American Buddhist Net

The Tibetan Youth Congress, known for spearheading high-profile rallies such as last year’s storming of the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, has unleashed its latest salvo at Beijing: a slow and very public death.

“All our campaigns have been non-violent so far,” said Tsewang Rigzin, the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress. “That’s what we’re doing now.”

But this is the first time Tibetan demonstrators are declining water as well as food. Without medical intervention, they are unlikely to live beyond this week.

The Tibetan Youth Congress vows that for every striker that dies, another will take his place. The six demonstrators, said Konchok Yagphel, who speaks for the group, represent the six million Tibetans in the world still struggling for an independent homeland.

And they do not intend to let any police officer come between them and that goal.

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By Christiane Amanpour and Andrew Tkach
CNN

DHARAMSALA, India (CNN) -- Gedun Gyatso, a 27-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, is so devoted to the Dalai Lama that when he was in prison, he placed a picture of him next to his pillow in open defiance of his jailers. The gesture earned Gyatso another month of incarceration on top of the three years he had served for his political activity.

But today, Gyatso stands in defiance of the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach to the long struggle between China and Tibetans over the fate of their homeland. The Tibetan spiritual leader's moderation is being challenged by a new generation at odds with his willingness to accept Tibetan autonomy within China rather than push for full independence.

"His Holiness says it's up to the Tibetans to choose their future, and I choose complete independence, and so do most Tibetans. As we saw in the uprising last March," Gyatso said.

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New measures reveal government plan to purge monasteries and restrict Buddhist practice

July 30, 2008

Sweeping new measures introduced in Kardze to purge monasteries of monks and restrict religious practice in the wake of protests across the plateau reveal a systematic new attack on Tibetan Buddhism that is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. The new measures, which will apply to hundreds of monasteries, strike at the heart of Tibetan religious identity at a time of unprecedented tension on the plateau and are likely to create further resentment among the Tibetan people.

According to the new measures, specified in an official document from Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province (the Tibetan area of Kham):

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International Campaign for Tibet
July 30th, 2008

Sweeping new measures introduced in Kardze to purge monasteries of monks and restrict religious practice in the wake of protests across the plateau reveal a systematic new attack on Tibetan Buddhism that is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. The new measures, which will apply to hundreds of monasteries, strike at the heart of Tibetan religious identity at a time of unprecedented tension on the plateau and are likely to create further resentment among the Tibetan people.

According to the new measures, specified in an official document from Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province (the Tibetan area of Kham):

* Monks who express dissent or refuse to 'conform' can be expelled and their residence demolished

* Tulkus (reincarnate lamas) could be 'stripped of the right to hold the incarnation lineage' if they communicate with foreigners or engage in protests against the Chinese authorities - a measure that is consistent with an earlier ruling that all reincarnate lamas must have the approval of the Chinese government

* Buddhist practice will be suspended in monasteries where a specific percentage of monks have engaged in protest or dissent

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San Mateo, CA (PRWEB) July 29, 2008 -- Come August, the world's eyes will be on China as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad take place in Beijing. For those who want to complement daily media accounts of swim times, medal ceremonies and gymnastics scores with a late-summer read, "The Dharma King" will hit the shelves just in time.

Described as a thrilling novel of one man's quest to save Tibet - and himself - "The Dharma King" is an epic chase to find and bring the baby Panchen Lama, the spiritual counterpart to the Dalai Lama, to safety.

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Jonathan Bastian, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Sunday, July 27, 2008

What does compassion and global responsibility really mean to you?

To the Dalai Lama, they are inextricably bound to his life, his religion and his future legacy.

Consider this: Every morning at 4 a.m., the Dalai Lama rises in the pitch black and sits inside a sacred room to practice between four and five hours of meditation. Clothed only in humble red robes, he is completely alone, sitting cross-legged on the ground, contemplating the teaching and texts of Tibetan Buddhist masters.

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by David Frey, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, July 24, 2008

A chant rose up from 10 Tibetan Buddhist monks as the Aspen Institute opened its celebration of Tibetan art and culture on Wednesday. In red and orange robes and fringed crescent headwear, they stood behind a mandala sand painting taking shape grain by grain and intoned a deep and guttural sound that filled the room.

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July 24th, 2008 - 1:43 pm ICT by IANS

Dharamsala, July 24 (IANS) The Indian government has refused to allow Tibetan spiritual leader the Karmapa Lama, the only major monk reincarnate recognised by both the Dalai Lama and China, to visit areas close to the China border ahead of the Beijing Olympics, his aides said here Thursday. The 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorjee, had sought permission to visit various monasteries in Lahaul and Spiti districts of Himachal Pradesh as well as Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir.

