What might a Buddhist response on Tibetan self-immolations look like? Part 2

I had started this post a couple of days ago, but have been sort of busy.  Evidently the post resulted in a a response from Barbara, who took issue with how I related events in Vietnam.  I still stand by my point, which was that the immolation of the Buddhist monk did not succeed, and certainly wasn't immediately causative in the removal of the Diem regime.  The Diem regime was horribly oppressive to Buddhists, and the non-violent mass protests by Buddhists did play a part in what unfolded. But what did unfold was simply that a religious extremist clique that was oppressing Buddhists was toppled from power by a corrupt clique, with a wink and a nod from the United States.   That is to say, the fall of the Diem regime happened because it could have, and if all of those things above were not in place, it would not have happened, at least that way.  In other words: non-violent mass protests by Buddhists + oppression by the Catholic Diem regime + corrupt junta-in-waiting + indifference of the US to the fate of the Ngos = coup d'état.  Notice you didn't necessarily need a self-immolation there. And the objective of ending violence in Vietnam and having a secure position for Buddhists in Vietnam wasn't part of the deal. 

Seriously, I think a point of disagreement here is one of how one views the world politically.

Barbara also takes a bit of issue with the immediate causes of the self-immolations, and in particular objecting to Beijing's rather direct management of official religions in that country.  I can understand her point, but there is a counter-argument to it as well.  It also goes to the issue of the Dalai Lama's rather unfortunate dealings with certain American agencies back in the last century, and why, as I said, the Chinese government doesn't exactly see him the way the "Free Tibet^®" crowd.  And yeah, he did say he "relinquished authority," but...well, I replied to that elsewhere.

But again, most  of that above is really not my point here.  Let me get to that point...

Another Buddhist blog recently,  perhaps in anticipation of this blog post, has a post that references ninjutsu (忍術) which,  oddly enough is in the service of something called "social action," to use that which is attractive and repulsive in the service of one's practice.

That's not horrible, actually.  But at the same time there's a blind spot.

And unfortunately I can't show that blind spot.  

But I can talk about 功夫.

Which is what this post is more-or-less about: a Buddhist response to the self-immolations in Tibet would be to encourage those monks who are challenging "ownership" of "Tibetan Buddhism" "in China" to instead lead lives that, through the practice of Buddhism, make the point irrelevant, in the same way that one can train one's self to use what one is physically capable of doing to make potential foe's strengths irrelevant as well.

That it may be problematic for the Dalai Lama to say this or to speak to stop the self-immolations I can understand.  But I do think these things ought to be said.  Finally, I do want one other point to be made regarding what Barbara wrote here:

Something I didn't appreciate until I did the research is that in Tibetan Buddhism, the reborn lamas are thought to play a mystical role in transmitting the dharma to succeeding generations. In Tibetan understanding, if the legitimate succession of lamas is broken, the dharma itself may be lost. As zennies we may choose to disbelieve this, but it's not our tradition. And I appreciate that the way high lamas were chosen in the past often smacked of political favoritism rather than mysticism. 

Even so, from a Tibetan perspective, for the government to choose high lamas from the sons of loyal party members is a bit like the government handing out Chan dharma transmissions to political cronies and not allowing authentic transmissions to be recognized. It irreparably screws up the tradition. For Gelugpa monks in China, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region, being cut off from the Dalai Lama is being cut off from full transmission of dharma. This is why it is a Big Deal; dismissing it as just not being allowed to carry a photo is callous.

Look,  we've just had the Sasaki affair on top of the Shimano affair, etc. etc. etc. I have to applaud the really trenchant posts that Brad Warner's been writing about this, especially, for purposes of reference here, this post.  To put it simply: Tibetan lamas are just people, or as Brad Warner puts it, overdeveloped apes just like you and me, or to put it in a Zen metaphor, we're all foxes living out a few hundred or so lives.

Certainly you can object to the Chinese government choosing religious officials based on political considerations if and when those officials are unqualified.  But contrary to what I've seen from some "Free Tibet^®" apologists, there are authentic Dharma practitioners amongst the clergy in China, but admittedly, I myself, have not been to Tibet (though I have been to the Lama temple in Beijing, where discussion about such events has been quite frank, at least to non-Chinese).

But...to my larger point here: I swear I'm not channeling Christopher Hitchens, but it's some kind of odd sort of Orientalism to   decry the guru syndrome in Westernized Zen Buddhism because of abuses of authority but to uphold the guru syndrome in Tibetan Buddhism!  The point may be taken "Yeah, that's what they believe," but it doesn't mean we should encourage it!

Some Catholics make similar points regarding the Pope (as do at least some Copts, some Greek Orthodox, etc.)  But Christianity hasn't been "lost" because of schisms, the Protestant Reformation, etc. and besides,  to take Barbara's point to its logical conclusion Barbara and I, and the folks in our respective lineages  may not be authentic practitioners of the Dharma, because our practice is not dependent on the Tibetans' lineage.  I can't buy that.

It may be upsetting to some for me to say that the Dalai Lama has a pretense of religious authority because of the above, but my own teacher is as much a human as I am and you are as well as the Dalai Lama.   Or for that matter, anybody in China.

What might a Buddhist response on Tibetan self-immolations look like? Part 1

Some time back in the 70s, the National Lampoon ran a cover with a man's hand pointing a loaded gun to a dog, with the caption "If you don't buy this magazine we'll shoot this dog."

Although admittedly in questionable taste, what made the cover funny was the utter absurdity of the situation- as though we might believe that someone would shoot a dog if we didn't buy the magazine.

And although it might be seen as in bad taste, that's the metaphor that went through my mind as I started to write on this topic. And it might be inappropriate because the difference between a "suicide for political cause" and a garden variety suicide (if there can be such a thing) might not be that big a difference. 

On the other hand, I think the idea of a web-site more-or-less promoting the "martyrdom" of self-immolating Buddhist monks in Tibet is in equally bad taste, especially when you consider that  the difference between a "suicide for political cause" and a garden variety suicide (if there can be such a thing) might not be that big a difference. It might be that the self-immolating Buddhist monks have a strong viewpoint and feel driven to their actions.   On the other hand, I do kind of get this feeling: "If you, Mr. Chinese Guard, don't give us a Free Tibet^® the monk gets it!"  

But does it follow that a) "the Chinese" are "at fault" here, and b) is there a more effective, ethical response possible?

First, "the Chinese" are a very diverse bunch of people; they are the one of the oldest continuing national entities composed of a multitude of ethnic groups.  True, they're 95% Han Chinese, but they comprise many minorities within them, with varying degrees of tranquility to be honest.  But one thing that's the case, most Chinese, except those that openly challenge the government do not feel repressed per se.  There are definite problems with the Chinese government, and they're not unlike the problems in the US - corruption, concentration of wealth, etc.  But the idea that, for example a group of Han Chinese might be (forcibly) "relocated" to Tibet - except for armed forces - is ridiculous.  The real answer is quite simple:  As Deep Throat said, "Follow the money."

Secondly, suppose much of what we've read about Tibet is true.  I say "much" because it is certainly true that at least some of what the Free Tibet^® crowd is saying is demonstrably false.  But I want to examine what the proper response is.

First, suppose that the Chinese are administering Tibet as though anyone of Chinese descent might move there, regardless of ethnic background.

