The Dalai Lama’s Reincarnation: By Government Fiat?

Reincarnation is a difficult gig for Buddhists. Being reborn for yet another life is not a good thing; bad karma (i.e., residue from bad choices in life) keeps a soul on the wheel of samsara. Because life-after-life involves suffering, a Buddhist strives for Nirvana, or enlightenment, which releases a soul from the cycle of being reborn yet again. Reincarnation is a difficult gig for Buddhists also because unlike Hinduism, Buddhism denies the very existence of a soul (atman) as an entity. How, then, can something that does not exist go on to be re-clothed in another body for another life? Yet another problem for the devout Buddhist concerns government officials who claim that they can decide whether a certain soul reincarnates, and if so, into which body. In 2014, for example, the Chinese government made it known that it would pick the next reincarnated Dalai Lama—the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

In March 2015, Chinese officials declared that the Dalai Lama would indeed reincarnate in spite of the fact that he had announced that his soul might not reincarnate. Zhu Weiqun, a Communist Party official, told reporters that the Dalai Lama had no say over whether he would reincarnate.[1] Zhu said it would be for the Chinese government to decide. “Decision-making power over the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, and over the end or survival of this lineage, resides in the central government of China,” he said in his capacity as leader of the ethnic and religious affairs committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.[2] The decision-making power would of course be used to maintain control over the Tibetan region of China. In other words, Chinese government officials intended to install a puppet Dalai Lama after the current Dalai Lama passes; he in turn was considering not reincarnating so the government could not do so. The decision, he said, “is up to the Tibetan people.”[3] In short, the doctrine of reincarnation was at the center of a control battle between a government and a religious leader.

For a government to make such a decision and even claim the ability to find the reincarnated person after the then-current Dalai Lama’s death necessarily involves brazen presumption. Nevertheless, presumptuousness is also in the Dalai Lama’s assumption that whether he reincarnates is up to him or the Tibetan people. Implicit in the assumption is the belief that a person can know one’s own karma. Since the Buddha was aware when he was enlightened, however, the Dalai Lama could have stated that he had become enlightened and would not, therefore, reincarnate. Absent enlightenment, in other words, knowledge of what will happen after death is faulty at best. I must conclude that both Zhu and the Dalai Lama were taking religious liberties for the sake of achieving and maintaining control of an institution, the Dalai Lama. Buddhist enlightenment, in contrast, is a letting go of such a desire, as well as the suffering that undergirds it. From the perspective of a soul between bodies, what would it matter what is going on back here?  A soul in the process of transmigration would presumably be carried on by its own past karmic residue rather than internally-directed forward so as to maintain control among the living.

In short, this case demonstrates that both government and institutional religion can over-reach. From a governmental standpoint, encroaching onto the religious domain is fraught with competency issues as well as a rather blatant category mistake. From the perspective of a religious functionary such as the Dalai Lama, the challenge involves not getting suckered into a government’s obsession—that of control—at the expense of the religious aims, such as enlightenment (i.e., not suffering anymore). In fact, that the Buddha’s orientation to eliminating suffering had been dwarfed by a reincarnation-metaphysic is itself problematic, for that metaphysic can allow for considerable clutching, and thus suffering. For the Dalai Lama to let go, and thus be free of the suffering that prompts a desire to maintain control and even over-reach, he would have to transcend reincarnation and even his belief that he has a soul. Ultimately, he would need to transcend his own institutional religion; it would not even make sense for him to say that he would or would not reincarnate! 

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1. Chris Buckley, “Feud with Dalai Lama Spills into the Afterlife,” The New York Times, March 12, 2015.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Pope Francis: A Poor Church Rich in Humility

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Francis set about implementing the spirit of the letter after the two last popes had concentrated on holding the Roman Catholic Church in check lest it lose itself in accommodating itself too much to the modern world. I submit that the pope's primary objective was to change a problematic clerical attitude rather than to rid the Church of its wealth or drastically change the Church's moral stances.

On the surface, the pope’s “vision of Vatican II has translated into a dramatic shift in priorities, with an emphasis on social justice over controversial moral teachings” such as on abortion and gay marriage.[1] Calling out the clerical obsession on the “social issues,” the pope sought as he assumed the papacy to provide his colleagues with a dose of perspective. To be sure, the pope did not alter the Church’s position on those issues or on whether divorced Catholics should be allowed to take Communion. Nor did he act on his demand for a “poor church for the poor.”[2] Rather, his main concern was directed against the “theological narcissism,” as he put it, that imposes rather than proposes to the larger secular society.[3] 

Perhaps then a poor church would be one that is humble, rather than necessarily without wealth. This would dovetail with Clement of Alexandria’s “Sermon on the Rich Man,” in which the early theologian claims that a rich Christian can indeed get into heaven as long as one does not desire more than necessities (and that which is to be given to the poor).[4] What is important, that is, is which master the rich man serves—God or money. Indeed, Hermas and John Chrysostom emphasized the value of charity as a good use of wealth, and the Church could not give what it does not have.

