wisdom and perspicacity shine through
in Shakespeare’s works, if they were written
today, they would be branded ~ and rightly so ~ as
racist, because some are horribly anti-semitic; he
was a product of his society, however, and we can
gauge the tenor of his times from his plays.
These things were forcibly brought to my mind by that
visit to York; it was a real eye-opener, and throws
a strong light on the situation of today!
Returning to Istanbul in September it was cooler,
and pleasant to move around unhindered, and not to
stand out in the crowd. I would often meditate in
the marvelous mosques, wherein there is a very special
atmosphere; their lofty minarets and soaring domes
lift the mind to spontaneous calm and quiet. I met
several interesting people this way.
One of my favorite places for meditation was the Sultan
Ahmet Mosque ~ otherwise called the Blue
Mosque, because of the blue tiles on the interior
~ even though it was often crowded. I would sit under
the portico in the courtyard, eyes downcast and half-open.
One time, some boys came and tried to disturb me,
but I didn’t respond; they waved their hands
before my eyes, and bent down to look into them, but
still I didn’t move. Only when I stirred did
I look at them and answer some of their ques-tions.
We can, if we want, be still and quiet in any conditions.
Once, after my meditation in Fetiyah Mosque ~ established
by Mehmet, the Conqueror of Constantinople ~ I was
ap-proached by an elderly man who spoke to me in fluent
Eng-lish and said he was curious, as he had never
seen anyone sitting like this before; he asked if
he might talk with me. “Certainly,” I
said, so we sat on the carpet in that tranquil setting
and had a nice conversation. We introduced our-selves,
and he told me his name was Ali, saying he was a re-tired
school-headmaster. When I told him I was a monk, he
said: “Oh, I’ve read something of Buddhism;
but the Buddha was not a prophet, like Mohammed; he
was only a philoso-pher.”
“You are right,” I said; “he wasn’t
a prophet,” but did not add that he was not
only a philosopher. He then spoke to me at some length
about Islam and tried to convince me of its su-periority.
I listened without interrupting, and when he had finished,
I told him something about Anicca ~ Imperma-nence,
or Change ~ and how we can hold on to nothing and
claim it as a possession. I also told him that by
ourselves, we know very little, that most of what
we think we know is not our knowledge at all, but
has come from other people or books. And, because
he had spoken a lot about God, I asked him about that
word: “Where have you got it from? Is it something
of your own experience? Did it suddenly come into
your mind one day when you didn’t know it before?
And do you have only the word, God, or do you know
what it represents, what it symbolizes, what lies
behind it, if any-thing? A word is not a thing, not
the thing it stands for.”
It caused him to think, and he did not really know
what to say. Instead, he took from his pocket a rosary,
and pre-sented it to me, and I, in turn, took from
my bag one of the geodes I carry with me. I explained
the meaning ~ or rather, my meaning ~ before giving
it to him: “What we are looking for is not outside
of ourselves.” He was surprised at the dif-ference
between the outside and the inside of this stone.
He then invited me to a coffee-shop nearby where he
introduced me to some of his friends and we spoke
more before going our different ways.
The next day, I visited him again, although I hadn’t
intended to do so and he wasn’t expecting me.
He was pleased to see me, but was different from the
previous day ~ not so assured or pushy; in fact, he
was almost abject, and said to me, in a choking voice:
“I am a bad man. I’ve done so many bad
things and made so many mistakes; I will go to Hell
forever; there is no hope for me!”
Of course, I did not agree with this, and said to
him: “I don’t think it matters if you
do not pray five times a day” (as Mus-lims are
supposed to do, but which many do not, and of those
who do, many pray mechanically and as something expected
of them, rather than because they want to do it. In
this, they are not unlike followers of other religions,
most of whom do not really understand why they are
performing the things their religions require of them);
“our right actions are our prayers.” Then
I told him a story from The Hadith, which is a book
recording tales of and about the Prophet Moham-med:
It is about a prostitute who had lived an immoral
life and had been in no way religious. One day, however,
she came upon a cat lying beside the road, dying of
thirst. Feeling pity for this cat, she took off one
of her shoes and scooped some water from a well in
it, and gave it to the cat to drink, thereby saving
its life. The book says that because of this kind
ac-tion, when she died, the woman went immediately
to Para-dise.
Telling this tale cheered Ali up. He had been feeling
so sorry for himself, and here I come ~ a Buddhist
monk ~ and tell him a Muslim story to restore his
spirits! We parted friends.
