Happy 89th birthday, Dalai Lama (7/6)

Suck it, Boy, suck it in front of everyone. C'mon, suck my tongue! - Isn't it bad enough we kiss?
Dalai Lama tells boy to suck his tongue, Apologizes for teasing mim (mustsharenews.com)

The fun-loving Dalai Lama gets a dance lesson from Christian Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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(DalaiLama.com) Is "His Holiness," the current Dalai Lama Mr. Tenzin Gyatso, lucid enough to rule the USA? Here he is, honored in New York City, a beloved ally of the US military-industrial complex.

• How could Wisdom Quarterly say such things about HHTDL?
• The Dalai Lama, his brother, and Tibetan exiles accepted funding and military training from the CIA to kill Chinese in the '60s, files show (LA Times)
• But this wasn't supposed to get out to the public: Intervention gone sour: The CIA's Tibet file (Los Angeles Times)

Tell them I'm good, Georgie.

Compared to enfeebled, demented, and ever so slightly senile Genocide Joe Biden, Tibet's spiritual leader (and former temporal leader or "god-king," "pope-emperor"), who at one time was in cahoots with the CIA (it's true) as an active "operative," fighting a proxy-war with China, turns 89 today, July 6th, 2024.

I had to do what I had to do for my people.

His great friendship with former U.S. Pres. G.W. Bush, the son of the former CIA Chief and former Pres. G.H.W. Bush, shows how he keeps close to power, a savvy move for a politician though an unsavory one for a spiritual leader, who seems to care not a wit that G.W. and his associates are war criminals.

The CIA paid me lots of $$

The Dalai Lama is not the "pope" of Buddhism. In fact, he is simply the church leader, a cardinal or bishop (rinpoche), of one school of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism known as the Yellow Hats. But his origin story is that he is the 14th rebirth of Avalokiteshvara, the "Bodhisattva of Compassion," neither enlightened nor universally honored even in Tibet. One group (Shugden Dorje followers of the Gelug school) hates him, as hard as that may be to imagine because he is so well spoken and kind, almost as if he were trained to be likeable, a politician, a wise meditator, and a savvy media personality from a very young age. Oh yeah, he was a tulku, after all, a candidate sought out and trained since childhood.

• Why would the Jewish Beastie Boys fund or help promote a film about children inducted into Tibetan monasticism? 'Unmistaken Child' quest at Dalai Lamas' behest (sfgate.com)
• If Wisdom Quarterly could ask him anything, what would it ask?
• Would we have to ask it through Prof. Robert Thurman (tibethouse.us) or actor Richard Gere?
• No, directly ask him himself.
• Oh, in that case, we would ask him, "What did the Dalai Lama say to the pizza maker when he ordering his pie?"
• Why?
• Well, that should keep him and his interpreters busy for a good long while.
• No, seriously.
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  We would have to ask him if it had been worth it working for the CIA.
• But that's taboo. He's the king!
• Why is it taboo? He admits it (just as Pope Benedict admitted to being a member of Germany's Hitler Youth in his childhood), even if other well-meaning Buddhists try to hide the fact to preserve his public image. No wonder China is mad.
• Come on, be serious.
• We'd ask him one of these 18 burning questions people want to ask God.
• More serious.
• Okay, we would ask him what George W. Bush is really like. Is he as stupid as he seems, or are BUSH, DICK, and COLON nice fellows, even if they committed war crimes?
• Are you mad at His Holiness?

• 

  The Dalai Lama loves children just like Jesus.

  No, but seeing him playfully molest (massage the pre-pubescent penis of) the Unmistaken Child in the documentary of the same name was upsetting, making one wonder how similar Tibetan Vajrayana and Roman Catholic monasticism are, two cults dedicated to pederasty so much so that no involved seems to notice how much it would offend the general public not part of their secret sexual rites.
• Does the Dalai Lama to tantric sex? With children?

• 

  Yab-yum: tantra for holy union

  Sadly, although the Dalai Lama himself tells the truth and says he is just a simple monk who meditates everyday like any other monk (is not enlightened), and that he accepted money for years from the CIA (but it's not something he thinks about, just another source of international funding, probably with no strings attached, none whatsoever), and rather than molesting children in his room, palace, Dharamsala mansion, he exhibits it for all to see how innocent it is for a nearly 90 year old man to swap spit with a male minor, but his handlers and defenders want to lie for him and deny any facts inconvenient to the narrative.

