Rev. Danny Fisher

The Associated Press and the BBC are reporting that the hundreds of Tibetan leaders who met in Dharamsala this week to discuss the future of the Tibetan cause have decided to continue to follow His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” approach to China. The AP reports:

“There was a majority for the middle way,” Dolma Gyari, deputy speaker of the Tibetan parliament, told reporters after the conference. But she said if China does not respond positively, “there is no other option left to us then to go for independence.”

The delegates also agreed to temporarily stop talks with China because Beijing was not taking them seriously, Gyari said.

“Looking at the doings of China in recent times, we will not send the envoys for further contact,” she added.

[...]

Participants had said the meeting was unlikely to result in a dramatic break with the Dalai Lama’s approach. A number of delegates called for taking a harder line against China, but the consensus seemed to hew toward a more conservative strategy.

As a result, the meeting has become a dress rehearsal in democracy as the Tibetans try to formulate a plan without the guidance of “His Holiness,” a man they view as closer to a god than a mere leader.

The delegates “reaffirmed that they will follow the Dalai Lama in whatever path he deems most appropriate,” said Tenzin Tethong, a former prime minister. The Tibetan parliament, which convenes in March, must approve the agreements reached in the meeting, Tethong said.

According to the Agence France-Presse, Nepal’s “Buddha Boy”–the young man believed by followers to be a reincarnation of the Buddha–has gotten back into the jungles to meditate in solitude. He “re-emerged” recently after a long absence, during which he had been on retreat in the jungles.

Over at The Worst Horse, our pal in the Buddhoblogosphere Rod Meade Sperry has a pretty remarkable reflection on (among other things) “spiritual materialism”, cultural appropriation, the commodification of Buddhism, and the latest episode of Comedy Central’s South Park. This you gotta read!

And, as Rod says, bringing in South Park may not be so silly considering the role that the Buddha himself has played on the show in the past…

The Associated Press is reporting that the very venerable U Gambira, one of the principal organizers of last year’s “Saffron Revolution,” and celebrated comedian Zarganar are the latest of Burma’s democracy activists to be issued harsh prison sentences by the junta as they crack down hard on past demonstrators. Both are looking at just short of seventy years behind bars. Around one hundred others have been given similar sentences. The AP continues:

Three associates were tried with [Zarganar]. Sportswriter Zaw Thet Htwe and video journalist Thant Zin Aung were given 15 years each and face further charges, while Tin Maung Aye got 29 years, Zarganar’s lawyer said.

[...]

[Others] sentenced recently included some 70 members of the opposition National League for Democracy party of detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some of the most severe sentences were handed to 23 members of the 88 Generation Students group, veteran activists who have been spearheading nonviolent protests for the past several years.

On Thursday, well-known hip-hop singer Zeyar Thaw, a member of the band “Acid,” was jailed for six years, and 14 members of Suu Kyi’s party got 2 1/2 years each for calling for her release on her birthday in June, party spokesman Nyan Win said.

Zeyar Thaw is thought to be a leader of Generation Wave, an illegal student group formed in the wake of last year’s pro-democracy protests.

Over at Barbara’s Buddhism Blog, author Barbara O’Brien remembers the Wat Promkunaram massacre–a brutal multiple murder at a Thai temple near Phoenix, AZ, that claimed the lives of six Buddhist monks, a nun and two novices–seventeen years on. The mass murder remains the largest in Arizona’s history. In an anniversary twist, a federal appeals court just threw out the confession of the man convicted of the killings, ruling that it was coerced.