Answerer

Actually, if I remember correctly, lies and truths are fundamentally the same in the eyes of some highly trained monks. However, this doesn't mean we can lie for our own selfish purposes.

monkey mind

Hahah. Well at any rate I wouldn't be seemly for the Dalai Lama to stomp around claiming to be enlightened. Did the Buddha ever make claim to being enlightened, or did people just recognize it?

Answerer

According to the sutra, its both. Buddha did claim himself to be the 'awaken one' but only during times of peaching or some cases in which people asked for his identity. However, in some special cases, people simply respect and recognize the Buddha just by looking at him, such events are all stated in the sutras.

Dr. Jagan Mohan

Are we overlooking something?
The Dalai Lama post itself is a political one abeit a religio-political post, which is neither hereditary nor democratically elected, but ‘recognised’ as an incarnation Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion, as we very well know.

The Dalai Lamas are the manifestations of the Bodhisattva (Buddha) of Compassion, who chose to reincarnate to serve the people. Since it is their chosen duty to serve a particular race of people, (but not AGAINST any other people), they talk about ‘their’ country, ‘their’ people, etc. It is not to be taken straight as egoism.

In Hinduism for example, on the Battleground of Mahabharata, Arjuna on observing his enemies was overwhelmed by a sense of egoism when He saw his dear Great-Grandfather, His beloved Guru and other Relatives on the enemy side and refused to give battle lest he might kill them. Lord Krishna’s advice to Arjuna is the famous Bhagavad Gita or Song of the Lord, which says that One should do his Duty without attachment to its fruits: The secret of fruitful work without incurring Karmic reactions. Arjuna being a Warrior has to fight for Dharma or Righteousness against the forces of injustice BUT without hating his opponent. It is not the opponent he is trying to defeat, but injustice.

Comparatively, one of Dalai Lama’s title is ‘defender of faith’ and this is exactly what he is trying to do. The question of egoism comes into play only if he is ‘selfishly’ doing it to satisfy ‘his senses’ or ‘ego’ (‘I’ protect the people, it is ‘I’ who is the doer, or ‘I’ am the leader, and so on)

If he struggling to protect his religion, without hatred for the Chinese, but striving to rectify their policies and trying to coexist peacefully, the question of ego cannot rise.

Man is a social being and is divided into tribes, races, classes etc. These divisions are natural. Only when Man starts to use these identities as a matter of egoism, superiority, etc, they become ugly. There is nothing wrong that I acknowledge myself as an Indian and say you as a American. But the moment I start to think in superior/inferior sense, ego creeps in.

To struggle and fight for justice is a laudable effort. When done without extremes within ‘right thought, right determination’, it is a way of living.

After all Buddhism is not so life negating that one should completely abandon all efforts to even preserve this serene religion?

What happened to Afghanistan Buddhists? Kandahar, once a great center of Buddhist learning has now become breeding ground for terrorists. Why? Maybe invading Islamic armies found local Buddhists too ‘compassionate’ perhaps!

Your thoughts please!

--------------------------
Dalai Lama on receiving the Nobel Price:
The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated. Our struggle must remain nonviolent and free of hatred.

"I am just a simple Buddhist monk - no more, nor less."

His favourite verse which he quotes often from eighth century Buddhist saint Shantideva:

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.

[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Jagan Mohan ]</p>

Answerer

Frankly speaking, I'm a Chinese, myself, at least in terms of biology(skin colour,etc), culture, language and historical background. I guess that it is hard for any non-Chinese buddhists to imagine how I feel(quite a long imte ago) when I saw the fact of how the people of my race(not all but most) clashed with my religious brethrens(Tibetians) and destoryed all Tibetian Buddha statues and Tantric books wherever they could be found. To make things worse, my people commit the same kind of masscare (on the Tibetians) that the Japanese once did on my people(Nanjing mass killings).
Nevertheless, I guess that it is too late for my race to say sorry or to perform any redemptions to the Tibetians. Apparently, most of them now regard us in the same way that most of we used to view the Japanese war-mongers( at least some Tibetians are taught how to hate the chinese from young).
Well, I guess my people reap what they sow after all and I hope that they do regret what they did in the past and stop repeating the same mistakes that our ancestors had done.

