TIBETSPACE

ROBERT THURMAN, ONCE AGAIN, ON TIBET, CHINA, AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The indefatigable Robert Thurman on Tibet, China, and the simple question, 'Why the Dalai Lama matters.'  And atheism, and the political right, and anything else that crosses his mind and fall within the wide arena of Tibet and His Holiness.

WELCOME TO TIBETSPACE

Welcome to TIBETSPACE, a blog in the process of changing. Begun as a site for all things Tibetan, all things Tibetan has dramatically expanded as His Holiness has created conversations that continually transcend traditional cultural boundaries.  So I will try to chart some of those conversations here, always keeping His Holiness's views in mind, but also trying to show how long those views are.

FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ABOUT OBAMA, HIS HOLINESS & THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

The recent decision by the White House not to receive His Holiness the Dalai Lama--exacerbated by the fact that it now involves one Nobel Peace Prize winner turning his back on another one because of pressure from China, a country on intimate terms with oppression--presents an opportune moment to have a look at the two men, side by side, in five areas, and to see that they don't really have a lot in common.  And that both men's work continues apace, on decidedly different tracks.

1. Human Rights--Over the past fifty years, the Dalai Lama's role has expanded from serving as a political representative of the Tibetan people--both in Tibet and in exile--to being a spokesperson for human rights in general and standing as an advocate for the relief of human suffering wherever it might exist. Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have agreed with His Holiness. King's own career, broadening from a focus on African-Americans to include, finally, the American poor, whatever their race, bears ample testimony to this. Now in 2009, fifty years after Mark Charles Parker was taken from his jail cell in Poplarville, Mississippi and lynched, the American political scene does not have a national figure whose ideas are marching logically and inexorably toward the cause of human rights. Remember, you can't get elected to national office in America by running on a platform of human rights.  And remember this too: the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King, Jr. did not run for public office.
2. Chicago Olympics--If Obama wants to be re-elected, he has to campaign; and, by some accounts, his re-election bid for 2012 has already started.  The Chicago Olympics would have been a real boost to his campaign and a fine send-off in 2016, when the Olympics arrived and his term, if he is re-elected, would end. In the twentieth century, however, either the Summer or the Winter Olympics visited our shores eight times.  That's enough.  Sure, there are those who thought that Obama's failure to get the Games for Chicago signaled dire and ominous things about America's reputation abroad (of course, Obama hadn't won the Nobel Prize for Peace at that time--more on that later), but they were wrong. Rio simply needed it more than we did.  And they purportedly made a much better case.  But King didn't care, and His Holiness doesn't care, about these things because they don't have to care about these things.  They don't have to win votes. Obama's attention to the Olympics wasn't a distraction from the health-care issue; it was an attempt to get re-elected.  
3. Non-Violence--Now that the civil-rights workers who rose to prominence in the 50's and 60's are aging, non-violence as a cogent and indispensable tool for social reform has vanished from the national stage.  The Dalai Lama's recent pilgrimage to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis should remind us of what unites Reverend King and His Holiness.  I am thinking, of course, of Mahatma Gandhi. Both King and the Dalai Lama drew a great deal from Gandhi's fundamental notions of non-violence. His Holiness, Mahatma Gandhi, and Reverend King realized a central truth that extends from a subtle understanding of non-violence:  that the acquisition of material wealth carries with it ethical obligations that extend beyond personal gratification and security.  And this is a truth that doesn't fare well in America. Greed, in fact, is a form of internal violence that has far-reaching implications.  But you can't get elected in America by running on a platform of human rights and by pointing to the essential violence associated with gaining great wealth.  After all, Obama is a very wealthy man.  King wasn't; His Holiness isn't.
4. The Global Village--The global village is a sexy idea.  As a phrase, it's become ubiquitous.  But it's not complicated.  The global village comes into being when we begin to perceive that our neighbor's suffering has a direct impact on our own suffering; and that the best way to alleviate our own suffering is first to alleviate our neighbor's suffering.  Of course, if you translate this into political action, nationalism, domestic economies, defense systems, all of these things come under scrutiny, and elected officials cannot, if they wish to be elected, indulge such a powerful idea and scrutinize such sacred cows.  The American electorate will not return to office someone who becomes overly concerned with what is happening in Rwanda, Sudan, Darfur, Tibet, Cambodia, Burma, or Bosnia--even if that person believes that these humanitarian actions will have a direct impact on the quality of American life.   This, however, was precisely Gandhi's platform, it is His Holiness's platform, and Reverend King was moving gradually toward such an idea as well.
5. The Nobel Peace Prize--Even Obama, in his honest and eloquent remarks upon learning that he had received this prestigious award, admitted that he didn't deserve it.  When the committee, citing his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," stated that Obama had committed himself and his country "to a world without nuclear weapons" (read the full text here), it became clear that this was an award granted more to an imagined future than an accomplished past.  And it was granted, I believe, in deep gratitude by a European community happy to be rid of the Bush family. But the Nobel Peace Prize won by Reverend King, Mother Theresa, Sakharov, Walesa, Tutu, Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, and Suu Kyi is not the Prize won by Al Gore and Barack Obama.  They were granted for different reasons and serve different purposes.  As Jody Williams--who won the Prize in 1997--remarked, "he [Obama] is going to be sending 40,000 new American troops into Afghanistan just as he received the Nobel Peace Prize?  I think that is a contradiction that needs to be seriously looked at."  And Obama's fierce, conservative critics will do just that.  The point is that the Nobel Committee might have inadvertently given our very young and very inexperienced President an award that, in reality, points to his youth and emphasizes his lack of experience in dealing with the kinds of problems that have often occupied the prize winners that I mentioned above.  And they might have unintentionally given ammunition to his critics.  (For a brief round-up of the various angles to this story, start with The Daily Beast.)

