Part Five: Disputing Pico Iyer's version of events regarding the Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Fifth and final part of setting the record straight on Pico Iyer's book, Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

On the false view of non-sectarianism

p 121

In effect, he seemed to be bringing out into the world two sometimes unrelated treasures, each of them explosive, one was Tibet and it’s particular culture, often hard to translate into other tongues, and the other was his brand of Buddhism. To mass general audiences, he always stressed “on crazy wisdom,” as you could call it, because philosophy seemed a way to cut through all the divisions to some universal human core. (“Sectarianism is poison,” he writes in an unusual violent statement in his second autobiography.) When he spoke of Nalanda Buddhism, “in honor of ancient Buddhism University in India from which his tradition’s great philosophers had emerged, he was essentially suggesting that reason and universality could offer places where Gelug practitioner and Kagyu, eastern Tibetan and central, American and Chinese could come together.

“His brand of Buddhism” is a very interesting phrase because that's what it is. What the Dalai Lama is promoting is his very own version of Buddhism, a sort of amalgamation of the traditional Tibetan Buddhist schools of Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelugpa. He has referred to it a couple of times now, most recently in Nottingham in May 2008.

What is 'Nalanda Buddhism'? In this context, it is quite simply the Dalai Lama's break with tradition. He advertises it as tradition by using the name of a famous monastic university in India and quoting the names of great Masters such as Nagarjuna, but the truth is that the Dalai Lama is now his own tradition. He wasn't the Head of any school of Tibetan Buddhism so he created his own tradition. He calls it 'rigme' or “non-denominational”. It seems that to arrive at this tradition you pick which bits of Tibetan Buddhism you like (principally Dzogchen teachings) and graft on a bit of philosophy. You also throw out any unique quality of each existing Tibetan Buddhist tradition (such as the traditionally chosen Karmapa or the Buddhist Deity Dorje Shugden), and that is when the problems start.

Divide and rule is the method of this tradition, producing a non-denominational mish-mash of the Dalai Lama's making, masquerading as mainstream Buddhism through the power of his celebrity.

The Dalai Lama has a very strange idea of non-sectarianism. He says “sectarianism is poison” but his idea of sectarianism is practising one spiritual tradition purely. Therefore, to be non-sectarian, one has to receive teachings from all Buddhist schools and practise each one. In an interview in Nottingham in May 2008 he said:

“My approach is promotion of non-sectarian. I myself receive teaching from all different Tibetan Buddhist sect”

If each tradition of Tibetan Buddhism has a complete path to enlightenment, why do we need to receive teachings from all of them? Surely it is fine to practise one while maintaining respect and good relationships with the others? This is true non-sectarianism.

What the Dalai Lama calls non-sectarianism is mixing traditions. What the Dalai Lama calls the “Nalanda Tradition” is his attempt to merge all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism together under his leadership. Therefore, for “Nalanda Tradition” read “tradition of Buddhism created by the Dalai Lama by merging the present traditions of Tibetan Buddhism under a false premise of non-sectarianism that allows the Dalai Lama to do as he pleases.”

Pico Iyer says:

....he was essentially suggesting that reason and universality could offer places where Gelug practitioner and Kagyu, eastern Tibetan and central, American and Chinese could come together.

No, he was essentially suggesting that there could be a tradition of Buddhism that the Dalai Lama has created and is the supreme leader of, and that encompasses all Buddhists. This is what the Dalai Lama has worked for: supreme religious and political power. He's a politician in the robes of a monk, causing confusion by that very dichotomy; posing as a religious authority when he is not the head of any school of Buddhism, speaking words like 'religious freedom' and 'harmony' while he destroys both.

For Buddhist practitioners to come together is very simple. We don’t all need just one tradition of Buddhism that everyone can subscribe to – we simply need to be left alone with the religious freedom to practise our individual traditions as our Gurus have taught us, while respecting without discrimination the differences and uniqueness of the different sects of Buddhism.

We also need a certain Dalai Lama to stop sowing words of disharmony in the Buddhist community and creating schisms where they ought not to be.

Click here for Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

Posted courtesy of Lineage Holder.

Part Four: Disputing Pico Iyer's version of events regarding the Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Part Four of setting the record straight on Pico Iyer's book, Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

Religious Harmony?