So the poverty that the pope might have had in mind could be that of humility in spirit. As one bishop put it, the pope “is saying, ‘We have the revelation, but we don’t have the application for all times; don’t presume that we know everything and that we have every answer.”[5] Hence the pope called the Synod of Bishops to debate how the Church should regard divorced, remarried, and gay Catholics. From the pope’s point of view, being against divorce, for example, does not preempt being welcoming toward Catholics who have divorced. After all, it is difficult to imagine Jesus slamming the door on them even if he did not approve of divorce. Compassion particularly to those people who are regarded as impure was Jesus’s strong suit. Indeed, this put him on a collision course with the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. Pope Francis’s agenda can be characterized in such terms, wherein attitude ideally checks ego at the door even among priests and bishops, for nothing is worse for a religious institution than the veneer of hypocrisy.

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[1] Francis X. Bocca, “The New Rome,” The Wall Street Journal, April 4-5, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Skip Worden, God’s Gold: Beneath the Shifting Sands of Christian Thought on Profit-Seeking and Wealth.

[5] Ibid.

God's Gold: Beneath Shifting Sands

The book traces the historical shift in Christian attitudes toward profit-seeking and wealth. Through the centuries, the dominant position shifted from anti-wealth to pro-wealth, meaning that the coupling of greed to profiting and accumulating wealth was at first thought to be very tight, but then loosened--eventually to the extent that a camel could get through the eye of the needle. With both anti-wealth Luther and pro-wealth Calvin living in the same economic context, the commercialization of Europe cannot fully explain the shift. As one possibility, a bias in a core theological doctrine may have been subtly tilting the ground in the pro-wealth direction. If so, the implications for Christianity, and for religion more generally as a phenomenon, would be nothing short of earth-shaking.

God Versus Physics: Is Creation Behind the Big Bang?

In his doctoral dissertation, Steven Hawkins demonstrates that the universe could have begun spontaneously. That is to say, the big bang could have gone off without being triggered by a divine intelligent being, or God in the sense of the word as used in the Abrahamic religions. To say that the universe could have begun in a moment of singularity is not necessarily to vitiate the deity-concept of all content. In fact, Hawkins’ work may one day trigger a movement to hem in the concept to the terrain that is distinctly religious.

The full essay is at “God Versus Physics: Is Creation Behind the Big Bang?” 

Religion and Violence: On the Power of Self-Idolatry

Religion and power make awkward bed-fellows. Speaking in January 2015 on religious fundamentalism, Pope Francis suggested that violence belies claims of religious validity. That is to say, actions speak louder than words, and harming other people effectively renders a person’s claims of religious motivation null and void. Unfortunately, the typical assumption that people have that they cannot be wrong when it comes to their own religious beliefs also operates when political ideology is the actual motivation. Such pride, which I suspect is rooted in self-idolatry, stands as a wall preventing such remarks from influencing potential culprits.

In his annual speech to diplomats accredited with the Holy See, the pope remarked that religious fundamentalism, “even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext.”[1] Leaving aside the necessary question of just what is fundamentalism and whether violence is a necessary part of it, a byproduct, or unrelated, the notion of God as a “mere ideological pretext” is intriguing. The concept “God” doubtlessly contains what Wittgenstein refers to as family resemblances rather than a definitive idea. What you mean by the word probably is not exactly what I mean by it. Yet we bandy the term about as if we are in fact referring to the same object, whose nature we would agree on. Our assumption of agreement is rarely made explicit and called into question, yet I submit we regularly assume an extent of agreement that overstates any actual convergence. Adding “ideological pretext” to the word’s functions and the presumed inter-subjective agreement is likely even further from what we normally suppose.

In short, what someone means by “God” may differ considerably from what someone else means by the term. In assuming agreement as to the nature of the referent, we miss the possibility that someone’s concept may be so different that it supports the use of violence. We might not see it coming.

Of course, once the violence has occurred, observers can reason backward to conclude that what the culprit means by “God” is very different. Accordingly, the pope spoke on the importance of visible indications. “This is an important sign that sincere faith in God makes one open to others, generates dialogue and works for the good, whereas violence is always the product of a falsification of religion . . . whose only goal is power over others.”[2] Religion is falsified into an ideological pretext, with power over others being the means by which to realize a vision in line with a certain concept of “God,” which in turn is rooted in self-idolatry—the culprit’s virtual worship of himself.

Religion as subterfuge has not only been evinced by rogue elements. Historically, the establishment has partaken, giving the phenomenon the veneer of legitimacy. Four popes, for instance, promised salvation to Roman Catholics willing to join the Crusades. Under Pope Francis’s reckoning, the violence committed against the Muslims in Jerusalem and the eastern Christians in Constantinople points to a falsification of religion rather uncomfortably near the pope. That this obvious implication was missing from the pope’s remarks may point to the wall of “religious” self-protection wherein a religionist presumes that he or she cannot be wrong regarding the veracity and validity of his or her own religious beliefs and assumptions. This assumption can open the door to unchecked lapses close to home, even as lapses elsewhere are obvious.

