‘We have been working to undo these associations for a decade’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

The prepared text of Nycole Turmel’s remarks yesterday to the Global Conference on World’s Religions after 9/11.

I am delighted to welcome all of you to this conference and to Canada.  And I am proud that Canada is hosting such an important exploration of peace and faith.

Because Canadians, at our best, are strong advocates of peace in the world. We identify strongly with Canada’s tradition as a leading voice for peace. Canadians, are to their core, people of peace.

And we share with everyone in this room a faith in the immense potential of the human spirit.

That kind of faith in each other was shaken on September 11, 2001 — pierced by those four rogue aircraft that caused such suffering.

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This week: Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 11:27 AM - 2 Comments

Aijaz Rahi/AP

The best politics is no politics

Given his status as a revered spiritual leader, retirement was never really an option for the Dalai Lama. But the 76-year-old’s decision to formally relinquish his political duties to an elected member of Tibet’s government-in-exile could prove to have a meaningful impact on his followers. He revealed his intentions on the 52nd anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, with elections to take place on March 20. By making good on a long-held promise, the Dalai Lama seeks to modernize the Tibetan movement while simultaneously making it more difficult for the Chinese government to capitalize on any power vacuum in the wake of his death.

How to spend a billion

She was dubbed “the wealthiest divorcee in history,” and Patricia Kluge‘s divorce spoils were rivalled only by those of Anna Murdoch, ex-wife of Rupert, and Slavica Ecclestone, ex-wife of Formula One boss Bernie. Kluge was believed to have received over US$1 billion in her 1990 divorce from media mogul John Kluge, which was reportedly amicable. Easy come, easy go. A series of bad business ventures followed, including a critically admired winery that supplied the wine for Chelsea Clinton‘s wedding last year. This week the 62-year-old’s mansion was foreclosed, her vineyard seized, and her jewels, artwork and artifacts sold. The US$3.8 million she got for a Qing dynasty clock (among other assets) wasn’t enough; Kluge is in debt to the tune of US$69 million. Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 29, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

A perfect wedding for one
Chen Wei-yih, a 30-year-old living in Taipei, waited for the right man. But he never came along, so in a triumphant gesture aimed in part at upending clichés about unmarried women, she rented a hall, bought a wedding dress and will marry herself on Nov. 6. The Facebook page for “Only&Only’s Wedding” has won her loads of new friends. And yes, there is a honeymoon: Chen will travel with her new, better half to Australia.

Still Wayne’s world
It would have been the biggest English divorce since Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Shaken Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson told a press conference that his star attacker, Wayne Rooney, intended to move to a new professional soccer club instead of renewing his contract. Rooney had quarrelled with his boss over an ankle injury, and told Sky Sports he had concerns over “the continued ability of the club to attract the top players in the world.” The fight raised the possibility of Rooney defecting to a Man U rival—perhaps the most despised of all, Manchester City. But after two days of uncertainty, Rooney relented and signed a deal that will keep him in the famous red kit until June 2015.

He said it once. He’ll say it again.
He has no chance of becoming the next governor of New York, but this gubernatorial candidate’s stump speeches have won him Internet fame, a parody on Saturday Night Live and even a toy action figure based on his likeness. Jimmy McMillan heads a political party called The Rent is Too Damn High Party, and in appearances he hammers away at his party’s one and only platform plank: the rent is too damn high. “Our children can’t afford to live anywhere. There’s nowhere to go,” he said during one televised debate. “Once again, why? You said it, the rent is too damned high.” He even won over front-runner Andrew Cuomo, who during the debate admitted: “I’m with Jimmy: the rent is too damn high.”

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Stop the lama love-in

By Andy Lamey - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 11:15 AM - 140 Comments

Everyone loves the Dalai Lama. Just how much was on display two weeks ago when the Tibetan religious leader paid a visit to the town of Tawang in northeastern India. Ethnic Tibetans travelled to the frontier outpost from all over the sub-continent in order to venerate the 74-year-old monk at a huge outdoor rally. “He is our god, he is the living Buddha. A glimpse of the Dalai Lama is like getting spiritual power inside you,” said one participant in explaining the extraordinary adulation the Dalai Lama inspires. Here in Canada, our view is not so different. When the Dalai Lama travelled to Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal last month, tens of thousands crowded into stadiums to hear his message of universal compassion. The rapturous reception was in keeping with our decision in 2006 to grant him citizenship, the highest honour Canada bestows on foreign leaders. The Dalai Lama’s other admirers include the U.S. government, which awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Nobel Peace Prize committee. The general feeling of Lama-mania was summed up by TV star Sandra Oh, who co-hosted one of his Canadian appearances. “He’s a rock star! Rock star! Seriously, a rock star!”

