Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi Gishin.
Thanks for the links to the video clips. I didn't know these although the TV programme is more than 10 years old.
And thank you so much for being so courageous and showing the darker sides of Tibetan society, so we can get a more balanced view. I have tried to do so myself, but have realised it is not always easy to show the shadow as a contrast to teh bright sides.

One of my friends was a chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Dalai Lama came in and munched on a dead lamb. Later I read an interview with him and he said, "I am a vegetarian half the time because I only eat meat every other day." Dude is a serious rationalizer. I am also angry with him because we offered him the Zen Moderator post, he refused! Then after Horst also turned us down we had to get Gishin.

Seth wrote:

Gishin wrote:

I do hope that this will help followers of Tibetan ideology to see clearly troughout the mess that His Hollyness as he likes to be called is creating.

I never really got the whole "hollyness" thing.  (Sp: Holyness?) I had always thought that the idea of something or somone as 'holy' to be a bit anti-thetical to the core message of the Buddha.  And if you think the Lama is bad on this regard I am sure you must be a bit saddened when you see people in Sri Lanka worshipping the Buddha's tooth.   Sadly when you dive into the details nearly all of the organized Buddhist sects are about as far from the Buddha's message as modern day Christianity has wandered from the original message of Christ.  (Note recent photo op featuring the Pope and.... DICK CHENEY!!!)

It just goes to show the wisdom of the old story about the devil and his pupil who once observed a man finding a peice of truth on the road side.

His pupil said : "No! That man just found some truth, shouldnt we stop him!":

To which the devil replied "Ah, No worries!  He will surely use this truth to recruit some followers, get organized, consolidate power and ultimatly cause more harm than good!"

Well said!

Yes indeed the Sri-Lanka thing is another story but with the somehow the same taste. What gets to me about that Dalai Lama guy is the fact that he says to stop worshipping such and such Buddhist deity because this is not REAL Buddhism. By just saying this it clearly shows that he is far from any reality when it comes to Buddhism who the heck is he to say this i sgood and that is not good? Hell their whole Buddhist school as they call it is based on the saying of oracles and that make each Dalai Lama become a living god that has to be worshipped as a reincarnated Buddha so this is in fact idol worshipping as well. This is a load of crap if he was really into Buddhism and not in self promotion and promotion of his religious political agenda his discourse and the discourse of his messed up school of what he calls Buddhsim would be different.

The story of Tibetan faith is a story of violence from the beginning and they always had doctrinal issues that resulted in war and genocide so quite honestly why the Chinese governemnt would want to deal with such religious lunatics that did the same stuff as what Muslim integrists are doing?

Seth wrote:

I never really got the whole "hollyness" thing.  (Sp: Holyness?) I had always thought that the idea of something or somone as 'holy' to be a bit anti-thetical to the core message of the Buddha.  And if you think the Lama is bad on this regard I am sure you must be a bit saddened when you see people in Sri Lanka worshipping the Buddha's tooth.

Now we're getting into semantics. What do "holiness" and "worship" mean?

I don't know Tibetan but His Holiness is probably a translation of a Tibetan phrase which may or may not mean the same thing to them as it means to us. Who knows? Anyway it is true that the Dalai Lama has quite a bit of hype surrounding him.

Regarding the tooth in Kandy. I've been there. They are not worshipping it. They are venerating it. They don't say, "Dear Tooth, please forgive me for my sins." or "Dear Tooth, please help my daughter get into a good college." They just go there and bow to the tooth as a way of showing respect for Buddha and Buddhism itself. They believe it is the tooth of the Buddha (regardless of whether it actually is) and this is their way of feeling close to Buddha. If you talk to Buddhists in Sri Lanka they say there are different levels of engagement with Buddhism depending upon the intelligence and understanding of the practitioner. Intellectuals will say statues are not necessary for the smart person, and have them just for aesthetic purposes. However for the common and simple person statues and images (or relics as with the tooth) are devices for practicing Buddhism. Without them it's too abstract for some people.

Incidentally this is even more prominent in the West where Western Buddhists seem to desperately need props to practice Buddhism. Because they're mostly converts from other religions that use props. They need continuity. This accounts for the thriving business in statues, Tibetan bowls, wall hangings, and I suppose shakuhachi. At least we actually play the shakuhachi rather than just looking at it.

The Tooth of Buddha also has temporal value. There is a belief that who controls the tooth rules the country. Therefore there have been numerous wars and battles over the tooth. At one point South Indians actually took it back to India but the Sinhalese retrieved it, thus retaining power over the country. This is why the Tamils have tried to destroy it recently. To destablize the Sri Lankan government. So in a sense it's like the Liberty Bell in America. Americans don't worship it, but it has symbolic power.

Seth wrote:

Tairaku-

Yes, no doubt different people relate to the artifacts of Buddhism on different levels  BUT at the Temple in Kandy, and at nearly every other Buddhist shrine in Asia I ever visited, I have seen all sorts of people asking for favors from the Buddha as if he was God or Jesus. 

I.

Not likely. They kneel in front of the tooth and recite Buddhist sutras. Sri Lankan Buddhists turn to the Hindu gods for favors.

Seth wrote:

. 

In Kandy, If I recall, there is a tree that if you water just right will grant you good luck.

I suppose that's the pipal tree near Peradeniya. It's like a wishing well. Once again they are requesting safe passage for travelers from the Hindu gods.

Sri Lankan Buddhism is different from Tibetan for example in this regard. Tibetan Buddhism absorbed a lot of the local animistic gods and now call them Buddhist gods. In Sri Lanka they just go to the right god for the job, and those are the Hindu gods. It's like calling a plumber to get your toilet fixed.

Tairaku wrote:

Sri Lankan Buddhism is different from Tibetan for example in this regard. Tibetan Buddhism absorbed a lot of the local animistic gods and now call them Buddhist gods. In Sri Lanka they just go to the right god for the job, and those are the Hindu gods. It's like calling a plumber to get your toilet fixed.

The fact that these superstitions are Hindu in origin is no excuse.

Yes, these practicies are Hindu in origin and not from Buddhism - but that does not negate the fact that the Buddhist leadership enjoys the benefits of maintaining these superstitions. 

And actually there are really no religious systems that are entirely original - they are mere transmutations of something that came before it. 

Half of Islam is from Judaism

Half of Christianity is from old European paganism.

Half of Judaism is from Zorastranism

Half of Buddhism is from Hinduism...

But this is a digression - my real point is that whereas the message of the Buddha was about enlightenment the message of the modern Buddhist structure is more about superstition and magic.   I am not talking about the modern hip Buddhism of Berkeley and New York, I am talking about the mass of Buddhism that stretches across Asia.