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I have to say, this makes me weep....
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
Caught sight of this article in one of our daily UK papers.... while elsewhere, in the same newspaper, an article detailed a new trade channel the UK that has opened up with China.
Politeness, Respect Good Manners and Dignity prevent me from printing my true suitable response or opinion here.....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2312796,00.html
:grumble: :banghead:
Politeness, Respect Good Manners and Dignity prevent me from printing my true suitable response or opinion here.....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2312796,00.html
:grumble: :banghead:
0
Comments
US/UK refuses to talk to the Palestinian government.
The Great Powers appear to want to demonstrate the First Noble Truth, without even the hope of the Third or the practice of the Fourth!
Once again, Tacitus comes to our aid: They make a desert and call it "peace". And that was 2000 years ago!
All that changes is that we appear far more efficient at creating deserts! It would only take an additional 's' and we could be making desserts!!!
It is my feeling that the UK/US cabal has already taken the decision to look the other way while the People's Republic of China re-creates a Far Eastern empire, just as FDR decided that Western Europoe would have to be under Soviet control as the price for defeating the Third Reich. He may have got it wrong in 1940 but I fear that there is no hope for Tibetan autonomy in the present climate.
BTW.
British Petrol, aka BP, has made deals to buy oil from China, which is being extracted from the Tibetan region.
I really don't understand how world leaders can deal with this country under any ethical standard. This is Nazi style brainwashing & Gestapo tactics. The US really needs to bite the bullet & find other avenues than China to get their goods. We are feeding 100's of billions of dollars into their economy each year through our trade defecit with them.
_/\_
metta
Do you really feel that Communism in Europe was FDR's decision?
I would have thought that Europe would have been happy that the US didn't stick it's nose (once again) where it wasn't invited.
-bf
Exactly.
When it comes to big business - it always comes down to money.
I mean, what are the lives of a few, worthless, nobodies in some 3rd world country when it comes to BIG BUSINESS!?
These people have no ethics. No feelings. No compassion. To value a human life against a barrel of oil or a dollar - your compassion organs dried up a long time ago.
-bf
I would like to think that we are all born with the capacity for compassion.
But, with that whole karma thing - or how we're treated as children - maybe this is just wishful thinking.
-bf
Money is, I think, only a symbol, a 'signifier' as the semiologists might say. Even a short-term historical view demonstrates that the real issue lies in resource hunger. Seen over the millennia of Chinese history, this hunger has driven continual expansion.
Reducing the model to a menetary one may miss a very important point which is the long patience that comes from such a long historical perspective. Additionally, my research is suggesting to me that my favourite villains, the Romans, with their insistance on turning gold (used as ornament by 'barbarians') into coin, twisted our understanding of value and replaced it with that of price.
From a Buddhist perspective, the fall of Tibet is both catastrophic and inevitable. Just as the reign of Ashoka was followed by disorder, so even a wonderful expertiment like Tibet must, eventually fail. At the heart of the tragedy, the 14th Dalai Lama demonstrates that Kipling may have had a point in his poem If. No previous Dalai Lama has had his sort of reach or influence and it is unlikely that any will again.
Weather it's resources, cash, gold, etc. - it comes down to money in my opinion.
If bones were a form of currency and you could give someone a whole bunch of bones to eliminate those who oppose you - bones would work. If leaves allowed you to live in luxury and have others do work for you - leaves would work. If bark allowed you to live better than 98% of the population and allowed you to evade the rules of society that everyone else has to follow - bark would work.
Just my $0.02
-bf
"The Dolly what? The Dolly Parton? Ohhhhhhyeah, I've heard of them! Aren't they some priest?"
:-/ :zombie:
if i tell someone i follow the path of buddha.. they think i worship some fat guy and make a jest.. but they have nooo clue and think its a big joke.. i don't think they even know what they worship, is a bit ironic..
and just the act of misinterpretation and lack of interpretation for most of it
It is a significant point that the Cultural Revolution destroyed or opened up most of the 'sacred' sites of earlier China but the Great Helmsman refused to allow any excavation of the tomb of the First Emperor. Indeed, that is still the case: the area around the tomb continues to be explored and excavated but the tomb itself has remained inviolate for 2200 years! Superstition? or an appreciation of the compact between Heaven and the First Son of Heaven?
I totally agree with you. Well said.
Please excuse my ignorance, Simon, but are you saying that we may never see another Dalai Lama after Tenzin Gyatso? That would be so terribly sad. So would the fall of Tibet.
His Holiness has said that there will be a Dalai Lama as long as Tibet needs one. And that is the point: whilst Tenzin Gyatso has a world-wide constituency, it will be at least 16 years after his passing before a new Dalai Lama comes to majority - and his incarnation is specifically Tibetan. The present Dalai Lama has made this abundantly clear.
After all, this is not like a Pope being elected after the death of his predecessor: they come to the job as adults. Tulkus start as babies! And the history of the 14 Dalai Lamas does not necessarily give us a track record of unqualified success.
Even if HHDL is able to return to Tibet to die, the next will be born into a completely altered context. We have already seen what Beijing has done about HH the Panchen Lama. We must fear their efforts to discover and incarcerate the next Dalai.
