"Your late father will be remembered for his pioneering role in establishing the first Tibetan language programme of All India Radio and for his dedicated life service to the promotion and preservation of our rich spiritual and cultural tradition. He also did much in helping Tibetan refugee communities at a very difficult time in their early years of exile. In his passing away, we have lost a great patriot and scholar."

PRLog (Press Release) – May 05, 2008 – Please see local newspaper's excellent coverage on Memorial Service:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SantaFeNorthernNM/Lobsa ...

Please also see prior press release: http://www.prlog.org/10068000-dalai-lama-translator-and- ...


The memorial was held in the Alumni Hall at the College of Santa Fe, an austere and metalic room many remarked seemed like the place folks would be found playing bingo, yet it was transformed by the generosity of Ira Seret and hung with Tangkas, and filled with Tibetan and Persian rugs and religious temple furniture, all arranged by Santa Fe Tibetan Tangka painter, Dorje Gyaltsen, to resemble a true Tibetan Buddhist Temple, from which many would both bid farewell and assemble their memories of Lobsang Lhalungpa....

Lobsang had translated extensively over the past 40 years for the Dalai Lama. Many of Lobsang's books were introduced with a short preface by His Holiness. He was instrumental in setting up the Tibetan Government in exile, and for many years in India coordinated a Tibetan language program on All India Radio, for refugees and exiles, to keep up with the news from their former nation. He was the best translator between Tibetan and English in the world, and his scholarly works included a life of Milarepa, the first translation of Mohandas Gandhi's autobiography into Tibetan, one of the first textbooks for Colloquial Tibetan, and many others.

This hit-and-run is a terrible tragedy for his widow, Gisela, and for his children and grandchildren, all of whom spoke at the Memorial in Santa Fe on Sunday, sharing their memories of their grandfather, and how proud because of him they were to be Tibetan.

Lobsang would not want any of us to be disconsolate; life is fleeting; death comes unpredictably, and that is much the nature at the heart of his faith in Buddhism. It was only a small surprise that Gisela spoke sympathetic words of the man who smashed into him and killed him, in essence forgiving him in a spiritual sense, but of course, leaving that to a court of law, in the temporal sense.

The memorial service was attended by 400 Santa Feans. Lobsang's son Sanphe works for the United Nations with UNICEF in Canada; he spoke at length and most eloquently, as a kind of Master of Ceremonies. Sanphe discussed how excited Lobsang was to be in India when that Republic was being formed, and how many of his friends and associates were Gandhians.

11 of the Drepung Monastery monks came all the way from Georgia for this Memorial, and chanted their farewell prayers to and for Lobsang.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's office in New York issued a statement that the Dalai Lama was personally very grieved by Lobsang's tragic death, which was read out by his son at the Memorial Service.

The Memorial was deeply moving, and a very healing event, even for the few agnostics and skeptics who were present....

Surely, this level of tragedy might impel the New Mexico Legislature to "tighten up the screws" on DWI, close up some looming loopholes, and keep those inevitable drunk drivers and killers off the streets and away from driving automobiles!

I personally have asked several New Mexico State Senators to ask the Cabinet Secretary for Public Safety and the New Mexico Attorney General to prepare a report on the past 100 incidents when someone has been killed by DWI, to see what it might reveal: about repeat offenders; how many are out on appeal, which is their right when going from our failed Magistrate Courts in New Mexico to District Court, even if they were convicted and still obviously a danger to life and limb among the rest of the population. This is one of many changes we expect to see come through the legislature.

I spoke with soon-to-be-New Mexico Senator and Santa Fe Attorney Peter Wirth not long after this tragic death of Lobsang occured; he told me that he was already planning introduce legislation to close one big loophole: that of allowing DWI's out on appeal when they appeal their case from Magistrate Court to District Court.

How many fatalities in New Mexico derive from just that loophole alone? As significant as that step is, and it is a major step, it is still a tiny incremental change compared to what we really need to do, and that is get DWI's off the highways permanently, whether by removing their license permanently, or intimidating them into not driving, or, in this case, throwing the book at them in terms of punishment, really serious and severe punishments.

 1  |  2

www.unitednationsundersecretarygeneralfornutrition.org

Stephen Fox is an art dealer from Santa Fe, founder of New Millennium Fine Art, an eclectic Santa Fe gallery since 1980. Active in international and Legislature Democratic politics, he is working towards a ban on Aspartame and the establishment of a New Mexico Nutrition Council, with powers to question and even challenge the FDA. He was a "snowball-in-hell" candidate for the US Senate in 1978, and has been deemed by a Taos newspaper as a "professional idealist," from the M.K. Gandhi/Eleanor Roosevelt wing of the Democratic party. He is presently the Managing Editor of the Santa Fe Sun News, a very alternative twice monthly newspaper based in the capitol of the Land of Enchantment. He cordially invites all Op Ed News readers to visit New Mexico in 2008!

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Other Articles by Author

Bookmark this page: (what's this?)

                                                 (More...)