Page 138.....
On and on the passionate tirade went, like nothing so much as a prosecuting lawyer’s final summation. Some people began to look at their watches. Always he was working for harmony between the schools for Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama said. Yet a Shugden teacher had said that if a Gelug practitioner follows a Nyimgma teaching, he will be killed by the Shugden deity. What did this have to do with the clear philosophy laid out by Lord Buddha? And if you looked at the Nalanda teaching, the great work of the Indian philosophers Shantideva and Nagarjuna, which he was explicating now, what did that have to do with propitiating deities?

The Dalai Lama is lying again. In what way is he working for harmony between the schools of Tibetan Buddhism when he has split the Kagyu tradition because of his interfering in the traditional choice of Karmarpa and split the Gelugpa tradition over the Dorje Shugden issue? It seems that whenever the Dalai Lama takes an interest in something, it is disharmony, not harmony, that follows.

He created disharmony between Nyingmas and Gelugpas within the Tibetan diaspora, and between the NKT and other Buddhist groups in the West, by demonizing Dorje Shugden practitioners and dismissing them as a cult. The story of monks being expelled from their monasteries and the segregation wall at Ganden is now well documented.

Now even the FPMT, a supposedly Western Buddhist organization that should know better, has banned Dorje Shugden practitioners from receiving teachings from Lama Zopa. This is blatant discrimination and a horrible mix of religion and politics. How can this new “Restriction”, as they call it, possibly lead to harmony between schools of Buddhism?

It is completely superstitious to say that if a Gelugpa practitioner follows a Nyingma teaching that Dorje Shugden will harm them! He's not some jealous guardian but a Buddha who helps all living beings. How can a Buddha harm others? The present problem in Tibetan society with Dorje Shugden has been created by the Dalai Lama who believed the infamous Yellow Book written by Zemey Rinpoche. This book -- written 50 years ago by just one Dorje Shugden practitioner and denounced by many others -- was simply a collection of superstitious Tibetan folk tales; but the supposedly rational Dalai Lama believed these and began systematically destroying Dorje Shugden practice. If he had not, there would be no problems of disharmony.

The Dalai Lama seems to believe whatever he reads, whether it's the early pronouncements of the 5th Dalai Lama that Dorje Shugden is a harmful spirit (the 5th Dalai Lama later changed his mind) or the contents of the Yellow Book. It's a great shame that he doesn't believe his ownSpiritual Guide's book, Music Delighting the Ocean of Protectors, in which Trijang Rinpoche gives clear, logical reasons why Dorje Shugden is a Buddha. If he believed this book, there would be no problems!

Finally, on the note of the Buddhist philosophers, what does the great work of Shantideva and Nagarjuna have to do with propitiating spirits like Nechung, which the Dalai Lama does whenever he needs guidance on a political decision?

The fifth and final part of this book review coming soon.

Click here for Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

Posted courtesy of Lineageholder.

Part Three: Disputing Pico Iyer's version of events regarding the Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Part Three of setting the record straight on Pico Iyer's book, Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama's personal feelings about Dorje Shugden

pp 135-138

One hot day in August 2005 in Zurich, at an eight day set of teachings on compassion the Dalai Lama was offering, the public address system suddenly declared- in German, Tibetan, and English- that followers of Shugden should take care not to attend the following morning, when the Dalai Lama was going to be offering some special initiations. Flyers were handed out to the same effect, and the announcement was broadcast again. Then, as he was nearing the end of his daily explication of the text, at 4pm, the Dalai Lama suddenly said “Today I am going to speak for 30 extra minutes. If that makes problems for you, please feel free to go. But I hope you will not mind my going on a little late today.” The audience, which could never get enough of him- many of its members had travelled across the world for these teachings- was clearly delighted.

Slowly at first, in long and forceful Tibetan sentences- rendered into German by a scholarly man on stage next to the Dalai Lama (and into other languages by unseen translators speaking into our transistor radios)- the Dalai Lama began to explain why he did not wish any followers of Shugden, to attend the special initiations, even if some of them had chosen, in spite of requests, to attend the other days teachings. For them to be present during these esoteric ceremonies would potentially impede the progress of everyone else, he said, and even do harm to the person giving the initiations, himself.

His voice began to rise, and soon he was speaking like thunder. Argument after argument followed as to why Shugden supporters should not come, and his bearing was as wrathful as I had ever seen him public. Occasionally his words would trail off, and the mild mannered Swiss professor in jacket and tie by his side would start translating the sentences; then, before the man could continue the Dalai Lama would start up again, drowning him out.

The audience laughed at such moments, but not with delight.

