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."
CNN認証済みアカウント @CNN https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1104507420104163329
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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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW | Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen Seeks Security Talks with Japanese Government
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has asked for direct talks with the Japanese government on cooperation in the areas of cybersecurity and other national security issues, as she expressed concern over the increasing threat that the People’s Republic of China poses to Taiwan.
Ms. Tsai openly declared for the first time her intent to hold talks directly with the government of Japan, in an exclusive interview with The Sankei Shimbun and JAPAN Forward on Thursday, February 28.
Japan has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan and current discussions on peace and security issues are limited to private and academic channels.
In an interview in the Office of the President in Taipei, Ms. Tsai said while she “respects Japan’s thinking” regarding security talks, she has a strong desire to collaborate with Japan on security matters, including immediate information sharing on the movements of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Ms. Tsai stressed that “Taiwan and Japan are confronted with the same threats in the East Asian region.” She called for talks between Japan and Taiwanese authorities, saying, “It is vital that talks be raised to the level of security cooperation.”
“Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe has been extremely friendly with Taiwan, and, after his inauguration, has made dramatic decisions [for Japan-Taiwan relations]. For the next step, it is necessary to strengthen our security discussions,” said Ms. Tsai.
Marco Rubio認証済みアカウント @marcorubio https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1105412916780650496
#China is jailing Muslims in “re-education camps” in Xinjiang. A whistleblower outed them. Now he has been detained & indications are China is behind the arrest.
Imagine if the most powerful country in the world is the one run by a government like this.
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Peace is not just the mere absence of violence or disturbance. It's when there is a possibility of conflict, but you deliberately avoid violence and adopt methods to solve the problem through peaceful means. That is real peace.
(TibetanReview.net, Mar12’19) – More online reports on the observance of the 60th Tibetan national uprising day across the free world say protest rallies and related events were held in the US cities of Santa Fe, Amherst, and Madison; Scotland’s capital Edinburgh in the UK; Canadian city of Calgary; Australian city of Sydney; and the Japanese capital Tokyo. Besides, Mar 10 was reported to have been declared as Tibet Day in the US cities of Northampton, Amherst, Madison (Dane County) and a number of other places as well.
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🐝 mydakini @mydakini https://twitter.com/mydakini/status/1100454992924749824
#TuesdayThoughts Imagine a culture in which everything is geared toward helping all individuals become the best human beings they can be; in which individuals are driven to devoting their lives to becoming enlightened by the natural flood of compassion @BobThurman སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་
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Unprecedented for so many cities in Minnesota to proclaim March 10, 2019 as “#TibetDay” commemorating the 60th Tibetan National Uprising Day:
Minneapolis, St Paul, Rochester, Richfield, Columbia Heights, New Brighton, Edina, Bloomington, Fridley
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