Many Tibetans, who as Buddhists believe in successive lives and karma, see the Chinese destruction of their religion as a karmic lesson.

"It is easy to get angry at the Chinese for destroying our religion and culture, but Tibetans believe in karma, so they think all their suffering must be from their own negative karma," said Jikme Thubten, a 46-year-old monk from the Nechung monastery in Dharamsala, India, who was visiting relatives in Queens.
As one of approximately 20,000 monastics living in exile, Thubten said he believes it is his duty to preserve his religion and culture, which have been endangered by more than half a century of Chinese Communist occupation.

Prior to the Chinese occupation in 1950, there were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, home to 600,000 monks and nuns who made up 20 percent of Tibet's population. In Lhasa, Tibet's capital, monks and nuns once accounted for half of the population.

By 1979, after the 30 years of religious persecution and the dismantling of Tibetan culture mandated by Mao, only 13 monasteries remained. Religious art had been melted down, frescoes destroyed, and texts burned or used as toilet paper. Many monks and nuns were forced to give up their vows and marry, and thousands have been killed and tortured for resisting the Chinese occupation.

The Chinese government has permitted a resurgence of Tibet's religious culture since the 1980's by rebuilding some of its monasteries and temples allowing religious behavior such as prostrations before the Jokhang, the holiest temple in Lhasa. But in the 1990's, perhaps in part as a response to the Tibetan uprisings in the 80's, the Chinese reinstated extremely repressive policies, which included banning pictures of the Dalai Lama. All monks and nuns were forced to undergo "patriotic reeducation" and sign a statement professing their commitment to the Motherland and denouncing the Dalai Lama, and placing a strict cap on the monastic population, which numbers around 43,000. People who wish to study to become monks or nuns in Tibet today have to do so in secret or go to Nepal or India, where the Tibetan government in exile has set up a government under the leadership of the Dalai Lama.

Some monks in exile feel fortunate to be able to follow a renunciant tradition that has existed since the time of the Buddha despite the challenge of maintaining one's vows in a secular environment.

"I have the opportunity to be a monk, and many people in Tibet do not," Lama Pema Dorje of the Nechung Foundation said.