With the goal of inner peace and the charm of a simple monk, what’s behind the Dalai Lama’s celebrity status?
Photo: Ferne Millen
If you’ve seen the Dalai Lama live, or even online, you can tell right away he’s “real.”
By real I mean he offers no reason to treat him any different than “a simple monk” as he’s fond of saying. His tradition is Buddhism, but his religion is “kindness.”
You’d think his message of universal peace would be enough to warrant his popularity. Yet as Stephen Schettini writes in The Metropolitain, perhaps the real reason for the Dalai Lama’s superstar status is actually: Buddhism.
Visitors to Asia may perceive Buddhism as old-time religion, complete with invisible beings, superstition and intolerance, but scratch beneath the gaudy veneer and you find a thoughtful, healing and wholesome system of thought and daily practice.
In an age when religious faith is on the decline and people are having trouble swallowing its hollow residue, Buddhism offers a spiritual path that’s compatible with scientific enquiry, and perhaps even with twenty-first century realpolitik.
I’m reminded of a recent scene from the awful “Angels and Demons” film – when Ewan McGregor’s priest character is pontificating to the other church clergy about how “science and religion don’t have to fight! They can work together!” However clumsily, the message is meant to answer the age-old dilemma that is suffered by the Abrahamic religions: how do maintain “blind” faith in the age of Reason.
Buddhism, at least in the form popularly adopted by the West, doesn’t have this dilemma. There is no schism between science and religion – and this is key to understanding Buddhism’s popularity. As Stephen Schettini points out:
The Dalai Lama noted three crucial parallels between the Buddhism and modern science. They 1) share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, 2) believe in universal natural laws of cause and effect and 3) depend on an empirical method. You can go a long way on those three premises.
Add to this the Dalai Lama’s brand of inner peace and simple wisdom, and it’s likely he’ll be in the spotlight for some time to come.
As one blogger says “He’s a religious guy who doesn’t support killing or hating people for God. It’s a big improvement.”
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9 Comments... join the discussion!
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I echo Abbie: what appeals to me about Buddhism is the quest for peace and wisdom, not an assertion to be the “right” religion in the world. The Dalai Lama will continue to be popular as his simple message rings all the more true in this modern, empirical world.
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It’s his perceived humility. People are attracted to humility; they think it’s “peaceful”.
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I’ve seent the Dalai Lama a few times. Once in Auroville in a pleasant outdoor setting and he was indeed charming and candid as you would imagine him to be. The last time was in Montreal a few weeks ago where there were 15,000 people. He wasn’t so charming then. His speech was sloppy and anything but substantial and he visibly couldn’t wait to get the hell out of out of there. Maybe I should write about it
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I’m a great fan of the Dali Lama, but the fact that he’s exiled also raises his celebrity status.
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I met the lama of the Junbesi monastery in Nepal last month and he was very similar to the Dalai Lama I’ve seen in interviews on TV: humble, open and intelligent.
I asked if he’d achieved enlightenment and he said it was a long journey, and didn’t try and sell it by saying he’d seen anything special or something.
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I agree with Debi’s point, along with the fact that people seem to be searching for a less-restrictive belief system, one which is interconnected but doesn’t necessarily say “believe this.” My problem with Buddhism as I’ve sometimes encountered it is that it does in fact say believe this, and many Buddhists due, in fact, worship the Buddha (even though that’s not the way it’s supposed to be).
And I still grapple with the fact that you aren’t supposed to be happy when it comes to Buddhism – I get that the higher you go, the lower you go, and the ultimate goal is to be unattached so as to experience equanimity, but it often feels as if condemns being happy, in a way. Not sure if this is just the human expression of Buddhism, though.
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FYI…I once had a dream visitation where this distinguished Tibetan lama came to me and told me – “your goal in this life is to be a happy person!”
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The key aspect of Buddhism is that it doesn’t try to answer all the questions people seek the answers to in the Bible, the Koran, other holy books. Buddhists have their own opinions regarding the nature and origins of the universe, but they have NOTHING to do with Buddhism. Even the Buddha refused to answer a list of age old questions one skeptic presented to him (probably out of the suspicion his words would be interpreted as gospel… no pun intended). Buddhism is about finding peace by learning to focus on the present: who cares if the universe was designed?
The Dalai Lama is coming to New Zealand Dec 5th for a public audience and a Dhamma talk. I have tickets!
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