[Buddha-l] The Dalai Lama on Self-Loathing (Stuart Lachs)

[Margaret Gouin]

On Mon, July 9, 2007 1:36 am, Stuart Lachs wrote:

>> HH Dalai Lama (the current one) was also in the process of overhauling
>> abuses in the monasteries
>> at the time of the invasion by the Chinese, etc.
>
> As stated in the Parenti paper the D.L. was not happy with many aspects of
> Tibetan culture. At 15 years old when he left Tibet, I am not sure
> how much he could overhaul, how much resistance he would receive from
> powerful interests who wanted to maintain the staus quo and so on.
>
As has already been stated, this is a complex subject and I'm grateful for
the various resources that have been posted. I seem to recall hearing that
the 13th Dalai Lama wished to 'modernise' Tibetan society and increase
contact with the West, but was stopped cold by both the nobles and the
great monasteries, neither of whom could see any reason for changing the
way things were (which benefited them considerably).
There's a lot of talk in the Western press about the Dalai Lama being a
'God-King', but we tend to forget that traditionally the Dalai Lama had
very little political power (with a few exceptions such as the Fifth) as
against the political elites of Tibetan society.

-- 
Margaret Gouin
PhD Candidate
Centre for Buddhist Studies
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol (UK)