Comments on the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism

[Dialectic]

Wanted to make a couple points off the top of my head about the Dalai Lama and Tibetan social structures and culture.

(Originally posted in this thread: http://www.thefighting44s.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4799)

As Kimtae pointed out above, Tibet was no paradise before China's invasion. They were a "mythic membership" society. They had a caste system, a rigid class structure, despotism, aristocracy, slaves and serfdom, strong central religious, political, economic control, undifferentiated seats of power (the heads of state are the heads of religion, money, military), all the classic benchmarks of an empire that had not yet contemplated the systemic use of reason and the inherent dignity of human life. There are a bunch of Tibetans you never hear about who are quite grateful to be poor under the Chinese than slaves under the Tibetans.

Tibetan Buddhism is probably the most developed form of Buddhism in the world, and also probably the most sophisticated system of introspection and meditation the world has ever seen. The elite and sincere Tibetans essentially sat down and looked at their minds for a thousand years, and came away with some pretty insightful observations.

The Dalai Lama himself is, by almost all accounts, a great guy.

A useful way to structure one's thoughts about Tibet, if one is inclined, is to look through developmental eyes.

They had a mythic empire, like China during the dynasties, like the countries in Europe before the Enlightenment, like the Aztecs, like all the old empires you've ever heard of. Political, military, artistic, religious, cultural, scientific spheres of human existence are not differentiated. They're all fused together, and all controlled by a central power which wants, above all, conformity. Everyone and everything has a place, these places are part of a universal order dictated by God or karma, and people should do what they're supposed to do. There can be great stability, comfort, and even beauty in such a system, and as we all know, there can be great suffering and cruelty.

So what you have are a bunch of lords put there by god/karma who deserve to be there, studying a religion/science/artform/political structure/culture that's supposed to be very compassionate and is indeed very sophisticated in some ways, getting overrun by a bunch of pretty hard bastards (who were ethnocentric but leaning toward rational, or at least ideologies based on reasoned and egalitarian philosophy). So these lords are doing their best to get their country back (which will never happen, at least not 'til China and it's neighbors become as "moral" as, say, Britain or Canada, and the Dalai Lama realizes this). The only way you can do that when you have no political, economic, or military might is to start a marketing campaign. And what do you market? Your main export is cultural, and you show the best sides of your religion and you put your leader on a pedestal (which he was already on anyway). Remember, "traditional" Tibetans didn't differentiate politics from religion from art from culture from science, etc. the way the west learned to do after the Enlightenment, and as such, the Dalai Lama is the leader of everything. And so they see nothing wrong with him advocating for whatever he wants, be it religious or political, and since the West has been hit by an awesome marketing campaign (and having observed Chinese bastardness in this area), they are happy to see him do it.

[kimtae]

Tibetan Buddhism is probably the most developed form of Buddhism in the world, and also probably the most sophisticated system of introspection and meditation the world has ever seen. The elite and sincere Tibetans essentially sat down and looked at their minds for a thousand years, and came away with some pretty insightful observations.

The Dalai Lama himself is, by almost all accounts, a great guy.
I'm not sure you can make a quantified statement like that about Tibetan Buddhism. For one, there are many other lines of Buddhism that offer very sophisticated systems of introspection and meditation. How can you make a comparative statement like that? Especially when the goals of each are so intangible. Further, it seems oxymoronic to say that one form of Buddhism is the most developed based on its sophistication when Buddhism is about trying to achieve nuanced simplicity.
I am also not sure that a system of religion that was used as a tool of oppression and to bolster a mythological hierarchy of false demi-gods wouldn't also be somewhat tainted by its own avarice and greed for power. How true to enlightenment can a religion be if it allows its priests and practitioners to delight in the most outrageous of cruelties?

As for the Dalai Lama, it's easy to be a "great guy" when you're living in comfort as a reincarnated god figure. Just like the Aga Khan and the Pope, infallibility and the constant devoted worship of millions seems to bring with it an inherent largesse of benevolence and charming spirit. The Dalai Lama hasn't really done anything other than what life has cast for him.

[Dialectic]

I'm not sure you can make a quantified statement like that about Tibetan Buddhism. For one, there are many other lines of Buddhism that offer very sophisticated systems of introspection and meditation. How can you make a comparative statement like that? Especially when the goals of each are so intangible. Further, it seems oxymoronic to say that one form of Buddhism is the most developed based on its sophistication when Buddhism is about trying to achieve nuanced simplicity.

