Letters to the Editor
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Thanks Sali Tripath.
In Response to `The Five Wonderful Precepts (Google them. They can only help.)
Read the '5' Precepts often.... I remember a essay by John Kornfield, titled-
`Happiness Comes From The Heart.
"Conscience conduct or virtue means acting harmoniously and with care toward the life around us."
For spiritual practice to develope, it is essential that we establish a basis of moral conduct in our life.
I recall a story that John Kornfield tell: He was to have a private meeting with the Dali Lama at his office. For weeks J.K. prepared those "heavy, blow ya's away" inquiry questions to be greatly 'illumined after hearing the personal questions answered. The meeting did not go as planned. The Dali Lama giggled` scolded Kornfied for being a skinny spiritual aspirant with ribs opping out.
`You need to eat more.
`You fast from earth's nutrients.
` You Kornfield (The Dali Lama reaching over to tickle John's ribs) will starve? You will help no one? Take care of your self too, and don't try to merit what is always a *Given Freely* and liberally on a daily basis. insight. The gist went something like that. None of the pre-planned questions were asked. The experience, humor, and common sense approach to Life was what John Kornfeld's, unforgettable, encounter with Dali Lama... insight was.....
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Non-violence is the most sophisticated tactic
It makes the issue clear and keeps it front and center. It keeps the media and the government from shifting focus to the tactic from the issue.
Violence is easier. It is a human failing. Non-violence takes far more discipline.
I hope the Dali Lama continues to advocate non-violence. It is harder to use it against an authoritarian country than a liberal democracy. But the eyes of the world are on China, now is the time to use media management and non-violence. There will never be a better time.
We in the West need leaders who are less craven and greedy. Our job is to hold their feet to the fire.
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Always.....
The slightly sensational title suggested this might be another trumped-up, contrary article about the Dalai Lama, like Louis Bayard's recent one.
It is not. It's a concise and eloquent statement on the non-negotiable value of non-violence. How remarkable to remember that option as the only one in the world that never, never need be off the table.
Thank you.
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Excellent article
I hope we have the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and others like them, for a long time.
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The Next Stage
It needs to be noted that Ghandi's chief weapon in controlling violence in his followers was fasting until it stopped. It failed at the end, to prevent partition, but quelled violence before then.
What if the Dalai Lama upped the ante--now that he's a revered world leader with millions of non-Tibetan advocates?
I'm not recommending it: I'm asking the question recognizing this is a distict historical event. Wouldn't that put just a weeeeeee bit more pressure on the Western democracies to take a stand?
It's not true necessarily that because one is Buddhist they are non-violent. Sorry. The Jains invented non-violence as the fundamenatal moral precept--and that's where Gandhi got it.
Many Buddhist nations have resorted to violence.
The Dalai Lama is not getting any younger; the Chinese have already made it clear they will replace him with their own surrogate. Americans forget just how pliable a largely uneducated person and culture can be, especially if they are experiencing a prosperity they didn't know before.
The battle to free Tibet may be ready for the next stage.
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Violence cannot win
Salil Tripathi is correct in making a comparison to the Palestinians--the only violence that might have any effect on the implacable giant that is Chinese force would be the kind of violence that makes it easier to show the Tibetans as "wrong".
When an abusive husband attacks a woman, it is not the systematic and debilitating harm that the husband perpetrates but the loud screams (and sometimes her anguished retaliation) of the woman that people detest the most.
However, I agree that the Dalai Lama's time of power is now, and it will not last forever. China has the ability to simply outlast and overwhelm Tibet, which is obviously the plan--and it is beginning to work.
What will it take for all of US to stand up for Tibet? Perhaps the Dalai Lama needs to do something drastic as Ghandi did with his fasting, as someone here said, but perhaps he is already doing all he personally can do and those of us who care and who have listened need to do more.
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full text of the Dalai's 1951 telegram to Mao:
A full text of the Dalai's 1951 telegram to Mao:
"Chairman Mao of the Central People's Government:
This year the local government of Tibet sent five delegates with full authority headed by Kaloon Ngapoi to Beijing in late April 1951 to conduct peace talks with delegates with full authority appointed by the Central People's Government.
On the basis of friendship, delegates on both sides concluded the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet on May 23,1951.
The local government of Tibet as well as the Tibetan monks and laymen unanimously support this agreement, and under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Central People's Government, will actively assist the People's Liberation Army in Tibet to consolidate national defence, drive imperialist influences out of Tibet and safeguard the unification of the territory and the sovereignty of the motherland. I hereby send this cable to inform you of this. “
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Exactly as Tripathi said - God's time is not the same as human time frame
" his sense of "time" differs from that of leaders in business and politics. "
If we are aiming to fulfill our soul's purpose then human time is not the calendar to use. The question to ask is, "Does this action add value to fulfilling my soul's purpose?" and, "Am I willing to suffer, go through fire, to fulfill my soul's purpose?"
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Violence would be a mistake
But once it erupted, western liberals would loudly support its victimhood revolutionary politics. They never met a 'people's uprising' they didn't love. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Soviet Union, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Palestine....
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Wishful thinking, pure and simple
The writer and those supporting him need to stop thinking as if they are sitting in comfortable homes, leading comfortable lives, 10,000 miles away from where the Tibetan people are becoming and endangered species. And they certainly need to stop thinking that the Dalai Lama's campaign is being waged for their benefit; the author's reference the "media management" qualities of passive resistance was particularly repugnant to me. What could the actual victims of Chinese oppression possibly care about media management?
We want the Tibetan struggle to remain nonviolent because it perpetuates a myth which Gandhi started and which warms the liberal heart like nothing else; that non-violence is the ultimately the most powerful weapon of all. Patience + Discipline + a Pure Heart will move mountains and all that. It is a beautiful vision and it contains just enough truth to perpetuate itself. Non-violent resistance does have a power, it can be useful, and it is certainly preferable to violence when there is a choice.
But one must face any struggle with open eyes. And a clear look at recent Tibetan history shows that the Dalai Lama's exclusively non-violent tactics have earned Tibet the pity of everyone and the support of no one. Would there have even been a single story on Tibet in Salon or any other major news source if had not been for the violent protests in Lhasa?
China will not be moved by passive resistance. It has fired at innocent protesters before, and glibly faced down the international protests for doing so. Tibet and the Dalai Lama must both ask themselves if their commitment to non-violence is absolute enough that they are prepared to become extinct in its cause. If so, I salute them. If not, I support them