My Spiritual Journey by Dalai Lama (good books for 8th graders txt) 📕

Liberation of Tibet had just been signed between representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China and the so-called regional government of Tibet.

I couldn’t believe my ears. I wanted to jump up and call out to everyone, but I was riveted to my seat. The announcer explained that “during the last century, aggressive imperialist forces had invaded Tibet to perpetrate all sorts of abuses and provocations there. The result of this,” he said, “was that the Tibetan people were plunged into the profound sufferings of slavery.” I felt physically ill when I heard this improbable mixture of lies and the clichés of fantastic propaganda.

But the worst was yet to come. The radio announced that, according to the first clause of the agreement, the Tibetan people would be returned to their “motherland.” That Tibet could return to the motherland was a shameless lie! Tibet was never part of China. On the contrary, it could even claim large Chinese territories. Our peoples are ethnically different, and radically so. We don’t speak the same language, and our writing has nothing in common with Chinese characters.

The most alarming thing was that the Tibetan delegates were not authorized to sign in my name. Their sole mission was to negotiate; I had kept the state seals with me.

The Dalai Lama was confronted with a dilemma. In his entourage, his older brother, Takster Rinpoche, had fled the Kumbum monastery and made contact with foreign diplomatic missions in Calcutta. He was convinced that the Americans would not tolerate the Communist expansionism of the Chinese and that they would fight for Tibet. Knowing that the United States was already militarily engaged in Korea, the Dalai Lama doubted that it would open a second front in Tibet. What’s more, realizing that China was a much more populated country, he feared that an armed conflict, even if supported by a foreign power, would be extremely long and bloody. To try to avoid bloodshed with an uncertain outcome, the young Dalai Lama decided to meet the Chinese leaders. Thinking that they were human beings too, he hoped to be able to discuss things with them and reach an agreement.

Mao’s personality impressed me

DESPITE THE CONTEXT of difficult relations with China, in 1954 and 1955 I went to that country. It was a good chance to discover a different world. What’s more, during this trip I met many Tibetans in the provinces of Kham and Amdo, so I acquired a number of new experiences and acquaintances. I also met many leaders, notably President Mao Tse-tung. I first saw him during a public meeting. When I entered the room where he was, I noticed first a battery of spotlights. Mao in person was sitting in their light, very calm and relaxed. He didn’t look like a particularly intelligent man. When I shook his hand, though, I felt as if I were in the presence of a great magnetic force. He behaved in a very friendly, spontaneous way, despite protocol.

All in all, I had at least a dozen meetings with him, most of them during large gatherings, but a few in private. On these occasions, whether they were banquets or conferences, he always had me sit next to him, and once he even served me food.

I found him very impressive. Physically, he was very unusual. He had a dark complexion, but his skin seemed to gleam, as if he were wearing skin cream. His hands were very beautiful and had that same strange glow, with perfect fingers and exquisitely shaped thumbs. I noticed that he seemed to have difficulty breathing, and he wheezed a lot. Perhaps that affected his way of speaking, which was always very slow and precise. He seemed partial to short sentences, probably for the same reason. His movements and gestures were also very slow. It took him several seconds to move his head from left to right, which gave him a dignified, self-assured air.

Our final interview took place in the spring of 1955, the day before my departure, in his office. I had visited several Chinese provinces by then and I was getting ready to say to him in all sincerity that I was strongly interested in different development projects for Tibet. But he came over to me and murmured, “Your behavior is correct because you are learned. But believe me, religion is a poison that has two serious defects: it reduces the population, since monks and nuns take the vow of celibacy, and it curbs progress. It has produced two victims, Tibet and Mongolia.”

At these words, I was filled with a burning sensation in my face and an intense fear.

The Dalai Lama left China without illusions. But he candidly observed that people in trouble always tend to cling to the slightest hope, so he tried again to find common ground with the occupier, whose presence had been reinforced in his absence.

After the signing of the Seventeen-Point Agreement, the People’s Liberation Army had continued its advance, occupying Lhasa and central Tibet, in violation of the official guarantees that had been given. The Chinese Communist Party went on to demolish the eastern Tibetan provinces, which passed under the administration of different regions in the People’s Republic, since Mao decided, in 1955, to include them in “the great tide of socialist transformation.”

Between 1950 and 1959, the upkeep of the occupation troops and the first land collectives sparked a famine, while forced labor was instituted to build strategic roads. When, starting from the “Great Leap Forward” of 1958, the democratic reforms entailed the forced denunciation of Tibetan leaders and respected lamas, popular revolt spread. The Chinese authorities reinforced the occupying force with additional troops as armed resistance against the occupier became more radical in the eastern reaches of Tibet in Kham and Amdo.

March 10, 1959, a day of insurrection in Lhasa

AFTER MY PRAYERS AND BREAKFAST [on March 10, 1959], I went out into the light of a calm morning and strolled