by Ugyen Gyalpo 6 July 2020
This 6th of July will mark the 85th birth anniversary of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. At a young age back in 1959, when the Chinese armies crushed the Tibetan uprising, the young Dalai Lama along with fleeing his homeland also had to shoulder the mantle of the Tibetan cause. Ever since his dramatic escape on a horseback to India traversing the rugged terrains along with his entourage, he single handedly saved and raised the issue of Tibet into the global limelight.
Fast forward sixty years later, ever since his escape, China could never win over Tibet and the indomitable spirit of the Tibetan people inside Tibet. Despite every effort and systematic destruction of the Tibetan ways of life, the faith and devotion in His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to whom the Chinese Communist Party label a separatist and a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” has never died and in fact, is entrenched and embedded in the hearts and minds of the Tibetan people and connected ever so strongly like an umbilical cord.
Turning back the clock to the cataclysmic spring of 1959, when Tibet was annexed by the armies of the Chinese Communist Party, almost three percent of Tibetan population, escaping wave by wave, were able to flee the Chinese onslaught after they had killed almost over a million Tibetans and destroyed almost 95 percent of Tibetan monasteries and nunneries. These diaspora of Tibetan who followed the footsteps of the Dalai Lama into exile were envisioned as “species on Noah’s Ark” that the Dalai Lama swore upon saving, when the whole of Tibetan civilization was pushed into the brink of extinction.
More than ninety seven percent of Tibetans were still trapped inside of Tibet, neither able to flee nor live. Living and partially living, they were forced under the barrel of the gun to change their ancient ways of life and were forcefully indoctrinated into Maoist ideology. Tibetan were fooled into the Chinese narrative of their help in liberating Tibetans from the ire of feudalistic and aristocratic society, to what they referred as primitive and barbaric, only to conspire to annex the whole of Tibet no sooner and wreak havoc upon their lives.
Witnessing the dire and deteriorating situation inside of Tibet, the mantle of both Tibetan fight for freedom and preservation of culture thereof, had to be ultimately done from outside of Tibet and this was something the Dalai Lama seriously delved upon. An effort to save and salvage the holy grail of Tibetan civilization had to be elevated on historical scale from outside of Tibet and hence, the journey of reconstruction of Tibetan lives, its civilization and culture started.
With the Dalai Lama’s vision and farsightedness, along with the immeasurable help from the Indian government, Tibetan schools, Tibetan settlements and Buddhist monasteries were built in the remote sanctioned areas of India where initially there were no paved road to begin with, yet to incubate and preserve not just Tibetan culture and Buddhist civilization, but also to solidify and mend the broken backs of the Tibetans to be able to rise up with dignity and grace again began.
Over the decades, under the hospitality of the Indian government and the fire in the belly of the Tibetan people, Tibetan refugee became one of the most established refugees of the world and a role model with a running democratic government in exile that would pursue closure to the Tibetan cause. From incubating and preserving the Tibetan culture and civilization from that metaphoric Noah’s Ark, Tibet was brought back to life like a phoenix from the ashes, when the whole world left them for dead.
Like a careful gardener, the Dalai Lama sowed upon the seeds of younger generations of Tibetans born into exile the confidence, motivation and inspiration to ferry the Tibetan cause and walk shoulder to shoulder with the people of the world. Today, thanks to his planning for the future of the Tibetan diaspora, Tibetan refugees now strewn all over the world are able to boldly face the world with intellectual flair and newly minted confidence, all thanks to His Holiness.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the true manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, yet he is someone who takes rejoice in calling himself a simple Buddhist monk, in touch with reality and every walks of life, from facets of secular and political groups to head of states and just as casual in conversation with laymen and women alike. The Dalai Lama has touched over billion hearts with his compassionate teaching and sowed and influenced peace, at the brink of many war, scaled on many people’s imagination or on a nation’s mindset. His Holiness has also single handedly revived the decaying Indian Buddhist Nalanda Tradition. He calls himself a son of India after having stayed in India for so long. With just a simple Buddhist robes, he trotted all over the globe, embraced and welcomed every beliefs, every opinion, to spread the message of inner peace, altruism, compassion and promote Buddhism as a science based on empirical evidence. Now during this pandemic and lockdown, thanks to the internet and his love for innovation, he was able to connect with millions of his followers worldwide through countless live teaching and seminars from the sanctuary of his house perched up in the Dauladhar range.
On this special, auspicious day, the 6th of July, I would love to wish His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, a very happy 85th birthday, a birthday of a Man unlike any, that probably changed Tibet and the world as a whole. His breath alone is the force to clear all impurities and His presence, a hope to mankind and eternal light to the hellish man made darkness!