Five impossible points in the Dalai Lama’s Peace Plan
May 10, 2008 by will shetterly
My apologies to those who are thoroughly bored by Tibet and the Dalai Lama. I keep getting questioned, so I do a little more research— I’m just a fool for facts.
So, what’s wrong with the Dalai Lama’s call for an autonomous Tibet? Well, if you read it fast, it’s lovely. From the Dalai Lama’s site, Five point Peace Plan:
This peace plan contains five basic components:
So, what does that mean?
1. I propose that the whole of Tibet, including the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo, be transformed into a zone of “Ahimsa”, a Hindi term used to mean a state of peace and non-violence.The establishment of such a peace zone would be in keeping with Tibet’s historical role as a peaceful and neutral Buddhist nation and buffer state separating the continent’s great powers.
This definition of “the whole of Tibet” is like the claim of Eretz Yisrael: history doesn’t support it. Historically, Tibet was an aggregate of competing slave-holding monasteries and fiefdoms that were part of the Chinese empire. In theory, the Dalai Lama was the head of Tibet, as the title given by his Mongol ruler indicates, but the other sects of Tibetan Buddhism were extremely independent. So it would be quite a coup for the Dalai Lama to be given all this land.
That demand conflicts with Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
If you don’t see the problem, imagine someone descended from Old Mexico’s governors demanding that the US only allow people of Mexican heritage to live in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
The “once again” is dishonest, since Tibet under the Dalai Lamas was a feudal state. I fully agree with the wish for democratic freedoms, but what he’s proposing isn’t a democracy. It appears to be a constitutional theocracy that’s independent from China in every way but name.
As for the lack of freedoms, by Chinese standards, Tibetans are treated well; see Tibet Today for China’s side of the story.
China is working to improve its environmental record, and it would be nice if all countries stopped producing nuclear weapons.
This may be an example of the Dalai Lama’s famous sense of humor: if you want earnest negotiations, you need to begin with a viable plan. Instead, he asks for an ethnically-cleansed Tibet consisting of 25% of China’s territory with himself as the constitutional head of church and state. If I was China, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to waste my diplomats’ time.
See also: A Message For Western Leaders
Dalai Lama’s Five Point Peace Plan is Not Fooling Anyone
Those aren’t facts, Will, those are opinions. Some of them very skewed. And none of them “impossible”.
I’d go over them, but I feel as though I’d be wasting my breath given past efforts by myself and others. This isn’t meant to be an insult, I consider you to be an intelligent, conscientious guy, but at this point we both know you’re going to cling firm to your opinion on the matter and nothing anyone states to the contrary is going to change that.
I will ask you to consider this: you keep quoting the most questionable sources to support your vision of modern Tibet — it is as bad as if you were trying to argue that reports/responses from the US State Department were factual and at all accurately depict the plight of the Native American community or their continuing genetic and cultural genocide at the hands of the US and its citizens. Or arguing there really were WMDs in Iraq and throwing every positive link our way, because what I keep seeing political spin and opinion presented as fact.
As such, I don’t see a point in continuing to belabor the argument. We aren’t ever going to agree because we don’t accept one another’s interpretations, to say nothing of our respective sources.
Actually, I didn’t start looking at Chinese sources until the sources on the Dalai Lama’s side began to crumble. They talked about over a million people massacred, monks and monasteries attacked, a peaceful Tibet under the benevolent rule of the Lamas—
And instead I find slavery, a CIA-funded rebellion to restore slavery that was fought by monks, and people who had been on the Dalai Lama’s side reluctantly admitting that the “1.2 million” number came out of nowhere.
So, yes, the Chinese sites could be wrong. But I’m still waiting for someone to refute Parenti or any of the non-Chinese academics who’ve studied this.
As for the WMD analogy, your side is the one that needs to prove there’s something there. Where are the killing fields? How were all those reports of Tibetan feudalism faked? I’m sorry, but you have to do more than say “Is not, is not, is not!” I realize this is a religious issue for many, so I shouldn’t expect facts to matter, but they do.
On #2…the pro-Tibetan position is ‘China is intentionally diluting the Tibetan presence in Tibet in order to weaken and eventually erase our culture and ethnic identity’. Your argument is ‘The UN says people should be free to move within a state, so China can’t stop that from happening’.
I have no particular flag to wave in this debate, but purely in the spirit of the Devil’s advocate…would you apply the same argument to a parallel case with a different ethnic group and a different government - one you felt less sympathy for? Let’s say…ours :)
If the US government were encouraging (either actively or passively) whites to move onto Native American reservations, compete with local businesses and buy up land…and, where necessary, the laws were being changed to allow this on the grounds that it’s a fundamental human right that people be allowed to live wherever they want within their State…would you consider that appropriate and acceptable?
Well, I did offer the Mexican-American analogy. The legal situation with American Indian nations is much more complex than it is with states, which is essentially what Tibet is. And while I’ve got a lot of sympathy for tribal affairs, when a tribe pulls racist crap like the Cherokees did with their membership rolls, my sympathy ends. So my answer is, uh, I don’t know enough about tribal and federal affairs to answer that.
But here’s an analogy I used somewhere else: Arizonans hate it when rich Californians come in and buy up homes and land. Should we be able to keep them out of our state?
I didn’t keep the link so I don’t know if it’s true, but some sites claim members of the Dalai Lama’s group have said that if they could get their state, they would kick out everyone who isn’t native Tibetan—about 10% of the population.