 So what?

That alone shouldn't be cause to advocate to destabilize a political entity; if on the other hand you had a situation like Palestine, where the Palestinians were being denied basic services and rights, that would be a problem.

But what about the Dalai Lama? Nobody can carry pictures of the Dalai Lama! What a violation!

I have been to China quite a few times.   You know, you can talk about the Dalai Lama in China.   Of course, in the Chinese point of view a) China is a multiethnic state (which it is, whether folks in the West like it or not), and b) the Dalai Lama is kind of like Jefferson Davis or Huey Newton on the lam.  Governmental entities enjoy the supremacy of political power in their domains, in all senses of the word "enjoy."  Some might be worse than others, but this is a fact.  And because of that it means that the Dalai Lama is a challenge to the supremacy of the rule of law by the government of the People's Republic of China, and they will behave accordingly, just as the US government is over-stepping its boundaries with Wikileaks phenomena.  And just as I might add, the Dalai Lama is doing with his pretense of authority in Tibet (it being a pretense because he actually doesn't exercise authority in Tibet - and that's a fact.)

Now,  what would the response to outright oppression -again taking for granted that oppression indeed exists somehow - be from a Buddhist standpoint?  We in the West have been captivated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King and thanks to Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk in Vietnam who self-immolated, but it seems to me that some input  from 功夫 might be in order here, or at least Sun Tzu.  I mean, after all, did the Buddhist monk in Vietnam who burnt himself achieve his objectives?

No, no he did not.  It took the NVA and the Vietcong to achieve their objectives, which weren't necessarily the monk's objectives.

I don't think violence on any side is the answer in Tibet, and I think the current immolations can't simply be put as the responsibility of the Chinese.  I'll explore the notion of more skillful responses later, but for now I will just say that such notions of action  would not aim to deprive people of loved ones as a necessary condition of their execution.  And I'll also say that I find the Dalai Lama's reticence to articulate what I see as a more  skillful response to this situation is troubling.

And needless to say, I find it also troubling that there are folks who call themselves Western Buddhists who aren't engaging in particularly effective means here, to say the least.

"Free Tibet" is not about Buddhism.

And it's not about "freedom"...and it's perhaps not even about "Tibet."

It's certainly not about China.

It is more instead about caricatures of these things.

I might post more on this in the coming few days...

But I saw Yet Another "Free Tibet" blog post today...and I was astounded at the level of ethnic ignorance I saw parading as being "informed."

I have said it before and I'll say it again: as a Buddhist and as an American, especially as an American of European descent married to someone of Asian descent, who regularly associates in day to day work with Europeans, Americans, East and South Asians, Middle Easterners, etc. ANY type of governmental polity built upon the political primacy of any ethnic, religious, or other group of  such constructs is hardly the stuff of which right livelihood can be claimed, or to put it bluntly, it's morally repugnant.

And "cultural genocide" trivializes the real thing.

I probably will say more, especially regarding human rights issues and 功夫, but geez...

China, History and the United States

I haven't said anything prior to today on Barbara's recent posts on Tibet (latest here.)  Mostly I think it's because we mutually consider that the other has drank Kool-Aid.

I'm not going to convert her, and the information about Tibet that challenges the Tibet independence movement  narrative I've posted all over the place in the past.

I'd like to bring your attention to something tangentially related instead, which should put your mind in a new way about this whole China thing.

Over the weekend I saw Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen which is only the umpteenth film I've seen from China in which there is an over-riding narrative of exploitation of China by foreigners whose propaganda value is redeemed by its amazing cinematography, and, in this case, a nice homage to  Casablanca wherein The Internationale replaces La Marseillaise as the patriotic song played in the nightclub, which immediately appears completely incongruous to a Westerner (for reasons I won't mention here). 

Behind that cinematic stunt though, is something important and undeniable: China was being heavily exploited by the Western and Japanese powers during the 20s & 30s.  This particular movie takes places in the mid-1920s, the so-called "Warlord Era" of China.  To get an idea of how screwed up China had become, take a look at the Wikipedia article on it, and try summarizing the whole period in 2 paragraphs.  Then remember that the current ruling entities in China today, the Chinese Communist Party and the Republic of China, owe their very existence to support from the Soviet Union (the Western powers, including the United States, were pretty much content to let China become colonized). Needless to say both the ROC and the PRC consider Tibet part of China, which is not surprising since the relevant warlords took the same position.

I've said over and over that the issue of Tibet is for the Chinese and Tibetans to work out amongst themselves.  There's about the same order of magnitude of Tibetans in the world as there are speakers of Catalan - I won't post a link; you can find that out for yourself.  I'm sure the parties involved can work something out if they want to do so.

But now I wish to consider the United States instead of Tibet.

At this moment, after reading that article about the warlords, I'm struck by the parallels between what happened in China in the 20s and what is happening now here.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is only just now starting to pick up steam in response to the corporate warlordism that has infected the structure of the United States government.  In effect, corporate oligarchs control the government, rendering the social contract with the people null and void.  Corporate warlordism has rendered American narratives of "freedom" and "justice" and "liberty" are being shown to be as hollow as the Qing emperor's "mandate of heaven."  Partly this is a feature, not a bug of the American governmental structure (remember the whole edifice was put in place in the first place to ensure that the haves continued to have and get more of  what they had, even if  what the haves "had"  included slaves.   It's not for nothing that the recent movements in the Middle East are replacing their dictatorships with parliamentary styles of government as opposed to the American model, which has been pretty sad in most of the rest of the world where it's been tried (the Philippines and Argentina, in case you were wondering.)

The inevitable result of "smaller government is best" pushed to its reductio ad absurdum is warlordism.  You read it here first.

But it appears for the US that the chickens are coming home to roost now; the fat's in the fire.  We're in for some wild times here and in much of the rest of the world.  I'm concerned that what's immediate is going to get a lot bigger, and a lot more serious than we've seen previously.

Let's hope we all have the wisdom to do the right thing, and in particular, that at least in the US the Democratic Party wakes up and figures out which way the wind is blowing.

Stirring a bit of life back into this blog...a summary....

                                                       Buddha from Longmen Grottos, Henan Province

It's not for lack of material; largely it's been for lack of time. As my family is in China for the summer, I've had less time for blogging than usual, especially given the fact that I started taking Wing Chun from a teacher some 25 or so miles from where I live. And today I have to go to Greece - I'm looking forward to the weather (it's been a rather cold summer here in the Pacific NW). But I get this feeling I'm going to be witnessing something close to the collapse of a government/social disorder/etc. But for want of a few blog posts here and there, here's a few points for those who might still follow this blog from time to time: 

