The year after the Dalai Lama's visit, the China Times Group held a six-month exhibition on instruments and antiques of Tibetan Buddhism.
The exhibition attracted more than 200,000 viewers, including President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), James Soong (宋楚瑜) and John Chang (31孝嚴).
Chiang said the media has played a key role in promoting the mystique and exoticism of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan.
According to statistics from the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, there are more than 500,000 Tibetan Buddhists in Taiwan.
Every year, over 1,000 Tibetan monks visit and preach in Taiwan. But there are not many local Tibetan Buddhism monasteries, nor local lamas.
According to Lopon Rinpoche, abbot of the Tainan Karma Kargyu Temple, there are less than five temples in Taiwan and fewer than 100 Lamas.
Joseph Chen (3秘^富), a Tibetan Buddhism researcher and deputy chief editor of the China Times, said Taiwan has been a chaotic society where people actively seek spiritual guidance. Generally, Taiwanese are susceptible to many kinds of beliefs and people seem eager to accept Tibetan Buddhism, he said.
A saying that Taiwanese worship anything seems to explain the phenomena, Chen said.
"From one perspective, people's willingness to adopt Tibetan Buddhism suggests Taiwan is a liberal society in matters of religion, but on the other hand, it also suggests that the spiritual minds of Taiwanese are very fragile and immature," Chiang said.
Echoing Chiang, Chen said, Taiwanese followers tend to worship masters without verifying the authenticity of those masters.
Furthermore, Tibetan monks too often comply with their Taiwanese followers' wishes to conduct numerous blessing rituals, Chiang said.
As a result, blessing rituals are often emphasized over the basic two lessons of reading scriptures and meditation practices,Chen said.
Contributions to support temples or monasteries is part of the Buddhist tradition, but Taiwanese followers seem to overemphasize this part, Chen said.
People tend to believe donations will be rewarded with good fortune which allows some temples to amass considerable wealth.
"Some Lamas even charge for a blessing ritual. And there have been many cases of `fakes' deceiving innocent followers," he said.
Even the visiting Tibetan Lamas noticed the questionable credentials of some Lamas in Taiwan. "Here we found many monks claiming to be a Rinpoche, but we have never heard of them, nor have we formally recognized them," Tenam Lama, secretary of Tai Situpa Rinpoche, said during his visit.
RSS