| Username |
Post |
| peda |
Posted
on 07-Feb-04 07:02 AM
In conversation: Baba Amte and the Dalai Lama
[ SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2004 12:00:06 AM ]
Dalai Lama: Humanity is facing a lot of problems due
to religion...
Baba Amte: There is only one religion now – creative humanity.
DL: If you look at it more critically, why did God create this problem? If there is any God, then He should not create any problem.
BA: That's why He is afraid to look back. He has created people like you and me, who have created a mess in the world.
DL: Therefore, what is the source of God?
BA: Love is God… unlimited, infinite.
DL: I agree.
BA: You can't prove there is God. Even scientists have failed. They say God is a concealed object.
DL: Scientific explanation cannot prove the non-existence of God. Whether He exists or not is beyond science… Yesterday, somebody mentioned your plan to visit Pakistan ?
BA: Without security they will not allow me to go. I don't believe in security. I believe His arm will never harm. I want direct interaction with people. Let Pakistan be there and India be there. I don't want any union between Pakistan and India . Rather, let there be a common currency between the two nations, like the euro.
DL: Religion preaches righteousness. What do you think? Of course, Buddhists have no concept of God as creator. We believe in self-creation. That's why Buddhists believe in the Four Noble Truths.
BA: I am so happy that we are having this talk here. Look at the sky, it is cloudless, very clear.
DL: And your spirit is always fresh and very clear too
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| Prem Charo |
Posted
on 07-Feb-04 10:53 PM
Peda,
Are you talking about Dalai Lama???
Who escaped from his own land and using all the facilities as a exciting admiration and approbation by symmetry, completeness, freedom from blemish, and the like; graceful; tasteful and highly attractive; as, elegant manners; elegant style. That's the life style of Dalai Lama. All Tibetians are still doesen't know what's going on out here.
Giving so calld holy speech and writing some fancy thoughts doesen't make great leader.
It is always confusing, whether Dalai lama is a tibeten leader or Holy leader ? ?
PC :)
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| endless_knot |
Posted
on 07-Feb-04 11:07 PM
Ok WISECRACKS,
How bout putting some proof to support your "LOW" arguments.....
SPEAK UP WISE CRACKS....
It's no wonder why we Nepalese (as our very own - peda, Prem Charo) have this "CRAB MENTALITY"
Grow up broa-peda,Prem Charo
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| wit's end |
Posted
on 07-Feb-04 11:10 PM
prem charo ji
do not try and pass comments on things that you have only a vague idea. What do you mean by " All Tibetians are still doesen't know what's going on out here"? you are generalazing a wee bit too much. I have known a lots of tibetians who knows what's going on. Furthermore, who to believe, what to believe in..is upto the individuals, isn;t it? "Giving so calld holy speech and writing some fancy thoughts doesen't make great leader" ... he has lived by his principals and preaches what he thinks is best for humanity, and being articulate..as in expressing his fancy thoughts into some of the best ling books is without a doubt a nice quality to have in a leader. "whether Dalai lama is a tibeten leader or Holy leader ? ?" Here is your answer...To the tibetians..he is both the spiritual and the temporal leader, and a holy leader to rest of the buddhists who believe in him.
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| kingkong |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 09:21 AM
tyo dalai lam bhanne ta asti harvard ma aaune haina?
he sucks
i dont know what people sees in him
all those things he was saying....i think we read it in stories when we were kids so why the hell people so crazy about him
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| ssNY |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 10:55 AM
See King Kong, there lies the beauty of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's speeches; so simple that you and I have heard before, read before, but don't seem to be practicing them anymore. He just wants to be in the forefront in reminding and explaining those simple path of living. As he calls himself a "simple buddhist monk" that is how speaks.
Oh yes, he can get deep, very deep about ohter worldly matters and buddhist scriptures etc, and then again, most of us won't be able to understand it anyway, then it just beats the purpose, doesn't it?
Well, Prem Charo seems to be so much above and beyond in his understanding and knowledge of the Dalai Lama that makes him wonder how gullibal the Tibetans are, I just wonder what he sees when he looks at a mirror - a turkey or an ass.
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| jivman |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 11:17 AM
Why worry about Dalai lama? No matter what he does, he is an accomplished person for his cause. Just worry about our own problem in the country. What do we got: Failed state and Corrupt politicians.
