A bipartisan United States congressional delegation met with the Dalai Lama Wednesday at his residence in India’s Dharamshala, sparking anger from China which views the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism as a dangerous separatist.
This comes as Washington and Beijing have recently restarted talks after several years of turmoil that began after the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods under the Trump administration. Relations at the time deteriorated even more following the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising military tensions in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
The high-level delegation, led by Republican Rep. Michael McCaul and including Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arrived Tuesday at the hillside town, which the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has made his headquarters since fleeing from Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. There, they met with officials from the Tibetan government-in-exile, which wants more autonomy for Tibet.
Beijing doesn’t recognize said administration and hasn’t held any dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama since 2010.
Aligns with their religion:
https://suttafriends.org/sutta/sn11-16/
The boss of all the gods in heaven is lectured by the Buddha who states that giving stuff to his monks results in more merit than any god.
To be clear this was kinda a big deal for those polytheists. Giving a sacrifice to a god was a transactional act. I burn this incense or leave this bowl of food out for you, you make sure my kid doesn’t die from this illness. When Buddhist pushed people to instead view the Sangha as the place for donations they weren’t simply asking people to switch which shaman they were going to, they were asking them to shoulder on another one.
I don’t often see people gatekeeping a religion as open-ended as Buddhism but here we are.