Dalai Lama is "personification of evil"

[Tenzin]

http://rtn.asia/978_dalai-lama-personification-evil-china-told-us-ambassador-wikileaks (http://rtn.asia/978_dalai-lama-personification-evil-china-told-us-ambassador-wikileaks)

I know this will upset MANY people and I was at first very skeptical when I found out about this, especially when I am a Buddhist myself. The "Free Tibet" movement is actually not what it appears to be from the mainstream news. It is a probable plot to establish a negative sentiment against China while the Elites work towards their implementation of the NWO and the WW3. I was not surprised when the organization running the campaign (who is headquartered in New York City), immediately removed my post on their facebook page for friendly discussion on the below video clips.

A friend commented on this: "Probably that is not hard to understand with China blooming state of economy and their willingness to improve their own human rights record. Tibet is open for the world to see so whereas is the best place to start telling the world that they are peaceful and non-confrontational"

People who have actually traveled to Tibet realize the civilians are very happy with the Chinese rule.

siBqFgwL-lA

Lets get to the bottom of this hoax.

A background of Tibet's political history:

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[DNA]

Are you sure your not a chinese laborer in a prison with an armed guard standing right behind you?
People's republic of prapaganda?

I'm not for any country invading the sovergn rights of any country.
I'm against the USA invasion of Libya.
I'm against the invasion of Iraq.


And I'm against the invasion of Tibet.
I'm sure the tibetan who gave testimony in favor of chinese rule were more than happy to tell you how happy they are under chinese rule with an SKS pointed squarelly at their midsection the whole time.

[loveandgratitude]

Hello Tenzin. I know exactly what you mean and agree. I have spent a number of years living with Tibetans. Although what you present here will be a shock to many.

Tibet was a feudal system but now is under a form of tyrannical control. Not a lot has changed for the tibetan people living in the mountains. They have not profited from the Chinese takeover.

Of course for some, now there is education but along the Chinese party lines. Overall the standard of living has gone up and more food is available for the people, plus medical assistance, clothes, shoes, of which was denied to them by the feudal system. I would say that this is an improvement.

PS. You have a Tibetan name, yes?

[Tenzin]

I certainly do not have the full picture. Though I think everyone should look at it from all possible angles. It is definitely very hard on others when they could actually be paying people to create those movies, set people up, and whatnots to get people to think in their favor. We have to accept the fact that whatever is widely propagated and allowed to be in the mainstream deserve to be questioned further.

As a Buddhist, I am well aware of the teachings and find what Dalai Lama is expounding do not actually flow well with the basics of it all.

Many red flags, I must say...

[Flash]

Two westerners doing propaganda with their film with subtitles in Chinese, the message is clear isn't it. Chinese people, even American say that Tibetans are happy!. (now we understand the easiness of American propaganda, getting peoiple to do it is easy).

Tenzin, tell me a balanced story please. the whole planet was much poorer and right after the war when the Dalai Lama left. The link is not that direct. Furthermore, the Chinese are also a conqueror empire, have always been. So explain to me why you say that the Dalai Lama is evil, while living in Singapour?

Thank you

[loveandgratitude]

This video focuses upon a few topics of interest:

- Uyghur and Han riots in Xinjiang
- The Dalai Lama's recent statement that "life in Tibet is hell."
- Why Tibet is a part of China
- Tibet before 1959
- Tibet after 1959 and "today"
- The Dalai Lama's celebrity image and its exploitation


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TvRYPthPo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TvRYPthPo&feature=related

So much more needs to be looked at here.

The Nazis and their expeditions to Tibet before and during the War 2.
The CIA money that went to support the Dali Lama during and after the War 2.

So much as usual goes on behinds the scenes.

REMEMBER STUDY HISTORY NOT THE MEDIA

[Tenzin]

Two westerners doing propaganda with their film with subtitles in Chinese, the message is clear isn't it. Chinese people, even American say that Tibetans are happy!. (now we understand the easiness of American propaganda, getting peoiple to do it is easy).

Tenzin, tell me a balanced story please. the whole planet was much poorer and right after the war when the Dalai Lama left. The link is not that direct. Furthermore, the Chinese are also a conqueror empire, have always been. So explain to me why you say that the Dalai Lama is evil, while living in Singapour?

Thank you

Certainly 1 or 2 videos like that is not going to sway people's opinion and belief. I am not asking everyone to believe everything I have posted either. My intention is for all to challenge what is out there, even those links I shared. If one is serious enough, perhaps to take the active approach to go to Tibet to take a look and ask around. Then it may be clear what is true.

To me, what is 'evil', is to keep us trapped in this matrix. Consciousness conditions Senses, Sense contact conditions Feelings, Feelings lead to Craving, Craving leads to Rebirth. <- Dependent Origination.

[Ria]

I would like to know more about the Bon religion?
What part has survived?
Also there was a practice of mummification that started while the holy person was still alive and took some years to accomplish.
A lot of these mummies were venerated and I think destroyed by the English? [I am not a100% on that one]
I have heard the odd negative whisper about the Dali lama but was not shore if this was disinformation?
All clarification most welcome.

[realitycorrodes]

The first video IMHO has no substance. No real research. No variety of interviews with a number of Tibetans. I have been to India and gone to the Tibetan Market in Delhi and every Tibetan I spoke to there is not in favour of the Invasion of China into Tibet. I live in Australia and I know a Tibetan man who wears a free tibet t-shirt. Every tibetan I have know is against the INVASION OF CHINA INTO TIBET.

As others have stated we need to take into consideration the "Freedom of Speech" history in China. If china does not allow it (e.g. vetting the internet etc etc) how can anyone trust such an untrustworthy "propaganda machine".

That said I have done research on the Dalai Lama I personally do not see him as a spiritual teacher. Old Tibet was a feudalistic society filled with serfs. The tibetan religion appears to be an intricate mind control program well hidden behind a religious fascade. I even came across stuff that suggested that the Dalai Lamas used to eat their slaves - I don't know how trustworthy it is however?

All I can say, what can you trust from Western and Chinese Media - they are both the same organisation of greedy, power obsessed creatures at a level just above what we can see in the press. IMHO

[araucaria]

I think I'll just stick to his writings thank you. Things like this:

'If you feel loving-kindness is useful, then you can try to increase it as a counter-measure against hatred and anger. If the number of these thoughts increases, then the number of their opposing thoughts will be reduced. That's the way to train your mind.

Without such a training, everyone has negative thoughts and has positive thoughts, and both are equally strong. Certain conditions provoke positive ones. However, by making a conscious effort we can change that pattern, and this is what we mean by transforming the mind. It is a way to improve ourselves. I think that irrespective of whether you are a believer or a non-believer, the more you nurture a feeling of loving-kindness, the happier and calmer you will be. Your basic outlook will remain calm, and even if you hear a disturbing piece of news, it will not disturb you too much. So this is a very useful approach. On the other hand, if you are predominantly unhappy on account of hatred or certain negative thoughts you harbor, then even when good news comes your way it might disturb you even more.'

Transforming the Mind, p.164.

[<8>]

This clip explains in short what i have study myself about the history of Tibet, there was a great movie about this but it gets removed all the time.
In short Tibets history are as corupt as the rest of the world and they got all the help they needed from the west...
Tibet had a system for choosing a new Dalai Lama when the old one dies, when the Dalai Lama dies, the "royal" court appoints a regent who rules until the next reincarnation comes of age. Over the centuries some regents grew fond of their power and some Dalai Lamas expired prematurely, not to mention suspiciously.

But if i remember right it was not allways so, they had a sort of a fail safe system. So money and power could not interfear how the new Dali Elama was chosen.
I remember i saw the Tibets royal spending time with the british royal family, i guess the got all the suport they needed from that inbred family.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhXw-2aqJ3E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhXw-2aqJ3E

[Tarka the Duck]

BuddhaDharma is about harmony and compassion.

Propaganda is about disharmony and lack of compassion.

Everything depends on your intention.

Kathie

[animalspirits]

All I can say about this is: Gimme' a frigin' break!

Some people seek to destroy just about everything....everything with any spiritual value...and I am not buying all this crap.

:boink:

[Tenzin]

All I can say about this is: Gimme' a frigin' break!

Some people seek to destroy just about everything....everything with any spiritual value...and I am not buying all this crap.

:boink:

You seem to know something about the topic... would you care to share your insight? I'd like to know I am wrong with all the killings we have seen on the videos out in the public domain.

[pamina]

This seems to be a complex situation with many sides. However, unless it can be demonstrated that the Dalai Lama says one thing and does another, I don't see how he can be considered evil.

[jackovesk]

This is my own Personal View..




"The Dalai Lama is about as Spiritual as a Big Mac..!"

"The Dalai Lama is the equivalent of the Black Pope in Asia..!"

"Just another NWO Globalist Shill & CIA Operative used as a 'Political Puppet' to be used when required..!
The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama’s Holy Cloak

March 23, 2008

This incisive article by Michael Backman outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence.

The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s. He is an instrument of US intelligence.

An understanding of this longstanding relationship to the CIA is essential, particuarly in the light of recent events. In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.

M. C. 23 March 2008

Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.

Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure?

No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet’s government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama’s own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)

The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA.

The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama’s public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA’s payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).

The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.

Details of the government-in-exile’s funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile’s Department of Finance.

The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.

Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs.

The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile’s overseas offices.

For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low.

It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.

Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.

Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.

Part of its funding comes from the US State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs.

Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.

An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.

A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile’s planning council and its Department of Health.

A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile’s Department of Information and International Relations.

Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.

The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama’s family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor’s advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.

What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?
If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.

He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.

In any event, the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old. His successor — a reincarnation — will be appointed as a child and it will be many years before he plays a meaningful role. As far as China is concerned, that is one problem that will take care of itself, irrespective of whether or not John Howard or Kevin Rudd meet the current Dalai Lama.

http://www.thelasersshadow.com/ajmirror2/www.infowars.com/the-role-of-the-cia-behind-the-/wsdindex.html

PS - Just another NWO Political Servant to be brought out and paraded when required..!

What's so 'SPIRITUAL' about that..!..?

[Davidallany]

Most Buddhist monks are taught to look upon people as lesser entities. Psychology is used to manipulate people into serving the monastic communities.

[loveandgratitude]

When studying Tibetian Buddism in Sikkim under the opposing force to the Dalai Lama - KARMAPA, I was privy to the conflict between the two opposing forces. Now In Tibetian Buddism you have the yellow hats and the red hats. Karmapa is the red hat and the black hat. Karmapa was "murdered" on a visit to the USA in Chicago. Karmapa was considered to be the original teachings of Tibetian philosophy. Similiar to the split with the Catholic and the Church of England and the rivalry that followed.

When in the USA he developed a quick fast spreading case of cancer of the throat He died within 2 weeks of being in the USA. The Dali Lama lead a war against the Red hats - saying that all Red Hat (non Gelugpa) Buddhist teachers are selfish magicians. This is no longer politically correct.

EDIT..........I am not suggesting that the Dali Lama was directly involved in any murder.
But is it historically correct that the two opposing schools were a sort of rivails.

If any one had a hand in neferious wrong doings, we can only go back to the old source of assinations, political, religious. Sad.

EDIT n 1974, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje set out on his first world tour. He took a second tour in 1977. As did the previous Karmapas, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje performed startling miracles. Numerous times he left footprints in rocks. He once tied sword blades in knots. During a visit to the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona, he made rain for the drought-stricken area.

The Sixteenth Karmapa died in 1981 in Zion, Illinois, north of Chicago. After his death, his body remained upright in meditation posture for three days, and the area over his heart was warm. His body shrunk to the size of a child. During his cremation, his heart fell from the blazing body.
The heart is now a venerated relic, stored in a stupa at Rumtek monastery. Bones that remained after the cremation of Rangjung Rigpe Dorje formed Buddhas and many relics. The Sixteenth Karmapa is best known for having brought the Dharma out of Tibet into the Western world.

During the cremation, his two dogs died and a huge rainbow spread over the entire monastry.

[onawah]

Do you have any proof of these statements?

EDIT: This was a question I asked re L&G's last post before it was edited, when it sounded as if he was implying the DL had something to do with the Karmapa's death.
Which he was not implying, as he made clear.

[loveandgratitude]

Proof? Of murder? Of course not. This is speculation by his followers.

The rivalry - The Karmapa lineage is the most ancient tulku lineage in Tibetan Buddhism, predating the Dalai Lama lineage by more than two centuries.

[onawah]

Thanks for clarifying that, L&G. It did sound as though you were implying the DL had something to do with the Karmapa's death.

True, there has been rivalry between the different schools in Tibetan history, but it should be very clear that the Chinese and such black ops as the CIA are threatened by the very real power of such individuals as the Karmapa and the D.L, who, like many Native American elders who possess great "Medicine", can, by their very presence, thwart aims of controlling and dividing and conquering.
Once the Chinese gov's intent to invade was clear, I'm sure those rivalries were dropped and their common cause became the protection of their people and their country's sovereignty.

If people succumb to the kind of propaganda that such dark forces are putting out to demonize the Tibetan leaders, that would be most unfortunate.
The title of this thread and some of the content would lead one to believe that that was the purpose of this thread.
I am surprised and shocked to find it here on PA yet again, and it makes me wonder what the motivations are for continuing this "debate".

I have known people who have worked closely with the last Karmapa and other Tibetan lamas, who have traveled to the region and come to know the people.
As I understand it, the love of the people for their spiritual leaders is quite genuine, the spiritual power of those leaders is for the most part very real, and the desire of the Chinese and the dark ops to crush that power is very malevolent.
I am surprised that, instead of a discussion about the power and authenticity of the lamas in question, we have one here which seems to be furthering the despots and black ops aims.

So I will add here one experience I had having to do with the last Karmapa, in hopes it may help to change the energy here.
He was in San Francisco in the 70s to perform the Red Hat Ceremony, a kind of spiritual initiation.
I was working behind the scenes at the home of a friend, a wealthy benefactress who was instrumental in helping the lamas come to the US to teach.
Her home was in the suburbs of SF, but even from that distance, I could feel the power of the ceremony as hundreds of initiates received the Karmapa's bestowal of energy.

Many years later, a friend showed me a series of photographs that were taken of the Karmapa while he was meditating.
You could see his form becoming more and more transparent as he went deeper and deeper into samadhi.
Some parts of him were actually invisible in the last photos of the sequence.
James Gilliland posted some similar photos on his site of a Japanese monk at ECETI ranch, who was photographed while bi-locating.
You can see why such powers, developed without the benefit of technology, might be threatening to the Chinese gov and the black ops.

Please, let us not paint such people as villains on this forum.
The Dalia Lama, who I have seen in person myself quite recently, emits the most loving of vibrations and loving kindness.
Though there may be dark times in the history of Tibet, we do not have to add to the darkness here by assisting the dark side in their work of painting everything black.

[Tenzin]

We can never really know what people's agenda is unless one has reached the upper rungs of spiritual development. And yes, we are all capable of that. I am highly supportive of meditation.

Prior to that, we are very much vulnerable to what we see, hear, and unfortunately something that is hard for many to water down as a possibility since it tags onto emotional imprints to the sight of the killings of innocence, are being set up to believe.

How can such a loving person be evil? That is ridiculous! Shame on you to even think that!! But... what is evil?

We cannot deny the fact the CIA has been fooling around with politics. Youtube "Secrets of CIA". Even religions all over the world have been controlled in some ways such that the majority, are pulled along with a carrot, often referred to as 'happiness'. Certainly a good thing for all, isn't it?

Before we are truly spiritually awake, we have to keep our guards up.

IF ANYONE COMES ALONG AND TELLS US TO STOP INVESTIGATING EVEN IF A TRUTH HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED BY MANY, it should spring a red flag for you. No one has a right to tell us to stop asking questions and simply comply. If there is something to hide, there will always be people ridiculing, and ganging up on them, to stop them from speaking up. So where is the transparency? Tyranny squelches inquisition.

This thread, is up here, for all to challenge everything we ever believed in.

So please feel free to add your insights for further discussion.

[Ria]

This is a great thread.
Thank you Jackovesk for the info.
Thank you Loveandgratitude, where did the cremation take place? Was this the Kamapa red hat and black hat linage that practices the process of mummification while still alive. This involved eating pine need-els at a certain point of the process to kill off bacteria and any thing els that would decompose the body. Was this sect push out of Tibet and do you have an Idea where its origins started. I understand that there is a couple of these mummies in Japan as well. I find all your insight and knowledge most interesting. Thank you.

[Ria]

Good point Tezin.
Onawel these pictures sound most interesting, I am shore many of us would find them so, can you lay your hands on them, to post them here?
This thread is opening the mind to different facets. All input much appreciated.

[ulli]

Criticism of Tibetan Buddhism is not exclusively Chinese propaganda. I understand the Dalai Lama himself has begun to distance himself from some of the practises of traditional rituals.
Without condemning him personally some aspects of Tibetan rites which are hidden should be made public.
Here is a part of the Trimondi's investigation:

Then, according to statements in numerous international media reports, Tibetan Buddhism is the "trend religion" of our time. Through the XIV Dalai Lama, through both his charismatic appearances and his ostensibly humanist speeches and writings, a gigantic, unreflective cultural import of Eastern concepts into the West is taking place, one which displays fundamentalist characteristics and serves as an ideological foundation for various fundamentalist camps and can continue to so serve in the future. The Buddhist leader appeals to people’s deep need for harmony and peace, but the history of Lamaism itself, the contents of the Tibetan Tantras and their complex of rituals, even the conditions which prevail among the Tibetans in exile, are anything but peaceful and harmonic. There are passages in the Kalachakra Tantra which brazenly call for a "war of the religions", which are intolerant and aggressive. In Tibetan Buddhism we have an archaic, magic-based religious system, which has remained to a large extent untouched by the fundamentals of the Western Enlightenment. This is also the reason it is so attractive for right-wing extremists. For centuries it has led to social injustices that any freedom-loving citizen of today would be forced to reject. The equality of the sexes, democratic decision making and ecumenical movements are in themselves foreign to the nature of Tantric Buddhism, although the XIV Dalai Lama publicly proclaims the opposite.
http://www.american-buddha.com/TRIMONDI.criticalforum.htm

[ezone]

Hello :cool:

May i ask what is being discussed here????
Is it possible to look at America and make the right judgement if i think about the native americans, and how they where treated and sent to reservations?
What about the racial segregation, that is still in course???
Is this a nice portrait of America, the land of freedom and civil rights???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHxRSakuGMg&feature=related

Do we know how Africans are living their lives, for how long they have committed their children and grandchildren lives in order to pay weapons to "developed countries", with their natural resources?
When China invaded Tibet, claiming that a foreign threat might come from this territory, there were 6 foreigners living in Tibet.
Please reflect upon this. And do yourself a favour, read a wonderfull book from this author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Volkoff

... the one called "A short history of disinformation".

The "TRUTH" is a forbidden word nowadays, specialy because we don´t seek the truth, we seek self satisfaction... and this brings disharmony to our lives and to the lives of others.
We are watching live history, and we are part of hit... how do we want the future to remember us?
Please note that i'm not passing judgements on the author of this post or anyone else that replied to it.
I'm just wondering about the purpose of those discussions and i really feel that something is wrong with all of us.
Awakening gives a lot of trouble, doesn't it????
Cheers

[Tarka the Duck]

I have just got back from spending 6 weeks with Tibetans (I have been fortunate enough to be able to this fairly frequently): the portrayal in the videos on the OP are completely alien to my experience.

His Holiness, and the other lamas, are bending over backwards to offer the most subtle of teachings, and their whole existence exudes compassion.

As I'm sure you know, Monarex (the makers of the second video) is owned by Chris Nebe, who is well known for his fascination with China - on January 8, 2007 he was appointed International Business Advisor to the Information Office of the Provincial Government of Xinjiang and Xinjiang Electronic Media in the People's Republic of China.

Please do not doubt the atrocities that have been carried out against the Tibetan people.
If you haven't seen Murder in the Snow (the story of a young Tibetan nun shot by Chinese border guards that was secretly filmed by an international group of mountaineers), do watch it.
When we spent time in Nepal, Tibetans were arriving daily over the border, escaping the persecution.
These people have a deep love of their country: why would more than 130,000 of them be living in exile if all was well there?

Please consider that much of what is on the web concerning this topic is deliberate propaganda. It is a massive machine...don't be sucked in!

From Wikipedia (verify independently if you don't trust this source)
Online spin doctors
Main article: 50 Cent Party
China is known for using internet "spin doctors", specially trained internet users who comment on blogs, public forums or wikis, to shift the debate in favor of the Communist Party and influence public opinion.[37] They are sometime called the "50-cent party" - named so because they are allegedly paid 50 Chinese cents for each comment supporting the CCP they make.[39]
An internal government document released by the BBC outlines the requirements for those employed as spin-doctors, which include having "relatively good political and professional qualities, and have a pioneering and enterprising spirit", being able to react quickly, etc.[39]
It is believed that such government-sponsored Internet commentators have now become widespread and their numbers could be in the tens of thousands;[39] Bandurski suggests the number may be up to 280,000[37] while The Guardian puts the estimate as 300,000.[40] According to The Guardian, the growth in popularity of such astroturfing owes to the ease with which web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube can be employed to sway public opinion. The BBC reports that special centres have been set up to train China's 'army of internet spin doctors'.[39]
[edit]

Please don't let suspicion and hearsay cloud your mind!
Listen to that which brings harmony.

Kathie

[transiten]

Oh My!

There's a swedish song from the 70:ies "Whom in the entire world can you trust" where both religious and political leaders we honour and trust are doing strange things ....this is just too much and i won't give my little peace of mind to this, i'm going back to the Here and Now thread to get some comfort!

[Second Son]

There are so many people who are only too willing to supplicate to some "holy" scripture, person or tradition. The bottom line is: ALL spirituality is unique to the individual, and there is no "one size fits all" BUT because humans are basically a lazy lot, looking for acceptance and prone to group think, these old, stale, archaic, and backwards belief systems are, sadly, all too alive and well, I'm sorry to say.

I wish the masses would all wake up. The world is just as beautiful and miraculous without all the superstitious mumbo jumbo... really.

[Arrowwind]

This is a lot of accusation that you bring forth .. I assmume you are ready to defend it with documentaion?


This is my own Personal View..




"The Dalai Lama is about as Spiritual as a Big Mac..!"

"The Dalai Lama is the equivalent of the Black Pope in Asia..!"

"Just another NWO Globalist Shill & CIA Operative used as a 'Political Puppet' to be used when required..!
The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama’s Holy Cloak

March 23, 2008

This incisive article by Michael Backman outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence.

The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s. He is an instrument of US intelligence.

An understanding of this longstanding relationship to the CIA is essential, particuarly in the light of recent events. In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.

M. C. 23 March 2008

Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.

Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure?

No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet’s government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama’s own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)

The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA.

The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama’s public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA’s payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).

The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.

Details of the government-in-exile’s funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile’s Department of Finance.

The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.

Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs.

The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile’s overseas offices.

For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low.

It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.

Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.

Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.

Part of its funding comes from the US State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs.

Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.

An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.

A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile’s planning council and its Department of Health.

A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile’s Department of Information and International Relations.

Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.

The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama’s family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor’s advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.

What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?
If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.

He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.

In any event, the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old. His successor — a reincarnation — will be appointed as a child and it will be many years before he plays a meaningful role. As far as China is concerned, that is one problem that will take care of itself, irrespective of whether or not John Howard or Kevin Rudd meet the current Dalai Lama.

http://www.thelasersshadow.com/ajmirror2/www.infowars.com/the-role-of-the-cia-behind-the-/wsdindex.html

PS - Just another NWO Political Servant to be brought out and paraded when required..!

What's so 'SPIRITUAL' about that..!..?

[Arrowwind]

So I will add here one experience I had having to do with the last Karmapa, in hopes it may help to change the energy here.
He was in San Francisco in the 70s to perform the Red Hat Ceremony, a kind of spiritual initiation.
I was working behind the scenes at the home of a friend, a wealthy benefactress who was instrumental in helping the lamas come to the US to teach.
Her home was in the suburbs of SF, but even from that distance, I could feel the power of the ceremony as hundreds of initiates received the Karmapa's bestowal of energy.

.

I attended a Black Hat ceremony by a Karmapa in maybe in or around 1977 but it was a black hat ceremony, thousands were there in an autatorium in San Deigo, if I remember right, I was moving around a lot at that time... dont remember his name... all that kind of stuff was pretty new to me at the time. but he had a Black Hat on... attendedence to the ceremony meant that you would be released from previous Karma. HA! I wonder about that!

Oh, and I was traveling and in Salt Lake City in 2001 when the Dalhi Lama went there to visit his brother... talk about vibration... the whole city was electrified! I didn't get to see him cause I was hugely pressed to find a house to live in and we needed to move there in just a couple of weeks from Texas.. but his presence was certainly perceived.

I do not see that the Dahli Lama is evil
If he took money from the CIA who gives a flip? He had thousands of refugees he had to contend with in those early yearss and they were homeless and hungry.

USAs interest in Tibet was merely to contain China,, you know.. all that dominno bull****... well hey. China always considered Tibet their territory, is my understanding... a territory that had gone wayward.... can't say I know or understand their reasoning behind that though

More was done to promote the growth of Buddhism and the eightfold path with Tibet taken over than ever would have happened if they never left. They are building a rather large Buddhist shrine in Montana of all places,,, Imagine that!

[Hughe]

Fact is Tibet is a child worship nation. The true Buddhism is everybody is equal and god-like being.
I was a Buddhist but I realized that Buddha's teaching has been heavily distorted for thousands years.

People who are complete brainwashed by the religious dogma are happy? Maybe.

Never worship or put other person over yourself. That's the beginning of being a slave.
Religious head figure, political leaders, or movie stars. Are they special? People make them special and more powerful by giving their power.
So the government does become mighty being.

Why do I have to follow the rules on a piece of paper written by few individuals?

Learning and understanding make us to better being. Following orders and worshiping make us slaves. ETs do the same. There are god-like ET species. I'm fine if they teach us something. If an ET try to manipulate me, I'll show the middle finger right in front of its face.

[Dorjezigzag]

O.K not sure if any other posters here have actually met the Dalai Lama but I have.

I know a a spiritual man when I meet him and he definitely is!

He has a weird mixture of strength and gentleness at the same time. He is tantra personified a unity of the masculine and feminine.

Does Tibetan Buddhism have its skeletons like most spiritual traditions, oh yeah, is the world ready to hear them, o no!

Dalia Lama is a good man doing what he thinks is best for his people as the spiritual leader and political leader in exile of Tibet.
Tenzin, I suggest you pay more awareness to the laws of karma, and by the way my intention is compassionate with this statement. In Tibet they have a saying, you point the thumb( in Tibet they point with the thumb) and 4 fingers point back at you!

[Tony]

I have been to a few of his Holinesses teachings, they are extensive, profound and precise.

Everyday I chant his long life pray.
He is the embodiment Avaloketishvara, the lord of Compassion.
I wish him long life, and you too!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Dorjezigzag]

I have been to a few of his Holinesses teachings, they are extensive, profound and precise.

Everyday I chant his long life pray.
He is the embodiment Avaloketishvara, the lord of Compassion.
I wish him long life, and you too!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but hate? where does that come from?

[Tony]

I have been to a few of his Holinesses teachings, they are extensive, profound and precise.

Everyday I chant his long life pray.
He is the embodiment Avaloketishvara, the lord of Compassion.
I wish him long life, and you too!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but hate? where does that come from?




From the eye of the beholder.


I hope listening to this will heal people's heart.
-c9-XaA2f00

[Dorjezigzag]

I have been to a few of his Holinesses teachings, they are extensive, profound and precise.

Everyday I chant his long life pray.
He is the embodiment Avaloketishvara, the lord of Compassion.
I wish him long life, and you too!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but hate? where does that come from?




From the eye of the beholder.


I hope listening to this will heal people's heart.
-c9-XaA2f00


Perfick!!!!

[greybeard]

Hate comes from fear.
C

[Tarka the Duck]

There are passages in the Kalachakra Tantra which brazenly call for a "war of the religions", which are intolerant and aggressive

Ulli: if you are interested in finding out more about the Kalachakra system from a scholar who has dedicated decades to its study and writes in depth about it rather than quoting 'facts' out of context, perhaps you might enjoy reading the work of Alexander Berzin, one of the most respected scholars in the field of Tibetan Buddhism.

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/ebooks/published_books/kalachakra_initiation/pt1/kalachakra_initiation_02.html?query=Kalachakra+overview

Kathie

[Arrowwind]

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/golden-buddha.jpg About Buddhism The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

http://www.wrdz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/8fold_path.png
8fold_path.png (http://www.wrdz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/8fold_path.png)

The essence of Buddhism is very pure. You need not go any further than the above teaching to be a Buddhist of the most profound intent or ability

[Logan]

I have only the greatest respect for the Dalai Lama.

[Tarka the Duck]

This is my own Personal View..




"The Dalai Lama is about as Spiritual as a Big Mac..!"

"The Dalai Lama is the equivalent of the Black Pope in Asia..!"

"Just another NWO Globalist Shill & CIA Operative used as a 'Political Puppet' to be used when required..!
The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama’s Holy Cloak

March 23, 2008

This incisive article by Michael Backman outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence.

The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s. He is an instrument of US intelligence.

An understanding of this longstanding relationship to the CIA is essential, particuarly in the light of recent events. In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.

M. C. 23 March 2008

Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.

Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure?

No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet’s government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama’s own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)

The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA.

The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama’s public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA’s payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).

The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.

Details of the government-in-exile’s funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile’s Department of Finance.

The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.

Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs.

The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile’s overseas offices.

For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low.

It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.

Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.

Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.

Part of its funding comes from the US State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs.

Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.

An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.

A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile’s planning council and its Department of Health.

A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile’s Department of Information and International Relations.

Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.

The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama’s family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor’s advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.

What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?
If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.

He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.

In any event, the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old. His successor — a reincarnation — will be appointed as a child and it will be many years before he plays a meaningful role. As far as China is concerned, that is one problem that will take care of itself, irrespective of whether or not John Howard or Kevin Rudd meet the current Dalai Lama.

http://www.thelasersshadow.com/ajmirror2/www.infowars.com/the-role-of-the-cia-behind-the-/wsdindex.html

PS - Just another NWO Political Servant to be brought out and paraded when required..!

