Corruption of Dalai Lama

First of all, I am not here to create a dissenion. I am here basically to get the facts straight. I may express some personal oppinions which might result in verbal warfare, however, I accept all oppinions because I would love to learn from different perspectives.
I've been blind for many years due the lack of knowledge of Eastern civilizations, and espicially the conspiracy between the Chinese government and the infamous/famous Dalai Lama. However, after 3 years I have finally come up with the conclusion that the all-mighty Dalai Lama is neither spirtual nor wise. The position of the Dalai Lama has been corrupted for centuries.


news.xinhuanet.com...

Thousands of Tibetans offer their prayers in and near the Jokhang Monastery every day, the number of monks in temples is on the rise and many Buddhists travel to Lhasa to attend prayers from across China, the letter said.

disciples were required to strictly obey their masters, making it impossible for Tibetans to pursue individuality and independence, let alone create their own fate. Old Tibet was under an extremely hierarchical regime featuring the combination of political and religious power.

The Tibetan Buddhist society bred some of the worse cases of slavery. They treated slaves as if they were non-existent beings, lower than any form of life, lower than a stick, lower than a grain of sand. The slaves obeyed to their master's plees, and if the masters want their brains for breakfast then they will get their brains. This is not a joke, the slave owners does not eat animal brains but human brains; they cut open the skull and pour boiling oil onto their cranium. I had known a Tibetan family whom came to the US for "refuge" after they were exiled by the Chinese government for slavery and endangering the norms of society. The family was actually one of the wealthiest in their village and owned many "servants" as they would call the slaves nowadays.
From what I can recall, the last time I went to a Tibetan Buddhist museum there were drums made of human skin, rope made of hair, candles made of human body fat, and that was only a part of the exhibit which the curator seemed extremely proud of.

All texts and pictures depicting the dark old Tibet and positive images of new Tibet have been taken out of its brochures, she said. For example, there is no mention of the armed offensive the Dalai Lama clique launched against China from Nepal with the help of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1960s or the cruel rule of Tibetan serfdom.

The article said the Dalai Lama clique asks for financial aid from the West in the name of religion and human rights. However, instead of spending money on those badly in need of help, the leading members in the clique buy golden watches and luxurious cars for themselves with donations from the West while their sponsors know nothing about these deeds.

received 1.7 million U.S. dollars a year from the CIA. The money was to pay for guerrilla operations against China, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama's public stance in support of nonviolence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the article said.

Apparently the Dalai also have associations set all over the United States receving millions of dollars a year.

www.amazon.com...

The bias introduced into the website can definitely be disputed as the Chinese completely hates the Tibetans and their ways, however what is fact is fact. The Dalai Lama has failed all of his wars for independence and concluded that it is better to stay with China.
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel recently welcomed the Dalai Lama to Germany. In my oppinion she was asking for Chinese retaliation, she should not have interfered with one of the most hated man in China as it will throw German and Chinese relations into a muddle. She praised him for his love and care; she criticized China for its human rights. What will she get for Helping a corrupt leader and pisisng off China? War? The finger?
The Dalai Lama is not any better than those men of the Salem witchcraft period, or those TV and traveling preachers would collects money claiming that they will use it for the church.
What will Tibet gain from independence? American bases planted in their land and a weak tribe as I would call it.

www.rediff.com...

Everytime the Dalai Lama is asked about tolerance, independence, freedom, and liberalism he speaks about other countries, never mentioning the future of Tibet.
Some claims him to be the new Jesus Christ, and the omnipotent pope of all religions. The only reason why he gets so much praise is because he wants independence from the Chinese government, and anyone going against the Chinese government will be supported.


Let me ask some of you ATSers something, why do support the Dalai Lama? Is it for the same reason as Taiwan? or just the widely spread anti-communism sentiment?

The information and the link you provide is Chineese propaganda.
While putting your theories together you may want to investigate an opposing view. I suggest the book "In Exile From The Land of Snow" by John Avedon, or watch the movie based upon the book called Kundun.

