@@djsteel56 Nope. He taught extensively on karma, mukti, samsara, the existence of gods, potentially about narakas, supposedly performed miracles and said his followers could do them if they meditated hard enough, claimed to cause an earthquake and slay a demon when he was enlightened, claimed to not eat or drink for stretches of time that would have killed him, etc. Each of these is supernatural superstition. I can go on and on. You can redefine "karma" as cause and effect all you want, but that's a total misrepresentation made up by Westerners fetishizing Eastern cultures. Go to one of the temples worshiping the sandals of a Bodhisattva in China and you'll see how distorted this claim is.
Buddhisim is a progressive teaching system leading to a deeper understanding of the nature reality. All you demonstrate is an aspect of the Buddha's teaching methods at the first level of teachings you still have no real understanding of Buddhism.
Tibetan is more like a religion than other forms of Buddhism. It's more folksy or something. Zen leaves most of that out. More spare and straightforward. The Dalai Lama is a real person. He does good things, bad things, says funny things, says dumb things. He's not a perfect God. He usually makes sense and says the right thing. This video is biased and not Hitchen's best moment. I think his argument against religion is strong but falls short when he applies it to Buddhism because it mostly not like other religions. If it even is a religion.
2:00 the greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation rather than the other way about. Brilliant!
NiceGuyCody he’s extremely far from being the least. The Dalai Lama believes people should have a secular approach. He only wants to expose the nature of consciousness which can be stripped completely of religious or faith based dogma. Neuroscience is all over meditation. The Dali lama was clearly on to something.
I made it through it, but the computer rendition of Hitch's voice is so distracting. Part of the charm of his command of the language, is the delivery of said language. He exudes cool self assuredness while employing the intonation of a professional stand up comic. Now I have to find a printed version of the essay.
Clearly Hitch never studied the teachings attributed to the Buddha. The Buddha didn't teach any "isms", including Budhhism, which is how his teachings were adapted to be relevant and relatable to the different cultures and centuries as it spread. His approach was totally empirical and he said not to accept teachings attributed to him based on faith alone. Rather one needs to contemplate their meaning (including logical analysis) and then apply them and see the results for oneself.
Well we found something that Christopher Hitchens clearly doesn’t understand. He should’ve talked to Sam Harris about the practice of meditation and the neuroscience behind it before saying such things. Mingyur Rinpoche has said before that Buddhist teachings offer much insight into the nature of consciousness and for these insights to be stripped of religious context and be tested in the lab. Most Buddhists don’t even believe in anything spiritual. Most are very science minded.
I'm sorry but his article, reputing the Dalai Lama, has absolutely no substance to it. It is just accusation after accusation without any significant detail to show whether it is the truth, Accepting third-person accounts as enough evidence as to topple the 'Holiness' from his 'throne'. He suggests Richard Gere (star of Pretty Woman) as an example of the Dalai Lama himself promoting Prostitution. Firstly why on earth would a celibate man promote prostitution, Hitchens in his article attacks this very concept of celibacy, so which one did Hitchen's believe ? He doesn't make that clear. Richard Gere began studying Buddhism long before meeting the Dalai Lama. This was Zen Buddhism, completely different to the traditional Buddhism of Tibet supported by the Dalai Lama. It was only after he visited Lamas in Tibet that he began to dedicate himself to Tibetan Buddhism as well as the causes they were fighting for. A film that Gere starred in does not mean to advocates Prostitution, you can't judge a person by the films they are part of. Also the Dalai Lama has never spoke angrily of sexual misconduct and has shown tolerance towards all sexualities even though he does believe that celibacy is the way to enlightenment. It is important to know though that the Dalai Lama isn't a robot like many cultist leaders nor is he completely oblivious to the western world. He does believe abstinence is the only way one could attain enlightenment but he doesn't believe that this is attainable by anyone. I think the Dalai Lama is actually quite realistic in goals of an individual wanting to attain inner peace. It definitely doesn't condemn people of sexual orientation nor is it demanding or forceful, urging people to stop having sex, NOW or else! I remember hearing Hitchen's say in an interview, something along the lines of "My ideas are sufficient enough for me". I think this is a telling comment about the way in which Hitchens conducted himself towards controversy and dispute. On the one hand it is admirable because it encourages people to think twice about what they have initially thought about matters but on the other hand it shows an extremity; It shows that anything can be disputed ,to a certain extent, to no end without any second thought of how it may effect the people we are talking about. Shall we allow people's disputations and inclination to controversy, to cloud our judgement because they are renowned debaters ? Shouldn't we also judge them on their lack of evidence to support their argument and shan't we wonder what knowledge they actually have about the situation in which they repute ?
