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20150705GRAAST21

Good morning to you and Happy 4th July. It’s great to have the opportunity to celebrate independence. I am such a person, during my lifetime I lost my country and lost independence. So a home away from home, being able to celebrate independence is something wonderful. So, as I always say I am very proud to be American-Tibetan. It is the opportunity to remind myself that when you lose independence you lose everything. I don’t talk much about what I lost, because that’s over five decades ago, maybe close to six. It was in 1959.

0:01:55.8 Actually we lost our independence in the early 1950s, in 1950, 1951. The Chinese communists marched over Tibet in 1959 two huge divisions of military establishments, a southern and an eastern, both, from two sides – three sides actually. There are two roadways between Central Tibet to the Chinese border. One is through difficult paths and mountains, one is between the mountains through the valleys. Both are not side by side, but very far away. So they marched in both directions, plus from the sea to India also. So the poor Tibetans had really no military or violence experience. Their military experience was extremely poor. They fought against the Chinese with fists and knives and spears and arrows, against modern weapons like automatic machine guns, cannons. So they could do nothing. It was a little militia organization resisting a little bit in various rivers. In the mountains they could not.

0:04:56.4 The southern division of the Chinese military barracks, all of them trained themselves by acclimatizing before they marched over Tibet. Apparently Mao is supposed to have thought of invading Tibet. Mao had two choices: chase Chiang Kai shek in Formosa, now Taiwan or go into Tibet. Stalin, the then Russian ruler advised Mao to forget about Chiang Kai shek, because it was one China. That was accepted by both, Chiang Kai sheks’s national government and Chairman Mao, the Communist government. Both accepted one China, not two Chinese governments. That’s the reason why when the UN voted to have Communist China as member of the United Nations, the National government walked out. They were not kicked out. They walked out, because they said there is only one China.

0:06:42.9 So Stalin told Mao, “No matter whatever they do, they will hold the one China policy, so don’t worry, sooner or later it will be yours. It may take 40 or 50 years, doesn’t matter. It will be yours. But if you don’t control Tibet now, it will be controlled by the western powers.” It’s so funny. I don’t know why I am talking this today. It is said that Mao sat in a train thinking about how to invade Tibet. He sat there with a couple of friends, running around until he finished his planning. He kept on running the train throughout China, here and there, not coming out of the train, just sitting there, running the train from one place to another for eight or nine days and worked out that plan.

0:08:01.8 According to that plan, the Southern division, thousands of soldiers, in order to acclimatize for Tibet, lived in Chengdu, below the Himalayan foothills, but every day they had to carry big stones in their bags and climb up all the way to fifty fee high, hundred feet high, hundred fifty feet high, 200 feet high, etc. For six months, they did nothing but thousands of soldiers climbing up and coming down in the evening, climbing up in the morning, so that they could easily walk through Tibet. The acclimatizing problem was not there. That’s how they invaded Tibet.

0:09:07.5 Finally they didn’t talk much. They did talk but there was not so much compromise and finally there was something called the 17 point agreement. With that I think we lost total independence of Tibet, in the early 1950s, though we did not have much chance to fight. In the beginning, all the Chinese soldiers were so helpful to the poor people. They somehow went into various villages everywhere and tried to help poor people, delivering water for them, delivering wood and even food, for about 5 or 6 years. Everybody said, “Oh, these Chinese are so nice.” They also distributed money too, for no reason. The poor old lady over there, alone, no children, to her the soldiers would deliver water, food and medicine. Doctors would come and the soldiers would give money, all that for six, seven years. After seven years, no more deliveries and they said that young people should come and work for the Chinese. So the Tibetan called that, “They put a wet leather hat on us.” A wet leather hat is nice and comfortable when it is wet and when it starts getting dry, it starts squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. So finally in 1959 all the Tibetans everywhere rebelled against the Chinese and then the government of Tibet, which the Chinese called a “local government”, like a state type of government, that was the day when the government of Tibet known as Ganden Potrang, collapsed.

