Sharon Stone was caught by reporters on a Cannes red carpet and asked what she thought of the earthquake in China. (Funny, but do they ever ask George Bush or U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon what they thought of “If These Walls Could Talk 2”?) Stone was happy to discourse on the spiritual implications of China’s biggest natural disaster in three decades, of course, and while the result was not exactly the Jerry Falwell moment the gossip sites are playing it as (“Actress Sharon Stone Blames China’s Treatment Of Tibet For Earthquake”), it was a good example of how Hollywood Buddhism is different from all other Buddhism.

What Stone actually said was that her first reaction was that the earthquake, which cost more than 50,000 people in southeast China their lives and millions more their homes, was the result of China’s “karma” for how they’ve been treating Tibet and her “good friend” the Dalai Lama. After learning that the Tibet Foundation was rallying support for the earthquake victims, Stone says, she got a lesson in how “to put your head down and be of service, even to people who aren’t nice to you.” It’s a nice lesson we should all remember.
But first thought, best thought, as the Buddhists say. And the best Stone could come up with herself was that the millions of Chinese without homes and grieving their loved ones only got what they had coming to them. Nevermind that the victims have little to no control over their totalitarian government’s decisions in regard to Tibet or anything else. Or that we might not be competent to judge the moral vector of acts of God. Or that it makes her sound like a preacher blaming 9/11 on the ACLU, homosexuals, and abortionists.
I wonder, too, how the Dalai Lama would feel about Stone’s vindictiveness on his behalf. If she’s really his good friend, wouldn’t she have anticipated that he would wish the Chinese no ill? For Hollywood’s Buddhists, apparently, the enemy of your friend–sorry, your good friend–is your enemy too.