Yesterday morning, His Holiness the Dalai Lama drove from his residence at Shewatsel Phodrang to the Kalachakra Temple at the far end of the teaching ground. Inside, a group of monks from several local monasteries, including Samten Ling, Spituk, Rizong, Likir and Zanskar, who have formed a Kalachakra practice group, were conducting a Kalachakra ritual. An old thangka painting of Kalachakra hung on the wall before them and a painted mandala had been laid out in the mandala pavilion. His Holiness saluted these and the statue of the Buddha before taking his seat with the monks and joining in their recitation.

Next, he moved to address 70 delegates, who attended the just concluded U-tsang Annual General Body Meeting here in Leh, and who were sitting on the veranda of the temple. He leafed through their written report as prayers were chanted.

“We Tibetans of the Three Provinces of Tibet have been united since the time of the great religious kings. King Songtsen Gampo married a Chinese princess, and yet when he decided to create a Tibetan form of writing, he chose to model it on the Indian alphabet. He was someone with far-sighted vision and a strong Tibetan spirit.

“At the time of King Trisong Detsen, on Shantarakshita’s advice, a project was begun to translate Indian Buddhist literature into Tibetan. This was the source of the more than 300 volumes of the Kangyur and Tengyur we have today.

“As a result of profound and extensive study of the classic treatises there were many great scholar-adepts in Amdo, Do-tö and Central Tibet.

“More recently we have been living through difficult times, but Tibetans in Tibet have a strong spirit of resilience. They have worked hard to keep our language and culture alive. What’s more, there are today increasing numbers of Chinese taking an interest in Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism in particular. Students from the University at Lanzhou told me that the Chinese may rule us now, but in the long term we’ll be teaching them. Chinese communists used to call me all sorts of names, but lately they seem to have stopped.”