This is another oft-repeated lie from the Dalai Lama: Dorje Shugden harms himself and others. How can this be? One of the benefits of Buddhist refuge is that we are protected from harm inflicted by humans and non-humans, so if the Dalai Lama is a follower of Buddha Shakyamuni, how can he be harmed? Furthermore, how can others be harmed? This is a very irrational statement. The bogeyman under the bed is alive and well, appearing in the form of Dorje Shugden as far as the Dalai Lama is concerned. “Watch out, he is coming to get you....!”

I challenge the Dalai Lama to explain clearly and with logical reasons how and why he and others are being harmed by Dorje Shugden. He has been challenged on this before by Geshe Kelsang and other great Lamas, but has never replied.

This passage also clearly shows the strong negative feelings that the Dalai Lama has towards Dorje Shugden. What has Dorje Shugden even done to him except to save his life (by helping him to escape from Tibet)? How can you trust someone whose judgement is so erratic? One minute the Dalai Lama is your friend, the next he's seeing you as his worst enemy! This is completely contrary to everything that Buddha taught.

The Dalai Lama has a right to believe whatever he wants about Dorje Shugden, but he has no right to enforce his view in Tibetan society or elsewhere. Here Pico Iyer shows that the Dalai Lama is a religious dictator, getting on his soapbox and subjecting an unsuspecting audience who came to hear about compassion to a thirty-minute tirade about his hatred of a Buddhist Deity and its followers.

The Dalai Lama is always smiling for the Western media but here he showed his true colours, inducing nervous laughter from an audience who had never seen this man act so extremely in public before. The smiley mask had slipped and what they saw was not very pleasant.

Part Four coming soon.

Click here to read Part One and Part Two.

Posted courtesy of Lineageholder.

Part Two: Disputing Pico Iyer's version of events on the Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Part Two of setting the record straight on Pico Iyer's book, Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

Nechung, the unreliable oracle spirit who is treated like a Buddha

Page 114:

The Dalai Lama uses oracles (of which the most prominent is Nechung, whose trance we have just witnessed) as he might his left hand, he says, and he uses his Cabinet as he might his right, balancing visible and invisible worlds- the conscious and the subconscious realm- much as the Middle Way would suggest (though he also admits that he regards the medium who speaks for Tibet’s protector deity as his “upper house” and his regular political counsellors as his “lower’, perhaps because the oracle speaks for a wisdom that is beyond the human, and beyond the reach of human meddling. It was Nechung, after all, who told him when he was only fifteen that he had to assume temporal power early, as the Chinese advanced into Tibet; and it was Nechung who told him in 1959 that he had to flee Lhasa- and gave him the route to do so- that very night).

The Dalai Lama stresses that the oracle is in fact a healer and a protector, something more than just a spirit that can divine the future, but the fact remains that the spirit clearly lives in a domain very different from that of the lucid, analytical, doctor’s logic that marks the Dalai Lama’s mass public talks around the world.

Nechung never told the Dalai Lama to flee Tibet; in fact, when consulted the oracle for this spirit didn't say much, only that the Dalai Lama “should remain in the land”. If he had listened, it would have been a disastrous course of action. Why does the Dalai Lama constantly rely on a worldly spirit who makes mistakes and gives bad advice? In everyday life, if you have something that doesn't work, it's sensible to get rid of it; however, the Dalai Lama's irrational and non-Buddhist reliance on Nechung continues year after year. It's completely mystifying.

It is a downright lie that Nechung drew the map that showed the Dalai Lama to safe route to escape to India. It was the oracle of Dorje Shugden that drew the map. This is confirmed by Lobsang Yeshe, the assistant of the Abbot of Sera Monastery at the time. It was Lobsang Yeshe's job at that critical time to consult the oracle of Dorje Shugden. In 1998 when he was told that the Dalai Lama didn't acknowledge the help of Dorje Shugden in his escape from Tibet, he said: “That contradicts the law of truth. Actually, how can he speak like that? If it had not been for Dorje Shugden's help at that time, an escape would have been really difficult”

Pico Iyer says “...but the fact remains that the spirit clearly lives in a domain very different from that of the lucid, analytical, doctor’s logic that marks the Dalai Lama’s mass public talks around the world.”

This clearly shows that the Dalai Lama is being hypocritical. On the one hand, he is claiming to rely on logic and reasoning when talking to Western audiences and 'having made an investigation' with respect to Dorje Shugden, but behind closed doors he's engaging in all kinds of superstitious practices that are not Buddhist, such as consulting oracles and throwing dough balls to make decisions! This is like examining chicken entrails to discover the future.

