XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan,    
   k.religion.buddhist   
   From: julianlzb87@gmail.com   
      
   Western Buddhism has been mugged by capitalism   
      
      
      
   Why does Buddhism get a free pass among religion’s cultured despisers?   
   With the notable exception of the great Christopher Hitchens, who dished   
   it out to all, most of the Western media hold Buddhism generally, and   
   the Dalai Lama in particular, in a curious kind of uncritical respect   
   that the Enlightenment was supposed to have freed us from. Or as   
   Hitchens called it: “The widely and lazily held belief that ‘oriental’   
   religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more   
   contemplative, more… transcendental.”   
      
   So, when the Dalai Lama invites a young child to suck his tongue,   
   defenders leap in to insist that this is just an unusual cultural   
   practice that has become lost in translation. Westerners have a very   
   different understanding of the erogenous: sticking out one’s tongue has   
   a totally different meaning in Tibet than it does for us. It’s all a   
   misunderstanding. And his holiness has a rather quirky sense of honour.   
   He was “misguided” rather than “sleazy”, as one columnist in The Times   
   put it. Hm...   
      
   https://unherd.com/2023/04/the-dalai-lamas-greatest-failure/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)