Buddha taught an empirical approach and said you should not accept teachings attributed to him on faith. But you need to hear, contemplate and practice the teachings and if the results make you less self centered, more empathetic and compassionate and more peaceful and open to others then you know it's working and if the result is it makes you feel more special and superior then you know that it's not working.
There was that Amnesty International anti-torture poster campaign last year where they took photos of the Dalai Lama, Iggy Pop and Karl Lagerfeld and photoshopped them to make them look like they'd been beaten up with the tagline “Torture a man and he will tell you anything.” (so for example Iggy Pop's one said "Justin Bieber is the future of rock n roll") Well the Dalai Lama's one had the fictional quote "A man who does not have a Rolex watch at 50 years old has failed in life". Amnesty obviously didn't bother doing any research and just went with his reputation as some untouchable saint. The man has a watch collection - including several Rolexes - that's worth millions.
There are billions of people on Earth, and you couldn't find ONE to narrate this ? You had to use a computer voice instead ? (a bad computer voice, at that)
Sorry. But after watching video after video of Hitchens ( now that I have had the time) I have to draw the tentative conclusion that the man was driven by intellectual bile and spleen - sure he was a wonderful writer and speaker - but he never had a positive thing to say about pretty much anyone. It reminds me of the saying: "Criticizing others is a dishonest way of praising yourself."
+Sam Wilko Writers, artists, philosophers and heads of state have all been praised with deep respect and in humility by Hitchens. He's written books in praise of others.
He did enthuse about things sometimes, but that's not comercial and he made his living through speaking and writing, so you only get to see a small part of the person, the part that was marketable.
Hitchen is very angry with religious people even those who are compassionate ones like the Dalai Lama. While he condemned India for nuclear test UK, US, France, China, Russia have thousand of them. While he has never condemned Stalin, Mao who have killed far more innocent people than Nazi. Bill Clinton condemned India while not realizing that Truman dropped 2 in 1945.
+Peta Gonkyi Your un-lettered, poor, cheap comment shows that you know nothing at all about C. Hitchens. Make sure you know something, at least read a book of his, before you make such stupid comments. Shame on you!
Shame on you. English is my third language. I hope English is the only language you know. You and Hitchen should read about the Dalai Lama, Tibet and Chinese killing 1.2 million Tibetan since 1950 in the process of invasion and occupation. The media is controlled by English speaking Americans and UK so they bury all their crimes such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How many nukes Washing and London have? You want to control others.
Well, first of all it really shows that English is your third language, and no, it is not my only language. Secondly, you still make no sense at all. You clearly don't know anything about Christopher Hitchens and your comments are remarkably lame as your pathetic life most likely is. To write the way you do, you clearly show that you do not know at all that Hitchens indeed opposed all these attrocities, but how can you know if you are not familiar with his work? Again, shame on you for prolonging your stupidity, and, what is this ''nukes'' nonsense you just mentioned? Seriously, do get real, read a bit if you can, and you know, one language at a time!
Did you know the US dropped Nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 which killed not tens of thousand Japanese but even the whole flora and fauna of the region. You call it non sense - non event. Hitchen attacked the Dalai Lama on India's Nuclear bomb development while he never raised the 1.2 million Tibetan killed by Chinese or the thousand of Tibetan killed by British troop in 1903 as Tibetan simply refused to trade with London. Aren't you exhibiting White privilege?
