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Too Funny!!!! (China regulates Tibetan Buddhism)

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  • Too Funny!!!! (China regulates Tibetan Buddhism)

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    You have to read this, it's hilarious and sad.

  • #2
    Too good to lose. Had to preserve it here:

    By Matthew Philips
    Newsweek

    Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

    At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

    So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? "You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.
    Nice find. Truly extraordinary how these people think some times..
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

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    • #3
      Although I have never been one to agree with Tibetan's devotional-style Buddhism (particularly the idea of reincarnation or re-birth), I would be inclined to say that the Chinese Gov't is retarded.
      "For some reason I'm in a good mood today. I haven't left the house yet, though. "

      "fa hui, you make buddhism sexy." -Zachsan

      "Friends don't let friends do Taekwondo." -Nancy Reagan

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      • #4
        What's the problem with rebirth and Buddhism? The Thai's believe in it strongly here. Wasn't exactly sure what the Tibetans had believed, even though I visited that country many years ago.
        Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

        "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

        (more comments in my User Profile)
        russbo.com


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        • #5
          This is not the first time China has done this. Reincarnates used to be found in Mongolia as well:

          At various times from the late 1600's to the early 1700's the Manchu would invade Lhasa trying to control Tibet. The Qing was wary of alliances between Tibet and unconquered Mongols in Central Asia, not to mention Tibet's religious significance. Their all empowered spiritual & worldly leader was the Dalai Lama, a Mongolian term meaning Ocean of Wisdom. …Once the Mongols had been subdued in the late 1750's Tibet became of less strategic importance, however the Qing decreed that no more reincarnates of the Dali Lama would be found in Mongolia, only Tibet. The Qing went so far as to create the Panchen Lamas as regents of the Dali Lama, so they could work with the more worldly regents rather than the more spiritual and Mongol related Dalai Lama. [It is here we see the foreshadowing of Mao Zedong's insidious plan in 1949 to invade and control Tibet using this point in history to justify it.]

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          • #6
            great post. what i don't get is: "barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation. " what does that mean, exactly?
            ZhongwenMovies.com

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            • #7
              Originally posted by doc
              What's the problem with rebirth and Buddhism? The Thai's believe in it strongly here. Wasn't exactly sure what the Tibetans had believed, even though I visited that country many years ago.
              I don't think it's predominately understood in the terms Buddhism had originally intended to mean. It largely refers to mental process of our desire and attachments, not so much actual rebirth of one soul from one body to another; specially since Buddhism teaches that all things are empty of self.

              Although it wouldn't be the first time a major world religion has contradicted itself. Plus the idea of a physical rebirth often mistakenly called reincarnation, is orignally from the Hindus; and to say the least they believe in just about everything.
              "For some reason I'm in a good mood today. I haven't left the house yet, though. "

              "fa hui, you make buddhism sexy." -Zachsan

              "Friends don't let friends do Taekwondo." -Nancy Reagan

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              • #8
                I don't get the impresssion that the Theravadan Buddhists out here in Thailand believe in reincarnation because of a "misunderstanding" in their religious beliefs. This concept is widely prevalent, and seriously believed. It's my understanding that Theravadan Buddhism believes in rebirth in both the spiritual and the physical sense.
                Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                (more comments in my User Profile)
                russbo.com


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                • #9
                  I agree. Which is why I've always opted for a more modern viewpoint of Buddhist philosophy and practices. I have often ignored certain ideas, reincarnation or rebirth being one of them.
                  "For some reason I'm in a good mood today. I haven't left the house yet, though. "

                  "fa hui, you make buddhism sexy." -Zachsan

                  "Friends don't let friends do Taekwondo." -Nancy Reagan

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                  • #10
                    I agree with Fa Hui. My personal belief is more in the – since we live only in the Now – continuous death and rebirth of the self. Who we were at age five is not who we are at 15 or 25 or 55, or even from yesterday to today. Buddha lived in the time of the Vedas with a belief system of the atman (or soul), so many have taken this as an actual death and being reborn in the next life, and not in this lifetime right now!

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                    • #11
                      Well, I understand that everyone has their own interpretation of this, and I respect other people's feelings on it.

                      But I truly find it amazing living here in Thailand, how these people downright believe that bad people will come back as animals, so on and so forth. They don't sue each other because they believe in karma (and cheap assassins). I see a far more Buddhist type of lifestyle out here than I had ever seen during all the time I spent in China.
                      Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                      "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                      (more comments in my User Profile)
                      russbo.com


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                      • #12
                        The Tibetan Book of the Dead does a great job of describing the realms of the hungry ghosts & animals etc., but these are more concepts of the mind than physical places.

                        I too found Thailand much more Buddhist in their lifestyle, but then Thailand has always been so, where as China had an interruption of brutal, dictatorial, Communism…

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                        • #13
                          Well i dont know much about reincarnation but let me tell u a story that happened in a Kagyu temple.

                          I was daydreaming in my bed when i heard the gong for the teaching. At the same time i heard sounds of a drum, clearly coming from my mind not from the outside. I wondered why the hell i heard sounds of drums like in a dream.

                          I saw the girl that was making the gong was a viet gongfu practicionner called TamHau Nguyen Ba (with respect)

                          Then i went to the teaching on Green Tara (with respect). Lama Sherab Dorje then explained that Tara had took her bodisatta vows under the time of the Budda called "Sound of the drum"

                          Was it a coincidence born from my subjective mind or had it to do with reincarnation, i dont know.

                          Anyway i higly recommend gongfu practicionners of course not to harm any living being, including animals for food and ghosts, but to go to the root of killing and violence by being strictly vegetarian and not killing insects while practicing gongfu.

                          Guan Yin Bu Sha!

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                          • #14
                            classic russbo!!!! classic!!
                            ZhongwenMovies.com

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                            • #15
                              What's wrong with killing insects? These ****ing mosquitoes carry some nasty damn diseases. Kill them all the time when I'm working out.
                              Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                              "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                              (more comments in my User Profile)
                              russbo.com


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