He like the pope, but still better than the mullahs.

He is like the pope, but he is still better than the mullahs. He probably likes the pope, too. Maybe he even likes the mullahs. They don't like capitalism, either.

Too much greed, lies, hypocrisy - these guys - popes, dalai lamas and the like - always go for the low hanging fruit. Is any one arguing for too much greed, lies, and hypocrisy? Is he saying there is an optimal level of them, and the problem is we just had too much? When you look closely at the quote, there's really nothing in it.

When was the last time the Dalai Lama had to reach for the check at lunch?

Gunga galunga... Gunga, gunga galunga.

Should a miracle occur and Tibet ever regain independence, one wonders what, exactly, the Dalai Lama's governing philosophy would be. Ah, those hard choices that a philosopher never has to make in the real world.

I'll give the Dalai Lama this, though. At least he has managed to keep the affections of the left, as opposed to most other victims of totalitarian oppression, who just get trampled under foot by the hard lefties in their headlong stamped to touch the hems of their messiahs de jour like Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc.

Is there anything else we should expect from a medieval mystic like him? Money problems? Let's empty our minds and ignore the problem!

I can clearly understand the appeal for this; how relaxing it is to ignore issues instead of confronting them!

The Dalai-Lama, like many other mystics, chose to ignore the real value of money; trust. When I work, I am paid with money I trust I can trade for good and services. The Trader trust that my money got a value of some sort. It even got a spiritual sense to it. When I trade, I am asked "Did you served your follow men?" and I say "Yes, of course. Here's the money as proof.".

The Dalai-Lama believe that the human being is spliced in two: The body in the material world and the soul and the morality in an ethereal one. This is why he fails to understand how important money is and the principle that the current crisis is a crisis of trust.

mmm, none of this seems out of the ordinary to me. This sounds pretty normal for their teachings... but then if you are from a country that has been practicing such precepts for several thousand years it prolly works fine.

Yeah, that ain't us. Which is why applying those principles to us is somuch a stretch.

Toubrouk, I think he WOULD understand trust, but perhaps would think of a lot of this crisis about the blind persuit of money for it's own sake. NOT trading money for something, but just possesing money. This is several steps away from having money as a translation of value of two products to each other. I farm grains, you make shoes, I need shoes, you need bread. If I need something else, well now we level up at interchange mechanism. But when those mechanisms are pushed up all those levels when it is about making the most money on repackaging debt...

Money may be about trust, but at that level it is no longer based in reality [I need a pair of shoes]. Curiously it enters some realm where the idea of money is quasi-religious...

Maybe mystics feel vaguely uncomefortable about something that would touch their area? What is a billion dolars in reality? What does a billion dolars in gold look like?

I could be way wrong, but I'm not thinkin the dali-lama is hostile to individuals who are having a time finding a job or feeding the kids, though the interpretation could be there. I think he has a close understanding of actual people. He was speaking of economy where actual value is divorced from the drive of the econ, and the problems that divide would bring.

The problem is that you cannot easily divorce the two. I worry over econ, because value I create isn't directly tied to daily production of food or necessities. So when the interchange mechanisms fluctuates, it does affect me, you and many others. For this reason I find most religious teaching to be incomplete for dealing with this situation...

I think he WOULD understand trust, but perhaps would think of a lot of this crisis about the blind persuit of money for it's own sake. NOT trading money for something, but just possesing money.

Possessing money without the ideal of using it sometimes is in the realm of the pathology, just like "L'avare" from Moliere. I am not suscribing to long-term investments right now because I love owning money but because I will need it for my old days.

Yes, the ideal of money enters in the realm of spirituality. I can easily refers you to the "Money Speech" Made by Ayn Rand's fictional character "Francisco D'anconia". Money came from virtue expressed in the creation of a good or the offering of a service. The greater the skill, abilities or the virtues of the participant, the greater the money he will receive for his goods and services.

