Hello guys I have some questions about Tibetians. I ve seen many people from Tibet carrying a picture of someone as a necklace. Who is that person and why do they carry it? How can a religion effect people's life so much and unify them? I mean, Tibetean people still didnt start to blow up things in China because of what China did to them and their country. How can a religion be so powerful? What is the general Philosophy of a person from Tibet. What do they accomplish my meditating?
They will... Tibetan Buddhism stresses avoiding violence, but does not reject it completely. Most religions do unify a people, it is central to tibetan culture. Inner and outer peace.
The Dalai Lama I haven't stopped a Tibetan on the sidewalk and asked to look at his amulet, but I'm sure it's a picture of the Dalai Lama. (And no, it's not "Dali" as in Salvador Dali. It's "Dalai.") He's the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of the Pope, except that each successive Dalai Lama is supposed to have the reincarnated soul of Buddha himself. A pretty special guy. (Not all Buddhists believe in reincarnation, this is just the Tibetan version.) He went into exile in India when China overran Tibet and he's never gone back. For their spiritual leader to still be living in freedom is a tangible artifact of their faith that one day Tibet itself will be free. He is a very prominent international figure. I was in Minneapolis -- not exactly a major center of Buddhist life in America -- when he visited the city two years ago. It was like the Beatles had arrived -- all four of them -- the city went crazy. It is to America's eternal shame that we've violated our own laws, alienated our allies, taken unbelievable casualties, and pissed off one third of the world's population in order to "free" Iraq from a leader that a rather large minority of the population likes... but we didn't lift a finger to stop the Red Chinese from marching into Tibet and turning it into just one more pathetic, destitute, starving, repressed Chinese province. As for what people get from meditation, I suggest you speak to one personally. I don't do it. But I'm sure there's a meditation center in your town and lots of people -- mostly Americans (or whatever country you live in) -- do it. My own observation is that it relieves stress, makes them more tolerant, slower to anger, more able to find their way out of dilemmas without using violence -- I guess the word I'm looking for is "wiser."
"Always" is about 50-100 years to us Americans To us, history only goes back as far as our grandparents' youth. For me that's the 1890s. For the rest of you, it's when I was a kid. Considering that we're all living on land that used to belong to someone else -- actually many other people, the French, Mexicans, Spanish, several Indian tribes, etc. who kept stealing it from each other-- it makes us uncomfortable to attempt to decide political issues based on somebody's historical claim to a piece of real estate. Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, Chechnya, Cyprus? You name it. All of those conflicts have roots that go back so far that the USA wasn't even a country yet and most of our families were still living in some other country. We can't possibly understand them. If we speak up and say that Israel ought to give the West Bank to the Palestinians, someone will point out that we're hypocrites if we don't immediately give Arizona back to the Mexicans. So if we say no, Israel has a claim going all the way back to biblical times and they should keep the land, somebody will tell us okay, then give Arizona back to the Navajos. We can't talk about history because we don't have any. Was Tibet once a Chinese province? Yeah, probably. For a real long time? Yeah, probably, if you mean sixty or seventy years, because that's as high as we can count. Does any of that matter to an American who probably doesn't know where his own parents were born? No way. What matters to us is that Tibet has been a separate country since we all went to school and studied geography. What matters even more is that we love Tibet. An unswervingly peaceful people who won't shoot you even if you invade their country. A religion that does not require converting everybody else in the world to it, or even treating other religions with disrespect. Those incredibly butch little Lhasa Apso dogs who, if you take them to the park, they'll try to mount the pit bulls. Tibet is just plain cool. Since the 1960s, when meditation and chanting and love and peace and tolerance and so much of what it stands for became popular in America, it's beyond cool, it's frelling wonderful. I don't really give a damn what country claims sovereignty over it based upon some events that occurred hundreds of years ago. Or whether their ancestors practiced slavery. (Gee, didn't some of ours do that too?) Or that it wasn't democratic. (Democracy got us a Govinator in California, maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be.) None of that gives anybody the right to stomp in there and destroy it for the sake of creating a few more inefficient communist collective farms that will produce enough food to postpone the starvation of the entire Chinese population by about three more weeks. Just like I don't think we had any good excuse for stomping into Iraq and trying to fix an ethnic/political/religious dispute that's been going on for centuries. Free Tibet. It's one of the most special places on Earth. Politics is simply irrelevant. I'd wear a picture of the Dalai Lama if I thought it would help. I'll definitely vote for any candidate who promises to remove our troops from Iraq and send them to liberate Tibet.