What's so 'SPIRITUAL' about that..!..?


Here is a response to this article, written by a professor of Tibetan at Harvard Law School:


Autralian Newspaper: The Age.com
COMMENT by Dr. Lobsang Sangay

In his recent column ("Behind Dalai Lama's holy cloak", 23/5), Michael Backman chastised journalists for not challenging the Dalai Lama. In doing so, he resorted to questionable journalistic standards by accusing the Dalai Lama of nepotistic and non-democratic behaviour based on "hard facts" that are either manipulated to sensationalise his case or are downright wrong.

Backman alleges that the Dalai Lama advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are now "Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government". The fact is just the opposite.

In July 1981, then Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang announced "China's Five-point Policy towards the Dalai Lama", urging the Dalai Lama to return so he "will enjoy the same political status and living conditions as he had before 1959". The Dalai Lama rejected the offer and stated that the issue was not his own position in Tibet, but the welfare of 6 million Tibetans.

In 1992, the Dalai Lama categorically declared that he would not hold any official position in the government of future Tibet. Rather, he would hand over his traditional authority to an elected leader of Tibet and "serve the people as an individual outside the government".

It is a fact that the traditional government of Tibet was unegalitarian and inefficient. However, when the Dalai Lama was enthroned to be the leader in 1950, he was merely 15 years old, and faced the daunting task of handling the invasion and occupation of Tibet by Communist China. In exile, as part of an anti-Communist campaign, it is true that the American Government supported the Khampa guerilla resistance force till early 1970s.

However, it is not true that the Dalai Lama was "personally" paid $US15,000 a month by the CIA. As it is the case today, he was kindly hosted by the Indian Government as an "honoured guest". The fund was not even part of the budget of the Tibetan government in exile. In actuality, the main source was not the CIA, but fulfilment of a pledge made by US ambassador to India Loy Henderson in 1951.

On the advocacy of non-violence, the fact is that the Dalai Lama sent an emotional appeal on audio tape to the Tibetan guerillas in early 1970s, telling them to disarm. This message demoralised many of the fighters, and a few even committed suicide. Soon after that message from the Dalai Lama, the camp disbanded.

The budget of the Tibetan government in exile totals approximately $US20 million ($A24 million). It is openly debated in yearly Tibetan parliament budgetary sessions for two weeks, and allocated transparently. Compared with other refugee groups, the Tibetan government in exile is arguably the most efficient and effective in providing service to 130,000 Tibetan refugees with such limited budget. Still, the general impression is that the Dalai Lama must be raising millions of dollars.

On the contrary, strict rules apply to the Dalai Lama's visits abroad that these cannot be used for fund-raising purposes. During his trip to Australia, as is true everywhere, his organisers are instructed to charge fees only to cover the actual expenses of the event. More impressively, the Dalai Lama does not charge even a penny for speaking fees. He speaks for free so that he will be accessible to as many people as possible.

Perhaps the most irresponsible reporting in the column is the accusation that the Dalai Lama "has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence", like many Asian politicians.

The facts are as follows: as per his specific instruction, a provision was introduced in the Tibetan constitution of 1963 and the Charter of 1991 that the Dalai Lama can be impeached by the parliament.

From 1960 to 1990, the Dalai Lama had the sole constitutional power to appoint exiled Tibet's cabinet ministers, heads of departments, and members of parliament.

He never appointed anyone from his family as ministers, parliamentarians or heads of departments. Only his brother-in-law served as the head of the Security Department and his elder brother headed a fledgling start-up (the Tibetan Medicine Institute). As a matter of fact, from 1978 to 1986, the Gayong Mimang Tsokcheng, the highest decision-making body, discussed and consistently recommended that the Dalai Lama appoint his elder brother Gyalo Thondup as the Prime Minister. Each time, the Dalai Lama declined.

In 1991, as part of democratic reforms, the Dalai Lama delegated the power to appoint the cabinet to the parliament, which since 1960 has been directly elected by the people.

Ironically, the parliament began to elect members of his family, and the most high-profile was his elder brother Gyalo as the Prime Minister.

The elder brother played a key role in seeking US Government support in 1950s-60s, and paradoxically he was also instrumental in opening a dialogue with the Chinese Government in the early 1980s.

Nonetheless, he is controversial partly because of his autocratic personality.

Not surprisingly, Gyalo was eased out without completing his term as the Prime Minister, partly because of his incapability to cope with a democratic-environment-in-exile polity.

In 2000, another reform was instituted by the Dalai Lama, requiring exile Tibetans to directly elect their Prime Minister with full administrative power except in dealing with China.

Tibetans in 27 countries voted on a single day, with more than 80 per cent electing Professor Samdhong Rinpoche as the first Prime Minister. He didn't appoint any member of the Dalai Lama's family to his cabinet. In the parliament, only a nephew was elected as an ordinary member among 46 parliamentarians and he faced disciplinary action for violating parliamentary rules and regulations.

Clearly, the experience of the Dalai Lama's family in the nascent Tibetan democratic system reflects that they don't necessarily get a free ride.

More importantly, the Dalai Lama never appointed his family members to positions of influence, even when he was permitted to do so (1960-90) and those who did were elected by the parliament.

The truth, then, is far removed from Backman's claim that the Dalai Lama "appointed" his family members to positions of prominence.

Finally, Backman's suggestion that had the Dalai Lama "stayed quiet", possibly "fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China" sounds comically naive and hypocritical.

Firstly, between 1960 and 1972, when the Dalai Lama was "quiet" and never ventured outside of India, Tibet went through brutal suppression under China, when thousands of people perished.

From 1973 to 1986, the Dalai Lama made limited trips abroad, but suppression continued.

From 1987 to 2007, when the Dalai Lama made the most trips abroad and finally put Tibet in the international map, Backman suggests he keep quiet.

It is hypocritical to suggest the Dalai Lama refrain from speaking out for the welfare of 6 million Tibetans when Backman himself speaks out and writes columns and books to pay his rent and put food on his table.

Last time I checked, free speech is universal. It is noble to speak for millions of suffering people, and especially to speak out against authoritarian regimes.

It is certainly not just the privilege of the few to make a living by criticising others.

Dr Lobsang Sangay is a scholar on Tibet at the law school of Harvard University.

Sangay@law.harvard.edu

[Nortreb]

Discernment moment!

Perhaps it is time to really evaluate every vehicle that has been presented at this time(Buddhism,Christianity, Judaism, Islam,etc)! IMHO, these are pieces of a very large puzzle that has been intentionally hidden from the masses.

The first question that pops on the menu is, "How has any of these vehicles benefited the Planet and the Beings occupying it at this critical moment"? IMHO, if we want something totally new to benefit the Planet and everyone on it, we need to use discernment with everything that has been presented to us for the last 1,000 years! Creativity is at an all time low!

We have been presented with New Age Touchy,Feely spiritualism in multiple layers (moving to another dimension;love & light;mass ascension, etc.) in which one can quote some ancient master that not has not walked on the earth in centuries or follow the teachings of an ordained(promoted) representative to feel good at the moment. But is it really functional at this time? 97% of the Earth population is suffering from Poverty, Delusion and Anxiety!

IMHO, we are at the time that it is time for everyone with a pair of Eyes, Ear, Feet and an A@Hole to stand up and stand in their own Sovereignty! From my understanding of Spiritual training, it is at times like NOW in which spirit is able to grow from Challenge! Quoting is nice but the proof is in the pudding at the Crossroads. We are at the crossroads now.

We are unique representations of a Extremely Powerful Force! It is time to stand up!

[trenairio]

[edit][edit][edit]

[araucaria]

If this forum were to decide at any moment that it had no time for the likes of the Dalai Lama, then I would start looking for the unsubscribe button.

[00101]

no opinion on this, just adding
http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2

quote from page:
Who and What is the Dalai Lama? A holy man or wholly a fraud with Nazi connections

What follows is an expose of a man, The (so-called) Dalai Lama, who is regarded to be one of most holy men in the
world today. What the following evidence shows is that this man, The Dalai Lama is one of the greatest frauds the world
has ever seen. The Dalai Lama claims he is a holy man, but how did he get that title? He got it from the previous Dalai
Lama, a brutal slave owner, who corresponded with Adoph Hitler and praised Hitler. Hitler and the head of the Nazi
Gestapo and SS, Heinrich Himmler, in turn sent a contingent of his private body guard, the notorious and murderous SS
thugs to meet with the previous Dalai Lama, bearing gifts, and to invade Tibetan villages violating the villagers and
forcing them to submit to head measuring and tooth removals and full body searches to decide whether they were
racially pure enough to be allowed to live.

[Hughe]

no opinion on this, just adding
http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2

quote from page:
Who and What is the Dalai Lama? A holy man or wholly a fraud with Nazi connections

What follows is an expose of a man, The (so-called) Dalai Lama, who is regarded to be one of most holy men in the
world today. What the following evidence shows is that this man, The Dalai Lama is one of the greatest frauds the world
has ever seen. The Dalai Lama claims he is a holy man, but how did he get that title? He got it from the previous Dalai
Lama, a brutal slave owner, who corresponded with Adoph Hitler and praised Hitler. Hitler and the head of the Nazi
Gestapo and SS, Heinrich Himmler, in turn sent a contingent of his private body guard, the notorious and murderous SS
thugs to meet with the previous Dalai Lama, bearing gifts, and to invade Tibetan villages violating the villagers and
forcing them to submit to head measuring and tooth removals and full body searches to decide whether they were
racially pure enough to be allowed to live.
Thank you.
Is he different than the head figure in Vatican?

Many people simply refuse to see the facts as is.

[Dorjezigzag]

no opinion on this, just adding
http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2

quote from page:
Who and What is the Dalai Lama? A holy man or wholly a fraud with Nazi connections

What follows is an expose of a man, The (so-called) Dalai Lama, who is regarded to be one of most holy men in the
world today. What the following evidence shows is that this man, The Dalai Lama is one of the greatest frauds the world
has ever seen. The Dalai Lama claims he is a holy man, but how did he get that title? He got it from the previous Dalai
Lama, a brutal slave owner, who corresponded with Adoph Hitler and praised Hitler. Hitler and the head of the Nazi
Gestapo and SS, Heinrich Himmler, in turn sent a contingent of his private body guard, the notorious and murderous SS
thugs to meet with the previous Dalai Lama, bearing gifts, and to invade Tibetan villages violating the villagers and
forcing them to submit to head measuring and tooth removals and full body searches to decide whether they were
racially pure enough to be allowed to live.
Thank you.
Is he different than the head figure in Vatican?

Many people simply refuse to see the facts as is.

Actually many people know the facts as is and our therefore not manipulated by articles that are not interested in conveying truth but in distorting it for an intended agenda.

Gandhi corresponded with Hitler! Are we going to make another thread, Gandhi is personification of evil. I certainly hope not.

There is so much violence out there today, people with blood on their hands and people are attacking the Dalai Lama, a man of non- violence for being evil.

[another bob]

There is so much violence out there today, people with blood on their hands and people are attacking the Dalai Lama, a man of non- violence for being evil.

As it so happens, people typically have to die first before they can begin to recognize how totally unqualified humans are to judge each other. If they can die while alive, that works better for all concerned. You can generally tell a wise one (a greatful dead) by the freedom from judgment they embody. This does not mean they are naive. They've simply realized directly that they themselves are the world.

:yo:

[Second Son]

The Dalai Lama is not a pacifist, he was quoted saying that sometimes war in necessary. When? When troops are getting ready to usurp you and your entourage from posts of wealth and privilege, while bringing the unclean masses something close to dignity and self respect, that is when. The "holy man" can be seen viewing his troops, in preparation to protect his status at the top of the social and religious caste system which was Tibet's shameful hallmark when "his holiness" was in charge.

I would be willing to bet anyone here that is left unmolested, the good lama would still be presiding over the most backwards, unjust, and disgusting regime ever to infect planet earth.

Would a true pacifist really take huge contributions from the single most vile alphabet agency on earth? Would a "man of peace" really take money from the CIA, and organization which has toppled more democratically elected governments than any other?

Would a "gentle soul" do this:

The Issue of Religious Intolerance

In March 1996, in an aggressive and threatening manner, the Dalai Lama stated that there would be a forceful implementation of the ban against those who persisted in the practice of Dorje Shugden.
Vigilante mobs of fanatical followers of the Dalai Lama, acting in the spirit of his public pronouncements, stormed into temples and private homes, seizing and destroying pictures and statues of Dorje Shugden – even taking them from shrines. Mobs attacked Dorje Shugden practitioners and their homes with stones and petrol bombs, destroying their possessions and threatening their lives.
People lost their jobs, children were expelled from schools, and monks were expelled from monasteries; foreign travel permits and visas were denied; refugee aid, monastic stipends and allowances were cut off; and forced signature campaigns were undertaken. In these and many other ways that made Tibetans outcasts from their own already exiled community, the Dalai Lama, in the guise of his government, ministers and associated organisations, introduced a reign of terror against tens of thousands of his own people, making restrictions similar to those imposed on the Jewish people in Germany in the early years of Hitler’s rule.
This persecution has been enforced since 1996 and still continues.*

*quoted from the Western Shugden Society

[00101]

i don't Know anything about this man, who dare say he or she does; has or is in contact with the creature, is the creature or is fiddling.

Objectivity, an intended agenda of distortion.




edit: All I heard is that The chinese made it illegal to reincarnate without permission of chinese rule. For this i take my head off.. for both paties =]p

..madhatter lol@self

[Tarka the Duck]

The Issue of Religious Intolerance

In March 1996, in an aggressive and threatening manner, the Dalai Lama stated that there would be a forceful implementation of the ban against those who persisted in the practice of Dorje Shugden.
Vigilante mobs of fanatical followers of the Dalai Lama, acting in the spirit of his public pronouncements, stormed into temples and private homes, seizing and destroying pictures and statues of Dorje Shugden – even taking them from shrines. Mobs attacked Dorje Shugden practitioners and their homes with stones and petrol bombs, destroying their possessions and threatening their lives.
People lost their jobs, children were expelled from schools, and monks were expelled from monasteries; foreign travel permits and visas were denied; refugee aid, monastic stipends and allowances were cut off; and forced signature campaigns were undertaken. In these and many other ways that made Tibetans outcasts from their own already exiled community, the Dalai Lama, in the guise of his government, ministers and associated organisations, introduced a reign of terror against tens of thousands of his own people, making restrictions similar to those imposed on the Jewish people in Germany in the early years of Hitler’s rule.
This persecution has been enforced since 1996 and still continues.*

*quoted from the Western Shugden Society


The Shugden issue is an extremely complex historical and politically-motivated debate in Tibetan Buddhism. As a western practitioner, I would never presume to pretend I even half understood all that is involved!

It does concern me that some people are so quick to believe words of hatred and division, without carrying out any research or seeming to question the motives of those who wrote them.

You quoted from The Western Shugden Society.
Are you familiar with this group and its origins?
Are you familiar with the New Kadampa Trust that is behind the WSS?
Are you familiar with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the NKT?

I don't think anyone would argue that people in the eye of the public must be prepared to stand up to scrutiny. The problems arise when the sources that are used to "reveal the truth" are not themselves scrutinised...please do some homework cutting and pasting such questionable material.

Ultimately, we all chose to believe what we chose to believe.
On a coarse level, we believe what reflects our own projections and supports our view of the world...the world is a mirror.

Kathie

[Tony]

What is in your heart?
What do you see?


If you let me take your heart I will prove to you,
We will never be apart if I'm part of you.
Open up your eyes now, tell me what you see.
It is no surprise now, what you see is me.
Big and black the clouds may be, time will pass away.
If you put your trust in me I'll make bright your day.
Look into these eyes now, tell me what you see.
Don't you realise now, what you see is me.
Tell me what you see.
Listen to me one more time, how can I get through?
Can't you try to see that I'm trying to get to you?
Open up your eyes now, tell me what you see.
It is no surprise now, what you see is me.
Tell me what you see.
Listen to me one more time, how can I get through?
Can't you try to see that I'm trying to get to you?
Open up your eyes now, tell me what you see.
It is no surprise now, what you see is me.

TMw4-WkjxsA

[Second Son]

"Are you familiar with this group and its origins?
Are you familiar with the New Kadampa Trust that is behind the WSS?
Are you familiar with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the NKT?"

I will answer all of these questions, Tarka, AFTER you tell me what makes your blind obeisance to the Dalai Lama any different from the unshakable faith most Catholics have in their Pope? I know it is currently hip and cool to be a Buddhist... not so for those crusty, staid Catholics... no, that kind of imperialistic dogma is just NOT as accepted in the new age circles, in fact I would even go so far as to say it is anathema.

The Dalai Lama is a man, one who likes his power and his station in life. He has embraced fascism, which let's face it, is not a whole lot different than the government of Tibet before he was ousted... hence his affinity for it. He has taken money in the MILLIONS fromr the most evil, corrupt, and anti-democratic agency on planet earth. He presided over the most backward archaic society which existed at the time. Not since the middle ages had there been such a corrupt theocracy. Peasants were chained in the public square, blinded, had their hands amputated for petty theft, had their tongues cut out, etc. Tibet made feudal Europe look like a day spa :eek: and I have no reason to think that any of that would have changed were it not for an outside force which upset the sickening status quo. The good Lama has been vehemently intolerant to other religious sects, just as he expects the world to open up its collective door to HIS brand of theology. Seems even though he is the "top dog" he is still as petty, jealous, and demanding... very similar, in fact to that uncool god of the old testament... go figure :confused:

ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE FACTS, Tarka. Just like it is a fact that Cardinal John Ratzenberger, now the Pope, played a nauseating game of "hide the perpetrator" when he was charged with investigating the church's child abuse. You're gonna love this Tarka! On a whim I just did a google search under the heading "Buddhist sex scandal"... guess what? I'll let you look for yourself, Tarka, because I am actually looking for that old movie that was all the rage a few years back that showed monks in competing sects fighting violently amongst themselves. So I will pop some corn, and get ready to be entertained by a bunch of unassuming men in dresses, who are every bit as self indulgent and hypocritical as any pedophile priest ever was.

Please remember... facts are facts, and cannot be disputed, and that is why what you (and all those way less cool catholics) do is called "BELIEF".

Touche!

[Dorjezigzag]

The Dalai Lama is not a pacifist, he was quoted saying that sometimes war in necessary. When? When troops are getting ready to usurp you and your entourage from posts of wealth and privilege, while bringing the unclean masses something close to dignity and self respect, that is when. The "holy man" can be seen viewing his troops, in preparation to protect his status at the top of the social and religious caste system which was Tibet's shameful hallmark when "his holiness" was in charge.

I would be willing to bet anyone here that is left unmolested, the good lama would still be presiding over the most backwards, unjust, and disgusting regime ever to infect planet earth.

Would a true pacifist really take huge contributions from the single most vile alphabet agency on earth? Would a "man of peace" really take money from the CIA, and organization which has toppled more democratically elected governments than any other?

Would a "gentle soul" do this:

The Issue of Religious Intolerance

In March 1996, in an aggressive and threatening manner, the Dalai Lama stated that there would be a forceful implementation of the ban against those who persisted in the practice of Dorje Shugden.
Vigilante mobs of fanatical followers of the Dalai Lama, acting in the spirit of his public pronouncements, stormed into temples and private homes, seizing and destroying pictures and statues of Dorje Shugden – even taking them from shrines. Mobs attacked Dorje Shugden practitioners and their homes with stones and petrol bombs, destroying their possessions and threatening their lives.
People lost their jobs, children were expelled from schools, and monks were expelled from monasteries; foreign travel permits and visas were denied; refugee aid, monastic stipends and allowances were cut off; and forced signature campaigns were undertaken. In these and many other ways that made Tibetans outcasts from their own already exiled community, the Dalai Lama, in the guise of his government, ministers and associated organisations, introduced a reign of terror against tens of thousands of his own people, making restrictions similar to those imposed on the Jewish people in Germany in the early years of Hitler’s rule.
This persecution has been enforced since 1996 and still continues.*

*quoted from the Western Shugden Society
To understand the Tibetan Buddhist concept of non-violence this article is very balanced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/may/11/buddhism-bin-laden-death-dalai-lama

[Elixer]

Facts are not necessarily true...
Why else is there something called 'fact checking'?
A fact is a verifiable statement. It can be verified to be incorrect.

An interesting case in point is that the pope's name is not "John Ratzenberger", but "Joseph Ratzinger."

In fact:
"John Deszo Ratzenberger (born April 6, 1947)[1] is an American actor"
(Granted, it is from Wikipedia)

Perhaps toning it down a little, in the face of this, would not be a bad thing.


As with most things, I am not sure where to stand with regards to the Dalai Lama. However, most of the critical information I've seen here, seems to be as much conjecture as anything. Statements made that appear to be 'verified facts', are quite possibly sensationalist statements made by those trying to cast the DL's image into darkness. They seem to be just that: statements.

I did see a pretty good documentary recently which showed him to be how most people regard him: a good hearted soul with the best interest for his and all people in mind.

His supposed attack on the rival sect seemed very much justified since this rival sect consisted mostly of proven charlatans claiming to perform magic, charging money to poor people and not delivering anything.
It was actually the people going crazy with anger that did the damage. The DL clearly regretted this outcome.
Then again, this documentary could have been a propaganda piece as well.

If it were a competition, I'd say the DL is winning on points here. The arguments in his favor appear to be much more balanced and free from emotional manipulation than those against. The testimony of people's personal experiences are of course very strong, even though I cannot exclude the possibility that those are made up as well. (No offense, obviously)

Point is you can't know what you do not experience. If people have blissfull experiences around the DL or benefit from his message, that is good enough for them.

We do have to learn not to put stock in other people, especially because we cannot know who or what they really are and represent.
Take and use the information, but do not personally invest in anybody. It easily leads to fanaticism as has also been exemplified here.

Didn't mean to sound preachy.

Due to the sensationalist title, I had meant to avoid this thread, but a friend just quoted the Dalai Lama to me, so I felt I had to check it out.

[Tarka the Duck]

"Are you familiar with this group and its origins?
Are you familiar with the New Kadampa Trust that is behind the WSS?
Are you familiar with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the NKT?"

I will answer all of these questions, Tarka, AFTER you tell me what makes your blind obeisance to the Dalai Lama any different from the unshakable faith most Catholics have in their Pope? I know it is currently hip and cool to be a Buddhist... not so for those crusty, staid Catholics... no, that kind of imperialistic dogma is just NOT as accepted in the new age circles, in fact I would even go so far as to say it is anathema.

The Dalai Lama is a man, one who likes his power and his station in life. He has embraced fascism, which let's face it, is not a whole lot different than the government of Tibet before he was ousted... hence his affinity for it. He has taken money in the MILLIONS fromr the most evil, corrupt, and anti-democratic agency on planet earth. He presided over the most backward archaic society which existed at the time. Not since the middle ages had there been such a corrupt theocracy. Peasants were chained in the public square, blinded, had their hands amputated for petty theft, had their tongues cut out, etc. Tibet made feudal Europe look like a day spa :eek: and I have no reason to think that any of that would have changed were it not for an outside force which upset the sickening status quo. The good Lama has been vehemently intolerant to other religious sects, just as he expects the world to open up its collective door to HIS brand of theology. Seems even though he is the "top dog" he is still as petty, jealous, and demanding... very similar, in fact to that uncool god of the old testament... go figure :confused:

ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE FACTS, Tarka. Just like it is a fact that Cardinal John Ratzenberger, now the Pope, played a nauseating game of "hide the perpetrator" when he was charged with investigating the church's child abuse. You're gonna love this Tarka! On a whim I just did a google search under the heading "Buddhist sex scandal"... guess what? I'll let you look for yourself, Tarka, because I am actually looking for that old movie that was all the rage a few years back that showed monks in competing sects fighting violently amongst themselves. So I will pop some corn, and get ready to be entertained by a bunch of unassuming men in dresses, who are every bit as self indulgent and hypocritical as any pedophile priest ever was.

Please remember... facts are facts, and cannot be disputed, and that is why what you (and all those way less cool catholics) do is called "BELIEF".

Touche!

Thanks for the reply, SS.



I will answer all of these questions, Tarka, AFTER you tell me what makes your blind obeisance to the Dalai Lama any different from the unshakable faith most Catholics have in their Pope?


I find much of value in the teachings given by the Dalai Lama – as I do in the teachings of many other people.

I personally wouldn't call the respect I have for him “blind”, as I hold to the idea that he constantly puts forward:

“The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.”

I look forward to hearing your response to my questions regarding the NKT and the WSS.

Thanks
Kathie

[Tarka the Duck]

For those who are interested in the background to the Dorje Shugden dispute between the Dalai Lama and the New Kadampa Tradition, the BBC made a documentary about it.

ruSLpVP0gsw

[Second Son]

Well Tarka, as you did not really answer my question in a satisfactory way, about what makes your adherence to your faith any different than any other's. I will not answer your question either. Frankly I hadn't planned to anyway, because studying some small splinter sects of an archaic superstition in a type of "Comparative Religious Studies 101" to prove a point to you would be counter productive in my opinion. I don't care if the cults you talked about worship an English speaking purple dinosaur, or a fairy princess... it doesn't matter, that is what makes my "belief" so beautiful... I believe if you need a guru, teacher, priest, lama, rabbi, or pope to find ANY answer, you are already on the path to nowhere. I also believe that anything and everything you need to know is contained within, NOT a moldy text, which has been unchanged for centuries. Because of my unshakable belief in my own autonomy, sovereignty, and personal power, I never need to pick up a book written by man. I have read about and studied religions extensively, and it has only served to strengthen my belief in ME.

So you can turn up your nose to those silly little cults which have been systematically demonized by your Lama, and his incredibly wealthy entourage, because those cults are less popular in your circles than your Buddhism. To me is it all a bunch of superstitious rubbish, and i will leave it at that.

All religions (even the cool ones) are founded by and controlled by men. Men who are corruptible, and who like politicians get more passionate about insuring they stay entrenched in POWER than they are about their faith. This will always be true, Tarka. IMHO.

I think rather than study some lame Buddhist sects, I will re-read The Hobbit, because to me it is way more entertaining, and every bit as real.

Peace.

[Tarka the Duck]

Hello again, SS

I'm sorry you didn't find my answer to your question satisfactory.



Because of my unshakable belief in my own autonomy, sovereignty, and personal power, I never need to pick up a book written by man


Then I wish you happiness and fulfilment on your journey.

It may be a very different journey from mine, but I don't feel any need to justify my journey to you, or have you justify your journey to me.

Regards
Kathie

[Phoenix1304]

[QUOTE The good Lama has been vehemently intolerant to other religious sects, just as he expects the world to open up its collective door to HIS brand of theology. Seems even though he is the "top dog" he is still as petty, jealous, and demanding... very similar, in fact to that uncool god of the old testament... go figure :confused:

ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE FACTS, Tarka.

Touche![/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, 'vehemently intolerant to others' is simply not born out by the 'facts' that I'm aware of. In the DL's latest book " "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World" His Holiness the Dalai Lama argues that religion is not a necessity for pursuing a spiritual life. Rather he proposes a system of secular ethics that transcends religion as a way to recognize our common humanity and so contributes to a global human community based on understanding and mutual respect." http://dalaila.ma/sqdkpL Doesn't sound too intolerant to me. Maybe he's intolerant of the beliefs that cause people to abuse and slaughter one another in the name of their God, country or genetics.

He seems to very much want to rise above the petty man-made absurdities of religion and find what unifies them. That is wisdom.

And another thing, if life is so sweet in Tibet, I wonder why 11 monks chose to immolate themselves last year in protest over the occupation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15799562

Can you imagine what it would take to do something like that?, any of you? those that say the Tibetans are better off under Chinese rule, you haven't got a clue have you? Go grab some more popcorn and sling it at someone else you'd like to sneer at, make you feel important and 'better than'.

Excuse me, I'm upset, I feel like howling every time I think about the atrocity of the Tibetan invasion. The world did nothing, but of course we can barge into Iraq and Libya in the name of democracy and protecting human rights. Yeah, right.

I believe in free speech, transparency and open, intelligent debate, but I haven't watched any of the videos presented here yet, while I adhere to no religion, I do consider myself spiritual and the DL has a cherished place in my heart and at this moment, despite what I like to think of as my 'open mind', I'm just feeling too sickened by and disgusted at some of the material on this thread including the original subject header. I don't apologise for that, or for being so predictable as to be shocked by it, and, to be honest, it's highly unlikely that I will allow those of you bent on seeing evil where none exists, to take me where you want to go.

[Second Son]

You sound vey much like a Buddhist. Enjoy your path. I will enjoy mine. You claim no spiritual affiliation... but let's face it... the spirituality you speak of is thick with Buddhist teachings.

Of course you are upset.

The truth doesn't upset me, however, because unlike you, I TRULY adhere to no religion. I have many friends who talk just like you do about being religiously neutral, but have photos of the DL in their living room, every book he's ever written in their study, and Tibetan prayer flags hanging all around their house.

A hint, Pheonix. If your home decor is similar to the above mentioned, you may have a religious affiliation after all... just saying.

Peace

[BestLion]

You sound vey much like a Buddhist. Enjoy your path. I will enjoy mine. You claim no spiritual affiliation... but let's face it... the spirituality you speak of is thick with Buddhist teachings.

Of course you are upset.

The truth doesn't upset me, however, because unlike you, I TRULY adhere to no religion. I have many friends who talk just like you do about being religiously neutral, but have photos of the DL in their living room, every book he's ever written in their study, and Tibetan prayer flags hanging all around their house.

A hint, Pheonix. If your home decor is similar to the above mentioned, you may have a religious affiliation after all... just saying.

Peace
YES! I've seen the same thing with many people. Even atheist have their Evolution religion which they uphold Darwin just as strong as a Christian does Jesus.
Ive also noticed many people who have been raised in a Christian environment tend to slide over to Buddhism....Buddhism tends to offer more of an inner peace in this life. Then the Christian belief of walking on eggshell in order to not go to hell.
Yeah so if your Buddhist just state it..or state you like many things about it..I am not religious, but I will say many aspect of Buddhism is appealing.

[Second Son]

I forgot to mention the immolation thing... read CAREFULLY, because I know EXACTLY what cause such behavior...

ORGANIZED RELIGION.

