I'm pretty sure this would make the Buddha laugh

[kestrell]

from
"Tibet's Quiet Revolution" by Pico Iyer
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/19/tibets-quiet-revolution/

block quote start
Democracy, as the Dalai Lama sees it, is perfectly in tune with the Buddha’s central principles of self-rule and responsibility; it is one of the features of the wider world that long-isolated Tibet can and should now learn from; and it only stands to reason that the voices of all Tibetans be more important than that of just one—a logic that appeals to the scientist and the natural Everyman in him. Besides, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama will be 76 this July and the Dalai Lama institution cannot function as it did now that Tibet’s exiled leaders are separated from the 98 percent of Tibetans—some six million people—who live within the People’s Republic of China in circumstances of general repression and deprivation of political rights. Beijing has already “banned” reincarnations without government approval and all but announced that the finding of a “Fifteenth Dalai Lama” will lie under its jurisdiction as soon as the current, fourteenth, Dalai Lama dies.
block quote end

Aside from the fact that my mind instantly coined the slogan "No reincarnation without representation!" I'm now expecting the 15th Dalai Lama to be a six-year-old Canadian Buddhist with a Facebook page who likes to quote "You can't stop the signal."

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Great catch!

Even the 14th Dalai Lama Likes Madison. He visits the Deer Park monastery near us annually, visits the Univ of Wisconsin brain scientists who are scanning monk's brains to understand the neurobiology of enlightenment, happiness, and late-life plasticity; and delights the large Tibetan exile community as well as thousands of Western Tibetan Buddhists and a bunch of profane types like myself who even so recognize something special about him.

[kestrell]

Hey, is that where that research is being done? I run across mention of it quite frequently while reading books about neuroscience. I keep thinking I should just come out there and visit you sometime. Aside form your charming company, there's the hand-dipped chocolate shop and the place with the secondhand kimonos, although I don't remember if that shop had an elevator tot he second floor with the kimonos.

[jesse_the_k]

Yes indeed. I would love to host you. Any chance of WisCon this year? If you timed your visit right, you could join the Beer and Marmalade Gang, and talk smack about the books we've read.

I'm sad to inform you, however, that there are not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 hand-dipped chocolate shops. Ragstock is on the ground level, and has many remarkable kinds of clothing. I could introduce you to sasha_feather, who has the most dependable thrift-store clothing-magic. (She's always finding things like big enough leather jackets and fun hats.)

Summertime Madison has been a vacation destination for thousands of years -- we have the archeology to back up that prideful boast!

[kestrell]

I'm not so sure about Wiscon this year, as Alexx and I are taking our big trip to New Orleans in a couple of weeks, and that may well exhaust my financial and energy budget for a while. Maybe I could look into this for later int he summer--it would be great if I could find a flight direct from Boston to Madison, I love that cute little accessible airport you have there.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh yes, your NOLA trip -- I keep forgetting about that. Guess hope springs eternal that I'll see you sooner.

Sadly the direct flight from Boston to Madison drowned when Midwest Airlines died. Perhaps we could meet up somewhere fannish that Delta serves (Atlanta? ZOMG Dragoncon?) and then come back to my place to crash for ten days.

It will happen someday!