I can make definitive statements and comparative statements about Tibetan Buddhism, as I can about any form of Buddhism or any religion generally, as long as I know something about them. There are many lines of Buddhism which are quite sophisticated, and I myself studied Zen, and was a student with a Zen monastery for quite a few years. But Zen doesn't cover the same amount of territory Vajrayana does. Zen goes straight for the "goal," of enlightenment, and doesn't like to concern itself with a lot of theory of mental and spiritual phenomena. All states and phenomena which arise during meditation distract from the goal of enlightenment and are simply "makyo." Vajranaya fully explores all the states and stages one might experience up to enligtenment. One might consider Tibetan Buddhism to be "complete" and Zen Buddhism to be "essential." I've also read a good deal of Taoism, Sufism, and a bit of Christian mysticism, and I find them all worthy systems with lots of differences but lotsof similarities. I have not, however, encountered a system as complete and comprehensive as the Tibetan dharma. There's a school of thought out there that says that different religious and cultural systems can't be compared at all, that worldviews cannot be fundamentally understood in transcendent or unifying contexts, and that God and the Tao and the Buddha and all the rest can't be reconciled, and I strongly reject that notion. If you abide by it, then that's fine, but I'd encourage you to do a bit more reading and exploration before coming to such a conclusion. The world is not such a fractured place.

Also, you yourself make a definitive statement about Buddhism when you state that Buddhism is about trying to achieve nuanced simplicity. You not only contradict your first statement, but your latter statement is incorrect. Buddhism isn't about nuanced simplicity at all, though you might be able to come to that conclusion about, for example, Soto Zen. Buddhism as a whole is about realizing the true nature of reality. Once you understand what reality is, you are enlightened, and you are "free," and in fact, all beings are also set free.

I am also not sure that a system of religion that was used as a tool of oppression and to bolster a mythological hierarchy of false demi-gods wouldn't also be somewhat tainted by its own avarice and greed for power. How true to enlightenment can a religion be if it allows its priests and practitioners to delight in the most outrageous of cruelties?

This is a false argument. Because people can be corrupted and because a system can have corruption, it does not follow that all knowledge and beneficial effects of a system are intrinsically corrupt. While Marx had a great insight when he said that religion could be used as a tool of oppression and division, that's not all religion is. If you read some Tibetan spiritual literature, you'll see that they also come to some very keen and compassionate insights. All human civilizations (everyone beyond tribal) were founded under mythic membership ethnocentric mentalities, and that's when all the great religions came into being as well. It's not only unsurprising that the teachings and social structures they produced could be used badly, it's also expected. But again, that doesn't negate the good they did and the wisdom they produced.

As for the Dalai Lama, it's easy to be a "great guy" when you're living in comfort as a reincarnated god figure. Just like the Aga Khan and the Pope, infallibility and the constant devoted worship of millions seems to bring with it an inherent largesse of benevolence and charming spirit. The Dalai Lama hasn't really done anything other than what life has cast for him.

Also a false argument. To be a good person, you don't have to break out of what life has "cast for you." And in fact, he has done some exceptional stuff, seeing as he was kicked out of his own country and began spreading his message across the world. Also, neither of us has met him, but according to almost all reports, he seems to be a genuinely compassionate and fairly enlightened individual, which is, incidentally, a difficult thing when a bunch of foreigners come in and annex your country. He even states in his autobiography that he sometimes finds it difficult not to hate the Chinese, but there is no doubt in my mind about the sincerity of his devotion.

You can deconstruct religion and feudal social structures all you want, and with the mental tools available to us today, you can come to any conclusion you want, so I'd simply suggest you go through a reasonable amount of research and evidence first before you come to any cynical conclusions.

Also, and somewhat incidentally, "true" Buddhism, or indeed, true spirituality as it is practiced by sincere, wise, and non-pathological practitioners, actually follows a scientific process. It begins a question or hypothesis, requires an injunction, then requires verification with a community of the adequate.

Put simply, if you want to know whether it's raining outside (your question, which can be phrased as a hypothesis, like "it is not raining outside"), you perform an experiment, or injunction, to find out. In our case, we can go to the window and look outside. We make an observation (like "it is raining"), and then we can ask our friends to look outside as well to verify our observations and conclusions. Spiritual practice works in the same way, but because it is an exploration of the subjective realm (consciousness itself), it's more prone to having quacks and con-games as a result. This doesn't mean that absolute truths about consciousness and "God" exist, but that you won't be able to see them until you take up an injunction yourself (like meditation) and see what happens.

(This, incidentally, isn't super different from conventional science, because you can't practice science, either, unless you take up the injunctions required, like develop the ability to reason, which isn't simply given, and actually perform experiments. Since this discussion has become a bit philosophical, I'm moving it to the Integral forum.)