If "His Holiness" is a "simple monk", why does it cost $400 to sit in the audience of one of his talks?
If he never says anything that you disagree with, perhaps he's only saying things that virtually everybody agrees with. What then, is the point of his lectures and such?
If his only religion is kindness, why does he consider himself to be worthy of the title "His Holiness", "Your Holiness", etc.?
Tibetan Buddhists monks taught their subjects that each Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of a god known as Avalokiteshvara. If the Dalai Lama is indeed a kind, intelligent man, would it not be best if he disavowed such superstition and ignorance, rather than claiming that he doesn't know whether it is true that he is a god? He has avoided the truth his entire life since the monks who ran Tibet took him from his parents. The Tibetan Buddhist clergymen raised him under highly privileged conditions as the 14th Dalai Lama. His predecessors, and him as well if the Chinese had not intervened, were leaders of regimes that are known for having imposed tremendous oppression, ignorance, extreme injustices, abject poverty, lack of medicine or science, cruelty, mutilation, amputations, executions, short life spans, slave trading, and other horrors on the people of Tibet.
From Sept 20, 2019, Daily Mail:
EXCLUSIVE: Dalai Lama was paid $1 MILLION to endorse women-branding 'sex cult' after secret deal between Buddhist's celibate U.S. emissary and his Seagram billionaire 'lover'
- Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama was linked to NXIVM, the controversial self-help organization described by former members as a 'sex cult'
- He spoke at an event in Albany, New York, in 2009 and put a Tibetan scarf round the neck of its founder Keith Raniere in what was said to be a 'victory' for NXIVM
- DailyMail.com can disclose the Dalai Lama was given $1 million to spend on causes he backs in return for attending the function
- The deal to get him to go was made by Sara Bronfman, a billionaire heiress to the Seagram fortune, and Lama Tenzin Dhonden, head of the Dalal Lama's U.S trust
- But Bronfman and Lama Tenzin face claims they were lovers, even though the Buddhist cleric took a vow of chastity
- NVIVM hailed the Dalai Lama's visit but it is now being hit by claims founder Raniere runs it as a sex cult with a 'harem' of women
- The women are branded, call him 'Vanguard' and believe that sleeping with Raniere, 57, will heal them, according to claims made about NXIVM
- Raniere denies it is a sex cult but neither NXIVM or the Dalai Lama's office addressed the latest allegations
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5230067/Dalai-Lamas-1-MILLION-women-branding-sex-cult.html
This is the cult that "His Holiness" was paid ONE MILLION DOLLARS to endorse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NXIVM
All interesting information. None of it is something that is new to me though.
This is an interesting read of an interview with the Dalai Lama. Keep in mind that it is on his website and they had plenty of time to parse the responses:
https://www.dalailama.com/the-dalai-lama/biography-and-daily-life/questions-answers
What is interesting to me about reading this interview is how deeply programmed the Dalai Lama was as a child. He was discovered by the monks charged with finding the new Dalai Lama at age 2 and by age 4 he was installed as the Dalai Lama. Thus from age 2 the programming began and by age 4 he had been given by his parents to the lamas and under the programming of the religious authorities 24/7. One can maybe find why the Dalai Lama is the way he is from that level of immersion in religious programming. One might even see how his life experience since leaving Tibet in exile at age 24 thus forced him to take charge of his life and face a reality in the outside world that might have produced what I would say is quite a liberal outlook compared to what his programming was and what other religious leaders believe and say today.
On the Daily Mail: In the USA one has to be very careful on what sources one is reading to understand their biases (I have read that is true in the UK as well). We in the USA have right wing and left wing publications/TV networks and Radio networks not to mention the Internet, that are close to propaganda machines that are believed by the millions. The New York Times (left of center) and the Wall Street Journal (right of center) both are now exhibiting bias in their news stories (not just on their editorial pages and in opinion pieces) regularly which was not something one would see in the past. As a result I always check on the bias of a publication and consider that in their writing. I use this site to check on their bias rating on publications although there are others:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com:
Here is what they say about the Daily Mail:
"A questionable source exhibits
one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the
deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence. Sources listed in the Questionable Category
may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list
are not considered
fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source."
Now of course there is another side or more nuanced parsing of the story about the NIXIVM story see these two websites here:
Fact Checking Nxivm Stories: Did the Dalai Lama Endorse Keith Raniere and Nxivm?
The Real Story Behind The Dalai Lama's Puzzling NXIVM Entanglement
I figure he allows himself to be call "His Holiness" for some of the same reasons people allow people to call religious leaders such things as:
Pope: Pope (Regnal Name); His Holiness; Your Holiness;
Holy Father. Patriarch of an autonomous/particular church: Patriarch (Given Name); His Beatitude; Your Beatitude. Cardinal: (First Name) Cardinal (Last Name); His Eminence; Your Eminence.
It is a social convention used around the world in every culture. See more on:
Ecclesiastical Titles and Styles
Personally, I am into dialogue about things like religion and politics. There is a famous fellow in the USA but maybe not in the UK, now passed away, that wrote this:
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood." — Stephen Covey.
I personally don't think confrontation and speaking/writing in ways that might inflame or offend religious people's emotions is helpful to anyone. Then I could be totally wrong about that. I can understand how some people would do that since they may:
1. Have a high need to be right while making the other person wrong (right/wrong divides people though).
2. Have a need to dominate.
3. Like to argue (so they can be right and/or dominate or maybe they just find it fun to argue... I do not... dialogue yes, argue no).
4. Enjoy trolling people so they can see them being upset.
5. Maybe they are angry about how they were treated by religious authorities, institutions or their families in the past or currently.
6. Then, maybe it is their way of trying to help others to release themselves from the religious beliefs that have them although I don't get it will turn out well myself.
7. Maybe there are other reasons I have not thought about.
Well, bottom line the Dalai Lama is human. I am sure he has made mistakes and said dumb things. Even he has apologized for some of his humanness and having said dumb things.
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