Power of Dalai Lama

[Heartspoon]

Damned, wrong again ... Will I ever get it right...

No, you see one of my brightest neighbours explained it to me.
Nothing is wrong with his mother's practice. Everything is fine.
It's just that recognition of the practice is a bit slow.

But nothing to worry about, this powerful, wise and compassionate
neighbour is so resourceful. He had this wonderful idea to simply
bad mouth his mother, banish her, deprive her of any resources,
leave her destitute in fact.

This way, you see,  setting such an admirable example of behaviour would
inevitably attract a lot of publicity and everyone would so quickly hear of
this wonderful practice.

And the powerful, wise and compassionate neighbour will inspire so many
other wise and compassionate beings to practice in this way with this clever idea.

I know, it seems so strange at first sight, but once your karmic obscurations
are dealt with, how wonderful a sight ...

[Heartspoon]

Last visit - The politician

Today, I had the incredible luck to meet with him. I mean I met with the politician we nickname "Kissinger".
He alone has got it all right he told me. It has everything to do with the "realpolitik", you know...

The Chinese market is big, so big... Nowhere will you find so many beings. And our neighbour is so wise,
rich and powerful... He can only dream of doing business with them.

But wait a minute, I told him:  how could you ever think they will do business together, our neighbour is so
"Tibetan" in his ways...

He answered: don't worry, you will understand at the end of this "illusory play" of "realpolitik".
The Chinese will help the enemies of their perceived enemy...

So, our wise neighbour plays a clever gambit: it's like in chess, you know, if you sacrifice only one of your pawns  to gain one queen, you have such an incredible deal. And if the sacrifice is only "illusory" you see what I mean.

Of course, one had better to avoid mate in the meantime, we can't afford to lose the King in this game.

So please, don't tell anyone. You know, they are so suspicious those Chinese. We have to be very very careful not to spoil everything...

Poor mother, I thought

[DSFriend]

It is the same crowd that we will tell them that Dorje Shugden is not an evil spirit through this website.

Thank you Dalai Lama for leading them to this direction.

Whatever your intention is, you have made Dorje Shugden very well known.

ahh...couldn't have said it better! I find so much hope and spaciousness with this view.

[Heartspoon]

Today, I met the outspoken beggar

Spoken frankly, I could barely sleep last night: this story of the neighbour chasing away his old mother kept me awake.
I was in great need of some fresh air, so I went for a little walk in the woods.

And I met a "legend": the outspoken beggar. I heard countless tales about his unbelievable sagacity.
When he asked me what made me look so worried, I told him everything:

- how the rich, powerful, much admired neighbour chased away his mother;
- what a fool I was to think it was because she disagreed with his Buddhist beliefs;
- how wrong again I was when I thought that the neighbour saw how her practice was wrong;
- how the clever man told me that it was all about recognition of the practice;
- and finally the "realpolitik" lesson of the politician we nickname "Kissinger.

The outspoken beggar laughed out loud: so many years of learning Buddhism and so ignorant...

[Heartspoon]

The oustpoken beggar speaks his mind

Your rich, powerful and much admired neighbour is an enlightened being.
His life is like that: 21'000 breathings in the day, Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
He helps countless beings in innumerable ways. I have not much time today, so I will
just give you a very succinct explanation:

Most Westerners, they are more Buddhists than disciples
Most Tibetans, they are more disciples than Buddhists

[Vajraprotector]

Let's see what "outside" people are saying about the Dalai Lama recently.

Please click the link to read the whole article as I've only included some excerpts below: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/faith/the-dalai-lama-a-very-earthly-representative-2134033.html

The Independent UK
Monday, 15 November 2010


The Dalai Lama: A very earthly representative
For 60 years, the Dalai Lama has been a spiritual leader and an emblem of dispossession. He's also appeared in adverts, charmed celebrities and gained a million followers on Twitter. John Walsh charts the virtues and vices of a thoroughly modern monk

He is, without any doubt, the only incarnation of the Buddha who has ever guest-edited Vogue Paris.

He's the only spiritual leader of millions who has ever flogged a 1966 Land Rover on eBay and appeared in an advertisement for Apple. He is probably the only Nobel Prize winner on the planet who has Sharon Stone and Richard Gere on speed-dial. He must be the only "simple Buddhist monk" (his description) who sends daily bromides to a million followers on Twitter. Nobody in the world so bizarrely conjoins the spiritual and the material, the sublime and the ridiculous, dangerous politics and trivial celebrity, as the 14th Dalai Lama.

Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of his accession to the title, which means "Ocean of Wisdom" (the full version is Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, which translates as "Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate, Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom"). To almost all Tibetans, even those who criticise his stance over China, he is an object of reverence. But to many in the West he is a sneaky diplomatic strategist, a star-struck terrestrial and a turncoat Buddhist. To Rupert Murdoch, he could be "a very political old monk, shuffling about in Gucci shoes". As we shall see, there's a considerable list of complaints levelled against him. But after 60 years as a human bridge between East and West, do his virtues outweigh his shortcomings?

.......

All of which must make us ask: is the Dalai Lama a bad guy? Or is he merely a disappointment to many people who wish he were something he isn't?

Pico Iyer, in his 2008 biography, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, writes that his subject is the victim of Western preconceptions about Tibet as the heavenly Shangri-La depicted in James Hilton's 1930s novel Lost Horizon.

The West would like Tibet to remain a prelapsarian, pre-modern place of innocent happiness, and the Dalai Lama to be the kind of divine princeling depicted in the films Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet. They would rather not hear the princeling criticise the barbaric feudal system in which he grew up, or listen to his conviction that a modern Tibet needs to be grafted to a modern China to become a strong economic unit, rather than a Black Narcissus fantasy.

To the Chinese he is a "separatist", a "splitter", a troublesome demagogue to whom Mao Tse-tung once bluntly said: "Religion is a poison".

To Tibetans he is a beloved leader, but one who sucks up to the West and is seen as weak by the Chinese.

To Buddhists, he is a bringer of confusion rather than enlightenment, and an intimate of Hollywood nincompoops such as Steven Seagal.

To conspiracy theorists, he is a shady customer, a Marxist sympathiser, a recipient of CIA dollars.

But there is something entirely heartening about the way he moves through this cacophony of disapproval with Zen-like calm, recommending mutual understanding, global unity, decent compromise. He's the boy from the Tibetan backwoods who found himself sitting on a golden throne, only to lose it for exile in the mountains and a life of fame and celebrity in the West – a man from an elderly fairy tale, losing his home, finding a new one on the other side of the world, and refusing to wallow in the past.

"In Tibet," writes Pico Iyer, "the Dalai Lama was an embodiment of an old culture that, cut off from the world, spoke for an ancient, even lost, traditionalism. Now, in exile, he is an avatar of the new, as if, having travelled eight centuries in five decades, he is increasingly, with characteristic directness, leaning in, toward tomorrow."


My opinion is, it's very difficult being in His Holiness' position. He has many roles to play and it's difficult to please all the parties, but I personally respect His Holiness for what he has contributed and I choose to see him for the positive influence and changes he has brought to the world.  What about you?

[Heartspoon]

Shamkarapati's "Praise of the Supra-Divine (Devatishayastotra) says:

I am not a partisan of Buddha,
I do not hate Kapila and the others,
I hold as a teacher only
Him whose word possesses reason.

"You should forsake partisanship and hatred for the systems of your own and others' teachers and analyse
which of them provide good and bad explanations. Then, you should adopt only that which shows the means
of attaining the two aims of trainees (high status within cyclic existence and the definite goodness of liberation
and omniscience) and provides correct proofs. The scriptures of the two systems are what are to be analysed
to find which does or does not bear the truth; thus it would not be suitable to cite them as a proof (of their
own truth). Only reasoning distinguishes what is or is not true."

Je Tsongkhapa

[triesa]

My opinion is, it's very difficult being in His Holiness' position. He has many roles to play and it's difficult to please all the parties, but I personally respect His Holiness for what he has contributed and I choose to see him for the positive influence and changes he has brought to the world.  What about you?

I ABSOLUTELY agree with Vajraprotector.

Look at all the figure heads in the world, be they celebrities, head of the states, presidents of the countries, and not to mention, spiritual heads, whatever they say or do, will surely please certain people and upset the others. Such is the facts of life, and such is our different depositions of mind sets.

You can never please everyone. And it is always so easy just to open our big mouth and start criticising and adopt a fault finding attitude.

It is time for us to cultivate a mind of gratefulness, to appreciate what HHDL has done for the world. I always remind myself that when I do not agree or comprehand certain acts of an enligtened being or a high lama, I would tell myself to look at all the good deeds that this high lama has accomplished and brought to the commuinity, and more often than ever, that would keep my mouth shut  

[Heartspoon]

Some years ago, a younger Rinpoche invited Lati Rinpoche (from memory, I think it was Him) in London
to give teachings.

The first day he spoke a long time about hells and forms of suffering. At the end of the day, the younger
Rinpoche, seeing how the hundreds of persons present reacted, went to speak with Lati Rinpoche.