Holy artifact and likeness dispenses blessings

Given what Dr. David Ammon Hillman has uncovered in the Ancient Greek texts about earliest Christianity, is it any wonder what these patriarchies/misogynistic all-boys clubs (the Vatican in the Holy See and Potala Palace in Lhasa) are up to? If the "pontiff" could talk about that, it would be nice. But all the Roman pontiff does is ask, "Who am I to judge?" and the Tibetan one just laughs heartily. This is why church and state should always be kept separate.

Make out with me. Come on, I'm the boss, and I say it's okay to swap spit. Here, you suck first.

Dalai Lama faces backlash over video telling child to ‘suck’ his tongue (atheistrepublic.com)

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Some Tibetans dislike him a lot.

The USA has fought China helped Tibet for a long time, and no one should think that our military and clandestine agencies would allow the Chinese Empire to steal a quarter of its land from its neighbor without a great geopolitical struggle.

This was glorified as was Nazi involvement in Tibet in the movie Seven Years in Tibet with Hollywood movie star Brad Pitt as the principal Nazi befriending the 14th Dalai Lama, though U.S. military involvement -- through CIA agents entering the forbidden land and brokering secret deals with Lhasa -- are conspicuously absent from the American film.

• The Dalai Lama's message on his 89th birthday July 6, 2024, is a birthday message for the current leader of China, the world, and the Company.

• Dalai Lama, (dalailama.com, July 5, 2024); John Oliver, Last Week Tonight on HBO; Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Happy 82nd Birthday, Dalai Lama!

Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; DalaiLama.com

Thiksey Buddhist Monastery, Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, J&K, India (M. A. Hussain)

Consecrating a new Buddha statue at the Jokhang, July 5, 2017 (Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL)

Reciting prayers, the Jokhang, Leh, Ladkah, J&K, India, July 5, 2017 (Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL)

Greeting well-wishers along road as he arrives at the Jokhang, Leh (Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL)

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Birthday celebrations and long life offering ceremony

Jokhang Square, the approach to the complex taken by most tourists to Ladakh today (wiki)

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(July 6, 2017) The current Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, born Lhamo Thondup, July 6, 1935) will be offered a long life offering by the Tibetan community in the regional capital of Leh in Ladakh (Buddhist India), in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, high in the Himalayas bordering Tibet, followed by the official celebrations of his 82nd birthday organized by the Tibetan community in Ladakh and the Ladakh Buddhist Association. The events will be held at the Shewatsel Teaching Ground in the morning starting from 8:00 am. More + PHOTOS

ALL things are impermanent, falling away.

China mad at India on Himalayan plateau

Art by Pres. G.W. Bush, fellow birthday boy

Happy 81st Birthday, Dalai Lama

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; DalaiLama.com

Even the Dalai Lama was once a novice or samanera in the monastery (Anekoho/flickr)

 

Tibetan monastics pray, Mahabodhi Temple

People in Asia do not customarily celebrate birthdays the way we do, glorifying the individual, showering him or her with gifts for being born. Asian use birthdays to give thanks to their parents and the temple for being born and having the good fortune to hear the Dharma.

In spite of China, I made it to 81!

When as Americans we bring a monk or nun a birthday cake, it has to be embarrassing and butt backwards. They must know we mean well and even regard our intention with sympathy.

So the whole world celebrates the exiled spiritual leader the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, even the CIA and Washington, D.C., lovers of peace. He turns 81 today. 

Birthday Celebrations in Mundgod, Karnataka, India on July 6

The current Dalai Lama will participate in the concluding ceremony of his yearlong 80th Birthday Celebrations in the morning at Drepung Monastery organized by the Geluk Organizing Committee.

 

Dalai Lama expresses sadness over passing away of Jewish writer Elie Wiesel

(July 3, 2016) Palden Drepung, Mundgod, Karnataka, India - The Dalai Lama wrote this morning to Mrs. Marion Wiesel to tell her how saddened he was to learn that her husband, Elie Wiesel, had passed away in New York. He wrote: "Among his many qualities he was a steady friend of the Tibetan people."

• Dalai Lama arrives in the Tibetan settlement, Mundgod
• Interviewed by Lady Gaga before addressing US Conference of Mayors
  
• Discussions about Secular Ethics in Education and a Public Talk - Compassion as a Pillar of World Peace

Dalai Lama cancels U.S. visit: medical rest

CBSnews.com/news; Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

VIDEO: The Dalai Lama turns 80 in 2015

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota - The Dalai Lama canceled his U.S. appearances for the month of October after doctors at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic advised him to rest, his office said Friday.

The 80-year-old Tibetan Buddhist leader was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester this week for what was described as a routine check-up.