We got ourselves in such a pathetic state and we are worrying about Dalai Lama and Tibetans. Afno ghati ma buffalo hi deko dekhdai na, arka ko gati ma kamila dekhcha.
No wonder we are all losers. After 12 yrs we still have same pathetic leaders and we still support them.
So les focus on our problem, not on others.
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| Prem Charo |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 11:57 AM
SsNY, wit's end, endless knot,
Read this article ____
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader in exile and the man believed by Buddhists to be the 14th incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, does not see himself as a miracle worker. "I'm a skeptic," he said at his recent sold-out appearance at Boston's FleetCenter. "If someone truly has healing power, I'd like to call about my knees."
It was a good quip ... and the Dalai Lama has a few. But while he may not possess preternatural powers, there can be no argument that he has considerable international clout--at least potentially. Consider the following.
Before coming to Boston (primarily for a conference at MIT on Buddhism and science) as part of a 20-day, five-city US tour, the Dalai Lama met with President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and other US leaders--an audience not always accorded to heads of state. His visit here, as usual, was closely covered by the national press. His various books sell very well: The Art of Happiness, a collection of conversations with author Howard C. Cutler, sold more than 1.2 million copies and was on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years. People are prepared to pay considerable money to see him in person: tickets for his talk at the FleetCenter, titled "The Global Community and the Need for Universal Responsibility," ranged up to $100, with the scalpers outside doing a brisk trade; in New York City, his final stop, tickets for his teaching sessions were priced at $400 each ($1200 and $3000 for VIPs and big donors) and sold out well in advance. And then there's the fact that His Holiness won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
As a man of peace, the Dalai Lama speaks often and long about the importance of compassion, about "reducing destructive emotions," about tolerance, about "internal disarmament," about restraint, and about the role of intelligence in facilitating these things. But there seems to be a gulf between his expertise in these general precepts and his ability to condense and apply them in certain areas.
conted.......
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| Prem Charo |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 11:58 AM
In The Art of Peace, a collection of topical papers by Nobel Peace Prize laureates, he says, "Non-violence and peace do not mean that we remain indifferent, passive." But at the FleetCenter, when asked about the US invasion of Iraq, he said simply: "It is too early to say what will happen. Wait a few years. That is my opinion." And in a March 11 official statement on the same issue, he said, "All we can do is pray for the gradual end to the tradition of wars," adding, "I don't know whether our prayers will be of any practical help." Some might call this passivity.
By contrast, in statements made just prior to the invasion, he said explicitly that war is an organized and legalized form of violence that creates more problems than it solves. He also said, "I prefer [that] violence or war should not take place." His Holiness took a similar line in a letter to President Bush in 2001, just after the attacks on the World Trade Center, saying, "Violence will only increase the cycle of violence." But in the letter he offered no specific admonitions and closed mildly with: "I am sure you will make the right decision."
It would seem, then, that for all the indisputable good the Dalai Lama does in terms of spiritual guidance, he is reluctant to tread on any political toes. This raises the question: As an influential humanitarian, is it not incumbent upon him at least to ask the tough questions of world leaders and, at most, to bring all conceivable pressure to bear on them as his conscience dictates?
This question is being asked more than one might think. For, while the Dalai Lama is universally loved as a man of peace and wisdom, he has his critics. The younger generation of Tibetans is becoming frustrated with the lack of change in their homeland. And some scholars and political commentators wonder why he doesn't weigh in on other issues of great political import, such as the current situation in Iraq.
"The world is overflowing with preachers and sages who can radiate their often-sincere spirituality," says noted progressive media columnist Norman Solomon, co-author of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You. "Yet what we need most is engagement with struggles to halt the actualities of violence and suffering--we need willingness to risk offending the powerful."
Solomon goes on to say that the war in Iraq and the current aspects of its occupation are not abstractions, but are often treated as such by "those who stick to platitudes and evasions."
"Direct questions deserve direct answers," he notes. "Talk--even, and at times especially, spiritual talk--is cheap and easy, especially when the alternative would be forthright condemnation of those who, for instance, ordered 2000-pound bombs and cruise missiles to be fired on heavily populated areas of Iraq last spring."
