I have ties and links to both buddhism and catholicism.
In his youth, while an ethnic Chinese student from Southeast Asia dispatched by Grandfather back to China for his formal education, my late father in the 1930s landed in Hangzhou and enrolled at a Chinese college administered by foreign missionaries. He loved Hangzhou around the area of West Lake, where famous poets like Li Po and Tu Fu wrote some of their best poetry of their times. Those among us who enjoyed Chinese poety are blessed by their works from West Lake. Who among us who have immersed ourselves in the poetry of the Tang and Sung dynasties have not dreamt about what it was like to sit on a boat at West Lake, taking in the full Moon during the Autumn Moon Festival, a tradition for all Chinese, inside and outside of China ? And not the naive "West Lake" soup that most Americans know about Chinese society and its rich blessed culture.
Father's passion for the lifestyle of a dilittante landed him often at a Buddhist monastery at the Six Harmonies Pagoda near West Lake. I have had the joy of visiting the Pagoda and threaded my late father's footsteps and I heared echos of his footsteps trekking up the Pagoda and on its grounds, and dipping nearby on West Lake.
Known for its green tea, a variety known as "loong jing," my father, an afficionado of China's tea culture, thanks to India's contribution to the China, would often hang out with a buddhist monk at the monastery, caretaker of the Pagoda, drank tea, and talked about life and the vissicitudes of a young man conflicted by the pain and heartaches of the world and dreams of a simple life of a monk, disassociating from the mundane and human society's frailties.
Father dabbled with his monk friend, and seriously pondered and considered becoming like his monk friend and almost gave up the worldly life for the monastic life.
Until one day, the monk advised him, " Brother Tien," as the monk would call him, " you are not cut out to be a monk;" the monk said, "you love to eat meat, to drink tea, and you love all the worldly pleasures," he admonished my father. "Go home to the the Philippines, where you belong."
Like my father, I once also contemplated to become a monk. In fact, even today, I had thought about becoming one, if only there is a monastery which serves meat, instead of vegetables in a diet of "chai." You see, like my father, I love steaks and pork chops, and all the good wine that the world of viniculture provided, from cabernet, merlot, to rislings. And monks are supposed to be vegan. And yes, they don't drink ( or do they, pray tell?)
From my father's generation to mine, I too had links to men of religion of many faiths. Catholic priests are my favorites, especially Jesuit priests in Asia. I was and am to this very day am very fond of Jesuit priests, especially from Europe and North America who have transplanted and rooted themselves in Asia, as part of the Western colonial history in Asia since the early 16th century.,
I almost went to Jesuit school, but for the fact that my father wanted me to get a Confucian education, steeped in the classics and the Analects. Consequently, I opted for Confucianism and Taoism, but nonetheless, I also trancended my Chinese education and crossed over cultures and befriended many Jesuit priests in my youth.
Many Americans are not exposed to the narrative of Western colonialism and imperialism in Asia, of which the Jesuits were an integral part of that "White Man's Burden" to proselytise and save the poor souls in the non-Western world. Father Ricci was one of many. Notwithstanding the politics and severe consequences of Western colonialism and its residues which caused much pain , suffering and sectarian conflicts in Asia Pacific i.e. from East Timor to the Indian subcontinent, I also recognize that religions, among which is Christianity and catholicism, play aa significant role in spreading humanity, the spirit and the passion for charity, compassion, morality, and Godliness.
No doubt about it -- I am sold on the goodness of religion, in all its lofty goals of spirituality, across all faiths, from Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and all other faiths.
All said; But likewise, I have been troubled by the "politics" of religion, whether Buddhism, or Catholicism, especially when mixed up and emitting conflicting signals of religious morality, spirituality, compassion, peace and harmony on the one hand, and the naked power plays from behind the religious veneer. Much violence in the world today involves mixing Religion, Power, and Politics. History is full of these cadavers of sectarianism.
Take the Dalai Lama and Pope Benedict. Both men of faith.
One I shall call "Dolly." The other I shall call "Benny."
Both Dolly and Benny, as men of faith, are evidently spiritual men of good faith.
Nothing bad nor would I have a quarrel from their faithful pontification about morality, faith, spirituality, compassion, peace and harmony.
Dolly, the religious icon of many Llamaists, "Hollywood"celebrities, such as Richard Gere, friend of Bishop Desmond Tutu, a catholic archbishop, and many other well-intentioned American liberals who worship his Holliness for his message of benevolence, harmony and peace, has been at the center of the movement of a "Free Tibet."
I hear the Dolly and his pleas from Dharamsala, Nepal. Aside from his spiritual, I know of and have been following the "Political" Dolly with some perplexity and utter confusion.
While in Seattle this week, I watched His Holliness and the interview conducted by NBC news correspondent Ann Currie of MSNBC, in its entirety. I was impressed by the man's charisma and ability to articulate like the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, known as the "Great Communicator." Folksy and light, Formidable.
Dolly's message of peace, harmony, and compassion resonated with me, as he did with most mainstream Americans, I am sure. Many Americans, agonized over the violence in American society and how its government had projected so much violence in other parts of the world, and obviously can't control the violence within America, are deeply pained by the vapidness of their own Western and American societies from within.
Think Britney Spears. Think drugs. Think homeless street people. And Think violence in the mean streets of America. I can feel the pain and the message that the religious Dolly is imparting from the East.
I hear y'all Dolly worshippers. He's "ma man" too insofar as the religious message.
But what I can't reconcile is that this spiritual man of faith, in religious garb, while renouncing violence, at the same time is winking at the violence with an attitude of "wink, wink, oink, oink" not just being projected inside China's southwest, not just in Tibet, but in Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Szechuan, where Hui Muslims and Han Chinese innocent ordinary people were being and are still being targeted and victimized by his Saffron-robed monks.