A sad thing Pheonix, really it is, but it not a lot different than a suicide bombing. Of course it goes without saying that in the true spirit of Buddhism they took no lives but their own, but this kind of absurdity will only EVER come from people who have been brainwashed by the same cult since infancy.

If you are howling mad, you should turn that anger in the right direction... towards organized dogmatic belief systems.

I have as much compassion as the next guy, but I still can't help but see the (slightly) sweet irony of a group who would set themselves on fire in the public square to protest China's religious intolerance, while they themselves are followers of a man who is also intolerant of others' beliefs. Insane... insane at a level which only seems possible for those who are already brainwashed and weak minded from early childhood.

[Phoenix1304]

I forgot to mention the immolation thing... read CAREFULLY, because I know EXACTLY what cause such behavior...

ORGANIZED RELIGION.

A sad thing Pheonix, really it is, but it not a lot different than a suicide bombing. Of course it goes without saying that in the true spirit of Buddhism they took no lives but their own, but this kind of absurdity will only EVER come from people who have been brainwashed by the same cult since infancy.

If you are howling mad, you should turn that anger in the right direction... towards organized dogmatic belief systems.

I have as much compassion as the next guy, but I still can't help but see the (slightly) sweet irony of a group who would set themselves on fire in the public square to protest China's religious intolerance, while they themselves are followers of a man who is also intolerant of others' beliefs. Insane... insane at a level which only seems possible for those who are already brainwashed and weak minded from early childhood.

I had a feeling someone might respond and equate self-immolation with suicide bombers and blame it on a weak mind, befuddled by dogma, and here it is...

In the Tibetan's case it is not a religious act, it's a desperate act - to die for people to pay attention to gross injustice. Ghandi's hunger strike is an outstanding example of this kind of heroism. For many Muslims it may be too, if the media tells me they're religious fanatics that's red flag enough for me. It's more about politics than religion. That said, Islamic law, like all the others, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, is the invention of men, who love to push their point of view on everyone else and create their 'isms', and too many people find it easier to let others do the thinking for them. Anyone truly connected to their spirituality would not abuse another. Circumcision? No way.

There is tragic abuse of children in the name of religion, but not all religious people are inculcated from childhood, in fact many of the most devout have turned to it late in life. Mostly Buddhism I grant you, it leads to a saner more peaceful life for many and I admire their discipline. Many roads up the mountain, the view over the top, however, is the same for all of us.

It is arrogant and presumptuous to assume that those who furnish their homes with symbols of their spirituality are brainwashed fools.

I do not adhere to any religion as I said and understand spirituality very simply, summed up in one word. Love. Difficult, I know, because there are so many ideas about what love is. Deep down I believe we all know, except perhaps the 6% that are psychopathic. Who sadly are actually running things because they are without compassion, or integrity and thus are easily able to manipulate more honest souls. But those honest souls are waking up, even to their own coerced corruption.

I challenge your facts, as do other excellent posts on this thread that have effectively levelled the accusations. You do not refer to them, but seem comfortable in your perspective that you know better. It's a bit of a stretch to say that 'a system of secular ethics that transcends religion as a way to recognize our common humanity and so contributes to a global human community based on understanding and mutual respect' is actually concealed Buddhism, but if you say so. I respect your right to your view.

That's ok. I wish I was so confident half of the time. But that's why you didn't see too many women burning men at the stake, or waging war, inflicting torture, or writing philosophical tomes. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's because they are stupid, women were gagged by religion so I'm no fan of it, but that conditioning, there for so long is still deep within the male and female psyche. We all need healing.

Balance and respect is what we need to work towards. And women need to find their voice which is why I have so much to say at the moment.

I'm drifting off topic, it's late, thanks for the discussion anyway..

[Second Son]

I believe it will be by listening to the voices of women that we will be able to turn this world around.

Thanks for your voice, Phoenix.

Peace.

[mahalall]

As pie'n'eal put it so sweetly
"What is in your heart?
What do you see?"

an36avkbjUw

Avalokitesvara really lighted up London that week july/august 93 (94)

[Robin]

This is indeed a very interesting debate and I thought that I would throw in my own two cents concerning the Dalai Lama.

Those who study Buddhism, including the Dalai Lama, claim that it is not a "religion" but actually the "science of the mind."

However, we know from our historical past that religions have been perverted and manipulated in nearly every sector of human philosophy.

Suffice to say, Buddhism has been twisted and manipulated just like any organized philosophical institution, probably by the same Powers that changed Christianity.

But to say that the Dalai Lama is "evil" because he is a spokesman and spiritual leader of Buddhism is to me unfair. Tenzin Gyatso, as an INDIVIDUAL, appears to be quite a compassionate individual who does not dismiss other peoples' opinions or seem to undermine anybody. I can tell from reading his book "The Universe in a Single Atom" and watching him speak in personal interviews and audiences, that he embraces science as a form of better understanding the human being. Ever since he was young, he has taken up a great curiosity for science, rather unheard of for most Tibetans, and followed the trails of scientific research that sheds further light in understanding the workings of the human mind.

He is very passionate about understanding critical research in the fields of quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and psychology. He has the mentality that whatever science proves to be true, then Buddhism should be refined and should accept the facts of the universe. In addition, he has stated, when asked if he will reincarnate again, that it is up to the Tibetan people if they want the Dalai Lama institution to continue. This does not sound like a corrupt, evil, spiritual leader to me.

You can tell that he is very open to the presence of corruption and possibility of "evil spirits" who may enter the Tibetan culture. For instance, he contends that the being Dorje Shugden is an evil spirit, which has caused some dissemination between the Tibetan culture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_in_Tibetan_culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden

I do not claim to know much about this spirit or even Tibetan culture for the matter, so if anyone has any opinion on this matter I'd love to hear it!

I think that is possible that the Dalai Lama is being somewhat controlled by The Powers that Be, or that he is at least under careful watch by people who will not think twice about assassinating him:

In the book 'Body Snatchers" by Susan Reed, one of the Reptilians mentions that they hate the Dalai Lama and want to either replace him or kill him:

http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/bodysnatchersSusanReededited.shtml

Here's the passage:

E - Hare Krishna -we got them - we are in there, we've got some of our people there haven't we - about 50 trying to destroy it. They cord (He means the net) the load of them up - try to prevent it from spreading - tried to put a stop to them dancing through the streets — Transcendental meditation - we've got them - put the prices up, made it harder for people to join — Buddhism- no we haven't got that, but we are trying our hardest. Dalai Llama - he's corded up. Pancham Llama -we corded him up - we saw to him -the heart attack was us - did the old encircling stuff on him -a load of them (10 or more) did it on him at the same time. When enlightened people have heart attacks then you know we're behind it. We worked on his heart a bit to make it look like a heart attack. We had him corded up, stripped him of everything (past lives and more), then we let him go. They've got the young one - 4 year old -he isn't the Pancham Llama - he's one of us - he's a reptilian,- he's going to be, it hasn't happened yet. (Brian has told me that the Pancham Llama will be made into a human/reptilian). Once the Dalai Llama is gone we will take over, just biding their time and then they will put someone in his place who is not really the Dalai Llama but they will say he is. Any one like that is going to be corded up no two ways about it. Working on the Dalai Llama to kill him -of course we are - it's his circulatory system -they are trying to give him a heart attack a blood clot.

[sheme]

Compassion can take many forms!

[greybeard]

I would like to know who or what is the "personification of all that is good"?
Chris

[seehas]

i dont know if the dalai lama is " the personification of evil" but all i can say is that he wrote some serious books with lots of spiritual teachings in it, these books are for everyone its nothing religious in there its about spirituality in first place, there is no such as evil inside these books also i met him once and he seemed to be a john doe like we all are somehow :cool:

but who knows maybe behind the public view, he does skype conferences with the pope and his black magicians :amen:

what ever, i realy enjoyed his books

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

I dont think the Dalai Lama is immune from being (forcibly if needed) put into a position where he must make a choice that he essentially doesn't believe in for the greater good. Much like all of us.

[Whiskey_Mystic]

This subject pops up every now and then. Someone has started a lot of rumors and reinterpretations of reality in attempt to do a character assassination of His Holiness, at least among the most gullible of internet denizens.

None of it holds up. It's a completely silly topic. I'm shocked that it exists anywhere outside of Craigslist Rant and Raves. I think the professional trolls have a great laugh every time this crap gets reposted and it makes people argue.

*sigh*

edit: I would argue this point for point, but seriously the subject is just too stupid and not worth the time.

[Iloveyou]

Yes, it pops up every now and then. This video (by Stefan Molyneux, uploaded in February 2015) hasn't been posted yet, so here it is. In the worst case may it be buried here. Personally I'm not ready to make a clear statement yet, but in my guts I am VERY suspicious about the whole thing (maybe not about the Dalai Lama himself as a person, but about the whole thing that is controlling him.) I feel that an enormous amount of use/misuse/manipulation of power is involved.

dBH0ywUUx5k

[3(C)+me]

I started wondering about the Dali Lama when Ben Fulford said he had a death squad running around Europe. I think if I were to embrace any religion it would be Buddhism. To think that he is engaged in some nefarious deeds at first, my mind could just not compute. However, everyone has a dark side. So now one of my beliefs about a certain person and who he is being challenged and I will have to read this whole thread so I can confront what I think I know. But even after reading this thread and having some of my beliefs challenged it is still not the whole picture. Sigh.....

[LindyLou22]

*

I believe it will be by listening to the voices of women that we will be able to turn this world around.

Thanks for your voice, Phoenix.

Peace.

Agree with this, including thanking Phoenix. Well said.

In 2006 the Dalai Lama listened to the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. Not bad for someone who isn't tolerant of other religions.


Bios of the Grandmothers: http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/who-we-are

Some photos of the event: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-dmSkP/



In October of 2006 the Grandmother Council gathered in the exiled homeland of the Tibetans, hosted by Tibetan Grandmother Tsering Dolma Gyaltong. There was a private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and meetings with other luminaries in the Tibetan religious government in exile. The Grandmothers Council continued their prayer for global peace and affirmed their solidarity with the Tibetan people to reclaim their homeland.

[Ines]

All this polemic about this issue, brings me to a conclusion: is... same all, same all. Manipulation of people through religion, specifically here to go against China. Same old subject of History... and the manipulators are still the same Khazarian Mafia of the Western world. That man, the DL...I´m sure some how works for the Cabal, and most probably by "mental control".

Whenever all "religion subjects" disappear from the face of the world, that´s when we can have hope to live in Peace & Harmony in the World.

[Icare]

I find the title of this thread very unfortunate.

Everybody who is interested knows quite a bit about the good side of the Dalai Lama. I personallly owe him a debt of gratitude as one of his books, "The Art of Happiness", really helped me in my personal development. It is thanks to him that I came across the truth that "happiness is a choice" which has helped me to cope with whatever life threw at me.

I used to think the Dalai Lama was beyond reproach and was respected by just about everybody as he comes across as a sweet old man who is humble, perpetually even-tempered, wise and has a great sense of humour to boot.

So when I came across a negative report about him and Tibetan buddhism I was unwilling to accept a lot of what was presented.

It felt like sacrilege to me.

It is interesting that somehow he has managed to put himself into a position in which people vehemently and aggressively attack anybody who seriously studies Tibetan buddhism and the history of Tibet in general. As soon as the hierarchical structure of Tibet before the Chinese takeover is brought to people's attention (with the vast majority of Tibetans being nothing more than slaves, and there is lots of black-and-white documentation about that with photographs of people lying on the streets in shackles etc), the automatic response seems to simply dismiss this fact as mere Chinese propaganda, because that's what we would like it to be.

Well, for those with an open mind who are willing to delve into this more deeply, things are not quite what they seem.
There is a lot of totally unexpected violence around the Dalai Lama and Tibetan buddhism. When I found that out it genuinely saddened me because I would love for it to be untrue as I would love a public figure or leader that was genuinely good.

Sadly, there is genuinely a dark side to HH which goes to show there is really no political or religious figure we can look up to. Just in case anybody wants to ask me: There are many clips on youtube that show documentation for those willing to find out for themselves.

Despite of all this I am still grateful for "The Art of Happiness".


Edit: For those who understand German: This is a lecture from the University of Vienna from 18/5/2012:
Behind the smile of the Dalai Lama

https://youtu.be/SDuqayOx2Nw

Very interesting, but also quite disturbing

[alyea]

This clip explains in short what i have study myself about the history of Tibet, there was a great movie about this but it gets removed all the time.
In short Tibets history are as corupt as the rest of the world and they got all the help they needed from the west...
Tibet had a system for choosing a new Dalai Lama when the old one dies, when the Dalai Lama dies, the "royal" court appoints a regent who rules until the next reincarnation comes of age. Over the centuries some regents grew fond of their power and some Dalai Lamas expired prematurely, not to mention suspiciously.

But if i remember right it was not allways so, they had a sort of a fail safe system. So money and power could not interfear how the new Dali Elama was chosen.
I remember i saw the Tibets royal spending time with the british royal family, i guess the got all the suport they needed from that inbred family.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhXw-2aqJ3E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhXw-2aqJ3E

Omg! Wow! I did not understand the history, thank you!

[jaybird88]

If Tibet is so evil where are all the examples of this evil?

How many global Tibetan corporations?
How many guns,missiles,tanks,fighterjets designed by Tibetans?
How many Tibet missionaries are traveling the world telling the people your religion is wrong and theirs is the only truth.
How many burned alive because they were not Tibetan Buddhist?
When Africa was being carved up how many colonies did Tibet get?
How many nuclear bombs have they tested?

These are examples of evil acts but I have never read of Tibet ever being involved in such things.

[shaberon]

Tibet as a whole is far from clean of tragedies.

H. H. D. L. is in a difficult position, partially compromised by the C. I. A., but at the same time, Chinese co-intel is interested in Dorje Shugden or any type of subversion, for instance having appointed their own Panchen Lama. "Free Tibet" may have been a little too close to Maurice Strong, not really sure, but it seems like it.

There is no such thing as Tibetan Buddhism.

Also, people in most of the remote countries had no clue about how the western "savior" system was out to trick them and take over the land with NGOs and banks and so forth. That is changing now.

"Ingrained cultural violence like many places" may be a fair assessment, "personification of evil" is rhetoric.

[jaybird88]

If Tibet is so evil where are all the examples of this evil?

How many global Tibetan corporations?
How many guns,missiles,tanks,fighterjets designed by Tibetans?
How many Tibet missionaries are traveling the world telling the people your religion is wrong and theirs is the only truth.
How many burned alive because they were not Tibetan Buddhist?
When Africa was being carved up how many colonies did Tibet get?
How many nuclear bombs have they tested?

These are examples of evil acts but I have never read of Tibet ever being involved in such things.

something i meant to add was how many governments have Tibet infiltrated and corrupted, sabotaged or overthrew?

[Caliban]

If Tibet is so evil where are all the examples of this evil?

How many global Tibetan corporations?
How many guns,missiles,tanks,fighterjets designed by Tibetans?
How many Tibet missionaries are traveling the world telling the people your religion is wrong and theirs is the only truth.
How many burned alive because they were not Tibetan Buddhist?
When Africa was being carved up how many colonies did Tibet get?
How many nuclear bombs have they tested?

These are examples of evil acts but I have never read of Tibet ever being involved in such things.

something i meant to add was how many governments have Tibet infiltrated and corrupted, sabotaged or overthrew?

How does your question mitigate the reality of the accusations being made herein and by others, including former Tibetan monks, against the Dalai Lama and the organization around him?

[noxon medem]

Buddhism can also be misused, like any religion and system of thought
for some to take power, for their own sake. They do not understand that
everything is allways here for us, and ultimately there is nothing to fight
for or over. Life, universe, earth and good cultivation of it all together.
-
here a meager video :
A presentation of the Tibetan Yogis and Buddhists,
Who have presented some very grounded information on living spiritually
- and evolving as real (wolrdly) spiritual beings :


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGKy2pN_d4k

- be well, all

[jaybird88]

If Tibet is so evil where are all the examples of this evil?

How many global Tibetan corporations?
How many guns,missiles,tanks,fighterjets designed by Tibetans?
How many Tibet missionaries are traveling the world telling the people your religion is wrong and theirs is the only truth.
How many burned alive because they were not Tibetan Buddhist?
When Africa was being carved up how many colonies did Tibet get?
How many nuclear bombs have they tested?

These are examples of evil acts but I have never read of Tibet ever being involved in such things.

something i meant to add was how many governments have Tibet infiltrated and corrupted, sabotaged or overthrew?

How does your question mitigate the reality of the accusations being made herein and by others, including former Tibetan monks, against the Dalai Lama and the organization around him?

maybe because if there were substance in the accusations we would see evidence of it.

[Caliban]

If Tibet is so evil where are all the examples of this evil?

How many global Tibetan corporations?
How many guns,missiles,tanks,fighterjets designed by Tibetans?
How many Tibet missionaries are traveling the world telling the people your religion is wrong and theirs is the only truth.
How many burned alive because they were not Tibetan Buddhist?
When Africa was being carved up how many colonies did Tibet get?
How many nuclear bombs have they tested?

These are examples of evil acts but I have never read of Tibet ever being involved in such things.

something i meant to add was how many governments have Tibet infiltrated and corrupted, sabotaged or overthrew?

How does your question mitigate the reality of the accusations being made herein and by others, including former Tibetan monks, against the Dalai Lama and the organization around him?

maybe because if there were substance in the accusations we would see evidence of it.

How about the videos of the monks saying they were sexually abused? How about the other articles showing his long involvement with the cia? Stefan Molyneaux's very elaborate video above? And the Tibetan serfs?

Here's one from Michael Parenti: https://dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Parenti_Tibet.htm

Here's a sample:

In 1953, the greater part of the rural population---some 700,000 of an estimated total population of 1,250,000---were serfs. Tied to the land, they were allotted only a small parcel to grow their own food. Serfs and other peasants generally went without schooling or medical care. They spent most of their time laboring for the monasteries and individual high-ranking lamas, or for a secular aristocracy that numbered not more than 200 families. In effect, they were owned by their masters who told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. A serf might easily be separated from his family should the owner send him to work in a distant location. Serfs could be sold by their masters, or subjected to torture and death. [14]

[jaybird88]

How about the videos of the monks saying they were sexually abused? How about the other articles showing his long involvement with the cia? Stefan Molyneaux's very elaborate video above? And the Tibetan serfs?

Here's one from Michael Parenti: https://dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Parenti_Tibet.htm

Here's a sample:

In 1953, the greater part of the rural population---some 700,000 of an estimated total population of 1,250,000---were serfs. Tied to the land, they were allotted only a small parcel to grow their own food. Serfs and other peasants generally went without schooling or medical care. They spent most of their time laboring for the monasteries and individual high-ranking lamas, or for a secular aristocracy that numbered not more than 200 families. In effect, they were owned by their masters who told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. A serf might easily be separated from his family should the owner send him to work in a distant location. Serfs could be sold by their masters, or subjected to torture and death. [14]

So if we go back to the days when all the people of Tibet were slaves to this monastic elite class we will find evidence of all the wealth such as mansions, exotic cars, private jets, yachts, ski trips to Cortina, etc?

[shaberon]

This was the world in 840 when pre-Buddhist Tibet reached from Rangoon to Pakistan:

http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/images/7/71/Old_World_820.png



At that time, the Uighur state collapsed, and Tibet was flooded with refugees. Then the Tibetan state split into civil wars and was no longer an empire, but regional competitive warlords. That is the condition it was in when Buddhism "inherited" it, or however you would like to describe it. It was never nice, politically, and is mostly a wasteland, where it would be hard to say people provided a lavish, educated lifestyle for themselves that was somehow stolen by the monasteries. For the most part, those monasteries are about all they ever had that could help anybody. The Buddhists themselves were increasingly refugees from the Mughal devastation of India. Some were able to escape genocide to land in hegemony.

"Buddhist Tibet" was mostly under Mongol rule until 1368, then it was divided among local families until "In 1642, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama created the Ganden government, with a unique monastic/secular-coordinated administration. This government demilitarized Tibet and officially formed it into a spiritual nation that supported Buddhist education above all, and was economically self sufficient.

In foreign affairs, the Dalai Lama became the mentor of the new Manchu emperor of Manchuria and China, and received worldly protection for Tibet, in exchange for his providing spiritual teachings to the Manchurians and maintaining the peace with the Mongolians and Uighurs." (Tibethouse)

It was then conquered by China from 1720-1912, and then wasn't for about forty years, and then was and is. Internally, it has has only a minority of self-rule since Empire.

As a matter of survival you support your local warlord. If you are clever and can get Mongolian help, you win, which is what the Gelug school did. Once they had their feet on the ground, they stopped Altan Khan. In the 1950s, it still was not much different, same as most "undeveloped" nations, and, in some ways, it was still pretty similar here.

I am not trying to say anyone's hands are clean, although I might be saying that if monasteries provide shelter where otherwise there would be none, something is better than nothing.

[MorningFox]

We're in the kali yuga. The world is corrupt. Morals have gone out of the window. All mainstream spiritual practice is corrupt. To think that one of the most famous leaders of one of the most famous spiritual practices, one that gets an incredible amount of attention and airtime from the mainstream media by the way... To think that this person is corrupt and doesn't have humanities best interests at heart!? Oh to think!? What a complete shocker that should be....

Not.

I tell you I'd be utterly gobsmacked if he wasn't, frankly. He gets way too much attention in mainstream media. If he really represented original Buddhism and what the real, original tibetan practices were teaching then you could bet your bottom dollar that he wouldn't be given the platform that he has. Of course he's compromised.

He doesn't impart any true or useful knowledge to the world, he just repeats tired, empty clichés.

[shaberon]

He doesn't impart any true or useful knowledge to the world, he just repeats tired, empty clichés.

H. H. D. L.? That is far from the case. It may be to private audiences in Japan who have invited him, instead of in the media. What was the famous practice? He has hundreds. None of them are mainstream. The Gelug school which he is a member but not the spiritual leader of, comprises only a few thousands, while there are hundreds of millions of Buddhists in Japan and the orient.

The original or first Tibetan dispensation started around Padmasambhava who definitely killed someone unnecessarily and on purpose.

Tainted, compromised, possibly corrupt, maybe so, but not at all inactive or shallow.

[palehorse]

I would like to know more about the Bon religion?
What part has survived?
Also there was a practice of mummification that started while the holy person was still alive and took some years to accomplish.
A lot of these mummies were venerated and I think destroyed by the English? [I am not a100% on that one]
I have heard the odd negative whisper about the Dali lama but was not shore if this was disinformation?
All clarification most welcome.

There is a movie called "Tibet A Buddhist Trilogy" the part I is all about the Dalai Lama, the monasteries and the people. The movie tells that during the Chinese occupation more than 6.000 monasteries were destroyed and an estimated 2.000.000 Tibetans died.
Where this movie has authentic information or not, I have no clue, the movie was written and directed by GRAHAM COLEMAN and produced by DAVID LASCELLES, funds for the movie came from THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAN.
Also in the Tibetan scripture says that 2 crows appeared at the moment Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) born, and his predecessor, seems like the crow has some symbolism on it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention about the Bon religion as you asked for a reference the following video is a nice one.

JfuALNUbrss

[Ernie Nemeth]

Over the years I have read many of The Dalai Lama's books. Telling, however, is the fact that I have not read all of them, which is my usual method with an author. Although the works were satisfactory, I did not find the inspiration I was looking for at the time. In fact I remember being surprised by that, as I decided to drop this author and move on...

I do not approve of Canada's capitulation to China's request to bar entry to The Dalai Lama a few years back. Since then I have suspected an organized attack on the Tibetan's character, and stay clear of the propaganda. This thread seems to be packed with it.

[Clear Light]

Ah, for what it's worth given the relative age of this thread, still I was curious to see who was referring to HHDL as the "personification of evil", LOL ... it seems the original poster (Tenzin) was quoting from the linked article, which you can read from the web archive if you like :

RTN: Dalai Lama is "personification of evil" - China told the US ambassador (Wikileaks) (https://web.archive.org/web/20111012071120/http://rtn.asia/978_dalai-lama-personification-evil-china-told-us-ambassador-wikileaks)

Now the article itself refers to a Cable I found online at WikiLeaks : FM YANG "STRONGLY PROTESTS" DALAI LAMA'S U.S. VISIT; "UNDERMINING CHINA'S CORE INTERESTS" (https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BEIJING6733_a.html) that says :


[Foreign Minister] Yang said that Chinese citizens do not view the Dalai Lama as a religious leader but as "the mastermind behind separatist sabotage" and the "personification of evil and deception," whose efforts are "doomed to failure." FM Yang said the Dalai Lama must abandon his quest for Tibetan independence, cease "splittist activities," publicly state that Tibet is a part of China and recognize that Taiwan is a part of China. Only then will China talk to the Dalai Lama about "his personal future."

But of course this is nothing more than the game of "politics" and "rulership over the people" because as anyone who has "looked into Buddhism" (at least more than at a superficial level) knows, it involves the non-trivial issue of one of its core principles called Anatta eh ?

43425

Thus it really is no surprise that Tibetan Buddhism and Communism (as embodied by the CCP) are at such loggerheads (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/loggerheads) with each other eh ?

:sherlock:

[shaberon]

But of course this is nothing more than the game of "politics" and "rulership over the people" because as anyone who has "looked into Buddhism" (at least more than at a superficial level) knows, it involves the non-trivial issue of one of its core principles called Anatta eh ?



Although there is validity to the basic meaning of Anatta, it perhaps refers more to the Fourth Noble Truth, Atta Drsti, or "self view".

There are loads of Buddhist usages of the related Sanskrit Atma, and one finds Buddha saying things like there is no atma in the soul, no atma in the concepts, and so on, but does not ultimately deny atma. As if there were something to it, which turns into pure sin the instant there is any Drsti or formative mental activity.

The older Pali word "anatta" would be pronounced the same as "anatha (https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/anatha)", meaning utterly helpless, especially in terms of rebirth. Buddha and others are therefor Nath or "Lord", mainly meaning utterly helpful, especially in terms of rebirth. The Hindu Nath lineage from Dattatreya is part and parcel of Buddhism, especially Matsendrya Nath. So it is plausible there is an "anatha" doctrine, stating that ordinary beings are totally ignorant, and Dharma practice is the way to adjust it.

[Clear Light]

Although there is validity to the basic meaning of Anatta, it perhaps refers more to the Fourth Noble Truth, Atta Drsti, or "self view".

Oh, it's from the so-called Four Seals (https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Four_seals) or the Three marks of existence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence) ... for further information :

Anatta, Āṇatta: 9 definitions (https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/anatta)

[TomKat]

An official from the most evil regime on Earth calling the Dalai Lama the personification of evil? Well, he did violate their law against reincarnation. So yeah, maybe :-)

[gini]

Apr 10, 2023 #TheMirror ,1 min
The strange video shows the most senior spiritual figure in Tibetan Buddhism asking a boy to "suck my tongue" during an event in northern India's hillside city of Dharamshala back in February
FPFKgNAmHcY ---Apr 11, 2023,1 min
The Dalai Lama is apologizing after video of him from a February public gathering shows him kissing a boy on the lips-
3_JM-VzaLLQ

[Isserley]

Wow.. what an old perv :(

[Ewan]

Well I can't speak for the Dalai but it is possible it is a cultural thing being seen through western eyes, and we've pretty much been programmed to view the world as a sick, corrupt place thanks to the dark hallways of our media moguls.

I remember seeing my wife's mother do this in Thailand with her grandson, (not my child, a cousin). I thought it very strange but I was clearly the only one who did. Fortunately I have a pretty good poker face and never caused a stir.

Speculating further there may even be a benefit to it from bacterial transfer to a developing immune system -and I'm not inventing excuses, just trying to look at it logically as to why it may have become a 'thing'. Isn't there an African culture that spits in the food being prepared for children? (Or did I just make that up?)

[ozmirage]

Moral choice is based on survival - dead things can't choose. And depending on which law you embrace, jungle law or law of love, your survival may be based on harmless action, or harmful action.
But if the meaning of life is life - dead things have no meaning, and the goal of life is more abundant life, those who seek to survive at the expense of another, will not prevail. In that regard, no harmful individual or group is in harmony with more abundant life, and thus immoral.
Life is an endless struggle against extinction by a hostile inanimate universe. There's no coming back from extinction.
Until evidence exists that the Dalai Lama has deliberately injured others for his own benefit, I will be skeptical of the propagandists and spin doctors, and their patrons.

Self sacrifice is an indicator of the law of love.
Sacrificing others is an indicator of the law of the jungle.

[wondering]

ozmirage, I appreciate your view. Once seen in print, or video, it is so easy to be swayed regardless of who or what is shown. And determining the facts is often next to impossible. I try to observe but withhold judgement since it is the only moral choice for me.

[Isserley]

He did aplogize for telling kid to "Suck my Tongue"
"His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras,” the statement said.
Those gestures and touches are serious red flags, and anyone with minimal experience/instinct in gestural/non-verbal language will recognize them as inappropriate.
And if it was a joke (as he states) it is a very sick one.

[Wind]

Well this is disappointing and disturbing. I used to think the critique against him was mostly just nonsense and CCP propaganda.

Can this be explained and how? I don't really get how this would be a joke either. Did anyone laugh about it really?

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1645417236750794754

1645417236750794754

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1645423867328954368

1645423867328954368

https://fortune.com/longform/dalai-lama-biography-an-extraordinary-life/

Behind the scenes of the Dalai Lama’s early history with the CIA
Touted to be the "first definitive biography" of the acclaimed Tibetan scholar, author Alexander Norman had one source: the Dalai Lama himself.

When Chairman Mao announced the “liberation” of Tibet as a top priority for the newly founded People’s Republic of China, the Dalai Lama was not yet 15 years old (although, counting by Tibet’s lunar calendar, he thought himself that age). The first troop incursions occurred at the end of 1949.

A year later, the Tibetan army was completely routed after a short campaign by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Following this, on Nov. 17, 1950, the Dalai Lama was proclaimed temporal leader of his country. A further six months on and the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was signed by a delegation of Tibetan negotiators in Beijing. Up to that point, the only window on the outside world the Dalai Lama had had was a series of roughly weekly meetings over a period of around six months with the Austrian adventurer and alpinist Heinrich Harrer.

