By Ming Xia –Speech at the Tibetan National Uprising Day in New York and New Jersey–
Fifty-six years ago, the Dalai Lama was forced to leave his people and homeland behind, and started his life in exile at age 24. This is suffering.
Reaching age 80, His Holiness the Dalai Lama still cannot return to his people and homeland. This is suffering.
Witnessing the imposition of violence and injustice upon their leader and people, six million Tibetans have endured suffering.
Just a few days ago, on March 5, 2015, Norchuk, a 47 year old Tibetan mother of three, burned herself to death in Ngaba, demanding “freedom for Tibet” and “Dalai Lama’s return to home”. This is suffering.
From 2009 to the present, in Tibet there have been 137 Tibetans who resorted to self-immolation to express their protest against the suppression from the Chinese government and their determination to fight for the freedom of Tibet. This is suffering.
For all of us, who are enjoying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we cannot refrain from having strong fellow feeling for the misery that Tibetan people have suffered. As Adam Smith puts so nicely, “His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels.” (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 14) We are suffering together with our Tibetan brothers and sisters.
But today we are gathering here, not to deplore our suffering, not to descend deeper into depression and hatred, but to find the meaning and purpose from these sufferings, in order to empower us with new hope, optimism and strength. This is what we, both Tibetans and Chinese, need most for the common fight for freedom and democracy. Here I want to say sincerely to my Tibetan brothers and sisters, without those sufferings, the cultural greatness that the Tibetan exiles have enjoyed cannot be achieved, the virtues and characters of Tibetan people might not have been widely recognized by the outside world like today, the contribution from the Dalai Lama to Buddhism, the Chinese people and the world might not be as profound as we have felt now.
Tibet, as the roof of the world, is creating a tall order for global peace. If we look at the so-called Zomia area that ranges from highlands in Malaysia to hills in Vietnam and Myanmar, then to mountain ranges in China, Tibet, India, Pakistan, and finally reaching Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the Caucasian mountain, we can see century-long conflicts between big empires and local tribes. This is the site where vicious violence and bloody battles have ravaged the peoples. Even sometimes for the righteous enterprises, people turn towards evil because they have been consumed by their hatred and impatience. Against this big background, Tibetan people led by the Dalai Lama, that has merely less than 150, 000 living in freedom, have risen up as a plateau of resistance against injustice and aggression. The Dalai Lama and his followers have formed a strong plateau cushioning the tensions and clashes between globalization, especially sponsored by empires, and anti-globalization in which the outlandish peoples have tried with tenacity to preserve their traditions and identities. The Dalai Lama and his followers, certainly including all of you here, have pointed out a “middle way” with compassion and truth, not only for resolving the conflicts between Tibetans and the Chinese, but also with enormous significance for solving global conflicts, in particular, in the Zomia region.
Why am I so confident in and optimistic about the effectiveness of an approach based upon both compassion and truth? For it is based upon the ancient Tibetan wisdom, the method of exchanging self and others, the practice of giving generosity and taking burdens. With this emotional wisdom, this empathy, we can unify reason with sympathy, mind with heart, expertise with conscience, so that we can be both wise and mindful. This quality will guard us from slipping into the abyss of emotional death and stepping on the slippery slope towards evil.
Empathy is a valuable resource for the happiness and meaningfulness of human societies. It has to be relational, which means, empathy cannot exist without the reception of it and cannot be sustained without the reciprocation from the beneficiary of empathy. I am happy to say that I have witnessed the great awakening of many Chinese hearts, many directly due to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and the efforts of the Dalai Lama. We have to keep in mind, that it is inevitable someday Tibetan people will gain freedom. But the full meaning of this freedom has to depend upon the positive peace maintained between Tibetans and the Chinese people who have intermingled. It will be a Pyrrhic victory if the final freedom is sought after the deepening mutual hostility and hatred between these two peoples. This is why, as a Han Chinese person, I have followed Dalai Lama’s teachings and visions to achieve a perpetual peace for all sentient beings, beyond Tibetans and Chinese.
In his Moses as Political Leader (1982 and reprint in 2005), the late American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky (pp.226-227) wrote, as a “founder of a nation,” “revolutionary,” “lawgiver,” “administrator,” ”storyteller,” ”teacher,” “student,” and “politician,” Moses maybe compared with no one. He stated, “In the end, no one I can think of (of course, this maybe a defect of my historical imagination) dealt with anything as the range of Mosaic leadership.” Exactly three decades later, more leaders have risen and fallen on the world stage; we can find a perfect leader whose versatile leadership qualifies him on par with Moses.
If we borrow terms from French writers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their book A Thousand Plateaus, we can say that under the Buddhist leadership of 14th Dalai Lama, a network of Tibetans in Exile has been successfully created with six “rhizomes”: (1) The government network with the Tibetan Central Administration as the center; (2) The monastery network of 720 institutions and groups linked with the Tibetan Central Administration; (3)The refugee settlements: There are 43 settlements ( 32 in India, 11 in Nepal and one in Bhutan); (4) The school system with 77 schools enrolling about 30 thousands students; (5) The international campaign for Tibet networks; (6) The Chinese support for Tibet network. If we pause for a moment, that there are less than 150,000 Tibetans living in exile, but you and your leaders, especially the Dalai Lama with his tireless efforts worldwide, have globalized Tibetan culture and made it part of the mainstream Western life and thinking. Seeing these achievements, we have enough reason to celebrate the living volition and continuous successes of your nation! If we look forward, we can be more certain and confident that history is turning toward the direction we have expected for long. I am sure, Tibetan people and leadership with the Dalai Lama as the captain can navigate through the treacherous ridges ahead to reach a new height.
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish doctor who survived the holocaust and the abuses in concentration camps, wrote a popular book, Man’s Search for Meaning. He said something quite relevant to our occasion here, which I quote:
In the past, nothing is irrevocably lost, but rather on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity. (p. 150)
The bell of liberty will soon ring over the Tibetan Plateau at last!
Thank you all!
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