CURRENT EVENT
Dalai Lama claimed a neutral position over the issue on whether self-immolation should be banned in Buddhism because he believed that if he decided that self-immolation was wrong, his decision will have affected the countries related to this political issue. Currently, the Tibetans were doing self-immolations to worship their religion by offering themselves as sacrifices. If he had chosen to be negative about the numerous self-immolations done by Tibetans in China, then the Tibetan family members will be sad and depressed because they had sacrificed their lives to show their respect for Buddhism, but they got a negative response for their foolish actions. If he had chosen to be positive about it, then the Chinese, who were against self-immolations, will be angry and blame him for encouraging the Tibetans to continue to perform self-immolations for the sake of Buddhism. Therefore, Dalai Lama was determined to remain neutral on this issue. His belief in remaining neutral had impacted his followers to believe that his decision was correct, so self-immolations are currently still happening and will continue to happen in Tibet, unless he chooses to be negative about this delicate political issue and encourage others to ban self-immolation in Buddhism.