Yet if the Dalai Lama is a rock star, does he live up to the hype? His spiritual teachings contain elements of illogic and intolerance that would not be accepted from any other religious figure. That these go unnoticed is largely due to the way Tibetan Buddhism functions as a spiritual Rorschach blot onto which Westerners project their hopes and desires. The primary problem, however, is political. In addition to being a spiritual figure, the Dalai Lama is the leader of the Free Tibet movement. And when it comes to advancing that goal, he has been a resounding failure. Uncritical adulation legitimizes the Dalai Lama’s failed leadership and undermines one of the great political causes of our time.

It’s not hard to understand the Dalai Lama’s appeal. At first glance he holds out the promise of religious belief purged of any trace of fundamentalism. When it comes to modern science, for example, he has said that when it conflicts with Buddhist teachings, Buddhism should be revised. Other theological statements he has made, such as his declaration that “any deed done with good motivation is a religious act,” bespeak a similarly open-minded temperament.

But this progressive outlook can sometimes turn out to be illusory. Consider the teaching for which he may be best known, his doctrine of universal compassion. As he has written, “non-violence applies not just to human beings, but to all sentient beings—any living thing that has a mind.” That belief is why, when the Dalai Lama was invited to a fundraising luncheon for a monastery in Wisconsin in 2007, the organizers expected him to ask for a vegetarian meal. Instead they watched him happily ingest pheasant and veal. “He pretty much lapped up every single plate that he had put in front of him,” one tablemate later said. “He loves food; he likes good food.” The Dalai Lama, it turns out, is vegetarian at his official residence in India but not while travelling. But a doctrine of compassion that switches on and off depending on geography is not much of a doctrine at all.

The Dalai Lama’s position on same-sex relationships is equally puzzling. “I look at the issue at two levels,” he told the Vancouver Sun in 2004. Homosexuality is perfectly acceptable for non-believers. And for people who look to the Dalai Lama for guidance? “For a Buddhist, the same-sex union is engaging in sexual misconduct.” The double-sided approach is rooted in a traditional method of explaining discrepancies between schools of Buddhism, whereby the Buddha is said to have taught different things to different people. But as with the doctrine of compassion, the Dalai Lama’s considered view ends up being a sloppy relativist mess. Or at least it does in the West, where he is obliged to state his view regarding non-Buddhists. When addressing Buddhists directly the Dalai Lama’s position is less complicated—and more crudely prejudicial.

This side of the Dalai Lama’s spiritual teachings is never subject to criticism. Why? One possibility is that the Dalai Lama solves a specifically Western problem. In the 19th century the shared religious values that once permeated our civilization began a “long withdrawing roar,” as Matthew Arnold put it. Any religion one adopts now is merely one possibility among many, a reality that drains each of its explanatory value and force. An infatuation with the Dalai Lama is the Goldilocks solution for a culture that finds traditional religion too hot and atheism too cold. His exoticism marks him as authentic, and subjecting his teachings to critical scrutiny is beside the point, as there is never any chance we are going to engage his teachings seriously enough to be challenged by them. We instead want to bask in his distant spiritual glow.

The Dalai Lama’s appeal is arguably closely entwined with the peculiar fascination the West has long exhibited for all things Tibetan. When Europeans discovered Tibet, it was a remote kingdom that had never been colonized and still seemed to exist in the ancient past. It quickly became a land of fantasy. Shangri-La, the mystical Tibetan paradise, was first depicted in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton. In the late 1930s the Nazis sent an expedition to Tibet, hoping to find an ancient race of Aryans. After the devastation of the Second World War, European intellectuals imagined Tibet as “an unarmed society.” As Buddhist scholar Donald Lopez notes, these myths have a common source. In each case, “the West perceives some lack within itself and fantasizes that the answer, through a process of projection, is to be found somewhere in the East.”

This process continued after China invaded Tibet in 1959, and many Tibetans were driven into exile. When the Beatles recorded Tomorrow Never Knows, John Lennon wanted his voice to sound like “the Dalai Lama on the mountain top.” Remember the cuddly and eco-friendly Ewoks in Return of the Jedi? The language they spoke was modified Tibetan. Today Tibet is embraced by celebrities ranging from the Beastie Boys to action hero Steven Seagal. “The Dalai Lama gave me a spiritual blessing that would not have been given to anyone who was not special,” Seagal announced in 1996. “I don’t think he has given such a blessing to another white person.”
Just how special Seagal is became clear in 1997 when Tibetan religious authority Penor Rinpoche declared him to be the reincarnation of a 17th-century lama. However ridiculous it may seem to imagine the star of Exit Wounds and Pistol Whipped as a holy being, Seagal’s anointment symbolizes the transformation Tibetan Buddhism has undergone as it has come in contact with new patrons and admirers in the West. Rather than something “out there,” Tibetan culture is influenced by how Westerners engage with it.

