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70,000 Buddhists gather to celebrate Tibetan festival

Source: buddhistchannel.tv

LHASA, Tibet (China) -- At least 70,000 Tibetan Buddhists gathered at a monastery in Lhasa Wednesday to celebrate a religious holiday and pray for good luck in the Tibetan New Year that begins Sunday.

Tsering Namgyal, 75, edged along in the queue outside the Sera Monastery in the suburbs of Lhasa at 5 am, leaning against a walking stick and waiting for his turn to be blessed.

The annual "Sera Bengqin Festival" is an important religious event celebrated four days before the Tibetan New Year. It is held exclusively at Sera Monastery, one of the three leading monasteries in Lhasa alongside Drepung and Ganden.

On this date, devout Buddhists are touched on the head by the Khenpo (president) of the Ngaba Zhacang (one of the three Buddhist schools in the monastery) with the Dorje Pestle, a legendary Buddhist instrument from India that is believed to transfer the Buddha's power and support to the faithful.


The crowd of Buddhists also presented hada, a traditional white scarf, and petty sums of alm and prayed in front of a Thangka portrait of the "horse-headed king," one of the most important heritage pieces housed at Sera Monastery.

The annual event lasts for 24 hours starting from 1 am Wednesday. It has drawn Tibetan Buddhists from across the Tibet Autonomous Region, as well as Tibetan communities in the western provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Tsering Namgyal traveled from Xigaze to attend the event. "It can ward off disasters in the new year," he said.

The Year of Iron Tiger in the Tibetan calendar begins on February 14 this year it starts on exactly the same date as Chinese Lunar New Year's Day. The coincidence has happened 18 times since 1950, according to experts of astrology and Tibetan calendar calculations.

The Dalai Lama

On 6th July, 1935, a baby boy was born to a poor farmer in the tiny village of Taktser, Tibet. Growing up, little Lhamo Thondup would often sit astride a window sill and declare he was travelling on horseback to Lhasa, a place he had never seen.

When Lhamo was three, a government deputation from Lhasa visited Taktser. Tibet’s spiritual head had passed away and several mystic signs had manifested themselves pointing to the direction of Taktser as the home of their new leader. Mysteriously, the boy seemed to know the group leader, Kewtsang Rinpoche and the name of his monastery. When they showed Lhamo a collection of objects, the child picked out the ones belonging to the deceased leader and claimed, “It’s mine, it’s mine.” In 1940, Lhamo was taken to Lhasa and inducted into the monastic order. He was renamed Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso and assumed the title of the fourteenth Dalai Lama.

 “Lama” is a venerated Buddhist teacher, the Sanskrit counterpart of “Guru”, a term conferred upon a monk or nun once they have attained a certain level of spirituality. “Lama” can also be part of a title, such as Dalai Lama or Panchen Lama – these spiritual leaders are believed to be tulkus, or reincarnated bodhisattvas.

“Dalai” in Mongolian is “ocean” (“Gyatso” in Tibetan); with Lama,  the title translates into a leader of tremendous spiritual depth. Belonging to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of the bodhisattva, Avalokiteshwara, The Compassionate One (or Chenrezig, in Tibetan), revered as Tibet’s patron deity. From the 17th century up to the late 1950’s, the Dalai Lamas also exercised political authority over large parts of Tibet.

But back to the story of Lhamo, or Tenzin Gyatso, as he was now called. After his induction as a monk, the youthful leader pursued his education in logic, medicine, Sanskrit, Tibetan art and culture and above all, Buddhist philosophy. His adolescent years though, were interrupted rudely when China came calling, to assert its historic suzerainty over this idyllic kingdom. In 1950, the fifteen-year-old Dalai Lama was hurriedly proclaimed as Tibet’s temporal head in an investiture ceremony at Lhasa’s Norbulingka Palace.

Tibetan delegations to western powers, asking for political support, came back empty-handed – Britain tacitly acknowledged China’s claim to Tibet, while America decided to remain neutral. The Dalai Lama sent a delegation to Beijing, a last-ditch attempt to persuade the Chinese against full-scale invasion. But the delegation’s leader, Ngabo, who had no authority to negotiate, was forced into signing the infamous 17-point “ Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”.

From 1951 to 1959, Dalai Lama met every Chinese leader from Mao Zedong to Chou En-lay, Chu Teh and Deng Xiaoping to regain Tibet’s independence. Meanwhile he had also to placate his increasingly restless resistance fighters, angered by Chinese brutality.

In March 1959, the Nechung Oracle predicted a grave threat to the young leader’s life. In disguise, the Dalai Lama left Lhasa for India. Later that year, he formally rejected the 17-point Agreement. Tibet’s government-in-exile was established in Dharamshala (India).

In 1989, after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Tibet’s struggle for freedom shot into the world’s spotlight. In 2006, The Dalai Lama declared that his government was open to accepting “autonomy” for Tibet, rather than complete independence. China, though, remained unmoved.

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Gregory Schopen, chair of the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and an authority on ancient Indian Buddhism has been separating Buddhist fact from fiction for the past 30 years. In this UCLA Faculty Research Lecture, Schopen explores the Buddha as an astute businessman, economist and lawyer

Buddhist Celebrities

Action star Steven Seagal shocked the Buddhist world when he claimed that he was an incarnation of a lama. But His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, a highly revered Tibetan lama publicly confirmed this. Seagal has a long history of practice in the martial arts, acupuncture, and Zen Buddhism. 

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Richard Gere is friends with the Dalai Lama and wholeheartedly supports the human rights of Tibetans. Gere, who meditates daily says, “It helps me set my motivation for the day”. 
Singer Tina Turner is grateful to her practice of Buddhism for giving her the strength to end her relationship with her abusive husband, Ike Turner.   

Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom says: “The philosophy that I’ve embraced isn’t about sitting under a tree and studying my navel, it’s about studying what is going on in my daily life and using that as fuel to go and live a bigger life.”

Jazz giant Herbie Hancock was inspired to become a Buddhist when he saw the effect Buddhist practice had on the performance of his bassist, Buster Williams.