• TAC: Visit "postponed until further notice"

"The doctors have advised His Holiness to rest for the next several weeks," his office said in a statement on its website Friday. "We deeply regret the inconvenience caused by this decision and apologize to all the people who have worked so hard in organizing the visit as well as to the public."

 

The statement gave no more details about the Dalai Lama's condition and representatives did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking additional comment.

The University of Colorado and the Tibetan Association of Colorado had announced earlier Friday that the Office of Tibet in Washington, D.C., informed them a planned visit would be canceled. The Dalai Lama had been scheduled to appear at the university October 20-21.

Besides the trip to the school in Boulder, Colorado, the Dalai Lama's schedule had listed appearances in Salt Lake City and Philadelphia next month.

Mayo Clinic, where the Dalai Lama has made regular visits in past years [and why not if he is a former CIA operative], on Thursday confirmed his most recent visit for evaluation but released no details, as is routine. Mayo spokeswoman Ginger Plumbo said Friday she had no further information to release and would not confirm whether he had left the clinic.

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible," says the 14th Dalai Lama.

 

A secretary to the Dalai Lama, Chime Rigzin, told AP on Thursday that the Dalai Lama had been to the clinic and had had no health complaints. Rigzin told AP test results were fine and the Dalai Lama would soon be returning to [his Himalayan home in exile in] Dharamsala, India.

The Dalai Lama had been scheduled to make two appearances at the University of Colorado on Oct. 20 and 21. The first was an event open only to students, faculty, and staff, and the second appearance was a public teaching and talk on training the mind and compassion.

University of Colorado event planners were notified by the Office of Tibet about the cancellation Friday morning, university spokesman Ryan Huff said. The visit had been in the works for nearly two years.

"We're certainly saddened by this news, but we also hope the Dalai Lama's health improves very quickly and someday he may be able to come to campus," said Huff, who acknowledged that it would take a long time to plan another visit.

The Dalai Lama also was scheduled to receive an award from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Oct. 26. The center's president and CEO, Jeffrey Rosen, said officials are working with the Dalai Lama's office to see if a representative can accept the award in his absence.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dalai Lama as he recovers his strength," Rosen said.

Lobsang Tsering, president of the Utah Tibetan Association, said the Salt Lake City visit from Oct. 17-19 included an invitation to a world relations conference, a public talk at the University of Utah and a dedication of the new Tibetan Association Community Center.

Tsering said when he learned of the cancellation, "my heart dropped." But he said that for Tibetan people, "the most important thing is the well-being of His Holiness. And we all know he needed a rest." More

2015 Dalai Lama visit postponed

Tibetan Association of Colorado and CU-Boulder will co-host October visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

• For more event info: DalaiLamaColorado.com

The Tibetan Association of Colorado (TAC) and the University of Colorado Boulder are delighted to co-host a campus visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Oct. 20 and 21, 2015.
 

A schedule of events at CU-Boulder is still being finalized. The schedule and ticket information will be announced as they are finalized. Events will include an address by His Holiness to students, a teaching on the Eight Verses of Training the mind, and a public talk by His holiness. In addition, a multi-day Festival of Tibet featuring a Tibetan market, food, and performances of music and dance will be held for everyone’s added enjoyment. More

Dalai Lama in SoCal: the sand mandala

Matt Hamilton, Francine Orr, Sarah Parvini (latimes.com); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The 14th Dalai Lama, left, with Tibetan monk Ven. Sherab Chopel, the principal artist who created the mandala, view it together during a private event in Irvine. The sand mandala was created to commemorate the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday (Francine Orr/LATimes.com).

Tibetan monks construct another mandala on another occasion (hairyprincess).

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Dalai Lama's anjali mudra

(L.A. Now) Creating a mandala is as painstaking as it is beautiful. Grain by grain, two Tibetan monks meticulously placed colored sand during the last two weeks on the campus of UC Irvine, forming a brightly hued pattern that's said to attract "loving-kindness."

 

This particular mandala depicts the celestial home of Avalokiteshvara, the [Bodhisattva] of compassion. It was created to commemorate the 80th birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama, whom Tibetan Buddhists revere as a living embodiment of Avalokiteshvara [transformed or embodied as the Goddess Kwan Yin].

Speaking with small group during private event blessing mandala (Francine Orr/LA Times).

 
The site at UC Irvine was chosen because it will become the new home of the Center for Living Peace, a nonprofit that sponsored the Dalai Lama's visit this week to Orange County.

