richard gere and robert thurman on the tibetan situation

Danny has posted on these two articles:

Beliefnet offers a couple of features today about the situation in Tibet, including an interview with Richard Gere and FAQs about Tibet with Robert Thurman.  Gere's interview in particular is well worth a read.  Here's a striking excerpt:

What’s your overall impression of what’s going on right now in Tibet?
 
What makes me the saddest about this is to see Tibetans so pushed up against the wall that violence is the only recourse. It’s very rare. This is not a place that they very easily go to, so one can assume that it’s that bad for them that they’ve started to lose their center as compassionate, forgiving, patient people. And it’s certainly not everyone there, but, clearly it looks like some people lost it.

How does that jell with the basic tenets of Buddhism?

Well, you’ve got to understand that the difference between Tibetans inside of Tibet who’ve been living under this very oppressive system, [is that] they’ve been totally marginalized for now almost 60 years. They’re very different emotionally. Their nervous systems are different than the ones who’ve grown up in exile. They’re very different people than you see in Dharamsala.

In what way?

Well, they’re depressed, they’re angry, they’re afraid, they’re hopeless in many ways. They seem to have lost a basic equanimity that is part of what we know of as Tibetans and we come in contact with outside of Tibet. The kind of mental illnesses and violence that’s emerging in Tibetans in Tibet is really unheard of. This is one of the saddest things.

And I would think even for the Chinese to see that Tibetans are left with this only avenue to express themselves, it's got to tell them that they have done something wrong. Their policies have been wholly destructive to the Tibetan mind and heart.

And how has this affected other Buddhists?

This uprising is not the majority of Tibetans, but it’s an indicator of what’s been happening to the Tibetans. And as skilled as they are at transforming pain and suffering into compassion, into love, into patience, there are elements who are lacking the ability in how to do that. It’s gotten that bad.

We know Tibetans that have spent 20 years, 25 years in solitary confinement, tortured almost every day by the Chinese, who have been able to transcend it in some extraordinary way. And they’ve seen the challenge as an incredible vehicle for their own transcendence. It gives them the ability to transcend the last vestiges of ego. But these are extraordinary people who can do that.

The Dalai Lama tells a story about an older monk who escaped Tibet not long ago, and he came to see him in Dharamsala, and he vaguely remembered him from the early ‘50s in one of the large monasteries in Lhasa. And he hadn’t remembered him as being a particularly good monk. An average monk. He started to talk to him about his experiences in Chinese prisons. The monk said, "I was in great danger." And His Holiness was expecting him to tell stories of being tortured. And he asked, "In danger of what? And the monk said, “Danger of becoming angry.”

And at that point, His Holiness knew that it really was an extraordinary monk.

::read the whole interview here