Goodbye to the Dali Lama
News that the Dalai Lama may retire in the next year is to be welcomed by all those sick of flattery and new age-type nonsense. The New Statesman goes on a diatribe.
For a longer look at “His Material Highness”, who due to the “blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism” with which the West regards Buddhism, “combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology… fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble” is thought of as “a saintly god-king” exiled from “an idealised Tibet”, I heartily recommend this article from Salon by Christopher Hitchens. “Far from his Holier-than-all image, the Dalai Lama supports such questionable causes as India’s nuclear testing, sex with prostitutes and accepting donations from a Japanese terrorist cult,” begins the introduction.
