© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre (TRSHC), Darjeeling, INDIA

In the wake of the failure of the Lhasa Uprising, Khampas (Eastern Tibetans) who did not take to the hills to join the Chushi Kangdruk guerrillas left for exile in India in 1959. Amongst the eighty thousand Tibetans that left their homeland in exodus between 1959-1960, were the 14th Dalai Lama himself, a large part of the Lhasa government, the abbots and many monks from the great Lhasa and provincial gompas, land-owners of Central Tibet, and the faithful from all walks of life who headed the Dalai Lama’s warning of dire times ahead, under the heel of the Chinese Communists.

Continued flights, estimated in the numbers of 1,000 to 2,500 a year (with survival rates that ranges from 10-40% depending on the time of the year, where many died from starvation, disease and the vagaries of climate and landscape), and a second exodus of 25,000 between 1986-1996, have resulted in small but flourishing Tibetan communities totaling to 220,000 Tibetans dispersed in most large cities of America, Europe and East Asia. With hundreds of Tibetan gompas and temples being built, Tibetan Buddhism has been dubbed as one of the fastest growing religions in the world.

The success of the Tibetan diaspora and establishment in both the Indian sub-continent and the West has much to do with being blessed by the right spiritual leader of that era:

• The 16th Karmapa (the spiritual leader of the Kagyu order) through his foresight had prepared a sanctuary and a cache of treasure in Sikkim way before the 14th Dalai Lama’s flight. A wealthy and powerful order, his pre-planning and influence had enabled the Kagyu order to establish an independent foothold in exile.

• Similarly, Dudjom Rimpoche (head of the Nyingma order), had the support of the natives of the border community who were Nyingma devotees in Darjeeling during the exodus, and has remained independent to date.

• The 14th Dalai Lama on the other hand has won himself the repute of being a politician and spiritual man of rare integrity, acceptance and openness. Capitalising on his Tibetan devotees that provided the structure and a conduit for Western devotees, the 14th Dalai Lama had assumed a high media profile to further his crusade for the survival of Tibetan culture and the oppression of Tibetans in Tibet.

Non-Tibetan devotees in the heydays were diverse in personality, nationality, motive and intent; popular ones includes a French film-maker, an Indian Parsee grande dame, a Canadian ambassador, American and Scottish anthropologists and old-style hippie travelers who later established Tibetan Buddhist centres of their own in the West; all of which efforts have contributed towards the popular support for Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile’s political agenda and private promotion of numerous lamas who would continue to travel to the West.

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50 years on, there is a new generation of lamas educated in India, Nepal and the West, who never knew the rigours of Tibet and has been surrounded by a contemporary materialistic social environment.

50 years on, funds have poured into the lama’s coffers from across the world, extending to the new raising economies of North East and South East Asia whose practices and demands varies; giving rise to psycho-magical rites for devotees longevity, wealth, health and success – a concept where conspicuous consumption and Buddhism in one is loath by Tibetans, Indian sub-continent and post-Christian West.

50 years on, accusations of charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation of the naive (and weak – psycho-sexual training methods with female disciples by unscrupulous gurus), primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour and radically different teachings has crept in *.

Despite all of this and the evolution of the religion, Tibetan Buddhism in ‘borrowed lands’ has culminated in more followers than the population of Tibet.

But more heart retching is: despite all of the media attention, global acceptance and international endorsement of the Tibetan government in exile (with 10 Central Tibetan Administration offices in the world: New Delhi, India; New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; London, UK; Canberra, Australia; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Pretoria, South Africa; and Taipei, Taiwan) the disproportionately high numbers of women (lamas aside) who had survived the first exodus and had spent half a century or so in secluded refugee centres in the Himalayan plains knows only of one Tibetan culture and one  spiritual leader whom they rest their hopes on for a better Tibet and a return trip to Tibet, their homeland.

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* ‘Dance of 17 Lives’ by Mick Brown – a good, light read that provides a broad overview of Tibetan Buddhism and in-depth account of the Kagyu school, the 16th and 17th Karmapa, and a colourful in-sights of the charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation, primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour (drugs and sex) and radically different teachings.

The 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism : (1) The Nyingma School – the ‘old school’ (2) The Kagyu School - ‘teaching lineage’ (3) The Sakya School – ‘gray earth’ (4) The Gelugpa School – ‘virtuous school’. The 14th Dalai Lama is from the Gelugpa school.

Click HERE for a summary of the differences in the 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism.