Tibetan Dinner at Private Home in Guilford, August 3rd, 7 pm

Drepung Gomang Monastic University has produced many eminent Buddhist scholars and for

many years has been a very important Tibetan Buddhist learning center. While each of the

colleges of Drepung has its specialty, the focus of Gomang is philosophy, both logic and debate.

In 1959, after the violent occupation of Tibet by the Chinese Communist Government, Tenzin

Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, was forced to flee his country. He was

immediately followed by 80,000 refugees. Refugees continue to stream from Tibet, often at great

peril to their lives.

It is estimated that, since 1949 more than 1.2 million Tibetans have died at the hands of the

Chinese Communists, who continue to destroy the fragile “Third Pole” environment as well as

the people and culture of Tibet. In many areas inside what was a free Tibetan country, Chinese

settlers now outnumber the ethnic Tibetan population.

In the 1950s and 1960s, guided by the motto that “Religion is Poison”, the Chinese Communist

Government destroyed more than 6,000 of Tibet’s monasteries, including Drepung. During the

sixty plus years of their occupation thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have been

imprisoned, tortured, and executed, and the brutal occupation continues today.

About 100 Drepung Gomang monks managed to escape with His Holiness in 1959. They lived

first in Boxa, North India. In 1969, 62 of the surviving monks were given 42 acres of land in

Mundgod, South India where they began rebuilding Drepung Gomang Monastery. Today

approximately 2000 monks live there.

For more information about Drepung Gomang Monastery please visit

www.DrepungGomang.org.

For many years, the monastery has sent a small group of monks to the United States on a "Sacred Arts Tour" to spread the message of simple Buddhist values like compassion & impermenance as well as raise funds for their monastery and monks, many of whom are refugees living and studying there.