It seems like when he’s talking to a Muslim audience, he has high praise for Muslims and Islam – just like Bill Clinton does. And when he’s not talking to Muslim audiences he has praise for the “original” religion — “the real thing” — Judaism. (Whose state Clinton said he would personally “fight and die for.”) Meanwhile, the Buddhist leader sought to “reach out” to Muslims and “improve Islam’s image” well before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the same intention as official administration policy. Here is the latest on the monk and the Muslims:‘Dr Dalai Lama’ defends Islam
By: Vatsala Shrangi, Nov. 24
The Tibetan spiritual guru was conferred an honorary doctorate at Jamia.
Addressing the students and faculty members of Jamia Millia Islamia at the occasion of its Annual Convocation on Tuesday, His Holiness The Dalai Lama stood up in defence of Islam, terming it as one of the most important religions on the planet.
The University apart from handing over degrees and gold medals to the students, conferred the degree of Doctor of Letters to His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
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“I would try my luck with broken English only. Please excuse me if I mistakenly use some wrong words. I hope to convey my message even if it has to be wrong English,” said The Dalai Lama.
Islam is the religion of the heart and needs to be protected. We should not generalise Islam as something fearful just due to a handful of miscreants. Jehad is not a medium of attack. There is a need to break this false notion as Jehad actually means to conquer the evil within individuals…” he said.
This of course was not the only time the aging spiritual leader suffered a brain fart about Islam. Another time, in 2006, columnist Don Feder couldn’t contain himself and wrote the following:
Oh, Those Mischievous Muslims! — The Dalai Lama likens Islamic terrorists to ADD-riddled schoolkids
October 31, 2006 | Don Feder
I should seriously write a book called, The Idiots Guide To Not Thinking Seriously About Islam.
It’s hard to find a subject where mushy thinking is more in vogue – where political correctness conquers reality more thoroughly. People actually are afraid to think seriously on the subject, because the logical conclusions are too frightening for many to contemplate.
And so, there’s no place where comfortable clichés are more readily deployed.
Probably the most glaring illustration of inanity here were recent comments by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
On leaving a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of Tibetan Buddhists told reporters that we can’t hold all Muslims responsible for the misdeeds of a few.
The Lama: “Nowadays, I often express that due to a few mischievous Muslims’ acts we should not consider all Muslims as something bad. That is very unfair.”
Expanding on this dazzling analysis, the Dalai Lama continued: “A few mischievous people you can find from all religions – among Muslims and Christians and Jews and Buddhists. To generalize is not correct.”
O.K., now I know this will get me scratched from the invite list for Richard Gere’s New Year’s Eve party, but I just gotta ask: When was the last time a bald guy in a saffron robe threatened to kill someone he believed had insulted the Buddha?
While we’re at it, when was the last time a gang of Talmudic scholars tried to blow up anything? Did the Vatican put out a fatwah on “DaVinci Code” author Dan Brown? The last holy war committed in the name of Christianity was over 800 years ago. If Hindus behead hostages, I’ve somehow managed to miss it.
“A few mischievous Muslims” makes kidnapping, torture, beheadings, bomb plots, mass murder and death threats sound like schoolboy pranks. It’s September 11, 2001, and some high-spirited Muslim merrymakers just crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, slaughtering 3,000 innocents. What a lark!
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To return to the Dalai Lama’s daft observation, while it is undoubtedly true that most Muslims don’t want to jihad us – there are enough who do. In a 2005 survey by The Daily Telegraph, one quarter of British Muslims said they had at least some sympathy with their coreligionists who murdered 52 random Brits in the July commuter bombings. One-quarter of a million is more than “a few.”
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Should we “consider all Muslims as something bad”? Of course not. Should we consider Islam as something bad? That’s an entirely different question – one which politicians, Lamas and the mainstream media studiously avoid – when they’re not babbling about the “religion of peace.”
And if Islam itself is “something bad” – if a faith embraced by 1.3 billion people contains within it the seeds of the evil we see all around us (requiring only the right conditions to germinate) – what does that say for the future of a world where Islam is the fastest growing religion?
Some of us live on comfortable estates in India, writing books about inner-peace and harmony, while contemplating the sound of one hand clapping. Others of us live in the real world.
A few months earlier, in April 2006, we got this:
Dalai Lama urges reaching out to ‘compassionate faith’ of Islam
SAN FRANCISCO – The Dalai Lama urged religious leaders over the weekend to reach out to Muslims, saying Islam is a compassionate faith that has been unfairly maligned because of a few extremists.
“Nowadays to some people the Muslim tradition appears more militant,” the 70-year-old exiled monk said at a conference aimed at bringing Muslims and Buddhists together.
