There are certain writers one must go back to, every once in a while, whenever one’s moral compass requires reorienting. Orwell and Lu Xun are excellent for this, but André Gide is no less effective when one has been hit by a case of the intellectual blahs. One of France’s greatest writers and the 1947 …
Tibet’s First War Photographer
. A couple of weeks ago someone posted on Facebook a photograph of a Tibetan man holding a camera. I wrote a comment that he was Tsongkha Jhanjup Jinpa, Tibet’s first war photographer and gave a brief description. Some old friends: Michael Buckley, Ajay Singh and Neil Cooper (a photographer who worked for the DIIR) …
The Arrogance of Treason
PHUNTSOK WANGYAL & HIS ADMIRATION SOCIETY-IN-EXILE The Buddha and Christ both spoke of the virtue of turning the other cheek when wronged, but no one has suggested, to date, that if violently sodomized it would be the correct thing (excuse me) to turn the other cheek, and furthermore, shower the sodomizer with affection and praise. …
Some Updates on Rakra Rimpoche Obituary
A number of readers have posted comments requesting information on Rakra Rimpoche’s writings and poetry. Some of his books are available at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA), but many of his shorter works and poems are out of print and unavailable. His heirs have put together a project to publish his collected …
Poet, Artist, Scholar, Teacher and Reluctant Rimpoche
. Rakra Thubten Choedhar (1925-2012), In Memorium. The First National Conference of Tibetan Writers took place in Dharamshala in 1995 (March 15-17). Hosted by the Amnye Machen Institute (AMI), sixty-two writers and other delegates from India, Nepal, Switzerland, UK and USA took part in this first ever gathering of its kind in the Tibetan world. …
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A Most Unassuming Man
I met my old friend Sonam Topgyal la last summer – June 25th to be exact. He was in a bad way. Definitely cancer. I suspected stomach cancer of a kind, but could not bring myself to ask. He was weak from his last chemotherapy, but seemed glad to see me. As always we talked …
“Tibetans Never Had a Country” Dr. Lobsang Sangay
Kalon Tripa Dr. Lobsang Sangay needs to explain the statement he made on video to stol.it, the South Tyrol Online journal on March 02. 2012. Replying to a question “What is it like being a prime minster without a country?. Dr. Lobsang Sangay answered clearly and deliberately ” Well… I can’t say for sure because, …
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Dr. Pemba la – In Memoriam
For a traumatized and disoriented refugee community, just having a role model like Dr. Pemba la, who scored first in the Royal College of Surgeons exams in London, was a comforting reassurance that we would be able to cope with and even succeed in an alien and modern world.
Havel’s Legacy to the Tibetan Struggle
This post is not intended as an eulogy or a discussion of Havel’s literary work, but rather to introduce an important, even game-changing, legacy that he left us Tibetans and other freedom fighters struggling against the oppression and violence of “post-totalitarianism”.
Shakabpa and the Awakening of Tibetan History
Shakabpa’s history can be read not merely as a record of the past but as a powerful revolutionary document, that even now, twenty-two years after the author’s death, is deeply disturbing to Beijing, and which frustrates and confounds those Tibetans attempting a final handover of Tibetan sovereignty to China.
