INDEPTH: THE DALAI LAMA
The Dalai Lama
CBC News Online | April 16, 2004
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 CBC Radio's Mary Wiens reports on the Tibetan community in Toronto.
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Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, has lived in exile since 1959, but he is still considered by many to be both the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people.
He was born Lhamo Dhondrub, to a peasant family in Takster, a small village in northeast Tibet on July 6, 1935.
When he was two years old, in 1937, the Tibetan government appointed a mission to find a successor to the 13th Dalai Lama, who had died in 1933. The mission was led to the village by traditional signs and miracles. The boy was tested by the mission and successfully recognized objects that had belonged to his predecessor. A state oracle then confirmed that he was the reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas.
He was installed on Feb. 22, 1940, taking the full name, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. Regents ruled Tibet while the boy began his education and training as a monk.
In 1950, at 15, he was named head of state and government soon after 80.000 soldiers from China's Peoples Liberation Army entered Tibet, while at the same time continuing his studies.
In 1951, the Chinese army occupied Lhasa and forced Tibet to sign a treaty with Beijing recognizing China's rule. Under the treaty, Tibet became a "national autonomous region" ruled by a Chinese commission, with the Dalai Lama as a figurehead ruler.
By age 24, in 1958, the Dalai Lama had attended three monastic universities and a year later he received a Geshe Lharampa degree, a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.
Soon after the takeover, China began to suppress traditional Buddhist monasticism and much of the culture of Tibet. The young Dalai Lama was thrown into the midst of this crisis, and in 1954, he went to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. Two years later, in 1956, while visiting India for a Buddhist festival, the Dalai Lama again held talks with Zhou Enlai and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as the situation in Tibet worsened.
Resistance in Tibet increased. In early March 1959, the Peoples Liberation Army invited the Dalai Lama to visit an army camp outside the capital, Lhasa. Rumours spread through the city that the Chinese planned to kidnap and imprison the Dalai Lama.
On March 10, 1959 there was a huge demonstration in the Tibetan capital demanding the Chinese leave Tibet. The Chinese army attacked. On March 17, the Chinese began firing mortars at the Dalai Lama's palace.
After hours of indecision, he accepted the suggestions of his advisors, disguised himself as an ordinary Tibetan soldier and slipped out of the palace. The Dalai Lama and his small escort were helped by a guerilla resistance and started out on a 500-kilometre trek through the Himalayas to India.
Prime Minister Nehru allowed him to settle in Dharmasala, India and establish a Tibetan "government in exile." Thousands of Tibetans fled, following the Dalai Lama to Dharmarsala. Currently, are now more than 120,000 Tibetans living in exile.
The Dalai Lama's government in exile had the dual aim of promoting a democratic government for Tibet and preserving and promoting Tibetan culture both in Tibet and abroad, a decision that slowly turned the Dalai Lama into a religious leader known around the world.
The Dalai Lama appeared before the United Nations in 1959, 1961 and 1965, calling on the Chinese to allow self-determination for Tibet.
In 1963, the exiled leader proposed a democratic constitution for Tibet, combining Buddhist principles with Western concepts of human rights.
In 1966, China dropped any pretence of supporting Tibetan self-government and proclaimed Tibet as one the Peoples Republic's "internal autonomous regions." In the late 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, Tibet was one of the main victims of the Red Guards, who attacked monks and nuns, wrecked and looted monasteries and destroyed priceless religious relics. The government of Mao Zedong banned the practice of Tibetan Buddhism, a ban that would last until 1976.
The Dalai Lama's attempts to influence China met with little success. Tibet is still considered an autonomous region within the Peoples Republic, and in the past 20 years, hundreds of thousands of Chinese colonists have moved to the region, outnumbering Tibetans in some parts of the country.
In the 1990s, the Dalai Lama moderated his views somewhat. The government-in-exile was dissolved. In 1993, he told a news conference that he wanted political autonomy for Tibetans, not complete independence for the country. By then, there were seven million Chinese and just six million Tibetans in the region. In 1999, he announced that while he was not seeking independence from China, he wanted a form of self-rule that would satisfy Tibetans. He also accused the Chinese of cultural genocide.
The Dalai Lama's cultural efforts have been more successful. He travels extensively, meeting with political and religious leaders. He has founded more than 200 monasteries, most of them in India, to preserve Tibetan Buddhism, founded a Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and an institute of higher Tibetan studies.
He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for advocating "peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people."
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The name Dalai Lama means "Ocean of Wisdom".
In the fourteenth century Tsong-kha-pa led a reform movement in Tibetan
Buddhism and eventually founded a group of Buddhist monks known as the Yellow Hat or Gelupga order. In 1438, he founded a monastery at Tashilhundpo. His successor moved the order to Drepung, near the capital, Lhasa.
The third leader of the Gelupga order was a Mongol, Bsod-nams-rgya-mtsho, who
converted to Buddhism. He was head of the order from 1543 to 1588. The Mongol ruler, Altan Khan, bestowed on him the title Dalai Lama. Dalai means both "ocean" and "all-embracing" and "lama" means teacher, the combination of words
creates the idea of a teacher who embraces all wisdom. The title was given posthumanously to the first two leaders of the order, making Bsod-nams-rgya-mtsho the third.
The fourth Dalai Lama was also Mongol, the grandson of Altan Khan.
The fifth Dalai Lama who ruled from 1617 to 1682, extended the temporal
power of the order across Tibet and built the large palace overlooking
Lhasa, the Potala, which is was a symbol of the country - and after the
Chinese occupation, as symbol of Tibetan nationalism.
It was during the reign of the fourth Dalai Lama that the holder of the
office became known not only as the reincarnation of previous Dalai
Lamas but also of a bodhisattva, an enlightened being, known for
compassion.
Throughout the eighteenth century, Tibet was caught in power struggles
between China and the Mongols, a fight that China eventually won, and
which ended with Tibet as a Chinese protectorate.
The 13th Dalai Lama, Thypten Gyatso tried to modernize Tibet during his
reign, from 1875 to 1933, sending students out of the country for
education and raising the overall standards in the monasteries.
Finding a Dalai Lama
When a Dalai Lama dies, a successor is usually found through signs and
omens.
In the case of the present Dalai Lama, the Regent of Tibet went to a
sacred lake southeast of Lhasa in 1935 and there saw a vision of a
monastery with a green and gold roof and turquoise tiles. A mission set
out, in disguise, to find the monastery, where the new Dalai Lama would
be found. Near the monastery a small boy recognized a rosary from the
previous Dalai Lama. The boy was also able to correctly guess the names
of the two monks in the mission. That and other tests confirmed for the
mission that the boy was the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama
The monk's conclusion was later confirmed by the Nechung Oracle, where
the medium in a dance trance communicates with the god Pehar, one of the
deities that protects the Dalai Lama.
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