Hitchens and Buddhists actually shared much common ground. They both understood that suffering was a fact of life and that accepting this reality helped ease that suffering. Like Buddhists, he also thought that debate and learning were important aspects of becoming a better person.
Totally true - I have a lot of respect for both the Buddhist tradition and the Oxonian sceptical Waugh tradition of which Christopher Hitchens was part of.
The narrative is robotic and non things to do with C. Hitchens. In fact if you have read Christopher Hitchens’s book “God is not great “, the way Christopher described Buddhism was authentic to his witty intelligence and persuasive philosophy, but convincing truth.
Not only could he not make a true critique of Buddhism, he also couldn't understand the idea of contributing to the world, except for his vitriolic rants on everything that didn't align with his narrow and contradictory stance on politics and religion fueled by his uninvestigated insecurities and angst that could have easily been cured with psychotherapy. Hitchens' fans, no doubt, deservingly suffer from the same type of unrecognized 20th Century issue of vomiting at things that brings pain, without fully understanding the depth of its existence.
Buddhism is a pipe dream to keep people subservient. It doesn't matter what contributions to the world have been made BY BUDDHISTS, (because religion itself does nothing, it is an abstraction), the reality of the matter is that for most poor people in the Buddhist faith, they end up doing their dhamma instead of trying to find some way out, or to improve their own lives. Go ask the Rodiya how great it is to be them, "Lee From LA". I suggest you learn to curb the ambition in your criticisms. You are less than nothing compared to Hitchens. You are quite literally, beneath contempt. I pity your arrogance.
Pseudo-intellectual diatribe about Buddhism being a religion. Obviously neither Hitchens nor this uneducated individual knows how to deconstruct Buddhism in its core structure. Unlike Christianity, which relies on fairy tales (super natural phenomenon) to elevate the status of certain human being to that of deity, Buddhism relies more on philosophical inquiries designed to question action and behavior. But all this would be above and rather too complicated for either individual, since that kind of logic and research would actually involve truly objective critical thinking to the standard of rigorous scientific research, sans logical fallacies. Reading and knowing the material one is deconstructing usually helps the argument. In this case, neither individual have a good grasp of the material they are critiquing. Nice try. lol
Hitchen Never denounced Mao who was responsible for 50 million death yet he criticise the Dalai Lama for some flimsy reason. Does he know that Chinese invasion killed 1.2 million Tibetans?
you sound like a muslim. "what about this? what about that?". hitchen also didnt denounce many other dictators, whats your point? he's criticizing dalai llama because he's focusing on dalai llama in this segment. he's more concerned with wolf in sheep skin than the obvious wolf.
Did you know dalai lama was a western puppet. Why? anti comunist propaganda era. Cia trained tibetans in india. Touring wolrd wide like a rockstar. Lol.
This somewhat made me lose some respect for Christopher. He bases most of his arguments on the truth of science so why is he denying the importance of Buddhist teachings like meditation and “being in the moment”. These are concepts that are right now being vigorously studied by neuroscience. They obviously have some meat to them. It bothers me that Hitchens totally disregards this.
Buddhism is not equivalent to meditation. Meditation has been practiced by almost every culture and religious tradition, but in Buddhism it's meant to neutralize your karma and save you from reincarnating into Hell/naraka. Anything about "consciousness" is totally secondary to that.
Christopher Hitchens was a cheap polemicist of the worst kind and why people regard his unreasonable tirades as worth listening to is beyond me. This is a man who supported George W Bush!
No, he didn't. Had you ever bothered to ever actually attempt to verify your accusations, instead of parroting Noam Chomsky's BS, you'd know how ridiculous you sound.
You would rather listen to C. Hitchens than N. Chomsky? Christopher Hitchens likes to identify himself with the powerful. When he thought that Communism-Marxism was where history was heading he was a Communist but since 1989 he suddenly changed, eventually morphing into a Bushite. Principles? None.
He was a Marxist then. So up until 1989 he thought he was on the right side of history. then the Berlin Wall fell down and Marxist Hitchens ends up in the US defending US Imperialism! He goes where he thinks power resides.
