religion, which is organized and, hence, institutional, and what some people refer to as "spirituality", but what I like to think of as an awareness and cultivation of emergent properties that make a whole greater than the sum of its parts, a.k.a. a living im - mediate (as in un-mediated) Gestalt.

any word, for that matter.

What you're describing is "Hollywood Buddhism," which is sort of a nonsense mush of feel-good new-agey stuff put together by people whose closest experience with Buddhism is attending a "Free Tibet" concert once.

Buddhism, as practiced by Buddhists - as opposed to hip westerners - very definitely counts as religion. it's filled with rituals, superstition, religious orders, sects, scripture, and has a pretty bloody history of religious warfare all its own.

What throws a lot of westerners though is that eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto aren't mutually exclusive; you can't really be a Jewish Islamo-christian, but you CAN be a Buddhist who reveres Brahma as a Buddha before offering a chicken to the local shaman for intercession with your angry ancestors.

at all as you describe, though I'll have to admit that I have not cross examined them about their practices.

It also likely ties in with his book on secular ethics and this:

http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0106

not to mention deposed monarch. He'd have even more credibility if he gave up his claim to the throne.

He has also said that he may be the last Dalai Lama. He says the role may have outlived its usefulness.

China has chosen. The chain is broken to some degree at least for now....

I can't say I'm sorry to see a monarchical lineage broken up, but no doubt Mao's cultural revolution sparked something terrible and tragic and wrong. It wasn't a popular revolution that overthrew the Tibetan monarchy, though - that's the critical difference, and why the Dalai Lama is still so important.

He certainly has a uniquely informed perspective from which to speak. Plus he has this weird way of sounding ... enlightened. No, really. He does - like he's the only grown-up in the room. Jacques Cousteau had a similar gravitas, minus the barely concealed smile.

"any MADE UP explanation of the unknown."

If it's unknown... the made up part is de rigueur. But one CAN make guesses based on what IS known. Religion does not do this.

or, a way of thinking...

humans thinking about spirituality and ethics

Note: This is not his conviction, rather slow revelation in progress.

Pretty much the same as all of us obviously, except his words get more press.

This one on its face is both reasonable and blindingly obvious. Hundreds of miilions if not billions of people already have fully functional and effective ethical systems that operate beyond religion. These systems are generally both more applicable to reality than deontologies and more responsive to a world rapidly developing past the circumstances foreseen by the authors of religious codes. In this then he is absolutely right, but no more insightful than one would be in saying "Slavery - I think it might be a bad idea."

Only because of the demographics of the country in which it is located and from which most of its members come.