Unmasking the real Dalai Lama
Who is the real Dalai Lama? With a role for every occasion – holy man, politician, international statesman, simple monk, pop icon, Buddhist Pope, socialist, movie star, autocrat, democrat, Marxist, humanitarian, environmentalist, Nobel Peace prize winner, nationalist, Buddha of Compassion, communist, God-King – the Dalai Lama weaves a complex web of religion and politics that entraps his audiences wherever he goes. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. People are easily swayed by the historical mystique of Tibet and its ‘God-King’, and feel captivated and convinced by his charm. When journalists refuse to have their questions waved away with a chuckle and a smile, they are able to penetrate through the veneer and see the real face of the Dalai Lama. As these articles indicate, it isn't the pretty face we are accustomed to.
The Scotsman
The Dark Side of the Dalai Lama
To much of the Western world he is the very embodiment of kindness and peace, a gentle robed figure of great wisdom and limitless virtue. Feted by politicians, pop stars and Hollywood stars, the seemingly undisputed spiritual and political…
National Catholic Reporter
The Dalai Lama is No Gandhi
If you’ve ever had suspicions that the Dalai Lama is a lightweight, suspect no more. He is.
Recently finishing a U.S. lecture tour that attracted rockconcert crowds in major cities, the 68-year-old Tibetan Buddhist came up against a…
The Age (Melbourne)
Behind the Dalai Lama’s Holy Cloak
Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.
Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable…
Die Suddeutsche Zeitung
A Politician in Monk’s Robes
According to the Constitution of the Tibetan Government in Exile, enacted in the Tibetan year 2218 (1991), the Dalai Lama is the lord over the executive and the legislative. Nothing goes in the world of the Tibetan Exiles without…
Spiked Magazine
Is the Dalai Lama a Religious Dictator?
The state of denial in the West about some of the Dalai Lama’s alleged power-tripping, or at least the unquestioning attitude towards the Dalai Lama and everything that he does, highlights the role that he plays for many Western…
The Guardian
Down with the Dalai Lama
Has there ever been a political figure more ridiculous than the Dalai Lama? This is the “humble monk” who forswears worldly goods in favour of living a simple life dressed in maroon robes. Yet in 1992 he guest-edited French…
Stern Magazine
The Two Faces of the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama smiles away all doubts. Almost everywhere he receives the same god-like veneration. In the West he appears as the idol of the new age but in the Himalayas he governs like a medieval potentate. A gentle…
Salon Magazin
His Material Highness
The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries,…
Sydney Morning Herald
Cult gave Dalai Lama $2m
Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shrinrikyo doomsday cult, maintained personal and financial links with Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Asahara donated over $2 million to the Nobel prize-winner for the preservation of Tibetan…
Focus Magazine
Unholy Guarantee
Most likely the half blind guru... would never have been able to build up his cult empire without the Dalai Lama's support. What is certain is that his rapid rise from charlatan and petty criminal to Japanese Uber-Guru in…