Unfortunately, on a political level, that influence has been highly negative. Seeing how requires understanding the different and at times conflicting roles the Dalai Lama now plays in addition to being the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism. Nowhere is this more true than in regard to his position as leader of the Tibetan government in exile, and the Free Tibet movement more broadly.

Since China invaded Tibet it has engaged in a campaign of ruthless repression. It is official government policy to “end the nomadic way of life” of traditional Tibetans and to forcibly resettle them. Tibetans who protest are subject to show trials and torture. Opposing China’s actions has rightly been characterized as a moral struggle on the scale of the movement against apartheid or for Indian independence. Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama is the equal of neither Nelson Mandela nor Gandhi. He is as miscast as the head of Tibet liberation as the pope would have been leading the struggle against Hitler. Under his leadership political goals have inevitably taken a back seat to spiritual ones.

A comparison to South Africa is instructive. One of the most inspiring moments in the struggle against apartheid came during the famous Rivonia trial when Nelson Mandela, faced with a possible death sentence, spoke from the prisoner’s dock. Freedom, he said, was “an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mandela’s speech galvanized the anti-apartheid movement. The Dalai Lama’s pronouncements, by contrast, could not be less defiant. “I practise certain mental exercises which promote love toward all sentient beings, including especially my so-called enemies.” Mandela endorsed an international boycott of South African athletes. When China hosted the 2008 Olympics, the Dalai Lama sent Beijing his regards. “I send my prayers and good wishes for the success of the event.” If the Dalai Lama had led the struggle in South Africa, apartheid would still be in effect. Unsurprisingly, 50 years after the occupation, Tibet is still not free.

At times it seems that is what Western Tibetophiles would unknowingly prefer. In the words of actor Richard Gere, a long-time advocate of Tibetan independence, “Many of us constantly remind our Tibetan friends, ‘You must maintain that sense of uniqueness and that genuine cultural commitment to non-violence. If you pick up arms and become like the Palestinians, you’ll lose your special status.’”

Leave aside the fact that the moral case for armed resistance in Tibet is as strong as it was in France under German occupation. There are many steps an independence movement can take that fall short of violence, measures such as strikes or boycotts. The Dalai Lama has thrown himself into none of these, which are all at odds with loving one’s enemy. This approach is reinforced by his Western admirers, who are drawn to the myth of Tibet as an unarmed society (even though Tibet has fought armies from Mongolia, Nepal and Britain). The overall effect of his staunchest Western fans therefore has been to reward and perpetuate an approach to Tibetan independence that has no hope of ever succeeding.

To be fair, his Holiness has begun to admit as much. “I have to accept failure; things are not improving in Tibet,” he said last November, acknowledging the “death sentence” Tibetans continue to face under Chinese rule. His supporters stress the awareness he brings to the Tibetan cause and the anger Chinese officials express whenever the Dalai Lama receives an audience with a Western leader. But after a certain point, awareness has to give way to action.

Slowly, another political faction is taking form. As one young Tibetan who has spent his entire life in exile in India said in March, “We do not get anything from China. So some young people want to go to a little bit of violence—not to kill anyone but to do something so that China knows they will actively [resist].” Such a view is in keeping with the position of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which stands for “the total independence of Tibet even at the cost of one’s life.” If progress is to ever be made on Tibet, these approaches need to be taken seriously. But that can only happen if the Dalai Lama steps aside as a political leader, and lets a new generation take over.

First, however, public perception of the Dalai Lama needs to change. As it stands, when people turn their attention to him, they do so in the spirit of answering John Lennon’s call to “turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.” The outcome of this lazy attitude is to reinforce the Dalai Lama’s leadership and his counterproductive efforts to free his people. The basic problem was summed up by the Dalai Lama himself when he stated, “I find no contradiction at all between politics and religion.” So long as the Dalai Lama is regarded as a figure of both spiritual and political liberation, his efforts to make the first goal happen will ensure the second never does.

Eckhart Tolle vs. God

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 58 Comments

Eckhart Tolle—one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our age, or perhaps the anti-Christ in a beige sweater vest—has left the door ajar. He greets you in the foyer of his Vancouver condominium with a quick smile and a soft handshake, and leads you inside. He is trim and compact, and—thanks, he says, to near total absence of stress—he looks younger than his 61 years. With his sandy fringe of beard, and aura of inviting calm, he seems, let’s be frank, as threatening as a garden gnome.