Nick Riviera

Dr. J,

I appreciate your thoughts but I have to disagree with one of your points:
Whose justice .

Maybe they were just fighting for their idea of justice.

The very thought of justice and injustice suggests comparison and superiority.
If I believe my ideals are just and yours are unjust, then I am suggesting that I have superior morals and ideals. But, if I am tolerant of your beliefs and accept that they are different from mine (not better or worse, just or unjust), then there is no need for confrontation. You and I can coexist peacefully and respect each other's differences.
I realize that this is not always possible in our society and that there is sometimes a need for political intervention. I just don't believe that the DL should involve himself with, or lobby for this intervention. It is something for the politicians to do.

Sarpedon

Dr J has a point, Buddhists do let themselves get pushed around too much. Non-violent resistence only works on people who have a concience. It worked for Gandhi, because the english are, after all, softies at heart. It worked for MLK jr. because the American Northerners couldn't stand to see people beaten by cops and eaten by their dogs. It did not work for the poor people in the Tiannemen square. It isn't working in Tibet. It certainly wouldn't work on muslims. Recent events demonstrate that pacifism is only a reasonable choice in a world of reasonable people. I for one am a zen buddhist, which permits a buddhist to be a warrior, so long as he is a selfless warrior. Its been a struggle for me to justify killing, but this seems to be one of the times where one must choose to be knowingly inconsistent. We can't expect these brainwashed barbarians to be won over by our gentleness and tolerance. I have been afraid that I am seeing a new feeling of intolerance and bigotry rise up within me in the last year, after all, wouldn't the world be a better place if certain people didn't live in it? How can we reconcile the intellectual recognition of certain facts, yet retain impartiality and detatchment? Sorry for the rambling answer.

monkey mind

Your right about humanity dividing themselves into tribes classes etc. This is a natural thing that we do regardless. To an extent, it is neccessary for us to do this to in order to function as a society.

Even though Buddhism is meant to make you think for yourself, and realize the truth beyond superstion and attachments, if people simply follow the external practices of Buddhism and don't think any deeper, then they will only give themselves more superstition and ignorance. This is a fact of life.

I concede that sometimes it is neccessary to fight. I don't think the idea of Buddhism is to sit by while certain groups in the world are done severe injustice too. I suppose if you have to fight, you have to fight. On the other hand, it seems to work out, because some people life to fight, and some people like to practice non-violence.

However, I think it is important to protect the essence of teaching as much as possible. It seems to be hard enough protecting the essence from sexism and superstition, let alone letting the teaching be used to justify fighting. It just add more confusion as to what the purpose of Buddhism is. I don't think institutional Buddhism should ever be used to condone violence. Nor on the other hand should it promote indifference to social injustice.

That being said, I think non-violence is the noblest approach. I appreciate the fact that if others didn't fight, maybe I wouldn't have the freedoms I have. But I will not fight and kill.

Incidentally, there is a book about zen being used to justify Japan's war campains. There is a book review for it at <a href="http://www.darkzen.com/Articles/zenholy.htm" target="_blank">http://www.darkzen.com/Articles/zenholy.htm</a>
i haven't read the book, but I found that review very interesting.

Nick Riviera

I completely agree with you monkey mind.
I am not saying that all people should be pacifists and practice Buddhism or that all people should be violent. I think it is necessary to have different types of people in this world. I am simply saying, let the Buddhist practice Buddhism & let the politicians practice politics.
Again, I couldn't agree more.

Answerer

Well, in Buddhist stories, there are some cases in which Bodhisattvas do commit killings. They did it not only to save others(from being killed by a dangerous egoist)but also to prevent the would-be murderers or siners from accumlating more bad karma. However, by doing so, those Bodhisattvas indirectly translate the bad karma into themselves(due to the killing of bad guys). Nevertheless, since those Bodhisattvas carry out the killings in a selfless way, they also earned great merits at the same time.
Regardless, I don't think most of us had reached the state of total 'selfless', so its best for the most of us to avoid killings and fightings as long as we can.