I continually meet people who want to “do something” about Tibet and the Tibetans. And who wouldn’t? An entire people committed, particularly over the last 700 years, to the principles of non-violence, whose homeland has been occupied with varying degrees of brutality over the last half century, and whose leader has become not only an adroit ambassador for his country, but one of the most revered spiritual figures in the world . . . What’s not to like? And don’t forget: George Lucas, in Return of the Jedi (1983) had those cute little Ewoks speaking Tibetan.
So if you google the phrase, “help Tibet,” you’ll get over 8.5 million hits.
Take your pick. Many of these organizations have made substantial contributions to the Tibetan cause, and there’s a lot you can do that will make a difference.
But having been involved over several decades now, and with dramatically varying degrees of commitment, to understanding what Tibetan culture might reasonably offer Americans, I wanted to offer my own Ten Ways to Free Tibet, and then be done with it. It’s not a manifesto; it’s not a declaration. It’s just a list of suggestions that are offered here as tentative answers to persistent questions.
My working plan: In this posting I’ll list three suggestions; in the next posting, four; and in the third posting, three, making for a total of ten. I’ll eventually offer a bit of commentary, a very little commentary, on each item, hoping to provide a picture of the overall conceptual structure that stands behind the entire set of ten. But for now, here are the first three ways to free Tibet.
- Set aside 20 minutes and watch the following video. It's a recording of a talk given by Jill Bolte Taylor at a TED Conference on February 27, 2008. (If you're unfamiliar with TED, correct that problem asap. Their website contains a library of TED talks, and they're routinely amazing, jaw-dropping, and inspiring.) Dr. Taylor, a neuroanatomist, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage in the left hemisphere, and her description of this experience lays the scientific groundwork for Americans to approach and potentially understand one of the most important legacies the Tibetan philosophers have left us. Warning: Don't even think about starting this video if you don't have twenty minutes to give to it because you'll completely ignore whatever you were supposesd to be doing.
- Memorize this fact: Before Western explorers arrived in America and began its colonization, noted anthropologist Henry Dobyns estimated the population of Native Americans to be approximately 10 million. By the end of the 19th century, the number had dwindled to 250,000. Over 9 million Native Americans perished as a result of our arrival on these shores.
- Memorize this quotation by Mahatma Gandhi: "The outward freedom . . . that we shall attain, will be only in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment" (from The Essential Gandhi, ed. by Louis Fischer with a Preface by Eknath Easwaran, p. 165.)
So, the first three ways to save Tibet. Four more in the next posting. Stay tuned.
