Tibetan Leader Pursues Dual Roles
A common topic around here is the perilous balancing act facing religious leaders who flirt with political influence. So, what if your roles in both are tightly wound around one another? Tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor discusses just this issue with regard to a fascinating international figure.
The Dalai Lama's "temporal role is entirely guided and lit up by his philosophy," says Mr. Iyer, and the results have led some observers to question if his Buddhist vision of the world is always in line with the demands of mundane politics."Historically," says Mr. Baker, "Tibetans have been bad at being politicians and much better at being monks. It is one of their great misfortunes that their advances in the study of consciousness and spirituality have not been balanced on the secular and political side."
"Monks think in terms of centuries, many more generations than the rest of us," Iyer points out. "The Dalai Lama believes that acts generated by impatience do not generally bring good results. And at the core of his belief, everyone is interconnected: There is no sense in resisting China [through calls for independence] because Tibetans and Chinese are all part of the same whole."