The Chineese over ran Tibet, murdered Monks and Nuns, and instituted a death penalty for anyone found with an image of the Dalai Lama. For over a thousand years Tibetans lived in peace and harmony, there was no slavery but instead practiced compassion for one another.

However everyone has bias, the author of your book has probably been emotionally scared by something that has happned to him or someone close; or else he could not have been motivated to write a book about it.

The Chineese over ran Tibet, murdered Monks and Nuns, and instituted a death penalty for anyone found with an image of the Dalai Lama. For over a thousand years Tibetans lived in peace and harmony, there was no slavery but instead practiced compassion for one another.

Are you even Asian, have you ever learned anything about Eastern civilization from the pathetic modern schools?

reply to post by die_another_day


Libraries and book stores are full of accurate history on Tibet, and the Dalai Lama. I have not read just one book on it but many. I have seen no bias in the documentation of Chineese/Tibeten History. Do you have any other sources to back up your indictment of the Dalai Lama?

It would be difficult to convince people that Tibet is other than milk, honey and spirituality, most probably, in light of the idealistic way it's been portrayed to Westerners. Everyone likes to believe that 'somewhere', there's a better-place, a better way of living, better form of 'religion' and spirituality. Tibet's been idealised out of all context and now seems to compete with Halmark cards for smaltz.

Dalai Lama is the poster-child for those privileged Westerners who are so far up Maslow's heirarchy that they have the time and means to 'shop' for religion with the same considered self-importance as they attend 'looking within' seminars set around ornamental lakes and catered by multi-millionaire 'gurus' who earn their Rolexes by keeping a straight face as they listen to overweight, overinduldged Westerners discussing their Disneyesque notions of their own 'spiritual selves'.

Westerners decry their own society and take package-tours to 'tourist Tibet', imagining the 'holiness' of the place has enriched them and put them on the path to 'truth'.

Here are a few truths:

' Born Female--Proof of Past Sins?

The Dalai Lama writes, "In Tibet there was no special discrimination against women." The Dalai Lama's authorized biographer Robert Hicks argues that Tibetan women were content with their status and "influenced their husbands." But in Tibet, being born a woman was considered a punishment for "impious" (sinful) behavior in a previous life. The word for "woman" in old Tibet, kiemen, meant "inferior birth." Women were told to pray, "May I reject a feminine body and be reborn a male one."

Lamaist superstition associated women with evil and sin. It was said "among ten women you'll find nine devils." Anything women touched was considered tainted--so all kinds of taboos were placed on women. Women were forbidden to handle medicine. Han Suyin reports, "No woman was allowed to touch a lama's belongings, nor could she raise a wall, or 'the wall will fall.'... A widow was a despicable being, already a devil. No woman was allowed to use iron instruments or touch iron. Religion forbade her to lift her eyes above the knee of a man, as serfs and slaves were not allowed to life the eyes upon the face of the nobles or great lamas."

Monks of the major sects of Tibetan Buddhism rejected sexual intimacy (or even contact) with women, as part of their plan to be holy. Before the revolution, no woman had ever set foot in most monasteries or the palaces of the Dalai Lama.

There are reports of women being burned for giving birth to twins and for practicing the pre-Buddhist traditional religion (called Bon). Twins were considered proof that a woman had mated with an evil spirit.

The rituals and folk medicine of Bon were considered "witchcraft." Like in other feudal societies, upperclass women were sold into arranged marriages. Custom allowed a husband to cut off the tip of his wife's nose if he discovered she had slept with someone else. The patriarchal practices included polygyny, where a wealthy man could have many wives; and polyandry, where in land-poor noble families one woman was forced to be wife to several brothers.

Among the lower classes, family life was similar to slavery in the U.S. South. (See The Life of a Tibetan Slave.) Serfs could not marry or leave the estate without the master's permission. Masters transferred serfs from one estate to another at will, breaking up serf families forever. Rape of women serfs was common--under the ulag system, a lord could demand "temporary wives."

