It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of the Dalai Lama. For starters, he is the leader of a theocracy where leaders have brutally oppressed the population. This reality, and that of him being a leader of a religion that’s just like any other sometimes peeks through the gentle facade. Then there’s his homophobic, sex-negative and sexist attitudes (see a previous post). Though he may have improved, the point is that he still does not deserve his happy-go-lucky image. What pisses me off most is how so many people who should know better (atheists, humanists, feminists) often still fawn over someone who’s not much different to the Pope.
As if that wasn’t enough though, there’s all the feel-good, The Secret-style inspiration porn. Because you can be all you want to be, shitty state of the world be damned! Here are a few quotes that seem to be genuinely from the 14th Dalai Lama (based on a quick scan of WikiQuote). Excuse the image memeness but the nature of the pictures is as much a part of the bullshit as the words:
I’m sure my grandfather would have been overwhelmed with both peace AND joy upon finding out that his liver cancer sprang only from himself. I mean really, we should stop blaming other people, because that would mean the world’s not fair. This is of course an insidious part of newage philosophy that here I believe happens to overlap with Buddhist theology quite a bit.
This quote is included to show that people are literally fawning over the Dalai Lama for the radical stance that he’d like facts to inform his worldview. This is the bar that spiritual and religious leaders must somehow clear.
Think what would happen to your irony meter if you heard the pope say this. It’s true that the world of organised Tibetan Buddhism is a bit less opulent than the Catholic Church; still our irony meters should at the very least melt or compact into a black hole. I also bring to your attention that the Tibetan Buddhist canon contains 3626 texts in 224 volumes in just one of the major section. IMO, the idea of simplicity seems to be the outward face the Dalai Lama presents to the non-Buddhist world.
Sure, it would be nice if that’s how religions behaved generally, but most don’t. In fact, you can make a case that an exclusive focus on your own conduct is a bit too non-judgemental — it’s a very individualistic and toothless approach to changing the world. Either way, if I were a member of any other religion I’d be pretty pissed that the Dalai Lama is presuming to tell me what my religion’s supposed to be about. I might even see it as Buddhist supremacy dressed in the cloak of being non-judgemental.
The next two memes are unverified and could well be fakes. Note the similarity to the more reliable quotes above.
Once again, you have it all wrong, dear victim. If your inner peace has been shattered by violence or oppression, you just weren’t positive enough. You take the responsibility for suffering with a smile — and if you can’t, you’ll just have to cop to the karmic blame.
This one’s even better. If you’re poor, you should still be happy! Even happier than people who get 3 square meals a day! Because I was happy as a child. Isn’t that boy so happy despite being so deprived? #notracistnotracistnotracist. For more on this, see this old post.
The following two are confirmed as fake, both part of standard email chains. But again, it’s interesting that the Dalai Lama is such a stand-in for generic deepity-filled bullshit folksy wisdom.
Yeah, man doesn’t know how to live! Why doesn’t he just relax and let the international community fundraise his living expenses? Then he can focus on his health. He wouldn’t have to worry about the future, because he can write books about not worrying about the future.
This one deserves a post of its own, but hopefully at least some of the flaws in that wall-o-turds are apparent.
So there you have it. The Dalai Lama somehow combines the polar opposites of the conservative theocrat and the vacuous newer in one person. He’s Deepak Chopra with better soundbytes. And the fake quotes are not much different than the real quotes. And yet people who should be able to see through the crappola treat it like choice perfume. Here endeth the rant.
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