It is thus a remarkable irony that the Dalai Lama’s introduction to the modern world came from a former member of Hitler’s SS. It was Harrer who subsequently put the Dalai Lama’s brother in touch with officials at the U.S. embassy in India and who hatched a plot with the CIA to spirit the Dalai Lama out of Tibet if he would first publicly repudiate the agreement. This the Dalai Lama declined to do—on the grounds that it was not clear that America would give wholehearted support to Tibet if he did. It was nonetheless at this moment that the agency began to take a close interest in Tibet.

What follows is an excerpt from my book, THE DALAI LAMA: An Extraordinary Life (HMH Books & Media).

Dalai-Lama-Book-Cover
“The Dalai Lama: An Extraordinary Life” by Alexander Norman.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Word of the Precious Protector’s escape spread swiftly around the world, but for want of information, the many news agencies taking an interest in the story were compelled to hold their breath. Ten days after the Dalai Lama disappeared from Lhasa, the Indian president sent an urgent letter to Nehru asking for a report. The prime minister replied, saying, “We do not yet know where the Dalai Lama is.” He was being decidedly economical with the truth. Thanks to the presence of the American-trained radio operators among the escapees, Washington—with the help of Geshe Wangyal—was able to monitor the party’s progress almost the entire way along its route. Nehru, second only to President Eisenhower, was informed the day before writing to the Indian president that the escape party had arrived safely at the border. But it would not do to broadcast the government’s intelligence capability owing to its links with the CIA.

As for the press, there were slim pickings for the hundreds of reporters who converged on the remote tea-growing settlement of Tezpur in far northeastern India. It was here, after resting a week in a remote town close to where he crossed the border, that the Dalai Lama was welcomed by the mayor and a large crowd of well-wishers immediately prior to entraining for Mussoorie, a further two days’ journey to the west. There were no interviews, not even for old friends like Heinrich Harrer, who had made a special journey. All that was to be granted him and others was a short, moderately worded statement from the Dalai Lama (the text agreed to in advance with the Indian government) explaining briefly the circumstances leading up to his request for political asylum and thanking the people and government of India “for their spontaneous and generous welcome.” Following lunch with local dignitaries, the Dalai Lama and his entourage left for the station without further word. Despite the Tibetan leader’s temperate language, his words were immediately denounced by the Chinese. “The so-called statement of the Dalai Lama is a crude document, lame in reasoning, full of lies and loopholes,” thundered the People’s Daily.

Two days after leaving Tezpur, the Precious Protector reached Mussoorie, where Nehru had arranged for the Tibetan leader to stay at Birla House, the splendid country retreat of a family of wealthy industrialists close to the prime minister. On arrival, as indeed he had been all along the way, he was given an exuberant welcome by the local people.

Almost the Dalai Lama’s first act on arrival was to preside over the requisite rituals “to invoke the commitment of the Dharma Protectors who had vowed to guard the teachings of the Buddha, in order to quickly pacify these troubling times in the world at large and specifically in Tibet.” The deities had not been able to save Tibet, but at least they had kept the Dalai Lama safe. The very next day, Nehru himself arrived. At first, the Indian prime minister had granted asylum only to the Tibetan leader and his immediate entourage, unaware—as was the Dalai Lama at the time—that there would be a mass exodus of refugees from Lhasa and its environs following in the Precious Protector’s wake. But when reports reached Nehru of the fighting in Lhasa, he relented. Now all were welcome, provided they gave up their arms.

For Nehru, the whole affair was deeply troubling. As he explained to the Dalai Lama, his “being in India [kept] alive the question of Tibet in the world,” which for China was “immediately one of irritation and suspicion.” On the one hand, he had hoped that with the mutual accord treaty signed in 1954, there might be permanently friendly relations between China and India. The presence of the Dalai Lama and his followers threatened this. On the other hand, he clearly felt some responsibility for having insisted on the Precious Protector’s return to Tibet three years earlier. In their four hours of talks, Nehru assured the Tibetan leader of his welcome, but at the same time emphasized that the Indian government would not support his claim to Tibetan independence. The prime minister’s plain speaking on the subject caused the Dalai Lama later to recall that Nehru could be something of a bully. For his part, though, it is clear the prime minister found the young Tibetan leader exasperatingly naive. When the Dalai Lama told him of his determination both to win back independence for Tibet and to avoid any further bloodshed, Nehru exploded, “his lower lip quivering with anger…‘That is not possible!’”

The 24-year-old Dalai Lama may have been politically naive, but he was well aware that he and his fellow refugees faced a decidedly uncertain future. Many Tibetans, including senior members of the Dalai Lama’s entourage, assumed it was simply a matter of time before their return would be negotiated. America and the other great powers would surely support Tibet as soon as they understood the reality of the situation. The Dalai Lama himself had no such illusions. Furthermore, it soon became clear that, while Mussoorie was a congenial place to stay, it was remote both physically and psychologically from the political hub of New Delhi. That the resort retained—as it does to this day—an air of colonial gentility, with several once grand hotels and a number of prestigious English-style private schools, was small recompense.

There were some advantages to these new circumstances, however. Left entirely to their own devices, and having few demands on their time, to their satisfaction the monastic element within the Dalai Lama’s household was able, as Trijang Rinpoché later wrote, to “focus…on religious practice” and “observe the discipline of renunciates.”

While life in Mussoorie settled soon enough into quiet routine, one of the most trying aspects of exile quickly became apparent. Information about what was happening at home, still more so of what had become of individual people, was almost impossible to come by. The Chinese said only what they wanted to say and refused entry to all foreigners. And such news as did reach the Precious Protector’s ears was uniformly bad. The refugees who followed in his wake brought with them shocking tales of Chinese brutality. But then as the springtime heat gave way to the summer’s monsoon rain, another, more pressing problem made itself felt. Most of those arriving had nothing but the heavy clothing suitable to the Tibetan climate and were completely ignorant of conditions in India. Worse, they had little resistance to the tropical illnesses that quickly broke out among them. During a visit to Delhi in June 1959, the Dalai Lama therefore urged the Indian government to move them to camps on higher ground.

By this time a number of international relief agencies were working with the refugees, who continued to arrive in large numbers until, by the end of the year, they were estimated to total around 80,000, including many children. In the beginning they were placed in camps close to the border, where the agencies, notable among them the Save the Children Fund and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, first encountered them. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama’s American friends had also not been slow to act. That summer the CIA was instrumental in obtaining for the Dalai Lama both the recently instituted Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and, somewhat improbably, the Admiral Richard E. Byrd Memorial Award for International Rescue. The one commemorated a Philippine politician, the other an American explorer. But together these awards went a good way toward meeting the need for funds for the time being. The agency was also responsible for an investigation of the legal status of Tibet, undertaken by the International Commission of Jurists, whose personnel arrived among the refugees during the summer. The commission subsequently published a report, based on interviews and bolstered by historical research, which argued that Tibet had been, de facto, an independent sovereign state from the moment when the Great Thirteenth expelled the Qing garrison from Lhasa in 1912. This would form the basis of the legal case for subsequent appeals to the United Nations.

It seems certain that the CIA, acting in concert with sympathetic members of the Indian government, also had a hand in the new statement the Dalai Lama released at this time. Speaking of the “tyranny and oppression” of the Chinese authorities, the Precious Protector said that he would welcome “change and progress,” but that the Chinese had “put every obstacle in the way of carrying out…reform.” Instead, “forced labour and compulsory exactions, a systematic persecution of the people, plunder and confiscation of property belonging to individuals and monasteries and execution of leading men” were “the glorious achievements of the Chinese rule in Tibet.”

The public repudiation of the Seventeen Point Agreement that followed (and here one might be forgiven for supposing that the 24-year-old leader had been writing political speeches all his life) was precisely the justification the CIA needed for its continued support of the resistance movement. But while the Dalai Lama’s clearly ghostwritten speech was enough for Washington, the Tibetan resistance still hoped for something more. To this end, Gonpo Tashi, the rebel leader, paid an early visit to Mussoorie. There he learned that although the Precious Protector supported the aims of the movement—a Tibet free of Chinese interference—and was full of admiration for the bravery and determination of the rebels, and accepted that there were times when the Buddhadharma must be defended by all means, including violence, giving his support was a step he could not in good conscience take. Besides, the government in exile’s impending appeal to the United Nations—which the Dalai Lama was determined to lodge in spite of Nehru’s stated opposition—would lose much of its force if Tibet could not present itself as a peaceful victim of China’s aggression.

This was a huge personal disappointment to Gonpo Tashi, described by his CIA handler, Roger McCarthy, as “one of the most impressive figures I…ever met.” Nonetheless, the Tibetan rebel leader played a leading role in planning a major operation scheduled for the coming winter.

In September, 18 men (the first batch from Camp Hale) were parachuted into Pemba, a district approximately 200 miles northeast of Lhasa, where the rebels were jointly led by a layman and a young reincarnate lama. The agents were accompanied by an extremely generous supply of war matériel: 126 pallets of arms and armaments, together with first aid and food supplies, dropped in three separate sorties. Altogether this was adequate to equip something like 5,000 men.

Though properly armed for the first time, the rebels proved unable to capitalize on the munificence of their backers. While the CIA envisaged a classic, highly mobile guerrilla operation, with the rebel force taking to the hills and coming down in small numbers to attack the Chinese at moments and in places of weakness before disappearing back to the mountain trails they knew so well, the reality was very different. The Tibetans’ modus operandi was, as it had always been, to fight in large, loose, mainly mounted formations. This could be effective when they had numerical superiority on open ground but was much less so in the face of even small numbers of a well-armed enemy properly dug in. More significant still was the Tibetan fighters’ vulnerability to air strikes. The result was a foregone conclusion.

Recounting the CIA’s reaction to the debacle years later, Roger McCarthy, the director of operations, recalled: “At first we didn’t believe the reports coming in. We thought it was an exaggeration, an error. But it wasn’t.” The Chinese attacked the rebel encampment— home not just to the soldiers but also to their wives and children— with aircraft and long-range artillery. “It was genocide, pure and simple.”

One might have expected the experience at Pemba to cause the Americans to lose faith in the ability of Tibetans to wage effective war against the Chinese. That it did not suggests the CIA hoped that, with more rigorous training in guerrilla tactics, Chushi Gangdruk could yet become a serious threat to the Chinese. The Tibetans knew their terrain and could survive the harshest conditions; they just needed to learn to fight in small detachments. This now became the focus of their training in the United States.

While the CIA was hopeful of modernizing Tibetan tactics through its training program, the agency also supported a more traditional force that had gathered at Mustang, a remote ethnically Tibetan province in northern Nepal. With arms and funding channeled through India, several thousand men gathered here to form what was intended as a reinvasion force. To keep morale up and to test the force’s readiness to fight, the Mustang guerrillas launched periodic raids into southern Tibet—scoring, on occasion, what has been described as “one of the greatest intelligence hauls in the history of the agency.” This was the acquisition, following a raid on a transport convoy, of a blue satchel containing detailed information about PLA troop dispositions and intentions, along with the first confirmed reports of famine and unrest in China during the Great Leap Forward. This was at a time when almost nothing was known either about the internal workings of the Chinese military or about conditions in China itself.

It remains open to speculation how fully aware the Dalai Lama was of the enormous scale of the operations both in Pemba and in Mustang, but there is room for supposing that he did indeed have a clear idea of what was going on, even if he did not know every detail. From the memoir of John Kenneth Knaus, the CIA’s director of operations in India, who met the Dalai Lama in 1964, it is evident that the Tibetan leader knew exactly who Knaus was. It is also clear that the Dalai Lama was profoundly ambivalent about the whole business. One side of him, the merely human, wished Knaus and his team every success. The other side, the religious, forbade him to do so. Knaus recalled how, as a result, the Precious Protector imposed “a remarkably effective, though invisible, barrier between us” when the American entered the audience chamber.

For the Dalai Lama, perhaps the only positive thing to emerge from the CIA program was its effect on people’s thinking. Knaus reports him allowing that “Tibet had been made up of many tribes who would not cooperate with one another. Now our common enemy—the Communists—had united us…as never before.”

[Ravenlocke]

Former serfs tell the horrifying serfdom history in Tibet in this documentary

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[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1645383226179952644

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https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1645384417253138434

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https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1645785525448757248

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https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1645785530502909959

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https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1645787280051937281

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[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1645493971253329920

1645493971253329920

Tibet, China, and the Violent Reaction of a Wealthy Elite
Too many westerners supplant their fantasy instead of dealing with reality in Tibet

Earlier this year, the Dalai Lama, in a BBC interview, said, "Receive them, help them, educate them... but ultimately they should develop their own country. I think Europe belongs to the Europeans.” One can't dismiss his remarks as a mere slip of the tongue. In a 2016 interview with the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he exclaimed, "For example, Germany cannot become an Arab nation."

Oddly enough, too many western journalists seemed surprised that the Dalai Lama holds reactionary views. However, for anyone paying attention, this isn't new. The Dalai Lama once urged the British government to forgive Pinochet and to spare him from being tried for his crimes against humanity because of his age. He has also praised India's far-right Hindu-nationalist leader Modi for his "work."

The Dalai Lama came into the American popular consciousness thanks to Hollywood. During the 1993 Academy Awards, Richard Gere went off-topic in the middle of his speech and appealed to the former chairman of China, Deng Xiaoping, to "Free Tibet." It is unclear why Richard Gere appealed to Mr. Deng, who had not held the position of premiere since 1989. Despite this, it became very fashionable for Hollywood celebrities to call for a “Free Tibet." How did Mr. Gere come to take up this cause? No doubt he was influenced by Western fantasies about Tibet, such as the 1973 film "Lost Horizon," based on the book “Return to Shangri-la.” Today, we will look at the reality of Tibet.

Tibet was a hard-to-reach area with rough, mountainous terrain, it is sparsely populated. According to population estimates, in 1950, around 1.2 million people were living in Tibet. It was surrounded by mountains on all sides, and before the advent of modern technology and infrastructure, it was hard to access.

Although historians differ on the exact details, it appears that the earliest Buddhist scriptures that were translated into Tibetan appeared around the year 600 AD under King Songstan Gampo. But Buddhism remained a minor religion during this time. We have records of Chinese missionaries who arrived in Tibet to spread Buddhism around the year 800. However, Buddhism was adopted as the official state religion only upon the Mongolian conquest of Tibet.

In the year 1240, Mongolian general Doorda Darkhan invaded Tibet with 3,000 troops. Tibet's army could not match the superior numbers and weaponry of the Mongolian army. There were 500 casualties on each side. Tibet became a de facto protectorate of the Mongol Empire. Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, who ordered General Darkhan to conquer Tibet, created the position of Grand Lama to oversee the development of monasteries and other religious institutions in Tibet. In parallel, the Mongols appointed Mongolian administrators known as "Khans" to supervise the government and administration of Tibet. Tibet would remain a protectorate of the Mongol Empire for another 400 years.

While it is easy to imagine the Lama as some kind of otherworldly spiritual figure who benevolently ruled over Tibet, the reality is at odds with this picture. Near the end of the Mongolian empire, the fifth Dalai Lama faced a rebellion from the Tsang province. He ordered the Mongolian army under his control to exact harsh retribution against the rebels. He said:

For the band of enemies who have despoiled the duties entrusted to them:Make the male lines like trees that have had their roots cut;Make the female lines like brooks that have dried in up winter;Make the children and grandchildren like eggs smashed against rocks; Make the servants and followers like heaps of grass consumed by fire;Make their dominion like a lamp whose oil has been exhausted;In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.

Yes, this does sound more like the leader of ISIS than the western orientalist imagination of Buddhism. When faced with any threat to his worldly powers, the fifth Dalai Lama behaved just like the tyrants of all other societies.

With the Mongolian empire waning in the 1700s, the Qing Dynasty took advantage and conquered Tibet, replacing the old Mongolian protectorate. Until then, the rules of succession for the Dalai Lama were murky and confusing. But to maintain control and ensure loyalty, the Qing dynasty got rid of the old grand Lama and installed their own Lama. They renamed the position ‘The Dalai (Ocean) Lama’. To solidify control, in 1792, the Qing Dynasty, adopted a new system of installing a successor to the Dalai Lama that would be done at random. The Qing dynasty protected Tibet from foreign invasions, and the day-to-day administration was left to the Lamas.

In the 1800s, the British unsuccessfully tried to conquer Tibet twice. After the second British invasion under Col. Youngblood, foreigners were banned from Tibet without special permission.

In the early 1900s, Russia, Japan, the USA and Germany all led expeditions to Tibet. Difficult to access, it took 14 days by Yak to reach the capital on a single dirt road from Northern India. Often these explorers wrote about their adventures in a mix of reality and adventurism to sell their books, adding to the mythological version of Tibet.

Tibet Before CCP & The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama was an absolute ruler. He was guided by a cabinet of nobles and monks called a Kashag. Inequality was written in the law. Society was divided into three classes and nine ranks, with the Dalai Lama at the top. Children of nobles were automatically placed at the fourth-highest ranks at birth. Meanwhile, children of serfs had to be registered and as the property of their parents' feudal estate.


A serf registering her newborn baby with the feudal lord

The Dalai Lama, in his book, My Land and My People, said, "Outside the monasteries, our system was feudal." He was right. Lamaism provided both the religious and governmental aspects of life in Tibet. This system evolved into a hierarchical feudal system that stayed in place until 1959.

In Old Tibet, feudal estates came in two forms: monasteries and large private landed estates. Monasteries were not just a place of worship. Monasteries were all-encompassing enterprises (think Walmart) with large farms, tended by serfs who were listed as property on the land deeds. Many monasteries also maintained their private mercenary forces called the fighting monks. Not unlike drug lords, two dueling monasteries would engage in turf-wars.

An example of a monastery

The bigger monasteries in Tibet were, in fact, entire towns — with large plots of agricultural lands, pastoral lands, thousands of serfs, market centers, banking and lending institutions, military warehouses for the armies raised from among the monastic population. This last was important since the entire monasteries would be turned into military forces if the need arose. They were also centers for publishing, art galleries, and even governmental administrative bureaus in the more remote areas. In nomadic areas, they served important functions, supplying essential skilled crafts and providing a place where the nomads could store their valuables and have a neutral ground in times of conflict.

Serfs carrying goods up and down the Potala Palace

The land that wasn't gobbled up by the monasteries remained at the hands of a few private aristocrats. The aristocrats and the monasteries together built a usurious system to exploit the serfs at every turn.

In the 1940s, only 200 families owned 95% of all land in Tibet, and 95% of its people were illiterate. Child labor was rampant, and malnutrition was common. The average life expectancy for serfs in Tibet was 36 years. When the serfs were "taxed," they had to provide various forms of forced labor. Some serfs owed all their daytime labor to the lords, others owed five days a week of unpaid labor, and some were at the disposal of the lord's every whim.

The accounting books of a typical aristocratic manor from 1951 shows the depths of the forced labor inflicted upon the serfs. The Darongqang manor owned 81 serfs, who were assigned a total of 21,266 days of corvee labor. They worked 11,826 days for the manor and 9,440 days for the feudal government led by the Dalai Lama. The average corvee labor of each serf amounted to 262.5 days per year, or 72% of their annual labor. On top of the forced labor, when the serfs grew any crops on their land, the lords also appropriated a portion of them. Having no worldly possessions, the serfs had to rent both instruments and farm animals at usurious rates in order to work on their share of crops.

In 1959, Journalist, Anna Louise Strong, interviewed a former serf name Diedji. Diedji said:

We worked for the lord all the daylight hours and all the days in the year. I first cleaned floors and furniture in the manor and then I worked in the fields in sowing and harvest, and helped to level the ground by dragging wooden plates from my shoulders. I also tended seventeen yaks and cows and milked them when they were fresh. I carried butter and cheese on my back to the lord's house in Lhasa. In slack time I spun wool.

For this work, the lord gave us every month two kes of tsamba for each of us (fifty pounds of barley flour) and every year enough pulu for a suit of clothes, and also a pair of boots. The children got nothing; we fed them from our own tsamba. When our son became a shepherd he also got two kes of tsamba. He was promised clothes, but he never got them. Before he was a shepherd, he worked on the manor and was promised one and a half ke of tsamba but never got it. So since we did not have enough food, we had to go in debt."

The justice system was unforgiving and cruel. In 1928, National Geographic featured a photo of two men with amputations.


Often serfs were severely whipped for minor transgressions, and some monasteries operated private jails where serfs were tortured. CIA documents from 1950 confirm this [1]!


The serfs were not allowed to move freely about the country and needed the permission of the lord or a government official. In fact, in the book Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Heirrer complains about not having the pass to travel to the capital. I also found a document from the OSS, which is a precursor to the CIA that confirms the restrictions on serfs.

American Position on Sovereignty

The American position on Tibet's sovereignty changed depending on how they felt about the current government of China. During World War II, the US government claimed China held sovereignty over Tibet. In 1948, when Tibetans claimed autonomy, the US state department accused them of having "ill-faith." Tibetan officials even possessed Chinese passports.


However, all of this changed in 1949 after the Communists took control of China. The State Department wrestled with the question of whether or not they should strategically recognize an independent Tibet. They reasoned that it would be advantageous because “Tibet will be one of the few remaining non-Communist bastions in Continental Asia." As the People’s Liberation Army victory became imminent, the US government decided that they supported an “independent Tibet.”

Tibet and CCP

In August 1950, the PLA crossed over into Tibet. Within the first few months, nearly 20,000 Tibetans joined the PLA to fight against the local ruling class. As the PLA marched further into Tibet, they started distributing free food to the hungry serfs, which earned them popular support and aid.

The PLA could have invaded Lhasa in October 1950, but they stopped their advancing troops and sent an envoy to the Dalai Lama asking him to negotiate an agreement. The Dalai Lama, with the advice and consent of the British, agreed to send delegates to negotiate. The PLA soldiers were redeployed to build a road from Beijing to the capital city of Lhasa, Tibet.

In May 1951, the Tibetan delegates did end up signing an agreement that was quite favorable to the aristocrats. Point 4 of the agreement said, "The central authorities will not alter the existing political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions, and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual."

First page of the 1951 agreement between CCP and the Dalai Lama

While the rest of China had immediate land redistributions, Chairman Mao made a concession, and the agreement said, “In matters relating to various reforms in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. The local government of Tibet shall carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet."

In the next few years, CCP's government did, indeed, build infrastructure projects. The PLA built roads that allowed trucks to travel within the interior. One vehicle, in two days, could carry what sixty yaks took twelve days to transport. Tibetans received more food, and the price of goods dropped by two-thirds in two years. Tibet got electricity. As the New York Times reported, Tibet got its first radio broadcasts. The CCP government also set up a state-bank in Tibet. Peasants received non-usurious loans and very low-interest rates, which made them less dependent on the feudal estates. According to the CIA, PLA also canceled the extremely onerous taxes for the peasants for three years.

They built new schools. According to Dawa Norbu, serfs were given $1 to $1.50 to have their children attend schools, giving serfs more leverage to bargain against the elite class. Even American diplomats like Robert Ford, in their internal documents, wrote in 1955:

There was no sacking of monasteries at this time. On the contrary, the Chinese took great care not to cause offense through ignorance. They soon had the monks thanking the gods for their deliverance. The Chinese had made it clear they had no quarrel with the Tibetan religion.

The Chinese government allocated the U.S. $500,000 to renovate the Buddhist temple in Beijing; additional funds were granted to Tibetan Muslims for a Haj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1957.

Even a small loss in power created a violent reaction amongst wealthy elite. Much like other counter-revolutionary forces like the contras in Nicaragua, the Kaibeles in Guatemala, OUN in Ukraine, the Cuban exiles, the wealthy landed class felt entitled to exploit the workers in Tibet. They directed their anger towards the Tibetan peasants who they felt "betrayed" them to the PLA. They engaged in contra-style terrorism against any Tibetan who they felt "collaborated" with the PLA. For example, in 1951, the lamaist rebels killed a Chinese actress and also attacked many PLA troops.

According to declassified CIA documents, from 1952-1958, the CIA trained rebels, mostly from the upper classes, in Colorado to "launch an effective resistance movement." The US also airdropped an overwhelming number of arms, including machine-guns, bombs, grenades, and mortars during this time, most of which was stored in the biggest monasteries.

In 1952, a monk with a mercenary army petitioned the Chinese government against these reforms. A CIA internal document also stated that the monks would take up arms if China redistributed the large land estates in the monasteries.

In 1955, the PLA finally began to ask the elites in Tibet to create a commission for land redistribution. Contrary to their 1951 promise, the elites took up arms after seeing the possibility of losing their lands and serfs. In 1955, Galoin Surkang Wangqen Geleg, of the Tibetan local government, secretly plotted an armed rebellion in Xikang. In 1956, the rebels went to a PLA office building and massacred local staff and peasants, killing over 200 people.

While US Media only paid attention to the elites, the serfs in Tibet felt differently. On July 25, 1956, at least 65 peasants, who couldn't read, put their fingerprints on a letter as a signature and sent a letter to the Dalai Lama asking him to redistribute land. They said, “We are all peasants. We are more anxious for democratic reform than anyone else.”

Serfs carried heavy loads by themselves.

In May 1957, a rebel militia called "Four Rivers and Six Ranges" engaged in violence in the Qamdo, Dengqen, Heihe, and Shannon regions. They burned food warehouses, blew up communication lines, and attacked anyone who they thought collaborated with the PLA. A merchant named Dongda Bazha in Nedong County was captured with his wife because he refused to take part in the rebellion. The wife was gang-raped while Bazha had his throat slit.

However, the "grand finale" was in 1959. All parties agree that the CCP invited the Dalai Lama to an event on March 10, 1959. However, the Dalai Lama alleged that it was a plot to lure him out of Tibet to kidnap him. The CCP denied it. On March 17, no one knows how, but a single shell from a PLA artillery weapon landed in the yards of the Dalai Lama's summer palace, the Potala. His close advisors and his oracle convinced him that he should leave for India and he set out on his journey.

According to the CIA trained fighter, to stop the PLA from "catching" the Dalai Lama, these fighters were ordered to stop the PLA from entering Norbulinka. Ironically, their fear that the PLA would capture the Dalai Lama was unfounded. A few days earlier, Chairman Mao had written to the PLA stationed near Tibet: “If the Dalai Lama and his entourage flee Lhasa, our troops should not try to stop them. Whether they are heading to southern Tibet or India, just let them go."

However, the elites had hired armed insurgents estimated at 20,000. The number of PLA troops in the area was about 5,000. Despite the support of both the landed elites and the US government, they were unable to organize a sufficient army of local Tibetans to fight on their side, so they hired mercenaries from Nepal, India, and even Thailand. For the next few days, heavy artillery was fired from both sides and no one knows how many were killed. During this time, the Potala Palace was destroyed. The west likes to claim that this was "religious persecution," but the rebels were storing their weapons in monasteries, as reported by New York Times on March 27, 1959.

The Dalai Lama, with his CIA-trained crew, fled to India, while the CIA filmed him. He broke the agreement and freed the CCP from their part of the local rule. And serfdom was abolished on March 29, 1959. Here is a video of serfs celebrating their new found freedom.

Xsoc4-QnplY


CCP redistributed lands. Malnutrition then decreased as well as unemployment. Nowadays, people don’t live in shacks and are no longer subject to the draconian whims of the Tibetan lords. Ordinary Tibetans have high-speed rail and also airports.

As with Tibet, the language of colonialism and freedom can be abused by unscrupulous people. Instead of relying on our stereotypes or the media, we must always ask, "Who needs the freedom?" and "from whom?" When we obfuscate class politics, we may end up accidentally supporting the oppressor while demonizing the liberator.

[Ravenlocke]

Tibet: The Truth (A Political History)

Video of serfs celebrating their new found freedom

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[Ravenlocke]

Traveling on the La Lin railway in Tibet , which was implemented June 2021. Beautiful scenic ride and in English.

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[rgray222]

China doesn't SPIN NEWS like we do. Their silence is too often mistaken as an admission of guilt. Don't be another uninformed drone. Do everyone a favor and learn truths before forming opinions.



I just don't get people turning a blind eye to the realities of this world. Of course, China spins the news as badly as the USA and Russia combined. Anyone who doesn't think that China has a massive active propaganda machine in place is not seeing the world realistically.

Most people think that China is a reluctant participant in the one world government initiatives but the truth is they are behind the scenes manipulating events and using the news as a weapon. Make no mistake about it, China is aggressively driving the bus toward global governance because they have more to gain than any other country on the planet.

Many many western politicians and most of the mainstream media (regardless of what is written) want to see the USA lose its globally dominant position and support the rise of China. I just want people to look at the world realistically. Trump recognized this reality about China, this is one of the main reasons he was and is hated with such ferocity.

[onawah]

This is not in defense of what what the Dalia Lama did, but that's ridiculous!
Tibet: The Truth (A Political History)
China doesn't SPIN NEWS like we do. Their silence is too often mistaken as admission of guilt.


The CCP censors anything they don't want anyone else to know. For an example of how they SPIN, see what I just posted today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I73_JPlZzig&t=0s
And much more about what the CCP is really like from 2 guys who spent years travelling all over China: https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow
Much more on this thread: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?111363-Turmoil-in-China&highlight=turmoil+in+china


[B]
The media screams:
"They killed innocent monks!" - but those "innocent" monks and other young hooligans killed innocent Chinese before a single shot was fired on them.

If Tibetans killed Chinese,it was because their country was being invaded! :doh:

[Wind]

I just don't get people turning a blind eye to the realities of this world. Of course, China spins the news as badly as the USA and Russia combined. Anyone who doesn't think that China has a massive active propaganda machine in place is not seeing the world realistically.

It's quite telling to see CCP propaganda being propagated like that here too. Don't believe everything you read.

[Ravenlocke]

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-sep-15-mn-22993-story.html

CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in ‘60s, Files Show


SEPT. 15, 1998 12 AM PT

WASHINGTON — For much of the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama, according to newly released U.S. intelligence documents.
The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA’s worldwide effort during the height of the Cold War to undermine Communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China. In fact, the U.S. government committee that approved the Tibetan operations also authorized the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

The documents, published last month by the State Department, illustrate the historical background of the situation in Tibet today, in which China continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of being an agent of foreign forces seeking to separate Tibet from China.

The CIA’s program encompassed support of Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal, a covert military training site in Colorado, “Tibet Houses” established to promote Tibetan causes in New York and Geneva, education for Tibetan operatives at Cornell University and supplies for reconnaissance teams.

