THE DALAI LAMA’S HONESTY
The hypocrisy of the media as they react to the Dalai Lama’s recent statement about incarnating as a beautiful woman is stunning. It is the media who bow and adulate movie stars, models and other women who have done nothing of any real worth– nothing in fact other than be born with beautiful features. It is the media who sells anorexia and self-loathing to our young girls through Barbie dolls and fashion. It is the media who place beautiful female anchors on their talk shows and daily news. It is the media who perpetrate our prevalent myth that beautiful women are more worth listening to than non-beautiful women. Is the Dalai Lama to be blamed for simply making an observation of what is?
I have never seen the Dalai Lama sacrifice truth to political correctness.
On the other hand, I have many times heard the Dalai Lama advise women to put less emphasis on their outer beauty and more emphasis on their inner beauty. I have seen him support women in their quest for full ordination within the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. I have seen him work with women scientists and other academics– as well as his fellow Nobel Peace laureates– in full and complete respect. He clearly does not distinguish.
As a woman who has been on the wrong side of our culture’s bias towards beauty in woman– and who has struggled with all the psychological fallout of this– I can assure the BBC, Huffington Post, and any other media source that the Dalai Lama falls on the correct side when it comes to liberating women! His approach to life and the Dharma has helped me put self-loathing and the trauma of abuse behind me. It has helped me become a woman who can stand tall again. There is no gender distinction in his approach, none whatsoever.
On the other hand, when a bodhisattva is considering in what form he can best serve beings, then he needs to take into account the predispositions of the beings he is going to serve– with all their prejudices and flaws and idiosyncrasies. It is that simple. He needs to be brutally honest when he is considering this. I suggest that those who would criticize and ridicule the Dalai Lama for his honesty need to look closer at themselves and their own biases, their own dishonesty.
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