By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Nov.6: Young monks in the so-called Qinghai province in Tibet’s eastern region of Amdo are reportedly being forced to leave their monasteries and instructed not to wear their robes again, in what is being seen as yet another Chinese government policy to restrict the religious freedom of the Tibetan people.
Young monks aged 11 to 15 years were expelled from Dhitsa monastery, Jakhyung monastery and other monasteries in the province after authorities implemented the new regulation issued on Oct. 1, a source cited by Radio Free Asia said.
The anonymous source said, “Young monks have been forced to give up their robes and are being sent back home. Government officials are now inspecting these monasteries to make sure the regulation is being obeyed.”
“But they are being told they can’t return to the monasteries or wear monks’ robes anymore, and whether they will now be sent to government schools or not is also unclear. None of them were forced to become monks, and they enrolled in the monasteries with their parents’ consent,” he further said.
Similar regulations have been passed in the neighboring Sichuan province three years ago where young monks were forced to leave their monasteries so they could return to government-run schools. In Lhasa, a government regulation passed before 2008, mandated monasteries to not allow enrolment of monk under the age of 18.
In stark contrast, reports emerged in August that young Tibetan school children aged 8 to 16 have reportedly been sent to new military education camps established in early 2021 in Nyingtri city, which shares the border with Arunachal Pradesh in India. Such military styled facilities for training Tibetan youth during holidays, is constructed in an already sensitive militarized region.
Various sources confirmed that these centers are crucial steps in providing so called national defense education for Tibet’s youth to inculcate love for China, inculcating patriotism in the spirit of defending national borders. The Chinese state media reported that the sole purpose of the centre was to “increase the spirit of patriotism and defending the nation, increase physical strength, inculcate mental strength and stamina, and also to increase the spirit of unity among the children.”
2 Responses
Buddhism is the life blood of the Tibetan people. Ever since Buddhism’s advent into Tibet during the time of Emperor Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century, Tibet devoted all its energy and effort into propagating Buddhism across Asia such as China, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia and the Indian Himalayas. Great Tibetan Masters like Sakya Pandit Kunga Gyaltsen went to China as a tutor to Mongol Yuan Kublai Khan, who was later succeeded by his nephew Drogon Chogyal Phakpa. China was ruled by Mongol Khans and was effectively under Mongol occupation in the thirteenth century. Likewise, Shabdung Ngawang Namgyal arrived in Bhutan in (1616 CE) from Tibet and introduced Drukpa Kagyud tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The great Tibetan yogi Milarepa visited Manang in the Annapurna circuit and made his residence there in the eleventh century. It’s regarded as a very holy place by many Himalayan Nepalese and Tibetans. It is where Milarepa was met by the hunter Kyira Gonpo Dorje (ཁྱི་ར་མགོན་པོ་རྡོ་རྗེ་) who was in hot pursuit of a deer the hunter was chasing. The Fourth Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso was born in Mongolia to a Khan of the Chokur tribe in 1589. Likewise the sixth Dalai Lama was born in the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh in 1683.
Tibet was the centre of the Buddhist world and many students from its neighbouring countries such as India, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan and China came to study in the great monasteries of Tibet. Tibet was high Asia’s bastion of peace, treasure of knowledge and fountain of wisdom.
However, after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the heathen communists regarded religion as an opium of the people and it ransacked every monastery in Tibet, smashed every statue or icon, plundered every treasure of Tibet, demolished and razed Tibet to the ground like the devastation wrought by the detonation of American atomic bombs in the Japanese city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th of August 1945!!! Thousands of monks and nuns were murdered, languished in concentration camps and killed through hard labour and starvation. Hundreds of thousands of nuns were deliberately raped to disrobe them by force. Some fifty thousand monks were rounded up and sent to concentration camps while the senior monks with authority and rank were executed like Nazi Germany executed the Jews. They were made to dig their own graves and made to stand on the edge of the grave and shot dead. The next line of Lamas and Geshes were forced to cover the dead bodies and made to dig their own graves before they were shot to death. This is how communist China treated the Tibetan monks and nuns and the Tibetan people in general.
The monk and nuns are the educated people of Tibet and owing to thIs, the communists made sure to target them and eradicate them so as Deng Xioping said, “to kill a snake, the head must be crushed”. In order to crush the spirit of the Tibetan people, the Chinese communists tried to crush the cream of Tibetan society. The Chinese communist lost no time to eliminate the monk and nun community ever since the illegal occupation of Tibet.
Murder of the monks/nuns and plundering of the monasteries were a well orchestrated campaign of cultural and religious obliteration of Tibet. It continues the same goal of total annihilation of Tibet’s rich religious heritage. The Tibetans have rightly called the Chinese communists བསྟན་དགྲ་རྒྱ་དམར་ enemy of the faith, it stands as an apostle of truth to this day. Every Tibetan who believes in the Holy Buddha and the Dalai Lama MUST REGARD the CCP as the mortal enemy of the Tibetan people and nation and work towards the preservation of our precious faith which is the life- blood of the Tibetan people. Those who seek to destroy us by destroying our precious heritage are the enemy of Tibetan nation and Tibetan people and every Tibetan must be determined to sacrifice their lives to protect and preserve our most cherished Holy Dharma (དམ་པའི་ཆོས་) bequeathed to us by the most Holy Buddha Sakya Muni- our Lord and our refuge. One hundred and fifty six Tibetans have laid down their sacred lives by setting their own bodies on fire. We all must remember their sacrifice and gallantry for the cause of our nation and people. Those who forget their sacrifice and devotion to our nation are not worthy of being Tibetans.
If historically poor parents sent their child to a monastery for a better life, the question to ask may be what constitutes a better life in these times and what type of education is best suited for that? If any government authority wants to lift people out of poverty, what is the alternative? An education that results in people living lives as indentured slaves to a paycheck is also somewhat lacking. Just take a look at the people who come seeking nirvana in the Himalayas. A spiritual vacuum is just a means for psychologists to charge $400/hr to listen to one’s worries. Might be better to just get a cat or a dog. They never talk back, although they may bite if mistreated.