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Just Glum
Steven,
I couldn't bear to watch the President last night and the inevitable post-speech discussions. I flipped restlessly through the channels until I came to a PBS piece on the restoration of a temple in Mustang, Nepal. Mustang is ethnically Tibetan and was part of Tibet before the Chinese invasion.
The 15th century temple is being restored in a joint European effort. The wall paintings are being worked on by the same man who restored the Sistine Chapel.
They are works of immense power and beauty, as fine as anything done in the West at the same time, which would have been the high Renaissance.
The reason I mention this is, Tibet previously was a warring state, as feared in Asia as Ghengis Khan. Their warriors were the most ruthless and they extracted a lot of tribute from China.
In the 14th Century, Tibet completely laid down their arms -- I mean completely. They devoted their interests to the necessities of life and spirit.
They built exquisite temples and developed one of the most sophisticted and pure forms of Buddhism, the Vajrayana.
Just though I'd mention this on the eve of war.
Sincerely,
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