Say what you will in defense of Buddhism, I still think the Dalai Lama and his monks are weird. I feel bad for this kid:
As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. “I never felt like that boy,” he said.
He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. “They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal,” said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India. “It was like living a lie,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Despite his rebelliousness, he is still known as Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche and revered by the Buddhist community. A prayer for his “long life” still adorns the website of the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which has 130 centres around the world. The website features a biography of the renegade guru that gushes about his peaceful, meditative countenance as a baby. In Tibetan Buddhism, a lama is one of a lineage of reincarnated spiritual leaders, the most famous of which is the Dalai Lama….
At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere’s cabin.
By 18, he had never seen couples kiss.
How utterly stupid. That might be even stupider than Christianity. (Or if you’re a Christian, please replace “Christianity” with “Islam” or any of the thousands of religions you think are stupid.)
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24 Comments
Sure! No movies except “The Golden Child”, which, of course, is a tounge-in-cheek take on the promulgated spiritual message. Why not?
Actually, now that I think about it…if only Buddhism(or religion in general) was actually like the movies! Fighting demons, seeking out magical spiritual relics in ancient ruins, protecting the innocent with cool martial arts moves, winning the hot babe at the end of the day…you couldn’t stop the stream of converts.
The Medallion, with Jackie Chan and Claire Forlani. Oh yes.
As I said when I first read this article a while ago… Another example of religion as child abuse. Honestly religious people, leave kids heads alone. Let them decide if they want to follow your religion when they’re old enough to think about such things.
Of course, Christianity tries to do this with all children, not just those chosen as possible reincarnations of Lamas…
Religions can be way messed up.
How is this child abuse? Do you think the Amish are child abusers? It’s a different way of growing. up. Most people resent the way they were raised at some point, and most learn later that their upbringing had its merits.
I’m not defending the wacky idea of reincarnation, or transplanting a child into strange circumstances. But have some perspective. The child wasn’t harmed, he was treated like royalty. Depriving a child of football, movies, and girls isn’t child abuse. It’s just weird.
“Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. “I never felt like that boy,” he said.”
“Boy” abuse?
Yes, I think that all of the more fundamentalist religious sects are in a way child abusers. In many case they bring their kids isolated from society and in many cases provide them a very inadacuete basic education that severly limits their options in life and make it almost impossible to leave when they grow up and then go on about how they’re staying in the sect of their own “free” will.
“Do you think the Amish are child abusers?”
Of course they are, they’re like tiny theocratic states. Maybe children can run away when they grow up, but they are denied any real education, and brainwashed, and that makes it extremely difficult to even think about it. Not to mention that women, including young girls have no rights at all – there are known cases where Amish communities punish women for complaining of rape.
Some of this seems to be taken a little out of context. Most of the controversy surrounding this kid was media generated, an interview with a Spanish newspaper being chopped up and printed out of context.
I love your site, but please do a little more research lest you seem overly biased.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzin_Ösel
http://www.fpmt.org/Teachers/Osel/
Osel writes:
“Dear Friends,
It is important to have a good experience of what life is. I have been really lucky to be able to experience both western and eastern cultures and I am so grateful to everyone who has helped me in both cultures. In combination, being in India and the West has been a rich experience that I’ve been privileged to absorb from both sides.
There were times in India when it was hard to accept the destiny. Being treated differently, and feeling apart. But that experience was really good and I so appreciate it.
However, certain media find ways to sensationalize and exaggerate an unusual story. So I hope that what appears in news print is not read and taken too literally. Don’t believe everything that is written!
Experience shows that however hard one tries in interviews to sincerely and honestly convey key information, the printed result can tend towards sensationalism to get the most attention.
FPMT is doing a great job and Lama Zopa is an immensely special person – very inspiring and a great yogi.
Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being. There is no separation between myself and FPMT – we are all working together in so many aspects and terrains. Humanity is our office. Besides, I don’t really qualify very much in Buddhist studies, because I didn’t finish them, so working together is the clue.
Courtesy of Osel
So I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques. In a movie you can condense so many different stories. You can put in music, you can put in different situations and messages. Even just the sunset can be enough to give you peace to find a moment of meditation in yourself. There are so many different millions of possibilities in movies.
And not just movies, but documentaries actually going somewhere and interviewing people who may have reached a level on their path where they are at peace with themselves, and so much more….!!!
That’s kind of what I’m planning to do. But it is one thing is to plan and another for things to actually happen. So we’re back to mental projections. But for now, that’s what I am hoping to do.
Big Love
Osel”
I’m quoting the Guardian, not doing original research. If I did original research on all my posts, do you think I’d ever get more than one up a week? ;)
So he says his quotes are not to be taken literally… does that mean he DID see a couple kiss before 18 or not? Did they take him away from his family or not? He doesn’t say. He just makes vague claims not to believe everything you read (and so are we to believe this one? how do we know he really said it?)