The legal complexity is the reason I picked the Native American example, actually. If ethnic exclusivity is acceptable in their legal circumstances, then those circumstances COULD be made to exist in Tibet…which isn’t to say that they SHOULD, but it means the ‘the UN says we can’t do this’ argument doesn’t really apply. Or rather - it merges with one of your other arguments, which was that what they’re asking for amounts to a mostly-autonomous state.
(The residents of Native American reservations are US citizens, and are also legally considered to be residents of the state (US state, not State in the sense of ‘nation-state’) where the reservation is located. They definitely have the right to move off the reservation and live elsewhere in the US if they choose. The reservation itself might be considered to be the territory of a different political entity, though, despite being populated entirely by US citizens…? Yes, it’s all very confusing.)
Touch, it’s a good question; I just don’t have a good answer. Let’s pretend the legal issues are the same: I oppose ethnic cleansing and ethnic purity and racial separation and any form of state-sponsored isolation. I do believe in diversity: I love that Canada has more than one official language. In Tibet’s case, the kids have Tibetan teachers; they are learning their language and culture.
And if the UN has exceptions for tribal status within nations, I don’t know what they are. I don’t think any reservation in the US legally bans outsiders from buying private land. But I really don’t know.
Me either, actually :)
I agree with your analysis of the Dalai Lama’s “peace” plan. In fact, Dalai was not even considered the sole leader of the Tibetan region before the British Colonialists invaded Tibet in the early 20th century and conspired to murder competing Lamas. Even after that, Dalai was only in charge of the western Tibet region while he privately traded a large portion of the Eastern Tibaten region (the size of Austria) to the British controlled India. Such a trade was never recognized by any Chinese government and was the cause of Indian and Chinese border war in the 1960s. This partially explains the curious support of India for the Dalai Lama because India as the origin of Buddism doesn’t really like Buddists.
I found it laughable that Dalai’s supporter uses the analogy of WMD because Dalai Lama is one of the very few supporters of the Iraq War. Consider he was and still is funded by the CIA and its front group NED (National Endowment for Democracy), this is perfectly understandable. You don’t bite the hands that feed you.
Also, I found it even comical that one of the five “peace” points is to call China to stop producing nuclear weapons in Tibetan region while Dalai Lama was one of the only two “world figures” to congraduate India for its nuclear tests in 1990s. Guess who the other one was — Saddam Hussein.
Lastly, it is not a good analogy of comparing Native American’s Reservation with Tibetan. The reason is simple. The Native Americans were forced to live in their reservations which are very remote places with very few resources. All the fertile land or land rich with resources were taken from the Native Americans. The Tibetans are still living in TAR where they have lived in centuries. Chinese government has never forced any Tibetan to leave their land and into fragmented “reservation”. Guess which Tibetans were forced to leave their land? — the tibetans in the eastern Tibetan region now illegally occupied by the Indians.
If you ask Dalai whether the piece of Eastern Tibet belong to India or not, he would say yes. Ironicall, he won’t take back the land from India. Now 6 million Indians has filled the most fertile region of entire Tibet and the native Tibetans were overrun but Dalai won’t make a peep of it. He wouldn’t say culture genocide or Indians must leave or anything at all…
mitwildthing, thanks for that! You inspired me to do a little bit more research—the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica’s version seems to be remarkably accurate, given when it was written. (There is a reason why it’s the most famous edition.)
A few American Indian tribes kept some or most of their own territory. The Hopi and the Navajo are the most famous—but even there, the US government drew the boundary lines in ways that continue to create problems.
Will, responding to you on this issue may as well consist of “is not, is not” because you keep mixing interpretation with fact and ignoring that you’re doing so.
You keep looking for information and views that vet your view of the Dalai Lama as a lying, theocratic slave-owner: weighting any information that supports that view while forgetting any information that opposes it.
Your desire to be right is skewing your arguments. To call that “just the facts” and infer anyone who doesn’t agree is just blinded by religious bias…it’s disingenuous, my friend. And if I had thinner skin, I would consider it insulting.
After all, would you argue that it is just fine for Jewish settlers to swamp Palestine? And cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in defense of the situation? Would you argue using that logic white movement into and settling of Native territories during the 1800’s was justified?
Populations can be moved to support politics and to impede human rights. We both know it. History proves it.
And yet in order to critique the Dalai Lama, you declare that there could not be any good reason to do so and try to suggest this paints a picture of someone opposed to human rights. Then have the gall to insist it is a fact.
That’s why I’m not certain I see a point in continuing to argue with you on this subject, or bother to provide refuting facts — because you have shown in previous discussions of this issue with myself and Ted that you won’t listen to such anyways, or will spin them your own direction and act as though that’s the only/most reasonable interpretation.
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to continue when I see you being caught in an affective heuristic trap, and you think the same of anyone opposed.
I found it laughable that Dalai’s supporter uses the analogy of WMD because Dalai Lama is one of the very few supporters of the Iraq War.
MIT, I’m afraid you very much missed the point: your critique of my WMD statement makes no logical sense.
What does pointing out the problem with drinking a government’s kool-aid have to do with who supported what? Nothing whatsoever.
Your statement does not disprove the point I was making in any way, nor make it “laughable” (perhaps ironic*, but not in error).
