Tarap Shetrup Akong: British Tibetan monk 'assassinated' in China

[WisdomBeing]

i came across this disturbing news and thought that i'd share it with everyone. Though this is not directly related to Dorje Shugden, what is frightening is that Tibetan masters are being assassinated by Tibetans. If this is the case, then Tibetan Dorje Shugden practitioners and masters have every reason to be afraid of death threats which will be prevalent until the ban is lifted. We live in dangerous times and i hope that the reason for this murder will be revealed in time. i think that citing financial reasons are rather vague, personally.


Tarap Shetrup Akong: British Tibetan monk 'assassinated' in China
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tarap-shetrup-akong-british-tibetan-2352532

By Andy Rudd 9 Oct 2013 08:01
Chinese police said three Tibetans confronted and killed the monk, his nephew and his driver



A Tibetan monk from Britain has reportedly been "assassinated" in China.

Police in Chengdu, south-west China, say three suspects are in custody after Tarap Shetrup Akong was stabbed to death in a financial dispute.

The UK Foreign Office said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Chengdu, China, on 8 October.

"We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time."

Chinese police said three Tibetans confronted and killed the monk, his nephew and his driver.

Akong Rinpoche - who was addressed as such because of his respected status in the Tibetan Buddhist community - co-founded the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Eskdalemuir Langholm, in the Scottish Borders.

A statement on the monastery's website said: "I am very, very sorry to inform you all that tragically, my brother Choje Akong Rinpoche, my nephew and one monk who was travelling with them, were all assassinated in Trengdu today.

"Rinpoche's body has been taken to hospital where a post mortem will be carried out."



Police said the men were attacked after negotiations over a financial dispute.

Tarap Shetrup Akong co-founded the Samye Ling Monastery in 1967, making it the first Tibetan Buddhist centre to be established in the West.

He maintained political ties with Beijing and met Jia Qinglin, then chairman of China's top political advisory body, when he travelled to Britain in 2006 to explain Beijing's policies in Tibet, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

"Though we have settled abroad for a long time, we are always concerned about the development of our motherland, in particular the development of Tibet," Tarap Shetrup Akong told Mr Jia, as reported by Xinhua.

Beijing's rule of Tibet has been turbulent. Tensions flared up last week as Chinese security forces fired into a crowd of Tibetan residents who were demanding the release of a fellow villager detained for protesting against orders to display the national flag.

Overseas rights groups say about 60 Tibetans were injured in the rare shooting, a sign that Beijing is tightening its control in the Himalayan region following a wave of self-immolations in protest of Beijing's rule.

Beijing has accused the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of trying to split the region from China, and local Tibetans resent the government's strict limits on Buddhism and Tibetan culture.

China says it has made vast investments to boost the region's economy and improve quality of life for Tibetans, but many say Beijing's economic policies have mainly benefited Chinese migrants.

[Matibhadra]

Though this is not directly related to Dorje Shugden, what is frightening is that Tibetan masters are being assassinated by Tibetans.

By the way, the murdering of Drakpa Gyaltsen, who became Dorje Shugden, was itself a case of a Tibetan master assassinated by Tibetans themselves, wasn't it? Even if the assassin was a Bhutanese, the fact that the “great” Fifth Dalai Lama confiscated the estate and banned the reincarnation of his murdered rival suggests that his hands were far from clean in the gruesome event.

And let's not forget the death by decapitation of virtually all abbots from one thousand Karma Kagyu monasteries (http://www.karmapa-issue.org/politics/ikkbo_04.htm), also an interesting example of Tibetan masters assassinated by Tibetans themselves. Coincidentally, again under the dubious auspices of the “great” Fifth Dalai Lama, this time with a little help from a bunch of Mongol butchers.

To sum up, Tibetans have already for centuries achieved a high level of self-sufficiency when it comes to murder their own Buddhist masters -- and the “great” Fifth Dalai Lama appears to have show some proclivity to and even proficiency in the art.

If this is the case, then Tibetan Dorje Shugden practitioners and masters have every reason to be afraid of death threats which will be prevalent until the ban is lifted.

Ah, did I mention that the current 14th Dalai Lama takes the “great” 5th Dalai Lama as his role model?

[WisdomBeing]

But the great 5th also recanted from his initial condemnation and attempted but futile destruction of Dorje Shugden and decided that he was a Buddha. Therefore if the 14th Dalai Lama was to truly follow his predecessor, he should follow through the end and also change his mind and recognize Dorje Shugden as a Buddha, n'est ce pas?

