Friday, September 07, 2012

The Dalai Lama and vaccines...

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The 14th Dalai Lama, mind you, is not only the exiled political leader of Tibet, but is believed by his devotees to be the living and breathing manifestation of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara – and as a bodhisattva, an expression of enlightenment. It is therefore no small thing for him to be personally administering vaccines to infants, on the very spot that the Buddha was believed to have attained enlightenment.

The concept of doing no harm is fundamental to Buddhist teaching, as it is within other Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism), and is known as ahimsa, literally "the avoidance of violence – himsa." One would not, for example, justify killing an animal in order to save one's own life, which is one reason why Buddhists are vegetarians.

 Nor would one justify the killing of one child in order to save 1,000,000, as is often done by regulators in evaluating the costs/benefits of vaccines (which are known on rare occasion to maim or kill) to society as a whole. Simply, do no harm. This principle is no more open to negotiation to a Buddhist than Jesus being the Son of God is open to negotiation to a Christian. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. The Dark Side of the Dalai Lama...
  2. The Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden...
  3. Is the Dalai Lama suppressing religious freedom?
  4. Buddhists behaving badly: what zealotry is doing to Sri Lanka...
  5. In Buddhist Myanmar, monks gone wild...
  6. Vaccines are killing our kids...
  7. Bill Gates wants the whole world vaccinated!
  8. Polio vaccines now the no.1 cause of polio paralysis...
  9. Why isn't the western press more outraged by Tibetan self-immolations?

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