Giant sacrifice for a little prince and his family

When Ani Sakya of Shoreline looks at his son, he sees a 5-year-old boy doing typical 5-year-old things: cheering while playing a computer game, giggling during a game of Chutes and Ladders, or bursting with laughter while playing catch.

But in his little son, Ani Sakya also sees much more: the future of a religion and a people he hopes his son will one day lead.

Father and son are both crown princes of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism and heirs to an unbroken line nearly 1,000 years old. The boy's grandfather is one of the two top Sakya Buddhist leaders in the world.

The Sakyas fled their Tibetan palace shortly before a Chinese Communist crackdown in 1959, becoming what's believed to be the first Tibetan family in America. They settled in Seattle, where Ani Sakya, now a 48-year-old lawyer, and his four brothers grew up eating hot dogs and playing football.

But the Americanization of the royal family is only one part of the story. The other is the family's commitment to Tibetan culture, religion and traditions — and how far it is willing to go to preserve them. That's where 5-year-old Asanga Sakya comes in.

This Wednesday, for Tibetan New Year, Asanga will wear his first set of lama's robes, officially designating him as an heir of the royal line, one of several cousins who could one day become leader of the 100,000 Sakya Buddhists worldwide.

But for that to be possible, the boy must be sent away to a monastery, where he will spend his childhood studying under Buddhist monks. His education is to begin around April, when his parents deliver him to Katmandu, Nepal. He will remain there indefinitely, perhaps until he is a young adult.

"His pain will be equal to our pain," his father says. "I don't know how we're going to deal with it. We're all going to have this great, big void."

Asanga will be removed from the life he knows here, playing Candy Land with his mother and 3-year-old sister, Aloki, and sitting in his father's lap reciting prayers. His parents won't be there to watch him grow up, tend to his needs or take him to baseball games.

Ani Sakya's brothers — three living in the Seattle area, another in Beverly Hills, Calif., and themselves heirs to the royal line — have also wrestled with choices involving their heritage. For various reasons, none received the formal training needed to become a high-ranking lama able to teach others.

So now their hopes lie with Asanga's generation. Seven years ago, one of the brothers decided to send his then 4-year-old son to live and study with Tibetan Buddhists in India. Now Ani Sakya and his wife are making a similar choice for Asanga.

For them, the next several months will be a time to practice the Buddhist teaching of nonattachment: the recognition that all things are impermanent and that to cling too much to something leads to suffering.

Still, "there will be a scar. You can't avoid that," Ani Sakya says. "But at the same time there's going to be a benefit."

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES The Dalai Lama is commonly acknowledged as the spiritual leader of all Tibetan Buddhists. Young Asanga Sakya of Seattle has visited the Dalai Lama and will train as a leader himself.

For Tibetan Buddhists, spiritual and temporal leaders are one and the same, and within the Sakya sect, the teachings of the Buddha are said to be passed down through the bloodline. So, for Sakya Buddhists, it would be difficult for their faith to survive without the ruling family.

"The people inside Tibet are really waiting for someone of this lineage to come and give the teachings," said Asanga's mother, Chimey Sakya.

"They've asked for Asanga to come."

Fresh start in Seattle

On a recent weekday morning, Asanga arrived at Sakya Monastery in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood. Headquarters of Sakya Buddhism in North America, the monastery was founded by Asanga's grandfather Jigdal Dagchen Sakya.

He came out to meet Asanga, a small boy with big brown eyes in an elfin face that, though sometimes solemn and watchful, can also flash the most impish of grins.

Ask Asanga if he likes Nepal, where he's visited before, and he says yes, nodding gravely.

What does he remember most about it? Pause. Grin. "It has lots of monks."

From his backpack, Asanga pulled out a notebook filled with Tibetan prayers. The boy's bright voice mixed with the low rumble of his grandfather's as they recited prayers about their ancestors.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Asanga, having a snack with Aloki, has a ready smile and laugh but also is deeply compassionate and religious, according to his parents. He recites Buddhist prayers and loves to go to the monastery.

Asanga's parents say their son has shown a strong propensity toward religion and compassion. He's watched the movie "Kundun," about the Dalai Lama, many times, and asks to go to the monastery the way other kids beg to go to the park. By the time he was 2, he could recite several Buddhist prayers. Two years ago, when the family visited the Dalai Lama in India, Asanga sat quietly for prayers for hours.

It would be selfish, his parents say, to keep him from becoming a great lama just because they would miss him.

"I'm not sacrificing him for the family," Ani Sakya says. "It's about what's best for him." And if, after several years at the monastery, Asanga concludes he doesn't want to become a lama, he doesn't have to.

Before he fled Tibet, Asanga's grandfather lived, along with 200 servants and officials, in a palace close to a monastery with almost 1,000 monks.

He was in training to become the temporal leader of the province of Sakya, population about 12,000, and the spiritual leader of the more widely scattered practitioners of Sakya Buddhism.

All that changed in 1959, when the Chinese government cracked down on a major Tibetan revolt against Chinese Communist rule. Monasteries were attacked and many Tibetans killed.

