On a peaceful summer day in 1952, ten monks on horseback arrived at a traditional nomad tent in northeastern Tibet where they offered the parents of a precocious toddler their white handloomed scarves and congratulations for having given birth to a holy child—and future spiritual leader.

Surviving the Dragon is the remarkable life story of Arjia Rinpoche, who was ordained as a reincarnate lama at the age of two and fled Tibet 46 years later. In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao’s Communist "reeducation."

By turns moving, suspenseful, historical, and spiritual, Rinpoche’s unique experiences provide a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offer readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

Arjia Rinpoche is one of the most important religious leaders to escape Tibet since the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959. He started the Tibetan Center for Compassion and Wisdom (TCCW) in Mill Valley, California, and is the director of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center (TMBCC) in Bloomington, Indiana. He lectures across the world as a religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism and an authority on Tibetan art and culture.

	Contents: Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama's Account of 40 Years Under Chinese Rule
	Dedication	iii
	Foreword	v
	Introduction	vii
	Part I: Childhood	1
1.	My Mother has a Prophetic Dream	3
2.	Raised by a Family of 4000 Monks	18
3.	Life During the Great Leap Forward	31
4.	Following a Tibetan Hero	45
	Part II: Under the Dragon's Claw	57
5.	"Comets in the Sky, Chaos On Earth"	59
6.	Enter the Cultural Revolution	74
7.	Removing Paper Hats	88
	Part III: On The Political Stage	107
8.	A Communist Matchmaker Meets the Panchen Lama	109
9.	The Sacred Tree and the Time Machine	125
10.	Becoming a Political Buddhist	142
	Part IV: Taking Flight	171
11.	Stepping into my Birthright	173
12.	The Feast of Privilege Reveals its Price	190
13.	Final Days with the Dragon	211
14.	From Kumbum to Kumbum West	225
	Epilogue	239
	Appendix: How Buddhism Came to Tibet, and the Lineage of the Arjia Rinpoches	241
	Glossary of Terms and Names	246
	Acknowledgments	261