Dalai Lama Interviewed By Piers Morgan & Moving Report About Self-Immolations

Tamding Thar wrote:

“I take refuge in the Three Jewels – Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
With the hope that peace prevails on earth,
With the yearning for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to his land,
For Tibet to be ruled by Tibetans, I set my body on fire as an offering of light.”

For Tibet to be ruled by Tibetans, I set my body on fire: Tamding Thar’s last words

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1

Lineageholder on June 30, 2012 at 12:02 pm
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You don’t get jaundice by being a vegetarian – it seems that the Dalai Lama wanted an excuse to go back to his meat eating ways. I think it is more compassionate to be vegetarian.
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  tenpel on June 30, 2012 at 12:33 pm
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  He tried for quite long to be vegetarian but it didn’t work. His Tibetan medical doctor said he should eat meat again. I heard the argument (but cannot judge it) that Tibetans who grew up in Tibet and are used to eating meat cannot easily change to vegetarian food. They get really body problems. Their physical body is – this is for sure – a bit different. Chinese and Westerners have a lot of difficulties with the air in Tibet, while Tibetans are used to get the ozone easily out of the air — I read an article with some research discussion about this. So personally I would be careful to judge this too much from our Westerner perspective. (Sir Charles Bell went even so far to say the body of Tibetans would also be different in how it experiences bodily pain. He mentioned this in his biography of the 13th Dalai Lama when he described some of the brutal punishments who were some times — but not too often — carried out by Tibetans.*)
  
  I see a general risk to judge a people too much from a European centred perspective.
  
  * The 13th Dalai Lama was against these brutal punishments. In 1913 he issued a proclamation that forbade mutilation and brutal punishments. (Shakabpa “Tibet – A Political History”, New York 1984, p. 248) But since Tibetans were rather tribes with local war lords or leaders — rather independent from the Lhasa government — they didn’t really follow this proclamation — a fact the NKT or their arm Western Shugden Society, PRC or leftists of the extreme wing do not tell of course.
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    Lineageholder on July 1, 2012 at 9:28 am
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    [deleted]
    
    comment by blog owner:
    Lineageholder I have no time to untangle your distortions of history. That’s why I deleted your comment. As the websites of NKT / Western Shugden Society clearly show NKT agit prop people, who include you, cannot even read Charles Bell well and you work by means of propaganda which means leaving out the background of information, leaving out information, mixing facts into other events, attributing statements to persons who were not involved etc. with the sole aim to follow your ideas that the Dalai Lamas would be “ruthless, brutal dictators” etc. Please spread your agit prop on your blogs and sites or in China but not here. Thank you for respecting that this place is a place for open discussion but not for agit-prop. Regards, Tenpel
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      author on July 1, 2012 at 12:47 pm
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      Lineage H you ask
      How can the Buddha of Compassion sign punishment orders?
      Question 1What is Mahakala?
      Question 2: How can anon-political religious leader organise political demonstrations?
      Question 3: Which valuable aspect of Buddhist practice is embodied in attacking the institution of the Dalai Lamas?
      Question 4: If the NKT is non-political, why are you attacking your ‘political’ opponents? Could it be something to do with the fact that the Thirteenth condemned DS worship? IS Buddhist practice emboied in attacks on political opponents?
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an old friend on June 30, 2012 at 1:42 pm
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Lineage holder (what lineage?)

How many animals die to feed a family on steak? How many animals die to feed a family on vegetables?

Any opportunity to attack HH and, through peer pressure and learned cult behaviour, and certain posters invariably respond in the negative. Beware, hell lasts a long long time!
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  tenpel on June 30, 2012 at 2:09 pm
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  I only see know from your comment that this was a NKT poster … “lineageholder” who has been so active to promote NKT’s leadership point of views …
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an old friend on July 2, 2012 at 8:30 am
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its kind of strange that people can justify expressing their own, insane hate filled divisive, politically motivated propagandist poison by claiming it is ‘for the good of the Dharma and sentient beings’ while at the same time claiming to be unable to understand how someone who sometimes acts wrathfully can possibly be a Buddha????. Either its double standards or just plain ego based hypocrisy. Lineageholder is a professional poster of hate literature and ‘neutral’ editor of the advert that is the NKTs wikipedia page. One wonders how these people have any time left for their devotions.
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an old friend on July 2, 2012 at 8:44 am
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May 04, 2011|By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles TimesDalai Lama suggests Osama bin Laden’s death was justified

Speaking at USC, the Buddhist spiritual leader says of the Al Qaeda chief’s assassination: ‘Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened.’