 

The monks' diligent work -- from 9:00 am to midnight, for 10 days -- climaxed Tuesday morning, when the Dalai Lama blessed it. He studied the mandala with the principal artist, a Tibetan monk named Ven. Sherab Chopel.

 

In time, the mandala will be destroyed. Monks will sweep the sand and return it to the [Pacific] ocean [to send loving-kindness and blessings in all directions].

Borobudur mandala floorplan for 9th century Buddhist temple, world's largest (David1010)

 

Hevajra mandala, Nepal (Wonderlane)

Unlike so many art forms, it's an exercise in impermanence and the ephemeral. The mandala shows four arms, which organizers said symbolize the qualities required for enlightenment: joy, equanimity, loving-kindness, and compassion.

 

Perhaps there's a fifth quality [such as a sense of humor].

 

During the private gathering, the Dalai Lama paused and without provocation, looked directly at Los Angeles Times photojournalist Francine Orr, saying, "Compassion without wisdom is nothing." More

• COMMENTS: (Anayeli at 11:59 am July 08, 2015) How funny. I just realized he ma[d]e the comment about compassion that lacks wisdom while looking at a LAT employee. LOL! During the private gathering, the Dalai Lama paused and without provocation, looked directly at Los Angeles Times photojournalist Francine Orr, saying, "Compassion...

Times staff writer Sarah Parvini contributed to this report.

Kalachakra Sera mandala, initiation (Kosi Gramatikoff)

• Dalai Lama marks 80th birthday with compassion-themed Anaheim summit

Tibet's Road Ahead: the Dalai Lama's birthday

Barbara Demick (Monday, July 7, 2015, latimes.com); Wisdom Quarterly

Monks, Buddhist nuns, and other Tibetans take part in a Tibetan Uprising Day protest march held in Dharamsala, India, on March 10, 2014 (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times).

• Phurbu Tsering takes part in Tibetan Uprising Day, held at the Tsuglagkhang Temple of the Dalai Lama Complex in McLeod Ganj, India, on March 10, 2014. Tibetan Uprising Day, March 10, commemorates the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the presence of the People's Republic of China in Tibet. It also was the time when the Dalia Lama fled Tibet and went into exile. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama lives in McLeod Ganj, where this ceremony took place.

A view of the Himalayas from Dharamsala with Buddhist monastic in foreground (LAT)

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The 14th Dalai Lama turns 80 this year.

To hear the Dalai Lama laugh, his face lighting up in a beatific smile, it is easy to forget the cascade of disasters endured by the Tibetan Buddhist movement over the course of his life.

 

Yet the list is long, and growing longer, as an ascendant China consolidates control over Tibet.

 

On the cusp of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday Monday, which he will mark during a three-day visit to Anaheim [Orange County, Southern California, Los Angeles adjacent], China's rising economic clout is slowly strangling the movement for Tibetan independence and, in the process, nudging the charismatic Tibetan spiritual leader off the world stage.

Under Chinese pressure, South Africa refused to grant him a visa last year to attend a gathering of Nobel laureates. Even Pope Francis [head of the corporate body of the Holy Roman Empire's church with its office/capital at the Vatican in the Holy See just outside of Rome], presumably worried about the fate of Chinese Catholics, declined to grant him an audience in December. 

• Meet the man who got the Dalai Lama to Orange County for his 80th birthday
• Glastonbury Festival
• Asia

See all related

The 94,000-strong Tibetan community in India, which for years has operated a government in exile headquartered in this mountain resort, is shrinking as a result of tighter Chinese controls on borders and passports that keep the 6 million Tibetans living in China from leaving.

 

At the same time, after a decades-long exodus, a new phenomenon is occurring: Tibetans are quietly requesting Chinese documents to go home, implicitly acknowledging that China's rule over Tibet is here to stay.

Tibet: Central Asia to the west, Nepal and India to the south, China to the north and east

 
"Everybody knows that the economic situation is better over there than here,'' said a Tibetan engineer in his 30s who is preparing to return soon and asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. "We're paid very well back in Tibet and people feel it is better to go back home than to live here in a shack.''

 

(Tricyle.com)

And yet Tibetans at home are not happy. Since 2009, 140 Tibetans have immolated themselves to protest Chinese policies that limit their freedom of movement, speech and religion, especially their right to venerate the Dalai Lama.

Exiled from his homeland since 1959, the Dalai Lama views these setbacks and challenges with the air of a man who meditates five hours a day and takes a transcendental approach to adversity.

