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Guest Thinkers

Goodbye to the Dali Lama

News that the Dalai Lama may retire in the next year is to be welcomed by all those sick of flattery and new age-type nonsense. The New Statesman goes on a diatribe.
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For a longer look at “His Material Highness”, who due to the “blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism” with which the West regards Buddhism, “combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology… fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble” is thought of as “a saintly god-king” exiled from “an idealised Tibet”, I heartily recommend this article from Salon by Christopher Hitchens. “Far from his Holier-than-all image, the Dalai Lama supports such questionable causes as India’s nuclear testing, sex with prostitutes and accepting donations from a Japanese terrorist cult,” begins the introduction.

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