Posted on 05/28/2002 8:14:51 AM PDT by dead
Curious, even disturbing, is the way so many non-Buddhist Australians blur the lines between respect, reverence and worship in their attitudes toward the Dalai Lama. Critical reflection on the man and his message hardly seems to figure in their estimation of him.
This is not entirely the fault of the Dalai Lama. His visit to Australia last week was not a promotional tour and he is adamant that he is not in the business of seeking converts. Indeed, the Dalai Lama consistently cautions people against switching from their religion to his or believing that they can fully understand even the meditative traditions of Buddhism without a strong background in Buddhist practice and theory.
But you don't have to become a devotee to nonetheless be taken in.
The Dalai Lama seeks to excite the "innate spiritual nature" of people so that they might choose kindness and affection in their relations to others rather than anger, hatred or the temptation to exploit.
Christian church leaders promote the same message, but when they do they tend to be ignored or scorned, whereas the Dalai Lama is regarded as a welcome breath of fresh air.
This is partly because his approach is intuitive rather than discursive, inclusive rather than exclusive, gently encouraging rather than reproachful or overly instructive. With the Dalai Lama one seems to be getting the essence of religious insight without the froth and bubble of dogma and doctrine or the hard and fast rules of moral behaviour.
The trouble is that when religion is leeched in this fashion of too much content, all that is left is platitudes - or worse, banalities.
Take the Dalai Lama's answer to a question put to him at the National Press Club in Canberra on Friday about his views on euthanasia.
Like abortion, he said through an interpreter (thus choosing his words carefully), "these are very complex issues on which it is very difficult to make generalised statements because the individuality of each context would be so different that it is something that needs to be judged - the merits of its decision - based upon context by context".
You would get more enlightenment than this listening to Lisa tackle a moral dilemma in an episode of The Simpsons.
In fact many of the Dalai Lama's comments on international problems and their solutions - the sort of complex issues on which he is prepared to make generalised statements - tend towards the naivety of a primary school pupil at an end-of-year speech night. When children talk about the need for more caring and sharing in the world, adults smile knowingly - which is to say that we, unlike they, appreciate life's complexities. Ironically, when the Dalai Lama says the same thing, we call it wisdom and applaud.
The other part of the Dalai Lama's appeal is his exoticness. He is unusual, as well as untypical, which is interesting in itself but also means he represents something people can dabble in without understanding too much about it and thus having to be fully challenged, engaged or, dare one say, committed.
The Dalai Lama, of course, plays down his distinctiveness and for this he can and should be criticised. He claims to be just another ordinary human being but nothing could be further from the truth.
How many ordinary human beings are believed by millions of people to be the living emanation of the Buddha of compassion? How many have won a Nobel Peace Prize (as the Dalai Lama did in 1989)? How many ordinary human beings are global celebrities with a global network of powerful and influential friends? How many hob-nob it with movie stars or have had Hollywood genuflect before them as the Dalai Lama did when Martin Scorsese made Kundun in 1997 - a film that was virtually an authorised biography of the Tibetan leader?
The Dalai Lama's popularity in the West says much about its need for heroes, its search for meaning, its longing for those things (holiness, integrity) that seem to be missing from many of its institutions. And yet Western culture stands for just about everything a Buddhist is supposed to renounce.
The relationship, in other words, is intriguing and as it develops it may benefit both sides in ways that can't now be imagined. But nobody is going to get too far unless each party is frank with the other and dismissive of mere pap.
Chris McGillion, the Herald's religious affairs columnist, teaches in the school of communication at Charles Sturt University.
You're so ignorant.
Let’s see:
The Dalai Lama does not praise Communism.
- FreeTheHostages
When I visited China in the early 1950s, I could see that a lot of people had given up everything in order to help bring about a transformation in society… They were so passionate about their ideals that they would stop at nothing to achieve them. And in their leader, Mao Tse-tung, they had a man of great vision and imagination, someone who realized the value of constructive criticism and frequently encouraged it… Yet the pursuit of Communism has been one of the greatest human experiments of all time, and I do not deny that I myself was very impressed with its ideology at first…Some of the responsibility for the excesses of Communism rests squarely on the West…However, in as much as I have any political allegiance, I suppose I am still half Marxist. I have no argument with capitalism, so long as it is practiced in a humanitarian fashion, but my religious beliefs dispose me far more towards Socialism and Internationalism, which are more in line with Buddhist principles.