So, President Obama decides not to welcome His Holiness to D.C..  It's a political decision made by a savvy politician, and it's one that I suspect His Holiness wouldn't have made if the tables were turned and our President showed up in Dharamsala.  He wouldn't have made such a decision because it would have never been necessary for His Holiness to make such a decision.  The two men are driven by different necessities. You can take your pick.  

Or you can hope and pray that somehow they are complimentary.

TEN WAYS TO FREE TIBET (4-7)

Before I list the next four ways you can free Tibet, let me say something about the first three that I included in my last posting. 

1. Jill Bolte Taylor’s video, if it does nothing else, should alert us to the accuracy of what Tibetan meditators—and their Indian avatars—have been saying for several millennia.  We’re hard-wired to look at ourselves and the world around us in two ways:  one way engages the left hemisphere of the brain, which plans, orders, graphs, plots, isolates, analyzes, and sequesters everything we do, think, figure, calculate, and say; and the other side, the right hemisphere, removes those boundaries, undoes those calculations, dissolves our sense of an isolating self, and fuzzes the boundaries of our forms, placing us in larger, inter-connected energy fields (read:  quantum field).  The news here is that these two modes of perception can be united for each other’s benefit and that this state of unity has traditionally been called Nirvana, or the removal of ignorance, but that this now turns out to be as much a neurological birthright as it does an abstract and blessed state accessible only to the super-humans of sacred literature.  For Americans, literal-minded and empirical as we are, it’s helpful to have an outline of the neurochemistry of enlightenment. 
2. Over 9 million Native Americans died because our ancestors, with whom we share a culture and a way of looking at the world, arrived on these shores.  We are implicated.  I’m not suggesting undue penance and sackcloth.  I am suggesting accuracy in our self-perceptions because the way in which we view ourselves will impact how we view those we wish to help. 
3. If Gandhi is correct—and I believe he is—then our “inward freedom” should be greatly impacted by Taylor’s video because we can now begin to think of the inner liberation that Gandhi spoke of as neurological component of our species.  Like any other adaptive mechanism in the evolutionary process, inward freedom must be evolved by each of us if we are ever going to be able to help anyone in a substantial and permanent fashion.  There are tried and true ways to do this; avail yourself of them.

And now, the next four ways that you can save Tibet.

