Tweeting holiness

Here’s someone you don’t expect to find on Twitter: the Dalai Lama.

Well, maybe that’s not strictly true—why wouldn’t you find him on Twitter? I understand even Pope Benedict XVI is now on the social media platform. Although I’m laying odds that he’s got some cardinal/minion posting the actual, you know, tweets.

Of course, it’s possible that there’s some Buddhist equivalent of a cardinal—an abbot or the like—tweeting for His Holiness of Dharmasala. I mean, I expect that living in the moment would kind of exclude tweeting about it, since nothing says monkey mind like Twitter uploads from your iPhone.

Whatever.

What interested me about the Dalai Lama’s profile is that—as of the day I found it—he had more than six million followers. And he was following no one.

Well—I suppose…whom would you follow if you were he?

On the other hand, His Holiness the Bishop of Rome only has around 1.5 million followers; but he’s following eight people.

Only it turns out that the eight people he’s following are…all himself:

Make of that what you will. And peace out.