The Vajra Parrot Squawks!

The new Wikileaks disclosures give a fascinating, behind-the-scenes glimpse at things Tibetan. Indeed, out of 250,000 confidential cables, the Guardian newspaper compiled the following stats:

- 198 of the cables have the word “Tibet” as a part of their subject,
- 134 have “Tibetan” in the subject header,
- 41 contain the word “Tibetans,”
- 144 contain the word “Dalai,”
- 133 contain the word “Lama,”
- and 26 cables mention “Lhasa.”

In addition, 1,145 of the cables contain the word “Tibet” in their contents,
- 828 contain “Tibetan,”
- 776 cables contain the word “Dalai,”
- whilst 1,346 contain “Lama.”

The leaks seem to confirm that the Beijing Politburo control a hacking unit known as Ghostnet, which targets both the US Government, Google and the Dalai Lama (to name but a few).

Some interesting, Tibet-related tidbits follow ...

When Paris announced that it was going to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen, Beijing threatened to withdraw its sister city status in protest (however Paris went ahead regardless - bless the French - and Beijing didn't make good on its childish hissy fit).

Beijing also threatened the German government with similar dire retributions (as if anyone would even care about whether a Chinese city is twinned with it or not) when the Dalai Lama made visits there. None of these threats were carried out.

Beijing had some success with the Korean government, however, which cancelled a public lecture the Dalai Lama had planned to give on Cheju Island several years ago.

More relevant to us Brits, Beijing had tried to work their magic on the UK government, initially demanding that the Dalai Lama's visit be cancelled, but then backpedalling and asking only that government officials didn't meet His Holiness.

So what can we gain from this information? Clearly the subject of Tibet, given the amount of content mentioned earlier, is still a very real diplomatic issue and, for the "People's" Republic of China, very much a thorn in their side. Yet again, the childish posturing and temper-tantrums of the PRC, and its petulant demands that other nations dance to its tune, dominate. But then, we didn't need Wikileaks to show us that, did we?

"For many people the attitude towards meditation is one of always trying to change something, always trying to attain a particular state or recreate some kind of blissful experience remembered from the past, or of hoping to reach a certain state by practising.

When we practise meditation with the idea of having to do something, however, then even the idea of practice - even the word "meditation" - will bring up this idea that "if I'm in a bad mood, I should get rid of it", or "if the mind is scattered and I'm all over the place, I should make it one-pointed."

In other words, we make meditation into hard work. So then there is a great deal of failure in it because we try to control everything through these ideas, but that is an impossibility...

The word "meditation" covers many mental experiences, but the goal of Buddhist meditation is to see things as they are; it is a state of awakened attention. And this is a very simple thing It isn't complicated or difficult or something that takes years to achieve.

It is so easy, in fact, that you don't even notice it"

- Ajahn Sumedho.

We need a word to replace 'spiritual' in reference to Buddhism. 'Spiritual' has eternalistic, dualistic connotations, at least for me.

As all phenomena are, ultimately, only the perceptions of mind, maybe we could use 'mental' instead - then this could also explain the behaviour of many people we see in Dharma centres.