After almost 50 years of Tibetan uprising, where does the Tibet issue stand today? That’s the key issue Karan Thapar asked His Holiness Dalai Lama in an exclusive interview on Devil’s Advocate.
Karan Thapar: Your Holiness, it’s almost been 30 years since you adopted the middle way, giving up Tibet’s claims of independence and instead accepting meaningful autonomy within China. The problem is that Chinese have shown no flexibility, no willingness to accommodate you and on the other hand, the Tibetan Youth Congress is calling for a more strident, assertive policy. Are you falling between two stools?
Dalai Lama: Firstly, we are fully committed about democracy. So, among our community, there are different views, even very serious criticisms of certain policies. However, our position is not seeking independence, but trying to achieve genuine autonomy that Chinese Constitution also provided. I think that though concrete research has not yet come, the Chinese intellectuals and educationists are showing genuine support and appreciation for our approach.
Karan Thapar: Let’s explore that Your Holiness. The Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, on March 16, laid down conditions that he says you have to accept before the Chinese prepare to talk to you. He says first of all you must abandon all support for Tibetan independence and must accept that Tibet has always been, since antiquity, an inseparable part of China. Are you prepared to accept that?
Dalai Lama: Now, I think the whole world knows that I am not seeking independence. As far as history is concerned, I always make clear – past is past. It’s not a political decision. It’s up to the historian or the legal expert…
Karan Thapar: Can I interrupt, Your Holiness? The Chinese say that in fact you may claim that you have accepted Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, but many of your statements suggest otherwise.
For instance, in statement on Tibetan Uprising Day on March 10, 1995, you said, ‘The reality of today is that Tibet is an occupied country under colonial rule.’ In you famous five points you said ‘Tibet was a completely independent state in 1949 when the PLA entered’. Now the Chinese say these statements prove that you don’t accept that Tibet has always been a part of China. They, in fact, prove you still want independence.
Dalai Lama: I think, even among Chinese the opinion about history differs. Some time ago, the Chinese government said Tibet was a part of China since seventh century because of marriage. Then eventually, they dropped it and insisted it was since 13th century. Now even on that there are differing views among the Chinese scholars. Anyway, past is past. When PLA came to Tibet, at that time according to legal experts, Tibet was a de facto independent nation. So, according to that view, we consider Tibet an occupied land. But that does not mean that we are seeking independence because the world is changing. The reality is changing. Tibet is a backward country, economically and materially. Spiritually we are very advanced that everyone knows. Therefore, for our own independence and for material growth, we want to remain within People’s Republic of China
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JUST IN: The House passed a resolution broadly condemning hate and intolerance, including anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim discrimination, in the wake of controversy over comments made by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. The vote was 407-23. https://cnn.it/2TzABkv
The Dalai Lama Has Been the Face of Buddhism for 60 Years. China Wants to Change That
By Charlie Campbell | Photographs by Ruven Afanador for TIME
March 7, 2019
Morning has broken on the cedar-strewn foothills of the Himalayas. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama sits in meditation in his private chapel in Dharamsala, a ramshackle town perched on the upper reaches of North India’s Kangra Valley. Rousing slowly, he unfolds his legs with remarkable agility for a man of 83, finds the red felt slippers placed neatly beneath his seat and heads outside to where a crowd has already gathered.
Around 300 people brave the February chill to offer white khata scarves and receive the Dalai Lama’s blessing. There’s a group from Bhutan in traditional checkered dress. A man from Thailand has brought his Liverpool F.C. scarf, seeking divine benediction for the U.K. soccer team’s title bid. Two women lose all control as they approach the Dalai Lama’s throne and are carried away shaking in rapture, clutching prayer beads and muttering incantations.
The Dalai Lama engages each visitor like a big kid: slapping bald pates, grabbing onto one devotee’s single braid, waggling another’s nose. Every conversation is peppered with giggles and guffaws. “We 7 billion human beings — emotionally, mentally, physically — are the same,” he tells TIME in a 90-minute interview. “Everyone wants a joyful life.”
