Briton becomes first Western Tibetan Buddhist monk to die from self-immolation

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A Briton has become the first Western Tibetan Buddhist monk to die by self-immolation, dousing his head and clothes with petrol at a monastery in southwestern France.

Paris, France -- Tonden, 38, whose name at birth was David Alain, had been training for the past five years in the Nalanda monastery near the southwestern village of Labastide-Saint-Georges. The secluded monastery's 25 monks, including five Britons, are currently in retreat.

<< Tonden, whose birth name was David Alain

Horrified colleagues rushed into the garden of the quiet monastery, which is surrounded by rolling farmland, at 4.50pm on Thursday afternoon, after spotting their orange-robed, shaven-headed colleague burst into flames on the lawn.

They were powerless to help and by the time the emergency services arrived, Tonden had died.

Monks and local police said they were unsure whether Tonden had been depressed and committed suicide or that it was a political statement.

But given international events of the past week, the timing of his demise could not have been more significant.

Tonden died on the day that the Chinese Communist Party enacted its once-in-a-decade leadership change, with Xi Jinping taking over from Hu Jintao.

In the past week alone, at least nine Tibetans were reported to have self-immolated in protest at what they say is religious and cultural repression by the Chinese authorities.

In all, 74 Tibetans have now set themselves on fire since 2009 demanding freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama, who has been in exile since 1959.

Tonden was keenly aware of the Dalai Lama's plight, having met the spiritual leader last year when he visited the monastery

He also met the Dalai Lama's sister in September when she came to Nalanda and its nearby meditation centre, Vajra Yogini, which receives lay people.

Despite the timing, the office of the public prosecutor in Castres, said: "Nothing in the investigation allows us to confirm that it is linked to the events in Tibet."

Michel-Antoine Andreani, number two of the Tarn gendarmerie said the idea a Tibet-linked protest was the "first that sprung to my mind" when he was informed of the self-immolation.

But he told The Daily Telegraph: "Given the information we have gathered so far, the individual was psychologically fragile and during his training was having difficulty coming to terms with all the obligations and vows that his position demands."

The five Buddhist precepts urge against harming living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication.

The monastery, an hour's drive northeast of Toulouse, is described on its website as "a unique monastery for Western monks in the Tibetan Geluk tradition".

The entrance to the beautiful location warns visitors: "Retreat in progress. Nalanda monastery is completely closed to all visitors except by appointment."

A lone monk praying by a gold-topped stupa – the structure used for meditation – smiled but declined to speak. The monastery stands at the end of a long drive lined with pine trees adorned with hanging crystals and Buddhist prayer flags of blue, white, red, yellow and green that were last night swaying in the evening breeze.

Standing outside waiting for the undertaker, its director, the venerable Losang Tendar, said: "We don't know at this stage whether he acted for personal or political reasons and cannot comment due to an ongoing police investigation."

"What I can say is he never once spoke about such an act. He gave no warning and left no note. I also can say that nobody was with him at the time." Beside him, Francois Lecointre, a monastery spokesman, said: "We are like his Buddhist family and it's a huge shock for the whole community that nobody could have predicted," he said.

"We have of course followed the events in Tibet, but until now it was simply inconceivable that it would happen here in the West."

He was adamant that "Buddhism proscribes all forms of violence including against oneself. That is very clear in Buddhist teachings."

While police try and piece together the motives, others warned that frustration against Chinese repression of Tibetan Buddhists is threatening to spill over in the West.

"I actually befriended someone on Facebook recently who was threatening to self-immolate to draw international attention to what is going on," said Kate Saunders at the International Campaign for Tibet.

"As far as I know he did not go ahead with it, but it was not the same person".

On Friday, the political leader of Tibetan exiles called for international support for his people's struggle against Chinese rule.

Speaking to support groups from 40 countries at a meeting in Dharmsala, the Dalai Lama's headquarters, Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay said: "Tibet is a litmus test for China and the world. By supporting Tibet, the international community will clearly show what they stand for."