It seems like he said a bunch of stuff off the cuff to a reporter, and now he’s backing off. But obviously I haven’t heard the original interview, so maybe it’s completely taken out of context.
He doesn’t contradict anything he said before in his “correction,” he just seems to be trying to play nice.
Say what you want about the DL, but if you read half a dozen books from him like I have, you’ll probably see how rational his point of view is. He doesn’t exactly like a lot of the customs that go on himself. Says it repeatedly.
I don’t actually completely believe this story fully, nor do I trust the agenda behind it. It smells of false sensationalism. I’ve had stories written about me, or I was quoted or involved with. It has NEVER been accurate. That’s why I don’t trust a story like this, certainly the truth is muddy here, this “deprivation” of TV and movies and being a kid is pretty subjective. I never had video games or remote controlled cars as a kid. This kid went to a private High School and was free at 18. I think he might be resentful while having a narrow view of life.
Can you imagine. “Ok remove the boy’s shackles, we’re going to eat our dinner of gruel and watch the Golden Child on BetaMax tape again.” (which by the way is a comedy with nudity as I recall.) What do most kids do growing up? They watch the same disney movies over and over, while eating fruit snacks.
Interestingly he says “took me away from my family.” Yeah too bad it was his family that brought him to India, in hopes that he would be chosen.
Let’s look at the Wikpedia Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzin_%C3%96sel_Rinpoche
Aha! my suspicions are not exactly unrealistic.
———-
Extracts appeared the following day in the The Guardian (UK). Wisdom Publications (the FPMT publisher) then reported on the controversy on its blog under the title “Tempest in a Teapot.” [3], claiming that Hita’s original comments had been misrepresented and taken out of context. According to Wisdom, the article from El Mundo had been based on the one for Babylon Magazine.
On June 3, a message from Hita appeared on the FPMT website, saying that despite the difficulties alluded to above, he was “privileged” to have received an education rooted in both Eastern and Western cultures.
“That experience was really good and I so appreciate it. However, certain media find ways to sensationalize and exaggerate an unusual story. So I hope that what appears in news print is not read and taken too literally. Don’t believe everything that is written! Experience shows that however hard one tries in interviews to sincerely and honestly convey key information, the printed result can tend towards sensationalism to get the most attention. FPMT is doing a great job and Lama Zopa is an immensely special person – very inspiring and a great yogi. [...] There is no separation between myself and FPMT…” [4]
Hita did not elaborate on his personal beliefs, but reiterated his plans to pursue a career in cinematography.
———————————————————–
Poor baby, a career in cinematography.
Aww Chris Osterman beat me to it. Nice job Chris.
The kid sounds very well-adjusted and intelligent. I guess he was brought up ok, even if at age 25 there are plenty of things he could complain about that he missed. I do the same thing. Write a story about me on a day I’m irritated with my family. Those quotes won’t be reality.
Is the boy still a reincarnated buddha?
The facts are still this: his cult-following parents allowed him to be chosen, taken away and elevated to god-like status within their cult. Buddhism is just another crazy religious cult full of bs and lies and peppered with just enough nice stuff to lure in the idiots.
;)
Cheers.
How utterly stupid. That might be even stupider than Christianity. (Or if you’re a Christian, please replace “Christianity” with “Islam” or any of the thousands of religions you think are stupid.)
I chuckled when I read this. Because of course, we all think that other religions are stupid. Obviously.
It’s the human dilemma — everyone’s beliefs are stupid. Except ours, of course, which must be right.
Does belief create nutjobs or do nutjobs create belief?
Personally I like Buddhist philosophy far more than Christian mumbo jumbo (in special, I like that the respect for ALL life not just human, the lack of eternal punishment for trivial things, the lack of active proselytizing and the lack of kissing deity-ass), but I wouldn’t call myself a Buddhist.
Hendrix was a Buddha
and the non-Lama is doing more for that order of IDIOT monks
its kind of ironic because he IS teaching them despite his want not to, whether these clingers pine over his baby pics or not
How could any upbringing which included this scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_oR2wcden8 be child abuse?
Don’t flush all of Buddhism down the toilet just because Tibetan Buddhism is nutty. Zen is the real thing. Those who cavalierly dismiss all religion because some of them are wacko are fools.
I’m a Buddhist, and I seriously do not approve of what these people do. A child is no more a lama than a member of the postal workers union.
Leila: it doesn’t matter if you approve or not, that is your perspective only. That fact of the matter is, IT IS. Accept this calmly. No one and nothing requires your approval.
What determines a lama and why couldn’t a postal worker be a lama….
Abuse, so is sending a child to school where they are ‘brainwashed’ to think a certain way, speak a certain way, do things a certain way. We are all brainwashed. We have this idea that we can express our opinions, says who, our constitution and we are brainwashed to believe this is good.
\
BTW I was deprived of living in a palace, cruising the world in a private yacht, going on one month vacations 2x a year….darn my parents.
What will be, will be; what is, is; and what was, was.