Fujisan's Kyareng

Monday, April 29, 2013

LOST DECENCY

ཡ་རབ་བཟང་སྤྱོད་བརླགས་པ།
ཨ་ཕུ་གྷ་ནིསུ་ཏན་ལུང་པའི་དེ་སྔོན་དང་ད་ལྟ། བར་དུ་བྱུང་བའི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ཐུང་ངུ་།  བོད་མི་ཚོས་དོ་སྣང་དང་སློབ་སྟོན་ལེན་དགོས་པ།
Lost Decency: The Untold Afghan Story
By Atta Arghandiwal
A simple but very precise book for anyone who wants to know what happened in Afghanistan and what made it as one of the most dangerous regions on the earth today. After it attained independence from Great Britain in 1919, the country was ruled by liberal but weak Monarchs. Afghan people were proud of their culture and their sense of decency. Both men and women folks worked together without much discrimination to build the new Afghanistan. The girls could be seen wearing skirts and jeans, and going to school and colleges. Burqa system was not imposed harshly on the womenfolk as a law. People looked forward to a promising future with strong and stable government.

After the rule of King Zahir Shah for forty years without any significant upheavals, the country caught itself in the quagmire of the cold war in 1950s. Both Soviet and USA and their allies were trying to gain access into the land by outdoing each other in development work of Afghanistan. Soviet Russia and Chinese communist ideology was gaining access in people’s mind. Ideology of religious fundamentalist from Middle Eastern groups also began to influence the direction the country was headed to. In 1978, the local communist leaders supported by Soviet government launched military coup and toppled the people’s government. This was followed by the Russian invasion and the Afghanistan, the peaceful land turned into a land of oppression and violent fighting. Different faction of people fought bravely on their own with the support of U.S. and its allies. “By 1984 the United States was authorizing military supplies to Mujahideen of nearly $250 million per month,” writes the author. Russian invaders dealt harshly with the people, more than five million Afghan fled the land and took refuge in the neighboring countries.

One of the Author’s brothers, Zia was among the resistance fighters, and fought with the Russian invader bravely. Atta, the author fled to Germany along with other Afghans. From Germany he sought asylum in the United States, where he built a career in banking and ultimately had his family join him later.

Afghanistan remained under Soviet occupation for nearly a decade [1980 – 1989], during which the people and the land suffered irreparable damage. It has not been easy for Soviet Russia either, it’s said that more than 4 billion dollar a year was spent to maintain the puppet Kabul government, and thirty times this amount was spent on the cost of running the war for those years. Now that Russians were gone, the people were looking forward to a peace and stable life under their own government. But during the course of resistance against Russia, various Afghan factions with direct help from the United States and the Western allies, and from the Arab world have established their own territories of control. With the fall of Dr. Najibullah’s government in 1992, these factions came up to form an interim government. “But despite UN attempt to broker peace and bring the warring groups into a coalition government, Afghanistan remained at war.”

Amidst this uncertainty and instability, when a convoy of an influential Pakistani businessman was stopped by bandits in Kandahar, Pakistani government urged the students from fundamentalist school at the border to intervene. The student group not only released the convoy, but went on to capture Kandahar city. They soon began to take the role of disciplining the land, and many at first welcomed the change to have peace and economic stability denied by the warring warlords. Pakistan and ISI funded and supported this group, which came to be known as Taliban. Talib means ‘religious students’ and their core leaders were from Pakistan and other Arab nations. By 1996, Kabul was under the full control of Taliban. “They introduced religious police, a rigid military campaign against their opponents, and the use of non-Afghan forces.” It is estimated that 45 per cent of the Taliban forces were non-Afghan. The brutality with which they controlled the region and the use of non-Afghan forces from Middle East Arab countries led by Osama Bin Laden, gradually infuriated and earned the doubts and misgiving of the local populace. The United States initially thought Taliban as source of stability in the region and ally in sharing anti-Iran stance, and misjudged Taliban’s total hostility toward foreign values.

Then came the 9/11 incident in 2001 attack on World Trade Center building and Twin Tower by the Taliban terrorists. This was followed by the U.S. retaliation, and active involvement in the region. The author felt very bad that the Afghanistan has been turned into terrorist den by the non-Afghan militants from Middle East countries. He, his family and many Afghan people have been so affectionately received and provided for by this land and the fact that his own people attacked the United States made him feel very bad and sick. He made his best to explain to the people here that the attack was not done by the Afghan people, but by the non-Afghan militants who had made Afghanistan their activity base.