In fact, cache of weaponry, assault rifles, bullets, knives, etc. have been found in Tibetan monastery, among the Dalai Lama faithful, his saffron-robed monks, which Chinese authorities have disclosed to the Western press, yet completely twisted and suppressed by the media because of their maniacal passion to push the "Shangri-la" myth.
Where's the probity and skepticism about the Safron movement in Tibet ?
Is this a "noveau" theory of the theology of liberation and a saffron revolution of subterfuge and "guerrilla" tactics ? Isn't this inconsistent with His Holliness spin about peace and harmony and reconciliation, using non-violence ? Peace and reconciliation while smuggling in cache of weapons with the assistance of the CIA ?
On Ground Zero in San Francisco on April 9, 2008, I can personally attest that one of his most vociferous supporter, an American fan of the Dolly, the "political Dolly" was none other than "smash-mouth" "sock it to them" San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, now known as Chris "Dalai," the American brute reincarnate of Dolly, in hectoring, screaming, and rallying his "Team Tibet Shangri-la" troopers in the caldron to stop the Olympics torch, by any and all means needed and necessary.
As far as I am concerned, and insofar as my roots to Buddha through my father is concerned, I don't think Chris Dalai, the San Francisco official "rabblerouser" and our Mayor's "nemesis" is exactly suffused with the Dalai Lama's compassion, benevolence, peace and harmony.
Rather, he has subscribed to the theory of saffron revolution using the "Religious" Dolly as the crutch and pretext.
Which is the real Dolly ? The religious Dolly ? Or the political Dolly? The Dalai Lama or Chris Dalai, his apparent American reincarnate ?
Looking back in the past week, and looking forward to Pope Benedict's visit to the United States, which is happening following the Dolly's visit to Seattle, Washington, I am again gripped with euphoria with the Pope's message of morality, goodliness and Godliness. Another religious catharsis.
Like the 80 million American catholics who are exuberant over the state visit of our 81-year Pope from the Vatican, I have no quarrel with the Pope's message of morality, charity, and compassion. Wonderful 81-year old former San Franciscan transplanted from Germany.
The Pontiff preaches and convey the religious catholicism that I have been taught by my Jesuit priest friends. These Jesuits were and are still are men who indeed did and are doing a lot of good in Asia-Pacific where I grew up. And in the Third World, including Latin America. Their contribution in linking the Western world and the non-Western world is laudable, if not stellar.
As an Asian-American, I salute them. And I count some of my fond and best memories of my youth to my many encounters with Jesuit priests while growing up in Asia.
Again, as with the Dolly, I have a problem with the "Political Pope," not the "Religious Pope." My beef again, as with the Dolly, is not with the talk, but with the walk, and the do.
Is short, "Talk the Talk; Walk the Walk; and Do the Do."
The Political Pope, like the Dolly, is winking an eye towards the mess of child pedophilia among America's priesthood, a sordid and scandalous mess of gargantuan proportion which has torn apart and divided the Catholic Church in the U.S., which mess has yet to be sorted out.
What's happening with the child predator priests who have not only sinned in the most heinous way by preying on small little kids, i.e. altar boys, young children in their formative years, and destroying these innocent children ?
What's happening with Llamaist saffron-robed violence and predatory conduct within our Dolly's monasteries, and the sins committed from behind by his loyal and faithful, in the name of "TEAM TIBET" and the theology of revolution, liberation, and secession? Autonomy ? More like the "I" word to me, i.e. Independence.
The politics of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, is stamped with three alphabets, CIA. and yes, CIA.
That's the political Dolly that I can't fathom. The CIA Dolly.
Clearly, with both the Dolly "the Political Monk", and Benny, "the Political Priest," whether or not they have any standing, nor control, or could rein in their own flock , many of whom have clearly "sinned," and inflicted violence upon others, upon children, upon innocent civilians, is an issue I, as a human being, in my Third Space, has a beef with. And with the Political Dolly, a pretext used by his faithful, with the complicit from behind the scene of the CIA, I feel that he is "talking from both sides of his mouth."
Who is the real Dolly ? The religious and devout Buddhist holy man ? Or the Political CIA man of Intelligence. I mean, ahem, the other "intelligence."
From the looks of things, I seriously doubt that Dolly has one iota of influence nor control over Chris Daly, the "bad boy" of San Francisco and his propensity to smash other people with his boorishness, vulgarity, and hooliganism. And Mr. Daly, aka Chris Dalai, the Dolly's American hipster "reincarnate" of Dolly is ecstatic that he, among others, had heroically suffocated and muzzled the Olympics torch on his run into San Francisco.
San Francisco values, according to Chris Dalai, has been preserved and protected. Thanks to the Dolly's message of tolerance, compassion, peace and harmony.
Ta Ma Di. As a global Chinese in the Diaspora, I was really intimidated by the intended "ambush" attack on the Olympics torch relay in San Francisco, further amplified by our "rat pack" local news media, and television cameras.
And so it is with Benny, the Pope, and his "oink, oink, wink, wink", like Dolly's attitude over his "mau mau storm troopers " in the strident, screaming, assault against those of us in the welcoming "Team Beijing Olympics," all in the name of "Team Tibet Shangri-La" and the holiness of the Dolly.
Talk about "talking the talk; " "walking the walk;" and "doing the do."
Like our African-American brothers and sisters in the 'hood, I feel like responding, "Bruther Dolly and Bruther Benny, don't give me that jive; and don't give me that S'*@#"
Ta Ma Di.