4.  Come to terms with Jamyang Norbu.   One of Tibet’s leading intellectuals and writers, Norbu has stood defiantly for Tibetan independence in ways that are learned, well conceived, and passionate.  He is, as T.S. Eliot once said of Samuel Johnson, a dangerous person to disagree with.  Read him—start with his blog, perhaps, look at the archives for interesting topics, and pay close attention to the comments.  But most importantly, you need to read the following excerpt from the Introduction to his collection of essays, Shadow Tibet (the book I’d most recommend):

Like alternate worlds in science fiction, two distinct Tibets appear to co-exist these days.  One flourishes in the light of celebrity patronage, museum openings, career ad academic opportunities, pop spirituality and New Age Fashions.  This is the Tibet that has captured the romantic fantasy of the West and which has drawn much of the attention that Tibet receives at the moment.  Here, Tibet is far more than the issue of Tibetan freedom and represents the unrealized aspirations of the affluent and the established for spiritual solace, ecological harmony and world peace. 

And this from the first essay in the collection, “Opening of the Political Eye:”

I am on no account putting the entire blame for Tibetan political regression on our Western friends, but they did substantially contribute to it.  Usually the presence of such tourists and visitors have only a marginal effect on the society they are passing through, especially in such large countries as India.  But Tibetan society in exile was very small, poor, and because of the tremendous dislocation it had experienced, extremely impressionable.  Through their constant disdain of Western rationalism, democracy, and science, Western travelers effectively discouraged Tibetan curiosity about the West, and encouraged Tibetans to revert to their old and fatal way of dealing with reality by burying their heads in the sands of magic, ritual, and superstition.

5.  Set aside eight minutes and watch this video, although at 3 ½ minutes you’ll get the point.  What you’ll see is a film, taken 12 years ago at Harvard, of a young Tibetan attempting to tell a young Chinese what has happened in Tibet.  Standing behind and to the left of the Tibetan is an American, concerned, wanting to help, but plainly irrelevant to the important dialogue that is occurring between the two principals, the Tibetan and the Chinese.  Remember this image of the Tibetan, the Chinese, and the sidelined American.

6.  Learn to micro-meditate.  A Tibetan friend of mine who spent six years in retreat told me that Americans could benefit greatly from learning to meditate for 2-3 minutes at a time, several times a day, or as many times a day as they feel comfortable doing it.  This means stopping for a moment at your desk, or while walking to the car, and breathing in and out ten times or more, doing whatever is required to take the left hemisphere of the brain offline and encourage the right hemisphere to boot up.  It’s not hard; it’s part of our natural evolution; and it works.  Our political positions will sharpen their focus if we can calm down for a couple of minutes a day.

7.  Memorize this fact:  At least 80% of the human population lives on less than $10 a day.   My guess is that many of you who are reading this blog live on more than $10 a day.  I do.  Materialism in America seems to have hit epidemic proportions, which is one of the reasons the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and devastating the culture.  But it is important that we remember this fact for two reasons:

a.    We begin by acknowledging our privilege and, like anyone who has great stores of resources that others need, we become more likely over the long run to part with some of those resources in creative, effective ways.  So acknowledge your privilege on a daily basis.
b.    Realize that, as Americans, your first-hand knowledge of materialism and its effects, both desirable and undesirable, is unequaled by any other culture in the world.  Tibetans, for example, know nothing about the dangers of materialism, and if you survive it, like any survivor, you can talk with authority about its devastating effects and its potential remedies.  That many Americans have felt that Tibetan culture holds just such a remedy is perhaps understandable in this context.  And whether or not Tibetans will be able to resist the Westernization that is occurring in India remains to be seen.  My prayers are with them.

In my next posting, I'll finish the 10 ways you can free Tibet, and follow that with a general discussion of the list.

