Micheal Powell of the New York Times needs to get out his dictionary.
"China seems inclined to tighten its grip and wait out the aging leader, insisting, a bit improbably for a government that is officially atheist, that it has the legal right to designate the Dalai Lama’s next reincarnation." - January 31, 2009.
Reincarnation not tied to theism. Just one of those little things that I find amusing when Western (read: non-Buddhist) commentators try to express opinions about Buddhist traditions. Everything is seen through a theistic lens.
I caught a bit of The King and I on television last night, in which Yule Brenner's King was singing about confusion "Buddha in Heaven show the way!" This strikes me as a very Christian thing to do, to get down on one's knees and pray for divine guidance. Maybe that's what it looked like to Westerners visiting Siam a couple centuries ago.
We never can escape our preconceived notions, huh?
3 comments:
I like my few preconceived notions I have left. They give me something to working on sending back to the factory as defective. I find them, and send them to the glue factory as my Dad used to say. Something I found funny until I found out what he was talking about. Then I cried for a couple of days thinking about all the beautiful horses that were no more...
I actually believed in re-incarnation long before I found my way back to the path.
Not that I am endorsing King and I-style Buddhist caricatures, but there are plenty of people on the planet who have a decidedly theistic religious appearance to their Buddhism.
True. You should read the questions on the Pew Forum US Religious Landscape Survey. I really like the Pew Forum and I'm not sure how many other religions might have had a different take on the questions, but is it really fair to ask a Buddhist (a non-thiestic Buddhist, not a ChrisBu or JewBu) how often they pray, how often then get answers to their prayers, or if they think more than one religion leads to eternal life? It's not a big deal, but still more evidence of why we should have a world religions class in high school. Heck most college age kids don't even know the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites and we're over there shooting at them.
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