China Struggles With Tibetan Buddhism

[lovuian]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050810/ap_on_re_as/china_tibet_troubles

LHASA, China - There's a new type of pilgrim spinning the prayer wheels at Tibet's holiest sites. Along with the Tibetans who prostrate themselves before the vacant throne of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, swarms of Chinese tourists rub crisp Chinese money on their foreheads and then cram the bills into collection boxes.


In matching tour group hats, the Chinese visitors bow at Tibetan shrines, light candles and ring temple bells. Style-conscious young women try the Tibetan look, weaving bright strips of cloth into their black hair.

"This is a mystical place, a bit of heaven on earth," said Tang Wei, a manager at a government-owned software company in Beijing. "Even though it's undeveloped, life here is good. People have their own peace in life and contentment in work."

As for the Dalai Lama, condemned by Beijing as a traitor, "he doesn't sound so bad to me," Tang said.

More than four decades after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet during an unsuccessful revolt against Chinese rule, Beijing's efforts to diminish and discredit him have failed
more...

when will governments learn the more ya opress the more it comes back to haunt ya!!! I hope the Dalai Llama goes back for a last time to Tibet!!!

[applegrove]

1. Tibet is something to be proud of. Perhaps - if more people go there

and see how amazing it all is... China will stop with the cultural destruction.

[sam sarrha]

3. That is already done, and the genocide of 1.25 million Tibetans.which is

still going on.

[TahitiNut]

2. "LHASA, China"??? Appalling!

That's Tibet, NOT China. :grr:

[applegrove]

4. Yes I know. However... right now they are under control. I'm being

pollyanna and hoping that somehow..somehow..that culture is not destroyed.

[the other one]

5. How very appropriate (at least to this Taoist)

The conquered becomes the conqueror, peace defeats war. Yin and Yang.

[frictionlessO]

7. over and over again... The Lama knew this when he fled.

This is why we all must seek to stop the entire cycle of violence and reciprocation.

The problem is almost never the action but the cause.

[sweetheart]

6. The seat of Buddhism has left Tibet

The great enlightened souls that made tibet what it was, were either
killed during the chinese genocide, or they made it abroad in to what
has become today a global "tibetan" buddhist community.

Those killed reincarnated in free countries to continue the way of the
buddha. China is poorer for its shabby behaviour, and tibet is reduced
to what it once was, a high desert filled with bandits.

Tibetan buddhists i know who've reincarnated since tibet, have pointed
out that the community brought the bad karma of the chinese genocide
on itself by blocking women from the buddhist teachings... and that
the genocide has had the side effect of making the teachings available
to women and minorities in most nations on this planet.

Ironic the twists of karma... but no need to fear for tibetan buddhism,
it is stronger now than if the chinese had never touched tibet.

8. Tibetan Buddhism is alive and well, but Tibetan culture

is dieing. I live in Nepal and know of young Tibetan exiles trying to keep it alive in the huge Tibetan communities in southern Indian but interest is waning.

Besides, the Tibetan population in Lhasa is quite low now. The Chinese government shipped in millions of Han Chinese (not sure of spelling) and they've overwhelmed the Tibetans. If you leave Lhasa, however, you can still get a little feel for the real Tibet.