Lhadon Tethong & Tendor Dorjee: Connection, Contentment, & Independence

A Wild and Beautiful World

“One of the words for which I haven’t been able to find an English equivalent is the word ‘nyingjey’...you'll hear Tibetans say this word very often, if you have a friend who is a little bit down, or there is a suffering animal nearby or a wounded bird or a wounded deer on the road… nyingjey, nyingjey. It's an expression of compassionate empathy, but it's not exactly the same as pity or ‘poor you’, that doesn't capture it, it's much more of an offering of solidarity. You’re trying to almost…becoming one with the other that's suffering, so eliminating the distinction or the line that divides us.”

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A friend of mine introduced me to Lhadon and Tendor by describing them as badass Tibetan activists who work at the intersection of human dignity, spirituality, and climate. Given the arc of the podcast, I was convinced–and boy am I glad that I was. They touch herein on the complexities of exile, the parallels between American and Canadian treatment of indigenous peoples with what China is doing right now in Tibet, the importance of contentment, the misuses of Buddhism by CEOs and others, greenwashing, the Dalai Lama, the speed of culture change, and Chinese exceptionalism. When she was deported from China following an arrest for a protest, government functionaries called Lhadon “a threat to the stability of China”. It may seem absurdly hyperbolic that such thoughtful and gentle activists threaten one of the most powerful nations on Earth, but it may be true, in precisely the same way that the right wing is correct to be threatened by climate activists. The vision that Lhadon and Tendor offer here is not compatible with repression, nor with the exploitation of humans or the natural world–and that vision is also irresistible. Materialism can be infectious sometimes but so can its opposite and therein lies our best chance for survival. Lhadon Tethong is a Tibetan-Canadian political activist, the co-founder and director of the Tibet Action Institute, and a former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, a global network of students and activists dedicated to advancing Tibetan freedom and human rights. Tenzin Dorjee is an activist and the author of The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis; he is also a former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet. His writings have been widely published and he is a frequent radio commentator on Tibet-related issues. He is currently working on his PhD on the influence of religion on political conflict at Columbia.

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Many thanks to Hank Lentfer for the use of his gorgeous nature sounds, and to Lindsay Jaeger for the cover art.