The Dalai Lama takes decisions with doughballs

It seems that the Dalai Lama is also rather fond of using dough balls to decide what spiritual practice someone should do. The following is from his own website, where he is talking about whether the reincarnation of his Guru,Trijang Rinpoche, should be allowed to engage in the practice of 'Dholgyal' (Dorje Shugden):



"Dholgyal is something with whom Rinpoche has a connection from past lives, and when the time comes, when Rinpoche's personal realization reaches maturity, I will decide through dough-ball divination whether he should take up the practice."

Why does the Dalai Lama, as the 'Buddha of Compassion' need to throw dough balls or seek the counsel of a worldly spirit to make decisions? Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the tradition he is trying to destroy, is an emanation of the Wisdom Buddha and it is said that faithful followers of Je Tsongkhapa never have any difficulty in increasing their wisdom. This clearly goes to show that the Dalai Lama is not relying on Tsongkhapa and has no wisdom because he needs to rely on oracles, divinations and dreams. Did Buddha Shakyamuni rely on oracles, throw dough-balls or talk about his dreams? Apparently 'Chenrezig' needs these things! It's like going to a pier-end fortune teller or Tarot reader every time you want to make a major decision.

Everyone acknowledges that Nechung is a worldly spirit but the Dalai Lama makes no major decision without consulting him. The Dalai Lama even treats him like a Buddha! Nechung is the only spirit that has a monastery dedicated to him. Why dedicate a Buddhist monastery to a spirit? It is ironic that the Dalai Lama upbraids Dorje Shugden practitioners for relying upon a spirit when he himself seeks the counsel of a ghost and treats him as if he were a Buddha. Even so, Nechung is notoriously unreliable and there is a long history of his disastrous pronouncements, such as there would be a free Tibet by the year 2000.

Once again, if Nechung is a 'healer and protector' and the Dalai Lama is a Buddha, does the Dalai Lama need healing by a spirit? Does he need protection from something? Does he need protection by something other than the Three Jewels? If so, then he is behaving like a non-Buddhist, even though he constantly goes on about how 'the Nalanda tradition' doesn't worship spirits.

Posted courtesy of Lineageholder

Disputing Pico Iyer's version of events regarding the Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Setting the record straight on Pico Iyer's book, Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

In a few postings on this blog, we shall examine some of the statements about the Dorje Shugden and the Dalai Lama included in Pico Iyer's book, which are at best incorrect hearsay and at worst irresponsible lies.

First the same old calumny about the murders:

The Murder of Lobsang Gyatso, the Director of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics

From p 60:

He stands, for every Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist (those in Mongolia, say, and now Korea and Taiwan and elsewhere, too), as a visible embodiment of their faith and, quite literally, a god – an incarnation of Chenrezig, deity of compassion- so beyond the common realm that Tibetans are too awestruck even to address him directly; and yet in recent years, those who propitiate a Tibetan deity called Dorje Shugden, sometimes known as Dolgyal have taken to picketing his public events because they felt he was discriminating against their particular corner of Tibetan Buddhism. Like many of the debates within the Tibetan world, this one goes back centuries, and yet, like many of them too, it is hardly and abstract or remote affair: seven years before, three members of the Dalai Lama’s private monastery, including the head of his Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, were found murdered in their beds only a couple of hundred yards away from the Dalai Lama’s home, and it was generally assumed that the killings were connected in some way with a string of bloody threats from the followers of Shugden.

“A string of bloody threats” sounds dramatic but has no basis in reality and thus is a shamefully irresponsible piece of writing. The one piece of evidence the Indian Police originally linked to the Dorje Shugden devotees, a letter in the room of the victim, was found upon translation to contain no threat whatsoever and was immediately dropped. And there were no other threats, let alone bloody ones. “Generally assuming” that someone is responsible for murder is quite an assumption! Aren't people innocent until proven guilty by dint of evidence? There simply is no evidence, which is why the Indian police dropped the case years ago. See the posting on this subject on this blog for details.

If the Dalai Lama were the deity of compassion, why would he be causing suffering to so many Dorje Shugden practitioners and eviscerating the tradition of his own teachers? One thing is certain, due to people’s blind faith in the Dalai Lama, when he insinuates that there is a connection between the murders and Dorje Shugden practitioners -- despite a complete lack of proof and the fact that the victim had many fierce enemies in Tibetan society -- people jump to believe it and this terrible allegation has been repeated ad infinitum.