0:12:35.9 That was the 10th March, 1959. The day the Ganden Potrang government collapsed, Buddhism collapsed in Tibet. All the monks, those who little ideas, left Tibet; many of the learned ones left Tibet and ran as refugees towards India, this speaker included. Some still remained in the monasteries, however, under so many pretexts, such as that they were involved in rebelling against the Communists, then re-education and thirdly, they were teaching the monks and nuns how to feed their own stomachs, which means they pushed them into road building and also in the villages to grow their own food and all that. Thirdly, those guilty ones were sort of exiled to nomad lands on the Chinese borders somewhere to build difficult roads or difficult military set ups. That was all punishment.

0:15:01.8 So under any pretext, under all kinds of different names, all the monks and nuns were almost destroyed. The root of Buddhism really depends on the sangha-hood and that was shaken from ground completely. In my opinion, the day the Ganden Potrang government collapsed the Tibetan Buddhism collapsed completely in Tibet, including Gelugpa, Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu – every different sect. Particularly, the Gelugpa, the great monasteries of Sera, Drepung, Ganden, the upper and lower tantric colleges, all of them just became empty buildings standing there, no people, no one living there. That’s how Buddhism died in Tibet that day.

0:16:39.1 Luckily His Holiness and both great masters of His Holiness, both Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, escaped. Similarly, many learned teachers and scholars of all different traditions escaped. Of the Nyingma, Dudjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche, etc, then also the Gyalwa Karmapa and Gyalwa Drukpa and finally the Gyalwa Drikungpa, gradually reestablished themselves in India and similar the Sakya, both of the Sakya Dag chens, Dag chen Tripa, the Tomo Potrang and Dag chen Rinpoche, the Puntsog Potrang in Seattle, and many other great Sakya scholars and teachers. In the Gelugpa, a lot of great teachers, including, as I mentioned, both masters of His Holiness as well as the great abbots such as Gen Pema Gyaltsen, Gen Losang Wangchuk, Sharwa Khenpo Gen Nyima, and Shartse Khenpo Gen Kaluwa, these were the real great scholars who walked from Tibet towards India.

0:18:36.9 Gen Pema Gyaltsen actually remained as Loseling abbot for 19 years, although the period to be an abbot is only 6 years. In Pema Gyalten’s case he remained as abbot for 19 years and everything being re-established in India is all because of His Holiness’ efforts and India being the host. Tibetan Buddhism is really re-established very much in India. It died in Tibet. Now everything is re-established completely – whatever is there.

And then back again, in Tibet, after the Culture Revolution and all these different pretexts and periods were over, Mao died. I almost said, “Luckily Mao died”. But it is not luckily. He lived as long as he could and then luckily Deng Xiaoping happens to be a very wise person. He came out of jail and eulogized Mao at his funeral and became China’s leader. That was a great thing happening in the world, because Deng Xiaoping believed in freedom. I don’t know whether he really believed in democracy or not. He demonstrated otherwise at Tiananmen Square.

0:20:49.3 I thought that China was relaxed and I wanted to go and visit and was waiting in Singapore. Then the student demonstration developed in Beijing for about 3 weeks or something and then Deng Xiaoping showed his true colors and the soldiers in Beijing refused to run over the students, because they were somehow family and friends involved. So he got the soldiers from the North East. Deng Xiaoping was the man in charge of the invasion of Tibet, actually. Mao put him in charge. He was the chief guy to invade Tibet. So he brought those soldiers back to Beijing and run over the students. That’s how he showed his true colors.

0:22:10.5 In those days there was one Chinese leader who very much sympathized with democracy. [Zhao Ziyang] He was also a politburo member, very powerful. He helped the students. He led the students and it is funny. It was supposed to be said that way. Deng Xiaoping asked him, “What do you have? Show me.” He told Deng Xiaoping, “I have the public.” He said, “I have the soldiers. You lost.” Then they put him in jail – either until Deng Xiaoping died [1997] or Hu Yaobang died [must have been Deng, because Hu Yaobang already died in 1989, which triggered the Tiananmen protests]. And then they gave him the opportunity to eulogize Deng Xiaoping, just as Deng Xiaoping had the opportunity to eulogize Mao. He couldn’t manage very well. So then the Chinese democratic movement has been somehow not been successful. Meanwhile there were so many conservative people and there were a lot of liberals. And the fight between conservatives and liberals did not end. It became very tense. When the conservatives get into power then everywhere, including Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, all the minority areas are completely tight and they remove the human rights in the areas completely. It becomes completely dictatorial and even more than that. It is almost like slavery control.