• Barbara's recent posts on Tibet - especially her latest -  are remarkably free of perspective at how disingenuous the Tibetan exile organization sounds to the Chinese. I mean really.
• I had been meaning to put a comment on her site that she might be being indirectly subsidized by the Chinese government; China Daily accepts branded content from the NY Times every now and then, and About.com is owned by the NY Times. 
• Having actually, really, taken a martial arts class from a teacher in one of the world's most renowned lineages of the art (hence the 25 mile drive each way twice/week), I think I can begin to write about martial arts and Zen Buddhism.  And the martial arts themselves.  But instead I should be practicing both Zen and Wing Chun.  
• One post would be how a martial arts practice informs a Zen practice from  a purely physical point of view.  
• One post would be - I have done yoga  as part of my pre-zazen practice, and I have taken a few classes in other martial arts, but really practicing a martial art such as Wing Chun (and there are others, I'm sure) results in a deep re-assessment of one's self that yoga, I'm afraid, can't really provide.  It's true.
• I could write 3 or 4 posts on Wing Chun itself. It is a system that whoever invented  it - some say Ng Mui - whoever invented it was a smack down absolute freakin' genius.
• One thing that is amazing about it is how little you need to learn to actually begin to replicate what you see in the movies.  Ah, but to perfect those moves takes a hell of a lot of practice, because...
• Another thing that is amazing about it is how profoundly counter-intuitive aspects of it are, relative to some arts such as Tae Kwon Do and various schools of karate.
• Regarding martial arts - as in Zen - I'd say the specific school is nowhere near as important as finding a good teacher.
• And yet another post would be a re-assessment of the "yoga & zen" thing.
• I'm also meaning to post on "Buddhism and the Internet of Things," mostly because as a guy who actually researches the "Internet of things" and studies Buddhism the "topic" comes across to me as "Buddhism and Consumer Product  R&D," or something like that - it's an almost absurd juxtaposition of terms.
• I'd also been meaning to post on the recent economy of late.
• And how to get back into practice.

That's all for now.  That should stir up some stuff...

Update on the Karmapa Situation

I mentioned about the situation here. Early reports had said (can't find them now!) that the Indian police had cleared the Karmapa of wrongdoing, but like any government with a policy agency, they're still hanging on to this like a pit bull.

And so I'm led to believe the Karmapa is innocent here, just from the behavior I've read about from the government in question here.

The Asia Times Perspective on the Karmapa: Very Complicated Stuff Here

I generally don't read the Asia Times as much as I used to do.  This Hong Kong based media outlet publishes analysis that is, unique sometimes, to say the least.  Nobody I think can say that this stuff is American or Taiwanese PRC "propaganda," that's for sure.

So its recent article on the Karmapa makes for some interesting reading. If the article has any credibility there may be more to this inter-sect rivalry, and, according to them, some basis for suspecting PRC involvement in these things. 

The Kagyu sect - also known as the Black Hat sect by virtue of the magical headgear woven of goddess hair worn by the Karmapa on ceremonial occasions - disputes the presumption of the Dalai Lama to speak on its behalf. Kagyu adherents point out that the Karmapa holds precedence as a reincarnation over the Dalai Lama since the Karmapa reincarnation was initiated over 100 years before the first Dalai Lama was enthroned. The seat of the Karmapa was the Tsurpha monastery inside the present-day PRC; the 16th Karmapa fled to Sikkim with the Kagyu sect's most important regalia and treasures, and established an imposing new seat called Rumtek a few miles outside the Sikkimese capital of Gangtok.

This institutional friction was exacerbated in the 1960s when the Dalai Lama's decidedly un-Buddhist brother, Gyalo Thondup - who was the US Central Intelligence Agency liaison for the secret war against the Chinese occupation of Tibet - spearheaded the creation of a "united front" that would centralize the control of the fractious emigre community and sects under the control of the government in exile in Dharmsala. The other sects were apparently loathe to bow to Gelugpa control and formed their own political organization, the "Fourteen Settlements" group under the leadership of Gungthang Tsultrim.

In 1977, Gungthang was assassinated. His assassin allegedly told police that he had been paid $35,000 to commit the crime by the government-in-exile, and further alleged that he had been promised a bounty of double that amount to kill the current Karmapa. [1]

Efforts to centralize control of the emigre community collapsed, leaving a residue of bad feeling between Gelugpa and Kagyu leaders.

The situation was complicated by a split within the Kagyu sect itself upon the death of the 16th Karmapa in 1981.The conflict boils down to the rivalry between two Rinpoche in the Kagyu order, Tai Situ Rinpoche and Shamar Rinpoche ("Rinpoche" is an honorific typically applied to reincarnated lamas).

They have battled for decades over control of Rumtek and its ecclesiastical and worldly treasures (which are now in legal limbo; Indian courts have awarded control to a trust established by Shamar Rinpoche, but the local government has not taking the politically traumatic step of evicting the partisans of Tai Situ Rinpoche, who actually occupy the facility).

They also continue to battle over the very identity of the 17th Karmapa.

Tai Situ Rinpoche claimed to have found a secret note from the 16th Karmapa that directed him to the boy subsequently acknowledged by the Dalai Lama and enthroned in 1992 as Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa.

Shamar Rinpoche had none of that, asserting that a dream led him to a different Karmapa, one Trinley Thaye Dorje, whom he quietly brought to India from the PRC and enthroned in 1994.

Adherents of Shamar Rinpoche consider Ogyen Trinley Dorje's acknowledgement by the Dalai Lama as a piece of low, Gelugpa skullduggery. An America student of Shamar Rinpoche, Erik Curren, wrote a book on the Karmapa controversy titled "Buddha's Not Smiling". Talking to Asia Times, Mr Curren characterized the elevation of Ogyen Trinley Dorje as a virtual coup d'etat against the Kagyu sect by the Dalai Lama, with the intention of elevating an easily-manipulated son of nomads to the position of Karmapa.

And not only that...

The most useful accusation against Ogyen Trinley Dorje - one that attracted the close and hostile attention of the Indian security apparatus-is that his patron, Tai Situ Rinpoche, is colluding with the PRC to extend Chinese influence into India's Himalayan border regions...

A 1998 suit filed by a follower of Shamar Rinpoche further accused Tai Situ Rinpoche-and the Dalai Lama and his brother-of scheming to seize Rumtek, destabilize Sikkim, and hand it over to the Chinese. [3]

Certainly, beyond pleasant Buddhist platitudes concerning universal brotherhood, Tai Situ Rinpoche has made no secret of his efforts to re-establish his position inside Tibet with the help of the Chinese government.

He has rebuilt his traditional seat, Palpung Monastery, in western Sichuan province. His lavish website offers gorgeous views of the monastery and states that 300 students and 50 monks reside there.

For its part, the Chinese government appears to encourage the establishment of Tibetan organizations overseas that are affiliated with partisans of Tai Situ Rinpoche and promote Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the Karmapa.

In India, Tai Situ Rinpoche's reception has been less friendly. The Indian government banned him from entry into India from 1994 to1998 (he travels under a Bhutanese passport). His travel to the Himalayan border regions is restricted to Himachal Pradesh, where the Tibetan government in exile is located, and where his main facility inside India, Palpung Sherabling, is located. He cannot travel to the Northeast, Jammu/Kashmir, or Sikkim, where Rumtek is located. [4]

If you sit back and think about all of this for a few moments,  the existence of these charges and counter charges should not be surprising.  It comes from mixing religion and politics.  It arises also (read more in the article) that there are local geopolitical ramifications between a rapprochement of the Tibetan Buddhist community inside and outside Tibet/China that go beyond Tibet/China; namely, into India itself.

