Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings

Month: May, 2009

Daniel Goleman for Authors@Google

Via our main man William Harryman over at Integral Options Cafe:

The New York Times Interviews His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“The Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India on Monday. He says the Tibetan way of life faces ‘something like a death sentence’ under China’s leadership.” Photo by Shiho Fukada for The New York Times.
Edward Wong interviews His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the New York Times about the solution for Tibet.

    The influx of Han Chinese and the growing restrictions on religious practice have become the biggest threats to Tibet, which faces “something like a death sentence” under Chinese rule, said the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

    The only solution is to allow genuine autonomy for the six million Tibetans, he said. The regional authority would make policy on education, religious practice and the use of natural resources, while Beijing would retain the right to keep military forces in the region and oversee foreign affairs, he added.

    An autonomous Tibetan government would not force out Han Chinese who had already settled in the vast Tibetan plateau in China’s west, but would place limits on any future migration. “Autonomous regions should be the native peoples’ majority,” the Dalai Lama said during an hourlong interview this week.

    The Dalai Lama sought to rebut assertions by Chinese officials that the Tibetan government-in-exile’s proposal for autonomy advocated “ethnic cleansing.” The proposal was presented last October to the Chinese government, which strongly rejected it. Tibetan leaders here say they plan to finish another document by June that will clarify the proposal but not veer from its premise.

Read the full article here. (There’s also a video report that you can watch at the Times‘ website–as soon as it is uploaded to YouTube, I will post it.)

Crisis in Burma

Via the wonderful Rod Meade Sperry over at The Worst Horse:

Meet Warsaw’s Newest Honorary Citizen…

Click on the image for the full story.
(Image via the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.)

Burma News (5.28.09)

“Myanmar nationals hold portraits of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest outside the Myanmar embassy in Phnom Penh May 27, 2009. Some 60 activists demonstrated outside the embassy to urge the Myanmar government to release the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.” Photo by Chor Sokunthea for Reuters.
Here’s the latest on Burma and the military trial of Nobel Peace laureate and Prime Minister-elect Daw Aung San Suu Kyi:

  • The Associated Press reports that “the sole witness allowed for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi defended her innocence Thursday, the last chance to speak before closing arguments Monday in a trial that could send the Nobel Peace laureate to prison for five years.”
  • The Washington Post reports on Suu Kyi’s lawyers and their preparations for closing arguments.
  • Reuters report that the junta has fired back at critics, calling them “meddlers” and denying that Suu Kyi’s trial is either a political or human rights issue.
  • Metacritic has begun conglomerating reviews of the new film Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country.