“The purpose of the program . . . is to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China,” explains one memo written by top U.S. intelligence officials.

Relationship Was Mutually Beneficial

The declassified historical documents provide the first inside details of the CIA’s decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement. At the time of the intelligence operation, the CIA was seeking to weaken Mao Tse-tung’s hold over China. And the Tibetan exiles were looking for help to keep their movement alive after the Dalai Lama and his supporters fled Tibet following an unsuccessful 1959 revolt against Chinese rule.

Tibetan exiles and the Dalai Lama have acknowledged for many years that they once received support from U.S. intelligence. But until now, Washington has refused to release any information about the CIA’s Tibetan operations.

The U.S. intelligence support for the Tibetans ended in the early 1970s after the Nixon administration’s diplomatic opening to China, according to the Dalai Lama’s writings, former CIA officials and independent scholars.

The Dalai Lama wrote in his autobiography that the cutoff in the 1970s showed that the assistance from the Americans “had been a reflection of their anti-Communist policies rather than genuine support for the restoration of Tibetan independence.”

The newly published files show that the collaboration between U.S. intelligence and the Tibetans was less than ideal. “The Tibetans by nature did not appear to be congenitally inclined toward conspiratorial proficiency,” a top CIA official says ruefully in one memo.

The budget figures for the CIA’s Tibetan program are contained in a memo dated Jan. 9, 1964. It was evidently written to help justify continued funding for the clandestine intelligence operation.

“Support of 2,100 Tibetan guerrillas based in Nepal: $500,000,” the document says. “Subsidy to the Dalai Lama: $180,000.” After listing several other costs, it concludes: “Total: $1,735,000.” The files show that this budget request was approved soon afterward.

A later document indicates that these annual expenses continued at the same level for four more years, until 1968. At that point, the CIA scrubbed its training programs for Tibetans inside the United States and cut the budget for the entire program to just below $1.2 million a year.

In his 1990 autobiography, “Freedom in Exile,” the Dalai Lama explained that his two brothers made contact with the CIA during a trip to India in 1956. The CIA agreed to help, “not because they cared about Tibetan independence, but as part of their worldwide efforts to destabilize all Communist governments,” the Dalai Lama wrote.

“Naturally, my brothers judged it wise to keep this information from me. They knew what my reaction would have been.”

The Dalai Lama also wrote regretfully in his book that the CIA had trained and equipped Tibetan guerrillas who conducted raids into Tibet from a base camp in Nepal.

The effect of these operations “only resulted in more suffering for the people of Tibet. Worse, these activities gave the Chinese government the opportunity to blame the efforts of those seeking to regain Tibetan independence on the activities of foreign powers--whereas, of course, it was an entirely Tibetan initiative.”

Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s personal representative in Washington, said last week that he had no knowledge of the CIA’s $180,000-a-year subsidy or how the money was spent.

“I have no clue whatsoever,” Gyari said. Speaking more generally of the CIA’s past support for the Tibetans, Gyari acknowledged: “It is an open secret. We do not deny it.”

Agency Has Resisted Release of Details

The CIA has long resisted efforts to disclose information about its Tibetan operations.

In 1993, then-CIA Director R. James Woolsey promised to declassify and release the records of six CIA covert operations during the Cold War, involving France, Italy, Indonesia, Laos, North Korea and Tibet. But this year, CIA Director George J. Tenet said the agency did not have the money or personnel to do this for the foreseeable future.

The Tibet documents were released not by the CIA but by the State Department, which has responsibility for regularly publishing documents that show the history of U.S. foreign policy.

Warren W. Smith Jr., author of a recent book on the history of Tibet, said he believes that the newly published documents are the first to describe the CIA’s Tibetan operations.

Until now, information about the CIA plans has come from “[Tibetan] exiles and a few old CIA agents,” Smith said. “None of the agents involved would know detailed information about things like the budget.”

The CIA was not the only intelligence service to support the Tibetans. India also helped, and, according to Smith’s book, Indian intelligence officials even organized a Tibetan unit within the Indian army.

The newly published documents show, however, that Tibetan leaders sometimes complained to Washington that they weren’t getting sufficient backing from India.

The documents provide no details about the $180,000-a-year subsidy to the Dalai Lama. But they suggest that the money was used to pay for the staff and other costs of supporting his activities on behalf of the Tibetan people.

The same 1964 memo speaks of “continuing the support subsidy to the Dalai Lama’s entourage at Dharamsala,” the city in northern India that has served as the Dalai Lama’s headquarters and the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Eisenhower Team Gave Initial Approval

A brief internal history of the CIA’s Tibet operations shows that the Eisenhower administration first formally approved covert support to the Tibetan resistance in September 1958, at a time when the Tibetans were conducting guerrilla raids against Chinese army units.

The U.S. intelligence operations were overseen in Washington by the executive branch’s top-secret “303 Committee.” On May 20, 1959, only a few weeks after the unsuccessful Tibetan revolt, the 303 Committee approved the first covert support specifically for the Dalai Lama, who had just arrived in India. These covert CIA programs were re-approved several times during the 1960s.

In 1964, the CIA decided that one of the main problems facing the Tibetans was “a lack of trained officers equipped with linguistic and administrative abilities.” As a result, it decided to educate 20 Tibetans. “Cornell University has tentatively agreed to provide facilities for their education,” the CIA explains in one memo.

The Cornell program did not last long. In 1967, after Ramparts magazine disclosed that the CIA had been secretly funding the activities of the National Student Assn. in the United States, the CIA restricted its activities on U.S. university campuses.

The files show that the Tibetans were keeping close track of U.S. policy toward China. In fact, they sometimes had a better sense of what the U.S. was about to do about China than did the rest of the world.

On Dec. 6, 1968, a month after Richard Nixon was elected president but before he took office, the Dalai Lama’s brother told a senior State Department official that the Tibetan exiles were afraid “of an accommodation the United States might make with the Chinese Communists.”

Undersecretary of State Eugene V. Rostow told him not to worry. Rostow said that “we [the United States] would not make any accommodation with the Chinese Communists at the expense of Tibet.”

Over the next four years, the Nixon administration carried out its opening to China, and the CIA’s Tibetan operations were shut down.

Now, more than a quarter of a century later, the U.S. government is providing some financial support for Tibetans, but openly and through other channels.

In recent years, Congress has approved about $2 million annually in funding for Tibetan exiles in India. Congress has also urged the administration to spend another $2 million for democracy activities among the Tibetans.

[Ravenlocke]

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-truth-about-tibet-and-her-liberation-from-slavery-70eeeee88a16

The Truth about Tibet and Her Liberation from Slavery
Commemorating 28 March — Tibetan Serf Emancipation Day

PROLOGUE

Tibet before 1959 was a feudal serf society. The serfs had no freedom, no land, and were often hungry. The democratic reform abolished serfdom and enabled millions of serfs to master their own life.

The impoverished population in the region dropped from 590,000 in 2015 to 150,000 in 2018. The net annual income of rural residents has reached 10,330 yuan (US$1,540) per person by 2017, a 13.6-percent increase year-on-year. The region’s GDP more than doubled in six years to 131 billion yuan (US$19.5 billion) in 2017, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) eradicated absolute poverty in 2019. China has lifted all of its citizens out of poverty by 2020.

THE TIBET THE WORLD ACTUALLY KNEW

Many prefer not to talk about the Tibet under the Dalai Lamas. Belied by the enchanting charismatic smile and wonderfully pleasant personality of the 14th Dalai Lama, and under his and his predecessors’ direct political, social and religious leadership, was the darkest corner of China and possibly the world.

Before 1959, Tibet was a feudal serfdom created by the integration of religion, politics and the dictatorship of monks and aristocrats, and one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe. The 14th Dalai Lama, like other Dalai Lamas before him, ruled over a Tibetan society which had integrated religion with politics as a feudal serfdom under a theocracy ruled by a combined dictatorship of monks and aristocrats.

The Dalai Lama’s Tibetan system tolerated no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form. In fact, the Tibetan serf slavery system was the darkest human slavery system in the history of mankind, and which spanned many centuries longer than the 400+ years of black slavery in the USA. The Tibetan conditions were also more debasing and dehumanizing than medieval Europe in the latter’s darkest periods.

Similar as in medieval Europe, Tibetan aristocrats and High-Level Tibetan Buddhist monks and Officials in the Potala Palace, which is the Chief Residence of the Dalai Lama, who totaled less than 5% of Tibetans, owned more than 95% of Tibet’s livestock, farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers. All the food harvests belonged to them, and they allowed farmers only barely self-sufficient quantity for self-consumption only and none for trade or commercial exchange.

In the Dalai Lama’s Tibet, more than 90% of the people were peasants and serfs indebted generationally for many life-times. They also had to pay exorbitant taxes and levies by performing forced heavy labor. Poverty is therefore entrenched and deepened over every generation. People are considered debt collaterals and therefore commodities to be traded. In fact, family members, sons and daughters are routinely traded or abused due to no other reason save being “reincarnated in a lower human form than monks and nuns”.

Unlike medieval Europe which was not under a completely theocratic system, the cocktail of religion and politics in the Dalai Lama’s Tibet was the guarantee of its feudal serf system. When their traditional indigenous animist and shamanistic belief systems lost out to the new progressive but agnostic Buddhism in the 8th Century AD, many Tibetans quickly embraced Buddhism and thus believe in an afterlife. Gradually, the monks of a revised “Tibetan” Buddhism, with the Dalai Lama as its Head, quickly became the overlords and made their Tibetan Buddhist believers their serfs — never mind that this was not in accordance with Buddha’s original Buddhist scriptural teachings or principles! Tibetan Buddhists are expected to work ungrudgingly for their spiritual masters, to whom they owe a blind devotion.

And as political theocracy evolved in Tibet through the dictatorship of monks and nobles, the emergent religious authority came to dominate Tibetan’s daily life with administrative power, and concurrent coercion by meting out rewards and punishments for their after-life with religious privileges. One is either doomed to the frightening karma of “endless reincarnation as any living creature” or, the “Dalai Lama can help to secure one’s rebirth as a human being in a high position, or, better still, as a monk or nun”.

Tibetan feudal serfdom combined and reinforced by its peculiar Buddhist Theocracy was a deadly social ideology that totally controlled and shackled the minds of the largely superstitious masses. It debased human dignity by expropriating personal freedom and deprived him/her the freedom of thought necessary to penetrate delusional religious truths for a better and trueful enlightenment impact. There was no escape — social, economic, mental and spiritual — for any Tibetan from the dark karmic curse of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan kingdom.

Accordance to Karl Marx, serfdom was one of the major slavery systems in human history and the essential representation of the feudal exploitation system. Karl Marx further pointed out that “Liberty in any form is all about bringing back to people the relationship between their world and themselves.” For Marx, the answer is Education.

Education is the most powerful human weapon to counter that insidious religious ideological control of people’s beliefs and thought. Education was the decisive social tool that broke medieval Europe out of its Dark Age. The Church’s monopoly of education was unable to withstand the proliferation of secular schools resulting from the economic prosperity of the 13th century.

The Renaissance broke forth in Italy in the late 14th century and reached Central Europe (Eastern Germany, Bohemia, and Poland) by the beginning of the 16th century. The Enlightenment period also started in the late 17th century and the same happened for the Scientific Revolution. The Enlightenment liberated the human mind and produced such innovative and unorthodox ideas and knowledge called “Science” and prodded its scientists towards new spheres of knowledge and means to acquire it. Science proved and gave the opportunity for the Enlightenment to thrive. Concurrently, the Catholic Church divided and reformed. The first large Protestant movement was the Hussite Revolution in Bohemia (1419–34). The Reformation gathered momentum and flourished after Luther’s theses in Saxony in the early 16th century.

In the 400 years as Europe freed itself of feudal servitude and superstitions, it eventually invented the steam engine to drive the industrial revolution and itself into the modernity of 20th century.

Tibet, located on the highest plateau of the world, was however oblivious of how the world had actually moved ahead towards the social realisation of Enlightenment; when in fact a similar reference could be repeatedly found in the original Buddhist scriptures.

In the Dalai Lama’s Tibet, education and the right to education were monopolised by the ruling class of monks and nobles. The only way to get access to education was to enter the monasteries to “read scriptures”. Parents eagerly enrolled their children into the monasteries since education was easily available to any children to become monks. They soon realized that they had merely changed their children’s status from a “serf” of the ruling lords to a “serf” of the monasteries. There is no escaping from ubiquitous servitude to the Potala Palace should one desire to be educated.

The complete domination of Theocracy in Tibetan life has also retarded the development of traditional Tibetan history and culture, when compared to the other 53+ tribes in China.

Tibetan serfdom under the Dalai Lama is the single most responsible factor for the persistent abject poverty of the Tibetan people, causing them to lag way behind other parts of China.

This should not have happened if the Tibetan people were free and encouraged so that their human-ness, enterprise and creativity can be brought into full deployment like the rest of the world.

Recalling that it was progressive, agnostic Buddhism that overwhelmed the traditional indigenous animist and shamanistic belief systems of the Tibetans 1,800 years ago, before it was hijacked by the variant Tibetan Buddhism which enslaved common Tibetans in a Feudal Theocratic Serfdom, it is therefore not ironic that the Dalai Lama’s Theocratic Tibet should finally be liberated from the legacy of its dark pasts by an atheistic Communist Party of China in 1959, and who had thereafter invested hugely on Tibetan education, commercial and social development in a manner never before done nor contemplated by all the Dalai Lamas combined in the previous 550 years.

March 28 is Tibetan “Serfs Emancipation Day”, a day celebrating the emancipation of serfs in Tibet by more than 3 million people of all ethnic groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China.

On this day in 1959, a democratic reform was carried out, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China．

Tibet is part of China since the early Yuan Dynasty (1270–1354) and continued through the rule of the Qing dynasty in 1720 into Modern China in 1911. On 28 March 1959, the Tibetan self-government status was dissolved by China which effectively marked an end to serfdom and the abolition of the hierarchic social system characterized by theocracy, with the Dalai Lama as the core of the leadership. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government had fled to India, 3 days earlier, in hope to reach out to the international community. The holiday is a reminder of the feudal system that existed in Tibet before her liberation by the Chinese.

As the world today ponders over the future of Tibet, the author cautions against seeing the Dalai Lama’s Tibet as a romantic “Shangri-La”, portrayed in the movie “Lost Horizon”. Ancient Tibet under the rule of all the Dalai Lamas was very far from being “Shangri-La”. It was darker than darkest medieval Europe.

The clamour by the 14th Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile for an “Independent Tibet with Democracy” sounds very strange, and hollow when it had enslaved 90% of Tibetans as serfs for centuries. Indeed, the unpleasant truth for many “democracy” advocates is that Tibetans today under the Chinese have never been freer than they, their forefathers and ancestors have ever been under all the Dalai Lamas.

His charmed wisdom notwithstanding, neither the 14th Dalai Lama nor his “government-in-exile” has any experience in either democracy or independence. They are therefore not relevant to Tibet’s future.

Whatever Tibet’s future solution options are, one thing is certain. There is no role for a theocracy nor should any allowance be made for Tibetan Buddhism other than to treat it on equal footing with any other religious beliefs whilst respecting the inherent right of Tibetans to their personal freedom of religion. The future is a secular Tibet as she regains her place among equals with other Chinese Provinces.

Tibet’s own future does not crisscross with or into its past. Tibetans have chosen paths never before travelled, through their vast and beautiful mountain valleys to reach their true Shangri-La, where they have discovered a wonderful place of sanctuary, true enlightenment, and personal development with the freedom to choose and believe in an even better future for their children and grandchildren.

[Acknowledgment and gratitude to my Bhutanese friend Jigme Thinley who in 1983 first shared with me the Tibetan slavery conditions. They were subsequently validated by many other friends and sources in the region who also confirmed my research and empowered here a true picture of Tibetan struggles with serf slavery.]

[Ravenlocke]

https://redsails.org/friendly-feudalism/

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth


Updated and expanded version from January 2007.

For a snapshot of the situation as of 2019, Shashi Kei’s Why are Tibetans leaving India when the Dalai Lama is still there? [1]

Contents

For Lords and Lamas
Secularization vs. Spirituality
Exit Feudal Theocracy
References

For Lords and Lamas

Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic — so say its adherents. For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more a meditative and investigative discipline intended to promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one’s connection to all people and things. “Socially engaged Buddhism” tries to blend individual liberation with responsible social action in order to build an enlightened society.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka, armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. 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. [2]

In South Korea, in 1998, thousands of monks of the Chogye Buddhist order fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual budget of $9.2 million, its millions of dollars worth of property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various offices. The brawls damaged the main Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens of monks injured, some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain both factions, feeling that no matter what side took control, “it would use worshippers’ donations for luxurious houses and expensive cars.” [3]

As with any religion, squabbles between or within Buddhist sects are often fueled by the material corruption and personal deficiencies of the leadership. For example, in Nagano, Japan, at Zenkoji, the prestigious complex of temples that has hosted Buddhist sects for more than 1,400 years, “a nasty battle” arose between Komatsu the chief priest and the Tacchu, a group of temples nominally under the chief priest’s sway. The Tacchu monks accused Komatsu of selling writings and drawings under the temple’s name for his own gain. They also were appalled by the frequency with which he was seen in the company of women. Komatsu in turn sought to isolate and punish monks who were critical of his leadership. The conflict lasted some five years and made it into the courts. [4]

But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception to this sort of strife? And what of the society it helped to create? 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. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that “the pervasive influence of Buddhism” in Tibet, “amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment.” [5]

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.” [6] 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.

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. [7]

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.” [8]

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. [9]

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. [10] This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” [11]

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]

Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]

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. [25]

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.” [26] 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.

Secularization vs. Spirituality

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.” [27]

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. [28] 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. [29] [30] 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. [31]

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. [30] “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. [32] 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.” [33] 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. [34]

Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a sergeant in Hitler’s SS) wrote a bestseller about his experiences in Tibet that was made into a popular Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who resisted the Chinese “were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to clean up the city before the tourists arrived.” They also had to live in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants — all of which Harrer treats as sure evidence of the dreadful nature of the Chinese occupation. [35]

By 1961, Chinese occupation authorities expropriated the landed estates owned by lords and lamas. They distributed many thousands of acres to tenant farmers and landless peasants, reorganizing them into hundreds of communes. Herds once owned by nobility were turned over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, all of which reportedly led to an increase in agrarian production. [36] [37]

Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy. But monks who had been conscripted as children into the religious orders were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest government stipends and extra income earned by officiating at prayer services, weddings, and funerals. [38]

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.” [39] The official 1953 census — six years before the Chinese crackdown — recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000. [40] Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves — of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.” [41]

In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit some Tibetans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal. [42] By the 1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exile communities abroad, “restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there.” [43]

As of 2007 Tibetan Buddhism was still practiced widely and tolerated by officialdom. Religious pilgrimages and other standard forms of worship were allowed but within limits. All monks and nuns had to sign a loyalty pledge that they would not use their religious position to foment secession or dissent. And displaying photos of the Dalai Lama was declared illegal. [44]

In the 1990s, the Han, the ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of China’s immense population, began moving in substantial numbers into Tibet. On the streets of Lhasa and Shigatse, signs of Han colonization are readily visible. Chinese run the factories and many of the shops and vending stalls. Tall office buildings and large shopping centers have been built with funds that might have been better spent on water treatment plants and housing. Chinese cadres in Tibet too often view their Tibetan neighbors as backward and lazy, in need of economic development and “patriotic education.” During the 1990s Tibetan government employees suspected of harboring nationalist sympathies were purged from office, and campaigns were once again launched to discredit the Dalai Lama. Individual Tibetans reportedly were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and forced labor for carrying out separatist activities and engaging in “political subversion.” Some were held in administrative detention without adequate food, water, and blankets, subjected to threats, beatings, and other mistreatment. [45]

Tibetan history, culture, and certainly religion are slighted in schools. Teaching materials, though translated into Tibetan, focus mainly on Chinese history and culture. Chinese family planning regulations allow a three-child limit for Tibetan families. (There is only a one-child limit for Han families throughout China, and a two-child limit for rural Han families whose first child is a girl.) If a Tibetan couple goes over the three-child limit, the excess children can be denied subsidized daycare, health care, housing, and education. These penalties have been enforced irregularly and vary by district. [45] None of these child services, it should be noted, were available to Tibetans before the Chinese takeover.

For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama’s organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama’s annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment. [46]

In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.” [47] In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

Into the twenty-first century, via the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable sounding than the CIA, the U.S. Congress continued to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for “democracy activities” within the Tibetan exile community. In addition to these funds, the Dalai Lama received money from financier George Soros. [48]

Whatever the Dalai Lama’s associations with the CIA and various reactionaries, he did speak often of peace, love, and nonviolence. He himself really cannot be blamed for the abuses of Tibet’s ancien régime, having been but 25 years old when he fled into exile. In a 1994 interview, he went on record as favoring the building of schools and roads in his country. He said the corvée (forced unpaid serf labor) and certain taxes imposed on the peasants were “extremely bad.” And he disliked the way people were saddled with old debts sometimes passed down from generation to generation. [49] During the half century of living in the western world, he had embraced concepts such as human rights and religious freedom, ideas largely unknown in old Tibet. He even proposed democracy for Tibet, featuring a written constitution and a representative assembly. [39]

In 1996, the Dalai Lama issued a statement that must have had an unsettling effect on the exile community. It read in part: “Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability.” Marxism fosters “the equitable utilization of the means of production” and cares about “the fate of the working classes” and “the victims of … exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and … I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.” [50]

But he also sent a reassuring message to “those who live in abundance”: “It is a good thing to be rich… Those are the fruits for deserving actions, the proof that they have been generous in the past.” And to the poor he offers this admonition: “There is no good reason to become bitter and rebel against those who have property and fortune… It is better to develop a positive attitude.” [51]

In 2005 the Dalai Lama signed a widely advertised statement along with ten other Nobel Laureates supporting the “inalienable and fundamental human right” of working people throughout the world to form labor unions to protect their interests, in accordance with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In many countries “this fundamental right is poorly protected and in some it is explicitly banned or brutally suppressed,” the statement read. Burma, China, Colombia, Bosnia, and a few other countries were singled out as among the worst offenders. Even the United States “fails to adequately protect workers’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively. Millions of U.S. workers lack any legal protection to form unions…” [52]

The Dalai Lama also gave full support to removing the ingrained traditional obstacles that have kept Tibetan nuns from receiving an education. Upon arriving in exile, few nuns could read or write. In Tibet their activities had been devoted to daylong periods of prayer and chants. But in northern India they now began reading Buddhist philosophy and engaging in theological study and debate, activities that in old Tibet had been open only to monks. [53]

In November 2005 the Dalai Lama spoke at Stanford University on “The Heart of Nonviolence,” but stopped short of a blanket condemnation of all violence. Violent actions that are committed in order to reduce future suffering are not to be condemned, he said, citing World War II as an example of a worthy effort to protect democracy. What of the four years of carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned by most of the world — even by a conservative pope — as a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: “The Iraq war — it’s too early to say, right or wrong.” [54] Earlier he had voiced support for the U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan. [55] [56] [57]

Exit Feudal Theocracy

As the Shangri-La myth would have it, in old Tibet the people lived in contented and tranquil symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords. Rich lamas and poor monks, wealthy landlords and impoverished serfs were all bonded together, mutually sustained by the comforting balm of a deeply spiritual and pacific culture.

One is reminded of the idealized image of feudal Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants living in the secure embrace of their Church, under the more or less benign protection of their lords. [58] Again we are invited to accept a particular culture in its idealized form divorced from its murky material history. This means accepting it as presented by its favored class, by those who profited most from it. The Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to historic actuality than does the pastoral image of medieval Europe.

Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society at great cost to the rest. [59] In theocratic feudal Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their mean existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from past lives, presented as part of God’s will.

Were the more affluent lamas just hypocrites who preached one thing and secretly believed another? More likely they were genuinely attached to those beliefs that brought such good results for them. That their theology so perfectly supported their material privileges only strengthened the sincerity with which it was embraced.

It might be said that we denizens of the modern secular world cannot grasp the equations of happiness and pain, contentment and custom, that characterize more traditionally spiritual societies. This is probably true, and it may explain why some of us idealize such societies. But still, a gouged eye is a gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the grinding exploitation of serfs and slaves is a brutal class injustice whatever its cultural wrapping. There is a difference between a spiritual bond and human bondage, even when both exist side by side.

Many ordinary Tibetans want the Dalai Lama back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented. A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that the Dalai Lama continues to be revered in Tibet, but

…few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power. “I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.” [60]

It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not the only highly placed lama chosen in childhood as a reincarnation. One or another reincarnate lama or tulku — a spiritual teacher of special purity elected to be reborn again and again — can be found presiding over most major monasteries. The tulku system is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. Scores of Tibetan lamas claim to be reincarnate tulkus.

The very first tulku was a lama known as the Karmapa who appeared nearly three centuries before the first Dalai Lama. The Karmapa is leader of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition known as the Karma Kagyu. The rise of the Gelugpa sect headed by the Dalai Lama led to a politico-religious rivalry with the Kagyu that has lasted five hundred years and continues to play itself out within the Tibetan exile community today. That the Kagyu sect has grown famously, opening some six hundred new centers around the world in the last thirty-five years, has not helped the situation.

The search for a tulku, Erik Curren reminds us, has not always been conducted in that purely spiritual mode portrayed in certain Hollywood films. “Sometimes monastic officials wanted a child from a powerful local noble family to give the cloister more political clout. Other times they wanted a child from a lower-class family who would have little leverage to influence the child’s upbringing.” On other occasions “a local warlord, the Chinese emperor or even the Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa might [have tried] to impose its choice of tulku on a monastery for political reasons.” [61]

Such may have been the case in the selection of the 17th Karmapa, whose monastery-in-exile is situated in Rumtek, in the Indian state of Sikkim. In 1993 the monks of the Karma Kagyu tradition had a candidate of their own choice. The Dalai Lama, along with several dissenting Karma Kagyu leaders (and with the support of the Chinese government!) backed a different boy. The Kagyu monks charged that the Dalai Lama had overstepped his authority in attempting to select a leader for their sect. “Neither his political role nor his position as a lama in his own Gelugpa tradition entitled him to choose the Karmapa, who is a leader of a different tradition…” [62] As one of the Kagyu leaders insisted, “Dharma is about thinking for yourself. It is not about automatically following a teacher in all things, no matter how respected that teacher may be. More than anyone else, Buddhists should respect other people’s rights — their human rights and their religious freedom.” [63]

What followed was a dozen years of conflict in the Tibetan exile community, punctuated by intermittent riots, intimidation, physical attacks, blacklisting, police harassment, litigation, official corruption, and the looting and undermining of the Karmapa’s monastery in Rumtek by supporters of the Gelugpa faction. All this has caused at least one western devotee to wonder if the years of exile were not hastening the moral corrosion of Tibetan Buddhism. [64]

What is clear is that not all Tibetan Buddhists accept the Dalai Lama as their theological and spiritual mentor. Though he is referred to as the “spiritual leader of Tibet,” many see this title as little more than a formality. It does not give him authority over the four religious schools of Tibet other than his own, “just as calling the U.S. president the ‘leader of the free world’ gives him no role in governing France or Germany.” [65]

Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk’s building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful “not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time,” or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger women “were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naïve [about Tibet].” [66]

The women interviewed by Lewis recounted stories of their grandmothers’ ordeals with monks who used them as “wisdom consorts.” By sleeping with the monks, the grandmothers were told, they gained “the means to enlightenment” — after all, the Buddha himself had to be with a woman to reach enlightenment.

The women also mentioned the “rampant” sex that the supposedly spiritual and abstemious monks practiced with each other in the Gelugpa sect. The women who were mothers spoke bitterly about the monastery’s confiscation of their young boys in Tibet. They claimed that when a boy cried for his mother, he would be told “Why do you cry for her, she gave you up — she’s just a woman.”

The monks who were granted political asylum in California applied for public assistance. Lewis, herself a devotee for a time, assisted with the paperwork. She observes that they continue to receive government checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month along with Medicare. In addition, the monks reside rent free in nicely furnished apartments. “They pay no utilities, have free access to the Internet on computers provided for them, along with fax machines, free cell and home phones and cable TV.”

They also receive a monthly payment from their order, along with contributions and dues from their American followers. Some devotees eagerly carry out chores for the monks, including grocery shopping and cleaning their apartments and toilets. These same holy men, Lewis remarks, “have no problem criticizing Americans for their ‘obsession with material things.’” [67] To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today’s Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. Tibetans deserve to be perceived as actual people, not perfected spiritualists or innocent political symbols. “To idealize them,” notes Ma Jian, a dissident Chinese traveler to Tibet (now living in Britain), “is to deny them their humanity.” [68]

One common complaint among Buddhist followers in the West is that Tibet’s religious culture is being undermined by the Chinese occupation. To some extent this seems to be the case. Many of the monasteries are closed, and much of the theocracy seems to have passed into history. Whether Chinese rule has brought betterment or disaster is not the central issue here. The question is what kind of country was old Tibet. What I am disputing is the supposedly pristine spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. We can advocate religious freedom and independence for a new Tibet without having to embrace the mythology about old Tibet. Tibetan feudalism was cloaked in Buddhism, but the two are not to be equated. In reality, old Tibet was not a Paradise Lost. It was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty, a long way from Shangri-La.

Finally, let it be said that if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free-market paradise, then this does not bode well for the Tibetans. China boasts a dazzling 8 percent economic growth rate and is emerging as one of the world’s greatest industrial powers. But with economic growth has come an ever deepening gulf between rich and poor. Most Chinese live close to the poverty level or well under it, while a small group of newly brooded capitalists profit hugely in collusion with shady officials. Regional bureaucrats milk the country dry, extorting graft from the populace and looting local treasuries. Land grabbing in cities and countryside by avaricious developers and corrupt officials at the expense of the populace are almost everyday occurrences. Tens of thousands of grassroot protests and disturbances have erupted across the country, usually to be met with unforgiving police force. Corruption is so prevalent, reaching into so many places, that even the normally complacent national leadership was forced to take notice and began moving against it in late 2006.

Workers in China who try to organize labor unions in the corporate dominated “business zones” risk losing their jobs or getting beaten and imprisoned. Millions of business zone workers toil twelve-hour days at subsistence wages. With the health care system now being privatized, free or affordable medical treatment is no longer available for millions. Men have tramped into the cities in search of work, leaving an increasingly impoverished countryside populated by women, children, and the elderly. The suicide rate has increased dramatically, especially among women. [69]

China’s natural environment is sadly polluted. Most of its fabled rivers and many lakes are dead, producing massive fish die-offs from the billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into them. Toxic effluents, including pesticides and herbicides, seep into ground water or directly into irrigation canals. Cancer rates in villages situated along waterways have skyrocketed a thousand-fold. Hundreds of millions of urban residents breathe air rated as dangerously unhealthy, contaminated by industrial growth and the recent addition of millions of automobiles. An estimated 400,000 die prematurely every year from air pollution. Government environmental agencies have no enforcement power to stop polluters, and generally the government ignores or denies such problems, concentrating instead on industrial growth. [44]

China’s own scientific establishment reports that unless greenhouse gases are curbed, the nation will face massive crop failures along with catastrophic food and water shortages in the years ahead. In 2006-2007 severe drought was already afflicting southwest China. [70]

If China is the great success story of speedy free market development, and is to be the model and inspiration for Tibet’s future, then old feudal Tibet indeed may start looking a lot better than it actually was.

References

Mick Brown, The Dance of 17 Lives (Bloomsbury 2004).
Erik D. Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today (Alaya Press 2005)
Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet (Monthly Review Press, 1964).
Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet 1913-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (University of California Press, 1995).
Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961).
A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: 1996).
Heinrich Harrer, Return to Tibet (New York: Schocken, 1985).
Pradyumna P. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976).
Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998).
Gaby Naher, Wrestling the Dragon (Rider 2004).
Anna Louise Strong, Tibetan Interviews (Peking: New World Press, 1959).
Lea Terhune, Karmapa of Tibet: The Politics of Reincarnation (Wisdom Publications, 2004)

[Icare]

I could seriously do without all the CCP propaganda, but I saw very similar pictures of people shackled and doing slave labour and skins that had been removed from people etc etc in that lecture at the University of Vienna that I mentioned earlier on in the thread.

So this doesn't shock me anymore (it obviously did when I first saw the documentation), but that short tongue-sucking clip disturbed me.

I think it's time we stopped venerating people, even deifying them. "His Holiness", yeah right.

And he obviously knew it wasn't acceptable. If it was merely a cultural thing, he would have felt no need to publicly apologize.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1108328001975083008

1108328001975083008

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/3/21/after-60-years-in-india-why-are-tibetans-leaving

After 60 years in India, why are Tibetans leaving?

Tibetans sought refuge in India from the Chinese invasion 60 years ago, but face economic uncertainty and mistreatment.

Mumbai, India – For many years, 34-year-old Kunsang Tenzing has been thinking about leaving India.

His family did years ago. Most of his closest friends have also moved.

Over the last seven years, the Tibetan refugee community in India has dropped by 44 percent, from around 150,000 in 2011 to 85,000, according to Indian government data.

Tibetan authorities say most are going to countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany and Switzerland.

Some are returning to Tibet.

Across 40 countries, the Tibetan diaspora stands at 150,000, Tibetan authorities say.

This month, the community celebrates 60 years in India after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in March, 1959.

If the emigration continues, what will remain of the community in India, the country where its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama sought refuge and made his home?

“It is very difficult to make money here. There are barely any jobs here,” Tenzing says.

Tibetans are not officially recognised as refugees in India. Instead, on paper, they are designated as “foreigners”.

Week in the Middle East


India has refused to sign the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees.

“As a result, Tibetans are not allowed government jobs. Sometimes, even universities don’t admit Tibetan students,” says Sonam Norbu Dagpo, the spokesman for the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is based in Dharamshala, India.

Dakpo says the number of incoming Tibetans fleeing Chinese rule has plummeted, from around 3,000 annually to about 100 last year.

Economic concerns are central; many Tibetans say that buying property and accessing bank credit are difficult, leaving them with few options.

In addition, India’s dithering over its support to the Tibetan cause makes people nervous.

Last year, the government issued a directive prohibiting bureaucrats and leaders from attending events organised by the CTA marking 60 years in India.

The directive came on the eve of an informal summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

An embarrassed CTA was forced to cancel eventsfeaturing the Dalai Lama and hold them outside New Delhi.

I

Yangzom Tsering, Tibetan in India

In the streets of McLeod Ganj, a small hill town in northern India which is the de-facto capital of the Tibetan community and the home of the Dalai Lama, almost everyone has a story of painful separation.

Yangzom Tsering, 29, was smuggled to India from Tibet by her relatives soon after her birth. Both her parents passed away soon after.

Tsering has always yearned to go back to Tibet to see her siblings who still live there.

“My brother kept telling me that I should come back home. I checked out all the options but it [going back to Tibet] was very difficult.”

Last year, his brother passed away.

Guilt-ridden, he now feels the need to take more responsibility for his family and plans to migrate to Canada.

“But it isn’t easy to go anywhere, being a refugee. No country wants us.”

An identity beyond politics

Tenzing is trying to capture the stories of people like him – refugees from Tibet escaping Chinese occupation, seeking a new life in India while trying to not lose hope.

“Stories of Tibetans” (SoT), a recent social media initiative, has managed to reach about 16,000 followers across several platforms.

SoT was designed to explore Tibetan identity away from the political struggle.

“There is so much more about us – our everyday lives, struggles, and joys and the ways in which the struggle has shaped us,” says Tenzing.

“We are changing very rapidly as a society and there is an urgent need to chronicle our current existence before it becomes extinct.”

One of the characters featured on the feed is 23-year-old Tenzin Chokyi’s, a cancer survivor.

Cancer is seldom discussed among Tibetans.

Chokyi only discovered her father had passed away due to cancer a month after he died in 2012.

“I wanted to change that,” says Chokyi.

Her post has been viewed more than 45,000 times.

“People wrote in saying they didn’t know cancer had entered the Tibetan community too.”

Tenzing recently highlighted the story of a 24-year-old anonymous Tibetan who walked alone to India because of an abusive father.

Another post focuses on a man who gets nostalgic about his friends who have emigrated, each time he sees the “hope” tattoo they had all got together.

Yeshi Choedon, a professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, believes that the initiative might serve as a vital collection of oral histories.

“Hardly anything about the Tibetan refugee community has been documented so far,” he says. “Most times, the focus is only on the political struggle. An initiative like this will enhance the understanding of the ordinary Tibetan, in exile.”

SoT is now branching into documentaries.

Its latest is the story of two Tibetan brothers who were reunited after a decade. They were separated when one brother managed to escape from Tibet to come to India, while the other was arrested in Tibet twice while attempting the journey.

Tenzing says his work in the community helps overcome his own loneliness.

“I need to give back to my community,” he says, “at least for a few more years. But after that, I might migrate too.”

[gini]

Well I can't speak for the Dalai but it is possible it is a cultural thing being seen through western eyes, and we've pretty much been programmed to view the world as a sick, corrupt place thanks to the dark hallways of our media moguls.

I remember seeing my wife's mother do this in Thailand with her grandson, (not my child, a cousin). I thought it very strange but I was clearly the only one who did. Fortunately I have a pretty good poker face and never caused a stir.

Speculating further there may even be a benefit to it from bacterial transfer to a developing immune system -and I'm not inventing excuses, just trying to look at it logically as to why it may have become a 'thing'. Isn't there an African culture that spits in the food being prepared for children? (Or did I just make that up?)

From The Independent today;"What is the Tibetan culture of tongue greetings?

Sticking out your tongue is traditionally a sign of respect or agreement and has also been used as a greeting in Tibetan culture, according to the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Perhaps the most famous Western cultural reference to this tradition comes in the film Seven Years in Tibet starring Brad Pitt, where Pitt’s character encounters a group of children who stick out their tongues at him. The film offers no further explanation of their actions.

According to Tibetan folklore, people in the Buddhist culture began sticking out their tongue to disassociate themselves from the 9th century Tibetan king Lang Darma, who was infamous for his cruelty and was said to have had a black tongue.

As Buddhists believe in reincarnation after death, the tradition is said to have emerged as a way for people to show they were not the king reincarnated and therefore not to be associated with his evil deeds.

However, there is no mention in either this folklore or the broader traditional greeting of sucking the tongue." -https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/dalai-lama-tongue-kiss-boy-tibet-b2317664.html

[Ravenlocke]

Rania of YT BreakThrough News talks w/ Prof. Ken Hammond who perfectly summarizes in 8+ minutes Tibet's past 80yr history & the situation present day

PkqhZrKQcYE

[Iloveyou]

Video gone . . .


. . . video (by Stefan Molyneux, uploaded in February 2015) hasn't been posted yet, so here it is again in 2023.

dBH0ywUUx5k

Zkli7lNY8S8

[gini]

"YES: The #DalaiLama was being playful and affectionate! A Tibetan's Perspective.

JigJag
Apr 11, 2023.17 min.
How and why an innocent and playful interaction between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a young Indian boy has been sensationalized into a clickbait story with leading titles and fake descriptions., and a carefully spliced video. ----at 15.20 starts the unedited version of the 'kissing' scene--bT0qey5Ts78

[Ravenlocke]

China doesn't SPIN NEWS like we do. Their silence is too often mistaken as an admission of guilt. Don't be another uninformed drone. Do everyone a favor and learn truths before forming opinions.



I just don't get people turning a blind eye to the realities of this world. Of course, China spins the news as badly as the USA and Russia combined. Anyone who doesn't think that China has a massive active propaganda machine in place is not seeing the world realistically.

Most people think that China is a reluctant participant in the one world government initiatives but the truth is they are behind the scenes manipulating events and using the news as a weapon. Make no mistake about it, China is aggressively driving the bus toward global governance because they have more to gain than any other country on the planet.

Many many western politicians and most of the mainstream media (regardless of what is written) want to see the USA lose its globally dominant position and support the rise of China. I just want people to look at the world realistically. Trump recognized this reality about China, this is one of the main reasons he was and is hated with such ferocity.




This is not in defense of what what the Dalia Lama did, but that's ridiculous!
Tibet: The Truth (A Political History)
China doesn't SPIN NEWS like we do. Their silence is too often mistaken as admission of guilt.


The CCP censors anything they don't want anyone else to know. For an example of how they SPIN, see what I just posted today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I73_JPlZzig&t=0s
And much more about what the CCP is really like from 2 guys who spent years travelling all over China: https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow
Much more on this thread: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?111363-Turmoil-in-China&highlight=turmoil+in+china


[B]
The media screams:
"They killed innocent monks!" - but those "innocent" monks and other young hooligans killed innocent Chinese before a single shot was fired on them.

If Tibetans killed Chinese,it was because their country was being invaded! :doh:


To begin with here is the full video description as written by the author of the video.

“ The West is trying to demonize China. Why? To ensure an upper-handed position economically, politically, and socially.

Too many harbor strong opinions about Tibet, yet know nothing more than the few slogans offered by the mass-media outlets.

The media screams:
"They killed innocent monks!" - but those "innocent" monks and other young hooligans killed innocent Chinese before a single shot was fired on them.
"The Chinese are oppressive" - do you consider freeing over 95% of Tibetans from slavery, building a state of the art infrastructure, and a new economy oppressive?
"The Chinese suppress Tibetan Buddhism" - then why have the Chinese spent a fortune restoring ancient monasteries and places of religious significance?

China doesn't SPIN NEWS like we do. Their silence is too often mistaken as admission of guilt. Don't be another uninformed drone. Do everyone a favor and learn truths before forming opinions.

Here's to Peace & Harmony! The 2008 Beijing Olympics deserve support!”


What the author was referring to by his comments in the above description was referring to the history of Tibet and the 1959 incident which most people outside Tibet don’t know about, when if you had read this here,

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1551858&viewfull=1#post1551858

he was referring to the defeat of the uprising of the CIA induced rebellion which was meant to try and keep the 95 % of the Tibetans in serfdom and maintain the three ruling classes of which the Dalai Lama was the head. The rebellion failed and the CCP of that time freed over a million serfs and did away with the elite ruling classes.

Taking pieces of the authors description and applying them to current CPC ruling of China is misleading, fearmongering, and has nothing to do with what took place in Tibet in the late fifties. :facepalm:

Maybe before saying “it’s all Chinese propaganda” as Wind proclaims, and pointing the finger at the posters that are trying to bring attention to the actual history of Tibet as presented in the previous articles posted here and including the first post in this thread

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=301701&viewfull=1#post301701

maybe you could read and listen to the information before jumping to biased conclusions.

:flower::flower::flower:

[onawah]

I am aware of what happened in Tibet, and my conclusions are not biased.
I was a friend and helper to the great benefactress Barbara Pettee, of the Tibetan lamas who escaped China and came to the US, including the Karmapa, and the news coming directly through those who escaped revealed the Chinese invaders as being incredibly brutal.
The conditions the people of Tibet were living in then were no different than those of the majority of people in China at the time, and those conditions in China have not changed today.
The rule of the lamas over the people of Tibet was compassionate compared to that of Mao or today's Xijinping.
You have already trashed your own case as being misinformed by trying to present the CCP as anything other than tyrants and blatant propagandists.
I think you should consider that you have fallen for CCP propaganda yourself, and stop pointing the finger until you have done a lot more research into the threat they pose to the whole world.
What they are doing to the Uighur people in China alone is criminal, just as much as the chaos they caused in Tibet.




maybe you could read and listen to the information before jumping to biased conclusions.



update: A bit more in the news today demonstrating the lengths to which the CCP will go to spread their propaganda.

Millions in Ads: China Runs Propaganda in Major US Newspapers
China in Focus - NTD
725K subscribers
40,337 views Premiered Mar 27, 2023

"The Chinese regime is pouring money into pumping out propaganda. It's medium is legacy U.S. media, disguised as opinion pieces. China Daily's ad inserts trace back to the Chinese Communist Party. Reports point to the millions spent ahead of U.S. elections, aiming to sway public opinion. Those ads highlight instances of China's success in other countries and push policies that favor Beijing. From former President Donald Trump to the head of Britain's intelligence agency, officials are sounding the alarm. What does this mean for democracy?

Topics in this episode:

China Runs Propaganda in Major U.S. Newspapers
China Ramps Up Bid to Influence U.S. Politics: Report
House Speaker Mccarthy: TikTok Ban Bill Going Ahead
U.S. TikTok Ban 90% Likely: Leading Research Firm
Apple's Tim Cook Meets Chinese Commerce Minister
Jack Ma Returns to China, Calms Private Sector Fears
China Confirms Detention of Japanese Citizen
Honduras Cuts Ties with Taiwan, Recognizes Beijing
Sanctions Drive Russians Toward Chinese Cars
Australia Will Follow U.S. If China Invades Taiwan: Former Australian Defense Minister Andrews

4FMMszAHxWY

[Ravenlocke]

“Iam aware of what happened in Tibet, and my conclusions are not biased.
I was a friend and helper to the great benefactress Barbara Pettee, of the Tibetan lamas who escaped China and came to the US, including the Karmapa, and the news coming directly through those who escaped revealed the Chinese invaders as being incredibly brutal.
The conditions the people of Tibet were living in then were no different than those of the majority of people in China at the time, and those conditions in China have not changed today.”


Not for the million serfs that were freed from slavery after the annexation of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China. Their lives did improve once they were freed. Not for the higher up lamas and the elite who had to give up their slaves and lands.
And India is reporting now, that the amount of Tibetans moving to Dharamsala has dropped drastically from 3000 a year to about 100. And large amount of Tibetans are also leaving India for other countries or home in search of better paying jobs and a better life as in in India they’re treated as second class citizens.


The rule of the lamas over the people of Tibet was compassionate compared to that of Mao or today's Xijinping.
No it wasn’t, not in the old Tibet before the annexation by the PRC.
And even much earlier here is the historical description according to this article here,

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1551914&viewfull=1#post1551914

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.

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. [7]

Then fast forward to before the annexation of Tibet in the same article it describes life in feudal Tibet

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]

From this article here,

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1551858&viewfull=1#post1551858

In the 1940s, only 200 families owned 95% of all land in Tibet, and 95% of its people were illiterate. Child labor was rampant, and malnutrition was common. The average life expectancy for serfs in Tibet was 36 years. When the serfs were "taxed," they had to provide various forms of forced labor. Some serfs owed all their daytime labor to the lords, others owed five days a week of unpaid labor, and some were at the disposal of the lord's every whim.

The accounting books of a typical aristocratic manor from 1951 shows the depths of the forced labor inflicted upon the serfs. The Darongqang manor owned 81 serfs, who were assigned a total of 21,266 days of corvee labor. They worked 11,826 days for the manor and 9,440 days for the feudal government led by the Dalai Lama. The average corvee labor of each serf amounted to 262.5 days per year, or 72% of their annual labor. On top of the forced labor, when the serfs grew any crops on their land, the lords also appropriated a portion of them. Having no worldly possessions, the serfs had to rent both instruments and farm animals at usurious rates in order to work on their share of crops.


And here’s examples of human skin and bone articles that were made from slaves and serfs ,

https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1645948973574914048

1645948973574914048

https://twitter.com/PromoterBoxing/status/1284242933110235137

1284242933110235137

https://twitter.com/PromoterBoxing/status/1284242936209846275

1284242936209846275

https://twitter.com/PromoterBoxing/status/1284242938797727744

1284242938797727744


You have already trashed your own case as being misinformed by trying to present the CCP as anything other than tyrants and blatant propagandists.

My case was not about the CCP, but about the violent history of Tibet prior to the annexation in the late fifties and your lack of information about that. You brought up the CCP instead.


“I think you should consider that you have fallen for CCP propaganda yourself, and stop pointing the finger until you have done a lot more research into the threat they pose to the whole world.”

That’s a laugh and a half!

Edit:
and the Anti Communist hysteria didn’t happen and there was no political repression during that time.

https://www.gpisd.org/cms/lib01/TX01001872/Centricity/Domain/1156/anticommunist%20hysteria.pdf

and the freedom of the press in America runs uncensored and there is no American propaganda, US media doesn’t lie, and not under government control.

There’s no poverty, and no homelessness in America.

End Edit:

I am doing and will continue to research but what I’m investigating is in line with the topic of this thread regarding the Dalai Lama past and present and not about the CCP or the Chinese propaganda.

“What they are doing to the Uighur people in China alone is criminal, just as much as the chaos they caused in Tibet.”

I know about the plight of the Uighur and it’s very sad but that is not the topic of this thread.

:flower:

[ozmirage]

Since 1949 the Chinese communists killed from 5,999,000 to 102,671,000 people; a prudent estimate is 35,236,000.
You have to "believe" that people really EMBRACE glorious socialism / communism.
And who would lie about their "slavery" as property owners and free men?
Isn't private property ownership theft?
Or who would make false accusations against anti-communists? [/sarcasm]

- - - MAO was right - - -
Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.
- - - Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) Mao's concluding speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Party.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BELIEVE THE PROPAGANDA MINISTRY !
Do not look behind the curtain, little girl...

= = =
Sit down, shut up, pay and obey...
We are the government - you ain't.
= = =

Proof of counter-revolutionary lies! This never happened in the Peoples Republic!
50711https://projectavalon.net/forum4//forum4/images/misc/pencil.png

[Ernie Nemeth]

I never liked his books. There was something false, something forced in them. They all seemed inauthentic to me. I'm not sure if I ever read an entire book of his. His love book was so amazingly trite I remember being surprised.

But this?

Suck my tongue? Really?
For shame...

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/TheWakeninq/status/1646460751874252800?s=20

1646460751874252800

[Ernie Nemeth]

Nothing like Phil Donahue asking his guest, who came on his show with her cat, "Can I pet your p***y?"
She said sure.
He said, "You'll have to move the cat first."

I could not believe I heard that way back then. I have looked for it online but they say it was Carson and that it is false. Well, they can say what they want - I SAW IT IN PERSON!

It wasn't Carson, it was Donahue...


https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/carson-cat-remark/

[Ravenlocke]

Is Tibet better off under Chinese rule than under the rule of the Dalai Lamas?

My grandfather was ethnic Tibetan and he told me stories so unlike most westerners, I know the real history. Friendly Fuedalism - The Tibet Myth

He also suffered the cultural revolution by the chinese hans yet he still believes in the end that the Chinese gov freed him from poverty and a life where monks had too much power over the population. Yet reading western generous articles about dai lama being treated as a saint and that every Tibetan person yearns for theorcreacy. That is not true at all.

Maybe max 15 percent of the population do really think that. But that doesn’t represent most Tibetans. Especially my cousins who are more educated.

My biggest beef is when western press present the theocracy as if every Tibetan wants it. I may be an Australian but I do visit Tibet to see my relatives and they as well as my late grandpa would never want to see theocracy return. It’s just an Orwellian brainwashed system where monks get power and have the privilege to tax the people and own them using the same system, that brainwashes them into believing that they naturally deseve to be slaves because of the buddhist laws of karma.

The Dalai Lama's Tibet: now that was hell on earth

My cousins are educated unlike the previous generations, and don’t believe In that bs. Tibet used to have high taxes where the monks enjoyed luxury. That is theocracy in the real world. It wasn’t a shangri la as often portrayed by CIA backed propaganda. There is no place worse than old tibet. iT was a terrible place.

“To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today’s Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. Tibetans deserve to be perceived as actual people, not perfected spiritualists or innocent political symbols. “To idealize them,” notes Ma Jian, a dissident Chinese traveler to Tibet (now living in Britain), “is to deny them their humanity.””

The issue is that almost all western media portrays the old feudal theocracy as good simply only because it opposes china. It shows their true coloes on why they support tibet and It makes me angry to see western media idolize an old tibet that was not shangri la and should not be allowed to come back ever again.



https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/dalai-lama-says-tibet-is-better-off-within-china-29157.html

Dalai Lama says Tibet is better off within China


Tibet would be better off to remain within China rather than regain its independence, the Dalai Lama has told an interviewer. "Tibet is backward," the exiled spiritual leader said. "It's a big land, rich in natural resources, but we lack the technology or expertise [to exploit them]. So, if we remain in China, we might get a greater benefit, provided it respects our culture and environment and gives us some kind of guarantee."

The Dalai Lama's remarks were made to a journalist from Time magazine, just weeks after he sent a delegation of envoys to Tibet to discuss his possible return. Western diplomats believe there is a new opportunity for rapprochement under the new Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, with the Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile .

The Dalai Lama gave up his struggle for full independence for Tibet at the end of the 1980s, but his latest remarks are particularly conciliatory, and will be seen as evidence of progress in talks with Chinese authorities. "Some Tibetans accuse me of selling out their right to independence, but my approach is in our interest," the Dalai Lama said at his home in McLeod Ganj, in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

After China occupied Tibet in 1951, the Dalai Lama became the leader of the Tibetan struggle for independence, fleeing in 1959 along with tens of thousands of his supporters after a failed uprising. He set up a government-in-exile in Dhar-amsala in India. For many years, Tibet was a celebrated cause in the West, and supporters flocked to Dharamsala from around the world.

But with China's growing power, Tibet has faded from the international conscience, and the Dalai Lama has moderated demands from independence to some form of autonomy that will safeguard Tibet's culture and allow Tibetans to follow their traditional Buddhist religion. "Many communist and authoritarian regimes have changed, including the Soviet Union, not by force but by their own people," the Dalai Lama told Time. "China [still has] the same system but much is changing. Freedom of information, religious freedom and freedom of the press are much better. On that level the situation in Tibet is hopeful."

But he was not entirely optimistic. "Despite some economic improvement and development, the threats to our cultural heritage, religious freedom and environment are serious. In the countryside, facilities in education and health are very, very poor."

On the prospect of improving relations with Beijing, he sought to play down expectations. "We're not expecting some major breakthrough; the Tibetan issue is very complicated, and China is over-suspicious. It will take time."

Among other concerns, the Tibetan government-in-exile is believed to be seeking assurances from China that the Dalai Lama would be allowed to live in the Potala Palace in Tibet, and not be kept a virtual prisoner in Beijing.

They also want the Dalai Lama to be given full control over the publication and editing of religious texts, and authority over the appointment of abbots for monasteries.

The Dalai Lama also wants undisputed authority to supervise the choice of new incarnations of living Buddhas. At the age of 69, his thoughts have clearly turned to his own successor. "The institution of the Dalai Lama, and whether it should continue, is up to the Tibetan people," he said. "If they feel it is not relevant, then it will cease. But if I die today, I think they will want another Dalai Lama.

"Will the Chinese accept this? [No,] the Chinese government most probably will appoint another Dalai Lama, like it did with the Panchen Lama. Then there will be two Dalai Lamas, one the Dalai Lama of the Tibetan heart, and one that is officially appointed."

[mountain_jim]

I admit I know nothing of the context of this - sharing anyways

https://twitter.com/Emme0703/status/1646346924520349696?s=20

1646346924520349696

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/uhler_jon/status/1645107777751207937

1645107777751207937

https://twitter.com/uhler_jon/status/1645321865664012288

1645321865664012288

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Angelo4justice3/status/1645633766797488134

1645633766797488134

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1645585669635608576

1645585669635608576

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1645589572481589248

1645589572481589248

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1645218196449021954

1645218196449021954

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1645275910323724288

1645275910323724288

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1646232921026461719

1646232921026461719

https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1646232924641951753

1646232924641951753

[onawah]

Hmmmm....I wonder if any of those articles being posted here were written and paid for by the CCP....:nerd:
They've been pumping out a lot of cash and sending their disinfo agents all over the world to make themselves look heroic and anyone who is not their ally look bad. :sad:
Checking deeply into our sources of information becomes more and more a necessity if we want to know what is really going on.

[Delight]

The way that my post connects with the topic is the massive EVIL held in feudal systems. In fact I think from my research that the system that created feudalism was the same that we have now. It PRESUPPOSES a hierarchy of worth. Even if the Bon culture that became incorporated with Tibetan Buddhism was still strong in the villages, the feudal structure was imposed more and more. This is what has always been everywhere. The systems take over.

It is my opinion that all INVERSION of the good in social enterprise of all kinds is due to the presence of layers of castes. It is something embedded in the psyche.
We BELIEVE. There IS someone better and worse than I am in my position and the categories are determined by Birth in the system which I then may attempt to redeem (through my labor to the system) to "better" status. At the top is the BIG Lord. He is served by vassals who are smaller "princes" and they all have minions who live under the rule by right of one's place in existence. Of course this gets translated in multiple ways but it all boils down to same basic plan which is BELIEVED to be valid.

People say we must be the change we want to see. Honestly as much as I can, I attempt to change my mind. I know we must face what WE believe. How many believe in the necessity of a system?

If everyone is honest, I think we will find the threads of our unconscious scaffold OF the psyche. A pyramid shape which in some way we climb "higher" and depending on the rules, we can seem to rise in heights of power with all that goes with power. The power is granted by the Rung above ours, giving us some return on our labor.

I wonder about the bigger picture where a ruler plans his reincarnation and the ability to continue reigns of Headship through time. I do FEEL the extreme polarity between Good and Evil at play now. It looks to me that ALL the systems which are OF feudal overlords and serfs and slaves are run by demonic possessing spirits. We are at war wih principalities of EVIL which LIVE to funnel energy to the pyramid so it continues.

IMO we must become thoroughly disillusioned by all the world's presentations because the world of "cultures" is truly owned by the dark Lord. I will call it the devil which seeks at all times and places the very destruction of LIFE. Whoever this devil is, it actually lives THROUGH us as we support the systems...ALL of them.

This is very hard to face. Only God Creator can "save" the day. Because God Creator lives in us and has the power to destroy all our beliefs and false alliegence. IMO whatever else, the Dalai Lama is s big player and chief minion of the SYSTEM. He expects to use it to his advantage. The SYSTEM will always win in this world.

We MUST leave this plane of mind where deep down, we will pay tribute of some kind IN OUR OWN AWARENESS (where attention flows energy goes) to some other, believing his status is "Divine Right"... it is NOT. The God in us is waiting to flood us with power and yet, we believe in these systems. We think, lets just have some BETTER system.

This is hell. To be in heaven on earth, we MUST know in our own psyche that this "world" which is set against us is actually a frequency of consiousness. IMO we are here to change our minds and that this spiritual change is the only way we can win this war. The SYSTEM is our greatest enemy and would see us as slave.s forever

[shaberon]

[B]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.

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.


Close. He is called "the Great Fifth"--when the office of Dalai Lama was created, there were four predecessors (not reincarnations) at that monastery, and yes, additionally, an incarnation line was created, or devised, or something, which of course attempts to trace him to a disciple of Buddha.

Generally speaking, what is in this school or Gelug order is also contrived, was artificially changed from Indian Buddhism in a few ways. Then, they ran indoctrination camps based on this since at least the 1400s.

This is not the office of a "spiritual leader", it is political. The related spiritual leader is or was the Panchen Lama, which was recently "selected" by China, which sounds invalidating.

Buddhism entered Tibet in at least two ways in the 800s, so, the Gelugs are a much later phenomenon.

Before this era, Tibetans were atheists who thought they came from monkeys. Its total vocabulary amounts to about 10% of Sanskrit, so, they have closely copied the alphabet, but probably not quite the same university-level education. As far as I am aware, mutilation as a punishment was to be expected.

It seems to me that when the CIA shows up with a suitcase full of cash, H. H. D. L. could not have had a chance to understand how they really work. Malcolm X might have figured it out, but he didn't know either. So I can understand "falling for it" in some cases.

[Bruce G Charlton]

[B]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.

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.


Close. He is called "the Great Fifth"--when the office of Dalai Lama was created, there were four predecessors (not reincarnations) at that monastery, and yes, additionally, an incarnation line was created, or devised, or something, which of course attempts to trace him to a disciple of Buddha.

Generally speaking, what is in this school or Gelug order is also contrived, was artificially changed from Indian Buddhism in a few ways. Then, they ran indoctrination camps based on this since at least the 1400s.

This is not the office of a "spiritual leader", it is political. The related spiritual leader is or was the Panchen Lama, which was recently "selected" by China, which sounds invalidating.

Buddhism entered Tibet in at least two ways in the 800s, so, the Gelugs are a much later phenomenon.

Before this era, Tibetans were atheists who thought they came from monkeys. Its total vocabulary amounts to about 10% of Sanskrit, so, they have closely copied the alphabet, but probably not quite the same university-level education. As far as I am aware, mutilation as a punishment was to be expected.

