Quotes About Tibet

On we went over low-lying passes till we came to the source of the Brahmaputra, which the Tibetans call the Tsangpo.

We turned a corner and saw, gleaming in the distance, the golden roofs of the Potala, the winter residence of the Dalai Lama and the most famous landmark of Lhasa.

The haste of Europeans has no place in Tibet. We must learn patience if we wished to arrive at the goal.

We were told that the name Dalai Lama is not used in Tibet at all. It is a Mongolian expression meaning "Broad Ocean." Normally the Dalai Lama is referred to as the "Gyalpo Rimpoche," which means "Precious King." His parents and brothers use another title in speaking of him. They call him "Kundün," which simply means "Presence." The

We have a saying in Tibet: If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good.

Wherever I live, I shall feel homesick for Tibet. I often think I can still hear the cries of wild geese and cranes and the beating of their wings as they fly over Lhasa in the clear, cold moonlight. My heartfelt wish is that my story may create some understanding for a people whose will to live in peace and freedom has won so little sympathy from an indifferent world.

In the time between the two wars, a British colonial officer said that with the invention of the airplane the world has no secrets left. However, he said, there is one last mystery. There is a large country on the Roof of the World, where strange things happen. There are monks who have the ability to separate mind from body, shamans and oracles who make government decisions, and a God-King who lives in a skyscraper-like palace in the Forbidden City of Llhasa.

We were told that the name Dalai Lama is not used in Tibet at all. It is a Mongolian expression meaning "Broad Ocean." Normally the Dalai Lama is referred to as the "Gyalpo Rimpoche," which means "Precious King." His parents and brothers use another title in speaking of him. They call him "Kundün," which simply means "Presence.

It was inevitable that Red China would invade Tibet, and then there would be no place for us two friends of Tibetan independence.

What has since happened in Tibet is hardly to be believed. More than 1.2 million Tibetans lost their lives and of about six thousand monasteries, temples, and shrines, 99 percent were either looted or totally destroyed. In

In the country where I'm traveling - Tibet - people believe if they walk long distances to holy places, it purifies the bad deeds they've committed. They believe the more difficult the journey, the greater the depth of purification.

the 25,000-foot peak of Gurla Mandhata; less striking, but far more famous, was the sacred Mount Kailas, 3,000 feet lower, which stands in majestic isolation apart from the Himalaya range. When we first caught sight of it our Tibetans prostrated themselves and prayed. For Buddhists and Hindus this mountain is the home of their gods and the dearest wish of all the pious is to visit it as pilgrims once in their lives.

When I am with my mother's people, I realize I have a lot to unlearn. I look to them to uncomplicated my notions of Tibet and Tibetans. They know where they are from; they live on the land. This assurance does not come in the same way to those of us in exile who experience a lack of certainty for is it not from the land that we get a sense of stability? Those of us born in exile inherit Tibet by inhabiting the memories of our elders.

Sometimes I wonder if they live in a state of apathy or ignorance, or if they are passive, but when I consider what continues to exist inside Tibet, even after such violent upheaval, it is resistance that comes to mind, not inaction. I have come to equate concrete action as resistance. It is harder to define their quiet refusal to change, and their resilience because I have not been taught to acknowledge what comes without manifestations in word or action.

ONE OF the traditional applications of Chöd in Tibet was working with outer demons of disease and epidemics. Those practicing Chöd would give form to demons by practicing the ritual in frightening places where there were diseased corpses, such as cemeteries and charnel grounds. Once they felt the terrifying demons had arrived, instead of fighting them, the practitioners would imagine their own bodies transformed into nectar that fed the demons until they were completely sated.

As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma and elsewhere-the truer shout is not Never again but Again and again.

I was happier than I had been since starting this trop on The Iron Rooster. I was driving. I was in charge. I was taking my time; and Tibet was empty. The weather was dramatic-snow on the hills, a high wind, and black clouds piled up on the mountains ahead. I also thought: I didn't die the other day.

If there is any one country the United States is likely to engage in military conflict with over the next several decades, it certainly is a rapidly militarizing China. And if you were an American business executive contemplating an offshoring decision, would you really want all of your company's eggs in the China basket when such a conflict arises over Taiwan or Tibet or territorial rights in the South China Seas or access to oil in the Middle East?

The Falls of the Tsangpo had offered turn-of-the-century explorers a geographical quest to rival the search for the headwaters of the Nile. But the Tibetans—who knew of it already—did not view the falls as a topographical trophy but as a sacrament, a threshold between the physical universe and the world of the spirit.

Maybe I'd move to Tibet, climb a mountain with the Dalai Lama or head to Paris and wear nothing but black, grow myself a keen goatee and talk about jazz all the time. Or maybe I'd do what I always do - hang out and see what develops. Fatalist to the core.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

I totally disagree with the view that the Tibet struggle will die, and there will be no hope for Tibet, after the Dalai Lama passes away.

What happened next was an amazing testament to the ongoing power that the Dalai Lama exercises in Tibet. The travelers returned to Tibet, and many of them immediately burned their tiger skins, even though they were worth approximately two years' wages apiece. By this act, they honored the Dalai Lama's edict to end the exploitation of Asia's tigers.

Hundreds of political prisoners still suffer in Tibetan prisons. Freedom of speech is not allowed in any sense. It is illegal to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama.