Wednesday, July 2, 2008

New Kadampa Truth

For over 10 years Kadampa Buddhism in the West in the form of the New Kadampa Tradition ~ International Kadampa Buddhist Union (NKT-IKBU) has been subject to a great number of false allegations. The purpose of this website is to try and respond to these with facts and the truth.

New Kadampa Truth

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although I accept the points made by Lineageholder, I do find the statement "We're not political" on the part of WSS representatives sits a bit uncomfortably with me.

Do we not think it unfortunate that the Dalai Lama has the political power that he does that enables him to persecute Dorje Shugden worshippers? Would we not feel supportive of attempts to make Tibetan society truly free and democratic? Aren't we trying to draw on political authority when we cite human rights legislation - which gets ratified through a political process?

Is there a middle-way position between "being political" and "not political" - an understanding of the role that political circumstances play in the situation - and isn't that the position that the WSS should be trying to adopt?

I fear that the "we're not political" solgan lends credence to the image of the WSS as narrow-minded fanatics taking on the (supposedly) broad-minded world statesman the Dalai Lama.

Perhaps this is just my perception.... however, there is plenty of intelligent commentary about the likely role of the political situation in China and Tibet in creating motivating factors for the Dalai Lama's ban of Dorje Shugden practice in the wisdombuddhadorjeshugden.org web-site, and I think that some of these points could be very useful to us in helping us to present our case by making a nearly completely unintelligable situation - why on earth should he do something like this? - a bit more intelligable.

Anonymous said...

I have just read everything on the new website. An amazing, informative and balanced response like this has been needed for many years. Thank you.

It has been an interesting 12 years practising both patience and non-responsiveness. Now we can continue to practice patience but thanks to this new website we can respond comprehensively to correct the lies and falsities endured by thousands of innocent Buddhists worldwide. Great joy!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the NewKadampaTruth.org site.

My RT told me how at Spring Festival Geshe Kelsang distinguished between inner solutions for inner problems and outer solutions for outer problems. May this new site become an appropriate and effective "outer solution".

Anonymous said...

It would be wonderful if an English translation of Trijang Rinpoche's life could be availabl.
I have heard Geshe Kelsang was going to write an auto-biography,maybe his guru's would be included?

Also,i want to reccomend a great book that practitioners of our lineage should read.
It's called "Enlightened Beings" and it's biographies of the great Mahamudra masters.

Lineageholder said...

Hi Adam,

WSS is not political because it has no affiliations to any political organizations. The whole issue is the religious freedom of Dorje Shugden practitioners and how they are regarded by the Buddhist community, not democracy in Tibetan society. WSS does not have a view on a free and democratic Tibetan Society. Even the human rights issue is not the main point. It's because these practitioners are Shugden worshippers that they are being denied human rights so it's fundamentally a religious issue. If the Dalai Lama accepted the authenticity of Dorje Shugden and his practice there would be no human rights problems for Shugden practitioners. It all comes down to the Dalai Lama's wrong view of Dorje Shugden at the end of the day so it's definitely a religious and not a political issue.

Anonymous said...

Many thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to produce the vast wealth of web-based material representing this cause that is now available to us.

It is difficult to judge how much influence each or us can have as individuals, or even together, but I feel that the time has come when we really need to win this argument once and for all. To that end it would be great if we were all to try to study the material that is available to us in order to become skilful at presenting and representing this cause. We may need to be patient, but even if we need to convice people individually, one at a time, I am quietly confident that we will eventually be able to turn the tide and win sympathy for the plight of Dorje Shugden worshippers, and appropriate condemnation of the actions of the Dalai Lama.

Onwards to victory over ignorance and oppression, and the achievement of complete freedom of worship for Dorje Shugden worshippers world-wide!

Can I make a request? It would be great if the detailed material in the wisdombuddhadorjeshugden.org web-site was put onto a file that could be downloaded. Could someone please pass on this request from me?

Anonymous said...

Hi lineageholder,

thanks for your response. It makes perfect sense. I think I must have just managed to confuse myself a little!

Perhaps I was just wondering how we can avoid giving the impression of being narrow-minded and losing sympathy on account of this. Is this a danger? Any thoughts?

Adam

a Friend said...

Hi there.
I would like to ask if someone among you knows why Beggar closed the Forum where friends of the Dharmapala used to meet.

This was a great loss. The Forum was playing a very important role in the furthering of the movement towards "reversing the tide".
We were even talking about doing a book with the best of the material gathered there. And one day everything disappeared, as if it didn't have the slightest value.
The friends that were there conversing are lost to each other. This is really sad.

Beggar, if you read this message, please think twice, reopen that Forum, that in a way was "our" Forum. If you lost heart about it, well, we are very sorry, and also grateful for the time you had the kindness of have sustained it. But please, give us back what was published, we need to gather back all that material, it's part of our history.

Best to all,
a Friend

Anonymous said...

I would just like to make my last point in a constructive manner. The type of statement that I might like to hear might be something to the effect of:

"We're not political but we are concerned about Tibetan society, and we don't want Tibetan society to be divided, absurdly, unnecessarily, and at the cost of great suffering, into those who want to continue to worship Shugden and have the bravery to not comply with the ban, and to those who don't worship Shugden or agree to comply with the ban. Of course we have a particular concern for the Shugden worshippers as they are the ones being persecuted, but we are also concerned for the rest of the Tibetan community who are being cruelly deceived by being taught to regard their fellow nationals, who happen to have faith in a particular Buddhist deity, as their enemies."

I am interested in the comments made by "a friend" and would very much like to make contact with people interested in discussing these issues and possibly collaborating on some sort of book. I have given my e-mail address to the blog moderator, so if you wanted this - a friend - feel free to ask them for it.

I would also like to suggest that one of the sites should have a Where This Is Happening section with a map showing the location of all of the Tibetan settlements in India that have been affected by this. I don't know if someone would like to see if there is anyone with the ability, time, and energy to do something like this.

a Friend said...

Wisdombuddha,

I hope you remember me from the Forum at Dorjeshugden.com.
I need to send a private email to you, how can I do that?

Best,
a Friend

Anonymous said...

I reccomend this review of Pic Iyer's book be posted on book review sites.
At least a link to this page.

Wisdom Buddha said...

Send me a message here and I will get back to you:
http://www.youtube.com/user/wisdombuddha