It seems to me that when the CIA shows up with a suitcase full of cash, H. H. D. L. could not have had a chance to understand how they really work. Malcolm X might have figured it out, but he didn't know either. So I can understand "falling for it" in some cases.

In general terms, anyone given positive coverage by the global mass media, is regarded by them as promoting The Agenda; and then when the media turns against that person, it is usually because they have in some key aspect - and it only needs to be one issue (as with JK Rowling) they have spoken publicly against The Agenda.

When I saw the Dalai Lama quoted recently speaking against some aspect of The Agenda (I think it was questioning the desirability of unlimited mass migration) I suspected he was due for The Chop - which has indeed happened.

Why DL was previously given decades positive publicity was, in my opinion, because the 'oneness' spirituality he advocated when translated to mainstream Western society is one which is highly compatible-with, and usually supportive-of, The Agenda. It has been encouraged since the 1950s (beat generation), and is now taught by large bureaucracies ('mindfulness').

(Whether the DL was personally corrupted by The System, I don't know - but that is not necessary to being used, when the message is regarded as compatible with The Agenda.)

( I realize that many/ most Project Avalon people are of the oneness persuasion, broadly speaking. I've written about my 'take' on oneness spirituality on my blog (https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=oneness+spirituality), if anyone wants to see the arguments...)

[jaybee]

.

This is a tricky subject isn't it - as evidenced by strongly held, different opinions in this thread....

I found the video below educational on the actual 'suck my tongue' thing... just after the 5 minute mark the presenter explains an old Tibetan tradition where an elderly person like a grandparent might barter with jokes and riddles when a child asks for something like candy... they might give replies that build up to the final 'joke'..... that would go something like - ' well you have had everything else from me you might as well eat my tongue...'

The Dalai Lama hasn't led a normal life or had a normal childhood (or adulthood) - which could explain his child like persona where he jokes around - and now he's 87 I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he confused the 'eat my tongue' traditional banter and said 'suck my tongue' instead - he could have some dementia and this would make saying something the wrong way more likely - the child who initiated the close contact by asking for a hug seemed to feel ok about it even though by 'our' standards it was all a bit too much and apparently pointed to the Dalai Lama being a sexual predator rather than a playful old man going too far with a joke and saying something embarrassing, as old people are wont to do - especially old people with dementia...

So I now feel better about the 'suck my tongue' incident and with the help of the video below (thanks gini) have to my own satisfaction got it in perspective..




"YES: The #DalaiLama was being playful and affectionate! A Tibetan's Perspective.

JigJag
Apr 11, 2023.17 min.
How and why an innocent and playful interaction between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a young Indian boy has been sensationalized into a clickbait story with leading titles and fake descriptions., and a carefully spliced video. ----at 15.20 starts the unedited version of the 'kissing' scene--bT0qey5Ts78




In general terms, anyone given positive coverage by the global mass media, is regarded by them as promoting The Agenda; and then when the media turns against that person, it is usually because they have in some key aspect - and it only needs to be one issue (as with JK Rowling) they have spoken publicly against The Agenda.

When I saw the Dalai Lama quoted recently speaking against some aspect of The Agenda (I think it was questioning the desirability of unlimited mass migration) I suspected he was due for The Chop - which has indeed happened.

Why DL was previously given decades positive publicity was, in my opinion, because the 'oneness' spirituality he advocated when translated to mainstream Western society is one which is highly compatible-with, and usually supportive-of, The Agenda. It has been encouraged since the 1950s (beat generation), and is now taught by large bureaucracies ('mindfulness').

(Whether the DL was personally corrupted by The System, I don't know - but that is not necessary to being used, when the message is regarded as compatible with The Agenda.)



And a vitally important aspect of the 'suck my tongue' incident, for me is above (thanks Bruce)....encapsulated by the bolded paragraph...

Part of the New World Order - the Great Reset malarkey is a One World Religion - so if the Dalai Lama has gone a bit off message (or even if he hasn't)...... those driving the Agenda - the NWO Machine - will have happily used this 'slip up' as ammunition to cause division in Buddhism....... it's what 'they' do.....number one in their Play Book - divide and rule....

[Ravenlocke]

Pt 1 CIA & Tibetan Buddhism - & the propaganda war against China - Opperation: "Shadow Tibet Circus"

wU9FKVd-rv0



https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1645808825885396993

1645808825885396993


CIA’S SECRET WAR IN TIBET

In a top secret and still little-known, decade-long 'war at the top of the world,' the CIA fostered, trained and supplied a tenacious Tibetian resistance force in its struggle against the Communist Chinese.

https://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet/

[Pam]

The way that my post connects with the topic is the massive EVIL held in feudal systems. In fact I think from my research that the system that created feudalism was the same that we have now. It PRESUPPOSES a hierarchy of worth. Even if the Bon culture that became incorporated with Tibetan Buddhism was still strong in the villages, the feudal structure was imposed more and more. This is what has always been everywhere. The systems take over.

It is my opinion that all INVERSION of the good in social enterprise of all kinds is due to the presence of layers of castes. It is something embedded in the psyche.
We BELIEVE. There IS someone better and worse than I am in my position and the categories are determined by Birth in the system which I then may attempt to redeem (through my labor to the system) to "better" status. At the top is the BIG Lord. He is served by vassals who are smaller "princes" and they all have minions who live under the rule by right of one's place in existence. Of course this gets translated in multiple ways but it all boils down to same basic plan which is BELIEVED to be valid.

People say we must be the change we want to see. Honestly as much as I can, I attempt to change my mind. I know we must face what WE believe. How many believe in the necessity of a system?

If everyone is honest, I think we will find the threads of our unconscious scaffold OF the psyche. A pyramid shape which in some way we climb "higher" and depending on the rules, we can seem to rise in heights of power with all that goes with power. The power is granted by the Rung above ours, giving us some return on our labor.

I wonder about the bigger picture where a ruler plans his reincarnation and the ability to continue reigns of Headship through time. I do FEEL the extreme polarity between Good and Evil at play now. It looks to me that ALL the systems which are OF feudal overlords and serfs and slaves are run by demonic possessing spirits. We are at war wih principalities of EVIL which LIVE to funnel energy to the pyramid so it continues.

IMO we must become thoroughly disillusioned by all the world's presentations because the world of "cultures" is truly owned by the dark Lord. I will call it the devil which seeks at all times and places the very destruction of LIFE. Whoever this devil is, it actually lives THROUGH us as we support the systems...ALL of them.

This is very hard to face. Only God Creator can "save" the day. Because God Creator lives in us and has the power to destroy all our beliefs and false alliegence. IMO whatever else, the Dalai Lama is s big player and chief minion of the SYSTEM. He expects to use it to his advantage. The SYSTEM will always win in this world.

We MUST leave this plane of mind where deep down, we will pay tribute of some kind IN OUR OWN AWARENESS (where attention flows energy goes) to some other, believing his status is "Divine Right"... it is NOT. The God in us is waiting to flood us with power and yet, we believe in these systems. We think, lets just have some BETTER system.

This is hell. To be in heaven on earth, we MUST know in our own psyche that this "world" which is set against us is actually a frequency of consiousness. IMO we are here to change our minds and that this spiritual change is the only way we can win this war. The SYSTEM is our greatest enemy and would see us as slave.s forever

I had this awareness that the archons and those that serve the archons as well as the ones the archons are serving are operating with the same predator /prey dynamics that we are cursed with. I always assumed that collecting our loosh was closer to an indulgence than it was to a requirement. An indulgence being like a drug that gives you a desired high, or alcohol. Now, I believe they have to have it. I believe that due to whatever they have planned in their sadistic story, they will need a huge amount of energy and that is exactly what they are doing.

An example of this was the insane injection push. They drummed up so much fear and then through censorship and lies hid the outcomes to cause maximum damage and loosh production.They are still collecting from this as people suffer with lifetime illnesses and deaths causing trauma.They also created loosh by having those that refused lose their job, ousted by families ect. Now that the damage is done, they seem to be freely allowing the consequences to come out now.What happened to all the censorship? A whole new source of major loosh is provided to them by those scared and fearful that they will be the next to die.Then the there will be the despair as we watch the worst of them walk free, collecting their next billion dollars.

We can also add the ridiculous amounts of toxic emissions from buildings mysteriously blowing up, trains with toxins falling off tracks near water systems.Failing monetary systems. You name it, it's happening somewhere in the world. This is the grand finale and they need energy, they are also benefited by holding people in the frequency of fear.

I wonder if they, the archons, can store it? It would be interesting to know what the final events they have in mind is. If at all possible don't feed them with your fear, concern even unbalanced empathy. It is what they desperately want, don't give it to them. I know it is easier said than done. And never doubt. They are more than willing to personalize trauma, they can modify things to slam you with whatever it is you fear, dread, or don't want to happen.

I never trusted the Dalai Lama. First of all, if he is a celebrity type figure that is really all you need to know. I don't believe you get a pass to anything and everything here without being a part of this system. How gross, that he feels he can do that in public, and apparently he can. I bet that messed with that kids head. Did his programmed parents scold him later for not going along? This freak feels privileged enough to not even bother with the discreet stuff. What a messed up place this is. Maybe he will be on the next can of Bud light with his tongue sticking out.

[Dorjezigzag]

Throughout the years, I have defended the Dalai Lama, recognizing the intense opposition he faces from the CCP. However, the recent scandal, regardless of its innocence, has pushed beyond my personal boundaries. The Dalai Lama has breached the very principles he has ardently advocated for, and although I acknowledge his advanced age and potential adverse effects of the vaccine he took, his behavior appears erratic and resembling that of a relative suffering from dementia. Instead of embodying Avalokiteshvara, he resembles a Tibetan version of Joe Biden. If such conduct continues, it may be necessary to limit his public appearances significantly.

Heres is a part of an article on cases to consider when assessing this scandal.

In 2012, the head of the Karma Kagyu lineage, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, acknowledged that some monks within his administration had engaged in sexual misconduct, including with minors. Known as the Karmapa, he is one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, and Ogyen Trinley Dorje is seen as one of the most influential and charismatic of the Tibetan lamas.

The Karmapa’s acknowledgement of the misconduct came after rumours had circulated for several years that some members of his staff were involved in inappropriate sexual behaviour. The Karmapa issued a statement acknowledging that some of the monks in his administration had engaged in sexual misconduct and apologizing for the harm that had been caused.

The Karmapa also announced a number of measures aimed at addressing the problem of sexual misconduct within his administration, including the establishment of a new code of conduct for all staff members, the creation of an ethics committee to investigate complaints of misconduct, and the appointment of an independent investigator to look into the allegations of abuse.

more here.
https://www.bee3.org/?page_id=1411

[Ravenlocke]

http://www.dorjeshugden.com/all-articles/news/the-dalai-lamas-protege-karmapas-scandal-growing-big/


The Dalai Lama’s protégé Karmapa’s scandal growing big

Is the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley about to breakaway from the Tibetan leadership after two decades of endorsement and support from them? What did the Tibetan leadership do, that led to this turn of events?

The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to ds@dorjeshugden.com.

Generating big waves for the wrong reasons

Once again the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA; Tibetan leadership based in Dharamsala) and the Dalai Lama’s Karmapa Ogyen Trinley have made headlines, and not for positive reasons either as Ogyen Trinley finds himself the subject of a Taiwanese sex scandal.

2019 thus far has not been smooth-sailing for the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley, as he continues to deal with the fall-out of his ongoing absence from India and his taking up of a Dominican passport. The latest scandal that bears his name is an eye-popping, albeit tabloid-like, exposé that has surfaced in Taiwan, a country where both Karmapas (the Dalai Lama-endorsed Karmapa Ogyen Trinley and the Karmapa Thaye Dorje) have a large following.

According to numerous reports, it now appears that the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley has had many girlfriends in the past, and is currently in pursuit of another. In the most recent case, the girl involved has come out to reveal that she has an ongoing relationship with the Karmapa from five years ago and that they have had sexual relations three times! There is even a recorded conversation, purportedly between Ogyen Trinley and the girl, that adds credibility to the story (see below) and photos of the so-called couple were included too, for good measure.

Having seen this scandalous report, one wonders if Ogyen Trinley’s video for the recent Kagyu Monlam was in anticipation of this scandal blowing up – he had in his video, out of the blue, touched on the topic of sexual relations, a strange topic indeed to bring up during the Karma Kagyus’ largest annual event. Observers have wondered if this was a pre-emptive attempt on his part, to try and open people to the idea that it would not be such a foreign thing for him to have a girlfriend.


The Karmapa was born amidst auspicious signs and has shown miracles. The Karmapa who has hundreds of thousands of followers, was exposed with a sex scandal. Audio shown: “Our relationship is a mixture of sour, sweet, bitter and spicy.”

Silence is not golden

While this scandal appears to have come out of nowhere, what continues to stun people is that there has not been thus far, any response from any party, be it the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley’s office, or parties with a vested interest in keeping Ogyen Trinley’s reputation pristine such as the Dalai Lama’s office (Kukey Yiktsang) and the CTA themselves.

Sex scandals have brought down entire empires and so it would be in the CTA’s best interests to strongly deny the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley’s involvement and dismiss the authenticity of the recorded call. After all, this scandal concerns the Karmapa candidate that they endorsed and wholeheartedly supported for over two decades, to the point whispers were heard about his possible assignation as the Dalai Lama’s successor. Even Tibetan state protector Nechung had given his endorsement of Ogyen Trinley as the right Karmapa candidate by taking trance and making offerings to him many times. So where is their defence of their candidate now?

Similarly, if the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley had absolutely no involvement in the scandal, and if the recorded call was faked, it would not be difficult and unusual for him or his office to issue a press release to that effect. The fact he remains silent has led observers to conclude that there may be an element of truth in the scandal.

Therefore a lack of response from the CTA, Dalai Lama’s office and Ogyen Trinley himself is bad public relations at best and, at worst, hurts Buddhism and creates a lot of doubt. In this scandal, it is clear that people’s true colors are showing – after all the schism they created in the Karma Kagyu lineage, the CTA are totally unconcerned about people’s faith in the Karma Kagyu lineage and the Karmapa, and that is why they remain silent on the matter.

A scandalous past

Some however, may not be too surprised about this latest expose as the Black Karmapa has previously experienced many scandals. For example:

He has been charged in India for money laundering, although there are rumors that the CTA coerced the Indian government into bringing these charges about because the Karmapa refused to cooperate with them. For the CTA to set the Indian government against people who have fallen out of favor is not unheard of – the CTA previously used this tactic against Serkong Tritul Rinpoche of Gaden Jangtse who, before he permanently moved to Taiwan, was arrested by the Indian government and held for four months. His only ‘crime’ was disobeying a CTA directive not to visit Taiwan, at a time when relations between the CTA and Taiwan were not friendly and had broken down.
He has always been suspected of being a Chinese spy, borne out of the fact that he is recognized by China as the rightful Karmapa and had escaped to India from China a bit too easily. This suspicion is furthered by the fact his official website is allowed in China while the Karmapa Thaye Dorje’s is not, as well as the fact millions of Chinese yuan were found in his possession when his Ladrang was raided by the Indian government in 2015.
He is said to have had many girlfriends in past. It has been claimed that this recent sexual transgression is not his first foray into relationships. In the phone call, the girl he is allegedly pursuing says that he has had many other girls.
He has also made a video where he confessed to being depressed and not having the freedom to pursue his own dreams – not the sort of thing a Karmapa usually confesses to. He also said that his education was lacking and he had not received an education typical of someone of his standing. Ordinarily, the Karmapa should have been educated by the four Karma Kagyu regents but due to the split created by the CTA, the four regents found themselves on opposing sides, each supporting different Karmapa candidates and not able to come together to educate just one. The implication is that the CTA is to be blamed for this.
He appears to have defected and run away from the CTA and Indian government and has been living in the United States for over a year, citing medical reasons. The question many have asked is what medical treatment a young, healthy person could be receiving when he has had no previous reports of ill health.
He secretly obtained a Dominica passport while living in the United States and surrendered his registration documents and yellow card issued by the Indian government to Tibetan refugees. He did so without so much as a ‘thank you’ to them. Interestingly, Dominica does not have an extradition treaty with India, therefore shielding him from extradition laws which might compel his return to India to face his many legal suits.
He has been engaged in a strange but obviously politically-charged to-and-fro between him and the Indian government when, with a Dominica passport, he was pressured to return to India to attend a Buddhist conference where he was to be one of the VIP attendees. This would have required a visa from the Indian authorities but to this day, there are contradicting accounts of why he did not get a visa in time to attend the conference. While Indian authorities say he did not apply for one, the Black Karmapa says he tried to apply but did not obtain one – apparently, the Indian consulate in New York had to check with Delhi. In still other media reports, it has been said that the Indian government will only allow him to enter India on the Tibetan refugee yellow card, a document which the Karmapa now refuses to use. The conference was eventually cancelled at the eleventh hour on the pretext that a Nyingma tradition leader had suddenly passed away and his funeral had to be attended to.
He claimed, in his Kagyu Monlam video, that he has not received full ordination vows and only has the novice monk vows. Whether it was a preemptive move to imply what he is doing with the girls is acceptable, is a moot point. Even if he has only novice ordination vows, one of the four root vows for a novice monk is to abstain from sexual relations with women. Breaking any of the four root vows means the person is immediately disrobed.
In the same Kagyu Monlam video, the Black Karmapa said that the novice monk vows had been given to him without his consent or awareness, and he had only been expecting the upasaka (laymen) vows from the Dalai Lama. Astute observers have surmised there can be only two things the Karmapa is trying to imply. The first is that the Tibetan leadership tried to dilute the Karma Kagyu lineage by introducing Gelug vows to their leader, since within the Karma Kagyu lineage there are many qualified preceptors from whom the Karmapa could (and should) have received the vows from. The second is that the Tibetan leadership were trying to control the Karma Kagyu lineage, by making their leader’s spiritual preceptor a Gelug lama and therefore someone he would be compelled to listen to.

Within the Karma Kagyu tradition responsibility to recognize the Karmapa lies with four regents. In recent times, three of these regents have recognized competing candidates, confusing followers all over the world. Orgyen Trinley Dorje (left) was recognized by Tai Situ Rinpoche; Trinley Thaye Dorje (middle) was recognized by Shamar Rinpoche; and Dawa Sangpo Dorje (right) was recognized by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche. In-fighting between supporters of these candidates continues until today, a fact that has fractured the tradition deeply. Add to this the fact that the Dalai Lama interfered by backing Orgyen Trinley, a move with no traditional basis, the schism became a heated debate within the Tibetan community. In response, Shamar Rinpoche claimed that Orgyen Trinley’s recognition was incorrect, that he had evidence of this and that the Dalai Lama had no business in meddling in the affairs of the Kagyu lineage. Now Orgyen Trinley, who the Dalai Lama and the CTA nurtured for a decade has abandoned them and prefers to have freedom as a citizen of Dominica.
How did it come to this?

No matter how the situation is examined, things are not looking good for the CTA, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Karmapa’s less-than-spectacular track record is turning into a bane, especially to the reputation of the Dalai Lama and his CTA government for it was the spiritually authoritative Dalai Lama who formally recognized the Black Karmapa, welcomed him on his arrival from China, and nurtured him in the Dalai Lama’s own Gelugpa Gyuto Monastery in Dharamsala.

Hence, if this latest in a litany of scandals turns out to be true, it will go down in history as a very shameful episode for the Dalai Lama who has apparently exercised bad judgement of character on multiple occasions. As it turns out, this Karmapa scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg as an increasing number of the CTA’s and the Dalai Lama’s monk friends are involved in sex scandals and have been accused of exploiting and abusing their positions. A shortlist of the more prominent offenders include names such as:

Sogyal Rinpoche;
Tenzin Dhonden, the Dalai Lama’s peace emissary in the United States;
Sakyong Mipham;
Gangten Tulku;
Lama Yeshe Nyingpo;
Lama Norlha;
Lama Choedak Rinpoche;
Rigdzin Namkha Rinpoche;
Lama Ogyen Kunzang Dorje;
Tulku Lobsang – yes, the list is long.
Even Lobsang Sangay who calls himself the President of the CTA, has also been called into question for his alleged multiple extramarital affairs with women like Dhardon Sharling, an investigation extensively covered by Tibetan author and journalist Mila Rangzen.

From the Karmapa all the way to Sogyal Rinpoche, and onwards to Lobsang Sangay, one thing all of these people have in common is the fact they were approved of and endorsed by the Dalai Lama. Lobsang Sangay’s candidacy for the position of Sikyong, for example, would surely have received the Dalai Lama’s approval before he was permitted to run.

That being the case, this latest Karmapa scandal is damaging for the Dalai Lama as people will think badly of his decisions. Many will also start to question his psychic abilities, asking if he is truly clairvoyant and how he did not know 20 years ago that all of this would transpire with the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley. This exposé of the Karmapa also comes at a time when the reputation of Tibetan Buddhism is on the decline, thanks to the actions of the aforementioned sexual abusers whose actions the Tibetan leadership have remained silent on and failed to condemn.

Let’s call a spade a spade

Whether the Karmapa, or any monk for that matter, has novice monk vows (getsul) or a fully-ordained Buddhist monk’s vows (gelong) is irrelevant when it comes to sexual relationships. Whether a monk is a getsul or gelong, they all have four root vows:

to abstain from lying about any realizations of emptiness;
to abstain from taking the life of a human;
to abstain from taking something which is not theirs;
to abstain from sexual relations.
These four root vows are the very basics of the Buddhist monk code (vinaya), the universally-held standard which makes a clear distinction if someone is a monk or not. Hence, someone holding any level of monk vows should not be having any sexual relations with women, period. Even if the Karmapa were not a monk, the fact that he is wearing robes means he should still represent the monkhood well. His actions reflect on all Tibetan monks and creates the wrong idea in people’s minds that Tibetan monks can have relationships with women.

For people to doubt Tibetan monks and question if they are real is highly damaging to the Buddha Dharma as a whole for a number of reasons:

Whether spiritual teachers are married or have relationships is the choice of the individual. However, if they dress like a monk and profess to be a monk, regardless of whatever level of vows they hold, they should act like a monk and not mislead the public. It diminishes the faith of the people in the sangha as a whole.
It is not fair to good monks who are celibate and keep their vows clean for a lifetime, to be put next to spiritual teachers like this and have both be treated the same. The same standard should be held for all who profess to be monks, regardless of whatever tradition or Buddhist country they are from.
Since the CTA professes to be a Buddhist government, Tibetan teachers should follow the example set by monks from all other Buddhist nations such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam and Burma where the public continue to have a very good opinion of their sangha.

In those predominantly Buddhist countries, if a monk has sexual relations with a woman, there are no exceptions whether they are high or low, senior or junior, scholar, royalty, eminent or not – they are immediately disrobed and no longer considered monks, according to the vinaya.

In fact, in those countries, never mind cohabiting with a woman, monks are not even allowed to touch or hold hands with a woman, so strict is their adherence to the vinaya code of conduct. This level of adherence protects the public from developing wrong view about the Buddha Dharma and encourages people to trust bona fide monks. Is it therefore any surprise that public opinion of the Tibetan monks is at an all-time low, when many lamas are abusing their students and the Karmapa is now embroiled in this Taiwanese sex scandal?

The question is where the CTA’s voice is in all of this. Since the CTA considers themselves a bastion of Buddhism, their Department of Religion’s silence over the sexual abuses of the aforementioned Tibetan Buddhist teachers, and the Karmapa’s sexual scandal is all the more shocking. After all, what else is the CTA’s Department of Religion responsible for if not to hold Tibetan teachers to the vinaya?

Time for Tibetan leadership to admit to their shortcomings

All these scandals do not bode well for the CTA and the Dalai Lama, who spend the majority of their time and effort vilifying the Chinese while neglecting their own polity. The CTA is so vocal in criticizing everything else but is silent as a mouse on this. They are outspoken against the Jonangpas, against Dorje Shugden practitioners, against China but they have yet to be heard in this.

It is high time that the Tibetan government in exile enforce these vinaya rules since they consider themselves a Buddhist majority “country”. The Dalai Lama too has the full authority, as well as spiritual and temporal power, to enforce these rules if he wishes to. But strangely, the Dalai Lama and his government stay silent while major damage is being done to the reputation of Tibetan Buddhist teachers specifically, and the Tibetan community in general. This is certainly not the best way to preserve and turn the wheel of Dharma.

It is important especially now for the Dalai Lama to tell us which Karmapa is real and which is not. Should the people continue to trust the CTA-endorsed Karmapa Ogyen Trinley who has been involved in scandal after scandal, leading up to this latest Taiwanese one? Or should the people switch their allegiance and support to the CTA-rejected Karmapa Thaye Dorje, who has thus far remained scandal-free? Did the CTA endorse the wrong candidate? Or is there something else that is going on, which the public have been kept in the dark about?

With so much preexisting confusion, all this new scandal is doing is adding to the steady decline in the people’s trust in both Tibetan Buddhism and the CTA. The message is clear – if the CTA wants to survive this latest scandal, then we, the people, will REALLY need to hear from both the CTA AND the Dalai Lama.


The rest here:

http://www.dorjeshugden.com/all-articles/news/the-dalai-lamas-protege-karmapas-scandal-growing-big/

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/TenzinMa/status/1090319951737643009

1090319951737643009

[Paul D.]

This is a brilliant piece about the Dalai Lama incident by Bernhard Guenther. He really does has a very solid take on it .The guy clearly knows what he is talking about. The evil at play here (because that is what it is ) ,is faced & expertly described i.m.o.

https://veilofreality.com/2023/04/14/the-dalai-lama-suck-my-tongue-incident-tibetan-tradition-history-and-the-shadow/

[Icare]

This is a brilliant piece about the Dalai Lama incident by Bernhard Guenther. He really does has a very solid take on it .The guy clearly knows what he is talking about. The evil at play here (because that is what it is ) ,is faced & expertly described i.m.o.

https://veilofreality.com/2023/04/14/the-dalai-lama-suck-my-tongue-incident-tibetan-tradition-history-and-the-shadow/

Thank you for that very interesting link, Seeclearly, it confirmed what I felt about the situation.

[s7e6e]

Making people worship "enlightened" public figures such as the pope or mother theresa or dalai lama has been a long standing demonic practice. No wonder they're pushing so hard to exterminate or enslave us, there's a mass awakening happening right now.

[shaberon]

I would like to partially disentangle this.


To remark on the current Karmapa:


Ogyen Trinley has been referred to as the 'Beijing Karmapa', due to the backing he receives from the government of the PRC. Trinley Thaye, meanwhile, is referred to as the 'Delhi Karmapa', due to his having the support of the government of India.


Traditionally, Shamar Rinpoche is much closer to the Karmapa, as was seen in this selection committee:


The 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul: lead regent, third-ranking spiritual leader
The 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche: second-ranking spiritual leader
The 12th Tai Situpa: fourth-ranking spiritual leader
The 12th Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche: fifth-ranking spiritual leader

This regency was officially dissolved by 1984...



So the current decision is by PRC and a lesser member of this board.

Historically there is almost no reason for the Karmapa to care about a Dalai Lama. First of all, the Karmapa is the fist Tulku lineage of Tibet. As soon as this started--Kublai Khan ordered the Second Karmapa's arrest:


The legend tells that each attempt to capture, or even kill, the Karmapa was thwarted by the latter's miracles. At one point the Karmapa 'froze' a battalion of 37,000 soldiers on the spot, by using the power of mudra, yet all the time showing compassion. He eventually let himself be captured and put in exile, knowing that his miracles and compassion would eventually lead to Kublai Khan having a change of heart which did in fact happen.


Because the Gelug order was on the side of the Khan, that is how they took power in Tibet.

It was not exactly a good relationship.

The Kagyu lineages are older and more directly related to India. This did not make them very good at politics.


This is closer to reality from a 2018 joint statement of the "two Karmapas":



While we were together we also talked about ways that we could work to heal the divisions that have unfortunately developed within our precious Karma Kagyu lineage in recent years. We view it as our duty and responsibility to do whatever we can to bring the lineage together.

This undertaking is critically important for the future of the Karma Kagyu lineage as well as for the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the benefit of all sentient beings. We therefore ask everyone within the Karma Kagyu community to join us in our efforts to strengthen and preserve our lineage. We view it as our collective responsibility to restore harmony to our tradition which is a lineage of wisdom and compassion.



I am not sure how to express it other than those Tibetans who genuinely follow the Path feel terrible remorse about their representatives who fall into corruption. This is taken very seriously.

As to whether anyone really worships a public figure, I suppose some superstitious ones might, but it is not a big part of what goes on.

I don't see how anyone could simply accept a Chinese government installation of a Panchen or a Karmapa. This is statecraft; thank the Cold War.

[onawah]

My own experience with the Karmapa Ogyen Trinley was when he traveled to San Francisco back in the 70s to perform the Red Hat Ceremony.
I was not at the ceremony, but I was helping my friend Barbara Pettee behind the scenes ( a philanthropist who donated much time and energy to bringing Tibetan lamas to the US after the CCP invaded Tibet).
But from her home miles away in the suburbs of the city, I could feel the energy of the Karmapa quite tangibly, and it was impressive.


I would like to partially disentangle this.


To remark on the current Karmapa:


Ogyen Trinley has been referred to as the 'Beijing Karmapa', due to the backing he receives from the government of the PRC. Trinley Thaye, meanwhile, is referred to as the 'Delhi Karmapa', due to his having the support of the government of India.


Traditionally, Shamar Rinpoche is much closer to the Karmapa, as was seen in this selection committee:


The 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul: lead regent, third-ranking spiritual leader
The 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche: second-ranking spiritual leader
The 12th Tai Situpa: fourth-ranking spiritual leader
The 12th Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche: fifth-ranking spiritual leader

This regency was officially dissolved by 1984...



So the current decision is by PRC and a lesser member of this board.

Historically there is almost no reason for the Karmapa to care about a Dalai Lama. First of all, the Karmapa is the fist Tulku lineage of Tibet. As soon as this started--Kublai Khan ordered the Second Karmapa's arrest:


The legend tells that each attempt to capture, or even kill, the Karmapa was thwarted by the latter's miracles. At one point the Karmapa 'froze' a battalion of 37,000 soldiers on the spot, by using the power of mudra, yet all the time showing compassion. He eventually let himself be captured and put in exile, knowing that his miracles and compassion would eventually lead to Kublai Khan having a change of heart which did in fact happen.


