Freedom in Exile

Rating:
Summary: Must read to understand the man...
Review: At a time when so much attention is directed toward China and her brutalities, this book is a breath of fresh air.

From a playful, joke playing youngster to a determined, hopeful spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama is truly the most transcendental leader in the world today. At a time when most anyone would've given up, his perserverence and hope is a true inspiratioin for us all. The reader is not merely reading an account by account of the events in the Lama's life, but actually reliving and absorbing them. At times you are laughing at the Lama's sense of humor, other times you feel the Lama's pain when driven out of his homeland.

The Dalai Lama's hope for the future is one we all need to understand, and inspire ourselves to better not only our conditions, but of those millions around the world whose conditions are worse than our own.

Rating:
Summary: Freedom in Exile
Review: It was fascinating to read the Dalai Lama's life story of his childhood and adulthood (personal, spiritual, and political) in his own words, and also to understand the events and situation of China taking over Tibet from his own perspective. It is terrible that a country so rich in culture and religion has been trampled over by political and material forces, and the people tortured. I was especially interested in learning about how the Chinese media would misrepresent the Dalai Lama's meetings and the feelings of the Tibetan people by using obscure photos and making up stories to go along with them.

The Dalai Lama is an intelligent man. His mind is equally scientific and peaceful. He has thoroughly tested the dharma of Buddhism himself, following what he believes in. He doesn't conform to a pre-set ideal without understanding it for himself, and relating it to his own inner wisdom.

I also especially enjoyed reading about the Dalai Lama's first visit to India, and his subsequent escape into exile. Prime Minister Nehru offered incredible resources, financial support, and guidance to educate the Tibetan refugee children, and to maintain Tibetan culture.

The Dalai Lama also draws attention to the refugees of East Turkestan, who are in the same situation as the Tibetans, but do not receive the same international awareness.

The last two chapters were the most important because they outline in very clear terms what the people living in western nations can do to help, what the Dalai Lama's Five-Point Peace Plan is, and what his hopes are for Tibet, China, India, other surrounding nations, and the whole world. Reading this book showed me that my hopes for the world are realistic and should be possible.

Rating:
Summary: Hearbreaking
Review: Knowing nothing at all about His Holiness The Dalai Lama or Tibet/China relations I was eager to learn more. As a convert from Catholicisim to Buddhism, I was pleased to read that the Dalai Lama considers himself to be just a regular human, who was chosen to fulfill a specific role. After reading this book, you get the sense that he would be a very pleasant person to talk with.
On the downside, I was absolutely shocked to read about what the Chinese Government has done to Tibet and its people. Tibet is a peace loving country and to be in the army, was the lowest form of life. A 17 point 'agreement' was drawn up by the Chinese for Tibet. Members of the Tibetan delegation were forced under duress to sign the agreement and phony Tibetan state seals were used. Large Tibetan estates were confiscated and redistributed by the Chinese. After monks and nuns were arrested, they were forced, in public, to break their vows of celibacy with one another and even to kill people.
The Tibetan Freedom Fighters were no match for the Chinese army. Besides using bombers to obliterate towns and villages, the Chinese army also crucified, disembowelled, beheaded and buried many Tibetans alive. In order to prevent Tibetans from giving praise to the Dalai Lama on their way to execution, the Chinese tore out their tongues with meat hooks.
It was really disheartening to read about what happened to these people. I think this is a book that everyone at some point needs to read. It really opened my eyes.

Rating:
Summary: Hearbreaking
Review: Knowing nothing at all about His Holiness The Dalai Lama or Tibet/China relations I was eager to learn more. As a convert from Catholicisim to Buddhism, I was pleased to read that the Dalai Lama considers himself to be just a regular human, who was chosen to fulfill a specific role. After reading this book, you get the sense that he would be a very pleasant person to talk with.
On the downside, I was absolutely shocked to read about what the Chinese Government has done to Tibet and its people. Tibet is a peace loving country and to be in the army, was the lowest form of life. A 17 point 'agreement' was drawn up by the Chinese for Tibet. Members of the Tibetan delegation were forced under duress to sign the agreement and phony Tibetan state seals were used. Large Tibetan estates were confiscated and redistributed by the Chinese. After monks and nuns were arrested, they were forced, in public, to break their vows of celibacy with one another and even to kill people.
The Tibetan Freedom Fighters were no match for the Chinese army. Besides using bombers to obliterate towns and villages, the Chinese army also crucified, disembowelled, beheaded and buried many Tibetans alive. In order to prevent Tibetans from giving praise to the Dalai Lama on their way to execution, the Chinese tore out their tongues with meat hooks.
It was really disheartening to read about what happened to these people. I think this is a book that everyone at some point needs to read. It really opened my eyes.

