The Question(s) of Tibet - World Affairs Council

HIS HOLINESS THE 14 TH DALAI LAMA
NOTE: For a list of books by and about the Dalai Lama see page 5o.
HIS HOLINESS THE 14TH DALAI LAMA OF TIBET
http://www.dalailama.com/
Welcome to the official website of the Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. His Holiness
is both the temporal and the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He frequently states that his
life is guided by three major commitments: the promotion of basic human values or secular
ethics in the interest of human happiness, the fostering of inter‐religious harmony and the
welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture and religion.
Explore here how His Holiness fulfils these commitments through his various activities his
public talks, teachings, widespread international visits and publications.
THE NEW YORKER: THE NEXT INCARNATION (10/4/10)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_osnos
Osnos profiles the Dalai Lama XIV. His Holiness recently celebrated his 75th birthday in
Dharamsala, India, the town in which he has lived in exile for the past 50 years. A discussion of
the political strife between Tibetans and the Chinese government is also presented.
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: A HELL ON EARTH (3/9/09)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/apr/09/a‐hell‐on‐earth/?page=1
Over the decades I’ve known him, the Dalai Lama has always been adept at pointing out,
logically, how Tibet’s interests and China’s converge—bringing geopolitics and Buddhist
principles together, in effect—and at arguing, syllogistically, for how the very notion of enmity
is not only a projection, nearly always, but, in today’s globally interconnected world, an
anachronism. But now, with the skill of one trained for decades in dialectics and personally
familiar with the last few generations of Chinese history, he seems more and more to be
holding the Chinese government up against its own principles. “Chairman Mao, when I was in
Peking, said, ‘The Communist Party must welcome criticism. Self‐criticism as well as criticism
from others,’” he noted pointedly in Tokyo. But now the Party seemed to be all mouth and no
ears. Deng Xiaoping, he reminded another audience, always stressed “seeking truth from
facts,” the very empiricism the Dalai Lama would love to see more thoroughly deployed. “When
President Hu Jintao talks of a ‘Harmonious Society,’ I am a comrade of his,” he told the Chinese
scholars. “Even today I have points of agreement with Marxist thought.”
TIME: A MONK’S STRUGGLE (3/19/08)
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1723
922,00.html
…I'm not a Buddhist myself, only a typically skeptical
journalist whose father, a professional philosopher,
happened to meet the Dalai Lama in 1960, the year
after he went into exile. But having spent time
watching wars and revolutions everywhere from Sri
Lanka to Beirut, I've grown intrigued by the quietly
revolutionary ideas that the Dalai Lama has put into
play. China and Tibet will long be geographic
Among fellow Buddhists, the Dalai Lama delivers complex,
analytical talks and wrestles with doctrinal issues within a
philosophy that can be just as divided as anything in
Christianity or Islam, but he has decided after analytical
research that when he finds himself out in the wider world
talking to large audiences of people with no interest in
Buddhism, the most practical course is just to offer, as a doctor
would, simple, everyday principles that anyone, regardless of
religion (or lack of same), might find helpful. Since material
wealth cannot help us if we're heartbroken, he often says, and
yet those who are strong within can survive even material
hardship (as many monks in Tibet have had tragic occasion to
prove), it makes more sense to concentrate on our inner, not our
outer, resources. We in the privileged world spend so much time
strengthening and working on our bodies, perhaps we could also
use some time training what lies beneath them, at the source of
our well‐being: the mind.
World Affairs Council Teacher Resource Packet – The Question(s) of Tibet February 28, 2011
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