In Reply to: Re: My limited knowledge posted by CB on November 19, 2009 at 08:23:21:
Limited knowledge???
Those were the best answers I've heard so far. My sister i s Buddhist, and I recently had a deep conversation with a Tibetan Monk, but by far your answers were the most informative and sensible.
After meeting TIbetans who suffered unspeakable things under the rule of the Chinese (sorry about the politics!), I can respect the DL and what he represents to them. He is a symbol of hope. But apart from that, I always found his wise sayings kind of cheesy and cliche, nothing that profound. I even passed up on an opportunity to see him, because of the way people expected me to worship at his feet. I would have shown the same respect as any political leader such as Nelson Mandela or Barak Obama. But the throngs of oh-so-spiritual people (read wannabe-spiritual foreigners dressed in turbans and baggy clothes) around him were far too pretentious for me, all acting like they were the reincarnation of Cleopatra. While we're on that subject, did you know that Cleopatra is the single most popular figure New Age people around the world claim to be a reincarnation of?
I know about Nirvana not being heaven, but the distinction between Buddhas and bodhidsatvas was never explained to me, even by Westerners who'd been studying Buddhism all their life and with good language abilities.
Your answer to my question "And why is the concept of Buddha not an illusion itself?" was rather like a "if you knew that you would have to be God" answer for "who made God" questions. ;-)