Sense of foreboding surrounds Tibetan Buddhist leadership

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Beijing, China -- With the process of determining the next Dalai Lama unclear, China will pounce upon the opportunity to cause confusion among followers

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There has been no let-up for five years in the steady drumbeat of unrest among Tibetans in China, and the tempo now seems to be building to a crescendo.

Chinese authorities have failed to produce any policy that addresses Tibetan claims about religious, ethnic, political, cultural and economic oppression in any meaningful way.

And as the Tibetans' religious leader, the Dalai Lama, who is now 77, approaches the end of this incarnation, there are increasingly sharp divisions among leading political and religious figures, especially in the exile capital in Dharamsala in northern India where he lives.

It has been evident for some years that the discovery of the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama is going to be a contentious and politically charged business.

Nothing that has happened recently has given reason to change that judgment.

More than 100 Tibetans in the Beijing-administered Tibet Autonomous Region, and predominantly Tibetan regions of neighbouring Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, have set themselves on fire - self-immolated - since this wave of protest against Chinese rule began in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Most of these people have died. The Chinese authorities have responded as they usually do in these situations. Security forces have encircled the most activist monasteries, turning them into little more than prisons, and have detained large numbers of monks, nuns and other Tibetans accused of instigating the self-immolations and street protests.

Beijing has also attempted to mount a propaganda campaign against the Dalai Lama, accusing him of encouraging the self-immolations.

However, the Dalai Lama himself has given Beijing room to play with his words.

In an interview last year with India's The Hindu newspaper, the Dalai Lama responded to questions about his lack of a clear denunciation of self-immolation as a protest tactic by saying it is a "very, very delicate political issue."

"Now, the reality is that if I say something positive, then the Chinese immediately blame me. If I say something negative, then the family members of those people feel very sad. They sacrificed their own life. It is not easy. So I do not want to create some kind of impression that this is wrong."

In theory, the Dalai Lama freed himself from such conundrums in 2011 when he relinquished the political leadership of Tibetans and the Tibetan movement for autonomy within China in order to live as a "simple monk."

Following that retirement there was an election in which 50,000 among the 85,000 Tibetans in exile voted for a government with Harvard academic Lobsang Sangay as its prime minister.

While many hoped this division of labour between the religious and political branches of Tibetan life would clarify the situation and perhaps lead to a resumption of talks with Beijing, stalled since January 2010, on Tibetan autonomy, this has not happened.

Meanwhile, the political aspects of the religious future of Tibetan Buddhism is becoming more complex and immediate.

There is no doubt that when the Dalai Lama dies, China will make every effort to take control of the process of discovering his reincarnation, and making sure the new religious leader follows Beijing's instructions.

And the process of divining the identity of the new Dalai Lama is unclear enough for Beijing to be able to pick its own rival successor, and thus cause confusion in the Tibetan Buddhist community.

Beijing's bid to take control of the process began 20 years ago with the death of the 10th Panchen Lama. He is second in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism, and his political significance is that he traditionally leads the hunt for the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama in 1995 identified a small boy in Tibet, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the 11th Panchen Lama.

But the Beijing authorities spirited Nyima away - he has not been seen since - and used another available method of discovering reincarnations - picking names from a golden urn - to identify another small boy, Gyain-cain Norbu, as the 11th Panchen Lama. Norbu has, of course, been raised by Chinese authorities to present Beijing's views on religion and its role in society.

In January 2000, however, a young monk escaped from Tibet to Dharam-sala who adds another unknown factor to the equation of the succession. He is 28-year-old Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa, who is head of the Karma Kagyu school, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Dorje has emerged as a charismatic religious teacher among followers of Tibetan Buddhism worldwide. He also works with the World Wildlife Fund and writes on environmental issues.

There is, unsurprisingly, a movement to have the Dalai Lama name Dorje as his successor.

Whatever happens, a shattering of the Tibetan religious and political leadership appears inevitable, with little likelihood that a clear voice championing the aspirations of the Tibetan people will emerge.

