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Not everybody came out to say hello, Dalai
By adamg on Fri, 10/31/2014 - 6:36am
The Dalai Lama was in town yesterday, and while he got some of the traditional warm welcomes, Jess McDougall shows us the protesters who marched down Tremont Street and then set up camp outside the Wang Theater, where he gave a talk.
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Comments
No one is forcing them to follow Dalai Lama
If they don't like what he has to say, then don't belong to the Gelug school. They can create their own school. (As in, exercise your religious freedom.) There are different schools of Tibetan Buddhism. They are as varied as Christian denominations: Roman Catholics, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Lutherans, etc.
Similarly, there are Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya and several other Tibetan Buddhist schools. Within those schools, there are many different lineages. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school. The other ones give him a bit of a nod as being the big kahuna but have their own H. H.'s and Rinpoches.
?
What's he supposedly lying about? Or is this just anti-Tibet sentiment?
What I gather from some article from Princeton
He's banned the worship of a minor deity, Dorje Shugden, who used to be a big part of this outlying group of the Gelug school. The claim is this is a violation of their religious freedom and (I don't understand Tibetan politics at all so I could be totally wrong) they suffer from political discrimination.
On the other hand, members of this group have killed non-members of this group because they're mad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_controversy
Nancy, Dorje Shugden is not a
Nancy, Dorje Shugden is not a minor deity, but has been recognized by high Gelug monks as the main protector of Je Tsongkhapa's doctrine. And it has been like this for hundreds of years. It was only until the current Dalai Lama 'changed his mind' that things changed. For a monk to say that his teachers were wrong is like closing the door to your own practise. And that is exactly what this Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso has done. Please don't believe everything you read in a wikipedia article. Those articles are very volatile, in that people are constantly trying to change them to suit their needs.
If people in this thread don't have time to delve deeper into this issue, I would suggest not jumping to any conclusions, but keeping an open and balanced mind.
Not a balanced presentation of the controvery
Devotees of a long-ago teacher (later venerated as a deity) who sometimes violently opposed all other varieties of Tibetan Buddhism (and any accommodation between his tradition and other traditions)are angry that the present Dalai Lama has disapproved of veneration of such a divisve figure.
The Dalai Lama is lying about
The Dalai Lama is lying about a practice that he followed for the first half of his life. It was a practise given to him by his own spiritual teachers. Then for political reasons, he turned his back on his own teachers and began to ban people from continuing to follow Dorje Shugden as their protector. There are many examples of discrimination and intimidation within and outside of the Tibetan refugee area. Just so you know, the act of turning your back on your own teachers is the worst thing you can do as a Buddhist practitioner. It is the height of pride and ignorance.
This is not anti-Tibet sentiment. There are actual Tibetans being discriminated by their own leaders, beginning with the Dalai Lama.
The Chinese government...
... definitely funds anti-Dalai Lama protesters -- no idea whether these particular protesters fall into this category....
Ya
I saw one in Starbucks trying to buy a coffee with Yuan's!
well shoot...
at least they're not opposing chain stores
They do not. I have
They do not. I have personally taken part in these protests, in Washington D.C. and this weekend in NY. I've been a part of this tradition for over 16 years. I don't get money from the Chinese. Saying such a thing was started by certain followers of the Dalai Lama, because it is the most inflammatory thing you can say about someone to the Tibetans. Think about it. Think about the current history of the Tibetans and the Chinese. So, it's a quick and dirty and false way of slandering a bunch of people.
I got no pony in this race...
... and I don't know why these protestors specifically are out there. But not every protest involving the Dalai Lama or Tibetan Buddhism is doctrinal or backed by the Chinese.
Despite or because of my own atheism, I firmly believe in the freedom to worship or not worship as one sees fit, so of course I oppose the Chinese oppression of Tibetan Buddhists. But the social and class structure of Tibet before the Chinese invasion was such that Lamas had an upper-class, land controlling position and were as exploitative and outright abusive of the serfs working under them as anyone else.
The mistreatment of the serfs included taking so much of the crops and livestock raised that the serfs starved. The abuses also included cases of sexual assault on serf children "given" by poor families to the Lamas so they could be trained as monks. This isn't ancient history; it went on into the 1960s. Not every Tibetan has forgotten the ugliness under the old system.
The current Dalai Lama was pretty young-- maybe in his twenties-- when the old Lamas were overthrown so he was not a part of that, but to some, he represents it.
Interesting folks
They build the most valuable object in the world, an 11,000 pound (yup, pound) solid gold Buddha, covered it with plaster (there was a war on...) then forgot about it. It turned up by accident (you can't make this up) in 1954.
For the serious, wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Buddha_(Bangkok)
For the humor, cracked: "A year later, the Thai population revolted against the Burmese occupation and took back control of the city. Although accurate records are lost, it is speculated the Thais celebrated their victory with Red Bull, a pinata and not bothering to take the plaster off of the Golden Buddha right away."
http://www.cracked.com/article_18533_the-6-most-important-things-humanit...
Big hitter, the Lama
good golfing weather yesterday, too.
ISC information about Dalai Lama
Read through this to get an idea of why these Buddhists are protesting.
http://www.einpresswire.com/article/232167845/new-york-hundreds-to-prote...