I agree with Fraggle Rocker.. The picture that they carry is not the one of Dalai Lama. I asked it once to a Tibetean friend named Tenzin and he said no its not the picture of Dalai Lama. He talked about some prophets and everyone having a prophet. I couldnt ask more because he had to go somewhere so i am just left confused now. But i do remember what he told me about choosing the Dalai Lama when the old one dies. Basically they search for the soul of Dalai Lama in a newborn child. But what if the soul is in a family outside of Tibet? What do they do now? Imagine some Buddhists coming to your door and claiming that your child has the soul of Dalai Lama and has to be taken to India with them. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
the pr campaign is alive and well a few points to note... the chinese account Shortly after the 1949 victory of Maoist forces against the U.S.-backed dictator Chiang Kai-shek, the revolution came to Tibet. The ruling class of Tibet--a feudal class of aristocrats and monks--alternated wildly between passivity and resistance. Starting in 1957, sections of their class participated in a series of armed anti-communist actions--attempting to stop the deepening revolutionary changes in Tibet. Lamaist propagandists, including the Dalai Lama himself, portray these actions as a noble, home-grown resistance to foreign domination. The truth is this: from its beginning within Tibet in the 1950s to the armed feudalist uprising of 1959, to the armed exile-based guerrilla movement of the 1960s--this "struggle" was organized, financed, trained, armed, led, and finally dispersed by the CIA. In the old days, the Dalai Lama was a figurehead of an oppressive feudal order. In exile, he became the figurehead of a Tibetan CIA-backed, anticommunist armed movement headed by his brother, Gyalo Thondup--similar to so many "contra" (counterrevolutionary) armies the CIA has created to wage covert wars. The CIA intrigues encouraged an armed uprising in March 1959, as feudal forces tried to expel the revolutionary army from Tibet. Grunfeld writes: "Despite cries of innocence on the part of the Dalai Lama, officials in Washington were planning for the events months before that fateful March in 1959." In March 1959, the feudal Tibetan forces were quickly defeated. The Dalai Lama was whisked into exile in India by a covert CIA operation. Grunfeld documents that CIA-trained agents in the Dalai Lama's caravan laid out special airdrop targets in the snow to guide a U.S. military C130 aircraft that had been specially modified to fly in the thin Tibetan air. Halfway to India, a radio operator joined the Dalai Lama's group so the whole operation could be directly monitored from the CIA station in Dacca, East Pakistan. The CIA immediately set up a Tibetan contra force among the exiles. Ten Tibetan contra camps were set up in the tiny principality of Mustang on the Nepal-China border. The CIA had three more C130s modified for high altitude airdrops. Grunfeld writes: "This major recruiting effort yielded 14,000 Tibetans and some additional tribal people in the field, `entirely dependent on long-range transport and infiltration,' and `armed, equipped and fed by the Agency [CIA].' " In 1961 the Dalai Lama said: "the only weapons that the [lamaist] rebels possess are those they've managed to capture from the Chinese." Some reports say the Dalai Lama personally picked the contra field commander in Mustang. (dalai lama/cia) the american acount When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, as shown in the upcoming movie Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese, 2 of the Tibetans trained by the CIA caught up with the Dalai Lama when he was half-way to India. At that point, they sent a radio message to the CIA - which marked the first time the American government knew that the Dalai Lama was fleeing Tibet. (george mag retraction) "For much of the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama, according to ... US intelligence documents" published last month by the State Department. The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA's worldwide effort during the early years of the Cold War to undermine communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China." Mann, Jim. "CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s." The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sep. 1998. Annexed by China in 1959 after years of fighting, the small nation of Tibet has become ground zero for the human rights movement. Tibet has become a cause celeb for the Amnesty International crowd for much the same reason it was the center of the plaster-and-chicken-wire worldviews of Theosophists and Dr. Strange comics: the exoticism and mysticism. The Dalai Lama's own tireless advocacy and Hollywood networking for his people, and the myth of his pacifism has captured the attention of a new generation of activists. R.E.M.'s lead singer Michael Stipe summed up the feelings of the movement in the New York Post (November 2nd, 1997). The Tibetans resisted Chinese rule "peacefully without raising swords. No matter what hardship these people were under, they would not raise a hand against the enemy." As a historian, Michael Stipe would make a great alternarock mumbler. He's wrong. disinformation
more chinese spin For a long time the Dalai Lama has run about overseas preaching his doctrine repeatedly, giving lengthy speeches and interviews with foreign media, speaking glibly about his alleged goal of "turning the Tibetan Plateau into a holy land filled with peace and non-violence, where people can live in harmony with nature," and that "only when the whole Earth is regarded as one family and are our family members, will mankind be able to continue to survive." He has also claimed that what he has done "is entirely for the happiness of the Tibetan people," and has masqueraded himself as an apologist for peace and "Ahimsa" (love and non-violence). However, there is an old Tibetan saying that goes, "mere talk only churns up bubbles, but doing practical things is digging gold," so, behind all this talk about "Ahimsa," what has the Dalai Lama really done? History and fact provide us with the answer. An Apologist for Peace or A Fomenter of Riots
fraggle despite the history lesson, the points you make are valid. it is about the right to determine your future free from outside interference. that should be a fundamental right however what actually transpires? do the iraqi's want what we want? do the tibetans? is their society flexible enough to give all, basic rights? or will they regress to the old ways? if the assessment results in the latter, i vote we mind our own business. besides...take on china?
