CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- I don't want to add to the endless debate over the chances of the two U.S. presidential contenders. Rather, I want to focus on the debates and some possible corollaries for Asia.

Audiences in the United States and elsewhere have followed with concentration and interest the three spectacular exercises in personality projection. (A cynic would call them "extraordinary TV shows.")

Debates, in general, can generate vigorous intellectual exchanges, depending, of course, on the quality of participants. In Tibetan Buddhism, for the instance, they used to constitute the core of monastic education and spiritual development.