Surviving the Dragon is the story of Arjia Rinpoche’s growing up as the reincarnated abbot in Kumbum, one of Tibet’s major monasteries.  As a child, he was treated like a living Buddha; as a young man he emptied latrines, but after the death of Mao Tse Tung, he rose to prominence within the Chinese Buddhist bureaucracy.   When he was slated to become the tutor of the Chinese selected Panchen Lama, he fled Tibet rather than betray his Buddhist religion and his Tibetan and Mongolian heritage.  Rinpoche’s unique experience provides a rare vantage on this tumultuous period of Tibetan and Chinese History as well as a glimpse of life inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

Surviving the Dragon opens a window to events from inside Tibetan-Chinese history during the final half of the twentieth century, a conflict that continues today.