[Buddha-l] Victor and Victoria Trimondi

[Jo]

What the Trimondi's overlook is that all the major religions of the world,
ancient and some modern, look toward an Armageddon of some sort, an end of
the world. The Kalachakra that they rant about is no different from some of
the more ancient scenarios, nor from contemporary ones, like amassing atomic
bombs. 
The Nordic god myths did, the Hindu mythology does although in their case it
is a repeated cycle of creation-destruction; the Abrahamic religions look
toward the last days with the appearance of a Messiah or for the Sunnis,
Allah  (in this I include Islam as Abrahamic, he was the first Prophet); and
today the Christian fundamentalist Dominionists look to the overcoming of
all secular state governments by Christian conversion and literal belief in
the Bible, where Biblical laws and taboos will replace secular law (the
Christian shari'a so to speak);  just as today's Salafis look for the
triumph of the universal rule of Shari'a and implementing the Islamocracy.
Other fundamentalist Christians are just as eager to see the last battle,
which they think will take place in Israel, when Jesus will triumph, the
good go to heaven and the evil to hell, and the Jews will be converted. 

All of the major nations of the world have had messianic visions of warfare
and triumph. One might even speculate that these visions are the historic
basis of the major appeal that their lust for violence has installed in
human psychology (see, for ex., the mass popularity of violent video games).

I never got interested in the Kalachakra ritual (or any of their other
rites), and I have no idea why the Dalai Lama specializes on it. He may just
keep on doing it because that's part of his expected roles. Performing the
rite allows him to maintain his leadership of the monks and devotees. In
recent years he has seemed to have become more of a politician than a
'spiritual' leader, traveling around, raising money for his cause. Retiring
has released him from that.  I suspect that he is of two minds, like many
another human being--he doesn't want to lose out on possible useful advice
from his divination master, but then he has already said that if scientific
research contradicts some Buddhist teachings, those teachings have to go. He
has never pretended that he thinks he is "enlightened".  
A better title for V&V's book would be, 'The Shadow of the Kalachakra'. 

Joanna