There is a part of me that is thankful for the Tibetans in Lhasa, Kathmandu, Dharamsala, the remote areas of Tibet and the other parts of the world who are so willing to take a stand for basic human rights that they would risk their very lives for it.

For Tibetan Buddhists, there is nothing more precious than this human life that each of us has, for it is through this life that we can work to dedicate our every action to ending suffering for each and every sentient being.  As a Tibetan Buddhist, I recognize and share in this moral imperative to serve and save even the most minute self-aware form of life.

Imagine, then, the immense amount of compassion and loving-kindness that a person must have for the rest of her or her people and culture to make the ultimate sacrifice and put this life on the line to face down Communist China in an effort to preserve those few remaining shards of the most peaceful civilization to ever inhabit this planet.

To be thankful for the protesters in India and Tibet can not be a good thing.  And yet, I am a mere mortal, possibly eons away from Nirvana,  and to deny what I feel in the here and now would be just as bad as acknowledging those same human emotions.  All I can do at this point is raise my voice in prayer with tens of millions of others, remaining constantly hopeful that something will change, somewhere, in order to stop the Tibetan genocide.

Om mani padme hung.  I dedicate any merit that I have ever obtained to the end of suffering for all beings, especially those who have carried the weight of a lost Tibet on their shoulders for 50 years.