Christopher Hitchens is an eloquent, well spoken mercenary. Somewhere in his childhood a religious figure seems to have killed and eaten his puppy or kitten, giving rise to a lifelong vendetta against religion in general. This lifelong drug addict has fashioned a career out of both attacking whatever serves to support the habits that killed him, and furthered his revenge on the concept of faith that so clearly disappointed him. His bitter, resentful facade of atheism is an embarrassment to many true atheists. He was an unrivaled example of sophistry in service to ego and addiction. If he was a true representation of atheism, I would have to consider buying into religion. This man was brilliant, well spoken, and charismatic (to the proper audience). It is a shame he devoted his life to pointless counterproductive attacks, rather than contributing anything positive or productive. It is always easier to tear down and destroy, than to create and contribute. The man is gone, but his legacy of pointless, destructive criticism will live on.
The Buddha taught an empirical approach to perceiving reality and spoke against blind faith.
Not really, he taught mysticism flavored with Hindu superstitions. White people sure are trying to secularize that out, though!
@@AbandonedVoidYou obviously have no knowledge of Buddhism with your assertion about mysticism. Everything the Buddha taught was grounded in logic.
@@djsteel56 Nope. He taught extensively on karma, mukti, samsara, the existence of gods, potentially about narakas, supposedly performed miracles and said his followers could do them if they meditated hard enough, claimed to cause an earthquake and slay a demon when he was enlightened, claimed to not eat or drink for stretches of time that would have killed him, etc. Each of these is supernatural superstition. I can go on and on.
You can redefine "karma" as cause and effect all you want, but that's a total misrepresentation made up by Westerners fetishizing Eastern cultures. Go to one of the temples worshiping the sandals of a Bodhisattva in China and you'll see how distorted this claim is.
Buddhisim is a progressive teaching system leading to a deeper understanding of the nature reality. All you demonstrate is an aspect of the Buddha's teaching methods at the first level of teachings you still have no real understanding of Buddhism.
@@djsteel56 Whatever lies get you through the night, plastic shaman
Tibetan is more like a religion than other forms of Buddhism. It's more folksy or something. Zen leaves most of that out. More spare and straightforward. The Dalai Lama is a real person. He does good things, bad things, says funny things, says dumb things. He's not a perfect God. He usually makes sense and says the right thing. This video is biased and not Hitchen's best moment. I think his argument against religion is strong but falls short when he applies it to Buddhism because it mostly not like other religions. If it even is a religion.
Have you been to Kyoto? Zen does not leave that out
2:00 the greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation rather than the other way about.
Brilliant!
Not really sure if I can get worked up about this. Dalai lama is the least of the worlds religious nutjobs problems.
He's pretty far from being the "least".
NiceGuyCody he’s extremely far from being the least. The Dalai Lama believes people should have a secular approach. He only wants to expose the nature of consciousness which can be stripped completely of religious or faith based dogma. Neuroscience is all over meditation. The Dali lama was clearly on to something.
Only because of the noble repression by China.
I made it through it, but the computer rendition of Hitch's voice is so distracting. Part of the charm of his command of the language, is the delivery of said language. He exudes cool self assuredness while employing the intonation of a professional stand up comic. Now I have to find a printed version of the essay.
Clearly Hitch never studied the teachings attributed to the Buddha. The Buddha didn't teach any "isms", including Budhhism, which is how his teachings were adapted to be relevant and relatable to the different cultures and centuries as it spread. His approach was totally empirical and he said not to accept teachings attributed to him based on faith alone. Rather one needs to contemplate their meaning (including logical analysis) and then apply them and see the results for oneself.
You're leaving out the part where you have to defer to a superior in order to validate your progress to enlightenment. It's one of the three jewels!
Well we found something that Christopher Hitchens clearly doesn’t understand. He should’ve talked to Sam Harris about the practice of meditation and the neuroscience behind it before saying such things. Mingyur Rinpoche has said before that Buddhist teachings offer much insight into the nature of consciousness and for these insights to be stripped of religious context and be tested in the lab. Most Buddhists don’t even believe in anything spiritual. Most are very science minded.