(The story I told him, however, contrasts and contradicts
something found earlier in The Hadith: how, four months
af-ter the moment of conception, an angel is sent
to appoint the destiny of the foetus in the womb:
what kind of person it would become, what kind of
actions he or she would per-form, the livelihood he/she
would engage in, and whether, af-ter death, he/she
would go to Paradise forever, or to Hell. The person
would have no choice about it, as everything had already
been divinely appointed for it. [St. Augustine, and
John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, said much the
same thing]. This, surely, presents Muslims with a
problem as to what to believe here. On one hand, they
are told that every-thing is predetermined, and on
the other hand, the story of the woman and the cat
indicates that destiny can be changed. Buddhists do
not have this problem, as Buddhism teaches that everything
happens because of causes, and though the past has
conditioned the present, here, in the present, we
have some choice, and can change the condi-tions;
it does not hold that things are predestined). And
here’s an example of this:
One day, while buying postcards in a small shop,
someone asked if I were a doctor. I don’t know
why he asked me this; do I look like a doctor? I answered,
“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”
“What kind of doctor are you?” he then
asked.
“A doctor of the mind,” I said.
“Oh, then maybe you can help me,” he said.
“You see, for the past few months I have been
having terrible headaches, and al-though I’ve
been to many doctors and even specialists, none of
them were able to do anything for me.”
“Alright, do this,” I said. “Sit
down and take a paper and pen, and starting with your
headaches, make a list of all your ail-ments, sicknesses
and pains; it won’t take you very long. Then,
taking another paper or papers, make a list of all
the things you could have, but which you don’t.
This list will go on and on and take you a long time.
And then, compare your two lists; they will make you
happy that you only have headaches!” I went
to see him again some weeks later, and asked him how
his headaches were; “No more,” he said.
You see, we can change things, and are not bound to
receive the results of everything we have have done.
New causes can change things considerably. Consider
the case of a lady I met in Muar, who suffered badly
from stomach-ulcers, but refused to undergo treatment
for them ~ even though they can be simply treated
today ~ as she took them as things of karma, to be
worked out that way. I told her that was fatalism,
and following that line of thinking, we shouldn’t
take any kind of medication whatsoever, but just accept
whatever happens to us.
I retraced my old footsteps in Istanbul and explored
this history-soaked city. I took an enjoyable cruise
up the Bosphorus, and tours around various palaces,
before setting off on a long trip in the provinces,
visiting places I’d been and not been before.
The easternmost point was Erzerum, where I’d
had several unpleas-ant experiences years before.
It is a very old town, with ruins dating back to Roman
times; however, my purpose there was not sight-seeing,
but to finally lay those experiences ~ like old ghosts
~ to rest; I did this, and now feel peaceful about
Erzerum. While there, I had an encounter which, though
neither good nor bad, holds a lesson. Someone came
up to me and tried to sell me a carpet (this often
happens in Turkey, famous for its hand-made carpets).
I told him I didn’t need a carpet, and that
if he could sell me one, he would be the best salesman
in the world.
“But everyone needs carpets,” he said,
and when I repeated that I didn’t, he asked
why not.
“Because I have no home,” I said.
“Then where do you live?” he asked.
“I live here,” I replied.
“Here, in Erzerum?” he asked, puzzled.
“No, here,” I said, stamping my feet on
the ground, meaning that I live just where I am and
nowhere else (in fact, we all do; it’s impossible
to live elsewhere and other than Now).
Unprepared for such an answer and not understanding
me, he said: “You’re crazy!” and
walked off, giving up all hope of selling me a carpet.
But does it mean I’m crazy because he didn’t
un-derstand me? Maybe I am crazy, but not
because of that!
I went to Cappadocia in central Turkey, where people
had long ago built underground cities for defense
against enemies; with air-shafts and store-rooms for
whatever was needed, they ex-tend downwards for up
to seven or eight levels. They had also hollowed out
rocky outcrops above ground as homes, and peo-ple
still live in them ~ many are now used as budget hotels;
I stayed in one myself, and they are remarkably comfortable.
In Konya, I visited the tomb of Jallaludin Rumi
(whom Turks call Mevlana), Sufism’s
most well-known saint, of the 13th century. Sufism
is the mystic branch of Islam, and is regarded by
many Muslims as heretical, as it is so open, flexible
and accommodat-ing of other religions and paths. This
inscription from Rumi’s tomb may show why:
“Come, come again, whoever,
whatever you may be, come; heathen, fire-worshiper,
sinful of idolatry, come. Come, even if you broke
your penitence a hundred times; ours is not the portal
of despair and misery, come.”