"By not supporting us in our non-violent struggle, the world will send a wrong message to all oppressed people of the world."

Beijing insists it has boosted living standards in minority areas and treats minorities fairly.

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Investigating the Integration of Buddhism into Western Culture

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Colombo, Sri Lanka -- As Asians, we sometimes forget that the teachings of the Buddha actually have nothing to do with Asia or Asian culture. We were born into Eastern cultures where images of the Buddha and Buddhist rituals and teachings are commonplace and, therefore, natural to us.

In the West, however, Buddhism is a relatively new teaching, brought there as late as the 1950’s and 1960’s by the early Western Zen teachers. From those early days it has gradually made its way into the mainstream culture, but not completely. We still have much more work to do in order to fully integrate it and make the Buddhist temple as familiar a sight as the Christian church or the Jewish synagogue.

With the arrival in the West of the so-called “Baggage Buddhists,” the immigrants who brought their religion with them from countries such as China, Vietnam, Tibet, Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka, for example, the New World became increasingly more exposed to Buddhism and Buddhist iconography. The monks from these countries soon followed the immigrants to establish temples that would cater primarily to the religious needs of these groups, with emphasis on the cultural traditions that accompanied them.

It took a while for the various ethnic Asian monks to learn English (if they ever did, and unfortunately many still haven’t), and Westerners were somewhat made to feel welcome, but their presence was – and still is – rare in many Asian temples. In the early days, those Americans and others that were brave enough to show up in the various Asian temples were not taught the difference between the Asian culture of the temple – and the teachings of the Buddha.

The two were intertwined and mixed together so that some American devotees thought they had to somehow “become Asian” in order to absorb Buddhism and become Buddhists. Many of the early monks who arrived in the West (some newcomers today, too) were unable to separate the Buddha’s teachings from their native culture. They made a point of teaching their country’s traditions (to wear shoes or remove shoes, for example) alongside the Buddha’s teachings, and the Americans were confused when they visited different ethnic temples and discovered they all had different “rules.”

I first came to America in 1976, and was one of the first to found a temple on the West Coast in 1979. From the very beginning I made it a point to reach out to American friends, but many of the temples, for one reason or another, disregarded our host population, usually using the language barrier as the reason. Over the years I discovered several ways to attract Americans to my temple. I am going to share some of these ways here, which represent proven methods of integrating the Buddha’s teachings into Western culture:

• The Buddha’s teachings are universal and for all places and all times. The first thing we have to do to integrate Buddhism into Western Culture is to make this fact known – loud and clear. We should try to keep the Asian cultural symbols and artifacts to a minimum in our temples, learn English, and learn our host Western cultures so we can adapt to them – instead of the other way around.

• Most Westerners first approached Buddhism though their attraction to meditation; this is still the primary draw. The monks in all temples should be fully-versed in this subject, and well-trained in the art of training others in the practice.

• The monks in the West should also teach the practical benefits of Buddhism, and not just meditation. The Buddha offered us countless ways to practically improve our lives, and these ways need to be taught to Western students.

• It is very difficult for a Westerner to become a Buddhist monk or nun. In my 36 years in America I have only ordained two American men as monks (it is interesting to note that I have ordained 15 women as nuns). Being a Buddhist monastic in America is a drastic and unfamiliar path for Westerners to take. Thirty-two years ago I instituted a three-step pathway for ordaining lay people as fully-certified Buddhist ministers (Bodhicari), which are comparable to Protestant or Jodo Shinshu ministers. This system has been very successful, and we now have many excellent, highly-qualified male and female lay ministers who can teach Dhamma classes, conduct weddings and funerals, give meditation instruction, and serve the Buddhist community in a host of useful ways. The three-step program is based on progressive levels of Buddhist education, commitment, teaching experience, and Precepts.

• An important reason this system has been effective, and has attracted dozens of initiates, is because we early-on recognized that Westerners are independent by nature, and do not like to depend on others. Asian Buddhist monks, however, because of our cultures, are dependent on our ethnic communities for support (e.g. food, donations, etc.). The lay ministers we have ordained have, for the most part, maintained full-time careers while they perform their ministerial duties on the side.