But his spiritual teachings are another matter: they are seismic. He has a global audience numbering in the tens of millions. They read his books, absorb his musings via DVDs and the Internet. They flock by the thousands to his lectures. He sits at the right hand of Oprah. He is a heretic. He is God, if only in his sense that the divine rests in all things. “I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away,” he will later explain. “But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that,” he says, “I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.” As for the world’s established religions, he feels they have all lost their way—the purity of their message long since twisted into rigid ideology and buried under edifice, ritual and ego. All he has really done, he says, is rediscover their essence. “I have great respect for the truth that is, one could almost say, hiding, concealed, in the great religions.” Continue…

G20 fashion, Castro's eleven children, and the Booby Ball

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, October 2, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Dalai Lama: a ray of Vancouver Sunshine
The Dalai Lama, the peace-loving Buddhist monk and champion of an autonomous Tibet, began a busy week in Canada by serving as “guest editor” of the Saturday edition of the Vancouver Sun. The result was a very earnest paper filled with love, compassion and understanding—the usual murder, mayhem and politics sent to the back of the bus. Even the sports section opened with a story on the value of breathing and positive mantras. Football and the Vancouver Canucks were relegated to the inside pages, not being very Zen. On Sunday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner hosted the opening of a sold-out Vancouver Peace Summit, sharing the stage with leading spiritual thinkers, and fellow Nobel laureates. A bad back kept retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu from a session on achieving personal peace. In his stead, he sent his daughter Mpho Tutu, a mother and Episcopalian priest. Avoiding tantrum-throwing two-year-olds, she joked, is one step toward harmony. Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean sent greetings by video although she had been scheduled to appear in person. A spokesperson denied her absence was to appease Chinese leaders, who see the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist. He made no references to China, perhaps wishing to avoid controversy. The news media focuses too much on bad news, he said after a day of editing the Sun.

Putting the Fidel in infidelity
Revolution isn’t Fidel Castro’s only passion, says American author Ann Louise Bardach, who tabulates his conquests of Cuban women in her forthcoming book, Without Fidel. She calculates Castro populated Cuba with 10 and possibly 11 children by at least seven women. He had a son with his first wife, Myrta Diaz-Balart, in 1949, and five boys with Dalia Soto del Valle, a long-time companion he is believed to have secretly married in 1980. There were many lovers, but 1955 was a banner year, after the 29-year-old rebel leader was released from prison after a failed uprising. He celebrated his freedom to such an extent that three women bore his children the next year. Continue…

Week in Pictures: July 30th – August 7th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 7, 2009 at 1:01 PM - 2 Comments

Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

Arnold’s extra pair
In the spirit of partisan pranks-manship, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently sent a metal sculpture in the shape of bull testicles to California Senate President Darrell Steinberg—a metaphorical reminder of the bold budgetary decisions required by the state’s lawmakers in the face of a US$24.3-billion budget shortfall. Unfortunately, the joke fell flat. Steinberg, who is a Democrat, returned the sculpture to its sender, along with a note stressing the seriousness of the situation. In fairness to the governor, sources told MSNBC.com that the testicles were sent in response to a gag gift Steinberg sent to him—a package of mushrooms—after Schwarzenegger called the Democrat’s budget proposals “hallucinatory.” But the sculpture was apparently too much coming from a man who once called Democrats “girlie men.” When asked why so serious, Steinberg’s spokesperson told reporters, “We’ve got more important things on our plate right now than to waste any more time on such trivial matters.”

Too much information
On Monday, Canada’s Information Commissioner Robert Marleau resigned unexpectedly, only two years into an ostensible seven-year tenure. He was in the process of reforming the country’s access to information laws, which have come to be routinely subverted by secretive government officials. Only one day earlier, Marleau was quoted in a Toronto Star article decrying the whole system. When the Access to Information Act was introduced in 1983, he told the reporter, “we were amongst the leaders in the world.” Since then, he said, “It’s been the same song and dance, no effort by any government to have this legislation or these processes keep pace with time, change and technology.” The reasons for his hasty departure only 24 hours later, he told media, are “entirely personal and private.” Continue…

He wrote the book on the Dalai Lama

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 12:42 AM - 0 Comments

But I would agree that he has seen in that practical, oh, you could even say “shrewd” way, that he’s outnumbered 200 to 1 within China and Tibet. The only way he can redress that imbalance is by summoning the support of the world. And I think he is conscious that if the rest of the world works on behalf of Tibet, then Tibet has a chance to survive in very, very difficult circumstances.

And he’s aware that, let’s say the lead singer of the Beastie Boys, well, if somebody wants to work hard in promoting the Tibetan cause and setting up concerts and rallies for Tibet–well, that’s certainly no bad thing. And maybe he can do more for Tibet than an average person.

That’s from my interview with Pico Iyer