The crisis right now is not based on greed but on the belief that some people can bypass the generation of money by betting on irrational products and getting away with it. Some governments also thought they could upset the apple cart just a little for political ends, not tangible goals. Those two situations are not based on a rational thought but on a mystic vision of the markets. We are now experiencing those results.

The most idiot part in all this is that the Dalai-Lama, the great peddler of mysticism, is the one who wails about greed and offer an irrational solution to a crisis caused by irrationality itself. I guess it will not helps. Besides, did anyone of his followers looked at what the Tibet looked like when the Lamas were running the show? It was a bloody Medieval enclave with indentured servants! And he dare giving moral lessons?

I am a greedy guy. I love money, not for money itself but for what I can use it. I have no need to "rise above thoughts of pain and anger", they are facts of life. I just need to go out and work hard in a logical manner. We have seen over the ages where the doctrine of ignoring the physical world can leads you; it's called the "Middle Ages".

Amy, if everyone adopted your lifestyle (used clothing, frugal apartment, SLEV, etc), what would that do for national consumption?

Super! I'm all for within your means. My take is that the Lama is saying reconsider what "within your means" really means. Are you substituting material goods (consumption) for what is really important, namely (from his perspective) "family, friends, and peace of mind". If not, fine, you're doing great! But what is important from your perspective? (Holistically, not you specifically Amy.)

And regardless of the source, DL and his political entanglements aside, isn't being mindful and aware of one's consumption a good thing?

It's easy for him to say "this crisis is good," because he has no economic worries. I see no problem with living a luxurious life and no reason paring down itself makes you a better person. Do let me know how you have peace of mind when you're worried that you won't have the money to take your sick kid to the doctor.

Personally, I'd be thrilled if I could pay my assistant buttloads of money, if I could fly first class, and have somebody make me food and leave it in my refrigerator. And I'd like a maid to come in daily. I'd also love to have somebody drive me around. Driving in Los Angeles traffic is very stressful for me. And I'd travel more, go to Paris more, have a place there. I'd just love to be able to have the power I would with lots of money to make life easier. To hire a publicist to promote my book. To buy whatever books I want and to have a library to store them in. To be able to buy boots I love that aren't seriously on sale. To not worry that I'll have to eat cat food at 80. To not worry at all about money would give me great peace of mind.

You make some good points, Amy, but rather than address them here, if you'd like to discuss, send me an email.

Priests live by begging. Of course they will preach that other people's money is of no value.

> isn't being mindful and aware of
> one's consumption a good thing?

Being hectored about it by someone who has no worry of poverty is NOT a good thing. Postrel on then-First Lady Hillary Clinton visiting the World Economic Forum in Davos:

[T]here is something unseemly about a wealthy and powerful woman and former Wal-Mart director lecturing a selection of the world's wealthiest people on the evils of consumer aspirations. Intellectuals easily accept such ideas because they tend not to count their own pleasures, such as travel, books, art, gourmet food or tax-deductible conferences in Switzerland as consumerist indulgences, and for those motivated primarily by power or fame, of course, consumer products are trivial pleasures.

Children to feed? Our local savior has already given us his answer, plant a garden. Once you get used to dealing with all the paparazzi gushing over your wisdom to implement this ancient technique, it's quite easy. The staff tends to it everyday.

Let's see, what caused this crisis?

1. We have people who lusted after a house, and instead of working and saving for it, jumped into obviously foolish mortgages once their eyes were dazzled by that big, pretty house.

2. We have financiers who found that playing a shell game with debt could make them ridiculously rich, and bought of members of Congress to keep regulators out of their hair.

3. We have Congress, who enjoyed the campaign donations from the GSEs and the power they wielded by getting elected again and again. As the politicians rolled in their riches and power, they had the audacity to lecture the middle class for being "greedy."

Gosh, it almost sounds like there was "too much lies, greed, and hypocrisy" going around.

