Tricycle | Awake in the World

Will cries of "Free Tibet!" drown out China's Olympic triumph? No, says Beijing, and hell no says the International Olympic Committee. Video of the protests. Several videos on YouTube and elsewhere with fleeting glimpses of the unrest. UPDATE: Protests at the Chinese embassy in Washington. More »

From the New York Times. 50 or 60 monks arrested. Dead bodies all around Lhasa. The government response to the Burmese protests was such a black eye for China, it is astounding they would raise the ire of the world again by firing on peaceful demonstrators themselves. Is it arrogance, or fear that motivates them? This should lead to many condemnations and Olympic boycotts. The world has so little leverage over China otherwise, and the games are so important to Beijing . More »

The International Campaign for Tibet condemns the Chinese government's excessive use of force against a peaceful demonstration, while the Chinese government news agency Xinhua says the Dalai Lama clique is responsible for causing unrest and damaging property. Meanwhile, in a piece of bitter irony, The Buddhist Blog notes the U.S. has removed China from its list of worst human rights offenders. More »

The Chinese police fired on protesters in Lhasa. There were deaths -- no word on numbers yet. The U.S. and E.U. More »

The Chinese embassy in Israel seems to have put pressure on Tel Aviv University to remove a Falun Gong flyer. Some students and faculty were appropriately outraged. An article on meditation myths. One myth? More »

 Is the U.N.'s Burma effort running out of steam? It doesn't seem like it ever had much. And sanctions haven't bothered the junta either. Blood rubies: Who's buying Burma's gems? Monks and some citizens staged a bold protest in Lhasa to celebrate Uprising Day. But Tibetan protesters in Greece (where the Olympic torch is lit) were blocked by police, and will face similar treatment in India. More »

The Tricycle pilgrimage to India was an eventful one, with so many sites visited we were all a bit winded by the end of it. This year, our unflappable Indian guide, Shantum Seth, took us down to the stone-temple caves of Ajanta and Ellora--truly spectacular. Stephen Batchelor and Shantum led mediations and teachings, and most memorable for me--after Ajanta and Ellora--was our visit to Sanchi, in Madhaya Pradesh. Sanchi is the site of some of the most well-preserved stupas and examples of Buddhist architecture. Stone structures spanning centuries are perched high on a hill overlooking the plains below. The great thing about Sanchi is that it spans a period from the third to the twelfth centuries. The earliest structures show no representation of the Buddha at all, in keeping with the tradition's focus on the teachings, not the man. More »

Two-part movie of a dai-sesshin at Bodhi Manda in New Mexico with Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the last of the O.G. Japanese Zen "missionaries" to America. (See A Century of Zen, about his hundredth birthday.) The film is by Tom Davenport, who writes: I will be taking this film off revver.com in a few days. This is a draft version -- there some mistakes -- Bodhi Manda is a "Zen Center" -- not a monastery. The Roshi leads about 18 seven days sesshins a year, not 30, but still an impressive number! More »

Burmese monks strike back at the junta's proposed constitution. Buddhist monks in Mandalay in upper Burma on Monday launched a harshly worded poster campaign urging a “Vote No” against the government’s referendum on a draft constitution, said sources close to the campaign. Meanwhile, the All Burma Monks Alliance earlier issued a hard-hitting statement ridiculing the referendum, the election and the regime. Teams of volunteers have put up anti-regime posters in Amarapura Township in Mandalay, a monk who asked not to be identified told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. “The posters say the current situation is more important than ‘a fire on your head,’” he said. “If your head is on fire, only you will die. If you endorse the constitution, the next generation will also die.” More »