I've not written much about this thing except to say something like, "I really don't know what's going on but you have to expect countries to expect things of people living within them, and there are laws to follow." To which I'd add: And you can't expect the countries to not act like geopolitical entities, especially when they're big geopolitical entities who appear to each other to be in a zero sum game.  And, to the Western Buddhist blogosphere: Don't presume automatically anything about anything here.  To non-partisan parties here it is strange that the moment some outside agency raises some critique of these folks, it's always "Those Bad Non-Tibetans!" kind of response.  This is especially true given that China and India have been historical enemies forever.   That's why I maintain that judgment by those who aren't intimately familiar with the situation (and I for one am not) is premature to say the least.

I don't have an axe to grind in this  at all, except to say that I've really liked Western followers of the Karmapa I've met in the Portland area.   I hope they all work it out.  And I'm sure that there are those who will respond that all I'm doing is regurgitating PRC propaganda or some such hoo-hah.  But stuff happens behind closed doors.

Wikileaks: Putting some context to the Dalai Lama and the 2008 unrest in Lhasa, Tibet, China

Here's a few things to read:

•  On March 21, 2008, the NY Times reported that Chinese security forces had admitted they shot four protesters in what Chinese media described as unrest initiated by ethnic violence against Han Chinese.
• On March 29, 2008, the NY Times reported that there were planned anti-China/pro-Tibet Independence protests planned to shadow the Olympic torch relay.
• On March 31, 2008 the NY Times reported that China claimed that they had a confession from someone claiming the Dalai Lama incited the riots.  Of course, I don't place much credence in anyone's  confessions in these kinds of circumstances - they are inherently under duress.
• April 11, 2008:

The Dalai Lama said Thursday that he supported Beijing’s hosting of the Summer Olympics, but he insisted that pro-Tibet demonstrators had the right to voice their opinions during the international torch relay as long as they refrained from violence.  

During a brief stopover in Japan on his way to the United States, the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, told reporters no one should try to silence demonstrators who are protesting Chinese rule in Tibet. But he struck a conciliatory tone toward Beijing, apparently distancing himself from calls in the West for a boycott of the Olympic opening ceremony.

“We are not anti-Chinese,” he said at a news conference at Tokyo’s main international airport in Narita. “Right from the beginning, we supported the Olympic Games.” Speaking of pro-Tibetan protesters, he said nobody “has the right to tell them to shut up.”

He faulted Beijing for suppressing antigovernment unrest in Tibet last month, saying its use of violence was “an outdated method” that did not solve the underlying problems. That unrest, the most severe in the region in two decades, and the resulting Chinese crackdown have touched off sympathy protests around the world, with demonstrators demanding greater freedom in Tibet. 

•  Also on April 11, as we now know:

The Dalai Lama related an earlier conversation with a Chinese scholar that convinced him the "positive scenario" he outlined on March 28 -- where the PRC agrees to dialogue and permits a degree of Tibetan autonomy -- was a possibility. The Dalai Lama described this unnamed scholar as interpreting the regular use of the Dalai Lama's name by Chinese leaders and references to 'the Dalai clique' as signs they were prepared to engage with him. If PRC leaders ignored the Dalai Lama and focused instead on the Tibetan Youth Congress and Tibet-based leaders of the uprising, that would indicate the PRC planned to bypass him, according to this scholar... Immediately prior to meeting with PolCouns, the Dalai Lama met with XXXXXXXXXXXX. The Dalai Lama said XXXXXXXXXXXX had been in touch with Chinese interlocutors who convinced XXXXXXXXXXXX that a deal could be made: if the Dalai Lama supported peaceful transit of the Olympic torch through Tibet, then the PRC would simultaneously release Tibetans who had been detained since March 10. Comment: XXXXXXXXXXXX... While Indian observers believe that pressure on the PRC to engage with the Dalai Lama is growing, his candid comment that "Tibet is a dying nation" indicates increasing desperation as a result of his ability to affect events in his homeland.

So what we can say is:

• There isn't any credible evidence that the Dalai Lama knew, or orchestrated events in regard to the riots in Lhasa.
• However,  his admission of a lack of control of what is going on in Tibet implies as well that at least part of the Chinese version of events: violence against Han Chinese in Lhasa could well be true.
• The Dalai Lama's failure to speak in regard to any violence against Han Chinese in this incident  - or even to acknowledge that this might be a possibility! clearly is something his fans in the United States ought to consider.  Instead,  representatives of the Dalai Lama's organization immediately claimed they were "baseless" allegations.
• Also his relative insouciance towards anti-China protests after the riots in Lhasa didn't seem to do his cause any good, and he seemed to have an indication that it wouldn't.

The Truth about Conflation of the "New Age" Woo and Buddhism

I was looking around for things in the Buddhist world upon which to write, and came upon this article (purportedly) on "The Truth about Tibetan Buddhism" as reason.com, a libertarian publication.

I know I’m not supposed to say this, but Tibetan Buddhism really freaked me out.

The most striking thing is how different real Tibetan Buddhism is from the re-branded, part-time version imported over here by the Dalai Lama’s army of celebrities.

Listening to Richard Gere, the first incarnation of the Hollywood Lama, you could be forgiven for thinking that Tibetan Buddhism involves sitting in the lotus position for 20 hours a day and thinking Bambi-style thoughts. Tibetan Buddhism has a “resonance and a sense of mystery,” says Gere, through which you can find “beingness” (whatever that means).

Watching Jennifer Aniston’s character Rachel read a collection of the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Central Perk on Friends a few years ago, you might also think that Tibetan Buddhism is something you can ingest while sipping on a skinny-milk, no-cream, hazelnut latte.

 The author of the article, Brendan O'Neill, goes on to quote professors of religion to who note that Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism in particular is traditionally misogynist, anti-gay,  etc.  O'Neill sums his point up:

Of course, this only means that Tibetan Buddhism is the same as loads of other religions. Yet it is striking how much the backward elements of Tibetan Buddhism are forgiven or glossed over by its hippyish, celebrity, and middle-class followers over here. So if you’re a Catholic in Hollywood it is immediately assumed you’re a grumpy old git with demented views, but if you’re a “Tibetan” Buddhist you are looked upon as a super-cool, enlightened creature of good manners and taste. (Admittedly, Mel Gibson doesn’t help in this regard.)...

Frank J. Korom describes it as “New Age orientalism,” where Westerners in search of some cheap and easy purpose in their empty lives “appropriate Tibet and portions of its religious culture for their own purposes.” They treat a very old, complex religion as a kind of buffet of ideas that they can pick morsels from, jettisoning the stranger, more demanding stuff—like the dancing demons and the prostration workout—but picking up the shiny things, like the sacred necklaces and bracelets and the BS about reincarnation.

It is all about them. They have bent and warped a religion to suit their own needs. As the Tibetan lama Dagyab Kyabgon Rinpoche puts it, “The concept of ‘Tibet’ becomes a symbol for all those qualities that Westerners feel lacking: joie de vivre, harmony, warmth and spirituality… Tibet thus becomes a utopia, and Tibetans become noble savages.” Western losers have ransacked Tibetan Buddhism in search of the holy grail of self-meaning.

 Barbara O'Brien remonstrates in response:

To prove this point, O'Neill sites an old episode of the television series Friends in which Jennifer Anniston's character read a collection of the Dalai Lama's teachings. And he tells us about a student at Boston University who was asked why she wore a Tibetan necklace:

"It keeps me healthy and happy," she said, reducing Tibetan Buddhism, as so many Dalai Lama-loving undergrads do, to the religious equivalent of knocking back a vitamin pill.

