Climb Every Mountain

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is head of the Tibetan government in exile and religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Many Buddhists believe he is the human embodiment of compassion. (Photograph by Thomas Kelly)

he Tibetan exile community is concentrated in Dharamsala, a high mountain refuge in India where His Holiness the Dalai Lama lives and where the Tibetan Parliament in Exile convenes. For nearly 40 years, the Dalai Lama has led his people in nonviolent protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Thanks in large part to the Internet, this community is now wired to world, helping a dispersed people keep culture, tradition, and hope alive.They also have immediate access to Toronto-based World Tibet Network News, set up by Tseten Samdup, the North American member of the Parliament, in the 1980s to collect and disseminate information to Tibetans and their supporters worldwide.

Samdup used to rely on the fax machine to transmit news stories to media around the globe, but the Internet has made him much more efficient. "I could stand in front of a fax machine for hours trying to send long-distance faxes all over the world," said Samdup. "Now I do it all on my computer in minutes and reach far more people."

When asked about the impact of the Internet age, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, "Good things happening or bad things happening -- it's very essential to know both. Any technology which helps to bring news and imagery is very, very useful."

Of all the burdens humans fall prey to, few weigh so heavily on the heart as exile. To be cut off from that singular place called home is to live with ceaseless sorrow. For Tibetans living outside their ancestral country on the vast Himalayan plateau -- what geographers call "the roof of the world" -- the burden of exile that began with China's occupation of their country in 1950 has been lightened by the Internet. (Photograph by Thomas Kelly)

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