Buddhism, the religion of peace (TM)
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.
I'm shocked that he would have anything positive to say about Communism and Mao, but on the same page he says the earth is our "Mother" and, (I'm paraphrasing), "she's pretty mad at us", so I'd expect that he would be all for socialist environmentalism.
HOWEVER, THAT REMARK ABOUT US BEING PARTLY TO BLAME FOR COMMUNIST BRUTALITIES AND MURDERS BECAUSE WE WERE HYPER-SUSPICIOUS: I FIND THAT REMARK DISGUSTING AND OFFENSIVE!!!
What's "samsara"?
How would you explain the central doctrines of Buddhism? What beliefs must a person hold to be considered a true Buddhist?
and I do not deny that I myself was very impressed with its ideology at first. The trouble was, as I soon discovered, that although Commmunism claims to serve 'the people'--for whom there are 'people's hotels', 'people's hospitals,', 'people's armies' and so on--'the people' does not mean everyone, only those who hold views that are held by a minority to be 'the people's views'.
Buddhism, the religion of peace (TM)
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