 

"I don't consider China powerful at all,'' he said during an interview at the sprawling complex of Buddhist temples here. "They may be powerful in their economics and weapons, but in terms of moral principles, they are very weak. The whole society is full of suspicion and full of distrust."

 

Looming over any discussion of Tibet is a simple actuarial fact: The Dalai Lama is in his final decades of life. At some point, Tibetan Buddhists will be faced with the loss of a man who has been revered as both a secular and spiritual leader and has given their Free Tibet movement a sense of moral authority throughout the world.

On the cusp of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday, many Tibetans wonder whether their struggle for autonomy and religious freedom will soon be lost. Desperation can be seen in the number of self-immolations that have occurred since the religious uprising of 2008 -- more than 140 to date. Some Tibetans have lost faith and are beginning to return to Tibet, which is now occupied by China (latimes.com).

 
That has set in motion in recent months a scramble for succession of a uniquely Buddhist variety, because the Dalai Lama's successor is by tradition the reincarnation of his holiness. In March, the Chinese government once again signaled its intention to have a role in designating the legitimate heir, a plan that prompted the Dalai Lama to suggest that he may break with tradition and appoint his own successor or that he may not be reincarnated at all.

"Reincarnation is not the business of the communists,'' he said.

• There is no "reincarnation" in Buddhism
• The rebirth of Anne Frank as Barbro Karlen

There is no reincarnation in Buddhism

Born on July 6, 1935, the 14th Dalai Lama began life as Lhamo Dondrub in a village in China's Qinghai province. As the story goes, the deceased 13th Dalai Lama was found with his head turned in that direction and a search party was sent to identify his reincarnation. They were delighted to find a precocious toddler who could correctly identify the Dalai Lama's walking stick, rosary, and drum.

 

He was brought to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, at age 4 and assumed rule over Tibet as a 15-year-old in 1950.

• COMMENTS (White Lotus at 7:38 pm July 4, 2015) @FLATIMES Actually the Dalai Lama has used his position as spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and Nobel Laureate to give much of his time and his advice to make the world a better place. What have you done?  Add a comment. See all comments.

Tibet had been run as a de facto independent country in the chaotic early 20th century, but it had not been formally recognized. In 1949, Chinese Communists claimed power in distant Beijing and proved to be a force that the Himalayan mountain kingdom could not overcome.
 

Exile: Himalayan flats, Dharamsala, India

For China, the 965,000-square-mile region known as the Tibetan plateau, spread over strategic high ground in the center of Asia, is a crucial buffer from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
 
Encompassing roughly one-quarter of China's landmass, it is the source of most of Asia's largest rivers, supplying water to nearly half the world's population. It also has the largest reserve of uranium in the world.
 

The struggle to subdue Tibet has shaped the character of modern China, forcing it to become the kind of brutal imperial power the early communist ideologues once deplored. Beijing devotes inordinate military and diplomatic effort to defend its claim to Tibet, which it calls "an integral part of China since antiquity."
 
"The Chinese know that historically their empire was weak when control over the western borders lapsed,'' said Sulmaan Wasif Khan, a specialist in Chinese foreign relations at Tufts University.
 

With global warming ruining our planet, we must realize we are all inter-dependent.

 

Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule has been relatively nonviolent compared with ethnic disputes elsewhere, such as those involving Kurds or Chechens.
 
Robert Barnett, a Tibet scholar at Columbia University in New York, counts only about 20 Han Chinese (the ethnic majority in China) who have been killed by political violence at the hands of Tibetans since the 1980s. The death toll among ethnic Tibetans is higher, in the hundreds including those who have self-immolated with calls for the Dalai Lama to return.
 

"Wow! NOTHING! Just what I always wanted!"

If he dies in exile, though, that could change. "People may feel the Chinese forced him to die outside his country and caused him grief, and they could reap a terrible harvest of suffering,'' Barnett said.

At the heart of the dilemma is the Dalai Lama. Although he abandoned calls for Tibetan independence in 1979, embracing instead a "middle way" in which Tibetans would enjoy autonomy and freedom of religion and speech under Chinese rule, the Chinese Communist Party reviles him as a separatist.

"The Dalai party has never abandoned the use of violence to achieve their ultimate goal of full independence,'' the State Council wrote in a "white paper" on Tibet released in mid-April.

Rebirth is real; reincarnation is not (SAW)

So anathema is the Dalai Lama to the Communist Party that he is treated as the one whose name cannot be mentioned. Tibetans dare not speak of him in public. Walking down the street with a portrait of the Dalai Lama will get one immediately arrested in most parts of China. Tiny medallions are routinely confiscated and destroyed. More