TEN WAYS TO FREE TIBET (1-3)

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

GENOCIDAL OLYMPICS SEEN AS HUGE SUCCESS

You can read about it if you want to, and you probably should.  There will be summaries of the Olympics, appraisals, assessments.  The Globe and Mail in Canada have already added their own rather sobering contribution, and you can have a look at it here.  For those of us who have devoted a portion of our lives to supporting Tibet and the Tibetans, we will have to take an inventory of our own ideas about the future of Tibet and the path that China has laid out for itself.  China is a powerful country, and one that will have its say and its influence on the world stage.

Oppressive regimes such as China's--and North Korea's and Burma's--rely on a host of strategies to keep their country's population under control.  Central among them is the institution of fear:  fear of reprisal, fear of punishment, fear of deprivation, fear of death.  And the goal of fear, of course, is silence.  There is, just now, a blanket of silence over the global community regarding China, one of the world's consistent medalists when it comes  to human rights violations.  And while the Great Firewall of China has shut down access to iTunes, and while the Chinese have done all in their power to use the latest technology to prohibit the free use of technology among their citizens, their mastery of the televisual culture is being credited for attracting the peak audience of 1.2 billion that tuned in for the spectacle.

We might well allow all of this to divert us from our task.  Eddie Vedder, the lead singer for Pearl Jam, mentioned in an interview last year that the contemporary atmosphere was so filled with static and meaningless noise and chatter that it was sometimes hard to file it all down into a focused, coherent song.  That it was sometimes hard to find the space to connect with the authenticity of the human experience.  The mainstream media is partly to blame for this--great globs of oppressive eye-candy, television shows devoted to the celebration of radically insignificant human behavior, cable news shows pressing an ideology while disavowing a bias, telegenic news casters whose private lives ultimately become the subject of the news coverage . . . the celebration of the self, the rabid quest for celebrity status, the acquisition of power in that quest, those famous for being famous . . . all of this signals a drift away from the core of introspective knowledge that gave rise to the people and books and music that I have loved for decades and that changed the way I thought about my relationship to the world at large. 

It is difficult in the current environment to look within ourselves, and the television spectacle that was the Beijing Olympics took full advantage of this.  As 1.2 billion stared at the television, Tibetans were killed, imprisoned, and interrogated.  His Holiness was denied an audience with President Sarkozy of France because the Chinese forbid him from meeting with him.  Six more Tibetan hunger-strikers were taken off their cots and into the hospital, against their will.  Two Chinese women in their seventies in Beijing were sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor" for legally requesting the right to protest.  A documentary film made by two brave Tibetans, Leaving Fear Behind, was smuggled out of China, shown in Dharamsala, and the two filmmakers were arrested and haven't been heard from since.  (BTW--the distributors have sent me a copy of the film, and we will be doing a benefit showing here in Northwest Arkansas soon.)

What then are we to do? Living in America, we are insulated from the kind of human suffering that finds 40,000 children starving to death each day in developing nations.  We don't have starving families living under our porches, a common scene in Indian cities; we have fresh water; we have electricity; our political system is participatory and stable.

We often think of change in political terms:  send food and water, build hydro-electric plants, install democracies.  But while that kind of change is necessary and vital, that kind of change is effected by a precious few:  engineers, social leaders, humanitarian workers.  Most of us are taking out the garbage, raising children, paying bills. 

What can we do?  More than might be immediately apparent.  We hear the phrase "raising awareness" continually, and we tend to think, "O, I see; I know about the human rights abuses in China and Tibet, so my awareness is thereby raised."  That's a start, but it's not enough.  Ken Jones, in The New Social Face of Buddhism tells an important story:

Self-awareness of emotional states is critical in every aspect of social engagement.  How this awareness can help others as well as oneself is illustrated in the Samyutta Nikaya by a story about two traveling acrobats who perform hazardous feats on the end of a long bamboo pole.  One said that their act would be accomplished safely if each watched and attended to the other.  But the other and wiser one maintained that if each concentrated on doing his own part of the act safely and well he would thereby protect his friend as well as himself (105).