Since the Dorje Shugden devotees have not engaged in any violent activity despite being persecuted and ostracized, and since they are committed to trying to change the Dalai Lama’s mind through peaceful non-violent methods, it is particularly cynical to keep repeating that they are actual murderers just in order to discredit them.

From a talk by Helmut Gassner, a Buddhist monk and the translator for the Dalai Lama for seventeen years:

The Director of the Dialectics School was well known for his slanderous writings in which he would drag through the mud anything that veered even slightly from the course established by the government-in-exile: famous masters, the big monastic universities and even the Tibetan guerillas were his targets. In one of his last articles he wrote, "...these people will not cease to criticize the Dalai Lama until blood flows from their bodies...."

Given the character of the assassination and the humiliations the Tibetan guerilla movement had been subjected to in earlier years, one could have assumed that the search for the murderer would eventually also lead to them. But that obviously did not occur; already the next day, Dharamsala's local newspaper claimed that the murderer would certainly be found among the Dorje Shugden Society in Delhi. Aside from who committed the murders, this gruesome act was exploited to the hilt by the government-in-exile with only one aim in mind: Resorting to all possible means they tried to incriminate the Dorje Shugden Society in Delhi in order to put its leading monks behind Indian bars.

pp135-138

Meanwhile the world of protective deities and spirits, of rival groups within Tibetan Buddhism and ancient enmities that had always cast shadows over Tibet now came out into the global order. In 1996, the Dalai Lama began, as I’d seen in Vancouver, to tell audiences not to propitiate a particular deity called Shugden, because he felt that it was proving harmful, and that certain tenets involved in its propitiation went against the principles of Buddhism and the very tolerance and reason he was trying so hard to promote. In response, the followers of the spirit, gathered in the West around a rinpoche in England who ran an organization he called the New Kadampa Tradition, started protesting the Dalai Lama’s talks (hence the warning that had greeted me in British Colombia), claiming that he was violating the principle of freedom of religion; they even allowed themselves to be co-opted to some degree by the Chinese.

Again, one only had to tiptoe across the threshold of the dispute to find oneself in a furious, febrile world of curses and threats and almost medieval intrigue. In the letters certain Shugden supporters sent the Dalai Lama’s government in exile (released in a brochure put out by that government) the sentences polluted with references to “donkey officials and poisonous and shameless” rivals. At one point, a package had been sent to a monastery in India containing a knife and the message “We were unable to meet you this time but we hope to get you next time.” A senior monk was beaten up and a barn and granary went up in flames. Then the head of the Dalai Lama’s own Institute of Buddhist Dialectics was found stabbed in his bed, along with two younger monks, apparently cut up as if for exorcism.

This is embarrassingly bad journalism on many levels. The implication of these paragraphs is that the New Kadampa Tradition is a rallying point for all Shugden practitioners, that the NKT is responsible for threats sent to the Tibetan Government in Exile and that the NKT has been co-opted by the Chinese. All of this is nonsense. When the Shugden Supporters Society (not the NKT) demonstrated against the Dalai Lama's ban in 1996/97 there were no Tibetans among them. Although at that time Geshe Kelsang was a figurehead for the opposition to the Shugden ban (no one else was brave enough to speak out against the Dalai Lama), he was hardly a rallying point for all Shugden practitioners’ unrest.

Whatever individual Shugden practitioners do, such as sending death threats, is up to them – but in truth there is no evidence nor research behind any of Pico Iyer’s implications that Dorje Shugden practitioners were responsible for the knife or the barn or the beating. This is just hearsay, very likely from the Dalai Lama who was consulted on this book (certainly no Dorje Shugden practitioner was consulted!) Of course, the Dalai Lama has shown many times that he is capable of slandering Dorje Shugden practitioners. Repeating the unproven murder story again just for dramatic effect is unconscionable in someone who is supposed to be a respected journalist.

The NKT is a Western Buddhist tradition that completely eschews politics – NKT is not sympathetic to the Chinese Government or any other political body. It is a tired accusation that is always fired at anyone who disagrees with the Dalai Lama. It is a lazy accusation because if you label someone 'a Chinese sympathizer' you can just dismiss them as extreme; you don't have to think about what they are saying and whether there is a grain of truth in it.

Posted courtesy of Lineageholder