on buddhism and the hallucinogenicity of wen's accusations

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I'm back here writing about this violence/nonviolence/both/neither thing... just thought I'd warn you in case you're interested.

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I've thought for a long time that the Chinese annexation of Tibet was Tibet's karma for hoarding the dharma, for not only ignoring the rest of the world but actively keeping the rest of the world out. If you have realized truth, not merely realized how to have a nice life yourself by shutting out the world, you know you cannot shut out the world. You may not be of it, but you are definitely in it, and you cannot do else than live for it once you have recognized your fundamental identity. So karma is working extremely hard to teach Tibetans, harder still on the Dalai Lama.

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A bunch of Tibetan lamas snatched up the current Dalai Lama as a toddler and gave him maybe the most thoroughgoing Buddhist education in the history of man. He was just a kid when the Chinese invaded, and he hightailed it out of there or, no two ways, he'd have been long dead, fifty years dead, by now. The Tibetans were then and are now completely unequipped to stop the Chinese without help from the rest of the world.

Very unfortunately the rest of the world cannot be relied upon to ever help if they have not stepped in immediately. In fact, in very short order they can be relied upon to never help if they have not stepped in immediately. I know this is cold, but, well, take a look around.

So what do the oppressed do to end the harm? Can they assimilate? Or should they fight? Which is best for life itself?

Isn't it creepy that humans need to be the judges of this?

And that's just what was needed from the Dalai Lama when he was too immature in his enlightening being to handle anything of that scale. He shouldn't be now, but probably he still is. It might well be a mercy if he does denounce utterly the notion of his being the political leader of Tibet. He doesn't have the stomach for it, and never did. In any case, it's abundantly clear he has never given any lucid being so much as an ion of reason to fear anything approximating violence in his entire life. So Wen's shtick is as psychedelic as any of *'s pronouncements on things like the economy, or invading Iraq, or... well... pick.

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Enlightening being understands the true nature of its existence, which is existence itself, and aims all its thrust for the benefit of existence itself, which includes defending it by whatever means it can. This means violence is sometimes incontrovertibly necessary and correct. It is never undertaken for personal or even national gain. It ceases immediately upon the removal of the harm. It is not debatable that stopping harm is beneficial to existence, and seeing to this is more important than one's very life.

I do not know if violence is correct in Tibet anymore. It certainly was once. If the Chinese had stopped murdering Tibetans and begun treating them fully equally with the rest of the population before this rioting began, then violence was indeed wrong, and stopping the perpetrators, even if it took killing them, was just. If the Tibetans were struggling against real repression, then the killing is really more struggle, not the issue. When you look at the situation and want to deal with the matter at hand, you do not put violence and nonviolence in front of the facts. Are the Tibetans giving their lives to stop harm? Are the Chinese taking lives to keep harming? Then assess to see if anything short of violence could be used in any serious effort to stop the harm.

Gandhi and King and Mandella could stop the harm nonviolently. The option was there for them because their shows of total commitment to their goals communicated to their oppressors that the resort to violence would not just be a bloodbath, but one the oppressor could not hope to win without resort to utterly unacceptable to anyone means. In other words, the oppressors were made to see unacceptable losses before they had to suffer them. Would that this could be the case with every instance of oppression.

When such a thing is not feasible, when there are not the numbers or capabilities that could ultimately be used to vanquish the oppressor, leaders can emulate Gandhi for what generations they have left before their extinction and all it means is the prolongation of harm... and perhaps lessons in how to appear righteous as you go down to extinction. Your home is taken by another for that other's gain, and it will not be ceded back to you, ever, until either no more gain can be gotten from it or the losses represented by trying to hold on to that gain are seen to be unacceptable. And, obviously, loss of face or even of moral high ground is no longer sufficiently threatening to oppressors to keep them in check. These things can be seen clearly in advance and a refusal to do so means service to some goal other than truth. This, I fear, may be the fault of the Dalai Lama in the whole matter of the annexation of his country by China.

I really like that he's discouraging Buddhists from the error of belief in reincarnation of the self. That is huge, and the way he goes about it, leaving intact the notion for those who need to fear a future after death to behave well in life, while helping those who need to see and know and live and be truth before it is too late. So perhaps he shies away from conflict and violence, even when necessary to stop harm, out of the idea or knowledge that he can do more good if he does not engage with these. Or perhaps he's flat out still deluded by this part of the teaching, is so attached to being a big old lovable Nobel laureate who wouldn't hurt an ant if he could help it that he has and will let whole populations fall to aggressors before ever ceding that even for a moment.

This really might be the case. Again, he may feel that ultimately does more good than lending himself overtly to stopping the harm to his fellows. And his fellows are not just Tibetan, now are they? No. They are Palestinian. They are Iraqi. They are Afghani. They are Lebanese. They are Burmese. They are human. And they are polar bears and the chemistry of the oceans. So would he be right to avoid conflict and violence this thoroughly? I don't think so. I don't think so at all.