My Tibetan Childhood

In My Tibetan Chldhood, Naktsang Nulo recalls his life in Tibet's Amdo region during the 1950s. From the perspective of himself at age ten, he describes his upbringing as a nomad on Tibet's eastern plateau. He depicts pilgrimages to monasteries, including a 1500-mile horseback expedition his family made to and from Lhasa. A year or so later, they attempted that same journey as they fled from advancing Chinese troops. Naktsang's father joined and was killed in the little-known 1958 Amdo rebellion against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the armed branch of the Chinese Communist Party. During the next year, the author and his brother were imprisoned in a camp where, after the onset of famine, very few children survived. The real significance of this episodic narrative is the way it shows, through the eyes of a child, the suppressed histories of China's invasion of Tibet. The author's matter-of-fact accounts cast the atrocities that he relays in stark relief. Remarkably, Naktsang lived to tell his tale. His book was published in 2007 in China, where it was a bestseller before the Chinese government banned it in 2010. It is the most reprinted modern Tibetan literary work. This translation makes a fascinating if painful period of modern Tibetan history accessible in English.

Steeped in the Buddhist traditions of wisdom, compassion, and the interconnectedness of all things, Tibetan childrearing practices are a refreshing new way to prepare for and raise children. This book provides a practical introduction to these practices and an integrated system of childcare that incorporates body, emotions, mind, spirit, relationships, and environment. Authors Anne Hubbell Maiden and Edie Farwell cover all aspects of traditional Tibetan parenting from conception onwards, both exploring ancient techniques and reinterpreting them for a modern audience. Far more than just a parenting guide, the book is a fascinating look into an intimate and revered part of Tibetan culture. It makes a welcome addition to the library of newlyweds, expectant parents, and parents with children of all ages who are interested in a practical approach to parenthood that recognizes community and everyone's responsibility to both self and planet.

One of the world's spiritual leaders and a renowned wilderness photographer combine their vision of Tibet in this stunningly beautiful book. Essays by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama appear with Galen Rowell's dramatic images in a moving presentation of the splendors of Tibet's revered but threatened heritage. When Chinese communist troops invaded Tibet in 1950, the author was fifteen years old and the spiritual and temporal ruler of a nation the size of western Europe. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, appealed to the United Nations for help and then fled across the Himalaya in winter to a border town, where he anxiously awaited political aid that never came. Like the mythical kingdom of Shangri-La, Tibet had sought isolation from the rest of the world. Diplomatic relations and foreign visitors had been shunned, and few people in the West knew what cultural and natural treasures lay threatened there. In the years that followed, the Dalai Lama struggled to maintain peace in Tibet and to protect his people's ways, but in 1959 he was forced to flee to India, where he remains today. There he has established a government in exile in Dharamsala that has endeavored to preserve Tibetan culture while preparing for a peaceful return to a free Tibet. As the Chinese cautiously opened select Tibetan doors to visitors in the 1980s, a sickening realization stole over the rest of the world: Tibet had been ravaged by the Chinese occupation. All but a dozen of Tibet's six thousand monasteries had been destroyed. Much of the once-bountiful wildlife had disappeared. A sixth of the population had perished. The picture seemed so bleak that many wondered whether there was anything worth saving in this wounded land. The Dalai Lama's heartening answer and Galen Rowell's magnificent photographs leave no doubt that the mystery and enchantment of Tibet, though seriously endangered, are still alive. To Tibetans the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of the Buddha of compassion. He has spent the last thirty years tirelessly advocating nonviolence and compassion to all living things as the answer to Tibet's plight. "My religion is simple," he says, "my religion is kindness." My Tibet movingly elaborates this message: here the Dalai Lama offers his views on how world peace, happiness, and environmental responsibility are inextricably linked. He explains the meaning of pilgrimage for Tibetan Buddhists and gives an engaging account of his early life in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. In addition, he reveals many sides to his nature--compassion, profound faith, common sense, generosity, a playful sense of humor--in personal reflections matched here to 108 photographs of the land he hasn't seen since 1959. Together the breathtaking photographs, which express Rowell's own commitment to the natural world, and the Dalai Lama's observations help preserve the enduring meaning of Tibet's culture, religion, and natural heritage.

This book tells the remarkable story of Soname's triumph over adversity, told against the backdrop of a turbulent and dangerous Tibet. Soname was born in the harsh Tibetan countryside during the Chinese occupation. When she was just sixteen Soname risked death in a freedom trek across the Himalayas, finally arriving in Dharamsala, home in exile of the Dalai Lama. Even after managing to escape from Tibet, she faced further dangers and heartache in India, being forced by destitution to give her daughter away. Soname later managed to reach England, where she met and married an Englishman and came to live in Brighton. Her hidden talent was discovered when she sang a traditional Tibetan song at a wedding reception, unaware that a member of a famous band was a guest. Concerts followed. Tracing her long-lost daughter has long been Soname's preoccupation, and it is hoped that her daughter will finally join her in England later this year. Hers is a story of immense will, unbelievable courage and, above all, an indomitable soaring free spirit.

Jetsun Pema, the Dalai Lama's younger sister, offers a rare and poignant account of life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation--a world that is lost forever. She presents her story from her childhood, growing up in pre-invasion Tibet, to her work today as a minister of the Tibetan government. These courageous and moving words are an enduring testament to the indomitability of the human spirit. photo insert.

On a peaceful summer day in 1952, ten monks on horseback arrived at a traditional nomad tent in northeastern Tibet where they offered the parents of a precocious toddler their white handloomed scarves and congratulations for having given birth to a holy child—and future spiritual leader. Surviving the Dragon is the remarkable life story of Arjia Rinpoche, who was ordained as a reincarnate lama at the age of two and fled Tibet 46 years later. In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao's Communist "reeducation." By turns moving, suspenseful, historical, and spiritual, Rinpoche's unique experiences provide a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offer readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.