Sikyong expresses concern over decreasing number of monks
President of Tibetan Government in exile, also called as Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), (Sikyong), Penpa Tsering has expressed concern at the decreasing number of monks in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in exile.
While addressing the Tibetan exiles in Lingtsang settlement in Dehradun, Sikyong highlighted the challenge of the decreasing number of monks in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in exile and stressed that according to the records of the Department of Religion and Culture of the Tiebtan government in exile the number of monks has decreased over the past three years. He further noted that the majority of current monks are from Himalayan communities.
Sikyong underscored the significance of Tibetan Buddhism as a source of pride for the Tibetan people and urged the youth to engage with its teachings. He said that the global attention towards the Tibetan cause is, in part, a reflection of the worldwide dissemination of Buddhism, a phenomenon attributed to the benevolence and hard work of the Dalai Lama.
He said that among all refugee communities worldwide, only Tibetans have a fully democratic system in exile. For the future stability of the Tibetan community, including the Central Tibetan Administration, he stressed the importance of abiding by local laws, properly registering organisations, following correct procedures for receiving foreign funds and carefully preserving land ownership documents. He said that the CTA plans to offer workshops to raise awareness about Indian laws.
Sikyong said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is forcibly transforming all ethnicities into Chinese people with communist ideology. In Tibet, there are increasing restrictions on teaching the Tibetan language and private schools teaching Tibetan are being closed, he said.
He cautioned the Tibetans living in exile of the value of the Tibetan language, especially as the medium for priceless Buddhist scriptures and philosophical texts. The Department of Religion and Culture is digitising important texts to create a Tibetan digital library to preserve Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan language has now entered the field of artificial intelligence, he said.
Sikyong said this year, through the joint strategic efforts of the Central Tibetan Administration, the International Campaign for Tibet, and other Tibet-related organisations, they were able to establish the Resolve Tibet Act in the United States. This Act recognises the Tibet-China conflict as an unresolved international issue and acknowledges Tibetans right to self-determination. This also illustrates that the US government is challenging China’s false narrative that Tibet has been a part of China since ancient times, clarifies that “Tibet” refers to all three traditional provinces of Tibet.
Sikyong said that the establishment of such legislation marks a new step forward in the Tibetan freedom struggle.