I'm sorry but his article, reputing the Dalai Lama, has absolutely no substance to it. It is just accusation after accusation without any significant detail to show whether it is the truth, Accepting third-person accounts as enough evidence as to topple the 'Holiness' from his 'throne'.
He suggests Richard Gere (star of Pretty Woman) as an example of the Dalai Lama himself promoting Prostitution. Firstly why on earth would a celibate man promote prostitution, Hitchens in his article attacks this very concept of celibacy, so which one did Hitchen's believe ? He doesn't make that clear.
Richard Gere began studying Buddhism long before meeting the Dalai Lama. This was Zen Buddhism, completely different to the traditional Buddhism of Tibet supported by the Dalai Lama. It was only after he visited Lamas in Tibet that he began to dedicate himself to Tibetan Buddhism as well as the causes they were fighting for.
A film that Gere starred in does not mean to advocates Prostitution, you can't judge a person by the films they are part of. Also the Dalai Lama has never spoke angrily of sexual misconduct and has shown tolerance towards all sexualities even though he does believe that celibacy is the way to enlightenment.
It is important to know though that the Dalai Lama isn't a robot like many cultist leaders nor is he completely oblivious to the western world. He does believe abstinence is the only way one could attain enlightenment but he doesn't believe that this is attainable by anyone. I think the Dalai Lama is actually quite realistic in goals of an individual wanting to attain inner peace. It definitely doesn't condemn people of sexual orientation nor is it demanding or forceful, urging people to stop having sex, NOW or else!
I remember hearing Hitchen's say in an interview, something along the lines of "My ideas are sufficient enough for me". I think this is a telling comment about the way in which Hitchens conducted himself towards controversy and dispute. On the one hand it is admirable because it encourages people to think twice about what they have initially thought about matters but on the other hand it shows an extremity; It shows that anything can be disputed ,to a certain extent, to no end without any second thought of how it may effect the people we are talking about. Shall we allow people's disputations and inclination to controversy, to cloud our judgement because they are renowned debaters ? Shouldn't we also judge them on their lack of evidence to support their argument and shan't we wonder what knowledge they actually have about the situation in which they repute ?
you are right
they could not find a real person to read this text?
"Buddhism can be as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith untried."
Well said!
Buddha taught an empirical approach and said you should not accept teachings attributed to him on faith. But you need to hear, contemplate and practice the teachings and if the results make you less self centered, more empathetic and compassionate and more peaceful and open to others then you know it's working and if the result is it makes you feel more special and superior then you know that it's not working.
@@harrisonsmiller1 ...said every apologist about their religious founders ever.
@@AbandonedVoid Islam and Christianity have this concept?
There was that Amnesty International anti-torture poster campaign last year where they took photos of the Dalai Lama, Iggy Pop and Karl Lagerfeld and photoshopped them to make them look like they'd been beaten up with the tagline “Torture a man and he will tell you anything.” (so for example Iggy Pop's one said "Justin Bieber is the future of rock n roll")
Well the Dalai Lama's one had the fictional quote "A man who does not have a Rolex watch at 50 years old has failed in life". Amnesty obviously didn't bother doing any research and just went with his reputation as some untouchable saint. The man has a watch collection - including several Rolexes - that's worth millions.
I mean Buddhism generally teaches you to keep asking questions rather than taking things on blind faith, but okay.
The machine reading is far from ideal.
Surely there are ways to correct the obvious mispronunciation of such common words as "weaponry."
There are billions of people on Earth, and you couldn't find ONE to narrate this ? You had to use a computer voice instead ? (a bad computer voice, at that)
UK, USA, Russia and France had nuclear weapons even before Hitchen was born.
So?
Asking questions no one would ever dare ask
There are a lot of angry people who don't understand Buddhism here accusing Hitchens of not understanding Buddhism.
From the most mesmerising and articulate speakers of all time to say this just amplifies religion POISONS everything is so true
his extreme anger disturbs me.
