The Dalai Lama said he’s ok with President Obama’s casual reception in Washington because he recognizes that the president has to juggle ties to the Tibetan spiritual leader with his concerns about angering China.

It’s a tough spot for the President – Tibetans basically import threads and fabrics from America; the Chinese, on the other hand, import everything under the sun.

His Holiness also commented on Tiger Woods’s recent comments about his Buddhist background in what might be one of the funniest lines about tiger yet:  “I don’t know who he is, but all religions are pretty much the same about adultery.  Buddhists must focus on self discipline and awareness of consequences.”

Obama hosted the Dalai Lama on Thursday in Washington, D.C., but kept the get-together off-camera and low-key in an attempt to avoid pissing off the Chinese.  That’s how things seem to be done now – we know it’s happening, but we just can’t see it.  It’s like, “Hey, psst, psst, DL, over here….I’m over here behind the drapes.”

The Dalai Lama fully understands that the US needs close ties to the Chinese and in the last twenty years or so meetings between the Dalai Lama and US presidents have been quietly choreographed and scrutinized because of China’s anger quotient.

This time it was even worse as China urged Obama not to meet with the 75-year-old spiritual leader, saying the visit “seriously harms U.S.-China relations.”

What’s going to harm our relations is if we keep getting lead poisoning from Chinese products, not visiting with a spiritual leader who lives in exile in India because the Tibet-occupying Chinese would probably put him in jail.

The Worried Worker suspects that America doesn’t want the Chinese to get their hands on him either – what would the world expect of America in that situation?

Maybe we could send Tiger to China for some of his therapy?