Ge Da Huo Fo 格达活佛

Description:

People often say: the bright five-starred red flag was dyed in the blood of fallen revolutionaries. Yet among the martyrs whose blood soaked this flag was also a monk in a kasaya robe, a great lama of Tibetan Buddhism. His name was Ge Da, the Living Buddha. He was born in an ordinary village in Garze, into a poor family of serfs. At the age of five, after a rigorous selection, he was recognized as a reincarnation and enthroned at Baili Monastery as the Fifth Living Buddha Ge Da. At seventeen he went to Lhasa to study Buddhist scriptures at Drepung Monastery. Devoting himself to his studies, by twenty-four he had earned the monastery's highest scholarly degree — the "geshe" degree. The Living Buddha Ge Da politely declined the excellent opportunity to remain in Lhasa and returned to Kham, choosing the path of preaching to the poor farmers and herders, to the faithful. Then, just as the young Living Buddha Ge Da was hesitating over how best to "ferry all living beings across" for his "benefactors," the Central Red Army arrived. With the Red Army he went from avoidance to acquaintance, from acquaintance to closeness, from closeness to mutual aid. After the Red Army left, a small monastery, Baili, together with the local Tibetans, sheltered and protected more than four hundred wounded and sick Red Army soldiers. For this he was persecuted, so that he had to leave his homeland and flee for ten years. After the People's Liberation Army returned, he stood heart to heart with the people's government, until at last he gave his life for it. In July 1950, for the sake of New China and of safeguarding the unity of all ethnic groups, the Living Buddha Ge Da declined the invitation from Commander-in-Chief Zhu De and Premier Zhou to attend the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, and went to Tibet on a peace mission. His patriotic words and deeds won high praise from Tibetan monks and laypeople alike, but he was stopped in Chamdo and treacherously murdered by imperialists and pro-imperialist forces.