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Presidential election: What the Dalai Lama can teach Obama, Romney about leadership

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Washington D.C., USA -- After the first presidential debate, polls showed that the majority of Americans felt that President Obama had been too polite and not aggressive enough. He was faulted for his apparent lack of emotion and disinterest in the debate. Governor Mitt Romney's spirited attacks on the president captured people's attention. As a result, during the second and third debates, the president resorted to the same disrespectful behavior that Romney exhibited. Both candidates interrupted one another,  bared their fists and let the punches fly.

This got me thinking both about the personal qualities that Americans expect to see in a president and, of equal importance, a president's moral values. With several European countries on the verge of economic collapse, the political situation in the Middle East deteriorating and tension between the U.S. and China running high, the next president faces an incredibly complex, volatile international situation that directly affects our future. The president's inner values will guide him in charting the course that America takes. This may mean launching a new military offensive or resolutely adhering to the practice of non-violence.

 Against the backdrop of the negative campaigning of the 2012 election, his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso toured the United States. He spoke to sold-out audiences at several American universities including Western Connecticut State University, the College of William & Mary and Syracuse University, to name a few.

In his talks and his recent book “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World,” the Dalai Lama describes the need for an ethical system that goes beyond the confines of any particular religion. Secular ethics are possible because mankind's natural compassion is the source of all our shared ethical or spiritual values. He defines spirituality as the practice of non-harming/non-violence both with respect to oneself and others.

Universal secular ethics center around two principles. In the aforementioned book he writes, “The first principle is the recognition of our shared humanity and our shared aspiration to happiness and the avoidance of suffering; the second is the understanding of interdependence as a key feature of human reality, including our biological reality as social animals.”

The quality of discernment is the ability to recognize our interdependence. A good leader is someone who possesses discernment and thus makes decisions guided by the needs of the broader community rather than those of a particular self-interest group. Likewise, when questions of justice are examined in the context of a moral framework grounded in compassion and non-violence, the key values are forgiveness and a recognition of man's ability to change. Capital punishment, for example, violates a compassion-centered ethic because it is motivated by revenge and does not acknowledge a person's capacity for positive reform.

As the Indian Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna explains in his text “The Precious Garland,” a compassionate leader always acts in a truthful manner, practices open-hearted generosity, treasures peace and is guided by wisdom. He embodies the virtues of patience in the face of hardship and respect for all.

The way in which we perceive ourselves has a profound effect on our relationships with others. We point our fingers at others as the source of all our problems. Instead, we need to recognize that our true enemy is in fact our own self-centeredness and negative emotions. Through meditation, we can free ourselves from the destruction that such emotions cause in our lives and enjoy the satisfaction that arises from cherishing others more than ourselves.

In an October 11, 2012 interview that focused on the tragic self-immolations in Tibet, the Dalai Lama said that Tibetans are engaged in a struggle between the power of truth versus the power of the gun. The power of the gun is winning but only in the short term.  He doesn't admire the U.S.'s military power, including its nuclear armaments. Rather, he deeply admires America's values: democracy, freedom and liberty. The true source of the power of America rests in its ideals, not in its weapons.

Disarmament is nothing less than compassion in practice and must occur first within ourselves – a resetting of our own moral compasses and later in our relations with others. The Dalai Lama writes: “What is required, therefore, is both inner disarmament, at the level of our individual hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, and outer disarmament, at the level of nations and states. Rather than pouring salt on the wounds we have inherited from earlier generations, we must start to heal our divisions by committing ourselves to dialogue, cooperation, and understanding.”

Later he continues, “We can learn from the great achievements of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to recognize that nonviolence is the best long-term approach to redressing injustice. If the twentieth century was a century of violence, let us make the twenty-first a century of dialogue.”

Let us hope that our next president heeds his holiness's advice.

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Losang Tendrol is a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and a contributor to The Washington Post’s local faith leader network. She teaches meditation and Buddhism at the Guhyasamaja Buddhist Center in Reston. The center was founded in 1994 and is affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. The center follows the Gelugpa tradition, the same lineage as his holiness the Dalai Lama.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/presidential-election-what-the-dalai-lama-can-teach-obama-romney-about-leadership/2012/11/05/01d9f850-2780-11e2-b4f2-8320a9f00869_story_1.html

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