Along with the Dalai Lama and thousands of fellow Tibetans, Jigdal Dagchen Sakya and his wife, Jamyang Sakya, fled with their young sons over the Himalayas to India.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Asanga Sakya, 5, plays with his sister Aloki, 3. Asanga soon will be sent to Nepal to receive training preparing him to perhaps someday lead 100,000 Sakya Buddhists.

The Sakyas came to Seattle in 1960, under a grant to the University of Washington to study Tibetan culture and history. Jamyang Sakya, a respected lama in her own right, found a job at a blood bank. Her husband took longer to adjust. As a prince back in Tibet, he had never seen a kitchen because servants always cooked for him. In Seattle, he learned to shop for groceries and cook. Their sons — Ani and his brothers — began adjusting to their new lives.

The boys were all athletic. Ani Sakya was popular at Roosevelt High School, playing football and baseball; his classmates voted him "foxiest boy."

After high school, increasingly curious about his heritage, Ani Sakya spent a year at a monastery in India. By tradition, as the second son of a Sakya lama, he would have been expected to become a monk. But he didn't have the personality for it.

"I'm a passionate person," said Sakya, whose words, even in casual conversation, come in intense volleys.

"Lamas can be passionate, but they're not supposed to be passionate the way lawyers are."

He decided his desire to help his people could be better served by learning law.

Among his four brothers, Ani Sakya has been the most involved in Tibetan affairs. For six years starting in 1991, he worked for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. There, he helped create a charter and judicial code and helped draft a constitution that would serve as a legal framework should Tibet regain its independence.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES For Asanga, days of playing Candy Land with his mother and sister will be replaced by days of studying Buddhist scriptures, philosophy and customs at a monastery in Nepal.

While there, he also met Chimey, whom he married in 1997. Asanga was born two years later, and daughter Aloki, two years after that. In Seattle, he worked as a public defender and now analyzes store-development leases for Starbucks.

Ani Sakya's brothers, too, have all visited or lived in India, Nepal or Tibet. They were deeply moved by the devotion of Sakya Buddhists there, who still look to the Sakya family, especially to patriarch Jigdal Dagchen Sakya, for leadership.

"Here's our dad who made us hot dogs and taught us to swim in Evans Pool," said Mati Sakya, 46. "Then he goes to Tibet and is shown extreme deference by throngs of thousands of people. He's surrounded by attendants. In their minds, he is a living god."

Each brother wrestles with balancing his life in America with the responsibilities of his lineage.

Minzu Sakya, 50, the oldest, is a film executive living in Beverly Hills and hasn't expressed interest in succeeding his father.

Mati Sakya, the third son, who works in tech support for a local company, plans to live part time in India in the near future to oversee his father's plans to build a monastery outside New Delhi.

Zaya Sakya, the fourth son, who works at a local blood bank, seven years ago sent his 4-year-old, Avikrita, to live with his Tibetan maternal grandparents and to study with Sakya Buddhists in India.

Avikrita's mother, Lhanze Youden Sakya, said it was hard to leave her son in India. But "it is so strongly part of our tradition and especially the Sakya lineage. ... It doesn't mean that we're giving away our child. And maybe he'll come back someday and share the teachings."

Sadu Sakya, 42, the youngest son, comptroller for a local company, had vowed to send a son as well, but he has three daughters, no sons. And while daughters can also receive religious training and hold high positions, they generally do not become lineage holders.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Using a laser pointer to follow words on a chalkboard, Asanga Sakya studies with his grandfather Jigdal Dagchen Sakya at the Sakya Monastery, which Jigdal Dagchen Sakya founded in Seattle's Greenwood district.

Local author David Guterson, a friend of Ani Sakya's since junior high, said "it's a very difficult thing for us to understand from our perspective: sending our child away." But, he said, his friend's decision to do so comes from his devotion to his family, faith and the Tibetan people.

"And it comes out of love for Asanga," said Guterson. "They want him in his heart and soul to be truly Tibetan and of the faith. This is a way to do that."

Asanga's new life

If things go according to plan, Ani Sakya and his family will travel together in India and Nepal for several weeks in April, before leaving Asanga at Tharlam Monastery.

Asanga's great-aunt, a nun, lives next to the monastery, which was founded by Asanga's great-great-uncle and is now home to some 70 monks. Also living there is another boy from Seattle, whom Tibetan Buddhists believe is the reincarnation of Asanga's great-great-uncle.

Presumably, Asanga will sometimes socialize with the boy and some of the other 20 or so children at the monastery. But, given his lineage, he will have a private tutor and attendant. Asanga will likely rise shortly after dawn to spend his days studying Buddhist religion, philosophy and prayers, customs and rituals, grammar and scriptures.

His parents and sister will probably visit him once a year. More than that, they say, would be a distraction, though they do plan to call him weekly, especially at the beginning.

His father holds strong hope that his son will become a great lama, not just for his family or Sakya Buddhists, but for all people trying to understand Buddhism.

He knows he can't guarantee that's what his son will want to do. But "getting the best teachers, the best atmosphere to nurture him — I have to do my best to provide that for him. From there, he takes it where it goes."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com