One of the central tenets of Buddhism is moderation. Another is humility. I believe this is where the Dalai Lama is coming from. One must remember that his concerns are not of this time and place, but the next, if you will.

I think he is speaking honestly of a society where greed and selfishness have swung the pendulum too far in one direction, and it must swing back again....

the ailing global economy is the result of "too much greed, and lies and hypocrisy."

That sounds very un-Dalai Lama-like to me. I don't think he said it.

OK, so the implosion of the only successful framework for what Hayek usefully phrases as the "extended order," and which, as correctly pointed out, enables the least fortunate of society the luxury of contemplating the higher things in life (as opposed to, say, whether their family will be butchered in their sleep by a wandering band of mercenaries, or whether they'll have a meal . . . this week), is due to "too much greed, and lies and hypocrisy"? In exactly what respect does this tripe differ substantively from that jack-leg preacher's announcement that Sept. 11 was God's retribution for homosexuality?

Interesting article about the Dalai Lama:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/will_the_real_dalai_lama_please_stand_up/5640/

It seems that Tibet wasn't exactly Shambala.

The Dalai-Lama believe that the human being is spliced in two: The body in the material world and the soul and the morality in an ethereal one.

There's a passage in Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, a generally humorous book with a handfull of serious moments. The one I am reminded of is towards the end when our three boaters discover the body of a woman floating in the river. Turns out she was a suicide.

Of course it was the old, old vulger tragedy. She had loved and been deceived - or had deceived herself. Anyhow, she had sinned - some of us do now and then... Left to fight the world alone... for a while she had kept both herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week that twelve hour's drudgery a day procured her, paying six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder.

Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul together very unitedly. They want to get away from each other when there is only such a very slight bond as that between them: and then one day, I suppose, the pain and the dull monotony of it all had stood before her eyes plainer than usual, and the mocking specter of it had frightened her...and then she had gone to see her child - had held it in her arms and kissed it... and had left it, after putting into its hand a penny box of chocolate she had bought it, and afterwards, with her last few shillings, had taken a ticket and come down to Goring...and the old river had taken her into its gentle arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed away the pain.

Thus she had sinned in all things - sinned in living and in dying. God help her! and all other sinners, if any more there be.

All in all, it is one of the most moving passages I have ever read in any book. It says more about human folly than any damned tripe I've ever heard from an eastern mystic railing against materialism. And it refutes the idiot notion that soul and body should be separated, at least not while asked to lived together in this world.

So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Lovely book, Three men in a boat. (To say nothing of the dog.) It is a wonderful Victorian study of gentleness and humour and wit and language. Go on, buy a copy from Amazon now.

At least we didn't have to pay that female social security for being a single mother :-(

To buy whatever books I want and to have a library to store them in.

Will they be leather-bound books and would your apartment smell of rich mahogany?

You just knew there would be several jagoff Caddyshack references. Ugh.

I can almost see where he's coming from in that in the Buddhist viewpoint, this is primarily a crisis of grasping. People grasped for a lifestyle they could not afford, but they were deceived into believing they could afford it due to easy credit. Bankers grasped for more income by offering credit to more and more people, but they too were deceived into believing the risk was much lower than it was. Behind it all were some folks in the government, but their problem was not grasping, except perhaps for votes; it was a problem of believing that which is patently false, that people at the low end of the earnings spectrum ought to be able to get a mortgage even as the prices of homes go up stratospherically. Politicians deceived themselves into thinking 2+2=9, and they manipulated the markets to make others believe it too.

I'm not sure to what extent the concepts of hard truths and stone-cold logic enter into Buddhist philosophy though, and therein probably lies the rub. The people who precipitated this crisis didn't intend for things to go badly; they just earnestly believed in the impossible. As far as my fuzzy recollection tells me, in Eastern thought the impossible is just another facet of the all. Western thought on the other hand has a concept of "just plain wrong" that is incredibly underrated.