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Associated Press
Last update: July 24, 2008

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is scheduled to meet with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, on Friday in Colorado.

The two will meet in Aspen, where the Dalai Lama plans to address a symposium on Tibetan culture and its impact on global issues, the McCain campaign said Thursday.

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Dalai Lama to visit Japan in November: Buddhist group

July 24, 2008

The Indian government has refused to allow Tibetan spiritual leader the Karmapa Lama, the only major monk reincarnate recognised by both the Dalai Lama and China, to visit areas close to the China border ahead of the Beijing Olympics, his aides said here Thursday.

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Dharam Shourie, Press Trust Of India
New York, July 18, 2008

Thousands of supporters of the Dalai Lama shouted and "spit" on a group of demonstrators belonging to a Buddhist sect which alleges that the Tibetan spiritual leader is persecuting its members, forcing the police to intervene to prevent clashes between them.

The incident occurred outside Radio City hall in Manhattan on Thursday evening as thousands people, mostly Tibetans and Nepalese-American, were coming out after listening a sold out lecture from the Dalai Lama on the Four Nobel Truths about Buddhism.

Some of those who attended the lecture had paid as much as $1000.

As they came out, they were confronted by the demonstrators. Some among them started shouting at the protesters and waving currency notes to make the point that the demonstrators were paid Chinese agents, a charge which spokespersons of the protesters vehemently denied.

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07/21/2008

Stupa burial and cremation are reserved for high lamas who are being honored in death. Sky burial is the usual means for disposing of the corpses of commoners. Sky burial is not considered suitable for children who are less than 18, pregnant women, or those who have died of infectious disease or accident. The origin of sky burial remains largely hidden in Tibetan mystery. Sky burial is a ritual that has great religious meaning. Tibetans are encouraged to witness this ritual, to confront death openly and to feel the impermanence of life...

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Tibetan Buddhist leader visits Wisconsin on eve of Beijing Olympics

Emily Mills on Sunday 07/20/2008

Marking his seventh visit to Wisconsin, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet spoke to a mostly packed Dane County Coliseum on Saturday, the opening event of a week-long series of talks and teachings in and around Madison. He arrived on Friday, and started his visit with a consecration of a new temple at the Deer Park Buddhist Center in the town of Oregon on Saturday morning.

The region has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Tibetan Buddhist community. Geshe Lhundub Sopa, a tenured professor at the UW-Madison, has been instrumental in growing the community not only in Madison, but around the United States as well. Originally sent by the Dalai Lama in 1962 to help bring Tibetan Buddhism to the US, Sopa went on to found the Deer Park center in 1975. Between activities there and the arrival of several exiled Tibetan families to Wisconsin in 1992, the area has been visited regularly by the Dalai Lama ever since.

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Friday July 18, 2008
By Barbara O'Brien

I can't tell you how much I don't want to get mixed up in the Dalai Lama-Shugden controversy. Unfortunately, hundreds of Dalai Lama supporters and Shugden devotees clashed in the streets of Manhattan yesterday afternoon and had to be separated by police. I can't very well ignore that. So here goes.

According to the New York Times, about 200 members of the Western Shugden Society were protesting outside Radio City Music Hall, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama was speaking. As the audience, mostly of Tibetan and Nepalese ancestry, left Radio City, they confronted the protesters. Soon, the Times says, "The crowd began to swell, and eventually thousands were shouting 'Long Live Dalai Lama' and waving dollar bills at the protesters, asserting that they had been paid by the Chinese government."

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Janet Fillmore/Plain Dealer Religion Editor July 17, 2008

Gelek Rimpoche is a Tibetan master who studied under the same teachers who trained the Dalai Lama. Born in Tibet in 1939, he fled his homeland in 1959 after the Chinese invaded it. In 1988, he founded Jewel Heart, an Ann Arbor, Mich., Tibetan Buddhist center with chapters in Chicago; Cleveland; Lincoln, Neb.; Malaysia; and the Netherlands.

In the mid-1980s, Rimpoche spent two years in Cleveland, working with Melvyn Goldstein, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, on a book about Tibetan political history.

In May, Rimpoche spoke at the Unity Church of Greater Cleveland in Shaker Heights. His talk, "Engaging Wisdom and Compassion," was a continuation of the Dalai Lama's teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in April.

