Thoughts on the Dalai Lama.

I wish to express my thanks to the editors and to Amitabh Pal for interviewing the Dalai Lama and sharing the wisdom of this genius of humanity (Interview, January issue). On a point of religion, however, I suspect that Pal may have misunderstood the Dalai Lama when Pal quotes the Dalai Lama as saying that Buddhism is theistic and that the law of karma is recognized in nontheistic traditions, such as ancient Indian thought. The inaccuracy is in saying that Buddhism is theistic.

When Siddhartha Gautama (born 563 B.C.E.) "awoke," or became the enlightened one, a Buddha, he had realized how every sentient being can also achieve liberation from cyclic existence. To awaken to our most primal essence--our Buddha nature--the Buddha taught that all beings must realize that the causes of suffering stem from our desires, aversions, and our ignorance of our essential nature, and that we must follow paths away from these causes. Until we each "wake up," we condemn ourselves to cyclical existence; that is, we are caught in the law of cause and effect--karma.

A Buddha is not a god (in Buddhist cosmology, gods come and go). Although Buddhist literature, art, and meditation practices are replete with images of Buddhas, saints, and bodhisattvas, these function as guides but, in essence, are also empty in nature.

Jacqueline Pagani

Evansville, Indiana

I am befuddled. In giving voice to the former head of a theocratic "community" who un-Buddhistically came out for Bush's war, is The Progressive supporting a lost horizon against communist totalitarianism?

Donald M. Lowe

via e-mail