Political acts, not acts of faith

What Buddhist altruism advocates in practice is pure selfless behavior and that can never be associated with politics or any political purpose. Therefore, those monks who confuse religion with politics have failed to fundamentally comprehend the essence of Buddhism. In the demagogic propaganda of the Dalai Lama's clique, some of the self-immolators have been portrayed as "martyrs" shouting slogans such as "Tibet independence" and "Tibet needs human rights", which reveals the truth that such acts are not religious acts or "devotion to Buddha". The self-immolators are merely expendable victims used as tools to achieve the political aims of the Dalai Lama and his clique.

The radical acts of self-immolation are essentially against Buddhist teaching, which has naturally prompted people to wonder how and why Buddhist monks and nuns who are supposed to have a very good knowledge of the law of karma can perform such non-Buddhist acts.

Since the late 1950s, with the help from the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, it has been usual for the Dalai Lama clique to depend on external forces and attempt to internalize China's internal affairs, hoping to realize its ultimate political purpose of "independence for Tibet" and even establishing a "Greater Tibet" which in fact has never existed. No matter how their approach changes, the Dalai Lama and his followers have been engaged in political activities.

The Dalai Lama, instead of preaching peace, tolerance and benevolence and opposing or trying to stop the self-immolations, as the pure "spiritual leader" that he claims to be, has constantly made excuses to justify these suicidal acts, revealing the truth that he to some extent encourages and supports such profane behavior.

Inevitably, many have associated the self-immolations with the story of a 26-year-old vendor in Tunisia who struggled to make a living and so set himself on fire under the unbearable economic pressure, arousing sympathy and anger at the government among the local people, which later led to countrywide uprising and triggered the "Arab Spring". In the meantime, they may also wonder whether it is possible that the self-immolations occurring in the Tibetan-inhabited regions will result in any similar consequences.

Fortunately, such extreme acts have achieved neither the political outcome nor effect in the international community that the Dalai Lama clique wanted and expected. Perhaps it is exactly because of the failure to achieve the expected outcomes that in the last couple of years there have been fewer cases of self-immolation in these regions and the Dalai Lama clique have adopted a different attitude toward self-immolation, although they still show no signs of strongly opposing such suicidal acts.

The author is a writer with China Daily. xiaolixin@chinadaily.com.cn