"Therefore, this crisis is good," he added with a laugh, as he hurried to the limo that would take him back to Richard Blum's private jet and on to the next "do as I say, not as I do" lecture...You do realize that Mr. Blum, husband of our esteemed Senator Feinstein, is the honorary Consul to Mongolia.

Bringing the pope in seems gratuitous. I am not Catholic, BTW. Just saying there's some spillage here.

It's a warm and fuzzy idea that all those folks who have too much should become less attached to material things, and should become more attached to...oh, I don't know, other warm and fuzzy ideas. To leap from there to the declaration that the crisis is a Good Thing - well, Amy nails it. It is shallow moral posturing, divorced from the lives of real people.

"if everyone adopted your lifestyle (used clothing..."

Well, for starters we'd quickly run out of used clothing for sale!

It's a bit like the advice to sell all you own and give the money to the poor. If we all did that, no-body would have the money to buy the stuff except the poor and they would be rich and ... OK, it's a crock.

Those who would condemn the Middle Ages would do well to first know of it.

Hint: Ayn Rand did not write a history book; in her writings she used "Middle Ages" as an epithet. In so doing, she was using words disconnected from any actual referents.

That the Dalai Lama makes key speeches in Santa Barbara says it all really.

That the Dalai Lama makes key speeches in Santa Barbara says it all really.

Well that's the DL done. Who's next?

While it is perfectly acceptable to adopt passivity and poverty as personal values (though I have always thought it a tad bit narcissistic), it is quite immoral to ask or worse instruct others to adopt these as operative principles.

There is nothing noble in poverty and true noble traits (such as generosity) require that someone create wealth to begin with. The poor can do little for others, but the comfortable can certainly help feed the poor.

Likewise with passivity. It is all well and good to endure or ignore the slights and blows directed at oneself and to seek peaceful reconciliation, but passivity in the face of evil, and especially in the face of evil against others, is not noble, but despicable. The condition of "peace" in this sad world has only achieved or maintained through superior force.

The DL is a fine fellow I suppose, but he has never really had to work for any of his personal needs or to take care of himself. That's a rather sad state to be and I guess we can't really fault him for being a sort of Tibetan Rainman or degraded Forest Gump, but we shouldn't go around assigning him with wisdom or virtue that, quite frankly, he does not possess in any great quantity.

And for him praise the increase in poverty of others so that they will learn their lesson is dispicable, born though it is more of his ignorance and conceit than from base malice.

The Dalai Lama, in a ringing denunciation, declared Friday that the ailing global economy is the result of "too much greed, and lies and hypocrisy."

Okay, I'll buy that. It's not a bad description of the ugly mix of causative factors of the credit crisis.

"These are some of the factors behind the global crisis," he said at a news conference at UC Santa Barbara. "Those people who feel that money is the most important thing in life, when economic crisis hits, learn that it is only one way to be happy. There is also family, friends and peace of mind."

Fair enough. If I had money, but no family, friends, or peace of mind, I'd be pretty miserable. Point conceded.

"Therefore, this crisis is good," he added with a laugh, "because it reminds people who only want to see money grow and grow that there are limitations."

And here we witness the great failing of so many public figures -- their mouths have more endurance than their brains, and continue flapping after the mind has run out of worthwhile things to say.

Never heard of thinking positively? The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist, after all. He doesn't say anything against capitalism.

Many people were very greedy precipitating this crisis, and they weren't practicing capitalism because they were practicing outright fraud and lying.

Recessions are, in fact, good for capitalism because they "shake out" the riffraff businesses that don't have staying power, while allowing new businesses to rise up and take their place. Nobody's buying anything? Tell that to the three restaurants that just opened up in my downtown, lured by lower rents, and are doing great.

"we shouldn't go around assigning him with wisdom or virtue that, quite frankly, he does not possess in any great quantity."

Have you ever actually read anything written by the Dalai Lama? He's quite an intelligent person who has written some deep stuff.