Join the Thank You Tibet! campaign in support of the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is inviting you to join the Nobel Peace Laureates in the Thank You Tibet! campaign at www.thankyoutibet.org. The campaign, which runs until March 1, is presented by the Tibet Fund in collaboration with the PeaceJam Foundation, the Nobel Women's Initiative and the DLC.


"What if the Dalai Lama had not crossed the Himalayas into India in 1959?" asks the DLC's founding director Victor Chan. "What if he had been able to spend the last 50 years in the dark, drafty thousand-room Potala Palace? Studying, meditating and looking though his telescope at Lhasa’s bazaars, wishing he could experience life simply as an ordinary Tibetan? The world might know of his and his people’s existence. But would they care?"

Chan points to the 12,000 centres scattered across the globe devoted to the spiritual and the contemplative, to pursuits that encompass meditation, therapy, yoga and other mind, body and spirit activities, which he attributes to the catalyzing influence of Tibetan teachers.

"If the Dalai Lama and his 80,000 followers had remained in Tibet, would this flowering of the spiritual have happened? I’d like to think that it would have. But perhaps on a much smaller scale. Other religious traditions embrace similar wisdom insights. But they don’t have any spokespeople with the profile of the Dalai Lama, and their practice is mostly confined within the rarified cloisters of religion."

The DLC and Thank You Tibet! invite you to send a message of support and appreciation to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people for sustaining their culture of wisdom and compassion over 50 years and for their steadfast commitment to nonviolence as the path to peace.   
 
Create a message in any medium—video, music, visual art, photography, and/or text—to express the ways that Tibetan culture and spirituality have inspired you and changed your life. 

Messages will be presented during a special program with the Nobel Peace laureates, Philip Glass, Robert Thurman, Michael Imperioli and others at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City on March 4, 2010.  Messages will also be given to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and leaders of the Tibetan exile community at a later date.  

Sign the Nobel Peace Laureates Statement of Support, which was delivered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama in October 2009 by Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams. Sign the Statement at www.thankyoutibet.org

By saying Thank You Tibet! you will be celebrating the Tibetan people's courageous spirit and Tibetan culture as a cherished part of our global heritage.  

"Today, I’m tempted to say that for many, “that which makes life worthwhile” has been immeasurably enriched by 50 years of Tibetans living in our midst," says Chan. "For me, I have no doubt that this is the case."

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