I was reading a lot about Tibet (ancient and present) before I left, so it was inevitable that I would get into a lot of these issues here. That and the fact that there are Tibettans everywhere you go in India. I'm still in Upper Dharmasala aka McLeod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama. He came back yesterday, and I waited for half an hour by the road with a couple of Tibettan friends and a bunch of very very old people just to see him drive past, beaming and happy as always. He works very very hard, and even before the Chinese invaded, was making changes to help the people. Everybody loves him, and has real respect for him.

Here's the quick primer (in case you really weren't paying attention): Tibet was the only country to dedicate most of its resources and energy to spiritual attainment. As Robert Thurman says, imagine if the US took the 60% its spending on the military and spent it on education and religion. The monks studied very hard, the rest of the tibettans worked in the fields. The current Dalai Lama was working to change things and spread the wealth better.
China invaded Tibet, which was quite a large country. Through famine, executions and torture they killed about 1.5 million tibettans. They destroyed the monasteries, burning ancient priceless books and elaborate religious paintings. They drove nails through the skulls of monks and said "and where is your god now ?" they inserted cattle prods into the nuns. The Dalai Lama eventually fled because he feared that the people would fight to the death to defend him.

In an amazing act of compassionate Mahayana Buddhism, the Tibettan response to the Chinese is to pity them, and to wish for the releif of the Chinese suffering. The Chinese are moving Chinese peoples into the Tibettan region, closing down the Tibettan schools, and continuing to torture Buddhists. The US thinks that China will be brought down by installing McDonalds all over China, which apparantly worked in Russia (give or take an Afghanistan). So the US is unwilling to acutally criticize the Chinese. In general the UN hasn't really taken action, even though there is a blatant case of genocide, and its continuing.

There are lots of guys here who have only been here less than a year. They walk for 30 days into Nepal, register as refugees and then live there, move to here, or to Mysore in the south. Some are born here, and they often continue migrating to other countries. New arrivals usually want to go back. They sit in the cafes and watch videos of Tibet and don't say much.
Everybody wants to learn english and computers. I'm teaching a class each day, and I hang out and talk a lot. Mostly they have very little education, seeing as the Chinese shut down all the good schools.

Most everybody knows that the Chinese will not leave Tibet. The Dalai Lama is looking to return and be a part of China, and I would guess passively resist and try to change the energy of China itself. The gov't still thinks that he wants independance, and don't believe him.

Among Tibettans there is actually a fairly large but unpublicized dissent against His Holiness' stance. I met one guy who used to fight in the Tibettan army; they ran guerrilla attacks from Nepal against the Chinese outposts. In their greatest success they captured a truck filled with documents and sent it to the CIA. The documents detailed the Cultural Revolution before anyone outside knew there was going to be one. He feels Tibet must fight (I politely remind him that picking fights with massive military states isn't really feasible or smart).

The monks don't really do much besides be monks. I try to get them to search on the Internet and read stuff and learn some things. One guy, Sonam, just wants to find pictures of his old monastery. Yesterday I was at the main temple with an ex-monk, also named Sonam. He pointed at a door and said "that's my room". Which I thought was a fine joke. That's like being at Notre Dame and saying "I have a room right here next to the main chapel". (Okay, if there was a copy of Notre Dame in Belgium and France was occupied.) But he does live there, in a decent small room. Every morning he gets woken up by old people prostrating and chanting in front of his room. And he can't bring girls there. "Not here... very bad".

I spend the whole night talking with him and Tashi. Tashi is very smart, but has no education. In any other country, he would be well on his way with a career. He'd like to work for the Tibettan gov't, but he needs proper school. He's learning English and studying Buddhism here at the Library. He reminds me of this Tibettan guy I met in the Kuwait airport (can't remember his name). He lives in Queens, also seems like he would be well educated, but he's driving a cab. Of course you can support a family of 10 in india with extra earnings from driving a cab in NYC--and he does; and so do many cab drivers in NYC.

More on the profoundly strange and deep tibettan buddhism later...