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See also this: His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Advice Concerning Dolgyal (Shugden). ABN
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By Genevieve Marshall | Of The Morning Call
July 13, 2008

Hundreds of Buddhists, some in monastic red and gold robes, gathered behind plastic orange fencing outside Stabler Arena on Saturday, chanting angrily and waving signs at the people who attended the Dalai Lama's lectures.

The thousands who purchased tickets to hear the world's most famous monk speak were confronted with masses yelling, ''Dalai Lama, stop lying!'' and ''Dalai Lama, give religious freedom!'' as they headed outdoors for lunch.

A few hundred members of the Western Shugden Society were the first protesters to appear at Lehigh University since the Dalai Lama arrived in Bethlehem last week. A spokeswoman said they believe the Dalai Lama oppresses Buddhists who worship the deity Dorje Shugden.

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July 13, 2008

More than 1,000 Buddhist monks are still locked up under armed guard in monasteries around Lhasa, four months after anti-Chinese riots, while the authorities implement their harshest crackdown on religion in decades.

Eyewitnesses confirm that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops have sealed off Drepung, the largest monastery in Tibet. Nobody may go in or out. Photography is banned and passers-by are shooed away.

A camp of olive-green tents and two rings of roadblocks surround this sanctuary of meditation. Local people say the monks pay the army for food to be sent to them.

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July 9, 2008
By Lloyd Steffen

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, visits the Lehigh Valley this week. Why all the excitement? Why is the Dalai Lama so important?

One thing everyone knows about the Dalai Lama is that he is famous. His face and cheery smile are known the world over. He is, in fact, an iconic figure whose status as a bona fide celebrity was confirmed when a Dalai Lama ''paper doll'' cut-out book was published not long ago. But why does he command so much attention? Does he not come out of a religious tradition -- Tibetan Buddhism -- unfamiliar to many Americans? And the conflict between Tibet and China that has put the Dalai Lama in the news lately-does that not involve a regional history over issues that for most of us are simply obscure? Why is the Dalai Lama thought to be important? Fair question.

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Sunday 6th July, 2008

The 73rd birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama is being marked by the University of Madras and Alliance Francaise here Sunday with a three-day festival of Tibetan culture.

The festival began with a presentation on an extraordinary French woman, who was one of the only two French explorers to be able to reach the forbidden land of Lhasa in the hundred years between 1846 and 1950.

Many foreign explorers, 'missionaries, army officers, diplomats, spies' wanted to have a look at Tibet at the time, explained Claude Arpi, French journalist and historian, speaking on the life Alexandra David-Neel whose numerous writings contributed to make Tibet and Buddhism known the world over.

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By ASHWINI BHATIA

DHARMSALA, India (AP) — The Tibetan government-in-exile won't hold any celebrations to mark the Dalai Lama's birthday Sunday because of the ongoing suffering of the people of Tibet, an official said.

The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader turns 73.

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Severe restrictions, including checkpoints and surveillance, imposed since wave of anti-government protests in March, exiles say

GEOFFREY YORK
June 23, 2008 at 4:19 AM EDT

LHASA — The pilgrims returned to the Potala Palace yesterday, spinning their prayer wheels and prostrating themselves in front of the Dalai Lama's ancient palace on a mountaintop in Lhasa.

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Human Rights Group Says Over 1,000 Protesters Detained During Anti-Government Riots Have Not Been Accounted For

LONDON, June 18, 2008

(AP) More than 1,000 protesters detained during anti-government riots in Tibet three months ago have not been accounted for, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Amnesty International said a quarter of about 4,000 people detained by police during the riots in Tibet in March are unaccounted for. The others have been either released or placed under formal arrest.

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By Ali Nassor

A group of St. Petersburg scientists have returned from the Himalayan Mountains after learning the secrets of an almost-extinct form of Tibetan yoga that they hope can be used to cure diseases in the West.

The scientists have recently completed a two-month mission to find traces of Tum-Mo, a form of Tibetan Buddhist yoga that preserves body temperatures through excessive production of internal heat despite the body’s exposure to extremely cold mountain climates.

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Saturday, June 14, 2008
ABC Radio National Interview with WSS Spokesperson

The Dalai Lama faces protests from within the Shugden Buddhist community on his Australian tour, 11th June 2008
Transcript

This week the Dalai Lama returns to Australia in fact for the second time in a little over a year. And as we go to air this morning, he's giving a press conference in Sydney.

CHANTING 'Dalai Lama stop lying' 'Religion Freedom"

Stephen Crittenden: That's a recent protest rally outside the Albert Hall in London.