March 2009
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Such a Day I’ve Had

Mar 10, 2009

maha

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First off, if anyone does wander here from The Guardian, please visit my Buddhism site at About.com. Thanks!

Now for the rest o’ y’all: I had an invitation in my inbox this morning to write an essay about the Dalai Lama for the Guardian “comment is free” site, and here it is. Written in a rush this morning. I’m afraid to read it. At least, I wish they hadn’t picked up that awful photo from About.com. If they’d asked, I would have sent them another one. Like maybe somebody else’s.

This has truly been Dalai Lama day, as this morning I also finished another essay about him for About.com, more of a bio. Today is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the sequence of events that led to the Dalai Lama’s exile from Tibet (see Kundun). Like anything else Tibetan, writing about it requires stringing together at least five prepositional phrases. Oh, well.

Spotlight

7 Comments

c u n d gulag • Mar 10, 2009 @5:21 pm

maha,
Make a cup of tea, sit down, put your feet up, and relax…
maha • Mar 10, 2009 @5:27 pm

In about half an hour I get to go to Tuesday night chorus rehearsal. In May we’re doing Handel’s oratorio “Joshua,” another Jewish oratorio by a Christian composer. We sang Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” last spring, which was very enjoyable. I love Handel.
moonbat • Mar 10, 2009 @5:44 pm

I enjoyed your piece at the Guardian. And your picture isn’t bad – you should see mine taken at the DMV – I look like a stuffed tomato, and I even wore a nice shirt for my close-up! Can you recommend any good biographies of the Dalai Lama?
maha • Mar 10, 2009 @10:00 pm

Moonbat: It’s not exactly a biography, but Pico Iyer’s book on the Dalai Lama is a good read.
Swami • Mar 10, 2009 @10:54 pm

I thought it was very well written. You did a very nice job of conveying the necessity of losing the western religious mindset in understanding how the Dalai Lama is viewed within Buddhism. I also thought your closing paragraph was well done.. it kind of encapsulated Buddhist thought in a clever way.

Your picture is fine, although you should have posted your gravatar picture..Just to put your readers off balance and give them an additional something to think about.
D.R. Marvel • Mar 11, 2009 @10:21 am

Nice job, Homie…And it started the sort of fracas in the comments that one would expect at the Guardian…(I hang out at GUT a lot)…I’ve never much dug ol’ Handel….But his sister Gretl was another matter…

Oh, and BTW: Don’t forget to “Beweare the Ides of March”
D.R. Marvel • Mar 11, 2009 @10:22 am

Shit