Jamyang Norbu's blog
An old friend sent the above photograph of me and Samdhong Rinpoche having a spirited side discussion at the first Tibetan Youth Conference in October 1970. Perhaps he sent the photograph to remind me I had not written the second part of the essay I posted in 2019, where I recounted Samdhong Rinpoche’s bid for …
Continue reading “Samdhong Rinpoche and the Subversion of the Tibetan Freedom Struggle”
Jamyang Norbu has taken the stories of “forgotten” Tibetans: resistance fighters, secret agents, soldiers, peasants, lamas, aristocrats, merchants, women, officials, chieftains, even street-beggars, and skillfully worked their myriad accounts into a single glorious “memory history” of the Tibetan struggle. He uses recollections from his own childhood to ease the reader into an immersive understanding of …
Continue reading “Echoes From Forgotten Mountains (synopsis)”
Illustration: Craig Stephens, SCMP. When Trump held his infamous rally on the 6th of January and urged his supporters to “march to” (read “storm”) the US Capitol Building, and further called on them to “cheer on” (read “threaten”) US lawmakers to reverse the “stolen” election, I had a strange moment that I can only describe …
Myself with an exciting new generation of Tibetan intellectuals at JNU, Delhi. Prof. Tashi Phuntsok-la sitting, front left. This rambling essay is based on a rambling talk I gave to Tibetan students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi on the 1st of April 2019. I had been invited to speak at the Dawa …
Continue reading “Transcending the Confines of Traditional Male-Dominated Society in Old Tibet”
Tsering Wangyal at a March 10 rally, 1979, Chanakyapuri. Image@High Asia We got off on the wrong foot. I met Tsering Wangyal-la in 1968 when I was working at the Bureau of H.H. the Dalai Lama at Delhi. Three junior officials had come down from Dharamshala to fly to Britain for further studies. In my …
Continue reading “Introduction to 𝑨𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝑪𝑬, a novel by Tsering Wangyal aka “Editor-la””
The Death (parinirvana) of the Buddha, c.AD 20. Grey schist from ancient Gandhara. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. At a time when many democracies are being undermined at home by corrupt politicians or threatened externally by would-be totalitarian regimes, perhaps a discourse the Buddha gave before his great passing, his mahaparinirvana, might provide an …
Continue reading “The Buddha’s Discourse on Defending Democracy”
Introduction to the 2020 (coronavirus) edition I used the example of the dragon’s teeth of Greek legend for the title of my 2004 book to convey the destructive and frightening quality of the malaise that Western leaders in their shortsighted eagerness to do business with China were introducing into their economies, national security and even …
Pilgrims from Jhangthang visiting Karmapa’s Monastery at Tsurphu in Tölung Cultural Monuments of Tibet Michael Henss, …
The voice of physicist Stephen Hawking was broadcast into space (toward the black hole 1A0620-00) after his memorial service on June 15, last year. I have no idea what utterances of his were selected, but for a science geek like me it surely could not have been more exciting than something he said nearly forty …
Review of the film Sweet Requiem by Jamyang Norbu I was going to write the knockout review for Tenzing and Ritu’s new film The Sweet Requiem, but the poet Tsering Kyi from VOA beat me to it. She had seen the movie in early May at a special showing in Washington for the US Congress Human Rights …
October 28, 2020
February 21, 2020
September 1, 2019
June 15, 2019
December 22, 2022
August 29, 2021
January 17, 2021
October 28, 2020
February 21, 2020
July 11, 2019
July 1, 2019
October 28, 2020
February 21, 2020
July 11, 2019
July 1, 2019
February 21, 2020
September 1, 2019
July 11, 2019
November 17, 2018
November 1, 2018
