Dalai Lama's a bit of a dick

[devogue]

Dolly the Llama

[FBM]

Dolly the Llama

[Beelzebub2]

Anyone who calls himself "His Holiness" (or allows others to call him that way) is not to be taken seriously IMO - except as a perfect fodder for jokes.

Also the Shudgen controversy is something that Tibet and Dalai Lama aren't to be proud of. FFS arguing over who has a better oracle, and even prosecuting people based on their preferences over chosen deity - not very "Buddhist" or humane.

Also Buddhism is usually called the most peaceful religion of them all, however what Japan did in the WWII in the name of "zen" is something that even today Japan is reluctant to talk about - especially the Rape of Nanking and other war crimes There's a book about it called - Zen at War.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka, armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. In 1998 the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the world’s most violent and dangerous extremist groups. Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist.

In South Korea, in 1998, thousands of monks of the Chogye Buddhist order fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual budget of $9.2 million, its millions of dollars worth of property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various offices. The brawls damaged the main Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens of monks injured, some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain both factions, feeling that no matter what side took control, “it would use worshippers’ donations for luxurious houses and expensive cars.”

Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that “the pervasive influence of Buddhism” in Tibet, “amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment.”

A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5 In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet.

More to be read here.

[Hermit]

The suttas portray him as saying that women are equally as capable of the highest attainment as men.

From my cursory reading on buddhism I gathered that being reborn as a woman is a result of bad karma. That would make women categorically inferior to men, I would think. As for women being equally as capable of the highest attainment as men, such a claim would have to somehow argue the 'Five Obstacles' out of existence. From the Wikipedia: "...women in Buddhism are said to have five obstacles, namely being incapable of becoming a Brahma King, `Sakra` , King `Mara` , Cakravartin or Buddha. This is based on the statement of Gautama Buddha in the Bahudhātuka-sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya in the Pali Canon that it is impossible that a woman should be "the perfectly rightfully Enlightened One'", "the Universal Monarch", "the King of Gods", "the King of Death" or "Brahmaa'"

[FBM]

The suttas portray him as saying that women are equally as capable of the highest attainment as men.

From my cursory reading on buddhism I gathered that being reborn as a woman is a result of bad karma. That would make women categorically inferior to men, I would think. As for women being equally as capable of the highest attainment as men, such a claim would have to somehow argue the 'Five Obstacles' out of existence. From the Wikipedia: "...women in Buddhism are said to have five obstacles, namely being incapable of becoming a Brahma King, `Sakra` , King `Mara` , Cakravartin or Buddha. This is based on the statement of Gautama Buddha in the Bahudhātuka-sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya in the Pali Canon that it is impossible that a woman should be "the perfectly rightfully Enlightened One'", "the Universal Monarch", "the King of Gods", "the King of Death" or "Brahmaa'"

Yep, you're right. I have the Majjhima Nikaya here and dog-eared that page when I read it some time ago. However, there's some linguistic hair-splitting to be done. In that sutta, those terms are being used as titles or offices; they're not statements of inherent limitations of individual attainment. It's the equivalent of saying that a woman can't become President of the US. A few decades ago, that would have been true, but now I expect it to happen in the relatively near future. 2,500 years ago in India, it would have definitely been impossible for a woman to become such a leader. Not out of inherent limitations, but because of Indian society.

The book with the sutta in which the Buddha says that women are equally capable of attainment as women is at my office. I have to settle for a Wiki:

According to Theravada tradition, the bhikkhuni order of nuns came to be 5 years after the bhikkhu order of monks.

Buddhism is unique among Indian Religions in that Buddha, as founder of a spiritual tradition, explicitly states in canonical literature that a woman is as capable of nirvana (enlightenment) as a man, and can fully attain all four stages of enlightenment in the Dhamma and Vinaya of the Buddha Sasana.[2][3] There is no equivalent, in other traditions, of the Therigatha or Apadanas which record the high levels of spiritual attainment by women.[4].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhikkhuni

Edit: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/bud ... 23lbud.htm