Here is an interview of His Holiness with Barbara Walters discussing the role and importance of the Dalai Lama.


Namgyal Monastery was founded in 16th-century Tibet by the second Dalai Lama, Gendun Gyatso. The monastery was established as an esteemed center of learning, contemplation, and meditation on the vast and profound Buddhist treatises. As a result of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and one hundred thousand Tibetans fled to India and Nepal. Among the original refugees were 55 monks from Namgyal Monastery. Namgyal Monastery was re-established nearby the new residence of His Holiness. To this day, nearly fifty years later, the Tibetan religious, artistic and intellectual traditions are being preserved and maintained through the cooperative effort of the Dalai Lama and the Namgyal monks. Because Namgyal monks assist His Holiness the Dalai Lama and are frequently traveling with him, they require a more streamlined course of study focusing on the essentials of sutra and tantra. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has innovatively addressed and modified the traditional curriculum, including a new syllabus and program of study, which is becoming a model for other Tibetan monasteries.

On November 17, 1950, His Holiness was called upon to assume full political power after some 80,000 Peoples Liberation Army soldiers invaded Tibet. In 1954, he went to Beijing to talk peace with Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese leaders. His efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to Sino-Tibetan conflict were thwarted by Bejing's ruthless policy in Eastern Tibet, which ignited a popular uprising and resistance. This resistance movement spread to other parts of the country. On 10 March 1959 the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, exploded with the largest demonstration in Tibetan history, calling on China to leave Tibet and reaffirming Tibet's independence. The Tibetan National Uprising was brutally crushed by the Chinese army. His Holiness escaped to India where he was given political asylum. Some 80,000 Tibetan refugees followed His Holiness into exile. Today, there are more than 120,000 Tibetan in exile. Since 1960, he has resided in Dharamsala, India, known as "Little Lhasa," the seat of the Tibetan Government-in-exile. In the early years of exile, His Holiness appealed to the United Nations on the question of Tibet, resulting in three resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in 1959, 1961, and 1965, calling on China to respect the human rights of Tibetans and their desire for self-determination. With the newly constituted Tibetan Government-in-exile, His Holiness saw that his immediate and urgent task was to save the both the Tibetan exiles and their culture alike. Tibetan refugees were rehabilitated in agricultural settlements. Economic development was promoted and the creation of a Tibetan educational system was established to raise refugee children with full knowledge of their language, history, religion and culture. In Washington, D.C., at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1987, he proposed a Five-Point Peace Plan as a first step toward resolving the future status of Tibet. This plan calls for the designation of Tibet as a zone of peace, an end to the massive transfer of ethnic Chinese into Tibet, restoration of fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms, and the abandonment of China's use of T ibet for nuclear weapons production and the dumping of nuclear waste, as well as urging "earnest negotiations" on the future of Tibet. In Strasbourg, France, on June 15 1988, he elaborated the Five-Point Peace Plan and proposed the creation of a self-governing democratic Tibet, "in association with the People's Republic of China." However, on September 2, 1991, the Tibetan Government-in-exile declared the Strasbourg Proposal invalid because of the closed and negative attitude of the present Chinese leadership towards the ideas expressed in the proposal.