[Buddha-l] What's wrong with a little Dharma?

[jkirk]

Shoot fire, what with all
> these Christian polemicists eavesdropping on our conversations, I don't
> even feel much like dissing the Lotus Sutra these days. What has the
> world come to?
>
> -- 
> Richard Hayes
========================
Which Buddhists are these polemicists eavesdropping on?

I just read through www.ourladyswarriors.org/dissent/defbuddh.htm  and find 
it, as you said, full of factual and interpretive errors, but nowhere does 
Aitken, the author, name any Buddhists who raise questions or critiques.
These Christian polemicists are no doubt eavesdropping--but it would be 
interesting to know what they are sneak-peeking at.

Recently, someone noticed on Der Spiegel that when HHDL appears, 10,000 
people turn out to hear him, while Sunday attendance in the Christian 
churches is at the same time extremely low.  Millions turn out to see Popes 
appearing in public, causing me to wonder if such appearances are not more a 
matter of pop heroes and trendyism than religious identification and 
dedication. I know a bunch of young musicians in my area who drove up to 
Ketchum, ID ( a 4 hour round trip drive using costly gasoline) to stand in 
line in the A.M. for free tickets (10,000 were distributed) to HHDL's one 
public appearance in Idaho, next month. I figure it's the pop appearance of 
the year around here. None of these folks are Buddhists, nor do they know 
anything about dharma (except for what I spoke of with the fellow who used 
to be my neighbor and is my computer fixer).

HHDL is a pop hero. One local coffeehouse sells Tibetan prayer flags on 
strings and they are seen here and there around town. My son has one over 
his front door. Even though he is not a Buddhist per se, he respects the 
Dalai Lama as a powerful moral presence in the world. (The flags also
help to keep off Mormon and other missionaries.) Sometimes I sense that 
revering the Dalai Lama, in the USA anyway, is widely felt as an aspect of 
the anti-war movement among lots of young people today. He is a big world 
leader who is perceived as the exquisitely moral opposite of the likes of 
GWB, Blair, and other "world leaders."

Billy Graham used to attract thousands to his revivals, but today there's 
nobody of his ilk with his drawing power, that I know of anyway. Evangelical 
Christianity today seems to be more cult-like and less populist.

It will be interesting to look in the local blat for reactions from 
Christian ministers to HHDL's visit to Idaho.
Joanna