ANTH 455: Religion and Globalization in East Asia Professor Gareth Fisher Imagined Identities: The Tibetan Government-in-exile and the Western Vision of Tibet

I recently had an encounter with the Dalai Lama. I did not seek him out by going to a retreat or a high-profile talk, but instead found him nestled between Coldplay and Damien Rice on an iTunes play list. The selection was the audio version of his best-selling book, " The Art of Happiness " and the locale was a friend's music collection, accessed through music sharing on Yale wireless. The event meant little at the time, but in researching Tibet and its history with the Western world, I realized that encountering the Dalai Lama in iTunes on a virtual network reveals much about Tibet's unique place in the Western imagination and how the Tibetan government-in-exile has used this imagined Tibet and Western methods to popularize Tibetan Buddhism and strengthen its claims to Tibetan independence. Tibet has played an unusual role in the Western psyche for centuries. We have seen this isolated region, tucked away far in the snow-capped mountains of Asia, as mysterious and familiar—impenetrable and pristine, and yet embodying all the ancient wisdom and religious significance that we have lost in our material and modern world. Through both historical and mystical constructions, we have built up the vision of Shangri-la and sought any scraps of information that supported our vision. With the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the subsequent flight of the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans in 1959, the West finally could observe and interact with those Tibetans in exile and seek to learn " the art of happiness " and other snippets of ancient