World Tibet Network News Monday, May 04, 1998 (I)

By Fran Bauer of the Journal Sentinel staff

Madison, May 04, 1998, (Milwaukee Journal WI) -- He is a man without a country.

Yet in many ways Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama to rule Tibet as both its political and spiritual leader, is better known across the world today because he was forced to flee his isolated homeland.

After nearly 40 years in exile, the Dalai Lama, now 62, has been the subject of two motion pictures in the past year, and is venerated by such Hollywood figures as Richard Gere and Martin Scorsese, along with other Americans draw to the Tibetan Buddhism he practices. He's also become a worldwide symbol of his people's peaceful struggle against Chinese rule.

So the reception awaiting him May 13 to 15, when he makes his fourth visit to Madison, will be far different than on his first visit nearly 20 years ago, when his cause was largely unknown. Madison is the Dalai Lama's final stop on a two-week tour of four U.S. cities. The tour began Friday.

Only a small circle of local devotees awaited him back in 1979. But this time, Gov. Tommy Thompson and the State Assembly will be awaiting a short speech the Dalai Lama will give Wednesday at 1 p.m. in the state Capitol. Tickets to the Tibetan leader's evening public lecture were gone in just 17 hours, to the disappointment of many who hoped to see him.

Madison's top chefs have donated all the food for a $250-a-plate fund-raiser Thursday that will offset some of the cost of his visit. And to cap his visit, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will present him with an honorary degree during its commencement exercises Friday.

But the change most apt to please the Dalai Lama is the marked increase in interest in Tibetan Buddhism. In the last decade the number of English-language Buddhist centers had grown from 429 to 1,062, according to Time magazine.

More than 1,000 people from across the Midwest are expected to attend his three days of Buddhist teachings at Madison's Dane County Expo Center.

Madison was one of the first cities in the nation to have a Tibetan Buddhist center, now located in the nearby town of Oregon. And the center's leader, Geshe Lhundub Sopa, during his 30 years as an associate professor at UW, trained many of the professors now teaching Buddhism in the United States.

The center also has played a key role in bringing nearly 250 Tibetan refugees to Madison.

But all the popularity and the West's burgeoning interest in Buddhism have not brought the Dalai Lama the one thing he most wants. The world's leading Tibetan monk has never given up hopes of negotiating with the Chinese to allow him to return and re-establish a Buddhist-centered culture in his homeland.

To date, the Chinese show no signs of relenting in their drive to absorb Tibet and stamp out its religious origins. Since Tibet was invaded in 1950, nearly 6,400 of its monasteries have been left in shambles, according to the Dalai Lama's autobiography.

Today, thousands of Tibetans live in exile, largely in India. The refugees protest that the United Nations has not really listened or acted on behalf of their cause. So six Tibetans have conducted a hunger strike for the last two months. Last week in New Delhi a man set himself on fire and died to draw the world's attention to the plight of Tibetan refugees.

The Dalai Lama admitted after the man's death that he has no solutions that will sway the Chinese, other than his own deep belief in compassion and non-violence. But many of his fellow exiles are frustrated.

The brutality of the Chinese takeover of Tibet has come vividly alive for American audiences, thanks to two recent movies, "Seven Years in Tibet" and "Kundun." Both movies portray how as a boy, Gyatso was divined to be the latest reincarnation of all the previous Dalai Lamas.

For the Dalai Lama, fleeing Tibet became the only way he could keep its culture alive.

Yet it was hard for him to convince the world of Chinese brutalities, until 1989 when China burst into open conflict in its own Tiananmen Square to quell a student drive to promote democracy there.

A few months after the student revolt, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize, to become an international symbol of the basic human need for freedom from repression.

It has clearly helped the Dalai Lama to count among his followers such well-known figures as film actor Gere, who has openly promoted Tibet's cause whenever he's in the public's eye.

Sopa, the leader of the Tibetan Center here, has no fear of the Dalai Lama being affected by his famous friends. "What he teaches is based on longstanding traditions that are not altered to appeal to anyone. They are pure tradition," he said.

But the Dalai Lama does not hide the fact that he has met with plenty of skeptics. He admits he is often more comfortable talking on college and university campuses, where young people are far more open to searching for ways to preserve the environment and bring an end to war, than their more-cynical parents' generation.

There are 300 chapters across the country of "Students for a Free Tibet," according to Miranda Hofmann, a junior majoring in Southeast Asian studies who heads the UW-Madison chapter. The Madison group of about 25 students has worked hard to bring attention to the plight of Tibet's people, she said. "A lot of people of our generation are outraged at the atrocities that have happened in Tibet. Our U.S. government has done nothing, and even extended most favored nation trading rights to China."

Among the students' goals is building bridges to Chinese students on campus, "since we realize it is not the Chinese people but their government that is doing this to Tibet," she said.

The support of the students has been a gift for Sherab Gyaltsen Lhatsang, a board member of the Wisconsin Tibetan Association, which represents the refugees now living in Madison.

Lhatsang was among the 1,000 Tibetans the U.S. allowed to immigrate here in 1992, as long as local residents provided jobs, housing and support to help them start a new life.

"As a kid growing up in exile in India, it looked like no one cared about us. But now the students have become my inspiration because they believe in our cause," he said.

The Dalai Lama's visit is a balm for Lhatsang, since it keeps his faith strong that he will one day return to live peacefully in his Tibetan homeland.

"The Dalai Lama is our spiritual leader. I am here because His Holiness has dedicated his life for our cause. Now he's trying to spread across the world how our people are suffering and how we can all work together to bring peace."