Re~Cycle, the charity that ships used bicycles to Africa (http://www.re-cycle.org), is again the chosen charity of the Bicycle Film Festival's London event (17 around the world).- Volunteers needed to help Re~Cycle run the valet bicycle parking and sell raffle tickets- Buy some raffle tickets for a great bike- Come and see some great films (from £7.50)WHEN: Wednesday 1st October to Saturday 4thWHERE: The Barbican Cinema, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS.HELP NEEDED PLEASE:* People to help run the valet bicycle parking* People to sell raffle tickets for posh bike* If you can get some friends to fill a time slot with you (say 3 or 4 people), it would be easier to organise (thanks!)* Individuals are VERY welcome!* Cycle Surgery will be organising + bringing all the equipment + supplying t-shirts to wearTimes + days (volunteer slots from Rita, below):Wed Oct 1 - 8PM-12AMThurs Oct 2 - 6:30PM- 11PMFri Oct 3 - 6:15- 12AMSat Oct 4 - 1:45PM- 12AM
I'm impressed! (She's just turned 9 and very sensitive). And, listening to lyrics like this is going to be developing her social conscience further:
Radio Free Asia, 2008-05-21-
In Tibet, Chinese authorities have cracked down again on a nunnery suspected of inculcating separatism. The move highlights the quiet but pivotal role played by Tibetan Buddhist nuns.
KATHMANDU— Chinese authorities in Tibet have raided a large nunnery in Sichuan province after its leader refused to condemn the Tibetan exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, Tibetan sources say.
Security forces are surrounding the Buruna nunnery in Kardze [in Chinese, Ganzi], Sichuan province and have detained 52 of its nuns, the sources said. Security police raided the nunnery, and the 21 nuns left behind were kept inside the nunnery all day.
“They were restrained with tied hands and detained for the whole day. Then their hands were untied and they were released after being held for one day, but still they are not allowed to leave the nunnery,” one source said.
“The nunnery is surrounded. Many security officials have entered the nunnery and placed it under virtual siege.”
Buruna nunnery—destroyed in the 1959 uprising, but rebuilt in 1983 and expanded in 2000—is located on a hilltop near Kardze. Belonging to the Gelugpa sect, it usually has 89 nuns. Its leader is Tulku Phurbu Tsering, commonly called Buruna Rinpoche.
Nuns at Buruna “were forced to criticize His Holiness the Dalai Lama and their teacher, who is known as Buruna Rinpoche. He is respected and revered throughout the Kardze area. He founded both the Burunga and Lhatseg nunneries in the Kardze area,” another source said.
Another Tibetan source said Buruna Rinpoche was detained May 18 at 4 p.m., after he rejected the Chinese “patriotic education” campaign, which is aimed at stamping out suspected Tibetan separatism.
Nuns detained
“Today, Chinese officials came to our nunnery and tried to force us to condemn and sign criticisms of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and our Rinpoche, Buruna Rinpoche,” one of the nuns said on May 20.
“We refused, and 52 nuns went to Kardze town in two groups and protested, calling for the long life of Gyalwa Tenzin Gyatso [the Dalai Lama.]. They also threw protest leaflets and protested. Now, I have heard that 52 nuns who went to the protests were detained.”
“Right now, no one is being allowed in Kardze town. All shops were ordered closed. The town is full of security forces. I have only two wishes, and those are long life for Gyalwa Tenzin Gyatso and independence for Tibet.”
Inner awareness unblocks outer responsiveness, freeing us to respond wholeheartedlyeng, without fearing failure or loss of self-control. Instead of identifying with our response we can allow the response to reflect the situation. As occasion requires, we can be temperate extremists or passionate moderates, radical conservatives or reasonable revolutionaries.
~ Ken Jones in The New Social Face of Buddhism
from More Daily Wisdom, edited by Josh Bartok, Wisdom Publications
Many Tibetans, including lamas, have opened their wallets to donate cash and relief materials since the 8.0-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China's Sichuan Provinceon Monday.
Donations from the three leading monasteries in Lhasa alone are valued at more than 100,000 yuan (14,285 U.S. dollars), the regional government of Tibet Autonomous Region said on Sunday.
About 1,100 lamas from the Drepung Monastery, Sera Monastery and Ganden Monastery donated cash, said Gunga, a Tibetan official in charge of religious affairs at the United Front Work Department.
Fwd:
After the steering group meeting this Saturday (19th April) we will be holding a candlelight vigil at 6.30 for about an hour to express our support for His Holiness and the Tibetan people following the recent events inside Tibet. We invite you all to join us in the Tibetan Peace Garden, next to the Imperial War Museum in Southwark. Please let supporters and members of your centres know and encourage them to join us. Please bring nightlights in jam jars or candles you can hold safely.
Love and best wishes,
Jane (Coskry)
Dharma NetworkKarma Hardy
Tibet Foundation
2 St. James's Market, London SW1Y 4SB
Tel: 0044 20 7930 6001, Fax: 0044 20 7930 6002 www.tibet-foundation.org/
Today, I extend heartfelt greetings to my Chinese brothers and sisters round the world, particularly to those in the People's Republic of China. In the light of the recent developments in Tibet, I would like to share with you my thoughts concerning relations between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples, and to make a personal appeal to you all.
I am deeply saddened by the loss of life in the recent tragic events in Tibet. I am aware that some Chinese have also died. I feel for the victims and their families and pray for them. The recent unrest has clearly demonstrated the gravity of the situation in Tibet and the urgent need to seek a peaceful and mutually beneficial solution through dialogue. Even at this juncture I have expressed my willingness to the Chinese authorities to work together to bring about peace and stability.
Chinese brothers and sisters, I assure you I have no desire to seek Tibet's separation. Nor do I have any wish to drive a wedge between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. On the contrary my commitment has always been to find a genuine solution to the problem of Tibet that ensures the long-term interests of both Chinese and Tibetans. My primary concern, as I have repeated time and again, is to ensure the survival of the Tibetan people's distinctive culture, language and identity. As a simple monk who strives to live his daily life according to Buddhist precepts, I assure you of the sincerity of my motivation.
Update ::link
When China allowed envoys of the exiled Dalai Lama to visit Tibet in the early 1980s as part of a cautious detente, Communist Party cadres told residents not to stone or spit at their one-time masters.
But the officials were dumbfounded, and disconcerted, by what they saw: residents in Tibet's capital Lhasa mobbed the envoys, kneeling, crying and clutching their clothing to air grievances.
The incident underlined the inability, or unwillingness, of the Party to comprehend Tibetans and their reverence for their god-king, which analysts say remains the Achilles' heel of China's Tibet policy.
They continue to blast the Dalai Lama, accusing him of
::linkabusing religion, stirring protests in Tibet and preparing for independence....
Tenzin Taklha, one of the senior aides of the Dalai Lama, said China's claim it has evidence of the monk's complicity in the Tibet protests were unfounded.
"Again these are baseless accusations and instead of these we would call for international groups to go into Tibet," he said. "We will call upon China to allow an international group to go and investigate these claims by the Chinese."
Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa. He served as the first black African archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996. Prior to this role as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa, Tutu served as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985.
::linkStatement on Tibet and China
I wish to express my solidarity with the people of Tibet during this critical time in their history. To my dear friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, let me say: I stand with you. You define non-violence and compassion and goodness. I was in an Easter retreat when the recent tragic events unfolded in Tibet. I learned that China has stated you caused violence. Clearly China does not know you, but they should. I call on China's government to know His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as so many have come to know, during these long decades years in exile. Listen to His Holiness' pleas for restraint and calm and no further violence against this civilian population of monastics and lay people.
I urge China to enter into a substantive and meaningful dialogue with this man of peace, the Dalai Lama. China is uniquely positioned to impact and affect our world. Certainly the leaders of China know this or they would not have bid for the Olympics. Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials.
I urge my esteemed friend Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet and be given access to assess, and report to the international community, the events which led to this international outcry for justice. The High Commissioner should be allowed to travel with journalists, and other observers, who may speak truth to power and level the playing field so that, indeed, this episode -- these decades of struggle -- may attain a peaceful resolution. This will help not only Tibet. It will help China.
And China, poised to receive the world during the forthcoming Olympic Games needs to make sure the eyes of the world will see that China has changed, that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs. Finally, China must stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to non violence, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate.
Each morning, I check out a number of Internet news reports and commentaries on websites ranging from the BBC to Truthout. Reading about current events strongly reinforces for me the acuity of the Buddha’s words: “The world is grounded upon suffering.” Almost daily I am awed by the enormity of the suffering that assails human beings on every continent, and even more by the hard truth that so much of this suffering springs not from the vicissitudes of impersonal nature but from the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion raging in the human heart.
Seeing the immensity of the world’s anguish has raised in my mind questions about the future prospects for Buddhism in the West. I’ve been struck by how seldom the theme of global suffering—the palpable suffering of real human beings—is thematically explored in the Buddhist journals and teachings with which I am acquainted. It seems to me that we Western Buddhists tend to dwell in a cognitive space that defines the first noble truth largely against the background of our middle-class lifestyles: as the gnawing of discontent; the ennui of over-satiation; the pain of unfulfilling relationships; or, with a bow to Buddhist theory, as bondage to the round of rebirths. Too often, I feel, our focus on these aspects of dukkha has made us oblivious to the vast, catastrophic suffering that daily overwhelms three-fourths of the world’s population.
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