Sorry. But after watching video after video of Hitchens ( now that I have had the time) I have to draw the tentative conclusion that the man was driven by intellectual bile and spleen - sure he was a wonderful writer and speaker - but he never had a positive thing to say about pretty much anyone. It reminds me of the saying: "Criticizing others is a dishonest way of praising yourself."
+Sam Wilko Writers, artists, philosophers and heads of state have all been praised with deep respect and in humility by Hitchens. He's written books in praise of others.
He's an iconoclast. He peels back the cover to show the core. Valuable service.
He did enthuse about things sometimes, but that's not comercial and he made his living through speaking and writing, so you only get to see a small part of the person, the part that was marketable.
Hitchen is very angry with religious people even those who are compassionate ones like the Dalai Lama. While he condemned India for nuclear test UK, US, France, China, Russia have thousand of them. While he has never condemned Stalin, Mao who have killed far more innocent people than Nazi.
Bill Clinton condemned India while not realizing that Truman dropped 2 in 1945.
+buzzin1975 How idiotic of you to speak in such an idiotic way.
+Peta Gonkyi Your un-lettered, poor, cheap comment shows that you know nothing at all about C. Hitchens. Make sure you know something, at least read a book of his, before you make such stupid comments. Shame on you!
Shame on you. English is my third language. I hope English is the only language you know.
You and Hitchen should read about the Dalai Lama, Tibet and Chinese killing 1.2 million Tibetan since 1950 in the process of invasion and occupation.
The media is controlled by English speaking Americans and UK so they bury all their crimes such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How many nukes Washing and London have? You want to control others.
Well, first of all it really shows that English is your third language, and no, it is not my only language.
Secondly, you still make no sense at all. You clearly don't know anything about Christopher Hitchens and your comments are remarkably lame as your pathetic life most likely is. To write the way you do, you clearly show that you do not know at all that Hitchens indeed opposed all these attrocities, but how can you know if you are not familiar with his work? Again, shame on you for prolonging your stupidity, and, what is this ''nukes'' nonsense you just mentioned? Seriously, do get real, read a bit if you can, and you know, one language at a time!
Did you know the US dropped Nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 which killed not tens of thousand Japanese but even the whole flora and fauna of the region. You call it non sense - non event.
Hitchen attacked the Dalai Lama on India's Nuclear bomb development while he never raised the 1.2 million Tibetan killed by Chinese or the thousand of Tibetan killed by British troop in 1903 as Tibetan simply refused to trade with London.
Aren't you exhibiting White privilege?
Hitchens and Buddhists actually shared much common ground. They both understood that suffering was a fact of life and that accepting this reality helped ease that suffering. Like Buddhists, he also thought that debate and learning were important aspects of becoming a better person.
Totally true - I have a lot of respect for both the Buddhist tradition and the Oxonian sceptical Waugh tradition of which Christopher Hitchens was part of.
The narrative is robotic and non things to do with C. Hitchens. In fact if you have read Christopher Hitchens’s book “God is not great “, the way Christopher described Buddhism was authentic to his witty intelligence and persuasive philosophy, but convincing truth.
All teachings from special beings, who have come to teach us, have been manipulated and altered by elitists to suit the control system.
But, He's smart by being a RUclipsr! Right? I mean, that makes him a validity?
Not only could he not make a true critique of Buddhism, he also couldn't understand the idea of contributing to the world, except for his vitriolic rants on everything that didn't align with his narrow and contradictory stance on politics and religion fueled by his uninvestigated insecurities and angst that could have easily been cured with psychotherapy. Hitchens' fans, no doubt, deservingly suffer from the same type of unrecognized 20th Century issue of vomiting at things that brings pain, without fully understanding the depth of its existence.
Buddhism is a pipe dream to keep people subservient. It doesn't matter what contributions to the world have been made BY BUDDHISTS, (because religion itself does nothing, it is an abstraction), the reality of the matter is that for most poor people in the Buddhist faith, they end up doing their dhamma instead of trying to find some way out, or to improve their own lives. Go ask the Rodiya how great it is to be them, "Lee From LA".