Cont ...
rwor.org...

Originally posted by Witness2008
The information and the link you provide is Chineese propaganda.

actually, no.

www.workers.org...

The Chicago Tribune article was titled, "The CIA Secret War in Tibet." As this article said so well, "Little about the CIA skullduggery in the Himalayas is a real secret except maybe to the U.S. taxpayers who bankrolled it."

The CIA gave a special retainer to the Dalai Lama throughout the 1960s of $180,000 a year--a small fortune in Nepal, where it had set up an army and virtual government in exile. Washington also set up special radio stations aimed at Tibet projecting the Dalai Lama as a god-king.

Ralph McGehee, who has written many exposés of CIA operations and maintains a web site, described in some detail how the "company" promoted the Dalai Lama. The CIA's National Endowment for Democracy provided money for the Tibet Fund, Tibet Voice and the International Campaign for Tibet.

The article you quote, accusations you support, and conclusions you have come to are all laughable.

Not "ha-ha" laughable, rather "pathetic" laughable.

Anyone who quotes a state run Chinese newspaper article, which is obviously a disinformation hit piece, as their source to support accusations and conclusions that are so over-the-top and outrageous they defy belief, is a person who can't be taken seriously.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Thanks for letting the sewer of humanity seep a little into the ATS forums.

Mmmm. Getting heated already. Clearly the smaltzy Halmark card version of Tibet and the Dalai Lama is something some will fight and insult to maintain.

... ' The largest monasteries housed thousands of monks. Each "parent" monastery created dozens (even hundreds) of small strongholds scattered through the mountain valleys. For example, the huge Drepung monastery housed 7,000 monks and owned 40,000 people on 185 different estates with 300 pastures.

Monasteries also made up countless religious taxes to rob the people--including taxes on haircuts, on windows, on doorsteps, taxes on newborn children or calves, taxes on babies born with double eyelids...and so on. A quarter of Drepung's income came from interest on money lent to the serf-peasantry. The monasteries also demanded that serfs hand over many young boys to serve as child-monks.

The class relations of Tibet were reproduced inside the monasteries: the majority of monks were slaves and servants to the upper abbots and lived half-starved lives of menial labor, prayer chanting and routine beatings.

Upper monks could force poor monks to take their religious exams or perform sexual services. (In the most powerful Tibetan sect, such homosexual sex was considered a sign of holy distance from women.) A small percent of the clergy were nuns.

After liberation, Anna Louise Strong asked a young monk, Lobsang Tel�, if monastery life followed Buddhist teachings about compassion. The young lama replied that he heard plenty of talk in the scripture halls about kindness to all living creatures, but that he personally had been whipped at least a thousand times. "If any upper class lama refrains from whipping you," he told Strong, "that is already very good. I never saw an upper lama give food to any poor lama who was hungry. They treated the laymen who were believers just as badly or even worse."

These days, the Dalai Lama is "packaged" internationally as a non-materialist holy man. In fact, the Dalai Lama was the biggest serf owner in Tibet. Legally, he owned the whole country and everyone in it. In practice, his family directly controlled 27 manors, 36 pastures, 6,170 field serfs and 102 house slaves.

When he moved from palace to palace, the Dalai Lama rode on a throne chair pulled by dozens of slaves. His troops marched along to "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," a tune learned from their British imperialist trainers. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama's bodyguards, all over six-and-a-half feet tall, with padded shoulders and long whips, beat people out of his path. This ritual is described in the Dalai Lama's autobiography.

rwor.org...

Wow ... Western religions seem like paradise by comparison, don't they?

Wonder if the Tibetan ruling class had a Tibetan version of the adage: 'Pratice what you preach ' ?

To access further information and material provided in quotes in above posts, the link is:
rwor.org...