Do not confuse criticism of the Dalai Lama's phony pacifism and the heavy-handed involvement of the CIA with an attempt to downplay the viciousness of the Chinese invasion. This interview with the Dalai Lama's other older brother (not the CIA stooge) spells out the Tibetan situation, in strongly nationalistic terms. Dalai Lama: My Dream For Tibet's Freedom
Spookz, Any national movement that opposes PLA necessarily happens to be feudal / reactionary force in Chinese terms.! CIA does not find Tibetian movement anything worthy other than to help their anti-chinese propaganda. CIA does not give much priority to Tibet. Tibetians are international orphans, none to take their cause seriously and treated similar to that of Kurds. Poor Tibetians. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Kurds?? Sorry to say this here but i just couldnt stop myself Tibetans and Kurds are totally different. 1) Kurds never were independent and never lived together under the same banner. 2) Tibetans didnt kill thousands of innocent people and organized terrorist organizations like PKK or KADEK 3) The leader of the Tibetans is an internatioanally respected and loved man. I cant even compare him with Abdullah Ocalan. (This surprises me a lot actually. I cant believe the power of religion on Tibetans. They still didnt attack China.) Anyway, I also remember my friend talking about "the nine" holy man who searched for Dalai Lama everytime they needed one. Any information about them?
what would you guys like next? the homo affair b/w the lama and gere? edit: *damn i should have used a proxy server for this post
Spookz I'm having trouble seeing quite what you're getting at. How about just saying it. Half your extracts seem to be nonsense. That's not like you.
well if i just say it, (voice my opinion) then i'll be asked for citations (back it up). i decided to bypass that routine and "cut to the chase." however, it is careless and unrealistic to expect all to divine my intent so.... excerpts from frag's first post.... 1- A pretty special guy. 2 - He is a very prominent international figure 3 - ...the city went crazy. 4 -..picture of the Dalai Lama that rubbed me the wrong way. not frag's fault but my idiosyncrasies are at fault here. then i guess i went overboard trying to paint the guy as an asshole. lets see here... 1- A pretty special guy. how? conventional wisdom has him all saintly and stuff but in reality he is just a figurehead for the tibetan resistance 2 - He is a very prominent international figure a fad that would have passed if not for the fact that americans glommed on to buddhism. tibet is just another hellhole like any other. no better no worse. 3 - ...the city went crazy. i'll let frag speak...It was like the Beatles had arrived 4 -..picture of the Dalai Lama that is so bogus! this idol worship must be routed out!!!! (just playing) what really pisses me of is... The third period began with the great reformer Tsong - kha - pa (1357 - 1419), who founded the dGe - lugs - pa sect - the so called Yellow Hats - to which the line of the Dalai Lamas belongs. Each of these lamas was thought to be the reincarnation of his predecessor (as well as that of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara) and became, at least nominally, the religious and secular ruler of the country. cool scam eh? like all the other fucks that claim divinity in order to keep the citizens obedient and willing vassals. bottom line. "hey dalai!!! stop pimping buddhism you fuck!"
Spookz et al... No offense taken. I enjoy your point of view. I'm not especially sanguine about religion and am usually pretty quick to back away from conflicts that are rooted in it. My suggestion about liberating Tibet instead of Iraq was just meant to illustrate the fact that in addition to being a fraud and a moron, our so-called President is also a coward. If Iraq had a military force as viable as China's, he wouldn't have been so anxious to challenge its sovereignty, establish democracy, or introduce the concept of freedom of religion, all of which apply to Tibet just as logically as Iraq, if not more so. I wouldn't put much stock in the method of choosing the successor to the Dalai Lama. There have been several amusing movies and TV shows about the prospect of his soul showing up in a foreigner. Even "The Simpsons" did one. I'm sure the people who administer the ritual are too savvy to make a choice that would generate ill will and objections. As to who wants what, I am positive that the majority of the Iraqis do not want a government like ours, where a porno magazine publisher and a porno film star can both run for the governorship of our largest state. Iraq has the same problem that most countries in former colonial areas do. Its borders have been jiggled so often that the area inside them is not really a nation by any rational definition. The Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds have nothing in common except their hatred. Tibet is not like that. There is such a thing as a Tibetan people. And no, I don't think they'd really like a government like ours either!
Spookz Just for once I think you have no idea what you're talking about. You make this plainer with every post. You can criticize the Dalai Lama as much as you like, if you've got any valid criticism, but do a bit of research first. Especially on the long and complicated relationship between China and Tibet, what Buddhism actually is, the role of the Dalai Lama, and what he actually says and writes. And you're going to have a very hard time arguing that the Tibetan method for choosing and educating its leaders, given the nature of the nation, is worse that ours as far as results go. There is more sense and wisdom in the DL's little finger than Bush and Blair would even be able to comprehend given a couple of lifetimes to catch up. This is why people rate him, not because he's some kind of hereditary King picked by lottery to be a figurehead for a hellhole nation of anti-Chinese guerillas.
