噶玛巴今天呼吁藏人停止自焚

路透社11月9日从北京发出报道，称流亡佛教领袖噶玛巴周三向中国境内的教徒们发出呼吁，停止自焚，并希望能找到更有建设性的方法来促进藏人的事业。（这是自3月首例自焚发生以来，首位流亡的藏传佛教领袖公开呼吁停止自焚，虽然晚了些，但总好过沉默无语。）

噶玛巴称赞今年在四川自焚的11位藏人的勇气，在绝望中用行动来反抗压迫。他通过电子邮件发出声明说：“局势是令人难以忍受的艰难，但困难的局势更需要我们的勇气和坚定。每一次自焚的消息都让我的心感到刺痛，在佛教教义中，生命是宝贵的。我们需要保存我们的生命来达成我们的目标，我们藏人人数本身就为数不多，每一个藏人的生命对于我们的事业都是珍贵的。”


Senior exiled Tibetan urges end to immolations

(Reuters) - One of Tibet's most senior exiled Buddhist leaders, the Karmapa Lama, appealed on Wednesday for Tibetans in China not to set themselves on fire, saying he hoped they found more constructive ways to advance their cause.

The Karmapa Lama fled Tibet in 2000 and lives in exile along with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in northern India, the center of the self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile.

The Karmapa Lama said the 11 Tibetans who have set themselves alight so far this year in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan were "brave," acting in desperation "against the injustice and repression under which they live."

"The situation is unbearably difficult, but in difficult situations we need greater courage and determination," he said in an emailed statement.

"Each report of self-immolation from Tibet has filled my heart with pain," the Karmapa Lama said.

"In Buddhist teaching, life is precious. To achieve anything worthwhile we need to preserve our lives. We Tibetans are few in number, so every Tibetan life is of value to the cause of Tibet."

China has blamed the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama for the burnings, and repeated the government line that Tibetans are free to practice their Buddhist faith.

The Dalai Lama, whom China condemns as a supporter of violent separatism, in late October led hundreds of monks, nuns and lay Tibetans in prayer in his adopted homeland in India to mourn those who have burned themselves to death.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, denies advocating violence and insists he wants only real autonomy for his homeland.

The Karmapa Lama appealed to China to "heed Tibetans' legitimate demands and to enter into meaningful dialogue with them instead of brutally trying to achieve their silence."

The immolations have happened in two heavily Tibetan parts of Sichuan -- Ganzi and Aba -- where many see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan region encompassing the official Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas across the vast highlands of China's west.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)