In 2011, the author visits Afghanistan, and was devastated to see that once peaceful land with pride and decency has been turned into violent, and corrupt with no trace of decency. The government is formed by the vested warlords who are least bothered about the people’s welfare; they are only interested in making themselves richer and richer. Factional fighting among the warlords has been exploited by the religious fundamentalist, which has caused the presence of foreign troops and dependency on them. All the funds from the United States and its allies are sabotaged by the few elites and the vast majority is languishing in poverty. Old Afghanistan of proud people with honesty and decency is lost.

As a closing thought, the Author finds himself asking, “What if the Soviet Union had never invaded? What if Afghanistan had never been deserted after Russian withdrawal? Do you think 9/11 would have happened?”

This is difficult to say, but reading the book I can’t help thinking about Tibet and Tibetans. We must preserve and maintain our decency, moral integrity and unity so that when the time comes for the Chinese to leave Tibet, we are ready to take over the administration without internal feud or factional fighting. Till date, because of the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his vision, we have been able to maintain and promote our positive values, cultural integrity and unity among all the Tibetans. The book is a clear mirror to warn us that we all must cherish and maintain this unity and cultural values so that Tibet don’t become Afghanistan of today in future.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Where is Panchen Lama?

ཆུང་སྲིད་པཎ་ཆེན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ག་པར་ཡོད།

ཨ་རི་སེན་ཕཱེ་རན་སིས་ཀོ་གནས་སྡོད་བོད་མི་དང་བོད་དོན་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར་བ་ཚོས་ས་གནས་རྒྱ་ནག་གཞུང་ཚབ་ལས་ཁུངས་མདུན་ལ་ < པཎ་ཆེན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་གློད་གྲོལ་གཏོང་དགོས།> ཞེས་སྐད་འབོད་བྱས་པ།
 
Where is the real Panchen Lama?

San Francisco: Tibetans and Tibet supporters here gathered before the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to demand the where about of His Holiness the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, whom the Chinese authorities abducted along with his family in 1995. “We have been seeking news about the Panchen Lama’s whereabouts for nearly 18 years, but China has failed to give us any true indication of where he is being held”, said Tenzin Rangdol, President of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC). A moment of silence was observed to honor those who sacrificed their lives for freedom in Tibet. Representative of Students for Free Tibet, Amnesty International, Bay Area Friends of Tibet and other spoke before the Consulate and demanded freedom, justice and human rights in Tibet.

Amnesty International representatives speaking before the Consulate
Being a weekday, the consulate was open. People could be seen entering and exiting the visa section of the consulate. The visitors both Chinese and foreigners watched the demonstration curiously, took photograph and received the pamphlets distributed on the day. Apart from the usual Free Tibet and China out of Tibet slogans, “Release the Panchen Lama now” reverberated before the Chinese consulate for some time, and there is no denying that the people inside the Consulate building has not heard the slogans.  

Tibetan Association for North California (TANC) organized tsog and evening prayer on the day at the community hall to pray for early release of Panchen Lama and all the political prisoners in Tibet, and for all the Tibetan martyrs who sacrificed their lives for freedom and justice in Tibet.


 
 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

TIBETAN SOUND HEALING

  ཨཱོྃ   ཧཱུཾ  རཾ 

Berkeley: April 17, 2012 Wednesday:
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche of Ligmincha Institute of Bon Studies gave a teaching on “Tibetan Sound Healing” to a large audience at the teaching hall of the Sacred Stream at Berkeley, San Francisco. The teaching was based on the book the Rinpoche has written recently on the Tibetan art of sound healing.

 Rinpoche talked on the five sacred warrior seed syllable ‘A, Om, Hun, Ram and dZa’ of Bon tradition.  Tonpa Shenrab Miwo, the founder of the Bon religion of Tibet first taught about these syllables. These syllables are termed as warriors, because they have power to control and overcome the negative emotions, problems and dilemmas that we face in our daily life. We all want to be happy and joyful; in order to do so we need to create a space for it. We need to clear and remove the unhappiness and sadness occupying the space within us. Trying to be joyful without creating a space for it would be a fruitless exercise.
 