- The Dali Lama
I guess it depends on what the meaning of ignorant is.
While the Dali Lama has spoken out against "the excesses of Communism", he has not rejected the underlying tenets.
Like your average doe-eyed, upper westside liberal, he just feels that the wrong people keep trying to pull it off. One day, I guess, we’ll do communism right.
And that's why -- although I'm accused of being a "drama queen" for saying it -- I say it again: have some respect for someone who's fighting the sage battle with all he's got.
Nice try at revisionist history.
I called you a "drama queen" because you equated the comments on this thread with the destructive actions of the Taliban.
Orphans of the Cold War :
America and the Tibetan
Struggle for Survival
by John Kenneth Knaus
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
From the Chinese Revolution of 1911 until after the Second World War, Tibet enjoyed de facto independence from China. When China invaded Tibet in 1950, some in Washington saw support for the Himalayan nation's self-determination as a legitimate challenge to resurgent world communism.Orphans of the Cold War is the inside story of America's clandestine support of Tibetan resistance, written by a 44-year veteran of the CIA who helped organize the training of Tibetan agents in Leadville, Colorado and their deployment on the high Tibetan plateau. America's military aid to Tibet was much more substantial than generally realized, with airdrops of supplies into the interior and the maintenance of 2,000 guerrillas in Mustang, Nepal, throughout the '60s. John Knaus's description of these daring operations is contextualized by excellent analysis of the diplomacy of the period, especially at the UN. This is a colorful adventure story, supported by unique photographs of the "Roof of the World," with a cast of characters that includes presidents, ambassadors, Tibetan herdsmen, and the Dalai Lama. It is also a heartbreaking story of courage operating against ultimately impossible odds.
,,, to assist you further, the Dalai Lama and your very own Billy-Jeff Klinton are here on my home turf right now.
The Chinese government has told our politicians it wouldn't be at all happy if they made a big deal out of the Dalai Lama's visit. Accordingly, Prime Minister Helen Klark is spending time with Billy-Jeff. She's rubbed shoulders with him a few times at socialist leaders conferences. They both make me want to vomit.
The Dalai Lama doesn't attend these conferences.
Not only are you a bigot, but you're a creep as well. You sit there in your haughty "all-knowing" atheism spewing your endless empty platitudes of hate for Catholics--and every other person who might dare to believe in God-- on every thread you post. You sick pervert.
I twas at that point that the Dalai Lama decided military resistence to Chinese communism was futile, it would only lead to every Tibetan being exterminated.
The trouble is that when religion is leeched in this fashion of too much content, all that is left is platitudes - or worse, banalities.
Who was it that said (paraphrasing) 'little minds discuss people, mediocre minds discuss event, great minds discuss ideas'? We can only aspire, of course, but we're not aspiring at the moment, it seems to me. The article is about ideas, however trivial, which is why I find it interesting, not about who the celebrity from the pages of People magazine named Dalai Lama is, or what Kennedy did or didn't do to Tibet. And the idea this article begins to explore is the coctail party fascination of the Western bourgeoise with some exotic religions that may or may not be relevant to the Western way of life.
So, since we're all so disappointed with the way this thread has proceeded, this is my own private disappointment. Oh, well, I'll just go back to that Entertainment Tonight website that I discovered by seeing the list of websites visited by a missing intern who had a master's degree in something or other. Like heavy, man!
That's because the Dillweed Llama pleases the ruling power of this dispensation. Of course the world is going to "ooh" and aah" over his every fatuous utterence.
Jesus Christ was rejected in favor of a common criminal, scourged, spat upon, and nailed to a tree. He did not spend his days jet-setting, luxuriating in opulent splendor, and wining and dining with and being praised by the Herods and Salomes of his age.
The ruling power of this dispensation was not nearly as pleased with Jesus Christ; nor is he pleased with Jesus Christ's faithful followers.
The bourgeois rarely stick with it, the fascination centers within the elite or wanna-be elite community. And Buddhism is a mainstream religion, nothing exotic about it. As far as Westerners being fascinated by the orient, in 1886, Henry Adams,grandson of John Quincy Adams, studied Buddhism and art in Japan while seeking comfort after the suicide of his wife. On his return, he commissioned Augustus Saint-Gaudens to sculpt a simple memorial based on Japanese/Zen themes. "Grief" stands today--in Rock Creek Park, near where Chandra's body was discovered.
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