“I feel that’s totally wrong. Muslims, like any other traditions – same message, same practice. That is a practice of compassion,” he said.
Event organizers say the Dalai Lama interrupted his schedule to fly to San Francisco and meet Islamic scholars and leaders from other faiths to discuss reducing violence and extremism.
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The Dalai Lama told the audience that many people see and hear news of suicide bombings in predominantly Muslim countries but don’t hear about how Muslims often work with the poor.
(Note: Even Bill Maher figured this one out years ago, saying something like, “No, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t blow people up one day and then build schools and hospitals for people the next day and think that this cancels out the other.” Further, one might add that by and large the poor that Muslims — like all other religions — work with are the Muslim poor, unlike other religions which don’t discriminate. The main point being that Muslims support Muslims, no one else. It’s like saying, “Yeah, they blow up non-Muslims, but look at how they take care of Muslims.”)
He said all human beings are prone to violence if they lose control of their emotions and not to judge an entire faith based on a few people. “A few mischievous people are always there,” he said.
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The Dalai Lama also told conference attendees that religious traditions must work harder to live together in peace, citing religious violence in Northern Ireland, Pakistan and Iraq.
Hamza Yusuf, founder of the Zaytuna Institute, a Hayward-based center for Islamic study, said the…Dalai Lama’s participation in the event could warm Americans to Islam, since many Americans have mixed feelings about the faith but are receptive to Buddhism. […]
So this guy spelled it out that the Dalai Lama serves as a useful idiot.
Really, the Lama should try taking his own advice from his long-running Microsoft ad: Think Different.
Meanwhile, this was from another item about the same conference:
Dalai Lama seeks to improve Islam’s image
The Dalai Lama, a powerful icon for peace worldwide, will gather with influential American Muslim leaders in San Francisco today to help refashion Islam’s image in the United States.
Concerned that Muslims are unfairly demonized in American popular consciousness, the world-renowned Buddhist leader hopes to help show Islam in what he sees as its truest form, one of peace.
“The enemy is not out there,’’ said Tenzin Dhonden, the Dalai Lama’s emissary for peace. “The enemy is within you. … How we see religion is in our mind. But religion itself is the truth: peace and harmony.”
Now check out the name of this shit:
Speakers at today’s invitation-only event at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, “Gathering of Hearts Illuminating Compassion,” say violent images of Islam are sensationalized by a selective news media[…]
Indeed, less than a week after 9/11, His Holiness questioned the need for the war on terror, advocating dialogue with terrorists:
War on terror: Dalai Lama warns (May 21, 2002)
THE Dalai Lama has questioned whether the war on terrorism was the best response to the September 11 attacks by Osama bin Laden.
Less than a week after the terrorist jetliner bombings, Tibet’s spiritual and political leader suggested diplomats meet those responsible to discuss the frustrations that led to the attacks.
A month later, after addressing the European Parliament, the Nobel laureate again called for a non-violent approach.
But at a press conference in Melbourne today, the Dalai Lama admitted that talking to the al-Qaeda leader would probably achieve little.
He could not suggest a short-term solution to the terrorist threat, but he warned the war on terrorism could backfire.
“The difficulty with violence is (that) once you commit it, it’s unpredictable,” he said.
“At the beginning you may have certain intentions or certain aims but once you’ve committed violence then there’s always a danger (it will get) out of control.”
The Dalai Lama said war could create a cycle of violence and counter-violence that did little to solve the original problem.
He said World War II and the Korean War could be considered justified because one protected western democracy and the other protected South Korea’s prosperity and freedom.
“But then Vietnam War, originally, (had the) same aim, the same motivation, but it completely failed,” he said.
“(With) the Afghanistan scene, it seems as if the majority of local people seem to welcome the new situation, so you may have some justification.
“But then these are very temporary sort of measures.”
The Dalai Lama said the long-term solution to the terrorist threat was to concentrate on basic human values rather than force.
He said the historical practice of the stronger nations with the most weapons having the biggest say was out-of-date.
Instead, the world’s citizens had a shared responsibility to interact with and understand their neighbours.
“That’s the best way,” he said.
“That reduces their (the terrorists’) suspicions, their feeling of distance.”
The Dalai Lama said such a long-term solution would reduce “serious terrorist acts”, although completely eliminating terrorism was impossible. […]
Last year the Dalai Lama lapsed into lucidity for a moment, contradicting his earlier take on terrorism:
“Non-violence can’t tackle terror: Dalai” (Jan. 18, 2009)
NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.
“It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.
He also termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.
“They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated…but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed,” the Dalai Lama said. […].
But now, it seems, we’re back to square one. Alas, there are more than a few holes in His Holey-ness’s thinking. Maybe it’s time to retire from thinking.
