Tibetan Diaspora
Only a hundred thousand Tibetans left their homeland in the wake of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1959. Thirty-five years later, small but flourishing Tibetan lay communities exist in most large cities of America, Europe and East Asia, hundreds of Tibetan gompas and temples have been built in the Indian sub-continent and around the world, and Tibetan Buddhism has become one of the fastest growing religions on the planet. The Dalai Lama himself, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has international status as a man and politician of rare, if not unique, integrity, and has assumed a high media profile in his crusade for the survival of Tibetan culture and for the oppressed people of his country. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Geluk order and his name is well known, but performing the same quality of spiritual guidance are scores of other lamas with similar status within their communities of Tibetan, Asian and Western disciples. How has this tiny number of representatives of a nation of four million people achieved such international renown?
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