Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother's Story

by Diki Tsering

Other authorsKhedroob Thondup (Editor)

Hardcover, 2000

Status

Available

Collection

Himalayas/People (Blue)

Publication

Virgin Books (2000), 174 pages

Description

Born to humble but prosperous peasants in 1901, the Year of the Ox, Diki Tsering grew up a simple girl with a simple life and the ordinary ambition to be a good wife and mother. When faith and fate led her son Lhamo Dhondup to be recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, her world altered completely. In "Dalai Lama, My Son" she recounts her own amazing story from her early life with her "tended family and siblings to the customs and rituals of old Tibet and her arranged marriage at age sixteen. She vividly recalls the births of her children and their Buddhist upbringing; His Holiness, unfolding personality; the visitors who came to her town to seek the new Dalai Lama; the family's arduous move to Lhasa; and the years there until the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the family's escape and eventual exile. Rich in historic and cultural details, this moving glimpse into the origins of the Dalai Lama personalizes the history of the Tibetan people, the magic of their culture, the role of theirwomen. and their ancient ideals of compassion, faith, and equanimity.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member meggyweg

The memoirs of the ordinary Tibetan housewife who became the Dalai Lama's mom. Diki Tsering was illiterate, but her niece tape-recorded interviews with her before her death in 1980 and those interviews became this book. I most enjoyed the first half, where Tsering talks about her childhood and

early adulthood in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. Life in that time and place was very simple and had a lot of beauty, but a lot of harshness too. Tsering writes about the bad treatment of women in Tibetan society -- a daughter-in-law was basically a slave, and widows were compelled to remarry whether they wanted to or not -- and about how, of her sixteen children, nine of them did not live past infancy. Yet she clearly enjoyed her early life, surrounded by a loving family, and knowing very well her place in the world.

I thought the second half of the book, about the Dalai Lama's rise to power and the family's escape to India, was much weaker. I don't know much about the Dalai Lama's life or the situation in Tibet and I couldn't understand a lot of what was going on. I think if I knew more I would have liked this part better. For this reason I would recommend this as only a supplement to learning about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

Can you imagine the bragging rights this woman must have had? Other people's sons get good grades in school or are star soccer players; her son was GOD.

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