I suggest you learn to curb the ambition in your criticisms. You are less than nothing compared to Hitchens. You are quite literally, beneath contempt. I pity your arrogance.
Pseudo-intellectual diatribe about Buddhism being a religion. Obviously neither Hitchens nor this uneducated individual knows how to deconstruct Buddhism in its core structure. Unlike Christianity, which relies on fairy tales (super natural phenomenon) to elevate the status of certain human being to that of deity, Buddhism relies more on philosophical inquiries designed to question action and behavior. But all this would be above and rather too complicated for either individual, since that kind of logic and research would actually involve truly objective critical thinking to the standard of rigorous scientific research, sans logical fallacies. Reading and knowing the material one is deconstructing usually helps the argument. In this case, neither individual have a good grasp of the material they are critiquing. Nice try. lol
Speaking of vitriolic rants...
Except they believe in demons homey. Nice try. I mean: ultimate fail.
oh do tell, transcendant, all-knowing one.. . . . .
Hitchen Never denounced Mao who was responsible for 50 million death yet he criticise the Dalai Lama for some flimsy reason. Does he know that Chinese invasion killed 1.2 million Tibetans?
you sound like a muslim. "what about this? what about that?". hitchen also didnt denounce many other dictators, whats your point? he's criticizing dalai llama because he's focusing on dalai llama in this segment. he's more concerned with wolf in sheep skin than the obvious wolf.
Did you know dalai lama was a western puppet. Why? anti comunist propaganda era. Cia trained tibetans in india. Touring wolrd wide like a rockstar. Lol.
Very funny article and very incisive!
This somewhat made me lose some respect for Christopher. He bases most of his arguments on the truth of science so why is he denying the importance of Buddhist teachings like meditation and “being in the moment”. These are concepts that are right now being vigorously studied by neuroscience. They obviously have some meat to them. It bothers me that Hitchens totally disregards this.
Buddhism is not equivalent to meditation. Meditation has been practiced by almost every culture and religious tradition, but in Buddhism it's meant to neutralize your karma and save you from reincarnating into Hell/naraka. Anything about "consciousness" is totally secondary to that.
Only small and narrow minded people can say and believe this video only
Christopher Hitchens was a cheap polemicist of the worst kind and why people regard his unreasonable tirades as worth listening to is beyond me. This is a man who supported George W Bush!
No, he didn't. Had you ever bothered to ever actually attempt to verify your accusations, instead of parroting Noam Chomsky's BS, you'd know how ridiculous you sound.
You would rather listen to C. Hitchens than N. Chomsky? Christopher Hitchens likes to identify himself with the powerful. When he thought that Communism-Marxism was where history was heading he was a Communist but since 1989 he suddenly changed, eventually morphing into a Bushite. Principles? None.
He was a Marxist then. So up until 1989 he thought he was on the right side of history. then the Berlin Wall fell down and Marxist Hitchens ends up in the US defending US Imperialism! He goes where he thinks power resides.
Michael Lee. Bush Neo Con = Troskites?
the article:
www.salon.com/1998/07/13/news_79/
Christopher Hitchens is an eloquent, well spoken mercenary. Somewhere in his childhood a religious figure seems to have killed and eaten his puppy or kitten, giving rise to a lifelong vendetta against religion in general. This lifelong drug addict has fashioned a career out of both attacking whatever serves to support the habits that killed him, and furthered his revenge on the concept of faith that so clearly disappointed him. His bitter, resentful facade of atheism is an embarrassment to many true atheists. He was an unrivaled example of sophistry in service to ego and addiction. If he was a true representation of atheism, I would have to consider buying into religion. This man was brilliant, well spoken, and charismatic (to the proper audience). It is a shame he devoted his life to pointless counterproductive attacks, rather than contributing anything positive or productive. It is always easier to tear down and destroy, than to create and contribute. The man is gone, but his legacy of pointless, destructive criticism will live on.
do Buddhism live Buddhism, don't try to understand it outside of practicing it!