[Download] "An Interview with Arjia Rinpoche (Interview)" by Cross Currents * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: An Interview with Arjia Rinpoche (Interview)
- Author : Cross Currents
- Release Date : January 01, 2011
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 52 KB
Description
In 1952, at the age of two, Arjia Rinpoche was recognized as the eighth reincarnation of the head abbot of the culturally rich and historically powerful Kumbum Monastery in Amdo, Eastern Tibet (alt. Qinghai province, China). His training was cut short, however, in 1958 when the Great Leap Forward and subsequent Cultural Revolution ushered in an unprecedented period of persecution and destruction of Tibet's living and material Buddhist heritage. After sixteen years of forced manual labor, Arjia Rinpoche was allowed to receive Dharma instruction again and resumed his previously ordained role as Kumbum's head abbot. Assisted by the Panchen Lama (second only to the Dalai Lama in terms of institutional authority and the highest-ranking Buddhist leader still in Tibet at the time), Arjia Rinpoche successfully navigated the political minefield of the Chinese Buddhist bureaucracy to protect and advance Buddhism from within. His story and the story of the Politburo's sinister and cynical attempt to control Tibetan politics through its own puppet Panchen Lama "reincarnation" are chronicled in his autobiographical Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama's Account of 40 Years Under Chinese Rule. The following conversation informs and updates readers of the political situation in Tibet and further explains his political involvements and crisis of conscience that compelled him to flee Tibet in 1998. At the time, this made him the highest-ranking lama to leave since the Dalai Lama in 1959. Question: What are the major political challenges facing Buddhism in Tibet/China today?