Sources:

The Anguish of Tibet, ed. Petra Kelly, Gert Bastian and Pat Aeillo, Parallax Press, Berkeley, 1991. A collection of pro-lamaist essays.
Avedon, John F. "In Exile from the Land of Snows," in The Anguish of Tibet. Avedon, an author and Newsweekjournalist, is a prominent apologist for lamaism.
Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile--The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, Harper Collins, N.Y., 1990.
Grunfeld, A. Tom, The Making of Modern Tibet, Zed Books, 1987.
Grunfeld, A. Tom, "Tibet: Myths and Realities," New China, Fall 1975.
Gyaltag, Gyaltsen, "An Historical Overview," an essay published in The Anguish of Tibet. Gyaltsen Gyaltag is a representative of the Dalai Lama in Europe.
Han Suyin; Lhasa, the Open City--A Journey to Tibet, Putnam, 1977.
Hicks, Roger, Hidden Tibet--The Land and Its People, Element Books, Dorset, 1988.
China Reconstructs, "Tibet--From Serfdom to Socialism," March 1976.
Peking Review, "Tibet's Big Leap--No Return to the Old System," July 4, 1975.

You'll note that the majority of sources provided are Westerners and or the Dalai Lama himself, via his autobiography and/or his representative


[edit on 11-2-2008 by Dock6]

reply to post by Dock6


I still see no credible news here. The links that have been provided lead to something written by a nameless revolutionary worker #944. The other links you to Sara Flanders, a bit of a propogandist, she is a Markist/Leninist activist. If you see a big red star (Chineese Military) on any of the links you post here it won't go far in convincing anyone the Dalai Lama is some kind of demon.

reply to post by Dock6


Have you read any of those books or essays?

This thread is absolute trash. It sickens and appalls me that anyone would try to
tarnish the Dalai Lama this way. He is such a kind, gentle man who went through so many hardships in his life, and yet he always has a smile for everyone and treats them warmly.

"Good Will towards all life is true religion"-Siddhartha Gautama-The Buddha

reply to post by scientist


Perhaps if you knew a bit about the history of Tibet you may be able to understand the news. Many Americans and Europeans, much of the world has been outraged at the occupation of Tibet by the Chineese, really is 180.000 a year so much considering what we give other nations and leaders.

I took refuge (became a Buddhist) in 1976. I currently live in a Buddhist meditation center under the direction of a Tibetan lama. I have practiced Vajrayana Buddhism (the kind they practice in Tibet, and other places) for over thirty years. I'm living proof that you can do that and still be just an ordinary (non-holy) person, but, I do know what I am talking about.

There is no question that Tibetan Buddhism has been on a press honeymoon for a long time. Why that is, I do not know. There have been a few awkward moments that have disturbed the bliss over the years, but very few.

Westerners have a distorted view of Tibet and Tibetans. Everything that has happened everywhere else in the world has happened in Tibet, with the exception of advanced material development. They are people just like us. Among them are genuine saints and genuine devils.

To the OP I would say beware of Chinese government assertions on the subject of Tibet. They are extremely tendentious. If you want to find unvarnished observations about Tibet, a good source is the accounts of early travellers to that region. Particularly interesting are the observations of British Army officers who visited the region on the Younghusband expedition. There are some shrewd and honest evaluations to be found in these writings.

The Tibetans, after Younghusband had forced them to accept a British trading post, observed with relief that it was so much easier to deal with the frog when you were used to dealing with the scorpion (China.)

As far as the Tibetan "spiritual and monastic lifestyle" is concerned, many of the things you are referring to are true. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche refers to monks being beaten in his biography, Born in Tibet. Trungpa was a high ranking Tibetan tulku (reincarnated saint.)

I could write in great detail about this subject, but this isn't really the venue to explore these things in detail. Let me just say that up until 1959 Tibet was a living fossil, an actual existing medieval state!

It is hard for us to comprehend what that means because we are so removed from our own society's medieval past. When you do the research the amusing thing is how much like our own medieval past their medieval present was, and to some extent still is.

If you read Thomas B. Costain's history of the Plantagenet family, you get a wonderful sense of the medieval ambience. It is much more accurate to think of pre-1959 Tibet as a surviving relic of the medieval period, than as a spiritual shangri-la (and also remember that our own medieval society was something of a spiritual shangri-la, if you were in the right place with the right saint.)