...What really happened: O'Neill visited Lhasa, apparently carrying with him his own set of frivolous notions about Tibetan Buddhism, and he was stunned by the intensity of devotion and practice he saw there. From this he concluded that few westerners ever "got" Buddhism, especially the Tibetan version.

...First off, there's "Western New Age" circles -- more than one, I suspect -- and "Western Buddhist" circles, and they aren't the same circles. There's some overlap, of course. But I believe most western Buddhists see clearly that Buddhism and whatever it is that gets shoveled into the "New Age" bin are very different.

I'll ignore the bits in her post about how the Dalai Lama is "the symbol of Tibet" and all that hoo-ha; my point centers on O'Neill's conflation of Buddhism with "New Age"  and Barbara's response.  

First off, she's right.  There, I said it, for those of you who think I spend all my time bashing "popular" Buddhist bloggers.  She's right in that most Western Buddhists do not, I think, conflate "New Age" with Buddhism.  But...

O'Neill's not entirely wrong for pointing out that such a conflation exists.  It does. And clearly, professors of religion in US universities are not going to be unexposed to youths who are unsure in their own minds what Buddhism is, and what Buddhism-with-a-smattering-of-New Age is.

And this conflation can be observed from within the Buddhist blogosphere itself.

Don't believe me? Here are some examples:

• Elephant Journal. Now, it does claim to have a section on "Non-New Agey Spirituality,"  but it looks like a handle for "anything that's spiritual, not religious, without crystals."  Buddhism isn't about getting good at asanas, or being a vegetarian per se.
• The Huffington Post.  If I were a name Buddhist writer, I'd rather try to get a gig at The Daily Beast, myself; Tina Brown is less flaky than Arianna Huffington. But when a Buddhist blogs at the Huffington Post, he should know he's putting himself in an equivalence class with spiritual hucksters such as  Deepak Chopra, Robert Lanza, Andrew Cohen, and John Morton, and others. (But they did publish an excerpt critical of the Landmark Forum, but that only underscores my point: Legit Buddhism is conflated, by context, with woo.)  And can you fault O'Neill when he surfs over to its page on Buddhism and sees this?

       Why, it's an article about the future of Buddhism in the West, with a picture of Richard Gere!

• Ken Wilber. Enough said.
• Genpo Roshi, Bill Harris, "The Secret." Ugh.

It is very true that there are very serious Buddhist practitioners in the United States who are not New Agey, and I truly respect Barbara for her practice (though I think she needs a bit more exposure politically).  But it does us no good to ignore or to make a big tent for all kinds of crazy stuff that can be marketed as Buddhist.

Moreover, there is a bit of Orientalism floating around in regards to attitudes about Buddhism, and it's fed by groups that claim to support Tibetan independence which gives a very selective ridiculously idealistic view of its history.  (The same can be said of the way India is viewed as well.  I remember a colleague once told another , who was of Indian descent, when asked what India was like.  The  Indian descendant said, "What do you think it's like?" The reply was, "It's dusty, dirty, and crowded with many poor people."  The answer was something to the effect of, "Yep, that's exactly what it's like."  Of course that was some 15 or 20 years ago and things have changed much in India.)


So I think we need to do a better job of explaining ourselves, but we do need to point out, when we see it, that something has nothing to do with Buddhism as Buddhists have explained it.  And if there's woo, it's not Buddhism.

And as one other commenter on Barbara's Buddhist blog indicated, libertarians have their own issues of ideology as well. And they have their own problems.

Now I really am off to Germany

I leave you with this link to a story on the Dalai Lama by Michael Parenti.

If you haven't read it you owe yourself to do so.  One might think after reading it  that if Robert Thurman entered a room in which Michael Parenti was present that Thurman would disintegrate. On history and politics, Parenti's at least as educationally pedigreed as Thurman...

OK, here's a snippet:

What happened to Tibet after the Chinese Communists moved into the country in 1951? The treaty of that year provided for ostensible self-governance under the Dalai Lama’s rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal administration “to promote social reforms.” Among the earliest changes they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and roads. At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect reconstruction. No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound peasants. “Contrary to popular belief in the West,” claims one observer, the Chinese “took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion.”²⁵
Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.²⁶ The approval of the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.
The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.²⁷ Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.²⁸
Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.²⁹ “Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.³⁰ In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.”³¹ Eventually the resistance crumbled.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.³² 

Read the article; Parenti is no apologist for China by any means (and neither am I).  But given just this history, (and Parenti really doesn't go into the geographical, military, or other issues of China and Tibet here) it becomes quite easy to see why the average Chinese or even Tibetan might be a bit suspicious of claims that many people in Tibet want the Dalai Lama back as political head there.

They remember all the nasty stuff, I'd suspect.

Somebody on another blog had mentioned there are people that hold the Dalai Lama to a different standard than other people. Look, I think anyone involved with perpetrating institutions that produce effects even remotely like those produced by Roberto d'Aubuisson or Efrain Rios-Montt shouldn't be allowed near the governmental levers of power, OK?

Doesn't matter if they have impish smiles and say nice things to Buddhists.

The Dalai Lama on Violence and Dog Whistling

I think the man is out of touch when he starts to opine about what Japanese youth should do in light of Japan's economic stagnation, although more English skills being learned by Japanese can never hurt.

But in today's Guardian there's another article about the Dalai Lama, and a message from him in support of the UK's Armed Forces Day.

I have always admired those who are prepared to act in the defense of others for their courage and determination. In fact, it may surprise you to know that I think that monks and soldiers, sailors and airmen have more in common than at first meets the eye. Strict discipline is important to us all, we all wear a uniform and we rely on the companionship and support of our comrades.

Although the public may think that physical strength is what is most important, I believe that what makes a good soldier, sailor or airman, just as what makes a good monk, is inner strength. And inner strength depends on having a firm positive motivation. The difference lies in whether ultimately you want to ensure others’ well being or whether you want only wish to do them harm.

Naturally, there are some times when we need to take what on the surface appears to be harsh or tough action, but if our motivation is good our action is actually non-violent in nature. On the other hand if we use sweet words and gestures to deceive, exploit and take advantage of others, our conduct may appear agreeable, while we are actually engaged in quite unacceptable violence.  

 Mark Vernon in the Guardian writes:

The Dalai Lama has sent a message of support for Armed Forces Day, which is next Saturday. In it, he writes of his admiration for the military. That is perhaps not so surprising. As he explains, there are many parallels between being a monk and being a soldier – the need for discipline, companionship, and inner strength.
But his support will take some of his western admirers by surprise, not least when it comes to his thoughts on non-violence...

What the present Dalai Lama argues, in his message of support, is that violence and non-violence are not always what they seem. "Sweet words" can be violent, he explains, when they intend harm. Conversely, "harsh and tough action" can be non-violent when it aims at the wellbeing of others. In short, violence – "harsh and tough action" – can be attitudinally non-violent. So what should we make of that?

"What would not be a traditional Buddhist way of talking is to imply that violence is in fact non-violence, given the right motivation", explains Paul Williams, professor of Indian and Tibetan philosophy, University of Bristol. "This is certainly an interesting but perhaps extremely dangerous sentiment."...
 
