[awl130]

Would it help you if it were "Free Hawai'i"? That timeline is comparable.

Your last statement confuses me. What does Dalai Lama have to do with Buddhism? The Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism but the head of Tibet, which is a tribe seeking a political state. Tibetan Buddhism is a sect of Buddhism practiced beyond Tibetan borders. Much like a great many Shia Muslims live in Iran, but we would not confound Iranian political independence with Shia Islam. Let's not forget Buddha was "born" in present-day Nepal. Certainly, the Dalai Lama is no fool and uses his religion for his political agenda, seeking to perhaps to conflate the two. By your post it seems he is succeeding.

[jmagoon]

The Dalai Lama is the head of Tibetan Buddhism, because Tibet is (was) a theocracy, much like the Pope is the head of the Papal State and the Catholic Church. (Though this is not an exact parallel due to to the distributed nature of the Tibetan Schools)

And, if you read the article, you would see that one of the major points is that the Dalai Lama has dissolved that connection (head of religion - head of state) only relatively recently.

Calling Tibet a 'tribe' is also a little bit strange, and smacks of the way Chinese propaganda reduces the legitimacy of Tibet's claim to nationhood (and even legitimate personhood), despite Tibet's governmental and territorial sovereignty from at least 1200 AD onward. Your claim that the "[Dalai Lama] is succeeding...at conflating religion and politics" is the direct Communist Party line, even though that is being directly contradicted by the source article.

My personal reading of the article is that the Dalai Lama gave up on statehood in the 80s, and is primarily focused on preserving Tibetan culture, despite the persistent claim that he is a "wolf in sheep's clothing", and that "every word he speaks is a lie".

[barry-cotter]

> Calling Tibet a 'tribe' is also a little bit strange, and smacks of the way Chinese propaganda reduces the legitimacy of Tibet's claim to nationhood (and even legitimate personhood), despite Tibet's governmental and territorial sovereignty from at least 1200 AD onward.

It is hilarious how the maps in museums fail to show the Tibetan Empire during any of many, many periods when it was both theoretically and actually independent but to claim that Tibet has been sovereign since 1200 is insane. The Qing dynasty ruled for almost three centuries and they the Tibetans were their vassals.

[atlantic]

>What does Dalai Lama have to do with Buddhism? The Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism but the head of Tibet

The Dalai Lama is considered by religious Tibetans to be the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Tibetan Buddhist deity that personifies compassion. So your question makes about as much sense as asking what Jesus has to do with Christianity.

[Mikeb85]

Yes, but the point is that Tibetan Buddhism is a small subset of Buddhism. It's also the furthest from 'orthodox' Buddhism. And within that division, the Dalai Lama's specific sect is yet again another division.

The Dalai Lama is to Buddhism what, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury is (possibly of even lesser historical importance) to Christianity. His only real importance came about as a result of clever marketing of the Tibetan 'cause'.

[lawpoop]

> It's also the furthest from 'orthodox' Buddhism

Further than Zen? Which branch are you considering orthodox? And how are you measuring distance from it?

> Archbishop of Canterbury

So, a world-recognized religious leader?

Who in Buddhism would you count as a peer, or someone more important than the Dalai Lama, in the present day?

Whatever the reason he became famous for, he's probably done probably the single most influential figure to influence the West's familiarity and understanding of Buddhism.

[Mikeb85]

> Further than Zen? Which branch are you considering orthodox? And how are you measuring distance from it?

Distance in terms of belief and time. The most 'orthodox' and also the oldest extant sect is Theravada Buddhism (mainly centred around Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, but also with historic temples in India and elsewhere), although there is also the argument that some of the older Mahayana sects may have some succession to the Mahasamghika, but strictly speaking the oldest references to the 'Mahayana' are from the 1st century BCE, and the Theravada can be traced to the 3rd century BCE.

Anyhow, Tibetan Buddhism came as a result of various influences, including Indian Tantric Buddhist missionaries (Tantric beliefs, which originate in Saivism, a cult within Hinduism, appeared in Buddhist texts from the 3rd century CE onward, and of course don't appear in early Buddhist texts), the native Bon religion (animistic and shamanistic), and then-current Mahayana Buddhism. The origins of Tibetan Buddhism are fairly well documented, with Buddhism reaching Tibet in the 7th century CE, and it being adopted as the state religion in the 8th century CE.

> Who in Buddhism would you count as a peer, or someone more important than the Dalai Lama, in the present day?

Buddhism isn't supposed to have a central leader. It's supposed to be centred on the teachings of the Buddha, although there are prominent monks with fairly wide influence in all the major schools.

It's kind of like in Christianity. Prior to the great schism, you had the unified Orthodox/Catholic church which had 5 Patriarchs (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria). Rome split and became huge and monolithic, the Orthodox were less centralised so when they spread, they established more 'Patriarchates' with more or less equal importance to the historic ones; in addition to the Patriarchs of Constantinople (New Rome), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, you also have Patriarchs of Moscow (3rd Rome), Georgia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, in addition to Archbishops and so on. So even though Orthodox Christianity is nearly as widespread as Catholicism (arguably more widespread in the 'old world'), they don't have a visible 'leader' because of the flat power structure.

Tibetan Buddhism adopted a more vertical power structure because the Dalai Lama's sect eventually achieved political power over Tibet, whereas other schools of Buddhism maintained the flat power structure that existed in early Buddhism.

> Whatever the reason he became famous for, he's probably done probably the single most influential figure to influence the West's familiarity and understanding of Buddhism.

Familiarity yes, but not understanding. There have been many other Buddhist teachers who have actually brought the religion to the west (not only from Theravada, Mahayana, Ch'an, Zen and Vajrayana schools, but also from different sects of Tibetan Buddhism). Tibetan Buddhism contains some tantric beliefs which most westerners wouldn't even recognize as Buddhist, for example, consort practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmamudr%C4%81.

Edit - should also add, Tibetan Buddhism/Vajranaya has the fewest adherents of the major schools, making it the least important Buddhist school as far as demographics go. Mahayana Buddhism (Zen/Ch'an, Pure Land, and other smaller Mahayana sects/regional variations) has the highest number of adherents, although is fragmented and many adherents may also follow other religions like Taoism and Shintoism. Theravada is probably the largest school with the most consistent teachings across its regional variations (150 million adherents). By contrast, there's 3 million people in Tibet, perhaps 10 million people worldwide who nominally belong to a Vajrayana Buddhist sect (including Tibetan exiles)...

[anoni]

> Whatever the reason he became famous for, he's probably done probably the single most influential figure to influence the West's familiarity and understanding of Buddhism.

That doesn't make him the head of Buddhism, unless you also believe Pizza Hut is the head of Italian cuisine, or ManchuWok is the leader of Chinese food.

Buddhism is not a hierarchical religion like Catholicism. If a monk seeks power/fame or participate in political struggle, he's not practicing true Buddhism.

[nemo]

"The Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism but the head of Tibet, which is a tribe seeking a political state."

The Dalai Lama has abdicated political leadership to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile and only retains a leadership role as head of the Gelugpa sect. He still speaks to the human rights abuses and political oppression of Tibetans but his proposal is a "Middle Way" which would preserve Chinese rule but give Tibetans some autonomy and representation in governing Tibet.

[GalacticDomin8r]

> Dalai Lama is not the head of Buddhism but the head of Tibet

Which seeks to be combined theological and political state in the vein of Russian czars, Japanese emperors, North Korea, and countless other ruling parties. You can even argue Great Britain still abides by this.

> we would not confound Iranian political independence with Shia Islam

Why would we not? They are 2 sides of the same coin. Religion is quite often the basis of political power such as in Iran.