0:24:40.0 When the conservatives lose power in China a little bit, the liberals pick up little bit and relax the grip a little bit in the minority areas and people have a chance to breathe. And then we do something wrong and again the conservatives come back to power and they will say, “See, when you try to do this, this is what’s happening. So we are going to control them.” This is exactly the game that has been playing for 20 years.

0:25:21.8 So it is a good thing to fight against China for Tibet, but if you are not careful, the people suffer tremendously, because it helps the conservatives and doesn’t help the liberals at all. That gives them the opportunity to say, “ This is what happens if you liberals take over.” It is the same thing here too. The conservatives and liberals do that, but here we have elections. People have the power and can choose. There, no. It is the politburo and whoever has more power. That’s what it is. That’s one thing in China today.

0:26:25.3 Then there is another distinction: the princelings and the poor people in control of power. This is supposed to be communism, but there is a princely- group. That’s the descendants of those who had joined in the Long March. At that time [1934-35] a lot of people walked with Mao against the National Chinese. They had to run around because they were defeated. There were thousands of people running and they ran out of food and even boiled their shoes and ate them, supposedly. So people who joined in the Long March were rewarded by the Communist government later, who gave them huge industries. You know, it’s the old China, a very rich country. They took everything away from everybody, rich and poor and people became so poor. All this money and all these industries was given away to these Long March people. They owned it. Then these old people died and their kids of age 20, 30, 40 are extremely rich in China today.

0:28:11.5 We read in the newspapers that they have three of these interesting sports cars and all that and they even drive Maseratis and everything in New York City and all that we see. These are the princelings. Then the princelings and the people who really work through, fight for the power, again. That’s among the liberals. The present leader, Xi Jinping is a princeling, because his father was one of the Long March guys. These two fight internally. Also the princelings fight among themselves. Honestly. You know, 2 years ago we read a lot about Bo Xilai, whose wife is supposed to have killed a British spy and all that. That’s an internal fight among princelings, making sure to destroy the other one, so they can’t catch their power and challenge them.

0:29:48.2 When you observe China, that’s a very, very funny condition. It looks like China forever, but it doesn’t. If you really look internally, it is very, very fragile; very fragile. What they did right – or wrong, I don’t know – is that they removed all politicians. All policies and politics are mostly run by technocrats. The whole government is run by technocrats. I don’t know whether that is right or wrong. The world has not yet proved whether running government by technocrats or by politicians is better. We never know; we will know down the road in 50 or 100 years time. Historians will tell what it is.

0:31:14.1 These are my thoughts when celebrating independence here. This is my experience throughout. When you lost your independence it is terrible. It is terrible. You lose all human rights. When you gain citizenship, when you gain independence again, it is not the same thing, but it is something great, something I really appreciate and admire. I cannot tell you anything except that you have to appreciate the freedom, honestly. In this country, no matter whoever you are, how poor you may be, how weak you may be, you can raise your head and say, “I am a citizen. I have my rights.” You can do that. People have to respect that, no matter whoever you are. You may be from a minority. You may be a very, very tiny minority, like the Tibetans. How many Tibetan-Americans do we have? Maybe 1000 – 2000. That much. Even then you can raise your head, equally among the Caucasians, the African-Americans and no matter wherever you go, you don’t have to bend down. You can just be one of them.