But before rushing to too fast a conclusion, another factor must be borne in mind. The Dalai Lama quite routinely says different things to different audiences, an approach that is valued in Buddhism and is known as "skilful means". It is not a kind of duplicity. Rather, it aims to have the right word for the right time and context. The difficulty is that when his words ripple out across the internet, as they do, they are also ripped out of their original context. Skilfully interpreting the Dalai Lama then becomes very hard.

For example, when speaking in the west, he has drawn much from Gandhi's broadly Jain understanding of non-violence, "ahimsa". "Man lives freely by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him", Gandhi wrote in All Men Are Brothers – effectively precluding killing. But such an approach would be odd amongst Tibetans, and the Dalai Lama would hardly be likely to advocate it amongst his fellows.


In fact, it is possible to get some sense of this greater sophistication by considering his life story. This is man who has lived with the reality of state violence from his youth, and who receives reports of it almost daily, now that he is old. He has previously argued that violence in Tibet is wrong, not on principled but pragmatic grounds, as it would have no chance of succeeding.

 When Mark Vernon writes about the Dalai Lama that "when speaking in the west, he has drawn much from Gandhi's broadly Jain understanding of non-violence,"  that's something we in America call dog whistling.  He's speaking to a select group of people, telling them what they want to hear.  Yet he's still the guy who, with a change of clothes and a change of culture would be in a mold somewhat like  a significantly less virulent form of Jefferson Davis, with differences of serfdom compared to  slavery, and with Han Chinese as the marginalized ethnic group. And yes, the Chinese Communist Party stands in for the Radical Republicans.   Once again, I have to say sorry folks, I'm an American and I don't like racism in any guise.

It's a recurring point on my blog that Americans who are "fans" of Tibetan Buddhism have heavily idealized beliefs about the Dalai Lama.  (I would not include all practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism as "fans" by any means - I think they're more sophisticated than that.)

Now I agree with the Dalai Lama's sentiments about the military;  but I also have to give a wag of the finger to him as he, himself, is one of the biggest culprits for presenting "teachings" as bromides that are "truisms trite enough to appear on a T-shirt."  But let's face it folks: the guy with the Twitter aphorisms who dog-whistles non-violence to the West is also not willing to take steps that would be real measures for reconciliation with China.   Don't believe me? He acts as  the titular head of a government in exile.   And here's one aspect Chinese position.  And here's the most recent Chinese position.   Remember, China has for hundreds of years been recognized as the supreme governmental authority in Tibet, and Chinese heads of state have given authorization to various Tibetan Buddhist leaders, with authorizations as intermingled religious and political roles.  While I know many in the West wish to analogize this to India, or Vietnam, the reality is different.

Now truth be known, given where he is, he probably has to deal with the inherent conflicts between his role as Buddhist leader and his role as political leader, but I think he is really not being skillful in his execution of his political role as Buddhist.  And I wish he were.

Let's not place anyone on pedestals, and let's not place on pedestals our attachments to idealizations of people that don't exist and never did exist.

No new blog post today...except this one

But please read my back and forth on Tibet with Barbara in the comments section.

I'm grateful she stopped by; as I think this conversation on Tibet versus China needs to exist in the Western blogosphere, especially if one really is interested in having a peaceful and beneficial end to this decades long situation.

I would also encourage all Buddhists, especially those peace-making ones, to consider reading some of the literature from the business and political worlds on negotiation theory and practice, simply because it would bring them skillful means to help all get what they need (and sometimes what they want).

In particular, I continue to find much of this discussion divorced from the history, politics, etc. of Tibet.  Moreover, perhaps I'm looking at the situation as a guy with a foot in multiple worlds here (I guess I'm a centipede).  But from a cool analysis of the issues of power, time,  and information,  it's easy to see a space of solutions to the Tibet issue that aren't violent and don't "destroy" Tibetan Buddhism even as it is presented by the Dalai Lama. 

And really, really frankly, compared to the situation in Palestine/Israel, this is a piece of cake in terms of finding solution spaces for conflicts.

Politics, Buddhism, American Buddhism, and China - Tibet Policy: Barbara's Buddhism Blog Shows What Not to Do

Barbara of the About.com Buddhism Blog posted another anti-China screed yesterday.  There's really nothing else to accurately call it, in my view.  Now as I said on a previous post, it's not too surprising that there are Buddhists whose international and politics differ.  What we should try to avoid though is conflating political issues with Buddhist issues, that is, assuming a particular political question, viewed a certain way is a Buddhist question, and I think Barbara has crossed the line.  Before I  go to the tape, let me point out a few things that should be axiomatically obvious to any non-Tibetan lineage Buddhist:

• The Dalai Lama, as a manifestation of the Boddhisattva of compassion, is specifically a Tibetan Buddhist school designation and in no way encumbers anyone else to recognize that beyond that which is such in anyone else.  
• Mutatis mutandis for the Panchen Lama and Amitabha.
• The offices of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama are political offices if they are considered as operating within the realm of Chinese/Tibetan domestic and international politics.  Strictly speaking those offices as political offices per se do not encumber any Buddhist to recognize anything.

I've been very critical of the Dalai Lama, and the conflation of attempts at international support of a political position with Buddhism  for a variety of reasons, not the least because many people speaking on this issue are utterly ignorant or dismissive of the history, geography, and geopolitics  involved.  China has asserted political control over Tibet for hundreds of years; Tibet is seen as crucial strategically to China's stability and ability to defend itself, and it's simply not useful if one is truly interested in peace to be dismissive or vituperative in response to these issues.

Now let's go to the tape...

The Panchen Lama is the second highest lama in Tibetan Buddhism. The faux Panchen Lama is Gyaltsen Norbu, son of a Tibetan Communist Party official, who was appointed to the position by Beijing in 1995 a few weeks after the legitimate tulku, Gendu Choekyi Nyima, and his family disappeared. Both boys were six years old at the time.

As I mentioned here, can't we at least recognize that the "find the kid who's the incarnation of the dead lama" game is one of those practices we can do without?  But this paragraph illustrates my point: a) we Zen Buddhists are in no position to judge who is a legitimate tulku and who is not; only those who choose to become adherents to said tulku do, and b) the office of the Panchen Lama is also a political position, and it is not accurate in the least to say that since China appointed that official (albeit in an atavistic way that is similar to what's been done before)  that he is somehow "false."

Gyaltsen Norbu lives in Beijing, and his visit to Tibet is a rare event. Xinhua tells us the pretender led a prayer service in Jokhang Temple in Lhasa  and was greeted by lamas bearing incense and silk scarves.

Beijing can be reasonably certain that no monk of Jokhang would disrupt the ceremonies, since most of the monks were removed for "re-education" during the summer of 2008. Once the Beijing Olympics were over, monks who did not have families in Lhasa were not allowed to return but were sent to their home provinces. The few hundred monks remaining in Lhasa's monasteries -- which are vast complexes that housed thousands of monks in the past -- are approved by government.

 Not just Xinhau's reported on the Chinese-chosen Panchen Lama's activities, but also the BBC (scroll to bottom of post), and The Economist (see my blog entry here; the link is behind a subscription wall, and yes, I do subscribe).  Both posts contradict Barbara's "See? Everyone hates that nasty faux Panchen Lama!" narrative. Big time.