Rating:
Summary: Free from the gilded cage -- but at what cost.
Review: Not long ago, the question was posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama as to why he penned his autobiography -- Freedom in Exile. To this query he responded with: `I am human being who had quite a lot of sad situation, yet my mental health seems not bad. I think some people might find some idea [in my tale], some small contribution for inner peace, for happiness.' The story starts in a small village in the roof of the world at an altitude of 3 miles deep in Eastern Tibet... Lhamo Thondup was only 2 when the monks came to fetch him 1937. The search party waltz right into his peasant parents' farmhouse and things were never the same again. Lhamo Thondup was eventually taken away to Lhasa -- the fabled capital in the Land of the Snows. He was God - recognized through the a dozen omens - skeptics will always question - (a) the way the head of the recently deceased 13th Dalai Lama had turned in its coffin toward the east, (b) the direction of the boy's home, and (3) the vision of the child's very house seen in the lake of Lhamo Lhatso by a Reting Rinpoche. When the young Lhamo was escorted to the late 13th Dalai Lama's room at the summer palace in Norbulingka, the toddler allegedly motioned toward a little case and announced nonchalantly, `My teeth are in there.' To the amazement of the accompanying monks a set of the late 13th false teeth were contained therein.

The Dalai Lama told Newsweek, `Exile has made me tougher.' Moreover, according to his younger brother Tenzin Choegyal, exile has `enabled him [the Dalai Lama] to realize his full potential.' This achievement did have a price -- in the Potala, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was both secluded and isolated. If one positive thing has resulted from his having to depart Tibet, was that he was brought closer to the plight of his own people and the rest of the world. Tenzin Gyatso, now the 14th Dalai Lama was given the chance to see things as they really are. In `Freedom in Exile' the message becomes a universal one - one that transcends a locality and that is what makes this book so compelling and necessary. From being the most secluded leader of the modern world, the 14th Dalai Lama is now among the most traveled, most celebrated and best known. The humble figure in maroon robes has become the locus of attention for the world's angst about Chinese authoritarianism and ideological expansion. The situation of the Tibetans - as penned by the Dalai Lama in `Freedom in Exile' is proof positive that despite Mao's utterances that `Religion is Poison' - we are left thinking perhaps the reverse is true - `Non-Religion is Poison'.

Ironically, this is not the role to which he was born. The Dalai Lama not have mixed with ordinary people in Tibet if it had not been for the Chinese invasion. I guess this statement may never be proven true nor false as it hinges on pure speculation. In `Freedom in Exile' the Dalai Lama does allude to the need form change j-but not at the pace and form that the Chinese used. As he outlines in his autobiography, `Freedom in Exile,' on the rare occasions he left his official residence -- the cold 1,000-room Potala palace in Lhasa -- he moved past his minions on a yellow silk palanquin, pulled by 20 army officers in green cloaks and red hats and surrounded by hundreds of men: monks and musicians, sword-wielding horsemen and `porters carrying my songbirds in cages and my personal belongings all wrapped in yellow silk.' To ensure the people didn't get too near, the monastic police encircled the whole entourage. `In their hands they carried long whips, which they would not hesitate to use,' he wrote. Sad for one so attuned now to the needs of his people.

The country over which he ruled was a land of people who believed the Buddha's tenet that one's action in this life determines one's fate in the next. Since the establishment of Buddhism as Tibet's chief religion in the eighth century, parents had inculcated into their children that all life, animal and human, is sacred. `I have never seen less evidence of hatred, envy, malice and uncharitableness [than in Tibet],' penned Hugh Richardson, British India's trade consul to the remote nation in the 1940s. However, that peace in the `Rooftop of the World' was violently destroyed when in 1950, 84,000 PLA troops launched a dawn offensive against six different positions along the border. According to his account, in 1959, the Dalai Lama, by then age 24, fled for his life through the snow across 17,000-foot Himalayan passes into India in an effort to preserve his nation, his people and his heritage. Since then, he has lived in the Indian mountain village of Dharamsala, the capital of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The book is full of references to a man with a sense of purpose -- rising at 4 a.m. daily to meditate, meet with cabinet members and refugees and pursue worldly interests that include Western neurobiology and physics.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: What's the price ?
Review: One main goal of the powers that be in politics and economy seems to be not to offend the Red Emperors of China - except some "formal" notes concerning the "Tibetan issue" here and there. The wrangling at the door to big business with the new and huge marketplace seems to be tough.