* Assuming that we accept the statement that HHDL supports the Iraq war, which is a…contentious assertion (at best).
Raven Daegmorgan
I really don’t see your point of being logically sound. Since I work with logic in my professional life, I really hate to argue what is logically complete and what is logically sound in a blog comment.
I simply pointed out the fact that Dalai Lama supports Bush’s Iraq War. Dalai — the “Peace Prize Winner” — Lama is supposed to denounce violence (or at least this is the way I see it). However, he had not done a thing that remotely similar to that when talking about the pain and suffering of the Iraqis. I don’t blame all the death and destruction in Iraq to the American forces. Afterall, it is the Iraq factions that had done the most damage. However, the Bush’s Iraq occupation is indeed the trigger that has caused so much mayhem. And yet Dalai still stated that the Iraq situation is not clear and one should wait for the final outcome. This is pretty much in the same line as Bush’s “stay the course” attitude.
I found it amusing that people constantly calling Dalai “his holiness”. I don’t know how “holy” this person is. He has not done something to win his title of “Dalai Lama”. He is simply fortunate or unfortunate enough to have a birthday that made him a “recarnation” of the 12th Dalai Lama. If someone by birth is “Holy”, what makes the rest of the people, “unholy”?
Raven, I understand why you don’t want to refute Chinese sources. I kind of understand why you don’t want to refute Parenti. So confine yourself to my 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica post and my FAQ for conservatives. Who refutes those points with any reasonable sources? Tell me who I’m overlooking, and I’ll stop overlooking them, honest.
The movement of populations always presents problems, but I stay with the UN: it’s wrong to restrict people’s right to travel. As for Israel and Palestine, the problem wasn’t that Jews moved in. The problem was that Jewish terrorists embarked on a violent campaign to create a Jewish state, then ignored the UN repeatedly to seize more and more land. I think Israel has two realistic solutions: return to the 1967 borders, or give full rights to everyone within the borders it currently controls. Either would be an ethical solution.
mtwildthing, I’ll happily blame Bush. If you kick a bee’s nest, you’re responsible for whoever gets stung when you kick it.
And I agree with you about the Dalai Lama’s title, but it’s a religious thing for his followers, while I’m just an old-fashioned American who thinks titles are a silly affectation of people who don’t understand democracy.
It’s very hard to learn anything new when you are convinced that you are right about everything. When you see the world through that lens, words that confirm what you known to be true stand out and seem trustworthy and beautiful. Words that contradict your beliefs are hard to see. When you do see them, they seem clearly to be lies, or at best merely irrelevant.
If you truly want to make the world a better place, you need to stop criticizing others and work on improving yourself. If you can’t improve yourself, at least find someone whose work you admire and try to support it. There are already thousands of people working to make people hate and disrespect the Dalai Lama. Is this really a good use of your time?
Ted, if what he’s doing is causing harm, his actions should not be respected.
If you have sources to point to that I’ve ignored, point to them, I beg you. If I thought I was right about everything, I would’ve stopped researching this a long, long time ago. As I told Raven, feel free to ignore Chinese sources, and even critics of China like Parenti. Just show the errors in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and the sources in my FAQ for conservatives, and I’ll thank you.
MIT, if you work with logic your professional life, then surely you know which fallacy presenting “I work with logic in my professional life” as an argument is…
Here: you have confused content with context. You are telling me all about Iraq and war and the Dalai Lama’s supposed stance.
Consider, if I had said instead, “Or arguing the Jews really were the source of Germany’s problems and throwing every positive correlative link our way in defense of that notion, because what I keep seeing is political spin presented as fact” I would be making the same statement as I did using WMDs, Iraq, and the Bush administration.
How? I wasn’t talking about WMD’s, Iraq, or the Dalai Lama, I used an analogy regarding Will buying into political spin and presenting it as evidence. Responding by talking about how the Dalai Lama supports this war or that war has nothing to do with the point being made.
(Of course, replying to me about the Dalai Lama and Iraq is another logical fallacy, and since you state you know logic professionally, I’m sure you know which one it is…)
Will, I don’t know that it’s possible to point out to you what you’re ignoring given that you keep ignoring it. That’s what I’ve been trying to get across. I look at the whole Heinrich Harrer situation as an example.
If a person keeps dismissing or (re?)interpreting counter-evidence, then anyone saying, “Hey, what about this info?” doesn’t do any good. Likewise, saying, “Oh yeah, prove me wrong!” doesn’t prove you want to be proven wrong, only that you’re ready to “slap down” (instead of “consider”) the next bit of evidence that doesn’t match your desired view.
That’s why I said it’s probably best to just stop here and go our separate ways on the issue: we each believe the other is caught in an affect heuristic on the issue.
Hrm, you know: the method of the scientist and rationalist is to attempt to disprove their own theories, to find flaws and show how they were completely and totally in error. If you’re interested, I’d like to see you try and do that with your position on the Dalai Lama and the Tibet situation (go find support for the Dalai Lama’s position and efforts).
And note, none of this isn’t to say you haven’t changed my mind in any direction, you have — and you have certainly provided a wealth of interesting material to consider and correlate on the issues, for which I do honestly and sincerely thank you!