Towards the end of the post Barbara quotes an article from The Asia Sentinel;  this article too conflates the religious and political.  Most other news sources, recognize there is a political aspect to this, even if they do conflate them.   Barbara ends her post with a quote from that article comparing the fate of the Dalai Lama-chosen Panchen Lama to Pu Yi:

"Presumably much as the famed last Emperor Pu Yi ended up working as a gardener in the Beijing Botanical Gardens," the Asia Sentinel says. However, the government remains extremely vague about Gendu Choekyi Nyima, and I still think it is unlikely the boy and his family are still alive.

The Pu Yi reference sort of gives away all the points here.  As anyone who's seen The Last Emperor knows, Pu Yi was not quite a person  one should have shed many tears over; his life was tragic, he was not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, but his life of pampering in no way prepared him for what lay ahead, and he ultimately wound up serving China best as a gardner in the Beijing Botanical Gardens.  Barbara offers no other reason for her belief  about Gendu Choekyi Nyima's demise; that is a statement of prejudice, but then by this point, we are well beyond discussing Buddhist issues, but rather geopolitical issues.

On edit: It is certainly true that there's been horrific violence done in the past few decades; in China  but that does not justify a belief that the Chinese government is currently disappearing innocent people.    Of course examining that belief, questioning it, wasn't the point of that post, and that's why I considered the stated "belief"  of the killing of these people to be prejudicial, in a similar vein as it would be to suppose that the average Mormon wants to install a Mormon theocracy in the United States, and violently defend it, based on the Mountain Meadows Massacre.  Conflating the China of the Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen Square with the China of today is not accurate either, and  Western and Chinese news outlets are reporting events in China, such as going on at Foxconn and Honda that were unthinkable just five years ago.

Some American Buddhists don't like my views on the Dalai Lama...

Sort of predictably, Barbara at the About.com Buddhism blog didn't really like my comments on the Dalai Lama. (And I guess I've been banned from expanding my comments there.)  I'm not surprised, because I've encountered this situation from a number of American Buddhists, both in the blogosphere and out of the blogosphere.  Odd that so few of these folks ever have a talk with Chinese folks living in this country, it seems.   But, for me, "Let's talk about everything."  Barbara at the Buddhism blog says:

Chinese people think the Dalai Lama is a trouble maker because that’s what they’ve been told all their lives. That’s not a sign of intelligence but of misinformation. And if things are so hunky-dory with Tibetan Buddhism in China, how come a majority of the monks of Lhasa were detained for “re-education” in the summer of 2009? How come several monasteries have been raided by authorities, and monks arrested, in the past several months?

And:

The fact remains that the government of China is absolutely insane where the Dalai Lama is concerned. For example, they’re behind the oppression of Thich Nhat Hanh followers in Vietnam, for the simple reason that Thich Nhat Hanh told an Italian interviewer that he thought His Holiness ought to be allowed to return to Tibet. And where is the Panchen Lama, btw? You said the Panchen Lama was discussed “frankly.” Were they so frank they could produce the young man to show he and his family weren’t executed years ago?

 Here's several responses to this:

1. RE: the Panchen Lama, no reputable news services has ever reported that the Dalai-Lama chosen one was "executed."

2. They're "behind" the oppression of Thich Nhat Hanh's followers in Vietnam sounds absurd on its face, simply because the Chinese and Vietnamese are historically mortal enemies and the trappings of a Communist government has done exactly nothing to change that historic relationship. If Thich Nhat Hanh said this alone it is more likely that the government of Vietnam would have sent him a birthday cake.

3. The Chinese government does not condone organizing to call into question the premise and legitimacy of its government, but this is simply how all Chinese governments have historically operated.  It is also, fundamentally, how the United States operates in regards to groups such as the FALN, the Black Liberation Army and other groups.

4. The United States still seeks the extradition of revolutionaries/criminals such as Assata Shakur. Leonard Peltier, a more tenuous case, remains in prison after decades.  What the Dalai Lama represents to the Chinese government is more serious than these people, and calling it, as Barbara does,  "old, old, old news, very widely known, hardly secret" is an attempt to minimize what in any other context (like putting the US in the position of China) would be obviously what the Chinese would do.

5. I was having dinner the other night with a Chinese colleague, who pointed out that the Chinese would never give up Tibet because of its strategic importance as a supply line from the west, as it was in World War II.  This, besides the abundant mineral wealth of Tibet is never discussed either by the Dalai Lama nor his supporters.  I'm amazed that folks like Barbara can bandy about terms like "misinformed" and "ignorant" when they are either guilty of those terms or deliberately downplaying the geopolitics here.  But I've seen that before.  Anyone looking at a map and with a rudimentary understanding in geography and geology and current events gets the geopolitics; it stares one in the face.  It's funny that people can be enchanted away from what ought to be plain as the nose on their face.

Dalai Lama's Point Man: Fitting to be in the Fashion & Style Sections

Even I have heard that the Dalai Lama is coming to town, er, New York City.  The NY Times on line (and presumably its paper incarnation too), has a story on one Nicholas Vreeland, grandson of Diana Vreeland, some fashion glitterati woman of the 70s and 80s.  Besides being a scion of glitterati, Vreeland  is also a Tibetan Buddhist monk.


Well, good for him, as one of my son's classmates is wont to say, albeit with a note of sarcasm.

No, seriously, good for him.  I would say being a Buddhist monk of the Tibetan variety is far more useful for society than fashion, except when it comes to procreation, and in that department I will cede the argument to fashion (unless it's a Dharma burger?).   But its clear that from the observation point of the NY Times reporter, fashion and "Buddhism" share much in common  at least in its Dalai Lama as pop star variety.

No detail is too frivolous. Mr. Vreeland stopped in at ABC Carpet and Home recently to choose an armchair for the Dalai Lama to sit in on the stage of Radio City; he likes to sit cross-legged. “I went through the whole collection of sofas and chairs to choose the appropriate chair for His Holiness,” Mr. Vreeland said, adding that the chair will be on loan.

At Radio City Music Hall, the Dalai Lama will speak for the first three days about two Buddhist texts that teach the concept of emptiness and the way to enlightenment. For this, he will sit on his Tibetan throne. On the fourth day, he will hold a public talk about how to lead a life of happiness. (That’s when the chair will be put to use.)

The crowd undoubtedly will veer from robe-sporting Buddhists to Fendi-carrying, Louboutin-wearing devotees, the two groups holding two things in common: a passion for Buddhism and their trim waistlines.

Perhaps what the NY Times reporter takes to be the money Buddhist quote from Vreeland is this:

“People who cause you difficulties, you should think of them as very, very valuable teachers because they provide us with the opportunity to develop patience.”

Now I would say this is incomplete, from a Zen perspective: "People who cause you difficulties" is quite a bit dualistic, and "they provide us with the opportunity to develop patience" sounds like you're hoping to get something for your "suffering."  

I would say you "get" the "opportunity" to be in that place, but the minute you think "get" and "opportunity" you're in a different place entirely.  Maybe Vreeland would agree and say I'm saying the medium, and the medium is the message, and he's just using skillful means. I dunno. I do know if somebody gave me, when I'm getting seriously hassled that I'm getting the "opportunity to develop patience," I'd say that person was availing himself of an opportunity to engage in a form of spiritual materialism (and perhaps I'm doing the same thing with this post).   Rather than pose the whole affair as a cost-benefit relationship, at least with this practitioner at any rate, I think it's more helpful to promote the skill of dealing with such circumstances.

