Tibetans in India enjoy freedom, says Dalai Lama

GUWAHATI: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who is in exile in India, has stated that Tibetans, who are staying in India enjoy freedom.

“We Tibetans became refugees. In our own country, there is a lot of control, but here in India we have freedom,” the 14^th Dalai Lama said.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Siliguri from Sikkim on Thursday (December 14).

In Siliguri, the Dalai Lama will deliver teachings to devotees at the Sed-Gyued Monastery, where he is visiting after a gap of 13 years.

Dalai Lama arrived at Siliguri in West Bengal after completing a three-day tour of Gangtok in Sikkim.

Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama gave a teaching on December 12 at the Paljor Stadium in Gangtok, Sikkim.

Over 30,000 devotees from different parts of the Northeast and across Sikkim gathered at the Paljor Stadium in Gangtok, Sikkim to hear the Dalai Lama.

The focus of the teachings centred on the “Thirty-seven practices of Bodhisattvas”, accompanied by a ceremony for generating ‘Bodhichitta’ for the well-being of all sentient beings.

Subsequent to the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, during the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama escaped to India, where he continues to live in exile while remaining the spiritual leader of Tibet.

On April 29, 1959, the Dalai Lama established the independent Tibetan government in exile in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie, which then moved in May 1960 to Dharamshala, where he resides.

He retired as political head in 2011 to make way for a democratic government, the Central Tibetan Administration.