0:33:27.5 This is the beauty of democracy. Independence, freedom of choice, is freedom and liberty. All these are so great and you people normally don’t even think about it, because you are taking it for granted. It is part of our life. “That’s what I am, that’s where I was born, that’s what it is, we are Americans.” But sometimes, sit back and listen to things like what I said. I have the experience of having had independence. And not just independence. I was born in Tibet, not just with a silver spoon in my mouth, but a gold spoon. Honestly. I was born in such a family, with such respect. That is Demo Rinpoche’s previous incarnation, Kyabgön Demo Rinpoche, who was my father. He was the 13th Dalai Lama’s nephew and one of the four regents of Tibet. So I was born into a very, very strong family.

0:35:21.0 Our family, establishment or labrang, actually had a war with the Tibetan government at the turn of last century, almost for years. Lhasa was divided into two, north and south. We had the north, the Tibetan government the south. This war lasted over a year. That’s my background, that’s our background. I normally don’t talk about it and today I talked that because Demo Rinpoche who is here is not only the reincarnation of my father, but he is also my nephew, my brother’s son. Plus, I also have my sister here today. I don’t know where she is. She must be sitting in the back. So that’s why I simply told you where I was.

But the day Buddhism went down, the day the Ganden Potrang government went down, everything went down, everything. Your monastery, your estate, your family, your teachers, your colleagues, your friends, your retinue, your wealth, your food – everything went down in one single day. And I became a penniless refugee, honestly. I had vehicles in Tibet, a truck, a station wagon and a jeep. But then I became a refugee and one day I got a ride in an Indian garbage collection truck. I got a ride from Tawang to Bombdilla. I was happy to be in the garbage truck. I never thought I would put my feet into a vehicle again. So I was very happy to get a ride and I sat in the corner and held on to both railings, so I didn’t get thrown off the road.

0:38:15.3 Amazing. The refugee experience was fantastic. When I first went to a railway station in Assam, I was looking for a toilet. I knew how to say “Where is the toilet?” in Hindi. So I asked somebody and they showed me a nice, little room. So I went inside and looked around and everywhere there was clean porcelain, so clean and I didn’t know what to use and I came out, thinking that was not a toilet, because it was so clean. Then I asked somebody else and they pointed out the same place again. That shows you how naïve and how backwards we were. Sometimes I don’t blame the Chinese. They told us, “So you are so naïve, so barbarian, so dark, so backwards”, there are actually five qualities of Tibet they told us about, according to the Chinese. This is not communist Chinese propaganda, but this has been in Chinese school texts even in 1901 or even the 1890s. That’s how they described Tibet. So backwards, dark, barbarian, naïve, - I don’t know the last one. Doctor Dorje, do you remember the other one? No. Okay.

0:41:07.9 Sometimes I wonder. When I first got out of Tibet and I came to an Indian railway station, I couldn’t find the toilet. So the people there were probably also thinking, so backward, so naïve, and so dirty. One of the qualities were probably that we were so dirty. Maybe. Or so diseased. That’s how the Chinese described Tibet – for a long time. Around the beginning of the Chinese relaxation, the Chinese drivers told the tourists who wanted to go there, “Why do you want to go to Tibet? It is such a backward, dirty, barbarian place.” For the first five, six years they were saying that. Now of course it is different. Nowadays the Chinese themselves come to Tibet for holidays. Anyway, that’s how times change. That’s how it works.

0:42:18.6 So with the Independence celebrations here today these are my thoughts. That thought occupied me yesterday completely. So I share that here with you today. Even when I went to bed last night, I was thinking all this. So how horrible it is to lose your independence. How horrible to lose your freedom. How horrible to become controlled by somebody else, who totally controls you. You have no right to get up, no right to sit down, no right to eat, no right even to pee. Honestly. That’s how when you lose your freedom, that’s what happens. This is not happening in the civilized world. Even when we took over Japan we rebuilt Japan. Today, Japan has become one of the most industrialized countries in the world. We took over Germany, who we defeated because of Hitler and after that we rebuilt Germany by the Marshall plan. This was great after World War II. We rebuilt all we destroyed.