His own has reached a critical point. The Dalai Lama is considered a living Buddha of compassion, a reincarnation of the bodhisattva Chenrezig, who renounced Nirvana in order to help mankind. The title originally only signified the preeminent Buddhist monk in Tibet, a remote land about twice the size of Texas that sits veiled behind the Himalayas. But starting in the 17th century, the Dalai Lama also wielded full political authority over the secretive kingdom. That changed with Mao Zedong’s conquest of Tibet, which brought the rule of the current Dalai Lama to an end. On March 17, 1959, he was forced to escape to India.
In the six decades since, the leader of the world’s most secluded people has become the most recognizable face of a religion practiced by nearly 500 million people worldwide. But his prominence extends beyond the borders of his own faith, with many practices endorsed by Buddhists, like mindfulness and meditation, permeating the lives of millions more around the world. What’s more, the lowly farmer’s son named as a “God-King” in his childhood has been embraced by the West since his exile. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and was heralded in Martin Scorcese’s 1997 biopic. The cause of Tibetan self-rule remains alive in Western minds thanks to admirers ranging from Richard Gere to the Beastie Boys to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who calls him a “messenger of hope for millions of people around the world.”
Yet as old age makes travel more difficult, and as China’s political clout has grown, the Dalai Lama’s influence has waned. Today the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that drove him out of Tibet is working to co-opt Buddhist principles — as well as the succession process itself. Officially atheist, the party has proved as adaptive to religion as it is to capitalism, claiming a home for faith in the nationalism Beijing has activated under Xi Jinping. In January, the CCP announced it would “Sinicize” Buddhism over the next five years, completing a multimillion-dollar rebranding of the faith as an ancient Chinese religion.
As I develop the awakening mind
I praise the Buddhas as they shine
I bow before you as I travel my path
To join your ranks, I make my full-time task
For the sake of all beings I seek
The enlightened mind that I know I'll reap
Respect to Shantideva and all the others
Who brought down the Dharma for sisters and brothers
I give thanks for this world as a place to learn
And for this human body that I know I've earned
And my deepest thanks to all sentient beings
For without them, there would be no place to learn what I'm seeing
There's nothing here that's not been said before
But I put it down now so that I'll be sure
To solidify my own views
And I'll be glad if it helps anyone else out too
If others disrespect me or give me flak
I'll stop and think before I react
Knowing that they're going through insecure stages
I'll take the opportunity to exercise patience
I'll see it as a chance to help the other person
Nip it in the bud before it can worsen
A chance for me to be strong and sure
As I think on the Buddhas who have come before
As I praise and respect the good they've done
Knowing love can conquer hate in every situation
We need other people in order to create
The circumstances for the learning that we're here to generate
Situations that bring up our deepest fears
So we can work to release them until they're cleared
Therefore it only makes sense
To thank our enemies despite their intent
Bannon, a populist, credits Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with being the "first individual on the world stage to really be a nationalist" before Trump, explaining "his whole thing was...making Japan strong and great again."
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Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Saturday that she is not a Democratic Socialist, drawing a line between herself and her 2020 opponent Bernie Sanders whose views draw frequent comparisons between the two https://cnn.it/2TzhZkR
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True, not really. Progressives have the same goal as socialists. The difference is in how you get to the goal. But the goal is a totalitarian state in which people are forced to serve the collective good. That good is determined by "experts" unelected but appointed by a dictator.
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In Major League baseball, the New York Yankees will start pitcher Masahiro Tanaka on opening day on March 28. It is his fourth career opening day assignment in the MLB -- a record for Japanese pitchers.
Yankees Manager Aaron Boone made the announcement in Florida on Saturday.
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I’m determined to work with like-minded partners such as #Japan in defending shared values. We’re facing an onslaught of #Disinformation & #FakeNews aimed at undermining democracy. Today, Taiwan is in the crosshairs. Tomorrow, it will be another country.
Madonna performing at Live 8 in London's Hyde Park on the 2nd July, 2005. Organised by Sir Bob Geldof and The Band Aid Trust to raise money to fight poverty around the world, the event was viewed by around 2 billion people.
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