Gassho.

B.

Namaste.

Get a grip.

I e-mailed further with the friend of “Marguerite,” my sangha sister, looking for more confirmation, and got this reply.

My friend received from Marguerite, separately:

“The photo is authentic according to a number of photoshop professionals who have put it under the scrutiny. However, as the day rolls on some within the TSG community are questioning if this is an older photo. We are also aware of a number of telephone conversation with relatives in Tibet where accounts during the protests run like this:elder monks asked the “violent” monks to stop, sit down, and when spoken in Tibetan the “violent” monks did not understand the language. These accounts are unfortunately unprovable and unpublishable in mainstream journalism.

Regards,

Marguerite”

my friend continues:

“I have heard from a number of people here in the Tibetan community that their family in Tibet is telling them the same thing, or variations on that theme. Does “maha” have connections in Tibet? I am a bit reluctant to send it [my question] on to Marguerite, as she sounds as if she is pretty frantic right now. I will watch for developments on the list and send you anything that I do see. I should add though, that my friend who is Chinese confirmed that this is precisely the kind of thing that the Chinese do and have done. And Dagmola made some interesting comments about some of the things that the Chinese did when they initially invaded Tibet to demoralize the Tibetans that also involved this kind of “nonsense”! The Chinese military would overwhelm a monastery and then force the monks to change their robes for Chinese uniforms and then send them out to be killed by their fellow Tibetans who naturally thought that they were killing the Chinese invaders, and when they discovered their mistake they were so horrified that much of their resistance was gone.”

I also checked in with my temple’s Rinpoche - he was a monk as a child, grew up in a labor camp being secretly taught by the other prisoner lamas, then served his monastery under the PRC eye. He said this kind of trick was a common thing seen in the military, although he has no way of confirming this particular photo.

“This recently came through the tsg-list, and we have a few professional photoshop people double checking it’s authenticity; initial word back indicates this is an original photo. A number of people in the group are working on global mainstream media publishing, and hope you too can try to get some coverage.
Onward,
Marguerite”

[link removed]

Beijing orchestrating Tibet riots

Just in case you wondered why these “Tibetan monks” were so violent in Lhasa….