Dalai Lama's Advice Runs to Earthier Tones

Even leader sees that time's running out on non-confrontational 'middle way'

(NEWSER) - Tibetans still support the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” policy of negotiating for greater autonomy under Chinese rule, the Christian Science Monitor reports, but a conference of Tibetan exiles that ended today in India revealed many are growing impatient with Beijing’s endless foot-dragging. Members of the conference said there was a limit to their support for the middle way. More»

Dalai Lama's brother was key to CIA-backed anti-China insurgency

(NEWSER) - The little-known Tibetan resistance struggle after China's 1950 invasion still affects its politics today, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Dalai Lama's brother played a vital role in the CIA-backed armed movement, largely made up of Buddhist monks, and Chinese suspicion still lingers over how much the spiritual leader himself was involved. More»

(NEWSER) - The Dalai Lama has told Tibetans his successor should not bear the burden of being both spiritual and political leader to their community, the Independent reports. "When we put the whole responsibility in the person of the Dalai Lama, it is dangerous," he said in a video address at a Tibetan election symposium in India. Tibetans need both a spiritual and a "democratically elected" political leader. More»

Spanish-born Lama says order 'was like living a lie'

(NEWSER) - When he was still a toddler, Osel Hita Torres was brought from Spain to an Indian monastery, where the Dalai Lama proclaimed him the reincarnation of one of Tibetan Buddhism's spiritual leaders. But Torres, now 24, has abandoned the order and returned to Spain, where he studies film and says he has no affection for the Buddhists who worship him almost as a god. "It was like living a lie," he told a Spanish newspaper. More»

Ex-pats turn Himalayan town into counterculture zone

(NEWSER) - Western ex-patriots have turned the Dalai Lama's home-in-exile into a hippie hotspot, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The Himalayan town of Dharamsala, population 20,000, has become a center for for espresso-sipping yoga-lovers and web-surfing monks. Many more come in search of wisdom, but the town is not without its “charlatans,” says one settler. More»