Why I Am Smarter Than the Dalai Lama

=====Recently, someone posted a message to me regarding something possibly quoted by the Dalai Lama. The quote was "Suffering is a state of mind." This quote rather pisses me off. Now, while I could not actually find anywhere -- on the internet -- that the Dalai Lama had ever said this, I did find it sticking all over Buddhist websites and dogma like an unsightly mold.
=====One reason it pisses me off is that it makes no real sense, yet, obviously, there are people who understand this as a reality. It makes no sense because most suffering in the world, mental and physical, is a direct result of physical anguish. Be it starvation, exposure, or unjustifiable violence, some people in the world are forced to experience physical tortures every day of their lives. To say that suffering -- and in such general terms, clearly this means all suffering -- is a state of mind, is to be extremely insensitive and insulting to the daily struggles of these people.
=====For the most part, Buddhists -- well, those who are not forced to practice the religion by its regal monks -- are not impoverished people. Whether they are Tibetan practitioners, who, before China helped to straighten out the economy a little, ruled over the lands, forcing people into their religion and into slavery -- and forcing farmers and starving serfs to pay homage to their temples, Lamas, and monks by handing over 75 percent of all livestock, crops and possession -- while wallowing in lavish lifestyles complete with slaves, jewelry, precious stones, wealth, and unending supplies of clothing, food and warmth, or the modern day yuppie or hippie practitioner, who, in-between trips to the office and Whole Foods, spends thousands of dollars on unnecessary yoga classes, a good number of Buddhists do not live lives of poverty. I mention this to bring up this point: when you have everything you will ever need out of life, for probably the rest of your life, you probably don't know what it is to have no options available to you. So, these people have never actually known suffering. Suffering is three parts physical torture, one part economical hopelessness. Granted, Buddhists like to pretend that they live a life that does not require material possession and wealth, but when someone can show me the Buddhist who needs a cosigner for a car loan, doesn't go to a temple decorated in gold, or doesn't spend countless dollars on books, videos, and other objects in the pursuit of other aspects of the religion, I will stop thinking the entire belief structure is built on hypocrisy. Even Siddhartha Gautama was a prince. The whole religion was founded by the wealthy, and is used today, around the world, to feed the wealthy off the sweat of the poor under the guise of enlightenment and compassion.
=====I pick on Buddhism a lot. This is because -- for New Age goofballs and confused, easily misled college youths -- it is second only to Paganism as the favourite means by which people are made instantly "open minded," "wise," "unique," "cultured," and "spiritual." That, in and of itself, makes it obnoxious enough to draw my attention. There is also the fact that it is, indeed, founded entirely on hypocrisies and the awe-inspiringly ridiculous musings of kings. Thirdly, it is a religion. The fact that it is a religion -- a belief structure based on the stories inside some person's head -- automatically disqualifies it from any race of the profound or intellectual. Discussing Buddhism as one might any other Mythical fiction, like the story of Hercules or the Chinese unicorn the Chi Lin, is fine. It is even fine to draw a moral from some of the stories and anecdotes that make up the religion, like one might draw from Humpty Dumpty. We're talking about a set of dogmas and doctrines that claim that a person comes back to life as other creatures, directly (Please, save the disagreements. Some scholars say "yes" while others say "no." The view Buddhists have on reincarnation varies from discipline to discipline but also depends on who's reading the information or even who Guatama was talking to. Do not tell me that it's not a Buddhist belief, but a Hindu one. The Hindu understanding is often identical to the Buddhist understanding of reincarnation; so, don't fuck with me). To attempt to alter one's behaviour, or mindset, based on this kind of cosmic understanding not only defies nature and reason, but it defies the fragile state of the human psyche. The abilities to feel pain, be sad, and understand loss are all crucial to the survival of any animal, human beings included. If you switch those neurological programs off, which are handpicked by natural selection, you do not achieve a heighten state of being, you simply become less than yourself and less than a human being -- you become a machine. For that alone Buddhism should be ridiculed.
=====So, getting back to the philosophy that "suffering is a state of mind," basically what the Buddhist tradition offers the unfortunate masses of the world is the ability to become an unnatural machine that feels no pain. Once the pain is gone, there can be no more suffering. Well, no. Once the pain is gone, and you erase the concept of reason and understanding from your mind, so you don't realize that without economic stability you will eventually perish, then you will have no more suffering. In essence, if you become the living dead, then it wont matter that your life sucks and will probably end before its time.
I suppose that seems reasonable. It's not helpful in any way, but it does make grammatical sence -- that is, the words make sense together in a sentence. When taken off the page and applied to real life, it's fucking horrible and mind numbing.
=====Basically, these people -- the aforementioned goofballs and youths -- need to realize that there are no good religions. Every religion that still exists on the planet today still exists for a reason. It doesn't exist because it was all such a good idea. It exists because it was created or controlled by people powerful enough to force the ideals onto other people. In the case of Christianity, it was the Romans who rewrote Christianity to fit their preexisting concepts of power and honor. In the case of Buddhism, the thing was started by kings, and handed over to Lamas who ruled an entire country and forced the beliefs, through violence, onto their subjects. They're all just made up shit. None of them are useful beyond their merits as fiction.
=====Don't depend on stories solidifying abstract concepts to control your life, unless you made them up yourself. If you want to pretend that a giant purple dragon named Dingleslor flew out of the sun and vomited forth the planets and the creatures of the Earth after it tripped over the moon, you have my utmost respect and attention. But, for you to select one of the template belief structures as your own, you might as well let me sit down and write you a creation story, and accept that as your own. The ones available to you were made the same way. At least mine would be made with a mind that exists in the 21st century. I'm pretty good at it. I could make you a nice religion -- who doesn't like purple dragons?