News of a large statue of Guru Rinpoche recently moved at Samye Monastery calls to mind "Four Rivers, Six Ranges." This was the nominal designation of Tibetan guerillas based in Kham, who waged unsuccessful resistance warfare in the 1950s. This expenditure of blood and treasure... what did it gain? What I mean to say is that when you hear of such things, there is always this tendency to react...to aggressively wish something. But, we should stop and think. Getting angry at the Chinese doesn't help anything... planning reprisals doesn't help anything... shouting slogans doesn't help anything. Quite possibly, we don't know all the facts surrounding the Samye matter.
Then.. there is this quotation from H.H. Dalai Lama XIV:
"The ability to look at events from different perspectives can be very helpful. Then, practicing this, one can use certain experiences, certain tragedies, to develop a calmness of mind. One must realize that every phenomenon, every event, has different aspects. Everything is of a relative nature. For example, in my own case, I lost my country. From that viewpoint, it is very tragic--and there are even worse things. There's a lot of destruction happening in our country. That's a very negative thing. But if I look at the same event from another angle, I realize that as a refugee, I have another perspective. As a refugee there is no need for formalities, ceremony, protocol. If everything were status quo, if things were okay, then on a lot of occasions you merely go through the motions; you pretend. But when you are passing through desperate situations, there's no time to pretend. So from that angle, this tragic experience has been very useful to me. Also, being a refugee creates a lot of new opportunities for meeting with many people. People from different religious traditions, from different walks of life, those whom I may not have met had I remained in my country. So in that sense it's been very, very useful."
