The life of a dissident lama

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Tibetan-​​Mongolian monk Arjia Rinpoche has just released his book Surviving the Dragon that chron­i­cles his remark­able life story. Abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after wit­ness­ing the tor­ture and arrest of his monastery fam­ily, Arjia 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.” Pema Dhondup speaks with him about his expe­ri­ences dur­ing this tumul­tuous period of his­tory and the rea­sons he fled to exile.