Kalon Tripa addresses non-Tibetan audience in US
Friday, 9 February 2007, 10:20 a.m.
Washington D.C: Kalon Tripa, Samdhong Rinpoche, had a special tour of the Capitol (Congress Building) yesterday afternoon. In the evening, he gave a talk to a predominantly non-Tibetan audience at the International Campaign for Tibet’s (ICT) conference room.
Prior to the talk, Kalon Tripa had a tour of the ICT office and met with the staff members. He was introduced to the staff by ICT President John Ackerly.
In his talk, Kalon Tripa gave an overview of the Tibetan position in the dialogue process.
He also talked about his personal involvement in the Tibetan public work when around the age of 20 when he fled to India, his root teacher, Trijang Rinpoche, the junior tutor to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, had advised him to devote himself to His Holiness.
He said since then he had been doing that. In the process, Kalon Tripa said he found that there are two issues that are close to His Holiness: promotion of the ideals of non-violence; and democratization of the Tibetan society.
Accordingly, the Kalon Tripa said he had tried to understand these two issues better and to put them into practice.
In response to a question about the reasons behind the campaign of criticism that the Chinese have launched against His Holiness, Kalon Tripa said that it might be that they see His Holiness’ moral struggle and his Middle Way approach as a threat. He said if this is the reason then it is without basis.
He said that His Holiness’ Middle-Way Approach is a well-considered one. It was formulated not to appease the People’s Republic of China, but done so on the basis of truth and the need of the Tibetan people.
Kalon Tripa said that if the Chinese campaign were done to provoke the Tibetan people and the Tibetan Administration in exile, it would not work.