As far as the Dalai Lama goes, he is playing a badly dealt hand of cards extremely well. To some extent Tibet was a land of saints and bandits, like Mexico. It is not easy to lead a place like that. My understanding is that he is trying to separate the religious and political branches of the Tibetan government. I'm not sure what kind of politician he is, but on a meditative level he is a truly great saint in the Vajrayana tradition.

' ...In 1998 the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the world’s most violent and dangerous extremist groups. Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist.

www.michaelparenti.org...

Buddhists ... violent and dangerous extremist groups ?

' ..Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society.

A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different.

Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5

In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops

Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity.

The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6

For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the offspring too “like eggs smashed against rocks…. In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.” 7

In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and their monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect (the Dalai Lama’s denomination). The Gelug school, known also as the “Yellow Hats,” showed little tolerance or willingness to mix their teachings with other Buddhist sects. In the words of one of their traditional prayers: “Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings/who reduces to particles of dust/ great beings, high officials and ordinary people/ who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine.” 8 An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be. 9 This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

Continued .... www.michaelparenti.org...

If you read back through this thread, you'll see where the Dalai Lama, in his autobiography, mentioned employing numerous body-guards of immense size (over 6.5 feet tall) and strength, who were armed with whips, etc. .... with which to beat his (the Dalai Lama's) followers !

How does that jell with the 'maharishi'-type personna sold by the Dalai Lama and his public-relations gurus today ? Smiling sweetly from behind his John Lennon glasses and dressed in saffron, he flies from engagement to engagement like a rock-star, dropping pearls of Buddhist wisdom on ideal-parched Western supporters with an unsettlingly hard-edged smirk/smile.

He's big-business. Seems to have completely reinvented himself since Western powers and their intelligence agencies realised his potential.

The Commie threat . Always good for scaring well-fed little Americans (and their parents). A 'Red Under the Bed' used to be the anti-communist slogan. The Dalai Lama has forged a career for himself (intentionally or not) by pandering to American fear/hatred of Communism. The rallying cry is one of 'Bad Commies Invading Peaceful, Spiritual Tibet '.

Seems the Tibetans have poor luck, doesn't it ?

From the frying pan (of brutal repressive regimes of their own) into the fire of commie China.

Meanwhile, it appears the Dalai Lama's gigantic, whip-bearing, follower-beating routine has been adroitly air-brushed aside.

It's a NEW Tibetan Buddhism these days ! Not polite to discuss Tibetan Buddhist monks buggering the little boys they stole from that despise, 'evil' Tibetan sub-class ... women.

And certainly no-one these days likes to refer to the Tibetan habit of burning alive those women who incautiously gave birth to twins. Etc.

Don't those Tibetans who suffered life-long and so horribly under their masters' repressive regime deserve for the truth to at least be known ? Or are we so superficial that we prefer to treat Tibetan history as 'pick and dip' .... take the best and ignore the rest ?

Warts and all is the only way. To adopt any other philosophy is despicable.





[edit on 11-2-2008 by Dock6]

More about 'peaceful, spiritual Tibet' PRE Chinese invasion.

' In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords.

There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs.

There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling.

The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery.

There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed.

Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off.

There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.23

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people.

In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.”

At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.”

Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people.

In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24

As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

www.michaelparenti.org...

Ignorance, superstition, repression, suppression, feudalism, barbarity, corruption, revenge, misogyny, etc.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it ?

And all the above and more was rampant PRIOR to communist takeover.

Now ... wonder why the saffron-robed, head dipping, sardonically-smiling Dalai Lama doesn't mention this recent non-Communist Tibetan reality to the worshipping West on any of his round-the-globe flying stop-overs ?

If you have a thirst for truth, the link is there. Someone's taken the time to put in online. No need for the inconvenience of a walk to the public library.

reply to post by Dock6

I've studied and practised Vajrayana Buddhism for over thirty years in very close contact with an upper class Tibetan tulku. I've never seen him mete out these procrustean punishments to anyone, . . . not that he can't be a problematic personality.