So we look to our own part of the act first . . . we examine our motivations for action, which we can only do in self-imposed solitude; we analyze our real place in our real community of friends and co-workers, which we can only do in self-imposed solitude; and we realize that the front-lines of non-violence and compassion are wherever we happen to be standing, which we realize in solitude and enact in the family and the community.  Sulak Sivaraksa has written extensively about the mechanics of effecting these kinds of changes, and I'd recommend starting with his extraordinary little book, Seeds of Peace.  In his essay, "Religion and Social Change" he writes:

We have more than enough programs, organizations, parties, and strategies in the world for the alleviation of suffering and injustice.  In fact, we place too much faith in the power of action, especially political action.  Social activism tends to preoccupy itself with the external . . . Activists tend to see all malevolence as being caused by 'them'--the 'system'--without understanding how these negative factors also operate within ourselves . . . The opposite view--that radical transformation of society requires personal and spiritual change first or at least simultaneously--has been accepted by Buddhists and many other religious adherents for 2500 years.  Those who want to change society must understand the inner dimensions of change (61).

The inner dimensions of change . . . most of us don't want to see monks tortured and murdered; most don't want to see seventy-year old Chinese women sentenced to a year of forced labor, to see 40,000 children starve each day . . . and no one, it appears, can stop it. 

But everyone can turn toward that "inner dimension" to cultivate and grow those changes that would stop starvation, murder, torture, and unlawful imprisonment, if they were widely adopted.  It isn't easy; in fact, it's easier to undertake social action because you're spared the realization that the violence you're confronting outside yourself is simply the fruit of the violence that you carry around within you.  That's a difficult realization, but it's the one that leads to social change.  And this is the project for a lifetime. 

The fact is that meaningful, long-lasting social change cannot be divorced from this renovation of the inner dimension.  And this renovation--unlike working for an NGO in in Africa or Tibet--is our common occupation, our common inheritance. 

LHAMO POSTS: TIBETAN WOMEN AT THE FOREFRONT . . . AGAIN

Another posting arrived from Lhamo, our tireless correspondent in Dharamsala.  Again, we are indebted to her for taking time out of her busy day to keep us informed of what's happening within the Tibetan community in India.  This piece is particularly enlightening regarding the ways in which Tibetan women have responded to the task of survival in their host country (see my recent posting on this subject).  It also announces a world wide, 12-hour fast on August 30 in support of the Tibetans.  More here later.


With the Olympics in full swing, and with the rising status of China, and with the odds overwhelmingly against them, Tibetan women in Dharamsala seeking every opportunity to garner support for their cause and for their imperiled culture today, August 16, celebrated the Rakhi Purnima festival.

Raksha Bandhan (the bond of protection) is a Hindu festival, which celebrates the relationship between brothers and sisters. The sister ties a rakhi (a holy thread) on her brother's wrist expressing her love and seeking his protection, while the brother accepts the responsibility with a vow to protect his sister for the rest of her life.

In a somewhat unusual scene, Tibetan women, clad in green chupas (Tibetan national dress) could be seen in the streets of Dharamsala today, buying sweets and eyeing the Indian shops that displayed their colorful rakhis.

"We are tying rakhis on the wrists of our Indian brothers today" said Kelsang Youdon, the president of the regional Tibetan Women's Association here. "India has been a big brother to us since the time of the Buddha and the Mahatma. Today, the situation in Tibet is grave, and we need our big brother's support."

In a modest symbolic ceremony held at the courtyard of Tsuklagkhang (the main Tibetan temple) here, the members of RTWA tied the sacred thread of rakhi around the wrist of Indian brothers and in turn appealed them to help their sisters, who are living a life of utter hopelessness under the Chinese rule.  Members of the local taxi and auto unions also participated in the celebration.

Describing India as “peace-loving, non-violent and the biggest democratic country in the world, Kelsang urged India to support the Tibetan cause more openly.

Meanwhile in Delhi, after the second batch of six men were forced to the hospital on August 14, the Tibetan Youth Congress has today launched the third batch of hunger strikers without food and water.  The third group of fasting Tibetans include Dhondup Tsering, 63,  Tsering Tashi, 21,  Thupten Tsewang, 20, Jampa Kelsang, 33,  Nawang Samten, 26, and Tashi Gyamtso, 31.