It was in Konya, too, that I was arrested! I’d
boarded a tram for the first time in Turkey, and had
bought my ticket before getting in, as is the way
there, but not knowing that I should enter by the
front door, I went in by the middle door, expecting
a conductor to take my ticket inside, but there was
none. No-one paid me much attention. I got down at
my stop and was walking away, when I felt a hand on
my shoulder. Turning, I found myself face-to-face
with the driver! He thought I had ridden without a
ticket! I opened my hands in a gesture of helplessness,
saying “I don’t know!” then fumbled
in my pocket for the ticket, at which he realized
I was a foreigner and said: “Oh, tamam,
tamam” ~ “Okay; never mind!”
I walked away smiling, at having been taken for a
Turk.
Turkey is full of ancient places from Hittite, Greek,
Roman and Byzantine times, not to mention those of
the Turks who came much later; it is a veritable historian’s
paradise! In Ephesus, the amphitheatre could seat
25,000 and had splendid acoustics. For a long time
it was the second most important city of the Roman
empire, and tremendously wealthy. The Temple of
Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World,
was situated near here, but was destroyed and rebuilt
several times, once by a madman who set fire to it
in order that posterity would remember him; in the
3rd century, the Goths destroyed it for the final
time, and that was it. Gradually, the nearby river
silted up the estuary and de-stroyed Ephesus as a
port; it’s source of income gone, it was abandoned
in the 14th century and fell into ruin.
The best part of my trip in Turkey was towards the
end, when I arrived in Canakkale, a small
town situated at the entrance to the narrow strait
that separates Europe from Asia known, from ancient
times, as the Dardanelles. It is from Canakkale
that most people visit the ancient city of Troy and
the WW1 battlesite ofGallipoli . I’d
also come for this, and had been advised by other
travellers I’d met along the way to join a tour-group
rather than doing it alone. This, therefore, is what
I did, and found myself in the company of mainly young
Aussies.
The tour began at 9 a.m. with a visit to Troy. Our
guide was a re-tired submarine-commander named Ali,
whose manner of nar-rating facts and stories was quite
endearing; he clearly loved his work, and I can hear
his voice now, as he began: “Ladies and gentlemen.”
He made Troy come alive for me; I ‘saw’
scenes described by Homer in The Iliad: of
King Priam and his son Paris, whose
abduction of Helen had precipitated the war with the
Greeks; of the fierce combat between Achilles
and Hector, in which the latter was slain;
of the death of Achilles himself, caused by an arrow
in the only vulnerable part of his anatomy: his heel,
hence the term for a person’s weak point: his
Achilles heel. Finally, there was the Wooden
Horse, by which subterfuge the Greeks finally
gained entrance to Troy and destroyed it.
Always interested in history, I asked Ali a number
of questions about Troy. We returned to Canakkale
and crossed the Darda-nelles to Gallipoli. I’d
heard of Gallipoli before, of course, but un-til going
there, knew little about it. Now I know more, and
would like to tell something of it before going further.
The First World War was precipitated by the assassination
of an Austrian noble in Sarajevo in 1914 by a Serb.
Austria declared war on Serbia, and Russia ~ Serbia’s
ally ~ declared war on Austria; Germany took Austria’s
side, and Britain and France came in against Germany.
Turkey, because of some stupidity on the part of London,
found itself on Germany’s side (European al-liances
were so complex and fickle, that this year’s
enemy might be next year’s friend).
Britain, then, had the largest empire the world has
ever known, and could call upon almost-unlimited manpower.
Many Aussies and Kiwis ~ either from patriotism or
desire for adventure ~ enlisted to serve in places
that most of them had never even heard of. From cities
and farms they came to fight for the Em-pire, knowing
nothing of those they would face. They were then shipped
off to places like Egypt, given basic training in
military discipline and the use of arms, and then
boarded other ships for the invasion of Turkey, the
aim being to capture Istanbul, thus knocking Turkey
out of the war, and opening the Bosphorus to Russian
shipping.
Had these plans succeeded, Istanbul ~ which consisted
mainly of wooden buildings at that time ~ would have
undergone a fire-storm. But the Turks were anticipating
invasion, and heeding their German advisors, had mined
the Dardanelles, so when a combined French-and-British
fleet ~ the vaunted British fleet that controlled
the oceans to the anthem of Rule Britannia
~ tried to enter, several of its ships were sunk by
mines in the first day, forcing withdrawal and reconsideration.
