Yesterday the Dalai Lama accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor Congress can give to a civilian.

His speech and the speeches of others at the ceremony reemphasize that he is not a “splittist,” as Beijing claims, but simply a crusader for peace. He restated that it is not independence he is after, but actual autonomy, something the “Tibet Autonomous Region” utterly lacks. He thanks the American people for their support, and is rather politic in thanking the Bushies for their “support of religious freedom” (heehee, I don’t think he’s been reading the US news much…).

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One of the first field trips we took on our study-abroad trip to Tibet was to the Jokhang Temple, situated in the heart of Lhasa–and at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism. It is one of the most important temples in Tibet, from which the Dalai Lama often gave addresses to his people from a special balcony.

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Today on Phayul: China blatantly defends its record on religious freedom. And again with the “why can’t you mean old foreigners stay out of our internal affairs?”

Any claim China makes that its citizens have full religious freedom is patently false. We have seen this with our own eyes.

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Tibetan people often greet each other by sticking out their tongues. This can be a bit disconcerting to Westerners, for whom the stuck-out tongue is a childish insult or a sexual gesture. But rest assured, if a Tibetan sticks her tongue out at you, she’s probably just saying “hi.”

This custom reportedly derives from a belief that demons have black tongues, and sometimes that is all that differentiates them visually from humans. A demon won’t stick out its tongue in greeting because you’ll see the color and know it for what it is.

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According to Phayul, China’s government is demanding the right to veto Tibetan reincarnated Living Buddhas. What this would basically do is allow China to decide who is a deity and who is not.

There are several famous examples of this, the most famous of which is probably the case of the Dalai Lama. The DL is considered the reincarnation of Chenrezig, the Tibetan Buddhist deity of compassion. As such, he is also the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. What the Chinese government would like to do is to be able to say, “Sure, you guys have found someone you think might be the Dalai Lama, but we’ve found a suitable candidate as well, and you will consider him as well,” and of course there would be no choice but to accept the Chinese candidate (who would be a Tibetan kid, but wholly answerable to Beijing) or risk the destruction of monasteries and the killing and jailing of innocents.

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