Raven, problem here is you’re the one who’s bought the spin. If the 1.2 million were killed, where’s the evidence? Go down the list of the things you claim. Where’s the evidence? You mention Harrer. If he didn’t hide the fact that he was an SS officer, that would be easy to find. Ted gave up on that claim. You should, too. Really, footnotes are your friend when you’re arguing facts. If Parenti was wrong, someone would’ve posted a point-by-point rebuttal on the web by now. Instead, they say, “He’s a leftist, and he cites leftists, so we can ignore him.”
Raven, apologies if that last note sounds brusque. Your last paragraph is all anyone should hope for in a discussion, especially when it’s about something as contentious and convoluted as this. So, on to the next discussion!
Not a problem, Will.
But are you sure Ted gave up because he was wrong or because he felt he wasn’t being heard? I know I’ve given up on many discussions where the opposition went away thinking I’d given up because I couldn’t prove my point, when I left thinking I did prove it but was clearly not being listened to.
I think Ted’s response at #15 above speaks to this whole discussion and the feeling held by those arguing with you on this issue, while your response above at #2 says the same thing from your perspective and your feelings in that respect.
Which is what I said as well: it is difficult to hold a discussion with someone when you each believe the other is caught by an affect heuristic, being “clearly illogical” and “not paying attention to the facts”. In fact, you can’t really hold a discussion in that situation (ex: “You brought the spin.” “No, you did.”)
So, I agree: on to the next subject!
Raven, that’s yet another post in which you don’t cite a useful source. Ted’s been doing the same thing. The only link he offered that I don’t remember addressing was one where the Dalai Lama seemed to be equivocating on whether he had been wishy-washy on whether the Iraq War was bad. That didn’t seem worth addressing.
Proving Harrer hadn’t hidden being in the SS would be easy, if it was true. All you have to do is say which page to look at of which of Harrer’s books published before he was exposed. Or at which magazine article. Ain’t no one done it yet.
Nothing wrong with you believing unsubstantiated things, of course. But please quit saying I’m ignoring things that no one’s offered.
Obviously, Will, my actual point is not getting across. You keep defending the things you say as unrefuted facts, when that is the very issue.
Nevermind.
And you miss mine: to refute something substantively, you have to offer substance.
Which is the problem, Will. Your decision on what you accept as substantative. I can claim, “Hey, the sky is made of permeable cheese” and then slap down any arguments to the contrary with “Bring me a piece of the sky! Why can’t anyone just do that? Huh? Prove me wrong!”
And round we go…
Raven, in that case, I would offer you a link to NASA. If you’ve got anything to refute what I found in my Tibet post for conservatives or in the one for critics of conservatives, offer it. Of if you don’t believe the world is real and all beliefs are equally valid, please stop quibbling with people who are reality-based—we do privilege science and history.
Will & Mit, I agree with both of you. The research by both of you have been an eye opender. Dalai Lama is a true liar and a hypocrate. Today he preaches his so called peace in Austrlia by charging people A$800 a session. And he also endorsed Sharon Stone’s “Karma” remarks regarding China’s Quake, even Sharon Stone have apologise on her statement. If Dalai Lama is not going against China today, with the help and assistent from CIA & previous US goverment, he will be nobody but an ordinary monk.
Azmi, to be fair about Sharon Stone’s comment, he waffled: “Tragedy in Tibet, tragedy in Burma (Myanmar), tragedy in China, all this is karmic … but her particular sort of comment — that I don’t know.” He has a habit of saying he doesn’t know things when he wants to evade a tough question.
Will, thanks for pointing that out. Have you read about Selling Tibet to the World
By Michael Backman
The Age
June 5, 2008
The link as follows:
http://www.michaelbackman.com/NewColumn.html
I particulary wants to know about your thoughts on that.
Regards.
The third chapter of the Abhidharmakosha, which is accepted by all Buddhist sects with the possible exception of some American Zen practitioners, begins thusly: “deeds make the multitude of worlds.” In other words, there is nothing that you ever experience that is not coming from your karma.
The problem with Sharon Stone’s statement is that when something bad happens, saying “oh well, that’s just their karma” isn’t very helpful, is it? It’s almost like a way to forget about the suffering that exists in the world - “it’s just karma.”
What Buddhists believe is that the fact that every single bit of our experience comes from our past actions means that we have the power to entirely eliminate suffering - this is the third of the famous four noble truths (the truth of suffering, which we just discussed, is the first).
So given that what Ms. Stone said was factually accurate (according to Buddhism) and yet at the same time seemingly neither useful nor kind, what should he have said instead, when asked that particular question?
Oh, in answer to Raven’s question, above, I haven’t given anything up, but I’m not wasting a lot of time here, because I think a reasonable person reading this thread has the information they need to gain the understanding I need, and it’s pretty clear that no matter what I say to Will, he is going to stick to his guns and insist that the Dalai Lama is an evil waffling former slave-owner who wants nothing more than to restore Tibet to its former feudal state so that he can once again lord it up over the slaves. He’s spent his life teaching Dharma because that will get people to feel sympathetic toward him, thus allowing him to regain power and regain his slaves. He spends most of his time traveling the world, teaching Dharma to people like me who quite happily pay $100/head to get into his teachings (compare this to the
(oops)
I guess I didn’t really need to finish that rant.
Ted, check the url in 29 and also will’s website today regarding “selling tibet”. Dalai lama’s lie is coming out and there is nothing you can do to hide it. If he says he is just a religious leader, why he keep on talking about politics when & wherever he goes.