The sacred sound and energy of these five syllables along with proper meditation will help us create the right space and awareness for positive emotions to radiate and expand within us. The sound healing is like seeing a cloudy sky [A]; the cloud gets dispersed and cleared [Om]; warm sunshine is there [Hun]; positive energy comes from the sunshine [Ram]; and plants, vegetations and flowers blooms [dZa]. This is a general concept; now apply this to the mediation.
 Think about a problem or a fear that you have in your mind. The fear is occupying a certain space in your mind and it is obstructing the confidence to come out. Sit in a relaxed meditational posture, think about the fear that you want to overcome. Concentrate on your forehead, and let yourself be aware of that fear; don’t try to analyze, judge or deep. Visualize as if that fear is occupying the space in your mind like a cloud; now utter the syllable ‘A’ slowly, and let the sound vibrate with energy and disperse the cloud. Do this seven times. Having dispersed the cloud of fear, a space has been created.
ཨཱོྃ  Next, bring this awareness of dispersion and cessation of the fear to the throat and concentrate there. Be aware of the cessation of the fear and the creation of space and dwell on it. Utter the syllable “Om” slowly seven times and concentrate on this awareness of the cessation of the fear. Being aware of the cessation of the fear, a positive energy is generated.
 ཧཱུཾ  Thirdly, bring this awareness of positive energy to your heart chakra; visualize a positive warmth and confidence in your heart. Utter the syllable “Hun” slowly seven times while concentrating on the quality of confidence and positive energy taking shape in your heart. Having seen and felt the positive energy and quality in your heart, this energy needs to be ripened.
རཾ Fourthly, bring this state and quality of confidence to your navel chakra, the fire area. Here while uttering the syllable “Ram” seven times, concentrate and let the navel chakra cook or work on the quality of confidence to make it mature and to ripen it. Here the fear has now been transformed into confidence.
Lastly, this ripened quality of the confidence should be brought to the scared chakra; the sexual organ. Here while uttering the syllable “dZa” slowly seven times, concentrate and visualize the birth and actual generation or manifestation of the confidence, which has evolved from the fear at “Ah” level. This mapping and working on the five chakras with the five sacred warrior syllables is how the Tibetan sound healing works.
The sound of the syllables works on body at the crown, speech at the throat, mind at the heart, quality at the navel and action at the sacred chakra. During the questions and answers session, Rinpoche further explained that love and joyful things happens because you are open to it, not because you want it to happen it. We make effort without creating conducive space. A proper space and awareness needs to be generated to have the positive things to happen. The five chakras are also defined as: crown chakra – changeless body; throat chakra – ceaseless speech; heart chakra – pure heart; navel chakra – perfected quality; and sex chakra – spontaneous action. The five chakras and the five sacred syllables have this power to create the required space and awareness to have our positive emotions grow and expand.

Note: This is a blogger’s note on what the Rinpoche spoke and taught at the Foundation, error or omission cannot be ruled out. Serious students are advised to see the Rinpoche’s book “Tibetan Sound Healing” and the utubes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wcd4qDuOACw    

   

Sunday, April 14, 2013

HUNGER STRIKE FOR TIBET

བོད་ཀྱི་ཆེད་དུ་མིག་ཆུ། 
བོད་དུ་འགྲོ་བཞིན་པའི་སྐུ་ལུས་མེར་བསྲེགས་གི་ཞི་བའི་ངོ་རྒོལ་ལ་གདུང་སེམས་མཉམ་སྐྱེད་མཚོན་བྱེད་དང་། ཁོང་རྣམས་ཀྱི་དགོས་འདུན་གསལ་བསྒྲགས་ཆེད་དུ་ཨ་རི་སེན་ཕེ་རན་སིས་ཀོ་ས་གནས་སུ་བོད་མི་བསྟན་པ་ལགས་ནས་ཟས་བཅད་ངོ་རྒོལ་ལས་འགུལ་སྤེལ་བ།      
Tears For Tibet: Hunger Strike for Tibet 

San Francisco: In order to highlight the ongoing self-immolations protest movement and the critical situation in Tibet, Tenpa Jamyang, a San Francisco Tibetan resident is staging a hunger strike protest today before the Tibetan community hall at Richmond. He said this lone initiative is directed to show solidarity with the Tibetan people in Tibet, and to inspire our people here to engage in activities to draw the attention of local and international communities to support our struggle for freedom and justice in Tibet. Two members of Regional Tibetan Youth Congress members were also there to assist Mr. Tenpa and to show their solidarity. Tibetans and local supporters in the area were seen visiting and expressing word of support to Tenpa’s voluntary initiative.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Kanzan flowers; Harbinger of Spring

ཀན་ཛན་རྩི་ཤིང་མེ་ཏོག

དཔྱིད་ཀྱི་ཕོ་ཉས།
སེམས་ཀྱི་འདུན་པའི།
སྒོ་ཡི་དྲིལ་བུ།
ཡིད་ལ་གདུང་གདུང་།
The harbinger of spring intensely ranged the door bell of my heart’s aspiration in my mind
མཛེས་པའི་ཀན་ཛན་མེ་ཏོག  འགྲུལ་གྱི་མདུན་ལ་ཤར་བྱུང་།
འདུན་པ་བློ་སྟོབས་ཆེན་པོས།  སེམས་ཀྱི་དཔྱིད་སྒོ་ཕྱེ་སོང་།
                                            Beautiful Kanzan flowers
                                            Bloomed before my journey
                                            Full of aspiration and adventures
                                            Opened the spring gate of my heart
 
美しいカンザン桜、私の家の前に咲き
 希望と冒険一杯で、開いた私の心の春門