0:44:00.2 Today, we have destroyed Iraq, we are destroying Syria, and we are destroying everywhere, but do we have Marshall plans? No, we don’t. We have drones today. That’s the difference. People have to think about that. People have a choice here. You have wonderful freedoms. I cannot tell you who you should vote for. I cannot. But you have every right to choose and each and every one of your votes will count. Everything will count. Everybody counts. Everybody will make a difference. This is your privilege. This is the privilege of independence, freedom and all this. This is the pursuit of happiness, right? That’s what it is. So you have to appreciate that and you will know if you lost it. I am telling you with my own experience. And when you have that choice, not only do you have the choice in your political life, but also in your economic life and your spiritual life and that’s why you all are here. The bottom line of this spiritual life is kindness, compassion, and love for yourself and all others. You can never waver away from love and compassion.

0:46:22.1 Love and compassion really give you the happiness, really give you joy. They really make others happy too. It is really the source of happiness and joy. Otherwise, hatred, anger, jealousy, obsession are the opposite forces. If they take over your life, you lost. You lost your precious, powerful, wonderful, independent, free life. And if you keep love and compassion as the principle of your life, you gain all of those. You help others to gain and to develop and to be happy. This is the goal of your spiritual path. The spiritual path wants to make you happy and make everybody happy and if possible, happy forever. Like you always say: may all beings be happy and free of suffering and the cause of suffering. One should never separate from the joy that has never known suffering. So these are our goals and aims. This is what we pray for. This is what we work for. We don’t just pray alone. Praying alone may or may not materialize. “My prayers have been answered” – or not. We use that expression, but I don’t know how prayer alone works.

0:48:42.6 Sometimes it does, maybe. But mostly, you make sure you create the causes and conditions. If the causes and conditions are right, things to function well. That is why we call it ‘dependent origination’, because things happen depending on causes and conditions; the causes of creating happiness and joy, the conditions of creating happiness and joy. Who does that? We ourselves. We have to do it. In other words, don’t forget: we are responsible for our happiness. No one else is. I have been in India for 20 years as refugee. I speak the Indian language quite okay. I admire Indian culture and I appreciate the people of India. But do I want to be an Indian citizen? No. I was not satisfied with that choice and that freedom. Of course, India is the biggest democratic country in the world. However, their political system is absolutely crazy. Absolutely. And the caste system is so strong.

0:50:48.4 There are the upper castes and lower castes, though the Indian government tries to protect the lower castes by creating special conditions for them. That backfires, honestly. In my opinion it backfires. You go to school and study and if you are in a lower caste, you pass with 50% and if you are a higher caste you have to get 60% or 70%. Otherwise you fail. So it is with government positions. Many of them are result of scheduled types and castes. As a result, a lot of people get higher jobs though less qualified. In my opinion this is backfiring.

0:52:10.4 Affirmative action in this country sometimes works wonders. If there is no affirmative action, things would be slightly different and for this country it is suitable. But in India it is so much. But that’s my opinion. I am not even India, so I have no right to express my opinion, but that’s my observation after living there for 20 years. I wanted more freedom, more choice, more happiness and that’s why I became American citizen and I did not become American citizen because of the green dollars, but because of freedom, choice and self-determination. All these are the reasons. And you people have that. Enjoy and appreciate it and do not ignore it. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t take it for granted. You never know. Appreciation is so important. That will also become interlinked with the spiritual path, because of this principle of love and compassion, the principle of freedom, the principle of democracy, the principle of choice. All of them are the same thing; very similar and interlinked. So please have a union of politics and spirituality joined together in your life. And that’s all I wanted to say today.

0:54:22.3 I am sorry I took all the time talking about my own story and crying, looking back at the death of Tibet and I am sorry to bring you in there. When you are celebrating independence, you have both of those feelings, happiness to be here and sad at what we lost. So that’s what I looked at.

0:54:57.8 I don’t know whether I will be here next Sunday. No, I won’t. So I will be talking to you through webinar. See you for the Sunday thereafter. Thank you so much and enjoy your freedom, honestly. Be happy with the 4th of July. Thank you

0:55:37.9 May all beings have happiness…….. 0:56:32.8