I wish the Dalai Lama had a great deal more influence on the world.
I'm
not a supporter of the pink-cotton-candy version of Tibetan Buddhism
that swirls around me. I like asking these pink-cotton-candy religious
(they call themselves spiritual) seekers if they know the Dalai Lama's
opinion about George W. Bush. They don't. The two have been friends,
close friends for many years. As it says here. (This startling
Bush-Dalai Lama friendship point is ignored in the NYTimes article cited
below.)
The second and most important point the Dalai Lama makes is that pacifism doesn't work against terrorists. He says that counter-terrorist actions must be taken. I personally don't think pacifism has ever worked nor can it work, but the Dalai Lama adds his voice to the argument.
The sandbox view that everyone is basically nice and will respond to niceness nicely is a perverted view of humans. The Dalai Lama's point is that terrorism is a worldview that does not include a non-terrorist vision. The New York Times (a fount of evil) in reporting this subject never explains what the Dalai Lama says.
The traditional Buddhist view on being peaceful,
Ahimsa, is based on a great principle: do no harm. Pacifism is a
perversion of this principle which abjures self-defense, rejects the
use of violence in defense of others and often promotes suicide on
behalf of self-righteousness. The Dalai Lama is merely following the
logic of Ahimsa.
Footnote about the two great exemplars of pacifism: Gandhi and ML King Jr. Both used non-violence (not pacifism) to badger a morally upright society. Gandhi told the British during WWII that unless they gave India independence after the war he would take India into WWII on the side of the Nazis and the Axis.
MLKing Jr. used black soldiers in military garb in the front-lines of all his marches to remind Americans outside the South that America owed blacks full citizenship based on their military sacrifice. An appeal to American's moral uprightness.