The consumers capacity of the western market is no longer extendable. So the demand from the Chinese economic system seems very helpful - at least in the short run. Fast money is calling ... Only some starry-eyed freaks seem to wonder how much human pain is connected with the "big deals".

If you don't want to close your eyes and if you also want to gobalize your re-sponsibility you will be confronted with some rough piece of history in this autobiography of the XIVth Dalai Lama. A history that massively reaches into our very lifes and times.

The Dalai Lama lives his philosophy of peace and responsibility right in front of our eyes - all we need to do is take a look and then take action ourselves. If not His Holiness who else could develop hatred and resentment against the occupying power of his country ? Instead he demands peaceableness and compassion towards the Chinese from Tibetans left behind in Tibet and those in exile.

Just in our current situation when the Near-East-Conflict dominates the media and the madness of terrorism shakes the world I'd find it very resaonable to listen to the words of the man the Tibetans and many (western) buddhist practicioners regard as the enamation of the Buddha of Compassion.

Rating:
Summary: Moving and well written
Review: The story of the Dalai Lama and his people as told by His Holiness is charmingly written. (He uses words like 'whilst and amongst'.)

We follow the very young playful boy from his very modest home in the Tibetian province of Amdo to the capital of Lhasa where his education as a Buddhist monk begins. He relates much detail about the rich culture and beauty of Tibet; however he is honest about it's isolation and failure to keep up with a more modern world.

As he tells of the miliary and political struggle with China, one can almost feel the tension mount. The account of his escape into exile is exciting, yet sad. The destruction of Tibet, the atrocities upon its people, and the genocide still being committed there is more than sad. Yet, the Dalai Lama does not hate. He has compassion even for those who have caused the suffering of the Tibetian people.

Great book. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A Moving Book
Review: This incredible story of the Dalai Lama is a must read for any person. He guides us through his life up to recent years to help us understand what the Tibetan people, his people, have been through. Any religious person, of any religion, should read this book to get a perspective on a different, beautiful religion. The average person should read this book to understand about human suffering, and how one person overcame.

Rating:
Summary: An very moving book
Review: This is by far one of the most moving and amazing books I have had the pleasure to read. The Dalai Lama has a very eloquent way of telling the story of his life. From his simple begininngs throughout the Chinese invasion of Tibet, he tells the story beautifully. His attention to detail and rememberence of people who he has met impressed me greatly. Sometimes words can fail to summarize the effect something has one you...for words lack the ability to describe the depth of compassion and sympathy I felt during and after reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Visit with His Holiness
Review: This is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. It's like seeing history through the eyes of a very thoughtful Forrest Gump, a slightly detached observer, who observes and records what he sees in the people around him; Mao, Nehru, Zhou Enlai. It is full of humorous details: how the Dalai Lama slid on the polished floor of his palace, the mice that came to eat the offerings in his room, how he had the footmen make toy models of tanks and airplanes out of bread dough. He has a great sense of humor and of beauty.

I found several anamolies in this account, however. For example, the Dalai Lama expresses shock at the suggestion that a Tibetan might try to assassinate him. The idea "showed how little understanding the Chinese had of the Tibetan character." "The idea of killing any living creature is anathema to Buddhists." Yet according to his mother (in Dalai Lama, My Son) his own father may have been victim of assasination. (By a Tibetan.) On the position of women in Tibetan society, too, the Dalai Lama gives a positive spin at odds with the accessment of his Mother. Again, he claims that Tibetan society has "always been highly tolerant" and that "a number of Christian missions were admitted without hindrance." In fact, a number of Christians were killed by Tibetan Buddhists, and their churches burnt to the ground. Repeatedly, the Dalai Lama encourages the myth of Tibetan pacifism. But in a prior incarnation, (if the theory be believed) he originally gained power by inviting foreign invasion and precipitating civil war.

The depiction of Chinese-Tibetan relations before the modern era is also one-sided and unreliable. In fact, the Chinese suffered a great deal under the thumb of Tibetan lamas during the Yuan Dynasty; surely he ought to be aware of that history.

For the informed reader, such errors need not detract much from the story. One does not expect a patriot to be objective about the tragic and cruel destruction of his homeland. Maybe the Dalai Lama is just naive. He was fooled by Mao, and still seems oddly upbeat about "pure" Marxism. I would say such errors remind us that he is only human. But he is a remarkable human, with a touching and well-told story that deserves to be read.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man [e-mail]