He asked Lati Rinpoche if it would not be possible to change topics the next day,  explaining that it was
unpleasant for Westerners to hear teachings about hells and forms of sufferings and maybe they would
stop coming to the teachings.

The next day, out of loving kindness, compassion and skillful means, uttering useful even if unpleasant
words to hear, Lati Rinpoche spoke almost all the time about the same topics, hells and forms of sufferings.

He explained that he was not there to say what they wished to hear, but to expound Dharma.
And he also said that if they wished they could leave the teachings, but that he would not stop speaking about this topic, Dharma being Dharma he had no means to change it...

[WisdomBeing]

My opinion is, it's very difficult being in His Holiness' position. He has many roles to play and it's difficult to please all the parties, but I personally respect His Holiness for what he has contributed and I choose to see him for the positive influence and changes he has brought to the world.  What about you?

I ABSOLUTELY agree with Vajraprotector.

Look at all the figure heads in the world, be they celebrities, head of the states, presidents of the countries, and not to mention, spiritual heads, whatever they say or do, will surely please certain people and upset the others. Such is the facts of life, and such is our different depositions of mind sets.

You can never please everyone. And it is always so easy just to open our big mouth and start criticising and adopt a fault finding attitude.

It is time for us to cultivate a mind of gratefulness, to appreciate what HHDL has done for the world. I always remind myself that when I do not agree or comprehand certain acts of an enligtened being or a high lama, I would tell myself to look at all the good deeds that this high lama has accomplished and brought to the commuinity, and more often than ever, that would keep my mouth shut  

Hi Triesa and Vajraprotector

Yes, that is so true - whatever we do, we can never please everyone. Even Jesus Christ was crucified and Lord Buddha had people who hated him and did not believe in his philosophy, so it is not surprising that no matter what good people do, they will not be universally applauded. i guess that is the symptom of samsara.

I like what Vajraprotector said -  to choose to see the positive. If only more people would choose to see the positive in others rather than the negative, the world would be a better place.

[Heartspoon]

Bad speech, calumnies directed towards someone are like blessings, long life ceremonies for this person.
Being subjected to them clears obstacles, eliminates bad karma. If one keeps patience while being subjected
to those forms of abuse, it greatly increases the merits and thus contributes to increase one's life span.

Very simple: one doesn't need to ask for them, one doesn't need to pay for them, one doesn't even need
to know that it is happening. In any case he will benefit from it.

So one should really rejoice if he has to exert patience when subjected to harm.
Of course, the poor being who is doing such deeds is putting himself in exactly the reverse position. Frightening!

Source: the blogspot "anecdotes bouddhistes"

[Losang_Tenpa]

My opinion is, it's very difficult being in His Holiness' position. He has many roles to play and it's difficult to please all the parties, but I personally respect His Holiness for what he has contributed and I choose to see him for the positive influence and changes he has brought to the world.  What about you?

I have struggled and struggled with this and have decided that I can neither condemn nor praise the Dalai Lama. I do cndemn his actions though.
With the ban still in effect and people still getting hurt, I can not offer my praise to the only person capable of stopping this.
I do respect much of what he has done, but that does not give him a free pass on this issue in my opinion.
My promise is to never speak harsh words toward the Dalai Lama, but I will continue to speak out against his oppressive policies.
I believe it is necessary to speak out and I also believe that if no one were to condemn his actions, things would be a lot worse than what they are right now.
While I may not join in the chorus of praise for the Dalai Lama, I appreciate this website and am very grateful for having this resourse.

[Heartspoon]

It pleases me to no end to hear from a fellow dharma practitioner who can stand on his own two feet.

[beggar]

My promise is to never speak harsh words toward the Dalai Lama, but I will continue to speak out against his oppressive policies.

Tenzin Sungrab - thank you for seeing the clear distinction and expressing it so eloquently. I believe the lines have become blurred of late and sometimes, speaking out against the policies becomes a tirade against the DL himself.

For example, I refer to books like The Great Deception which is very heavy in its rhetoric and launches almost insulting comments directly at the dalai lama. (it would be easy for a new person reading that book to think it is only about how hateful the DL is, rather than about his policies).

[DSFriend]

there's a huge difference between speaking out against the dalai lama vs the policies. What we tend to get caught up with is speaking against the dalai lama which brings no good to ourselves nor anyone else. Also, i wish to point out that this website do have articles and videos educating ppl about the ban, policies etc.... However, the focus shouldn't only be towards speaking against the ban ... it's about identifying and recognizing the opportunities to bring about good in the midst of the ban.  I am not condoning the ban...but i cannot deny the many opportunities arisen out of the ban for the protector to be made known throughout the world.

peace