The powers in far-off London then decided to land
troops on a peninsula not far from the entrance to
the Dardanelles, at a place known as Gallipoli.
But again, the Turks were prepared, and although the
Allied ships launched a tremendous bombard-ment of
the Turkish positions, the invaders were unable to
ad-vance very far and were pinned down by Turkish
fire. To shelter from enemy fire, both sides dug trenches,
but were so close to each other that in places the
distance separating them was only about 10 meters.
The battle went on for 8 months, during which British,
Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian and Gurkha
casualties (killed and wounded) were 205,000 out of
410,000, French casualties 47,000 out of 79,000, and
Turkish 250,000 to 300,000 out of 500,000. The suffering
was incalculable, but the stories of courage and heroism
that emerged from it have be-come legendary, and made
of the Battle of Gallipoli something unique in military
history. (It is not my intention to glorify war and
fighting, and I hope it doesn’t seem so; my
purpose in writing this is to point out that even
on a battlefield, with death and suf-fering all around,
people are still able to see beyond).
Following military custom, orders were given for bayonet-charges
to be made. The men, though naturally afraid and want-ing
to live, obeyed without question and went over the
top to al-most certain death. They didn’t say,
“I don’t want to go! I don’t
want to die!” but climbed out of their
trenches and faced the withering fire of the enemy’s
machine-guns. The carnage during these futile and
stupid charges was horrific!
After one such British charge, when the survivors
had withdrawn to their trenches and the gunfire had
ceased, from the blood-stained and corpse-strewn ground
between the trenches came the cries of a badly-wounded
British officer. No-one dared go to his assistance
as they would have been immediately cut down. But
then something amazing happened: A white flag appeared
from the Turkish trenches, and a burly soldier climbed
out, went over to the wounded British officer, picked
him up and carried him to the British trenches, where
he gently put him down and unhurriedly went back to
his own position. No-one knows the name of this valiant
and compassionate Turk, but such acts ~ it wasn’t
the only one; there were others, on both sides ~ gave
rise to deep respect in each for the other.
The night before the tour, together with others, I
watched a video about Gallipoli, showing survivors
from both sides, now very old men. Almost invariably,
they said that although they’d fought and killed
their opponents, they never hated them, but merely
followed orders. They spoke, too, of the respect and
ad-miration of the courage shown by their erstwhile
enemies.
With such background information, we trod the hills
and dunes of Gallipoli with awe and reverence. It
has become a sacred place, a place of pilgrimage,
visited by millions from both sides with homage in
their hearts. Young Aussies especially (I met so many
of them in Turkey that half of Melbourne seemed to
be there!), are drawn to this place, as it has a special
place in Aus-tralian history. Every year, on ANZAC
Day, people march down the streets of towns and cities
of Australia and New Zealand in remembrance of those
who died in such battles. The years have carried off
the remaining few who fought at Gallipoli, but before,
when there were still some survivors from those days,
they marched if they could, in their old faded uniforms
with medals on their chests, tears in their eyes and
thoughts of fallen comrades, heads held high; some
went by wheelchair.
In the trenches, unable to advance and the battle
a stalemate, some men resorted to making hand-grenades
from tin-cans filled with stones, glass, lead-shot
and so on; but the fuses on them were so long that
they would take up to 30 seconds to burn down and
explode ~ ample time to pick them up and toss them
back to where they’d come from; the deadly missiles
would go to and fro like ping-pong balls before exploding,
and no-one knew where they would go off; sometimes
they would explode in their places of origin! It was
soon realized this was too risky; they were killing
themselves as often as their opponents!
Then, someone must have seen the irony and stupidity
of the whole situation ~ maybe someone with some understanding
or feeling for Universal Dharma ~ and from the Australian
trenches, instead of bombs, chocolate-bars began to
fly across no-man’s land! The Brits and Aussies
~ unlike the Turks ~ had supplies of chocolate. When
the Turks ~ who I came to see have a good sense of
humor ~ recovered from their surprise at such strange
weapons, they expressed their appreciation and reciprocated
by tossing back fresh fruit, which, being on home-ground,
they had in abundance, while their enemies lacked
this.
