Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who lives as a refugee in India. The Dalai Lama is also considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
The Central Tibetan Administration, often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, composed of a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch.
Gedun Drupa was considered posthumously to be the 1st Dalai Lama.
A tulku is a reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism who is given empowerments and trained from a young age by students of his or her predecessor.
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet. Gyatso is credited with unifying all Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang after a Mongol military intervention which ended a protracted era of civil wars. As an independent head of state, he established relations with Qing Empire and other regional countries and also met early European explorers. Gyatso also wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects.
Norbulingka is a palace and surrounding park in Lhasa, Tibet, China, built from 1755. It served as the traditional summer residence of the successive Dalai Lamas from the 1780s up until the 14th Dalai Lama's exile in 1959. Part of the "Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace", Norbulingka is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was added as an extension of this Historic Ensemble in 2001. It was built by the 7th Dalai Lama and served both as administrative centre and religious centre. It is a unique representation of Tibetan palace architecture.
Tibetan Americans are Americans of Tibetan ancestry. As of 2020, more than 26,700 Americans are estimated to have Tibetan ancestry. The majority of Tibetan Americans reside in Queens, New York.
Jetsun Pema is the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. For 42 years she was the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages (TCV) school system for Tibetan refugee students.
The 14th Dalai Lama, known as Gyalwa Rinpoche to the Tibetan people, is the current Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibet, and a retired political leader of the nation. His teachings are about the peace of mind, the holiness and love. Born on 6 July 1935, or in the Tibetan calendar, in the Wood-Pig Year, 5th month, 5th day, he is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Guanyin. He is also the leader of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa. The central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties until his exile in 1959. On 29 April 1959, the Dalai Lama established the independent Tibetan government in exile in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie, which then moved in May 1960 to Dharamshala, where he resides. He retired as political head in 2011 to make way for a democratic government, the Central Tibetan Administration.
The Tibet Institute Rikon is a Tibetan monastery located in Zell-Rikon im Tösstal in the Töss Valley in Switzerland. It is an established as a non-profit foundation because Swiss laws resulting from the 19th century secularization movement did until 1973 not allow for the establishment of new monasteries.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
The CIA Tibetan program was a nearly two decades long anti-Chinese covert operation focused on Tibet which consisted of "political action, propaganda, paramilitary and intelligence operations" based on U.S. Government arrangements made with brothers of the 14th Dalai Lama, who was not initially aware of them. The goal of the program was "to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among several foreign nations".
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) is a Tibetan non-governmental nonprofit human rights organization.
The Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981) was a Gelugpa Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo. He succeeded Ling Rinpoche as the junior tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama was nineteen years old. He was also a lama of many Gelug Lamas who taught in the West including Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten and Lama Yeshe. Trijang Rinpoche's oral teachings were recorded by Zimey Rinpoche in a book called the Yellow Book.
The Kunpan Cultural School, provided by the Swiss-Tibetan foundation ES Tibet, is located in Dharamshala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
Protests and uprisings in Tibet against the government of the People's Republic of China have occurred since 1950, and include the 1959 uprising, the 2008 uprising, and the subsequent self-immolation protests.
Lha Charitable Trust – Institute For Social Work and Education (Lha) is a grassroots, nonprofit organization, and one of the largest Tibetan social work organizations based in Dharamsala, India. It is the first organization that was established in exile to develop a primary focus on Tibetan social work. The Lha Charitable Trust was founded in 1997 and is registered as a charitable trust by the Himachal Pradesh government of India. Lha is managed by Tibetan refugees, is supported by volunteers and contributors from around the world, and serves refugees, the local Indian population and people from the surrounding Himalayan region. In a short period of time, the organization "has grown in leaps and bounds, from a small start-up with two computers to one of largest community based Tibetan NGOs in Dharamsala." Lha is a sacred Tibetan word that means "superior body" or "energy body", whereby the "Lha body" exists between the physical body and the mind.
Gyalo Thondup, born c.1927, is the second-eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama. He often acted as the Dalai Lama's unofficial envoy.
Antireligious campaigns in China refer to the Chinese Communist Party's official promotion of state atheism, coupled with its persecution of people with spiritual or religious beliefs, in the People's Republic of China. Antireligious campaigns were launched in 1949, after the Chinese Communist Revolution, and they continue to be waged against Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and members of other religious communities in the 21st century. State campaigns against religion have escalated since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party on November 15, 2012. For Christians, government decrees have mandated the widespread removal of crosses from churches, and in some cases, they have also mandated the destruction of houses of worship, such as the Catholic Three Rivers Church in the city of Wenzhou. In Tibet, similar decrees have mandated the destruction of Tibetan Buddhist monastic centers, the destruction of sacred Buddhist sites, the destruction of monastic residences, the denial of the Tibetan people's right to freely access their cultural heritage, the ongoing persecution of high Buddhist lamas and the ongoing persecution of Buddhist nuns and monks. Reports which document the existence of forced re-education camps, arrests, beatings, rape, and the destruction of religious sites in Tibet are also being published with regard to the Uyghur people, who are allegedly being subjected to an ongoing genocide.
