Dalai Lama: Who's Tiger Woods?
As I was scanning through the news today, I came across an interview with the Dalai Lama, wherein reporters inquired about Tiger Woods' recent press confrence, wherein the pro-golfer expressed apologies for his moral failures and shared about reconnecting to his Buddhist faith as part of the process of his restoration.
The Dalai Lama, the alleged fourteenth reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, responded that he did not know Woods, as if the exiled spiritual political leader of Tibetan Buddhist is supposed to be a little interested with American pop-culture's insatiable fascination of the "dirty-laundery" of its fallen icons (yeah, I'm guilty of this too).
However, the Dalai Lama did say, "all religions have the same idea" about adultery."Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that's important," he said. "Self-discipline with awareness of consequences" (Dalai Lama: Who's Tiger Woods? - CNN.com).
I thought the Dalai Lama's response was astute, diplomatic, and shrewed. It certainly resonated with what we can't not know—the moral law etched upon the tablet of each person's heart—audltery is wrong. He also connected with universal truisms we share on virtues like the necessity of "self discipline" for personal improvement and the "awareness of consequences" for one's own actions.
Still there are some nagging questions, which I raised in a previous blog.
Yes, there is suffering. But perhaps the issue is not the cessation of desire though eliminating our attachments that keep us bound to the transmigration of the soul-birth, death, and reincarnation. For if we set out to stop desiring, are not our actions simply generated by a desire to stop desiring? What if our desires can be changed? What if we can be given a new heart? What if a soul bent towards sin and death, can be realigned to righteousness and life?
Is this not what Jesus Christ menat to communicate in the Gospel? That God created man in His image, both male and female, yet throught the sin of Adam all are fallen in sin, but Jesus Christ the Second Person of the Trinity incarnated Himself into to this world, to give them new life though His mission to the cross and resurrection to glory, so that they can live in newness of life, and have ultimate victory over sin through the resurrection at the end of the age. An Old Testament prophet named Ezekiel gave a image of God putting into people a righteous heart of flesh and removing a sinful heart of stone (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26).
The Dalai Lama, the alleged fourteenth reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, responded that he did not know Woods, as if the exiled spiritual political leader of Tibetan Buddhist is supposed to be a little interested with American pop-culture's insatiable fascination of the "dirty-laundery" of its fallen icons (yeah, I'm guilty of this too).
However, the Dalai Lama did say, "all religions have the same idea" about adultery."Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that's important," he said. "Self-discipline with awareness of consequences" (Dalai Lama: Who's Tiger Woods? - CNN.com).
I thought the Dalai Lama's response was astute, diplomatic, and shrewed. It certainly resonated with what we can't not know—the moral law etched upon the tablet of each person's heart—audltery is wrong. He also connected with universal truisms we share on virtues like the necessity of "self discipline" for personal improvement and the "awareness of consequences" for one's own actions.
Still there are some nagging questions, which I raised in a previous blog.
Yes, there is suffering. But perhaps the issue is not the cessation of desire though eliminating our attachments that keep us bound to the transmigration of the soul-birth, death, and reincarnation. For if we set out to stop desiring, are not our actions simply generated by a desire to stop desiring? What if our desires can be changed? What if we can be given a new heart? What if a soul bent towards sin and death, can be realigned to righteousness and life?
Is this not what Jesus Christ menat to communicate in the Gospel? That God created man in His image, both male and female, yet throught the sin of Adam all are fallen in sin, but Jesus Christ the Second Person of the Trinity incarnated Himself into to this world, to give them new life though His mission to the cross and resurrection to glory, so that they can live in newness of life, and have ultimate victory over sin through the resurrection at the end of the age. An Old Testament prophet named Ezekiel gave a image of God putting into people a righteous heart of flesh and removing a sinful heart of stone (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26).
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