That said, I hope Mr. Vreeland  has a good time with the Dalai Lama and I hope he likes his chair.  And I hope someone holds the DL to actually practice compassion in dealing with people who are non-Tibetan Chinese.

Barbara of the Buddhist Blog May Get to Ask the Dalai Lama a Question!

Her post explaining this is here. I've got a host of blog posts about Tibet, which ought to raise enough questions.

My question to her would hinge on this post however:

The man born as Gyancain Norbu was chosen by the Chinese government years ago as an emanation of Amitabha, the so-called Panchen Lama.  Given that there are serious practicing Buddhist clergy in China - any visitor can meet them - and given that the man born as Gyancain Norbu has dedicated his life - literally, as much as you have - to reconciling Tibetan Buddhism with political realities - does HH expect other observers to believe that the Chinese government is trying to "deliberately annihilate Buddhism" as he was recently quoted as saying?  And how can you show compassion for Gyancain Norbu?

I never quite did get an answer to the first question when I e-mailed it in at the Dalai Lama website.

Update:  Looking at the questions posed at Barbara's blog, I'm amazed a bit at the woo-ism that passes for Dalai Lama worship.   It amazes me that the leader of a movement that is nondualist in nature is good at amassing a following of people seeing these things as dualistic.  I understand it though: the Dalai Lama must be, as well as a Buddhist leader a political leader, and for that he cultivates a certain persona. It's just personas aren't people.

I realize that there's heavy emotions around the Panchen Lama, Dalai Lama, etc.

Isn't it the case that it's a bit of a heavy trip to lay on a kid that he's the emanation of a key Bodhisattva? And then, on top of that, to embroil a kid in a tug of war of geopolitics?

I don't think it was a good idea that the Chinese might have continued this process, and do realize that occasionally these guys - funny how they're all guys - resign their positions and such.

But with all the recent scandals in other religions, and the ongoing scandal in the Catholic Church, can't we at least recognize that the "find the kid who's the incarnation of the dead lama" game is one of those practices we can do without?

Robert Thurman gets shrill

And when he starts to defend the faith healing Falun Da Fa, well, that's pitiful.  Just for the record (you can find it in a Wall Street Journal article from a few years back which I read in the paper edition) Falun Da Fa was outed as a dangerous cult by...wait for it...a Chinese Buddhist scholar (with roughly the same position there as Robert Thurman has at Columbia University, except he wasn't a Tibet specialist).  And that scholar was not a member of the Communist party.

The Dalai Lama crosses a line...

The office of the Dalai Lama still has not responded to my e-mail, and that silence, to me at least, is thunderous.  But this week, the Dalai Lama still kept up his verbal attacks on Chinese:

The Dalai Lama blasted Chinese authorities Wednesday, accusing them of trying to "annihilate Buddhism" in Tibet as he commemorated a failed uprising against China's rule over the region.

The Tibetan spiritual leader's angry comments appeared to signal his frustration with fruitless efforts to negotiate a compromise with China. However, he said he would not abandon talks...

In his annual address from exile in India to mark the 51st anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against China, the Dalai Lama said Chinese authorities were conducting a campaign of "patriotic re-education" in monasteries in Tibet.

"They are putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions, depriving them the opportunity to study and practice in peace," he said, accusing Chinese of working to "deliberately annihilate Buddhism." 

This is clearly false, as I've said before on this blog. I've seen it myself.  I've talked to Chinese Buddhists and Christians.  I've heard the Panchen Lama problem discussed openly in Beijing.  The Dalai Lama may not like the fact that as he ages, his relevance as a political leader is fading, despite what he says, which does seem to be what the government thinks too.  More to the point, he may be angry that his control over religion is being attenuated.

Meanwhile, here's an example  of how badly religion is being "suppressed" in China. Clearly those Tibetans want to be there to view the Panchen Lama.

Now I'm not saying there's quite a bit of bad feelings around Tibet today. But I am saying that there's a bit too much misinformation in the US about this subject, and American Buddhists should be more critical in their ingestion of other people's narratives about this subject. It's far more complicated than you're getting from the Dalai Lama.

Regarding the Panchen Lama

CNN reports on the rise in prominence of the Chinese-chosen 11th Panchen Lama, Gyancain Norbu:

Born Gyancain Norbu, he was handpicked by the Chinese government as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and has largely lived in seclusion in Beijing, tutored by Tibetan and Chinese mentors.

He now is being positioned as the representative of Tibetan Buddhism.

Last month, he was elected vice president of the Buddhist Association of China and at its recent conference, he said he "would uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China, adhere to socialism, safeguard national reunification, strengthen ethnic unity and expand Buddhist exchanges on the basis of adherence to law and love for the nation and Buddhism," the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Comments like those further fueled questions of his legitimacy among Tibetans. The Dalai Lama's Web site says the Chinese-named Panchen Lama is "spurned" by most Tibetans.

The Dalai Lama, sent into exile in India after an aborted rebellion against Chinese rule, says he would like to see greater autonomy for the Tibetan people. But Beijing considers him a separatist.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama anointed another boy of the same age as Norbu, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the latest reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. But he disappeared shortly afterwards.

Suspicions that the boy had been kidnapped were heightened in May 1996 when the Chinese leadership admitted to holding him and his family in "protective custody." Pro-Tibet groups labeled him as the world's youngest political prisoner.

China Tibet Online says:

Living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism attending the 3rd Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political and Consultative Conference said the 11th Panchen Lama's new membership in the National Committee of CPPCC was a great honor not only for himself but also for the whole Tibetan Buddhism circle.

The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu was among 13 people who on Feb. 28, 2010 became new members of the National Committee of CPPCC, the country's top advisory body.

Dupkang Tupden Kedup, head of the Tibet Branch of the Buddhist Association of China as well as a member of CPPCC, said the 11th Panchen Lama was well educated in religious knowledge and "had demeanour of a senior living Buddha".

"He asked me many questions. Through his words, I can see a very knowledgable living Buddha both in religious and social aspects," Shinza Tenzin Choeta, who once contacted with the 11th Panchen in 2005, believed that he would become an outstanding religious leader in the future.

"He can speak Chinese and Tibetan languages and is also very good at English." The 11th Panchen Lama impressed people with his fluent English at the Second World Buddhist Forum held on Mar. 28, 2008, in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.

It would not surprise me if the Chinese-chosen 11th Panchen Lama is indeed very knowledgeable of the Dharma as well as an able practitioner. There are many serious Buddhist clergy in China; and this fact tends to be overlooked in the West where issues of the past regarding China and Tibet often veer into racism.

I have written to the office of the Dalai Lama asking him if, as a Buddhist, he would say he still thinks most Tibetans "spurn" the Chinese-chosen 11th Panchen Lama. Of course how he knew most Tibetans think, or how he thinks he could speak for them reminds me of Republican politicians claiming they know what "Americans" think. I'll publish any reply.

I'll also try to contact the Chinese-chosen 11th Panchen Lama.