Letters to the Editor
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The Real Test
The real test of the Dalai Lama's legitimacy is certainly not how many readers of Salon fawn over him (few of whom, I would wager, are actually Tibetan) but rather how many young Tibetans still follow his counsel. And judging by the rather sudden uprising within that country, I'd have to say: not many.
Debating Mr. Bayard's views of Buddhism seem irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is hardly a religious debate. What Bayard is expressing is the feeling that many Tibetans (you know, those people who actually have to live and die under the Chinese occupation, unlike the Dalai Lama or Richard Gere) have that the Dalai Lama has failed in every measurable way to do anything of material good for his people. The fact that the Dalai Lama uses his religion as an excuse for political failure shouldn't make us sigh with deep spiritual longing anymore than George W. Bush's religious excuses should.
And for all the talk in these comments about Mr. Bayard just not "getting" Buddhism, I wonder how many of you Buddhists, pseudo- and otherwise, realize that while Buddhism has given us the Dalai Lama, it also gave us the kamikaze and Japanese Zen-Fascism.