Another commentator, Chris Colin, wrote a piece for Salon a few years back, titled "The Bodhisattva of PR," in which he suggested that the Dalai Lama is "Gandhi meets P.T. Barnum, minus the elephants." More recently, Patrick French, author of Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land, wrote an article for the New York Times called "Dalai Lama Lite," in which he said that His Holiness's US tour "confirmed his status as the world's No. 1 feel-good guru."
Renowned leftist historian Howard Zinn, author of the best-selling A People's History of the United States, is a little more charitable but no less forthright.
"I've always admired the Dalai Lama for his advocacy of nonviolence and his support of the rights of Tibet against Chinese domination," he said recently. "But I must say I was disappointed to read his comment on the war in Iraq [i.e., "Wait a few years"], because this is such an obvious, clear-cut moral issue in which massive violence has been used against Iraqis with many thousands of dead." Zinn added pointedly: "I wonder if the Dalai Lama knows enough about the history of US foreign policy. If he did, he would understand the real motives of our invasion of Iraq and would not be ambivalent about the present war and occupation."
conted...
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| Prem Charo |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 11:59 AM
Certainly it is not a case of a lack of intelligence on the part of the Dalai Lama. Indeed, as he spoke at his Cambridge press conference on September 12, talking authoritatively about the interconnectedness of cosmology, neurobiology, psychology, and physics, it was clear he is streets ahead of most of us in his intellectual powers.
So, given his intelligence and enormous sense of compassion, why doesn't the Dalai Lama question the leader of the free world about the downside of globalization? About "Star Wars II" and the Bush administration's flagrant disregard of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? About the unlawful attack on Iraq? Civilian body counts? Why doesn't he even pose such questions rhetorically in the media? Could it really be that this esteemed 68-year-old monk is so focused on inner change (and the external environment as it pertains to scientific phenomena) that he hasn't done his homework on the big political issues? When it comes to geopolitical and global economic matters, is the Dalai Lama living in peaceful ignorance in the suburbs of reality?
Undoubtedly, for many people, even to suggest such a thing is akin to booing Santa Claus. After all, the Dalai Lama is a very likeable human being. He is gentle, caring, witty, and almost cuddly. He is calm and wise. He is venerable. In short, he makes people feel good. The adoration at the FleetCenter was virtually palpable. But as distinguished linguist and radical political commentator Noam Chomsky has often said, to personalize an issue is to lose sight of the facts.
And the fact is, the Dalai Lama won't pick a fight. The good fight. For some reason, he won't respectfully ask the president of the United States how he can invade a nation without the official consent of the United Nations. Nor will he publicly speculate about the motivations for this action, which has yielded neither stashed weapons of mass destruction nor links to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Furthermore, whenever he broaches the topic at all, it is within the framework of the "US response." The notion of US culpability has never been an issue that the Dalai Lama has seen fit to touch on directly--whether the topic is Iraq, Grenada, Nicaragua, East Timor, or Third World sweatshops. In the idiom of our time, he would seem to be guilty of not "thinking outside the box."
And, as Norman Solomon suggests, not speaking out in fact amounts to taking a political position. He adds: "Let the great spiritual teachers basking in acclaim today learn how to emulate Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1967 explicitly condemned 'racism,' 'militarism,' and 'economic exploitation' while also having the moral fortitude to denounce the Vietnam War."
The Dalai Lama had time to answer only six questions from the sizable audience at his Cambridge press conference, though many more people had questions to ask. And the official line was that he would give no private interviews during his tour--though, it turned out, this was not strictly the case. Repeated attempts to get a response to this article from His Holiness through his New York media representative were met with a "too busy" response. Yet the New York Times reported that the Tibetan leader somehow found time for a photo op with pop star Ricky Martin. Makes you wonder.
By Adrian Zupp ...
Jivman,
I do agree with you 100 %.
PC :)
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| jivman |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 07:13 PM
As a Buddhist, I find it disturbing about our own Nepali character. Dalai Lama and Tibetans have done no harm to Nepal or anyone in general. So why do we need to bitch so much if someone has to harm us at all? Or is it because they are so successful. May be so since we have a habit of pulling someone's leg of those whoa re successful. Oh I see. We learn that from our neta. This is in our nature and culture. No wonder we are so failed state.
