On Dec 11, 2006, at 4:13 PM, jim_flanegin wrote:
I wouldn't fall for it so easily B. The current situation was
predicted not only centuries ago, but also decades before the
current
invasion. The on-coming invasion was reiterated in the early
1900's,
but the Tibetans, realizing it would raise their taxes, refused
to
amass and/or train armies to protect against the on-coming
invasion.
And so, the fulfillment of a prophecy came to pass in our
generation:
"When the iron bird flies, and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan
people will be scattered like ants across the world, and the
Dharma
will come to the land of the red faced people"
A failure? LOL, I'd say it's been a great success, much like the
dying dandelion which casts it's seeds to the four winds. It did
not
die--it spread like wildfire.
Actually, it didn't. There are about two million adherents to
Buddhism in the US, so we can conclude that just a small fraction of
those are Tibetan Buddhists.
Actually it did. Just a century ago there were few Tibetan Buddhists
in any western country, that number has greatly increased since the
Tibetan diaspora. From 1990 to 2001, Buddhism grew 170% in the US
alone! I heard around 6 million Buddhists is the US and that was a
few years ago.
The western country with the greatest percentage of Buddhists is the
US with 1.6 percent. That's the "greatest percentage"(!), followed
by France with 1.15 percent, then quickly dropping to Australia and
Russia with .8 and .7 percent, respectively.
I don't think that's correct Jim. My guess would be Kalmykia which is
around 50% Buddhist--even after the massive deportations and
persecution. Amazing!
That's some wildfire, Vaj.
Yeah I know, from nothing, to millions worldwide and for such an
advanced practice is indeed very unusual. Compare to something
roughly similar in terms of spiritual technology--Hindu mantrayana--
and you'll find much, much less, maybe thousands. But keep in mind,
this is not TM, it's not all about quantity, it's more about quality.
Think of Tibetan Buddhism as a kind of "spiritual olympics" and maybe
you'll have a clearer idea.
And it's clearly thriving, unlike the Hindu Trika which has been
largely destroyed. As you know the Trika is related to TM and early
TMer's even visited Kashmir with M. Since then there was a major
migration out of Kashmir and it's largely been replaced by the Kali
Yuga religion, Islam, which is spreading all across north India.
