The essential Buddhist teaching on suffering is that it is caused by desire. Therefore, so the Buddhist logic goes; cease from desire and you will cease from suffering.
Did you get that Ethiopians? Cease from desiring food and you will cease from suffering from lack of food. When you starve to death you will no longer be hungry.
Actually, if ever a Buddhist tells you that you must cease from desire so as to cease from suffering tell them that you are suddenly ceased upon by a strong desire to rid yourself of desire. Oops. What do you do with the desire to rid yourself of desire? I once asked a Buddhist that after he told me to cease from desire so as to cease from suffering and he told me that he did not know as he has not as of yet attained to that level.
The Dalai Lama has spent a lifetime, and certainly his time as leader of Tibetan Buddhism, suffering from the atheist Communist Chinese in Tibet. He desires Tibetan freedom. What happens to the Buddhist teaching at this point? See the point? He desires freedom and condemns the suffering that China has brought about in Tibet. Yet, is he not part of the reason for Tibet’s suffering? Is he not, as leader, even more responsible than China? Could it not be said that Tibet suffers due to his desires and the desires that he has been inspiring in others for years?
The Dalai Lama has an attachment to a geographical locality whilst his doctrine tells him that all of that which we consider reality is merely an illusion.
Ultimately; Tibet does not need mere freedom but needs salvation.
