Is coming...to my college...today. He's gonna speak at 3, and there's been other stuff going on since last night. Woohoo!
It was really cool. He was a good speaker, and everything about the ceremonies and the words was really interesting. He was very insightful, wise, and even funny. And there were some monks doing that throat singing thing, which is always sweet. I recommend the Dalai Lama to everyone.
I saw his presentation deal at the Vancouver appearance. Loads of hackey-sack, reggae hat wearing Uni students and 'hip liberal profs' were all just spun out over the whole thing and treated the Dalai Lama like it was their turn to have a Pope or something. Impression: He has perfectly good advice on happiness, mediation, separating oneself from worldy lusts, being fair and thoughtful etc. As one Prof said it well 'Out of 20 self-help books on Happiness, his was her favourite'. Otherwise, no real insights onto the meaning or purpose of life. No special insight or theory on the nature of God (or whatever form you use that sense in Buddhisms) He came off as fairly eccentric, maybe a bit wierd or at worst a bit detached and flaky.. but not in any offensive way either. Despite the 'he can do no wrong' spirit of the event, I think alot of people were disappointed or expected something much more tangible and mysterious at the same time. My other impression was that this was a bit too orientated towards 'selling' Buddhism to the Westerners. Now, Im not faulty anyone for wanting to make an impression and there is always some sort of stage and presentation no matter what, But, This came off as something too fine tuned and may I say 'telling them what they want to hear'. I dunno, there was some good advice and some aspects about happiness and contentment I strongly agreed with. So good in that way.
I go to U of Buffalo. I agree that he didn't really offer anything amazing, but he had a great message, and didn't even mention buddhism. He actually started his speech by saying "I'm really not any different from you people. I don't have all the answers or the meaning of life." Or something like that. He was very human and humble. He said that prayer is basically useless without action. Some lady came up to him after one of his smaller speeches around campus asking to bless her prayer shawl or whatever, and he did his bow thing and said "blessings, blessings, empty blessings." I thought that was pretty cool. He seemed very big on science and reality. I agree that he seemed to go out of his way not to offend. He was asked what he thought of america and its actions, and I thought he went really easy. He just didn't really say anything negative about it.
I'm not quoting the Dalai Lama verbatim, but I lost all respect I once had for him when I learned from a newspaper article that he had 'initially withheld judgement on the US invasion of Iraq, not knowing if it was a good idea...' or something to that effect. How is indiscriminately carpet bombing innocent people ever a good idea? It doesn't take a genius to know the whole fiasco was doomed from the get go. Just like Vietnam, Korea... history repeats itself. The Dalai Lama is apparently not a genius.
haha! you what!!!! the DL isn't as innocent as he seems: here are some facts! -he is against homo/oral/anal sex (a bit like the pope actually!) -before the exile: he lived in a 1000 room 14 story palace, the monastic class /to which he belonged, was EXTREMELY rich, while the peasants were very very poor) -he is not a vegetarian -the cia helped him to flee from tibet to india, there even more controversial stuff: DLs brother is said to have helped to bring in weapons in the land (given by cia) . cia wanted to fight the red chinese, so they supported and trained a tibetan gerilla -contact with a nazi Henrich Harrer. he is also seen on fotos having contacts wth another famous nazi: bruno berger. not deep friendship, but he is not "anti" either -the film, "seven years in tibet" is based on Heinrich Harrer biography. the director claimed that he didn't know that Harrer was a former SS.