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| eNigma_too |
Posted
on 08-Feb-04 10:28 PM
Prem Charo, I strongly disagree with the articles. But then people like you can be easily captivated with few well written words and distorted facts. Dalai Lama is not only a leader for the millions of Tibetans but also a spiritual guru for millions of Buddhist and like minded people all over the world. Keep in mind he is not some mumbo-jumbo self proclaimed God who performs so-called ‘miracles’ to attract devotees and thereby more money. As he calls himself, “A simple Buddhist monk”, no doubt about it but with a tremendous amount of kindness and compassion for all human being not to be found in us lay people who easily gives in to greed , anger and lust.
Dalai Lama is revered and admired world over irrespective of race or religion for his immense trust in peace and its relevance for the well being of human race, not for being a ‘global problem solver”. To have a better idea why he is respected, The citation for his 1989 Noble Peace Prize reads , "The Nobel Committee wants to emphasize the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people."
Prem Charo, if you browse the net you will find articles by Adrian Zupp and every Tom, Dick and Harry, for and against Christ, Buddha, Mahatma Gandi, Martin Luther and every great thinker of our time. To build up ones opinion based on such narrow interpretation reflects poorly on your ability to properly understand the works and deeds of great leaders. Do some research with an unbiased heart and you will see the truth as it stands.
As for you, KingKong, with your primitive understanding and power of grasping, I wonder how you ever got into Harvard (unless ofcourse, you were watching it on tv).
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 09-Feb-04 09:20 AM
Prem Charo,
Thanks for posting the article. The fact that His Holiness doesn't say anything against the war does not surprise me at all.
His Holiness, who is the Gandhi of our times, once supported an armed uprising against the Chinese. This uprising, which we know as the Khampa Rebellion lasted for almost 10 years. The CIA was helping the rebels and the Dalai Lama was supportive of the rebels! He was even recieving money from the CIA. If you look at one of the sumemr issues of the American Edition of Newsweek, there is an interview with his holiness. If my memory serves me right, in that interview he said that accepting the CIA offer was the biggest mistake of his life.
Also, when he was the guest of honor at the opening day of Kundun in NYC in 1997, a journalist asked him the same question: Why did he accept the CIA offer in the 60s? He said the same thing that it was a mistake and he regrets it.
Also one thing: His Holiness has never ever said he wants a Free Tibet. He says, he wants a fully autonomous region of Tibet. Although, he has said many times that he is willing to talk with the Chinese authorities, anytime, any place, he has been declining the Chinese requests to hold a talk in Beijing or in Tibet. Khoi k ho k ho..bujhnai garo!
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 09-Feb-04 09:24 AM
If you look at one of the sumemr issues of the American Edition of Newsweek= summer 99 issue.. july or august.
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| peda |
Posted
on 09-Feb-04 02:24 PM
Sorry guys. My idea was not to incite any arguments about who is good or bad. Just wanted to share some of the thought processeses which I thought were good and interesting.
Everybody is entitled to his opinion and as an educated person, it is natural to question all the facts. However, the research should be done with a neutral mental framework.
Thanks for the responses.
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| ssNY |
Posted
on 09-Feb-04 04:13 PM
Peda - Don't apologise. This is an excellent forum to discuss about anything and anyone. Espcially if some of us have quesions on a world figure like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, what better place to disscuss about him and try to find out about his strengths and weaknesses. I not only whole heartedly welcom this topic, but have invited Tibetans to join us to by giving this url at a very popular Tibetan site -Phayul.com
Hope they will join us here and shed some lights to our healthy discussion.
BTW "enigma too" you said almost what I wanted to express to prem and other naysayers. "kingkong" just found His Holiness' speech too simple for his heavy Harvard brain, I guess.
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| jivman |
Posted
on 09-Feb-04 06:03 PM
SSny:
I think they will they think of us as stupid. We cannot take care of our own problem and we need to butt on their issues. We got focked up leaders and we are commenting on their leader who is respected worldwide. Instead of trying to learn good things from others, all we do is poke on someone. No wonder even Indians make fun of us. They fool us like a clown.
They will probably say, BUTT OUT OF OUR PROBLEM AND MIND YOUR OWN GOD DAMN BUSINESS.
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