Because the Gelug order was on the side of the Khan, that is how they took power in Tibet.

It was not exactly a good relationship.

The Kagyu lineages are older and more directly related to India. This did not make them very good at politics.


This is closer to reality from a 2018 joint statement of the "two Karmapas":



While we were together we also talked about ways that we could work to heal the divisions that have unfortunately developed within our precious Karma Kagyu lineage in recent years. We view it as our duty and responsibility to do whatever we can to bring the lineage together.

This undertaking is critically important for the future of the Karma Kagyu lineage as well as for the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the benefit of all sentient beings. We therefore ask everyone within the Karma Kagyu community to join us in our efforts to strengthen and preserve our lineage. We view it as our collective responsibility to restore harmony to our tradition which is a lineage of wisdom and compassion.



I am not sure how to express it other than those Tibetans who genuinely follow the Path feel terrible remorse about their representatives who fall into corruption. This is taken very seriously.

As to whether anyone really worships a public figure, I suppose some superstitious ones might, but it is not a big part of what goes on.

I don't see how anyone could simply accept a Chinese government installation of a Panchen or a Karmapa. This is statecraft; thank the Cold War.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/LoveFreeTibet/status/1094513607394549760

1094513607394549760


https://twitter.com/AlexandraM1llan/status/1095374583115407360

1095374583115407360

https://twitter.com/karmapaorg/status/1647959674044416000

1647959674044416000

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TheWakeninq/status/1646460751874252800

1646460751874252800

[shaberon]

But from her home miles away in the suburbs of the city, I could feel the energy of the Karmapa quite tangibly, and it was impressive.


You mean H. H. the XVI:

Rangjung Rigpe Dorje (རང་འབྱུང་རིག་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1924–1981)


What happened in the 70s is that there was a Kagyu organization called Vajradhatu which was interested in opening centers around the world. Thanks to the CIA and easy money, it became Shambhala, and there was the shameful story of Chogyal Trungpa Rinpoche. And so that was not even really Buddhism. He changed it. This was involved--I forget the name--place in Colorado where various cultures were being "corraled" in a sort of mass marketing effect so they would all be watered down and you had a "token" Buddhist, Navajo, and whoever else was being swirled together. It was something like an attempt to break down the work force. All these authentic spiritual guides would make the people follow like rats to the Pied Piper, and all the serious business would fall into more deserving hands.


As you follow along, you find H. H. Dalai Lama beginning in 1981 in Madison Wisconsin, to give Kalachakra initiation to the general public. I personally find this quite ridiculous and inappropriate. That is the first thing that made me reserve judgment, about him, on an intellectual basis. A few of his books are quite good but I think he mis-applied the opportunity of that groundbreaking tour.

[Ewan]

Well I can't speak for the Dalai but it is possible it is a cultural thing being seen through western eyes, and we've pretty much been programmed to view the world as a sick, corrupt place thanks to the dark hallways of our media moguls.

I remember seeing my wife's mother do this in Thailand with her grandson, (not my child, a cousin). I thought it very strange but I was clearly the only one who did. Fortunately I have a pretty good poker face and never caused a stir.

Speculating further there may even be a benefit to it from bacterial transfer to a developing immune system -and I'm not inventing excuses, just trying to look at it logically as to why it may have become a 'thing'. Isn't there an African culture that spits in the food being prepared for children? (Or did I just make that up?)

Link to a photo (https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NINTCHDBPICT000564237443.jpg) which I am not posting because it is over 4000 pixels wide. It only leads to the photo, nothing else. It confirms spitting in food being prepared, not African but indigenous Amazonian.

[Isserley]

Well I can't speak for the Dalai but it is possible it is a cultural thing being seen through western eyes, and we've pretty much been programmed to view the world as a sick, corrupt place thanks to the dark hallways of our media moguls.

I remember seeing my wife's mother do this in Thailand with her grandson, (not my child, a cousin). I thought it very strange but I was clearly the only one who did. Fortunately I have a pretty good poker face and never caused a stir.

Speculating further there may even be a benefit to it from bacterial transfer to a developing immune system -and I'm not inventing excuses, just trying to look at it logically as to why it may have become a 'thing'. Isn't there an African culture that spits in the food being prepared for children? (Or did I just make that up?)

Link to a photo (https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NINTCHDBPICT000564237443.jpg) which I am not posting because it is over 4000 pixels wide. It only leads to the photo, nothing else. It confirms spitting in food being prepared, not African but indigenous Amazonian.

Spitting in food in some indigenous Amazonian tribe and this act of the Dalai Lama have nothing to do with each other -- the Dalai Lama is a man who is (should be) very familiar with the established patterns of behavior in the civilized world and should know what is appropriate and what is not while people in distant tribes do not know it nor are they expected to know

[Ewan]

Spitting in food in some indigenous Amazonian tribe and this act of the Dalai Lama have nothing to do with each other -- the Dalai Lama is a man who is (should be) very familiar with the established patterns of behavior in the civilized world and should know what is appropriate and what is not while people in distant tribes do not know it nor are they expected to know

Well I disagree, my wife's mother is apparently as ignorant to established patterns of behaviour in the civilized world.

I think you are conflating western values, impinged upon, perhaps somewhat subconsciously, by the furor of 'cancel culture' and calling it civilized.

Thai culture, and Tibetan culture, are both civilized but they are not the same as their Western counterparts and therefore cannot be held to those same Western standards.

Just to be clear, I am not defending the Dalia Lama here, I am actually indifferent to him. I just don't think there is much of anything to this story, and was suggesting in my posts to view it from a broader perspective, paying particular attention to other customs that take place in Asian countries and that we in the West may frown upon at first glance.

Gini made a post here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1551930&viewfull=1#post1551930) which I note received no thanks from you, perhaps your mind was already made up by this point.

You made a post here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1551829&viewfull=1#post1551829) the opening line of which was He did aplogize for telling kid to "Suck my Tongue". I subsequently responded, in another thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?30405-Here-and-Now...What-s-Happening&p=1551868&viewfull=1#post1551868), pointing out that the Dalia Lama would most certainly have a press office, people who handle communications on his behalf. Understandably you may not have seen that post. THEY are the ones who will know western values and be AWARE of the flurry of negative comments this incident provoked in the West. THEY are the ones that would instigate 'damage control' in an attempt to defuse the negative soundbytes.

Jaybee made a post here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?29736-Dalai-Lama-is-personification-of-evil&p=1552237&viewfull=1#post1552237) that I found to be very reasoned, I note you never thanked that post either.

It would not surprise me if I found out that the Dalai was utterly bewildered by the 'news' from his press people and has already long-forgotten it.

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
China vindicated once again

Mazal Tov and Happy Birthday to the @DalaiLama who just turned 90!

https://x.com/SocialistMMA/status/1942267493998903627

1942267493998903627

[Ravenlocke]

From Zhai Xiang,

Scholar of China-US relations,
Member of China's National Cultural Relics Society

Text:
Who decides the reincarnation of a senior Tibetan lama-the Buddha, the monasteries, or the state?

In recent years, and even in recent days, the 14th Dalai Lama has made a series of striking public statements about his next life, including the possibility of being reborn as a woman, a bee, or not at all. These claims have stirred global media attention-but do they align with centuries of religious tradition and precedent?

I am a historian on China and a scholar of international relations. 15 years ago, while studying at Cornell, I devoted an entire semester in a 4000-level seminar to the study of Xizang, or Tibet. In 2018, I traveled to Xizang in person-from Lhasa to Shigatse, and onward to the Everest Base Camp-conducting field research on Tibetan religion, history, and contemporary society,
although my physical condition is not well-suited to low-oxygen environments. Over the years, I have also maintained contact and constructive dialogue with many of China's leading experts on Tibetan studies.

As a scholar, I seek to continue in my tradition of objective, evidence-based inquiry. My aim is to provide a clear and well-documented explanation of what the reincarnated "Living Buddha" system in Tibetan Buddhism actually entails, and whether the Dalai Lama's poetic, progressive claims align with doctrinal teachings and historical precedent. Though the topic is intricate, I will strive to present it in a manner that is accessible yet substantive, so that you can return to the facts themselves and form you own informed judgments.

The concept of the Reincarnated Living Buddha is a highly distinctive phenomenon that emerged after Buddhism was transmitted into Tibet. According to Buddhist belief, individuals undergo cycles of rebirth; after death, the soul continues its journey by reincarnating in a new body. When a spiritual leader passes away, a ritual process is undertaken to identify potential successors. Among these, one child, after being recognized, is deemed the reincarnation of the previous master and inherits not only the title but also the religious and, at times, political authority attached.

During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), Tibet came under the administration of the central Chinese government for the first time. The 3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, born in 1284, is considered the first reincarnated Living Buddha in Tibet. This practice was soon emulated across various Tibetan Buddhist sects. In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, who served as the top religious figures in Xizang, also established their legitimacy through the reincarnation system.

Take the Dalai Lama as an example. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Xizang was fragmented, and leaders of different sects took pride in being officially recognized by the Ming emperors. The Ming court, for its part, adopted a relatively loose model of indirect rule over Xizang. The 5th Dalai Lama, still regarded as the most powerful Dalai Lama in Tibetan history, successfully unified Tibet and established a theocratic government. Around this time, the newly established Qing emperor Shunzhi (顺治) extended several invitations to the Dalai Lama to visit the imperial court. In my view, motivated by a range of strategic considerations, including a desire for the protection of the central government, the 5th Dalai Lama ultimately spent nine month travelling to Beijing. He met Shunzhi in 1653, when the Dalai Lama was 36 years old and the emperor 15.

Some have cited murals in Xizang that depict the Dalai Lama and Shunzhi seated side-by-side and roughly equal in size, interpreting this as evidence of an "equal" meeting between the two. I find this interpretation unconvincing. First, the Dalai Lama received multiple official titles from the Shunzhi Emperor during his stay in Beijing. Second, archival records clearly indicate that at their first meeting, Shunzhi was seated in the center while the Dalai Lama was positioned to the side at a lower level. When the emperor offered him tea, the Dalai Lama declined by saying "how dare I", signaling clear awareness of hierarchy. Third, the visual portrayal of the two figures at the same scale is likely an artistic convention or perhaps a reflection of Shunzhi's young age at the time, not reliable evidence of equal status.

The 6th Dalai Lama was summoned to Beijing for failing to seek timely approval from the central government upon assuming his position, as well as for his overly romantic private life. This episode further underscores the central government's authority in the recognition and regulation of reincarnated lamas.

So, starting with the 5th Dalai Lama, it became established precedent that the reincarnation of Dalai Lama must receive formal approval from the central government. The reincarnation process involves a series of intricate and sacred steps, including:
Interpretation of omens; Divination consultations; Viewing visions in sacred lakes; Revelatory dreams; On-site investigations; Relic recognition.

However, due to the emergence of irregularities in certain reincarnation cases, such as favoritism toward relatives and backroom dealings, the Qianlong Emperor introduced a system in 1783 known as the Golden Urn Lot-Drawing System (金瓶掣签). To prevent individuals from manipulation and to preserve the sanctity of the tradition, this system required that when multiple candidates were identified, the final selection would be determined through a lot-drawing ritual held in front of the Buddha statue. This draw was to be conducted in the presence of central government representatives, ensuring both transparency and divine legitimacy. The names of the selected kids, written on ivory slips, were drawn from the Golden Urn, and the chosen name would be reported to the central government for final approval.

Even in cases where only one candidate was identified, the exemption from the lot-drawing process still required formal approval from the central authorities.

Historically, the 9th, 13th, and 14th Dalai Lamas were exempted from the golden urn lot-drawing process by special approval of the central government, while the 10th, 11th, and 12th Dalai Lamas were recognized through the golden urn lot-drawing ceremony. In all cases, final confirmation came from the central government. And there has never been a case where the decision was made solely by the reincarnated individual.

The 14th Dalai Lama has repeatedly made statements regarding his potential reincarnation, such as:
The next reincarnation could occur in the "free world"
It could be a woman
It could even be a bee
The reincarnation system could be terminated
Reincarnation is purely an internal affair and should be decided by the himself...

These remarks fundamentally contradict the centuries-old rituals and institutional norms established within Tibetan Buddhism. And reincarnation is certainly not his personal business-this reflects a broader synthesis of national sovereignty, state authority, religious tradition, and the spiritual trust of the Tibetan people.

His predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, once sought British and Russian support, expelled central govt troops, and treaded dangerously close to separatism. Despite all the terrible records, the recognition of the current 14th Dalai Lama was still completed in 1940 with the participation of representatives dispatched by the central government.

To use a modern analogy: imagine a US president bypassing a national election, appointing his own replacement, and proclaiming that the successor could be foreign-born, or even an animal, justifying with "Please respect my inspiration."

Americans would mostly respond with "insane" and "no way."

In October 1951, at the age of 26, the 14th Dalai Lama wrote to Chairman Mao, expressing his support for the central government. In March 1959, he fled to India, where he has lived ever since. What happened during those eight intervening years? My research suggests that he was treated with considerable respect and accorded extraordinary honors.

In 1953, he was named Honorary President of the Chinese Buddhist Association, making him the most revered figure in Chinese Buddhism, even before the age of 30. In 1954, he traveled to Beijing with the Panchen Lama, met Chairman Mao for the first time (top left), and participated in the First National People's Congress, where he was elected Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee-a position equivalent to a vice head of state. At just 29 years old, he had already reached the highest level of political and religious authority ever attained by a Tibetan leader.

As my mentor at the Palace Museum once told me, in preparation for the Dalai Lama's visit to Beijing, the central government even issued a special order authorizing the use of imperial silk from the Forbidden City's storerooms to sew a custom quilt for him. Small details like this speak volumes about the level of ceremonial respect and material privilege he enjoyed.

Archival records reveal numerous letters sent by Chairman Mao to the 14th Dalai Lama (top right). Here are a few selected excerpts:
"Under the unified leadership of the Central People's Government, [Xizang] will forever be free from the shackles of imperialism and the oppression of alien peoples, and will stand up to work for the cause of the Tibetan people themselves."
"I have received your letter dated August 19, 1952, along with your photograph. Your deep affection for the motherland and the Central People's Government, as well as your determination to work for the well-being of both the lay and monastic Tibetan people in all aspects, brings me great comfort. On the road of striving for the interests of our motherland and the Tibetan people, you, Mr. Dalai Lama, along with Mr. Panchen and the Tibetan clergy and laypeople, will always have the support of the CCP and the Central People's Government."
"Whatever support is needed for building a new Xizang, the central government will do its best to provide, as long as it is within our means. However, due to transportation difficulties, some matters cannot be resolved immediately and shall wait for the future."
"Today's policy is to protect religion, and the same policy will apply in the future. As for land redistribution in Xizang, it is not under discussion at the moment; whether it should happen in the future is up to you to decide, and if it is to be done, you will do it yourselves-we will not do it on your behalf."
"It delighted me so much to receive your letter dated July 6, 1955. I often think of you and recall the pleasant times we spent together during your stay in Beijing. When will we meet again? Perhaps in three years, when the Second National People's Congress is held-you may come then…Xizang is progressing. Of course, one should not be impatient; some progress each year is enough. I hope you take good care of your health. Things are going well here. We've made some mistakes, which we are working to criticize and correct. China is a large country, but it is not yet wealthy or strong. We hope that through the joint efforts of all ethnic groups, after a few Five-Year Plans, it will become both prosperous and powerful. Xizang has great potential. May you all continue your good work. I was pleased to receive the fresh Tibetan flowers you included in your letter. I am enclosing one in return for you."
"Can you read this letter? My handwriting is still quite cursive and hard to change quickly, though perhaps slightly better than last time."

In his own letters to Mao, Dalai Lama referred to him as "the sun that shines on all" and "a compassionate mother who protects us." After fleeing Tibet, Dalai Lama himself admitted that he felt like "a son to Chairman Mao," recalling how Mao would ask him to sit beside him at meals and personally serve him food.

The Dalai Lama's flight from China is often framed as a result of "repression," but the historical truth is far more different. At the time, land reform was being carried out in Tibetan-populated areas outside of the Xizang Autonomous Region. Under the previous serfdom system, Tibetan peasants had virtually no status and were often subjected to arbitrary abuse. Before the PLA entered these regions, it was not uncommon for serfs to be tortured or even killed at will, with their skulls fashioned into "ritual instruments."

These reforms naturally provoked fierce resentment among the Tibetan aristocracy. Yet the Dalai Lama chose to side with a small group of entrenched elites, rather than with the vast majority of ordinary Tibetans, who struggled.

As we can see, Chairman Mao corresponded with the Dalai Lama on this issue on multiple occasions, and honored his commitment not to initiate reforms immediately within Xizang itself-even though the serfdom system was brutal, unjust, and profoundly regressive. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama chose to flee in 1959. And it may surprise you, but China retained his position as Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress until 1964-five years after his departure. Such tolerance toward someone who betrayed is virtually unparalleled anywhere in the world.

In 2018, I visited the Norbulingka Palace (罗布林卡) on the outskirts of Lhasa, the traditional summer residence of successive Dalai Lamas. It was from here, in 1959, that the 14th Dalai Lama fled China. The villa built specifically for him in 1954 was unbelievably lavish-its furnishings were among the finest available at the time (bottom left and right). To be frank, it was way way way more luxurious than any residence I've seen that belonged to Chairman Mao or Premier Zhou.

One object in particular stood out: a radio gifted by the central government. I remember standing there with a middle-aged visitor, both of us visibly struck by the quality of the device. I turned to this stranger and asked, "Do you think the Dalai Lama is ungrateful?" He paused in silence for a moment, then nodded and said, "Yes."

The central government did not betray him. On the contrary, it extended respect, resources, and restraint. And yet, regrettably, he chose to defend a deeply unjust social hierarchy, to flee, and to promote narratives about Tibetan independence that have sown misunderstanding abroad and division within Xizang itself.

In three days, the 14th Dalai Lama will turn ninety. Such an age ought to be marked by wisdom and humility-not by distortion and manipulation. True reverence for religion begins with respect for history and respect for institutional order. That is the most fundamental form of piety.

https://x.com/ZhaiXiang5/status/1940477330163749312

1940477330163749312

[Johnnycomelately]

An interesting bit of history by Zhai Xiang, thank you Carm.

I’ve had an awareness of this #14 since childhood, from reading my brother’s Lobsang Rampa books. Author said that #14 is not a reincarnation of the Dali Lama. I learned a lot from those books, reincarnation being the main one, stuff about aliens/ETs. And stuff about the spirit world, like astral projection and defensive programmed thought forms. Probably much more that I have since forgotten or moved on from.

I don’t know, but I believe these books were fiction. If so, then props to whoever wrote them.


I don’t hold on to those Buddhist views on reincarnation, ever since I read the views given through the modern day prophetess Gabrielle Wittek (sp,?), of Universelles Leben. Still legit to me, mostly because the people (I visited NYC x 3, Würtzburg x 2). Better alien/ET stories too lol.


I hope Mara’s Bill will chime in on looking back at those old days on that high ground.



From Zhai Xiang,

Scholar of China-US relations,
Member of China's National Cultural Relics Society

Text:
Who decides the reincarnation of a senior Tibetan lama-the Buddha, the monasteries, or the state?

In recent years, and even in recent days, the 14th Dalai Lama has made a series of striking public statements about his next life, including the possibility of being reborn as a woman, a bee, or not at all. These claims have stirred global media attention-but do they align with centuries of religious tradition and precedent?

I am a historian on China and a scholar of international relations. 15 years ago, while studying at Cornell, I devoted an entire semester in a 4000-level seminar to the study of Xizang, or Tibet. In 2018, I traveled to Xizang in person-from Lhasa to Shigatse, and onward to the Everest Base Camp-conducting field research on Tibetan religion, history, and contemporary society,
although my physical condition is not well-suited to low-oxygen environments. Over the years, I have also maintained contact and constructive dialogue with many of China's leading experts on Tibetan studies.

As a scholar, I seek to continue in my tradition of objective, evidence-based inquiry. My aim is to provide a clear and well-documented explanation of what the reincarnated "Living Buddha" system in Tibetan Buddhism actually entails, and whether the Dalai Lama's poetic, progressive claims align with doctrinal teachings and historical precedent. Though the topic is intricate, I will strive to present it in a manner that is accessible yet substantive, so that you can return to the facts themselves and form you own informed judgments.

The concept of the Reincarnated Living Buddha is a highly distinctive phenomenon that emerged after Buddhism was transmitted into Tibet. According to Buddhist belief, individuals undergo cycles of rebirth; after death, the soul continues its journey by reincarnating in a new body. When a spiritual leader passes away, a ritual process is undertaken to identify potential successors. Among these, one child, after being recognized, is deemed the reincarnation of the previous master and inherits not only the title but also the religious and, at times, political authority attached.

During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), Tibet came under the administration of the central Chinese government for the first time. The 3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, born in 1284, is considered the first reincarnated Living Buddha in Tibet. This practice was soon emulated across various Tibetan Buddhist sects. In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, who served as the top religious figures in Xizang, also established their legitimacy through the reincarnation system.

Take the Dalai Lama as an example. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Xizang was fragmented, and leaders of different sects took pride in being officially recognized by the Ming emperors. The Ming court, for its part, adopted a relatively loose model of indirect rule over Xizang. The 5th Dalai Lama, still regarded as the most powerful Dalai Lama in Tibetan history, successfully unified Tibet and established a theocratic government. Around this time, the newly established Qing emperor Shunzhi (顺治) extended several invitations to the Dalai Lama to visit the imperial court. In my view, motivated by a range of strategic considerations, including a desire for the protection of the central government, the 5th Dalai Lama ultimately spent nine month travelling to Beijing. He met Shunzhi in 1653, when the Dalai Lama was 36 years old and the emperor 15.

Some have cited murals in Xizang that depict the Dalai Lama and Shunzhi seated side-by-side and roughly equal in size, interpreting this as evidence of an "equal" meeting between the two. I find this interpretation unconvincing. First, the Dalai Lama received multiple official titles from the Shunzhi Emperor during his stay in Beijing. Second, archival records clearly indicate that at their first meeting, Shunzhi was seated in the center while the Dalai Lama was positioned to the side at a lower level. When the emperor offered him tea, the Dalai Lama declined by saying "how dare I", signaling clear awareness of hierarchy. Third, the visual portrayal of the two figures at the same scale is likely an artistic convention or perhaps a reflection of Shunzhi's young age at the time, not reliable evidence of equal status.

The 6th Dalai Lama was summoned to Beijing for failing to seek timely approval from the central government upon assuming his position, as well as for his overly romantic private life. This episode further underscores the central government's authority in the recognition and regulation of reincarnated lamas.

So, starting with the 5th Dalai Lama, it became established precedent that the reincarnation of Dalai Lama must receive formal approval from the central government. The reincarnation process involves a series of intricate and sacred steps, including:
Interpretation of omens; Divination consultations; Viewing visions in sacred lakes; Revelatory dreams; On-site investigations; Relic recognition.

However, due to the emergence of irregularities in certain reincarnation cases, such as favoritism toward relatives and backroom dealings, the Qianlong Emperor introduced a system in 1783 known as the Golden Urn Lot-Drawing System (金瓶掣签). To prevent individuals from manipulation and to preserve the sanctity of the tradition, this system required that when multiple candidates were identified, the final selection would be determined through a lot-drawing ritual held in front of the Buddha statue. This draw was to be conducted in the presence of central government representatives, ensuring both transparency and divine legitimacy. The names of the selected kids, written on ivory slips, were drawn from the Golden Urn, and the chosen name would be reported to the central government for final approval.

Even in cases where only one candidate was identified, the exemption from the lot-drawing process still required formal approval from the central authorities.

Historically, the 9th, 13th, and 14th Dalai Lamas were exempted from the golden urn lot-drawing process by special approval of the central government, while the 10th, 11th, and 12th Dalai Lamas were recognized through the golden urn lot-drawing ceremony. In all cases, final confirmation came from the central government. And there has never been a case where the decision was made solely by the reincarnated individual.

The 14th Dalai Lama has repeatedly made statements regarding his potential reincarnation, such as:
The next reincarnation could occur in the "free world"
It could be a woman
It could even be a bee
The reincarnation system could be terminated
Reincarnation is purely an internal affair and should be decided by the himself...

These remarks fundamentally contradict the centuries-old rituals and institutional norms established within Tibetan Buddhism. And reincarnation is certainly not his personal business-this reflects a broader synthesis of national sovereignty, state authority, religious tradition, and the spiritual trust of the Tibetan people.

His predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, once sought British and Russian support, expelled central govt troops, and treaded dangerously close to separatism. Despite all the terrible records, the recognition of the current 14th Dalai Lama was still completed in 1940 with the participation of representatives dispatched by the central government.

To use a modern analogy: imagine a US president bypassing a national election, appointing his own replacement, and proclaiming that the successor could be foreign-born, or even an animal, justifying with "Please respect my inspiration."

Americans would mostly respond with "insane" and "no way."

In October 1951, at the age of 26, the 14th Dalai Lama wrote to Chairman Mao, expressing his support for the central government. In March 1959, he fled to India, where he has lived ever since. What happened during those eight intervening years? My research suggests that he was treated with considerable respect and accorded extraordinary honors.

In 1953, he was named Honorary President of the Chinese Buddhist Association, making him the most revered figure in Chinese Buddhism, even before the age of 30. In 1954, he traveled to Beijing with the Panchen Lama, met Chairman Mao for the first time (top left), and participated in the First National People's Congress, where he was elected Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee-a position equivalent to a vice head of state. At just 29 years old, he had already reached the highest level of political and religious authority ever attained by a Tibetan leader.

As my mentor at the Palace Museum once told me, in preparation for the Dalai Lama's visit to Beijing, the central government even issued a special order authorizing the use of imperial silk from the Forbidden City's storerooms to sew a custom quilt for him. Small details like this speak volumes about the level of ceremonial respect and material privilege he enjoyed.

Archival records reveal numerous letters sent by Chairman Mao to the 14th Dalai Lama (top right). Here are a few selected excerpts:
"Under the unified leadership of the Central People's Government, [Xizang] will forever be free from the shackles of imperialism and the oppression of alien peoples, and will stand up to work for the cause of the Tibetan people themselves."
"I have received your letter dated August 19, 1952, along with your photograph. Your deep affection for the motherland and the Central People's Government, as well as your determination to work for the well-being of both the lay and monastic Tibetan people in all aspects, brings me great comfort. On the road of striving for the interests of our motherland and the Tibetan people, you, Mr. Dalai Lama, along with Mr. Panchen and the Tibetan clergy and laypeople, will always have the support of the CCP and the Central People's Government."
"Whatever support is needed for building a new Xizang, the central government will do its best to provide, as long as it is within our means. However, due to transportation difficulties, some matters cannot be resolved immediately and shall wait for the future."
"Today's policy is to protect religion, and the same policy will apply in the future. As for land redistribution in Xizang, it is not under discussion at the moment; whether it should happen in the future is up to you to decide, and if it is to be done, you will do it yourselves-we will not do it on your behalf."
"It delighted me so much to receive your letter dated July 6, 1955. I often think of you and recall the pleasant times we spent together during your stay in Beijing. When will we meet again? Perhaps in three years, when the Second National People's Congress is held-you may come then…Xizang is progressing. Of course, one should not be impatient; some progress each year is enough. I hope you take good care of your health. Things are going well here. We've made some mistakes, which we are working to criticize and correct. China is a large country, but it is not yet wealthy or strong. We hope that through the joint efforts of all ethnic groups, after a few Five-Year Plans, it will become both prosperous and powerful. Xizang has great potential. May you all continue your good work. I was pleased to receive the fresh Tibetan flowers you included in your letter. I am enclosing one in return for you."
"Can you read this letter? My handwriting is still quite cursive and hard to change quickly, though perhaps slightly better than last time."

In his own letters to Mao, Dalai Lama referred to him as "the sun that shines on all" and "a compassionate mother who protects us." After fleeing Tibet, Dalai Lama himself admitted that he felt like "a son to Chairman Mao," recalling how Mao would ask him to sit beside him at meals and personally serve him food.

The Dalai Lama's flight from China is often framed as a result of "repression," but the historical truth is far more different. At the time, land reform was being carried out in Tibetan-populated areas outside of the Xizang Autonomous Region. Under the previous serfdom system, Tibetan peasants had virtually no status and were often subjected to arbitrary abuse. Before the PLA entered these regions, it was not uncommon for serfs to be tortured or even killed at will, with their skulls fashioned into "ritual instruments."

These reforms naturally provoked fierce resentment among the Tibetan aristocracy. Yet the Dalai Lama chose to side with a small group of entrenched elites, rather than with the vast majority of ordinary Tibetans, who struggled.

As we can see, Chairman Mao corresponded with the Dalai Lama on this issue on multiple occasions, and honored his commitment not to initiate reforms immediately within Xizang itself-even though the serfdom system was brutal, unjust, and profoundly regressive. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama chose to flee in 1959. And it may surprise you, but China retained his position as Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress until 1964-five years after his departure. Such tolerance toward someone who betrayed is virtually unparalleled anywhere in the world.

In 2018, I visited the Norbulingka Palace (罗布林卡) on the outskirts of Lhasa, the traditional summer residence of successive Dalai Lamas. It was from here, in 1959, that the 14th Dalai Lama fled China. The villa built specifically for him in 1954 was unbelievably lavish-its furnishings were among the finest available at the time (bottom left and right). To be frank, it was way way way more luxurious than any residence I've seen that belonged to Chairman Mao or Premier Zhou.

One object in particular stood out: a radio gifted by the central government. I remember standing there with a middle-aged visitor, both of us visibly struck by the quality of the device. I turned to this stranger and asked, "Do you think the Dalai Lama is ungrateful?" He paused in silence for a moment, then nodded and said, "Yes."

The central government did not betray him. On the contrary, it extended respect, resources, and restraint. And yet, regrettably, he chose to defend a deeply unjust social hierarchy, to flee, and to promote narratives about Tibetan independence that have sown misunderstanding abroad and division within Xizang itself.

In three days, the 14th Dalai Lama will turn ninety. Such an age ought to be marked by wisdom and humility-not by distortion and manipulation. True reverence for religion begins with respect for history and respect for institutional order. That is the most fundamental form of piety.

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