Dalai Lama

The world is a strange place sometimes. And that’s the box we’ll put the alleged friendship between George W Bush and the Dalai Lama.

What in the world could these to have to say to each other? Or perhaps that’s the point. Buddhists are very forgiving.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the Tibetan leader told American news network CNN while he did not admire all of Bush’s Middle East policies, overall he found him a nice man.

“I love President Bush ... as a human being. Not as a president of America. Some of his policies may not be very successful. But as a person, as a human being, very nice person. I love him.”

Awww. Who are among your strangest friends?

Of all the words there are to describe the guttural, other-worldly sound of the Gyuto monks’ chant, beautiful is not one of them. Pure, yes. Transportative and uplifting, absolutely. But it’s far from beautiful. At least, not immediately. That part comes later. 

Musical experts have described the Gyuto chant as multiphonic. The sound, three octaves resonating in one note, was once thought humanly impossible, and the effect is just as complex.

At first listen it’s almost unpleasant. But keep your eyes closed and persevere, because the sensation is acute and entirely unique. You can feel your thoughts moving from your feet, up through the bridge of your nose, before spreading to the very edges of your forehead. When you finally open your eyes, you feel an incredible sense of clearing.

Continue reading "The monks’ droning was music to my ears" »

The Dalai Lama’s most recent tour of Australia is in full swing, and it’s taken a slightly strange direction this time around. While his 2007 tour treated the Dalai Lama as he should be treated - as a spiritual leader who deserves respect - that tour met with a financial loss, and now it’s all about bums on seats.

Promotion, merchandise, and the media circuit. HHDL (as he’s known to his tweeps on Twitter) seems to be in it for the money, and he’s got the Collingwood AFL guernsey from Harry O’Brien to prove it.

The effort to engage a broader audience has strangely tainted his message, and the most our media can manage is to treat the man like he’s a punchline. Considering he’s trying to promote a series of undersold public lectures, he’s got to take what he can get… but is this really the best that we can give him?

Continue reading "Selling the Dalai Lama experience at $5000 a pop" »

While we in peaceful democratic Australia have been conducting our political battles at public meetings and settling our disputes at the ballot box, in less fortunate places politics is being conducted by other means.

In Tibet, where the Chinese authorities have launched a new crackdown, these include arrests in the night, secret trials, long prison sentences on spurious charges, and beatings and other forms of violence.

In early August He Guoqiang, a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo and head of its Central Commission for Discipline, visited Tibet. Apparently he was not pleased by what he found, despite the intensive repression that has taken place in Tibet since the riots in 2008 in which at least 200 people were killed. He ordered a fresh crackdown on Tibetan “separatists” and intellectuals, particularly the Buddhist monks and nuns who have been at the forefront of the protests against Chinese rule over the past few years.

Continue reading "In Tibet they’d die for a hung parliament" »

It’s Monday @ The Punch

Fact: today in 1989 the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in liberating the Himalayan region from China. You can read his acceptance speech.