Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? As of this week, Lamaist Buddhism is the Established Church of the University at Buffalo. "Interfaith" services are state-sponsored, class (but not the class system) is cancelled, and students are all but ordered to herd into the stadium for arena religion in the form of the living incarnation of the Buddha, the Dalai Lama XIV, the biggest thing since the Beatles who themselves were, as the Apostle John Lennon observed, "bigger than Jesus."
Now the student response to all the hype is a little bewilderment and a lot of apathy. The only ones who care deeply are the deeply resentful (Red) Chinese Student Association and Campus Crusade for Christ, who are on notice to keep low profiles. Last month I saw a forklift full of His Holiness' books outside the bookstore; inside, they languish unsold. Even the Capen library's copies of his autobiography sleep on the shelves. The Living God's visit is the biggest yawn since Y2K.
Now, as religious hierarchs go, the Dalai Lama compares favorably to, say, Pope Ratzinger, the world's oldest Hitler Youth. A God who wears glasses is disarming; a Vicar of Christ who wears Prada reminds Protestants why Luther was right. Benedict Arnold XIV hates gays; the Dalai Lama says if they haven't taken vows and nobody gets hurt, it's okay.
Nonetheless, the Dalai Lama's current pretense to be the avatar of human rights is almost as preposterous as his pretense to be the avatar of Buddha. He ruled Tibet as the autocrat of a theocracy without a trace of democracy or individual rights. Most of the people were serfs. In one of the poorest countries in the world, 20 percent of the population consisted of parasitic priests and monks. The history of Lamaist Tibet is a history of centuries of state terror, violence, religious madness and exploitation on a scale unsurpassed anywhere at any time for so long.
On his deathbed, the Buddha laughed when his disciples said he was immortal. But they got the last laugh. That's why His Holiness the Dalai Lama is always laughing. He's laughing at you.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
