Another webpage introduces the new book “A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency” with chapters by the Dalai Lama, Gyalwang Karmapa and a broad group of Buddhist teachers from Vajrayana, Zen and Theravada. It is available May/June from Wisdom Publications’ US website.

Any Buddhist can now sign the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change online [http://www.ecobuddhism.org/buddhist-declaration.php]. The aim is that 100-200 Buddhist spiritual leaders will do so by mid-summer, along with as many regular members of the international Buddhist community as possible. The first press releases/publicity will be made around mid-summer, with a view to constructively influence the UN Climate Treaty negociations in Copenhagen [COP-15; December 2009].

I agree with you on this. The media have a tendency to simplify the issue and they do not help things when they show shots of Nepali soldiers beating Tibetans and imply that it is taking place in China, as they often did at the time of the trouble.

The rioting was not simply a result of economic disadvantage, although that was certainly one factor. There was, and still is, a serious denial of fundamental human rights in Tibet–a kind of ‘cultural genocide’ as His Holiness has called it.

His Holiness called on both sides to end the violence, and he is all too aware that Tibetans may turn to violence in the absence of his leadership. But I believe it is fair to say that noone in recent years has done more to promote the cause of *universal* peace and nonviolence than HH.

Sarva Mangalam.

About 16 ethnic Hans were murdered by rioting Tibetans… what would the French government do if right wing radicals rioted and murdered Algerians? They might clamp down?

Honesty, integrity, non-violence: stand up for them, even if this means criticisng Tibetans! That is the test of whether Buddhists are something special or just another sect blind to its own ’sides’ short comings.

His translation of Tashi Namgyal’s “Mahamudra; Quintessence …” has been never out of reach for more than a dozen years.

May his profound generosity and skill be always inspiration to us.

Mangalam! Tashi Delek!

Karma Chöpal

And “like many Tibetans has only one name” is also silly. Tibetans do and have had many more names per person than other cultures in the world. Tsering Ozer (‘Longlife Lightray’) is two words, and might as well say two names. Who started this cross-cultural misinformation? Why have I heard it repeated so many times recently?