[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Richard Hayes]

On Dec 3, 2009, at 1:32 PM, S. A. Feite wrote:

> Lopez points out an interesting phenomenon re: "Lamaism": the pairing
> of Tibetan Buddhism with Roman Catholicism. Early commentators went
> to considerable lengths to compare the two.

The Jehovah's Witnesses still do this, with an interesting difference.  
Tibetan Buddhism has come to represent all of Buddhism, so all  
Buddhists are, in the eyes of our earnest JW friends, worshipers of  
the Buddhist Pope, the Dalai Lama. This is about as accurate as the  
claim that Quakers worship foxes.

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes
rhayes at unm.edu