ABSTRACT
Toward midnight, late June of 2001, a police team comprised of Han Chinese and Tibetan officers surrounded a humble inn nestled in the foothills below the Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Academy (བླ་རུང་ནང་བསྟན་ཆོས་གླིང་།) in Larung Gar (གསེར་རྟ་བླ་རུང་སྒར); these foothills lie in Sertar County of the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. There, both Han and Tibetan pilgrims were awakened abruptly from their sleep and ordered to show their identification cards. The police commanded everyone to leave the area before 6:00 the next morning. This group of pilgrims, gathered together from different regions all across Tibet and China, had traveled from afar in hopes of paying homage to Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok (མཁན་པོ་འཇིགས་མེད་ཕུན་ཚོགས།), the renowned and charismatic Tibetan Buddhist teacher who founded the Academy.
