Dalai Lama Research Paper

Dalai Lama

A reputation is one of the most important things a person can have in life. It is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something and it may decide your whole life and decide how successful you may become. A reputation or the way some one looks at you can be viewed as the way you dress, your education level or the people you are associated with and sometimes people are given a reputation by the acts of the people in their family. Many people cannot get jobs or succeed in life because of their reputation. The Dalai Lama is the subject that I'll talk about, his reputation, birth, family, and education…, the western and the Chinese government's view about him, the interplay of religious, personal
He was born in a small village called Taktser, Amdo in northeastern Tibet in July 6, 1935 to a peasant family. Dalai Lama's holiness was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are the manifestation of the Bodhisattva of compassion, who chose to reincarnate to serve the people. Dalai Lama means ocean of wisdom. When he was asked for view himself, he said that: "I always consider myself as a simple Buddhist monk. I feel that is real me. I feel that Dalai Lama as a temporal ruler is a man-made institution. As long as the people accept the Dalai Lama, they will accept me. But being a monk is something which belongs to me. No one can change that. Deep down inside. I always consider myself a monk, even in my dreams..., the spiritual or religious life is something I know and have great interest in. I have some kind confidence in it, and thus I want to study it more. Regarding politics, I have no modern education except for someone not so well equipped. This is not voluntary work but something trust that the Tibetan people place on me" ⁴. His Holiness began his monastic education at the age of six. The curriculum consisted of five major and five minor subjects. The major subjects were logic, Tibetan art and culture, Sanskrit, medicine, and Buddhist philosophy. He completed the
This is understandable, given the prominence of ethnicity and religion in the conflict. While the native inhabitants of the Tibetan plateau are Tibetans, the majority ethnic group in China is Han Chinese. The Chinese government is made up mostly of Han Chinese, and it does not have a strong record of dealing with China's ethnic minorities -like Tibetans- in a fair way. Virtually all Tibetans are Buddhists, while ethnic Han Chinese are generally not, even though the Chinese people are becoming increasingly religious -including Buddhist- now that the ideology of Communism has collapsed in China. Moreover, the Chinese government has a history of persecuting religious movements, especially those which draw large numbers of followers and which have the potential to transform into political movements that could potentially threaten the regime's hold on power. Another principal cause of the Tibet conflict has been Chinese governance -and the precipitating "Sinicization" -of the region. While the Chinese government claims that it has successfully raised the standard of living in Tibet, many Tibetans -both inside and outside Tibet- believe that the Chinese government's "modernization" policies have hurt the region. On the other hand, the Chinese believe that Tibet's historically great empire greatly declined beginning in the 9th Century and then was finally and completely brought down by the