Ted, man, I am sorry you didn’t get to finish the rant! I know how frustrating that can be!
I don’t think the Dalai Lama wants to restore slavery. I think he’s exactly like the rich Cubans who left Cuba: he wants to go back and be richer than he is now. The economic pyramid’s nature can change, but people like him don’t mind so long as they’re at its top.
I confess, I’m a bit frustrated with rich liberals who like theologies of privilege just now, so when I look at the Dalai Lama assuring rich people that if they give money to him, their karma will be fine, I have less sympathy for him than I might tomorrow. He’s got hard karma.
Azmi, don’t come down hard on Ted. He and I disagree about the Dalai Lama, but Ted’s a good guy.
Sorry Ted, dont mean hard on you.
I just feel frustrated about the one sided world news coverage about dalai lama and his followers.
Azmi, thanks for adding that. I share your frustration. People take sides, and then it becomes much harder to find the truth. I do that, too. I have to keep reminding myself that we all make mistakes, so the truth isn’t going to be entirely on anyone’s side.
Azmi, what do you think people ask him about? If you were in the room with him, and had a chance to ask him a question, you’d probably ask him one of the questions you’re raising here, wouldn’t you? And that’d be about politics, wouldn’t it?
His Holiness rarely if ever talks about politics at his teachings. The most political thing I can recall him saying is “if you are Chinese and need a translation, please ask for a headset.” You also see signs in Chinese that I assume say the same thing.
But when people interview him, they want to know about Tibet and China, not about Buddhism. And being a good Buddhist, he answers the questions they ask - he has a vow to do so, and I’m sure he takes his vows seriously.
If you look at his books, I think that you will find that whatever politics is in them is less than a single percent of the entirety of his writing. Every book of his that I have ever read is strictly about Buddhist practice, and they are academically rigorous and carefully thought out.
I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m not listening to you. I know that the Chinese feel that His Holiness is a bad person, and that he’s responsible for a lot of the problems in Tibet. But I actually have seen him speak, and I have read his books. And I’ve also seen people speak as if they were speaking for him, and say things that I do not think he approved.
And so it’s very difficult for me to reconcile the experience I have of him personally with the Chinese experience. Please don’t take this to mean that I disrespect the Chinese experience. It’s just not the same as my experience.
This is very frustrating because I think a Chinese person reading what I say might think that for example I support violent protests, or something like that, or that I think that the Chinese must withdraw from Tibet. But I don’t care whether the Chinese withdraw from Tibet. What I care about is that the people of Tibet are happy, that the people of China are happy, and that the Tibetan culture I need, as a Buddhist, is not lost.
Ted, what you said does make sense to me. I also think there might be some goodness in him. But can you rationalize the reason why he accept CIA’s funding during he was in exile? Which CIA is into spying etc. Also his support on Iraq war by US? Before this I thought he is a good monk, but recent incidents “the distruption of torch relay” and go around the world telling Chinese government what to do, is’nt a bit out of place? You may argue the distruption does not instruct by him, but those people are using his name during protesting the torch relay, and he did not deny it, or at least condemn those using his name during the distruption of the torch.
I don’t know that he did accept CIA funding while in exile. I haven’t seen any evidence to support that claim.
He didn’t support the war in Iraq. That’s pretty clear if you read what he said that’s interpreted as support (it’s not) and then read what he said the next day when the New York Times misquoted him (it’s pretty clearly anti-war) and also read what he said before the war started (that it couldn’t work).
And when the violence started in Tibet during the torch run, he threatened to resign from the government in exile if the violence didn’t stop. And of course the people who disrupted the torch relay were not part of the Dalai Lama’s group, or acting under his direction.
But it’s easy to attribute anything done in the name of a free Tibet to the Dalai Lama, because he’s the nominal leader of the government in exile. Do remember though that the government in exile is actually a democracy, so he’s the leader in much the same way that the queen of England is the leader of the British government.
The Dalai Lama isn’t an ordinary monk. But if he’s an agent provocateur, he’s playing a very subtle game.
Will, I missed this when you posted it, and I’m rather glad I did: please stop quibbling with people who are reality-based—we do privilege science and history.
Well, that was…
…let me put it this way: if your nose had been any higher in that sentence, I think you would have done a backflip.
And I really don’t get all these what seem to be subtle jabs about my supposedly being a conservative — simply because I don’t agree with you about the Dalai Lama, and because I think you’re being a blinder-wearing dink and outright ignoring reasonable counter-evidence/argument that has been presented to you on the subject.
Ok, I could have phrased that more politely, but despite liking you, I’m not feeling charitable right now.
Hel’s skirt, you’re starting to sound like a self-assured atheist confidently swatting down everything “those stupid thesists” argue, right or wrong.
And I’m being honest here, not trying to be insulting: from where I sit, you sound and are acting just like Richard Dawkins when anyone tries to point out the flaws with his anti-theism rants: he just shouts the claimed logical superiority of his position louder.
I keep trying to point it out. Ted has tried to point it out. But you’re so firmly set on being right that you’ve taken to arguing from claims of holding the moral high ground (of fact/reason/reality). Yet:
“Bring me the facts!” you demand.
“Here’s the facts!” someone else says.
“Bring me the facts!” you demand in response.
“I JUST DID!” the opposition argues.
“If you had, I wouldn’t need the facts.” you smugly state.
-or-
“Prove the sky is not cheese!”
