The International Campaign for Tibet says the railway to Lhasa is hurting Tibet. Not surprisingly, China disagrees.

Beijing hopes to bring together politics and religion by appointing its handpicked Panchen Lama to a high government post. The Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama in importance in the dominant Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Panchen Lama recognized by the Dalai Lama and most Tibetan Buddhists has been held by the Chinese authorities since the early 1990’s. The Panchen Lama chosen by Beijing is the one the world sees and who now seems destined to get into politics.

A great post on those pesky diacritic marks that trip up so many of us over at the Level 8th Buddhist. These things always slow me down when I’m trying to write Pema Chödrön. A small o with the umlaut is & # 246 ;

Also, be sure to visit the Zen Zone (”pleasure island”) if you go to Disney World. It’s a mecca of massage. Thanks to Zen Filter for this one.

Terrible news:

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 is behind bars, but that one in 100 black women is.

All the more reason to support the Prison Dharma Network (and their beautiful new website) and other great folks bringing the dharma to this growing sector of our society.

 Seems the monkeys in Bodh Gaya are attarcted to the sweet offerings left by pilgrims. But the hordes of arboreal primates are more damaging to the tree, say its attendants, than the Tamil Tigers’ attack on the site in 1985, left many dead, but didn’t hurt the tree.

Guards ring bells, burst crackers or flash torch lights to scare off the invading primates, but Buddhism won’t allow the use of violence to deter the monkeys.

There’s crazy stuff going on in Buddhism in Japan. Here’s a rapping monk, Shaka Munibutsu, with some rhymes to slap you out of samsara and guaranteed to decrease your dukkha. He’s on a mission to bring the dharma to young folks. Hope he’s on YouTube soon!

Thaksin’s back in Thailand! The ousted PM returned home Thursday. He’s promised to stay out of politics but many doubt this claim, calling it a “political game.”

Nicholas Kristof discusses the other genocide in the Sudan in a region far poorer than Darfur.

“Burmese Democracy”:
The San Francisco Chronicle joins the chorus decrying Burma’s faux democracy in this editorial. The U.N.’s envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, wants a “credible and inclusive” roadmap to democracy. Gambari is in Tokyo, sipping sake and chatting with the Japanese about ramping up their aid to Burma. They cut it back after journalist Kenji Nagai was killed during the pro-democracy protests.

The Tamil Tigers say eight civilians were killed in two government ambushes. In the same period, nine Tigers were also killed in two clashes with the government. Journalists are barred from the conflict zone so details are necessarily spotty. Sri Lanka is a majority-Buddhist state with a long-running civil war. The Tamil Tigers, a nationalist organization of Hindu Tamils from northern and eastern Sri Lanka, are fighting the government in hopes of gaining political independence, but in southern and western Sri Lanka and other countries they are considered a terrorist organization, and were early pioneers of the suicide bomb.

And another sad post on our oceans.

Falun Gong defies the government… the city council of Wellington, New Zealand, that is.

Tum-mo and your mind/body:

In a monastery in northern India, Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room, deep in meditation. Although the room was a chilly 39˚ F, the men - using a yoga technique known as Tum-mo - were scarcely clothed, but seemed unaffected by the cold. Nearby, other monks soaked large sheets in freezing cold water and placed them on the shoulders of the meditators. Within an hour, the sheets were dry.

Scientists who have studied the monks - some of whom were capable of raising the temperature of their fingers and toes by 17˚ F - have yet to determine how the meditative process was able to generate so much heat. But they agree about one thing - the mind can manipulate the body in to doing quite unexpected things. Can we train it to better control our bodies when they are cold, injured or under stress?

Herbert Benson, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston believes so. He has developed a “relaxation response” which he describes as “a physiological opposite to stress”. It can produce changes in metabolism; breathing rate, heart rate and thermoregulation, and Benson’s team have used it to treat anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia and even fertility problems. “I want to investigate what advanced forms of meditation can do to help the mind control physical processes once thought to be uncontrollable”, he says.

The global seed vault opens (or closes?) in Norway. (So Titan A.E.!) I wish I lived in Norway.

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway, February 26, 2008 (ENS) - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened today on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving the first shipments of what will be a collection of 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries. Unique varieties of the African and Asian food staples maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum as well as European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato are the first deposits in the icy vault.

At the opening ceremony, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg unlocked the vault and, together with Nobel Peace Prize laureate environmentalist Wangari Maathai of Kenya, placed the first box of seeds inside.

Containing varieties of rice seeds from 104 countries, the box was opened during the ceremony, and then resealed before being placed in the vault.

“With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization,” said Stoltenberg.

Maathai, founder of the African Green Belt Movement, said, “The significant public interest in the seed vault project indicates that collectively we are changing the way we think about environmental conservation. We now understand that along with international movements to save endangered species and the rainforests of the world, it is just as important for us to conserve the diversity of the world’s crops for future generations.”

[Photo by Mari Tefre, courtesy Crop Diversity Trust]

There’s so much great stuff to be found out there on the Buddhist blogs. Here’s just a tiny taste:

Anyone planning to be in New Haven, Connecticut on April 11th should check out Danny Fisher’s lecture, “What Does a Buddhist Chaplain Do? A Dharma Practitioner’s Reflections on Spiritual Care and Counseling” at the New Haven Shambhala Center.

The Buddhist Geeks continue their conversation with Brad Warner, who as all Hardcore Zen fans know is critical of Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind process.

A great Zen story from Master Seung Sahn (slightly changed) on Marcus’ Journal.

And a wonderful post from last week on The Level 8th Buddhist about the Joys of Devotional Buddhism (including quotes from the Pali Canon, if you like quotes from the Pali Canon.)

Bodhipaksa has a book out on vegetarianism as a Buddhist practice, and you can read sections of it on his blog. Thanks to Going for Refuge for pointing it out.

And for all us internet old-timers, Netscape is finally dead. Thanks to Simra.net for the pointer (and for helping develop Firefox.)

Deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is expected back in Thailand February 28th.

After President Bush imposed fresh sanctions on Burma’s business interests, The Irrawaddy says Burma’s Asian neighbors, who are bigger trading partners than the U.S., need to do the same.

Reuters on Monlam Chenmo, Tibet’s Great Prayer Festival. More on Monlam from Phayul.com. There was also a clash reported in Amdo province between Tibetans celebrating the event and Chinese authorities.

The International Campaign for Tibet reports that police in Nepal raided a Tibetan refugee center and handed a man there over to the Chinese authorities. And in related news, the Chinese government complains that more border crossings are needed to increase trade between Tibet and Nepal.