Free Republic

There is no better way to proclaim your lack of spiritual and philosophical depth than by, two decades after the fall of communism, disclosing that you're a Marxist. Yet this is precisely what Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama did during a speech before 150 Chinese students at the University of Minnesota this month. Journalist Tsering Namgyal reports on the story at Religion Dispatches, writing, "'as far as socio-political beliefs are concerned, I consider myself a Marxist.' 'But not a Leninist,' he [the Lama] clarified." Well, that's a relief. Those Leninists can really kill ya'. Marxists will just murder you....

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him. "Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. "(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.