The Dalai Lama is now 76 years old and is fast running out of time. The leader of Tibet has repeatedly said that he will return to Lhasa again to walk the streets he knew as a boy. Millions of Tibetans dream of this happening. But every year that passes, there is less and less chance that it will.
By every metric, China has won on the issue of Tibet. They hold complete control over the ancient nation and are remaking the society in their own image. The language, culture and religion of the natives are under severe pressure, its dissidents jailed or in exile. Beijing is riding a wave of prosperity and power that makes it harder and harder to apply even the minimum pressure on Tibet.
With that in mind, I'd like to make a modest proposal. The Dalai Lama and his followers should march to the Tibetan border and demand to cross back into their ancestral homeland. His Holiness should be accompanied by some of the tens of thousands of Tibetans who fled with him after 1959, along with young men and women in their teens and twenties who have never even seen the dun-colored hills and valleys of Kham and Amdo.
They should all walk to the border and present the world with an image that should exist but doesn't: a Chinese soldier born in the provinces outside Tibet confronting the spiritual and secular leader of the country and telling him he can't enter. The Chinese can refuse, in which case His Holiness should then camp out, with the media in tow, and make the cruelty of the Chinese stance abundantly clear.
What would be the good of doing this? What will it produce? At the very least, a photo. Perhaps much more, but the picture itself would be important.
The Dalai Lama is one of the most photographed people on earth, but the images of him leaving the White House (by the back door, shamefully for President Obama) and shaking the hand of this or that leader do little to advance his cause. They may even harm it by giving the world a false jolt of pleasure. The images suggest that something is being done about Tibet at the highest levels of power when in fact nothing at all is being done.
What the Dalai Lama needs to do is engineer a photo that portrays the very real suffering of millions of his own people. Because they are suffering, hidden away in the foothills of Dharamsala and in other parts of their far-flung diaspora.
The Chinese will be furious, of course. But nothing has really worked with the Chinese on Tibet. It's time they confronted in the simplest way possible what they've done in and to that country.
The expedition would not only retrace the route Buddhism took from India to Tibet, it would echo other marches, such as Gandhi's salt campaign and the two Selma marches. In those, oppressed people risked their lives to demand what was due them. The Tibetans' cause is as good and as just as the others.
It wouldn't be an easy journey, physically speaking, for the 76-year-old Dalai Lama, or without its own risks. Last year his nephew, Jigme Norbu, was accidentally killed on a freedom walk in Florida, and other activists approaching the Indian-Tibetan border have been arrested. But the Dalai Lama has shown physical bravery in the past, in his own 1959 escape from Tibet. And when he dies, his people will lose their only global symbol. Who know if his successor will have half his magnetism or force of character?
As a follower of Gandhi, the Dalai Lama inherits a radical tradition as well as a more compassionate one. His Holiness has emulated the Indian leader's pacifist example. But Gandhi also walked a more fiery path – boycotts, mass arrests of his followers, implacable political confrontation. And it was the those things, amid all the gentle wisdom, that finally brought justice to his people.
China has as much right to control Tibet as the US does to control Hawaii, which was illegally annexed by the US after the coup by American nations who overthrew the government and imprisoned the queen. Free Hawaii!!
May the light of truth dispel the darkness of our ignorance. May all sentient beings be free from hatred, free from sorrow, free from sickness. May all sentient beings attain Buddha-hood in this very lifetime.
Buddham saranam gacchami- I seek refuge in the Buddha
Dhammam saranam gacchami- I seek refuge in the Dharma.
Sangham saranam gacchami- I seek refuge in the Sangha.
Politics eh? I suspect it is not a good path, as it is not here in the United States. In China and India there are also explosive dangers and tricks and delusions that can cause untold harm and already have.
Poor Gandhi showed the result of Indian politics. And as for Red China there are millions of victims, surely we do not need another. Stephan Talty hush yourself and consider.
but the wouldnt kill hhdl and all the exiles who wander into range?
why not? because they fear us? because they dont want the bad pr?
your proposal is dangerously naive.
Unlike Ghandi who lived in his own country, Dalai Lama lives in exile so he has to make sure not to infuriate his host, India. It is India who needs to show some balls and stand up to the Chinese. India's cowardliness is truly shameful, we saw how far they can go to please the Chinese when they arrested hundreds of peaceful Tibetan protesters in its Delhi and put thousands more into house arrest. So if the Indian government show some guts and stand up to the Chinese then surely this will give more leverage to the Tibetan in exile.
Nope. There is no creator. Only dependent origination; cause and effect. An 'uncaused' agent is contradictory to observation and inferential reason. God is not necessary in Buddhist cosmology.
My reply!
Well said and I agree! Further, my conclusions of Buddhism still holds and are refreshed and reinforced with your statement which is: "Buddhism and Atheism are one and the same -- pure and simple!"
Agreed (i.e., USA also wrong in taking lands away from other soveriegnties), but things do change and that is not an argument for not opposing tyranny.
My reply!
Yes true it is not an argument to not oppose tyranny; however the opposition to tyranny must first, not should, start right here at home! One must first extract the rafter out of our own eye -- before tweezing a splinter from our neighbor's! We cannot ask others to adhere to a higher standard of values and actions -- while we stay somewhere down below the standards we are asking from others!
Your thinking is right there with the US not wanting anyone to have nuclear weapons -- but we continue to have enough nukes to wipe the earth 100 times over. I'm sure you do not see the correlation - because you missed it the first time around.
Buddhists believe a "God" exists. They do not worship one.
My reply!
Buddhist believe a creator of all things exist -- but they do not worship that living God -- is your statement.
I must be honest that sounds difficult to swallow! The Buddhist followers are worshiping someone; and if it is not the Creator of all Things -- who can it be?
Please respond!
I agree! My conclusions holds and are reinforced with your statement: "Buddhism and Atheism are one and the same -- pure and simple
China and Tibet being one what? Dictatorship?
My reply!
China and Tibet is what it is! Even if we want to stir division and unrest -- that relationship is not going to end. Change yes -- Tibetans must accept their fate and find change thru political means.
Native Americans have had difficulty for centuries, and rightly so, being under the thumb of the US -- but that is a reality that is not going away. But with acceptance of fate and through political fence mending/nurturing alleys in elected office we coexist. Tibetan loyal to the Dalai must do the same!
If the Dalai Lama had stayed in Tibet he would have been dead along long time ago.
We hold him to be a divine being, and his touch is a blessing," said Tseten Phanucharas, a spokeswoman for the Dalai Lama.
My reply!
When one is divine; thinks of himself as divine, and allows others to think of him as divine -- death is part of "that one's makeup and always present in fulfilling divine callings!"
The God of the Bible, that Buddhist do not believe exist -- but does, sent his Only Begotten Son for a "Divine Mission" of mercy -- where death by impalement was key in fulfilling the mission of salvation for all mankind.
My point the Dalai's fear of death in the hands of his enemies show a very un-divine nature; a nature that is in tune with mortal men .. like you and I!
My statement holds -- the Dalai is a leader in exile.
Buddhism is very fluid -- hard to pin down.
Curious how God's son gave his life for others in much the same way as the monks and nuns are doing today.