One day, from a Turkish trench, a packet of tobacco
came flying over, with a note on a scrap of cloth
in broken English: “Me, you, tobacco. You, me,
paper. Okay?” They had tobacco but lacked paper
to make cigarettes; the Brits and Aussies had paper,
but were short of tobacco. So, from the allies’
side, magazines and newspapers started to fly. Each
side got what they needed.
I don’t know if these tales were true or apocryphal,
but, told by Ali ~ one of whose grand-fathers had
been killed at Gallipoli ~ they brought tears to my
eyes, and I could see that many of the young Aussies
in the tour-group were similarly moved. But there
was more:
When the powers in London finally realized they had
made a huge blunder and couldn’t win this battle,
they reluctantly de-cided to evacuate their forces
from Gallipoli. But how to get out? The Commander-in-Chief
of the invasion force was asked how many casualties
must be expected during the evacuation. His casual
reply of 50% caused outrage; he seemed to regard the
troops as ‘throw-aways,’ with plenty more
to fill the places of those lost. He was replaced
by someone less callous and more efficient ~ someone
to whom men were not so expendable. Plans were made
to withdraw during the dark phase of the moon, and
orders given to make no sound that might alert the
Turks to what was going on; elaborate devices were
rigged up to create the illusion that life in the
trenches was as normal.
But it is impossible to move an army quietly, the
Turks knew what was happening, but their C-in-C, Mustafa
Kemal ~ who was later to become the first President
of the Turkish Republic, and honored with the title
of Ataturk, i.e, Father of the Turks
~ had given an order of just three words: “Follow
your tradition,” which was taken to mean: Don’t
shoot a retreating enemy in the back. So, whereas
the Brits had expected to lose many thou-sands of
men, they lost none at all, only two men being wounded.
So deeply had the Turks grown to respect their valiant
enemies that they allowed them to leave peacefully.
What honor! Where can we find another such example
of it?
Wandering around the Allied cemeteries at Gallipoli,
reading the epitaphs on the stones, I was stunned
that a high proportion of those who took part in this
deadly conflict were just boys in their late teens
and early twenties. Most of them had enlisted to go
and fight for king and empire in places many had never
heard of.
Because I’d asked Ali some questions during
this tour, too, near the end, he took me to one side
and pulled from his pocket a tiny box containing some
bullets and shrapnel from the battlesite and presented
it to me. I was very touched by his gift, but not
more than he when, in turn, I presented him with one
of my ‘thunder-eggs,’ saying: “What
we are looking for is not outside of ourselves.”
He was so moved when he opened it that he said: “I
will keep it in my pocket always!” A few words
had affected him so much! I then told him that I am
a monk ~ the word in Turkish for monk (it’s
actually Arabic), is rahib ~ and he said:
“I knew there was something different about
you!”
Ali and I at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, ‘97
At the end of the tour, I thanked Ali, and told him
that although I’d had a good trip in Turkey
and visited many wonderful places, this had been the
best part, and I would surely write something about
it in my next book (I kept my word about it). He shook
my hand very firmly and warmly, and raised it to his
lips and kissed it saying, “You are my teacher!”
I had made a new friend.
Over the years, I have given such stones to people
in many places, with differing effects. Some merely
said “How nice!” and promptly forgot about
it. But others, like Ali, the Turkish tour-guide,
were deeply touched.
A few days later, before I left Turkey, I wrote to
Ali from Istanbul, but because I knew neither his
full name or address, I sent my letter to the hotel
in Canakkale ~ ANZAC HOUSE ~ that had ar-ranged
the tour, not sure it would reach him, but hoping
it would.
It was early November when I returned to Malaysia,
and two weeks later, I received a heart-warming post-card
from Ali; this is what he wrote:
My respected teacher Abhinyana,
thank you very much for your kind letter. Actually,
I was expecting to hear from you one day. I really
appreciate the teaching you gave me and the secret
truth in it will lead me all the time. I’ve
learned a lot from you. My kindest regards to you.
Your very faithful student, Ali
Efe.
I spent three months in Malaysia this time, during
which time I visited Teluk Intan, a small town near
Ipoh, and spent a few days in the Buddhist Society
there; I’d been there before, and was invited
to give talks at their Holiday Youth Camp; this was
fun, and I enjoyed it.
"Do
not say you have no time, for you have plenty of time;
it is not a mat-ter of lack of time, but is disregard
or disinclination."
~ J. Krishnamurti, 1895 - 1986 ~
“I
have learned silence from the talkative, toleration
from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”
~ Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese Author and Poet, 1883 –
1931 ~
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