Evidence of human habitation dating between 12,000 and 11,000 years ago has been found in NW Tibet, and in S Tibet the Yarlung Zangbo valley was, over the centuries, the focus of ancient trade routes from India, China, and Central Asia. Tibet emerged from an obscure history to flourish in the 7th cent. A.D. as an independent kingdom with its capital at Lhasa. The Chinese first established relations with Tibet during the T’ang dynasty (618
Archive for May, 2008
In 1906 and 1907, Britain recognized China’s suzerainty over Tibet. However, the Tibetans were able, with the overthrow of the Ch’ing dynasty in China, to expel (1912) the Chinese in Tibet and reassert their independence. At a conference (1913
invasion of 1788 and the subsequent Gurkha war (1792) with Tibet brought an abrupt end to the rapprochement. Jesuits and Capuchins had visited Tibet in the 17th and 18th cent., but throughout the 19th cent. Tibet maintained its traditional seclusion. Meanwhile, During the 18th cent., British authorities in India attempted to establish relations with Lhasa, but the GurkhaLadakh, long part of Tibet, was lost to the rulers of Kashmir, and Sikkim was detached (1890) by Britain. In 1893, Britain succeeded in obtaining a trading post at Yadong, but continued Tibetan interference led to the military expedition (1904) of Sir Francis Younghusband to Lhasa, which enforced the granting of trade posts at Yadong, Gyangz
By Ralph Jennings
TAIPEI (Reuters) – A senior Chinese official has asked whether Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama would agree to attend the Beijing Olympics to ease recent tensions, a Tibet government-in-exile legislator said on Monday.
The Dalai Lama would consider going, the law maker said.
Khedroob Thondup, a Taipei-based member of Tibet’s parliament-in-exile, said a senior leader in Beijing had called him about two weeks ago to “sound out” the Olympic visit idea. He did not identify the leader.
China has blamed the Dalai Lama for unrest in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China since mid-March.
The gesture suggest that Beijing seeks to show the world that it can get along with Tibetan leaders following a world opinion backlash over China’s handling of the Tibet violence.
“If they want to invite His Holiness to the Olympics, that would be a big change,” Thondup told Reuters, referring to the Dalai Lama. “I’m sure he would consider this.”
China has repeatedly lashed out at the Dalai Lama for a deadly March 14 riot in the region’s capital Lhasa and for subsequent scuffles or protests in Tibetan areas of China, which took control over the mountainous territory in the 1950s.
Ma Ying-jeou
Time published fifth annual list of the world’s most influential people: leaders, thinkers, heroes, artists, scientists and more.
The most important three Chinese are Dalai Lama, Hu Jintao and Ma Ying-jeou
Hu Jintao is the first Chinese leader who grew up in the aftermath of the revolution that established communism in 1949. He inherits its tradition, but he has gone far beyond it. In a marked evolution from Mao Zedong, Hu, 65, has proclaimed the goal of a harmonious society whose components work together by consensus rather than direction. It is a principle he has tried to apply to international affairs as well.
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Dalai Lama
By Deepak Chopra
Millions of people turn to the Dalai Lama for inspiration, but to whom does he turn? He and his people have struggled all their lives with the audacity of hopelessness. Oppression and exile are their daily bread. Yet the Dalai Lama, 72, remains calm in the face of cruelty. What does he think of the human race? “We are the superior species on Earth but also the biggest troublemakers,” he once told me.
China’s rulers aren’t like the British masters of colonial India, and the Dalai Lama’s Gandhiesque nonviolent struggle won’t give them twinges of conscience, leading to Tibet’s freedom. If anything, Beijing has grown more ruthless in suppressing Tibetan aspirations, as we’ve seen this Olympic year. And yet he has found a way to think kindly of those who oppress his people and vilify his name. I found him unwilling to show any harshness. He said to me, “I don’t dislike the Chinese, only their actions.”
To me, the most mystical thing about him is also the most ordinary: the Dalai Lama is happy. He’s happy in the midst of chaos and turmoil. The most inspiring thing he ever told me was to ignore all organized faiths and keep to the road of higher consciousness. “Without relying on religion, we look to common sense, common experience and the findings of science for understanding,” he said. I do the same thing, but I still marvel at this model of calm and compassion. I’m sure neuroscientists would love to know what’s going on inside that brain.
To whom, then, does the Dalai Lama turn for inspiration? It’s not a person but a place
I. For Lords and Lamas
Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic–so say its adherents. For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more a meditative and investigative discipline intended to promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one
III. Exit Feudal Theocracy
As the Shangri-La myth would have it, in old Tibet the people lived in contented and tranquil symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords. Rich lamas and poor monks, wealthy landlords and impoverished serfs were all bonded together, mutually sustained by the comforting balm of a deeply spiritual and pacific culture.
One is reminded of the idealized image of feudal Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants living in the secure embrace of their Church, under the more or less benign protection of their lords.55 Again we are invited to accept a particular culture in its idealized form divorced from its murky material history. This means accepting it as presented by its favored class, by those who profited most from it. The Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to historic actuality than does the pastoral image of medieval Europe.
Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society at great cost to the rest.56 In theocratic feudal Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their mean existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from past lives, presented as part of God