“NASA says the sky is not cheese!”
“Invalid! You haven’t gone yourself!”
That’s overly simplistic and not what happened here exactly, but it has the virtue of being simple and close enough to the point to be clear. There’s no winning such an argument, with or without facts, because the questioner keeps moving the goalposts and ignoring the valid counter-points that are raised, refusing to even acknowledge flaws in his own position or biases in his understanding.
BTW, I should correct myself on the CIA funding thing. I don’t know whether or not he took CIA funding. If he took CIA funding with strings attached that required him to do something wrong, I would say that was a mistake.
However, if someone offers you free money with no strings attached, and you take it, I don’t think that’s a mistake, particularly if there are people to whom you are responsible who need the money.
And the CIA, in addition to assassinating various people, trafficking in arms, and trafficking in drugs and money, also sometimes provides funds to groups they favor with no strings attached, perhaps for reasons of propaganda, perhaps because it’s part of some strategy, or perhaps because some CIA operative who is sympathetic to the recipients figures out a way to make it look like a good idea to the people who controlled the purse strings at the time, even though there was really no strategic value to doing it.
So if the Dalai Lama accepted money like that, I really don’t have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is people who accept money from the CIA and then do evil with it.
I realize that this probably sounds a bit weird, because there is an appearance of impropriety here. But in the middle of a crisis, when people are dying and have no shelter, a righteous person does what he or she must, despite appearances.
Ted, you seem to have forgotten that the piece you cite where he clarified things was from 2003, but as late as 2005, he was still saying that we couldn’t know if the war was good. Check your dates.
And the CIA has admitted they were funding him. That’s easy to find.
The government in exile is a curious sort of democracy. Not all of the positions are elected, last I heard.
I don’t know how meaningful his threat to resign his political power was, but I do agree that the violence was greater than the planners expected.
Raven, I do get frustrated sometimes with people who aren’t reality-based. Now, I admit, I’m not always reality-based either; no one is always reality based. My faith in some possibilities for the future do not have precedent, just as democracy did not have precedent when it was first tried.
And I really am waiting for countering facts. The proper place to put them would be on one of my two Tibet faqs, the one for the left here or the one for the right here, because those are where I put the evidence I found most convincing.
Ted, the CIA doesn’t give money unless they think it will promote their agenda. And it’s a scary agenda–NED, a CIA front, was funding a coup to overthrow a democracy just a couple of years ago.
You do remember that the revolution in the ’50s was begun by Tibet’s slaveowners? They’re the ones responsible for people dying and having no shelter.
No, I don’t remember that the revolution in the ’50’s was begun by Tibet’s slaveowners. I wasn’t there, and neither were you, so how could I remember any such thing? You’ve made assertions about Tibet and slaveowners, but I don’t remember you making this particular assertion.
Why is it that you think the CIA is evil and a bad influence, and yet you trust their word implicitly when it comes to their involvement with the Dalai Lama? And do you really think that they are so perfectly evil that they can’t support a good cause even by accident?
Here’s an article from 2006 where the Dalai Lama talks about his position on Iraq (as well as a number of other issues you’ve touched on): http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0106
It is odd the way he speaks of the war in Iraq. The first thing he says is that only nonviolent solutions will work. Then, when pressed on whether the war in Iraq is justified, he gives an odd answer - he says that we don’t know yet.
My interpretation of this, which I freely admit is pure supposition, is that he is using the word “justified” in the sense of outcomes - in terms of the notion that the ends justify the means. In that context, since we don’t yet know the ends, we can’t say whether or not the means were justified.
But the fact that he doesn’t just say it’s a bad question is weird. The notion that the ends justify the means is disparaged by Buddhism, because in Buddhist terms the means and the ends are not connected; if you get a good result, it’s from some past good action you took, not from some apparent cause that was harmful.
So I can see why you draw the conclusion you do. But at least be careful with your terminology. He isn’t talking about whether or not the war in Iraq is “good.”
I don’t really know anything about the structure of the Tibetan government in exile, other than that it’s claimed to be democratic. Personally it’s a matter of nothing more than curiosity to me, since I don’t think the Tibetan government in exile will ever have any position of authority in Tibet, and I don’t think the Dalai Lama thinks it will either.
BTW, I think the traditions and mythology of Tibet would make a *fascinating* context for science fiction or fantasy writing, particularly in the context of a Tibetan people in exile. The only problem is that I think you will find it hard to get much detail to use, so you’ll have to make up a lot. Another reason to read Alexandra David-Neel’s book - it’s a very good source for that kind of stuff.
Oh, here’s another intersting (and a bit shorter) article you might want to read, from 2005: http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/11/7/dalaiLamaVisitsStanford
Ted, the Dalai Lama’s own people have admitted it. I’ve linked to this information before. From the NY Times: World News Briefs; Dalai Lama Group Says It Got Money From C.I.A..
This is stuff you really should know.
As for the revolution in Tibet, the Chinese came in and slowly began the process of freeing the slaves–every account I’ve seen says the Chinese allowed the slaveowners enormous autonomy initially–but then then the fighting began. Naturally enough, the Tibetan side is very vague about what happened and why; they only focus on the end of it.
They’re also fond of talking about monasteries being attacked, and don’t note that the monks had weapons and were fighting from the monasteries. As you’ve said yourself, Tibetan Buddhists are not what most of us mean by pacifists.
