I just watched a documentary on this guy yesterday. He doesn't seem that great. He's like a Gandhi-wannabe. He keeps pushing for non-violent resistance, but what has that gotten him? Tibet completely taken over and destroyed by China. The difference between Gandhi and the Dalai Lama is that Gandhi succeeded. This guy is just a big failure. Non-violent resistance can't work in a situation like Tibet and China. If he hadn't pushed for Tibet's independence in the first place, the Chinese would have never massacred them the way they did. Didn't he realize that pushing for Tibet's independence would lead to war? How dumb do you have to be to push for independence when you have absolutely no military force whatsoever? What the hell did he think was going to happen? He always talks about non-violence, yet his incompetence lead to a great deal of violence against his own people.
It is only a few times that I have come across people who equate themselves to the great leaders of our times and those in the past. This is one such example.
First, understand what non-violence (ahimsa) is. Read about it, contemplate on it, and then come to an educated conclusion not just based on what you read, but your experience(s) as well.
Do you solve your problems, however small or big, through violence or non-violence? What is the purpose of life? What is the idea of a "free country" or "free people"? Just being allowed to cast a vote and go shopping during Black Friday does not mean you are "free". Mental and psychological bondage is highly injurious to the body and mind although it may not be apparently so.
When is it, according to you, appropriate to use violence? Is violence, only physically inflicted? Is it emotionally, psychologically, and mentally inflicted as well? If not, why not? Once you correlate these things within the context of your own day-to-day experience, you will begin to understand, although I don't have much hope, what
ahimsa (non-violence) really is.
Ahimsa is avoidance of
voluntary infliction of violence in whatever form (physically, mentally etc. etc.). And so, there may be instances in which physical violence may be needed; self-preservation for one is an easy example. The question is, how far can "self" preservation be extrapolated? Is it just "self" preservation (aka "self defense") when someone attacks your neighbor? Or what about your community? What about your country? Your religion? Your way of life? Your definition of existence etc.?
The natural reaction to these is to "defend" oneself by whatever means necessary. This has been the excuse of every tyrant in history and the modern day. When the principle of non-violence dawns on one's mind, it starts with oneself and one's immediate surroundings and then can grow outward like water ripples when a stone is dropped in a pond. To have such an effect, is really a miracle for many reasons. Mohandas Gandhi was such a man. The Dalai Lama is also such a man. It takes an extraordinary amount of courage, discipline, and rectitude to apply non-violence in any steadfast manner. That is why most, if not all, countries are ready to pull the trigger in any case of "perceived" emergency/threat.
The Dalai Lama has been completely sidelined by a boisterous and hard-to-ignore communist country; China. They have gone to unprecedented levels to discredit him and his people and goals for many decades. Those who have some semblance of justice can see unequivocally where the machinations of power lie, and thus what the Dalai Lama's real goals are.
China is indeed a military might nowadays and even the USA doesn't have the courage to counter them on the world stage, at least, not in any didactic means. Thus, the lazy, inept, and callous politicians of the world kowtow to China's demands and have already acceded to their assertion that Tibet is a "part of China".
Alas, in this day and age, might is right and those who prefer to be kind are mistaken to be weak. I hope humanity takes the example of paragons like Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi and Dalai Lama and solve their problems without bloodshed. Although, this is probably a cry in the wilderness.
