Petition - Only four days to go!

Thanks again to everyone who has signed the Tibet Petition at Avaaz.org, if you haven't got round to it yet there are only four days to go until the petition is delivered. It currently stands at a massive 1,112,950 signatures in just seven days so the new target is for 2,000,000! If you have signed but want to do more please pass this on to others in your address book who would sympathise with the call for the Chinese authorities to show restraint in Tibet.

Tibet Petition

I just checked the Petition and it now stands at 1,002,302!
That's past the initial target so every extra signature gives our voice extra weight, if you haven't already, please sign.

Check out Missing: monks who defied Beijing

The Nuns of Drapchi Prison

While I was driving back from Newport the other day, Saturday, I turned on the car radio and found myself in the middle of the Women's Hour weekend omnibus edition, not something I normally listen to. Before I could change channels or switch off, the program started its next item "Tibetan Unrest and the Drapchi Nuns"....... the story of how, in 1993, a group of Tibetan nuns, in the notorious Drapchi prison in Lhasa, secretly recorded songs of freedom. Against all odds, the recordings were smuggled out of prison and the songs were heard by the outside world. The Drapchi 14, as they became known, were beaten for their actions and their sentences extended - by between five and nine years each.

This program is not easy listening but I urge you to hear it out, it is saddening but also hugely inspiring..........



DOWNLOAD TO IT HERE.

Oh, by the way, the petition now stands at 1,690,484 signatures.

The Avaaz petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao calling on him to show restraint and enter into dialogue over Tibet now stands at 625,015 signatories. And counting.............

See the latest news here.

A World Voice on Tibet (petition)

Thanks again to everyone who signed the e-petition to persuade Gordon Brown to meet the Dalai Lama. When I emailed friends to draw their attention to the petition one also sent me back a link to a large international petition calling for an end to the violence in Tibet. There are a large number of petitions out there and the danger is that our voices are dissipated and diluted. Targeted appeals to our own national politicians are obviously relevant but a Global voice needs a Global petition; the link I was given is to Avaaz.org and the petition there has, at the time of writing, received 507,661 signatures in the last 48 hours and their aim is for 1,000,000!

The petition reads: "Petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao:

As citizens around the world, we call on you to show restraint and respect for human rights in your response to the protests in Tibet, and to address the concerns of all Tibetans by opening meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Only dialogue and reform will bring lasting stability. China's brightest future, and its most positive relationship with the world, lies in harmonious development, dialogue and respect."

It is Not the purpose of this blog to campaign on political issues, however as a Buddhist site we will continue to promote peace and the welfare of all beings by any appropriate non-violent means.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, called on the world community today, Friday, to denounce China in the wake of its crackdown in Tibet, calling the crisis "a challenge to the conscience of the world."

Brown says that he will meet the Dalai Lama during his visit!

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he would meet exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, when he visits Britain in May, risking damage to Brown's drive for warmer relations with China.

"I will meet the Dalai Lama when he is in London," he told parliament. Read more

Well done and many thanks to everyone for their support.

Petition asking Gordon Brown to meet the Dalai Lama

The Petition is now closed. On Friday when I posted the first item on this the petition had just over 6,000 signatures..... it now stands at 8,849! This makes it the most heavily subscribed e-petition in the International affairs and defence category, almost twice that of the number two slot... the one about Burma.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to "sign" it, now it's over to you Gordon.

Re: Tibet Petition

Further to the post below, by a strange coincidence, the Chinese authorities have given protesters until midnight Monday (today) to turn themselves in and benefit from leniency, "Criminals who do not surrender themselves by the deadline will be sternly punished according to the law", said a notice on the Tibetan government website (that's the Chinese invaders puppet government).

This deadline is the same as that for those wishing to sign the online petition (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/DalaiLama/) to Gordon Brown asking him to meet with the Dalai Lama this May. Interestingly on the video above David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, can be heard saying that the situation in Tibet needs "to be addressed in a way that balances restraint and DIALOGUE", so come on Gordon and stand up and be counted because this one isn't going away as BURMA seems to have conveniently done.

Tibet Petition

We will all have seen or heard the latest news from Tibet. In May this year the Dalai Lama is visiting the UK and so far Gordon Brown has refused to meet him (doesn't want to upset the Chinese, not with the Olympics, trade and everything?). There is, however, a petition on the Number Ten website urging him to do so. This petition has been around for some time and the closing date is this Monday, the 17th. With the recent events in Tibet our P.M. meeting his Holiness would send a clear message to the Chinese Government. The link to the petition is http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/DalaiLama/ if you are a U.K. citizen please consider taking a few seconds to sign this.

Christian Propaganda

Recent visitors to this site will probably have noticed that in the "Video Bar" (in the green column to the right) we have had a series of talks on the Four Noble Truths by the Dalai Lama, if you look now you will see that one of these has mysteriously been replaced by "Buddhism Topical Video (No God Necessary)". If you then click on this thumbnail up pops a video entitled "Christian Answers, Topical Video: Buddhism" by Steve Morrison and Larry Wessels. The video then precedes to "examine Buddhism from a biblical perspective", this seems to be purely a put down, we're all atheistic, idol worshiping cultists who have rejected the "Lord as our saviour".

So how did this happen? The content of the Video Bar feature in the blog is determined by the use of "Keywords", these are the same as "tags" or "labels" (as can be seen at the bottom of this post) these are used as a means of aggregating similar items together. Therefor in our Video Bar the keywords used are "Dalai Lama - The Four Noble Truths". If one looks at the source for the "christian answers" video you will see the following list of keywords -

"Ashoka, Nagarjuna, Pali, Canon, Tripitaka, three, baskets, Vinaya, Pitaka, discipline, Sutra, threads, Adhidharma, scholasticism, dependent, origination, Dharma, Sabbham, dukkham, dalai, lama, Zen, Buddhism, Mahayana, nirvana, shingon, theravada, vajrayana, right, understanding, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood, endeavor, mindfulness, concentration, monks, sunya, temples, Tenzin, Gyatso".

As you can see this video is going to sneak itself into almost any Buddhist keyword search. The reason that it has only recently been able to do this is that YouTube has just been taken over by Google where the christian video is hosted, YouTube now gives access to Google's video database as well as its own.

I'm leaving this interloper up for a while so that you can all make your own minds up on it (they reckon that that's one of the problems with Buddhists). As a buddhist I'm not into censorship. By the way if you go to the Christian Answers.Net website, this isn't even where this video came from, for that go to http://www.biblequery.org both sites are typical American fundamentalist Christian sites............. But make your own mind up!

As this Christian video has effectively "removed" the third Noble Truth I will put all of the Dalai Lama's talks on to the Dharma Studies page.