I don’t believe the CIA thinks in terms of good and evil. They think in terms of promoting the US empire.
As for the Dalai Lama, so long as he’s playing political games with China, he has to be judged as a politician first and a religious leader second, at least so far as his pronouncements on international affairs goes.
But you may’ve hit a reason to make me read David-Neel!
Actually, I think I have just realized why the Dalai Lama’s administration would have taken money from the CIA, and would willingly have used it to pay for a completely hopeless resistance. The way Tibetans think about life and death, and about karma, is really very different than the way we do. I don’t think I can explain it to you, unfortunately.
But in any case I withdraw my assertion that the Dalai Lama could not have been involved in this, because now I see how he could have been. It’s even explained in the movie you so vehemently insist on not seeing.
Hm, BTW, your theory about the causes of the Chinese invasion of Tibet is not impossible, and I would not argue that you are mistaken, although I don’t know that you are correct either. I simply don’t know enough about that time, and as you say that may be a result of Tibetans being cagey about that time in their history.
It’s certainly the case that I do think things were very badly broken in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. This is pretty clear in reading David-Neel’s books and Harrer’s books, as well as what other sources I have access to. I know of no legitimate source who argues that things were uniformly good in Tibet, although Harrer does report much that he personally thought was good, and so does David-Neel.
What I tend to dispute with you is your assertion that this situation persisted with the Dalai Lama’s assent, as opposed to existing despite his best efforts to stop it.
As with Sharon Stone’s remarks, I see what happened in Tibet as the clear result of negative karma, and the karmic patterns that led up to it aren’t hard to see either. But as is the case with her remarks, that observation isn’t very useful. What matters now is the happiness of the survivors, and the preservation of the real Buddhist tradition that Tibet has brought to us, which doesn’t involve monks carrying guns.
To narcissistically cycle things back to the topic of /my/ blog, in a fair world people who willingly owned and abused slaves would be punished for it, but I have no stomach for that. If that’s what you want to do with your life, you will do it without my help. What I want is just for the slaves themselves to be genuinely free.
I’ll let the rest go, because it’s agree-to-disagree time again, but I’ll make one note: in a fair world, no one would be punished. Punishment only makes the punisher feel good. It doesn’t change the person who is punished, and it doesn’t undo what they did.
Yes, some crazy people would be kept under watch for safety’s sake, but that’s very different than punishing anyone.
Given the popularity of retribution in the world, I would have to say that your definition of “fair” is not shared by the majority of humanity.
That’s why rather than changing the definition of “fair,” I would like to point out the problems with the idea of fairness as most people see it. I think that the idea of fairness is fairly deeply ingrained in the human psyche, and the atrocities it leads to are the chief cause of human suffering.
One example of this is the one you always decry - that rich people won’t share. When you bring this up, the usual objection that’s brought up is that it’s not fair that rich people should have to support the poor - they should support themselves.
By discrediting fairness as a valid ethical system, I think we do more to create a good society than we do if we try to come up with a better idea of what fair is. Our idea, no matter how much better it may be, is attached to the same word. So when we then promote it, we wind up promoting the very thing we are trying to change.
Who’s talking about the rich supporting the poor? The poor have always supported the rich. We’re just talking about ending the support.
When you advance the argument that wealthy people should share their wealth with poor people, the wealthy people say “but that isn’t fair!” It doesn’t matter whether or not *you* think it’s fair. You’ve already lost the argument, unless you’re willing to resort to force.
So my point is that it’s better to break that rhetorical weapon than it is to argue endlessly about what *is* fair. Fairness isn’t a good metric for how we ought to act.
I’ve tentatively given up on convincing rich people. They’re addicted to their things, and I completely understand why. We need to use democracy to do an end run around them. And that’s why the terms matter: the poor need to realize that when the rich say silly things about being self-made and deserving to be rich, it’s only rationalization and a blindness to reality.
Now you’re talking.
Just found something in the web regarding DD,
http://pinewooddesign.co.uk/2008/04/10/dalai-lama-or-dalai-liar/
Azmi, I mean no disrespect when I say this, because I know you did not create that web site. But when someone seeks to prove something about someone else, and they begin by calling the other person a bad name, it makes them seem like they are calling names, and just don’t like the other person. So that site might be satisfying for you, because you already believe the conclusion, but for someone who does not, it just sounds stupid.
Also, Buddhists do use implements made of human bone, but they do not kill people to get them. The purpose of using these implements is to remind ourselves of the nature of our bodies. My brain is encased in a skull bone. The ultimate fate of that skull bone is, at best, to be useful for someone to drink out of.
I do not possess any such implements, but I was once offered a drink out of a cup made of a human skull. It was impossible not to think of the person who once possessed the skull, and what happened to them. It’s a very powerful practice, and there’s nothing pleasant about it.
Ted, I agreed with you on the calling name issues, I think is wrong also. However, can you look into the content of the web rather than others? I would like to know your thoughts on this.
It’s just the same old stuff. Personally I don’t care if the number of dead in Tibet is 1.2 million or 800,000, for example. That’s still awful. And the drums of human skin is just taking a kind of scary but very legitimate practice out of context - nobody was killed to make a drum like that.
The fact is that these are all just allegations. I wasn’t there in 1950, I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t even born until fifteen years later. So I pay attention to what the Dalai Lama has written, what he’s doing now, which can easily be observed, and what he’s said and how he’s acted when I’ve seen him in person.
