Rev. Danny Fisher

My latest “On the Buddhism Beat” post is now online over at Shambhala Sun Space.  As I note in the post, the biggest news developments in the past couple of weeks (I didn’t do a post last week) revolved around “the movies.”  Of special note are all the movie-related stories coming out of Tibet:

On December 28^th, a Chinese court in Xining, the provincial capital of Qinghai, sentenced Tibetan filmmaker Dhongdup Wangchen to six years in prison on the charge of subversion.  Wangchen and Buddhist monk Jigme Gyatso are the two filmmakers behind the documentary Leaving Fear Behind. The film is about twenty ethnic Tibetans and their views on China and Tibet, and was filmed inside Tibet. Their footage was subsequently smuggled out of the country so that it could be seen worldwide. Before the Olympics in Beijing, the two were jailed by Chinese authorities. Gyatso was released from prison in 2008, but was tortured during interrogations.

The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office expressed “serious concerns” about human rights in China following Wangchen’s sentence and other recent incidents.

Meanwhile, China formally told the Palm Springs International Film Festival this week that two Chinese films were being withdrawn from its program “in protest of the scheduled screening of [the documentary The Sun Behind the Clouds:  Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom].”  As the New York Times reports, “While Chinese officials told the festival’s director that the filmmakers themselves had decided to withdraw their state-financed works, many China experts believe that it is the state sending a message, rather than the individuals.” The controversy, though, only served to sell out all screenings of the film.

Movie star Richard Gere was [on hand at the Gelug Monlam in Bodh Gaya] to lead a candlelight vigil for Tibet through [the village].

While in town, Gere also threw his support behind Tibetans for a Vegetarian Society–a non-profit public charitable trust dedicated to turning Bodh Gaya into a “vegetarian zone.”