Recently, the Dalai Lama reiterated that he could be reborn as a female but that she'd have to be very attractive for people to listen to them (him/her?), adding "otherwise not much use." This referred to being female, not to the female herself. In one sentence: "I could be reborn as a female, but I'd have to be very attractive, otherwise it wouldn't be much use." By the same metric, would any white or straight person see the use of choosing to reincarnate as a black or gay person? The fact that this one comment was enough for everyone to denounce a long-standing feminist as sexist shows a lot about how quick today's society is to judge even the best of us, and it has nothing to do with who the person is that they're judging, only with their own ego that they're trying to boost. It's a perfect example of why I avoid most people, as they make me feel as if I have to weigh my every word lest they'll judge me at the first mistake.
But it's interesting how the Dalai Lama, being a Buddhist, states the fact that discrimination exists without passion or judgment about the people responsible for it, as if it were a natural disaster. I don't know if I agree with that attitude, but it's certainly one I don't have. My knee-jerk reaction is to condemn anyone who's biased, even if that means that I condemn the overwhelming majority of the world population. The Dalai Lama, as a spiritual leader advocating compassion, cannot do that, and must regard people's shortcomings with a sense of humor.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2015/09/dalai-lama-in-hot-water-over-sexist-comments-again.html
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