About this item
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is the foremost spokesperson for the people of the Tibetan Plateaualthough his home is in India, in the Himalayan foothills, where he has been forced to live in exile since 1959. As a Buddhist monk, his main focus has been the spiritual life, and the leadership of his people in exile, ensuring their survival and preserving their unique Buddhist culture, while appealing to the world to stop the destruction of their homeland and the six million Tibetans oppressed within it. Every March 10th, from 1961 until 2011, in commemoration of the greatest uprising of the Tibetan people against the Chinese military occupation, the Dalai Lama delivered an appeal to the world on behalf of his people. Each statement is a heartfelt call to recognize the truth and the factual reality of Tibets history and situation a cry for help, a plea for justice, and a pledge of determination to withstand the worst and to overcome.
About the Author
Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Dondrub) , the 14th Dalai Lama, is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India. Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two. On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed. After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him. Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