Religion itself may provoke or trigger a basic sort of cognitive lapse that involves assumptions that are premised on a god-concept that has been infected by self-idolatry. In other words, religious fundamentalism may not be the whole story. The ability of the human mind to self-regulate itself as concern religious matters may be faulty, such that we observe people who consider themselves to be religionists committing acts of violence.

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[1] Liam Moloney, “Pope Links Fundamentalism to Atrocities,” The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

A Pentecostal Pastor Fights the Enemy in Ukraine

Is religion so pliable that it can be contorted against itself “with a straight face?” That is to say, does the human mind lack the machinery necessary to recognize contradiction in religious matters?  I submit that the answer is yes. This is not necessarily to be “anti-religion;” rather, the implication is that acting from a religious motive ought not to be done without critical self-examination and care. The case of a Christian minister fighting in the Ukrainian army provides a useful case study of the vulnerability.

In 2014, Sergei Reuta “set aside his work as a Pentecostal pastor to put on camouflage and pick up a Kalashnikov rifle.”[1] He treated his decision as a seamless move. “I understand that as a Christian I should defend the land where God put me,” he said in an interview.[2] Actually, his justification sounds more Jewish than Christian. To my knowledge, nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus preach defending land; rather, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” seems a closer fit to what Jesus might say. Reuta’s distance from Jesus does not stop here. The Ukrainian pastor went on to say, “And I understand there was no escape from armed conflict.”[3] This understanding ignores Jesus’s teaching to do good to those who prosecute you, and, moreover, to turn the other cheek. Holding a rifle, Reuta was not about to do that.

Strangely, the contradiction seems to have eluded the Christian minister. First, he assumes a rationale that is not in the Gospels, and then he contradicts relevant teachings that are in the Scripture. He seems oblivious to this—even stating that the army “is morally strong because of” him and other ministers fighting alongside the other troops.[4] That is to say, not only does he fail to recognize even the possibility that he has been acting contrary to how lambs are to be among wolves—even being a wolf himself—he also claims to be a positive moral role-model. He is two degrees of separation away from being the sort of disciple that Jesus describes as carrying on his work.

I suspect that the underlying culprit here is a short-circuiting in the brain’s thought process, perhaps backed up by pride. In reasoning through his rationale, he missed key checks that might have debunked his conclusion. For example, he omitted relevant preachments from Jesus, likely going instead to the Old Testament. Additionally, I suspect that he assumed that he could not be wrong regarding his conclusion. To the extent that people assume that their religious claims have a sort of de facto validity, our construal of religion itself is blameworthy too. This sort of “anything goes” pertains to political assertions, as evidenced by some of the more implausible conspiracy theories. The human brain appears to have difficulty assessing whether its own theory has crossed the line in terms of being reasonable. The same lapse in the thought process takes place in the religious domain, where the presence of an otherwise-obvious contradiction renders the thought process there particularly flawed. Unfortunately, the assumption of not being capable of being wrong in even a contradictory religious assertion enables the defense mechanism of denial to circumvent any internal check from kicking in.

If my analysis is correct, more attention should be paid to both internal and external checks. Internally, the cognitive lapse and airs of pride would need not only to be kept in mind, but linked with motivation to critique the person’s own conclusion. External critique should come from both coreligionists and people from other religions and non-religionists (as neutral and even oppositional stances can be quite helpful in punching through contradictions standing as though on stilts during a flood). This extra effort is justified on account of the brain’s “looseness” when it comes to religious matters. In fact, even after the proposed assertion seems to survive the fortified efforts to shoot holes in it, making the claim should not be done with the tone of certainty, for it is still possible that the claim survives on the strength of an organizational or societal blind-spot. If this methodology were to become the norm, then religion itself would be recalibrated more in sync with the limitations of the human brain and our presumption of pride.

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1. Andrew E. Kramer, “A Pastor’s Turn Fighting for Ukraine,” The New York Times, December 14, 2014.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

Hardness of Heart vs. Being Unethical: Which Is Less Christian?

In in a religion in which God is love, hardness in place of brotherly love is without any legitimacy whatsoever; it is worse than unethical conduct. This is one way of saying that religion does not reduce to ethics because more important things are involved. This is not to excuse corruption in the Vatican; the hypocrisy alone is repugnant to anyone who takes the clerics in the Curia at their word that they are following Christ in their living out of the Gospel. Even so, going after such hypocrisy without even sympathy for the human nature, which we all share, evokes the Pharisees whom Jesus goes after in the Gospels. A Church run by Pharisees does more than unethical conduct to undercut the faith espoused by Jesus because matters of the heart are more deeply rooted than conduct as far as Jesus’s preaching is concerned.

From the essay on the film, "Monsignor"