Author: Tsoltim Ngima Shakabpa
Publisher: Paljor Publications
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 118
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8186230602
Description
The tumult and the transformations of the 20th century marked few places on earth more thoroughly than they did Tibet. At the dawn of that century, the 13th Dalai Lama led a religio-political government dominated by nobles and incarnate monk officials. The declining Qing Dynasty of emperors based in Beijing had only scant influence over events in faraway Lhasa, and Tibetans saw the British Raj in India to the south as representing its most nettlesome foreign policy issue. Meanwhile, on the Tibetan plateau, a conservative monastic order and a population consisting mainly of nomads and village-dwelling farmers strove to maintain customary patterns of life that reached back centuries.
As decades passed, the Qing Dynasty disappeared entirely, the British Raj became Tibet’s foremost ally, and communism came to Asia. By the middle of the century, Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army had seized Tibet, and within a decade the young 14th Dalai Lama had escaped into exile in India. Soon more than 100,000 Tibetans found themselves in the difficult situation of living as refugees in underdeveloped nations, most notably India and Nepal. In more recent have found new lives in Canada, Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere.
This national narrative of a diaspore from the Land of Snows amounts to a personal story for the noble family called Shakabpa. Respected for the services rendered by its members to the Tibetan government over a period of generations, the Sakabpas worked mainly as senior officails in the Tresurey Deparment. Tsepon Shakabpa's most noble legacy is his landmark historical writings.
Since then, a new generation of the Shakabpa family has stepped into the public light.
Contents
Foreword
The Question of Autonomy for Tibet
Torn Between Two Countries
Buddhist Philosophy
Karmic Forces
The Nun
American Soldiers
Old Age
Imprisoned
Time Is Ripe
Freedom
Nirvana
I See A Light
At the Risk of Life
Tibetan Speak
Yes, I Can!
Life
The Pearl of Tibet
The Rain
Forgive Them, O Lord
I See
To My Countrymen of Tibet
Life’s Meaning Lost
Precious Jewel
Colorful Lies
Freedom Slogan
Forever Indebted
Free As a Poem
A Dictum for a Victim
The Freedom Train
My Tibet, My Tibet
The Smoke
Animal Talk
Haiku
An Ant’s Life
The Iron Horse
The If In Life
Life And Death
Sad World
The Coming of the Red Hawk
Wedding Wishes
Recollections
Zero
Made In China
The Freedom Train
In Case You Forget
Sitting In A Chinese Prison
Quotable Quotes
China’s Agony
A Plea to Save the Chinese
A Relative Question
A Simple Monk
Upside of Downside
Haiku – 2
Red China
Tibetan Burden
Create Something out of Nothing
Teeling the Truth
Master Chef
Cuddles, My Precious Partner
The Soul of Tibet
Food for Thought
Be Servant
Criticisms
Illness
My Wife
Time
Quotable Quites – 2
Om Mani Padma Hum
Sympathy
Beatitudes of Platitude & Multitudes of Gratitude
Vision of Death
An Angel of Death
An Angel in My Life
The Cigarette Smoke or the Politics of China
The Red Vulture
Just You and Me
The Weinrebs – A Life in Color
A Stroke Victim’s Ambition
Clock on a Wall
The Old Man and Chenrezig
Belly of the Beast
Dual Functions
Just a Poet Am I
Lost Tibet
The Eyes of Tibet
Girl Next Door
Dead People Running
Nature
The Dark and Long Night
Fr. G. Van Walleghem, S.J
My Family
I Pray
I Feel Hopeful
What Hath Communist China Wrought?
PEMA: My Daughter, My Lotus Flower
Eye on Tibet
An Apple, Not an Orange
Dead People Talking
Epilogue