The Tibetan Solidarity Committee—comprised of the Kashag and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile--on the other hand has decided to hold a worldwide mass prayer and fast on 30th August.

Kalon Tripa, the chairman of the Tibetan Cabinet has also issued a personal request to all Tibetans and Tibet supporters to observe this 12-hour symbolic fast and prayer on 30th August 2008 for world peace and, particularly, for the departed souls of the Tibetan people in recent months in Tibet.

"We consider this as an extremely important non-violent action taken by Tibetans under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in a very critical period for Tibet, particularly the post-Olympic period," says Kalon Tripa.

"I personally request you and your organization to kindly participate in this fast and prayer and encourage many other people to join us in this effort to reduce our own defilements and to create wisdom and compassion in the minds of the oppressor."

The Tibetan Cultural Institute of Arkansas will certainly support and participate in this action.

HUNGER STRIKERS ENTER DAY 5

As the hunger strikers entered their fifth day without food and water, efforts were under way to secure the concessions necessary to bring the strikes to an end.  Read the new article on Phayul for the latest information. 

The news from Jantar Mantar is grim; chants, prayers, thoughts . . . any level of awareness you might bring to this struggle is now in order.

URGENT UPDATE FROM THE HUNGER STRIKERS IN NEW DELHI

I recently heard from a Tibetan friend in New Delhi who regularly covers the political situation regarding Tibetans living in exile in India.  I had contacted him for information about the hunger-strikers at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, and because his internet service had been down for several days, I'd heard nothing.  He reached me today.  Here is what he wrote:

TYC's Fast Without food and Water was launched on the 28th of July.  There are six strikers who represent the six million Tibetans; five of them are monks, and one is a layman.  Four monks are from the monastery in the south of India (three from Sera at Bylakupee, one from Drepung at Mundgod) and another one comes from Serta in Tibet.  The sixth is married and has an eight-month-old baby. Today is the fourth day of the strike, and to me they look critical. When I asked several doctors for their opinions, most of them said that the strikers can't stand more than seven days in the current conditions. So they are getting worse every day.  It is very sad, and Tibetans here are all worried.  But they whisper to each other saying, 'we have no other option but to sacrifice our lives.'  When I interviewed the hunger striker from Serta, Tibet, he said 'I don't mind sacrificing my life in a free country for my home country and the Dalai Lama.' 

So, I am here to see the worst in the coming days.

With the harsh conditions in New Delhi, and the hunger strikers hunkered down in the middle of traffic and congestion, I suspect these brave young men will deteriorate quickly.  Please keep them in your thoughts, your meditations, your prayers.  If you would like to distribute the poster, go to TYC's website, download a few, and pass them out.

These are indeed critical times for Tibetans everywhere.  Currently, the UN office in Delhi is being asked to intervene and help the strikers implement their demands.   Time will tell how this works out, but time, of course, is precisely what the strikers have so little of.  As I learn more from my friend in Delhi, I will post the information here.

Also, in light of yesterday's posting regarding His Holiness's position on autonomy, and the growing number of Tibetans who disagree with the position, see this article on the CNN website.

CNN TO PRESENT 'BUDDHA'S WARRIORS'

On Saturday and Sunday night at 7 pm CST (8 pm EST), Christiane Amanpour will host "Buddha's Warriors," part of CNN's 'Special Investigations Unit.'  The teaser on the website reads simply, "Go inside the world of Buddhism with Christiane Amanpour. In the fight for freedom and democracy, their weapon is peace. They are 'Buddha's Warriors.'"  Of course, there are others whom I might wish to take me 'inside'  the 'world of Buddhism,' but the globe-galloping Amanpour has certainly galloped the globe.  Born in England to an Iranian father and English mother, raised in Iran, educated in Britain and America, Amanpour is an Iranian Christian, and so understands how one lives in minority cultures.

I have read nothing about this show so I will only call your attention to its airing.  The timing of it, with the Olympics looming, may or may not be significant.  We will see.  But if you're interested, you have two opportunities to see it on Saturday and Sunday evening.

Let me know what you think.