As the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama says he practices compassion to such an extent that he tries to avoid swatting mosquitoes “when my mood is good and there is no danger of malaria,” sometimes watching with interest as they swell with his blood.

Yet, in an appearance Tuesday at USC, he appeared to suggest that the United States was justified in killing Osama bin Laden.

As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.”

I AGREE
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an old friend on July 3, 2012 at 7:49 pm
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Oh and BTW Lineageholder-the Buddha ate meat-so whose example should we follow, his or yours?
10

EKC on July 4, 2012 at 7:15 pm
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I’m vegan but have to admit that I’m aware many animals die for my diet through use of pesticides and so on, and also through harvesting techniques that are fatal for many small creatures.

As a vegan I’m also aware that a vegetarian diet contributes very directly to killing – to get milk cows have to have calves, and very few of those calves can be permitted to survive, or cows would take over all the living space in the world!

Life is full of compromises, but the way to make good decisions is to look at as much good information as possible (something people in cults and sometimes even in mainstream religions are denied), not slag off what each other does or try to look morally superior. A human cannot live without killing, whether directly or indirectly, but can decide what level of killing, deliberate, incidental, etc to support through their food purchases.
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an old friend on July 5, 2012 at 9:06 am
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Interesting isnt it, that a nomadicTibetan family could live of the dried meat of one dead animal for months,whereas for a vegetarian to live through a similar period, thousands of sentient beings would have to die.
Size is NOT relevant here because karma increases. I think I’ll stick with the Buddha, only eating meat that is pure in three ways (People always refer to the Lankavatara on this point but the Lankavatara is the ONLY Mahayans sutra which condemns carnivorous behavior) Again, tantric ritual requires that we eat meat-Not to do so is a downfall
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  tenpel on July 5, 2012 at 9:16 am
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  I agree with EKC, and I think also the middle way is to stick to Buddha’s rule according to the Vinaya. From a compassionate perspective personally I would support to eat vegetarian but without imposing my approach onto others or condemning them because they don’t do so like I prefer it. Beings are killed by both vegetarian and non vegetarian food, also the animal itself kills a lot of beings in its lifetime. Its the nature of samsara that suffering occurs, however, a mindful, reasonable, compassionate approach is the best. Though tantric rituals require to TASTE meat and alcohol, this is no plain cheque to indulge in eating meat …
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  EKC on July 5, 2012 at 7:16 pm
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  It’s worth bearing in mind that the Buddha in his time did not have access to the dietary options we do, and I don’t think he would expect people in a wholly different society and culture to model all of their behaviour on all of his. Make up your own mind, for sure, that is what the Buddha would say.
  
  This discussion reminds me of something I overheard one day in the NKT’s temple at Manjushri centre. Two experienced nuns noticed that one of the very experienced monks (Nyima, who taught FP at the time) was going barefooted in the temple. They basically backed each other up that since KG always wears socks in the temple everyone should. This gives me a wry, if sad, grin. Who knows why KG always wears socks in the temple, maybe he just gets cold feet? I know this is an in-cult example, but we need to be aware of such weird ideas in ourselves whatever religion or teacher we follow.
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    tenpel on July 5, 2012 at 9:16 pm
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    true. but ethics is an issue of cause and effect (karma) which only a Buddha can see in all its consequences. therefore careful investigation is required …
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tenpel on January 1, 2013 at 11:25 am
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I found an interview with HH Dalai Lama from 1998, when the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) started in 1998 a hunger-to-death-protest in India, and at the end Thupten Ngodup self-immolated himself on 29 April 1998.

The Dalai Lama commented:
“As a Buddhist I am against these actions and this self-immolation but how can I prevent these? If these actions continue they could really lead one day to real violence [against others].”

So the approach the Dalai Lama is taking nowadays must be seen in context. He can not condemn those self-immolations because it would be like stabbing his own people into the back nor can he encourage such self-immolations, because it is (mainly) rather against Buddhist principles – or at least highly controversial (due to that everything depends upon the mind at the time of death, and people might deceive themselves of having a good motivation.)

more thought provoking material see Rangzen Alliance:
http://www.rangzen.net/2012/11/06/make-it-a-burning-issue/
http://www.rangzen.net/2012/11/12/immolations-in-tibet-who-is-to-blame-for-the-stalemate/

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