The Tibetan violence of 3.14 has taught me one thing. By and large, the DKos community don't know Tibet. I don't dare to say that I do. But I do know that the Dalai Lama is not the glowing living saint that the western media makes him. Quite the contrary, I'm afraid that His Holiness may represent another religious fundamentalism that is completely opposite to the modern western values.
I will try to expose some of His Holiness views in the following parts:
- His views on peace and violence; Of particular interest to us, his views on war in Iraq;
- His views on relationship with other religions;
- His views and actions towards religious dissent within his people;
- His views on democracy;
- His views on science and evolution;
I hope these views will give you a picture of the Dalai Lama that is not presented to the western media. These views show him as an extreme religious fundamentalist, the kind similar to Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. It is ironic that the liberals in this country who never supported any Christian fundamentalist would embrace the Dalai Lama with open arms. I would quote Christopher Hitchens as the introduction.
The greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation, rather than the other way about. The "spiritual leader" of Tibet has enjoyed this unassailable status for some time now, becoming a byword and synonym for saintly and ethereal values. Why this doesn't put people on their guard I'll never know. But here are some other facts about the serene leader that, dwarfed as they are by his endorsement of nuclear weapons, are still worth knowing and still generally unknown.
- On peace and violence
The image of the Dalai Lama has always been one of peace loving buddha. He promotes love, understanding, and human rights throughout the world. He is even opposed to violent means for the struggle of Tibetan independence.
But behind this facade of peace loving buddha, occasionally His Holiness' fondness for violence pops out. Hitchens already hammered His Holiness on his support of India's nuclear test. But there are other, earlier episodes of embracing violence. He had no problem accepting CIA funding to the tune of $1.7 million per year (in 1960s dollars) to "pay for guerrilla operations in China."
In the case of war in Iraq, his stand is not so clear cut, probably because it's hard to break with his nonviolent image. But he did say
it might be necessary to fight terrorism with violence, and that it is too early to say whether the war in Iraq was a mistake.
- Relationship with other religions
When the Dalai Lama meets with the Pope, he talks of "religious harmony." But when he is not with the Pope, he condemnsthe Christians and Muslims for trying to convert nonbelievers.
"Whether Hindu or Muslim or Christian, whoever tries to convert, it's wrong, not good," the Dalai Lama said Thursday after a meeting with leaders of the World Hindu Council.
He spoke after the Hindu Council's general secretary, Ashok Singhal, had said, "Buddhism, Hinduism and other non-aggressive religions have to unite to douse Islam ... an aggressive religion."
The Dalai Lama and others signed a statement saying: "We oppose conversions by any religious tradition using various methods of enticement."
- Treating religious dissent
This is where as both a spiritual leader and a head of a state, he can truly do some serious damage. And he has provided us with a very good example on how he would treat religious dissent.
There is a small Tibetan buddhist sect who are Dorje Shugden (a presumed Tibetan Buddhist deity) believers. The Dalai Lama himself was a pupil of one of these believers. Since the 70s, the Dalai Lama declared that worshiping Dorje Shugden would do harm to him (the Dalai Lama), therefore such practices should be banned. Within the Tibetan buddhist circle, His words are laws. Consequently monks and nuns were forbidden to worship Dorje Shugden. In 1998, when His Holiness visited New York, he faced strong protests
"He is using his speech as a powerful political weapon to destroy the spiritual lives of millions of Dorje Shugden practitioners," said Kelsang Dekyoug of the Dorje Shugden International Coalition.
But Robert Thurman, president of Tibet House in New York, says the Dalai Lama has not enforced a ban at all, but has said that people who wish to worship Dorje Shugden should not associate themselves with the Dalai Lama. He says this group does not represent most Buddhists.
"He (the Dalai Lama) found the impact of the people who worshipped it to be negative in the community because they are very exclusivist," Thurman said.
But it didn't stop here. The followers of the Dalai Lama resorted to violenceto stop dissent.
Tibetan Buddhist monks loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama stormed a monastery near Lhasa and attacked statues of a deity denounced by him, Chinese state media reported in a rare glimpse of religious dissension in disputed Tibet.
Seventeen lamas entered the Ganden Monastery on March 14 and tore down two statues, including an image of Dorje Shugden, a deity criticized by the Dalai Lama since the 1970s, the Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
- On democracy
I'll just quote a leftwing blogin Australia
Dharamsala and the Dalai Lama's commitment to democracy seems weak. An Office of Tibet document claims ``soon after His Holiness the Dalai Lama's arrival in India, he re-established the Tibetan Government in exile, based on modern democratic principles''. Yet it took more than 30 years for an Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies to be directly elected from among the 130,000 exiles. Of 46 assembly members, only 30 are elected. The other 16 are appointed by religious authorities or directly by the Dalai Lama.
All assembly decisions must be approved by the Dalai Lama, whose sole claim to the status of head of state is that he has been selected by the gods. The separation of church and state is yet to be recognised by the Dalai Lama as a ``modern democratic principle''.
Even the Dalai Lama's commitment to allowing the Tibetan people a genuine act of self-determination is debatable. Without consultation with the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama openly abandoned his movement's demand for independence in 1987. This shift was first communicated to Beijing secretly in 1984. The Dalai Lama's proposals now amount to calling for negotiations with Beijing to allow him and his exiled government to resume administrative power in an ``autonomous'', albeit larger, Tibet. The Dalai Lama's call for international pressure on Beijing seeks only to achieve this.
- On science and evolution
The Dalai Lama is a well-learned man. He has always had a strong interest in science, as long as it doesn't conflict with his religious doctrine.
In the matter of evolution versus creation, the Dalai Lama is definitelyin the anti-science camp.
In a new book, "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality," the Dalai Lama laments what he calls "radical scientific materialism," warning that seeing people as "the products of pure chance in the random combination of genes" is an invitation to nihilism and spiritual poverty. "The view that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles is, to my mind, as much a metaphysical position as the view that an organizing intelligence created and controls reality." Both, he suggests, are legitimate interpretations of science.
Known for his enthusiastic interest in cosmology and neuroscience, the Dalai Lama was offering an opinion, not an agenda. But compare his words to those of the Discovery Institute in its call for the overthrow of scientific materialism - "the simplistic philosophy or world view that claims that all of reality can be reduced to, or derived from, matter and energy alone." The institute says it hopes "to reverse the stifling dominance" of this perspective and replace it with a "science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Whether whispered from Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's home in exile, or expounded from the institute's headquarters, such a rejection of a purely physical reality is a proposition that the pope might well be comfortable with. At his installation this spring, he declared: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."
All in all, this is a very right-wing, hardcore conservative type religious leader. What makes him so much more dangerous than other fundamentalists, is that he is indeed the only leader of miilions of followers who actually believe that he is a living god. But he is not a god. Why are there so many leftwing liberals fascinated by this guy? I can only attribute that to ignorance.
Update: I cannot believe that I got TR for this diary. I cannot believe that so many people on DKos are small minded and close minded. I cannot believe that people here actually do hate China and Chinese. I cannot believe that DKos is as bigoted and arrogant as Redstate.
Everything I posted here is sourced to reputable sources. I did not compare the Dalai Lama to the Discovery Institute. The NYT did. I did not say that he is weak on democracy. It is quoted off Greenleft website, a leftwing liberal blog. And BTW, if you actually did check my history, you would know that I'm lifelong democrat, voted for Clinton and regretting it.