• Finally, Asian temples must learn to appreciate the female members of their congregations, and give them equal status with their male counterparts. At my temple I make a point of assigning key roles to females during ceremonies, such as having a young girl carry the relics on her head during a puja procession. I know that in Sri Lanka this is contrary to custom, but I feel that we must expand our acceptance of females in all facets of society, including temple society, which I’m certain is something the Buddha would have intended for citizens of the 21st Century world.

The above examples are just some of the ways we can begin to more fully integrate Buddhism into Western culture; I’m sure there are many more. I continually attempt to educate the Asian Buddhist clerics in America on this subject, and more and more I am able to sway them to an understanding of the realities I have expressed above. I invite you all to think of new ways we can reach out to our Western friends, and please let me know your ideas.

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Ven. Walpola Piyananda will be presenting this as a paper and speech in Taipei next week at a conference at Taiwan People's University.

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His Holiness The Dalai Lama Embraces The Addition Of Western Science To The Core Curriculum At Tibet

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Boston, MA (USA) -- During his visit to Boston last week, His Holiness the Dalai Lama addressed attendees at a private benefit hosted by Boston philanthropist Bobby Sager to support the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT.

The Dalai Lama discussed the impact of the "Science for Monks" program, designed to incorporate Western science into the core monastic curriculum taught at the major Tibetan Buddhism institutions in India.

"Now at these monastic institutions, science as a subject has been incorporated into the monastic curriculum, not just for selected individual students," the Dalai Lama said. He described the addition of Western science as the most important change in the monastic curriculum in centuries. Topics like neurobiology, cosmology and quantum physics will now be taught alongside traditional topics of monastic study, such as Buddhist philosophy.

With the support of the Sager Family Foundation, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and the Dalai Lama, the 12-year "Science for Monks" program has laid the groundwork for historic change. In 2000, "Science for Monks" started as a pilot program, sending professors from U.S. universities to India to teach science to a group of 40 monks and nuns at two-week workshops outside of their traditional monastic studies.

"Initially, some senior monks and abbots were hesitant to study science," the Dalai Lama said. "But then eventually, after we explained the importance of learning science, they supported it."

"12 years ago, we started this renegade program called 'Science for Monks' outside the required monastic curriculum," Bobby Sager, founder of Sager Family Foundation, said at the event. "Now studying science has gone into the bloodstream of Tibetan Buddhism."

Sager's new book "Beyond the Robe," published by powerHouse Books, tells the story of the "Science for Monks" program over this 12-year period and what it reveals about the larger role Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns can play in their monasteries, in their communities, and in the world at large. "Beyond the Robe" is a collection of essays and Sager's photographs illustrating the first insights and observations that have come out of that historic effort, including an insider's look at the monks and nuns involved in the program.

An excellent example of the potential for Tibetan monks and nuns to play a larger role is "Science, Monks and Technology," a new program by Sager Family Foundation and The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT announced at the October 16 event in Boston. The initiative creates a platform for Tibetan monks and nuns to collaborate with engineering and business students at MIT in designing and implementing technologies that can impact communities in the Tibetan diaspora, such as solar power or clean water.

"Monks have long served as leaders and community organizers in the Tibetan diaspora in India and Nepal; Science, Monks and Technology will enable them to add an additional dimension to their societal contribution," said the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, director of the Dalai Lama Center at MIT.

For information about Sager Family Foundation, visit www.teamsager.org, become a fan on Facebook, or join the conversation on Twitter at @SagerFoundation. For information about The Dalai Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, go to thecenter.mit.edu.

To purchase "Beyond the Robe," go to www.beyondtherobe.org. A preview is available at www.powerhousebooks.com/preview/beyondtherobepreview.pdf. All of Sager Family Foundation's proceeds from this book are going to support programs that promote teaching Western science to Tibetan monks and nuns.

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