Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Are the Dalai Lama's reasons valid?


The Dalai Lama's reasons for the ban and refutations of these reasons.

In this radio interview in Nottingham May 2008, the Dalai Lama helpfully mentions most of his reasons for banning the practice of Dorje Shugden. Being a celebrity and political leader, he gets most of the airtime, but we have provided below some refutations of each of these reasons and hope you have the time and interest to read them. We would love to debate the subject with the Dalai Lama himself in true Buddhist fashion, but he has refused all attempts at dialog on the subject for the past 30 years. Please read on to decide for yourself whether the reasons are valid or not.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In your refutatio of his claim that he has not banned the practice, it might be worth adding that human rights legal scholars have said when assessing religious freedom, it is not enough for somebody to be 'free to choose' if they cannot exercise that choice freely without fear of political, social or economic penalities. Dorje Shugden practitioners face serious penalties for their choice, thus they cannot choose freely.