I think the truth, the whole truth, is that until recently, Tibetan society was a medieval one, very much like the medieval society of Europe. I'm sure that medieval friars who visited Tibet were aghast at nothing. In fact some of the early ones looked at the regalia of the Vajrayana lamas and were convinced that they were remnants of an earlier Catholic missionary effort.

The evils of our own medieval past don't sum up that past. Tibet's evils don't sum it up either. My own lama never attempted to conceal any of these types of things and often took the lead in relating, with a spooky sense of humour, some of the more grisly tales. But you are quite right in saying that the current Western myth-making in regard to Tibet is wrong and inaccurate.

The story of Tibet is a long and complicated one. It is very much to the world's advantage to save the best of what Tibet has to offer, while discarding the worst. The modern world has dispensed with our own medieval wrongs and it will do the same with Tibet's.


[edit on 12-2-2008 by ipsedixit]

Internal strife has been present in all nations and cultures. When Tibet was being over run by China Americans were still lynching black people, we have had our own strife, and not so long ago. Would it have justified invasion? The links and articles you provide are not a complete picture of Tibets history. But check out the links here and you shall see a glimpse of Tibets future under Chinas control.

www.ciolek.com...

www.friendsoftibet.org...


[edit on 12-2-2008 by Witness2008]

[edit on 12-2-2008 by Witness2008]

[edit on 12-2-2008 by Witness2008]

[edit on 12-2-2008 by Witness2008]

I have nothing against the religion, the Dalai Lama has either destroyed or endangered many international relations in the past few years. Including Germany and China, India and China, USA and China, Nepal and India.

I personally do not think that the American media is any better than the Chinese. I mean American journalists always try to ruin Islam, the police, US government, China,celebrities, and basically exaggerate every miniscule detail.

Organizations give the Dalai money to help the lives of his fellow Tibetans, instead he buys some BMW or a plasma TV. That reminds me of the time when I went to the XiaoLin temple, you see a bunch of monks as you would expect them to appear, but behind the scenes they're rich than any of us due to the amount of revenue from tourism. They all have limos, and they do not live in the temples or anything; once the temple "closes" they go home.

Is he and his "government" any better than the Papacy? Indulgences anyone?


The truth is unknown, because we do not know whether it was the people of Tibet who recorded their history or some of Dalai's government official.
The people of Tibet suffered, the people of other nations received smiles, if the Dalai doesn't act like a good boy then why would anyone support Tibetan independence?

The situations that I have heard are either false or true, but it is what I have heard. I lived in Tibet for 2 years becasue my father went there to study gene therapy. Living conditions were rotten, the cities were extremely trashed. However that was about 10 years ago.







A westerner going there will say that the Dalai is like god, a Chinese will say that the Dalai is complete BS.

The only way to get an unbiased view is by sending an ALIEN there, lets invite some ETs and let them judge what is really happening.b]



[edit on 2/12/2008 by die_another_day]

[edit on 2/12/2008 by die_another_day]

When you were in tibet the Chinese were occupying the country unless of course you were there before 1959. You continue to rely upon Chinese propoganda for your information.

Monks and nuns usually reside in the Monataries they practice in. I attend services on occassion and I can tell you that Monks and Nuns do not buy expensive items, they are in fact very frugal, the point of Buddhism is the spiritual not the material. And those that do have seperate homes they are not very oppulant. Before Bashing a culture you may want to see both sides.

I am sure there are those that do not practice Buddhism with the utmost care for the teachings, but I know of no religion or beleif system that is without some type of reproach.

Using Chinese propoganda does not serve your argument very well. Did you look at the link provided? There are hundreds of sites and books to debunk every one of the arguments presented in this thread to demonize the Dalai Lama.

Can you provide anything other than Chinese prpoganda to justify your statement that the Dalai Lama has strained any foriegn relations?