I read, somewhere, that HHDL has said that rebirth in Tibet is unlikely whilst it is not free. Where he is born is, of course, important, because it gives clues to what his time will need but this is a new thing for Tibet. All the previous Dalai Lamas were born there.
Of course, HHDL is seen as much more than a Tibetan. Atisha tells stories of thirty-six earlier incarnations of Lama Drom, in India. All these incarnations of Avalokiteshvara are associated with the fourteen Dalai Lamas.
As I (dimly) understand, the Dalai Lama, as Dalai Lama, has responsibility for Tibet. When he is no longer needed or able to fulfill that role, there will be no Dalai Lama. The world, however, continues to need Avalokiteshvara who will continue to incarnate. The role and office of Dalai Lama is temporary and transient. The compassion of Avalokiteshvara continues until all beings achieve liberation.
I read too much, think too long and meditate too little.
I dedicate myself to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings. I offer my body, speech and mind in order to accomplish the purpose of all sentient beings. I will return in whatever form necessary, under extraordinary circumstances, to end suffering. Let me be born in times unpredictable, in places unknown, until all sentient beings are liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth. Taking no thought for my comfort of safety, precious Lama, make of me a pure and perfect instrument by which the end of suffering and death in all forms might be realized. Let me achieve perfect enlightenment for the sake of all beings, and then, by my hand and heart alone, may all beings achieve full enlightenment and perfect liberation.
Palzang
Namaste,
Kim
Wow, thanks for the article. I'm, I'm, well I just am!! Dag nab it !!
I find it extraordinary too, that, knowing how important such an event is to the whole world, and knowing how much more they have come under scrutiny, and knowing that through trade, commerce and economic dealings, they are a far more prominent and visible entity.....how they can still implement and stipulate such outrageous concepts - AND STILL GET AWAY WITH IT - !!
You are quite right, Fede. The 2012 Olympics are being held in another country whose human rights record has got worse rather than better and which is lurching towards totalitarianism after having unlawfully invaded another sovereign state.
As you may have read, they are being held in London.
Having been abroad for some period of time, I have come back and found the country of my birth somewhat changed, even in the brief hiatus of my absence....
There is much which feeds my disquiet, some of it external, some of it domestic.
Even so, given everything, I still feel that confronted with the evidence of the 'crimes' you mention, most politicians would comprehend your discomfort....Heck, there is much rumbling and dissent in Parliament, and I am glad I wear my shoes and not those of the Cabinet....
But challenge China, and the responses are somewhat different....they seem impervious and indifferent to the opinions and views of everyone else, blithely ignoring world whimperings, and carrying on regardless....
Therein lies my frustration.
The other point - HHDL has maintained that he is a 'simple monk' - not the god-king of Tibet - there is a Government-in-exile which overseers Tibetan interest, well at least outside China - he has distanced himself from the role of government.
The problem, if there is a problem, is the fate of the Panchon Lama - no one really knows where he is or if he is alive - and China have their own PL.
The other aspect is that HHDL, and his advisors, and he has considerable diplomatic expertise, have already considered all of this and no doubt there are some plans which we can only speculate about.
On the other side, China is no longer the island fortress it once was - if it wants the world community at its door it has to offer something in return - and regardless of some over zealous official, Tibetan Buddhism is not going away - just as Iran is not going away just because the US is in a tizzy about things over there. In the end, there will be a political solution - all things are subject to change.
At such times I remember a scene from the movie KUNDUN. In it General Chang of the Chinese Liberation Army is reading out the 17 point plan to a very young HHDL - how Chine will 'liberate' the feudal Tibet Kingdom. HHDL says not a word until Gen. Chang begins to leave. 'General Chang', the young Dali Lama says, 'You cannot liberate me. I can only liberate myself'.
Just so.
As far as I can see, no real changes occurred in Tibet until after the invasion and the exile. In some lights, it could be seen as being like the US/UK pressure on President Hussein to change: he did not, so troops were sent in and we know the result. (I know that some will find the comparison between HHDL and Saddam Hussein unusual but they are both simple human beings, alike in birth, suffering, joy and death.) Both Chairman Mao and the Blair/Bush administrations invaded and laid waste to soverign nations whose regimes they deplored, leading to the pillaging of national and historical treasures, torture and abuse, etc., etc.
It was not until some decades after the start of the exile in India that HHDL changed the ancient system of appointed aristocrats as ministers to one approaching a parliamentary democracy for the government-in-exile.
It's a disgrace. On every front.
How true is all these?
Palzang
Dear Kris, I like your post, but i'm rather neutral on the subject. (just me).
What I am interested in is your "98% chimpanzee" section on your avatar-does that relate to the factthat 98% of our chromosomes are the same as chimps?
Because according to Anthropology-this is apparently true.
cheers,
xray
The argument was voiced that boycotting goods from a country, in protest of their Political regime, is very often useless, and backfires, hurting those who deserve it least.
Very often, attempting to increase trade (thus opening doors and expanding contact) is effective in gradually convincing a Power to 'soften' its ttitudes...
It's complex... not the least factor being that all manufacturing done in China, effectively decreases Employment in the UK....Oh Boy.....:(
I think that each of us should examine our attitudes and conscience. In my own case, I avoid deliberately buying PRC-produced goods and I engage in letter-writing and discussion with as many Chinese as possible, at thge highest level available. This is the best I can do about thinking globally and acting locally.