05.07.10
MBFM comment on Karmapa
Comment on Karmapa article in Newsweek
mybrainisafleamarket is our invaluable researcher and commenter at The Gurdjieff Con blog, and you can read his many posts/comments by entering the tag MBFM, or the longer ‘mybrainisafleamarket’ in the search box. He has uncovered a whole bunch of stuff on gurus and everything else New Age.
My interest in Karmapa is direct, despite my suspicious wariness here, because I vividly remember the old Karmapa from the seventies. I don’t buy into this game of reincarnates one way or the other, but there is no doubt something strange is at work here. In any case, this new Karmapa is almost grown up, and has a hard act to follow. I can only hope he can resurrect the intelligence of the older Karmapa.
mybrainisafleamarket said,
May 7, 2010 at 11:31 am ·
Suggestion for a research project:Get a first edition of Harrers Seven Years in Tibet. Study the photos. (That early edition had 40 pages of photographs–stunning, btw)
The first edition had an amazing photo of cavalry in ancient armor in a ceremonial parade, carrying war trophies captured long ago from Muslim invaders.
And that 1955 book shows the young 14th Dalai Lama inside an ornate
pavilion on horseback, with a splendid retinue. Those photos are evocative of a lost world–and a very, very hierarchical world.And that world was brutal. This early edition of Harrers book gives a photo of monks who served as police officers, armed with heavy staves.
And a photo of two persons in rags with begging bowls and shackles on their ankles had the caption that on Buddhas Birthday in Lhasa, prisoners were allowed out on the streets to beg.
A later edition, printed for larger circulation had fewer photos, but included one that the 1954/44 edition did not have–a photo of a tomb of an earlier Dalai Lama with an estimated ton of gold used to decorate it–says so in the caption.
Pre-1949 Lhasa was a brutal place. It wasnt a Shangrila paradise of chirping birds and rainbows for all.
That gold adorning the tomb came from heavy taxes on the serfs. And Harrer wrote that among the tasks he did in Lhasa was to correspond on behalf of wealthy locals with dealers in Europe. The Tibetans wanted Harrers help in arrangings shipments from Europe of….amber, pearls, furs.
It all reminds me of life in and around the Romanov court just before the Bolshevik Revolution.
I attended a couple of days lecture by the DL and appreciated it. But I never forget that he is in the situation of a Romanov in exile.
The way to gain an empire or regain one that is lost is first to colonize people’s imaginations–that is to establish the legitimacy of one’s claim.
Its one thing to do this in the realm of secular power politics.
But when religious practice gets entangled in power politics…then it his hard to hold a priest/king to account if he is also a politician.
I am horrified to see what cover ups the Vatican has perpetrated. But at least a reigning pontiff faces some accountability from the media and there are venues where reform minded Roman Catholics can discuss their concerns and speak out.
We do not yet have that in relation to the exiled monarchs and barons of the Tibetan Diaspora.
If one must practice Buddhadharma, I personally advise selecting a dharma center that 1) doesnt court media attention and whose teachers find ways to be accessible but avoid the celebrity marketing circuit 2) remains mindful of the Buddhist ethical precepts and 3) whose funds remain local and 4) hierarchy justifies its existence by supporting a practice environment accessible to all, and where no special favor is given to the rich or famous.
And where those who are weighed down by adversity, who are older or who struggle with chronic ailments get as much care from the practice teachers as those who happen to be young and beautiful, famous or rich..or all the above.
nemo said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Here is my comment on the original post, with a link to the early edition at Amazon.
nemo said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:05 pm · Edit
Fascinating comment, i will upgrade it to post level, but here is an Amazon link to what I suspect is the first edition you refer to, for anyone with $129!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0874779030/sr=/qid=/ref=olp_pg_collectible?ie=UTF8&coliid=&startIndex=0&me=&qid=&sr=&seller=&colid=&condition=collectible
signed by the author.
nemo said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Excellent commentary by MBFM on Tibet. These critiques from Parenti, for example, are often uncomprehending of the reality of Buddhism as they focus on the reality of Tibetan politics.
Keep in mind that when Buddhists were all slaughtered and driven out of India they became desperate, and resolved to not get extinguished and the character of early Buddhist innocence disappeared, except on the surface, as a kind of religious geoplitics took hold, fairly well described in its decline by MBFM.
The lamas themselves don’t seem to understand their own situation, as far as I can tell, and the whole strange ghostocracy is having a hard time with modern liberalism.
The Gurdjieff Con » MBFM comment on Karmapa said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:23 pm
[...] MBFM has a good comment/post at Darwiniana [...]
nemo said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:28 pm
MBFM is right, Tibetan Buddhism is a dead duck. But I do think the DL is smart enough to see the need for a liberal Tibet to come into existence, if he can stop the Chinese from their own explitation.
Unfortunately there is oil them thar hills and the Chinese see their own gold there.
As noted, Tibetan Buddhism is a experiment in preserving a tradition in a mountain vastness, and indeed it was the previous Karmapa who saw that Tibet was going to drop the tradition it had kept in hiding for millennia into the modern secular world as it disappeared itself. With what result we shall see.
nemo said,
May 7, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Harrers book is a real charmer, but it is obviously a slick coverup of the fascist period elements that were present in Tibet. The deeper truth has been hinted at here, and at The Gurdjeff Con many times. But in fairness we should note that fascist Buddhism was born in the nineteenth century and the current Dalai Lama was probably oblivious to anything of that, despite the obvious link to Harrer.
I think these people are in the backwash of what really happened in an earlier period.
Darwiniana » Schopenhauer and the New Age said,
May 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm
[...] MBFM comment on Karmapa [...]
The Gurdjieff Con » MBFM at Darwiniana said,
May 8, 2010 at 11:51 am
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