So when someone on a web site says something about him, what am I supposed to do?
For example, I got my real introduction to Buddhism from Sogyel Rinpoche. He’s a Nyingma. I never took him as a Lama, but without his book, I would never have met my Lama. And his book was really incredible.
So imagine how I felt when I read in the New York Times that he’d been accused of sexual abuse of his female students, and read lurid stories about the form that abuse took. It was very disheartening.
Years go by, the story dies off. Why? Was it untrue? Was it covered up? I don’t know. What I do know is that without Sogyel Rinpoche, my life would be very different. It would have been very bad for me if I hadn’t read Sogyel Rinpoche’s book.
So for me, Sogyel Rinpoche is a hero. The New York Times printed a horrible story about him, which to this day I have never seen corroborated. So when I see a web site saying horrible things about a Lama, or even a story in the New York Times, I don’t take it very seriously if it doesn’t match my own experience of that Lama.
I think it’s better to trust what we see with our own eyes, and hear with our own ears, than to believe someone when they tell us something bad about someone else.
Ted, the ‘what you see and hear’ theory suggests you should quit repeating the claims of the Dalai Lama’s side. You haven’t seen those things.
I also would like to think that for all your philosophy here, if you had a daughter, you would hesitate to entrust her with someone who had been reported to have been abusing his female students.
Last, it is very likely that some of those things made from human beings were made from people who were executed. Old Tibet was a very brutal place.
I’ve seen and heard the Dalai Lama. I’ve read his writing. These are personal experiences. So I have some basis for assuming that he isn’t lying to me. I know other Tibetans whom I have reason to trust. And I know their stories.
Much of what the Chinese government and the Red Army did during the cultural revolution is well documented. And the Chinese government still doesn’t like to talk about it. So, do I trust what they say? Not as much. Trust has a basis - it’s not something conferred upon someone on a whim.
If I had a daughter, I’d teach her to think for herself, and to defend herself. The allegations were never about use of force; rather, they were about an uncomfortable situation that seemed inappropriate. So I’d hope that if I were raising a daughter, I’d raise her in such a way that she’d be able to say “hey, I’m not okay with this, I’m out of here.”
Gary Gilmore donated his retinae when he was executed so that someone could benefit from them. Executing him was wrong. Does that mean that the person who got his retinae is a bad person?
We have no reason to assume that prisoners were executed and their skin used in the way you describe. I don’t even know if drums of the type described on the aforementioned web site exist. But if they do, there’s no reason to assume that they were created in the way you suggest.
So then why make a suggestion about a hypothetical object based on an unsubstantiated theory, when that suggestion serves to make a person otherwise thought to be a good person look like an evil person? That’s just malicious gossip.
It’s possible that the Dalai Lama was raised a cannibal and still eats human flesh. It could be that Tibetan refugees are executed even today in Dharamsala to feed his appetite, and that his staff hunts the homeless when he is visiting foreign countries like the U.S. I certainly can’t prove that this is not true. Someone could put it up on a web site tomorrow. Does that mean that I should believe it? That I should keep my daughter from seeing the Dalai Lama because she might wind up on his dinner table?
Ted, the facts are against you. Whether the Dalai Lama is lying or wildly mistaken, his numbers are impossible. Even if they were 800,000, we would know where the killing fields are, just as we know where they were in Cambodia. You cannot hide that kind of slaughter in the 20th century.
Of course we make what good we can of a bad situation. But the Dalai Lama continues to make the situation with China worse when he repeats what are wild exaggerations or lies.
You claimed flatly, “nobody was killed to make a drum like that.” We know that people were killed brutally, for minor reasons, in Old Tibet. If you know that sacred objects were only made from human volunteers, say so.
Ted, I think you have sentimental feelings to Dalai Lama as you said he change your life to become a good buddhist today, which I respect that. But where he obtain the knowledge from? DD is merely a messenger/teacher for Buddha’s teaching. There is one teaching in buddhism that says “follow the teaching/darma not the people” cause people will always make mistake. We should admire Buddha (and the teaching ) itself rather than admiring DD.
About you saying what chinese red army did during cultural revolution is well documented (I agree) but so does DD. What he did & what happen in Tibet before 1950s is also documented in the encycopedia/scholars article/witnesses(CIA etc) which we can’t deny.
Even today nobody (not even the chinese goverment) can openly proclaimed what red army did was right at that time, and they will face the fruits of history judgement.
I don’t see DD will be inmune from that.
No, Will. You think the facts are against me. At least be honest.
BTW, I’ve unsubscribed to your blog in my RSS reader, and won’t be reading any response you may come up with. This debate has gotten to the point where I can’t see any redeeming value in it, but when you keep asserting absurdity after absurdity, I can’t stop myself from responding, and it’s clear that you’re going to keep this up until I shut up.
Good luck saving the world.
I don’t think what we have put there is absurdity but truth; al though I don’t want to believe you are giving up because you are losing the argument, but it seems truth prevails, good luck to you too.
Ted, I understand your frustration, but after all my reading, I haven’t found any reputable sources to contradict Michael Parenti’s conclusions in Friendly Feudalism.
Good reading material Will! So now we know the title “Dalai Lama” were awarded by chinese, originally.
Check the latest news regarding Tibet & DD,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/22/content_8414584.htm