The “Tiger” Returns to Buddhism
Tiger Woods said he has rediscovered his childhood religion of Buddhism and hoped to relearn its lessons of restraint. This was Tiger’s “leap of faith,” said Newsweek, his very public religious conversion.
It is true that we witnessed the conversion of Tiger Woods, but it was no voluntary conversion to an old religion. Rather, this was a forced conversion to the new religion of emotional openness and making public one’s misery and failing.
When Tiger Woods invoked his religious faith during his public apology on 19th February 2010, he readily acknowledged that a lot of people would be surprised.
"People probably don't realize it," he said, "but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years."
But Woods said his Buddhist faith would be a key part of his quest to put his life back together after revelations of his marital infidelity, which he admitted for the first time. Buddhist experts said Woods' summation of the tradition's beliefs was accurate -- and that his remarks likely will bring more attention to the faith in a week when its highest profile leader, the Dalai Lama, is visiting the United States.
"I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it," Woods said, reading a statement from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. "Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age."
"Buddhism teaches that a craving of things outside us causes an unhappy and pointless search for security," he continued. "It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught."
A handful of Buddhist scholars said Woods' description of Buddhist teaching was accurate. "Woods was quite accurate," said Janet Gyatso, a professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard University. "Craving causes unhappiness. That's a fundamental Buddhist idea."
He visited a Buddhist temple with his mother each year around his birthday, slept near a mother-of-pearl Buddha from his Thai grandfather, and wore a gold Buddha around his neck, according to the profile. Woods' mother, Kultilda, is a Thai-born Buddhist.
"I like Buddhism because it's a whole way of being and living," Tiger Woods told Sports Illustrated. "It's based on discipline and respect and personal responsibility. I like Asian culture better than ours because of that."
When allegations of Woods' infidelity began emerging after a November 27 car accident, Fox News Channel host Brit Hume stirred controversy by publicly advising the golf pro to become a Christian.
"He's said to be a Buddhist -- I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith," Hume said. "So my message to Tiger would be: Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."
But Buddhist scholars say that forgiveness and redemption are core components of the faith. Some Buddhism experts said that's what Woods appeared to be trying to do today. Many Buddhists applauded Woods' statement.
Buddhism was in the spotlight this week before Woods' remarks, with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama a Buddhist -- meeting with President Obama in Washington-
Buddhism is among the world's religions, with about 350 million adherents, including about 1.2 million in the United States, according to a 2009 report by Trinity College. The faith began in India about 2,500 years ago.
Woods’s public apology – to his wife, his fans, and the media – came at the end of months of pressure on him to stop fantasizing that he has any right to a private life and to tell us everything about that car crash in November and his various alleged affairs. His desire to keep his troubles private, including by taking refuge on his yacht called “Privacy,” was treated as some kind of crime.
His former coach, Butch Harmon, said the public wants Woods to “stand there in front of everybody, take his medicine, be humble, be embarrassed, be humiliated, and answer the questions.” The idea that Woods had to be “humiliated” before he could move on was a recurring one. Under the headline “Tiger Woods: redemption lies with Oprah Winfrey,” a British journalist said at the end of last year that Woods must “ring Oprah and get on her sofa pronto” and “share his pain” with the public.
Experts from around the world advised “hectored” Woods that only by opening up could he hope for public forgiveness. (Why Woods should seek my and your forgiveness, rather than simply his wife’s and children’s, was never made clear.)
The sports correspondent for Britain’s Mail on Sunday said in December that Woods had “better learn the US formula for public redemption,” which includes “display[ing] one’s contrition on a very public platform” and partaking in the “three A’s”: “admit, apologise, and advance.” The idea that Woods might devise his own formula for resolving his personal problems, in private rather than on a very public platform, was not countenanced.
Many of the attacks on Woods, and the demands that he advertise his pain and sorrow for all the world to see, were motivated by a strange anger toward his well-known protection of his privacy. A British journalist criticized Woods for guarding “his privacy with legendary zeal.”
When Woods published a rare statement on his website in December – saying, “I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family” – the humiliation-hungry media was outraged. One journalist said, “Woods’s right to privacy has been fatally undermined … by his hypocrisy.” Another said, sternly, that Woods has “no right to privacy,” on the basis that he is a public sportsman and has made advertisements and has therefore made himself public property.
This is a bizarre idea. Are we saying that anyone who is a prominent public figure – from politicians to actors, should have no unrevealed life? Such an erosion of the line between public and private, between what we do for a living and who we are with our friends and family, shows just how far the new requirement for revealing everything has gone.
The criticism of Woods for zealously guarding his private life, and for at first refusing to do the formulaic public mea culpa that is now expected of every fallen public figure, showed what really lurked behind the Tiger-baiting of the past three months: fury over a famous man’s refusal to play by the new rules, to adhere to the new ethos of public emotionalism, to bow before the altar of publicly advertising one’s pain. Woods was clinging, for dear life, to the old-fashioned idea that a clear line should be drawn between a man’s public life and his private life, and the media could not tolerate that.
Woods is famous for his iron will in golf tournaments. When scandal first broke, he summoned that stubbornness. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions,” Woods wrote on his website.
But the media got their way. Last Friday, 19 February 2010 his capitulation was complete. After months of being ridiculed and attacked, Woods finally partook in perhaps the most widely disseminated expression of public sorrow of all time. The privacy zealot was successfully remade as an acolyte of Oprah, his mind expunged of the silly idea that he, or anyone else, should have the right to sort out his problems “behind closed doors.”
The forced conversion of Tiger Woods represents another blow to the idea of privacy. A civilized society should recognize the dividing line between a public man and his private life, because all of us need a private space in which we can develop relationships and work out who we are. The slaying of private Tiger and his rebirth as a public spectacle makes defending privacy that much harder.


Does ‘Tiger’, Owe Anybody Explanation?
Roland Martin says Tiger Woods should be accountable to the public only for what he does as a golfer, not in his private life.
When Eldrick "Tiger" Woods joined the ranks of professional golf a dozen years ago, it was via the heralded "Hello, World" Nike commercial. When he stepped to the podium Friday 19 February 2010 to speak to an assembled group of friends, colleagues and journalists, the world watched to see and hear the greatest golfer of this generation talk about the sordid events over the last three months that have kept him off the golf course and shredded his well-cultivated image and reputation.
The broadcast networks were aired live by selected media. reports with their main anchors there to report and comment on every word; the cable nets will undoubtedly have multiple individuals ready for instant analysis; and millions will tune in to hear Tiger likely apologize and possibly say if and when he will return to competitive golf.
He isn't expected to take any questions, and that has made for an angry bunch of columnists and commentators, denouncing Woods for calling a news conference to make a statement, and not undergo the grilling many want to give him.
Woods hasn't even said a word, and already he's been called a spoiled, petulant child who has lived in a sheltered world of handlers since he was 2 years old. Some have even gone as far as saying nothing has changed about him and he's showing that he is just as selfish and self-absorbed as ever.
Tiger, let me be as clear as I can as to whether you owe me or the American people an explanation of the events surrounding your car accident Thanksgiving weekend: Hell no.
I repeat: Tiger, you don't owe me or anyone else anything!
I'm sick of these sanctimonious folks who are blabbering about Woods needing to be grilled about his private behavior. Look, Tiger Woods didn't cheat on me. He's not my daddy, brother, cousin, church member, neighbor or friend. He didn't let me down or crush my view of him. He is not and never was my role model.
The only people he owes a grand apology are his wife, momma, family, maybe his friends, and his children, when they come of age. He doesn't have to work hard for me to trust him again.