[icy]

This is shocking and disturbing news!  Why on earth would Tibetans do such horrible thing as assassinating  a great master and his entourage and is over finance?  This is so wrong.  Could there be some kind of vengeance?  This news gives the creep that it is no longer safe for Lamas to travel in Tibet. 

[Matibhadra]

But the great 5th also recanted from his initial condemnation and attempted but futile destruction of Dorje Shugden and decided that he was a Buddha.

Funny enough, the “great” Fifth never recanted (at least as far as I am informed) neither from his initial banning of the reincarnation of his murdered rival Drakpa Gyalsen, nor from his initial confiscation of the latter's estate, all of which being agreable to the idea that the “great” Fifth did have a hand in such murdering -- an idea which, in turn, is not incongruous with the “death by decapitation of virtually all abbots from one thousand Karma Kagyu monasteries”, also included in the list of achievements ascribed to the “great” Fifth.

This brings us back to the original topic, related to the reported recent murdering of Tara Tulku, which is that Tibetans are themselves and for a long time adept and consummate in the art of murdering their own Buddhist teachers, or that there's nothing new under the sun.

By the way, a link just posted in another thread (http://truedalailama.com/) somehow confirms this assessment, specifically in relation to the current Dalai Lama.

Therefore if the 14th Dalai Lama was to truly follow his predecessor, he should follow through the end and also change his mind and recognize Dorje Shugden as a Buddha, n'est ce pas?

I think that it makes much more sense to change our own minds, and stop recognizing a criminal as a “Lama”, let alone as a “Dalai Lama” -- and forget about what this criminal recognizes or not.

[icy]

Akong Rinpoche cremation ceremony planned in Tibet

The body of the founder of the Samye Ling Buddhist centre at Eskdalemuir in Dumfriesshire is being taken to his native Tibet for cremation.

Akong Rinpoche was killed in China on Tuesday along with his nephew and his driver.

A statement on the Samye Ling website confirmed plans for a ceremony in accordance with his high standing.

It will take place at his monastery, Dolma Lhakang, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

That was where, at the age of four, he was identified as the reincarnation of an earlier leader, enthroned, and began the spiritual education required for a future abbot.

A statement from his brother - Lama Yeshe - said Akong Rinpoche was travelling in China to distribute funds to projects supported by the charity Rokpa International which he founded - and was killed by individuals trying to rob him.

Chinese police have already said that three Tibetan men are in custody for the triple killing.

Akong Rinpoche left a wife and three children and they have expressed thanks to people in the UK and overseas for the many messages of condolences they have received.

[icy]

Tarap Shetrup Akong Rinpoche's family said he was murdered over his charity fund raised to help the hungry, sick and destitute.  How sad and how greed can lead to the murder of a great Rinpoche.
[/col

THE brother of a murdered co-founder of the first Buddhist monastery in the UK believes his killers were trying to steal funds from a charity set up to help the hungry, sick, orphaned and poor.
A Tibetan Buddhist monk is one of three Tibetan suspects apprehended after Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche, his nephew and driver were killed in a residential area of Chengdu in China.

Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, abbot of the Kagyu Samye Ling monastery in Dumfries and Galloway, says he believes the killers' target was funds bound for Zurich-based Rokpa International, a charity co-founded by his 73-year-old brother providing aid and relief in Tibetan areas of China, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
He said his brother was about to embark on his annual tour, ¬visiting the projects of Rokpa - the charity he founded which provides education and healthcare to those living in the most remote areas - to distribute funds raised during the year.

"We believe that those arrested were trying to get hold of these funds. Rinpoche died protecting them and has sacrificed his life to safeguard the monies destined for the thousands of Tibetan people who depend on him," said Yeshe Rinpoche.
Followers were shocked by the development and registered their disgust in online messages to the Eskdalemuir monastery.

David Martin said: "It is truly sad that the greed of small men should destroy the greatness of one who's only mission was compassion to all men.
"He gave me refuge, I pray his rebirth is swift."

Mike Cope added: "I had thought that the assassination might be a Chinese plot --but now I see it was pure greed - and from his own people, especially as the funds were to be used to benefit Tibetans too."
Swiss actress Lea Wyler, co-founder and vice president of Rokpa, said the death of Rinpoche left behind an "irreplaceable gap" but staff were determined to carry on the projects in his memory.
"His compassionate commitment to truly help wherever help is needed has given new hope, supported and saved literally hundreds of thousands of beings all over the world.

"We are overwhelmed with grief. But we also want you to know that we will not give up! We will mourn and we will cry together with all those whose lives depend on Rokpa's help."
"We have made a deep commitment to Rinpoche's memory. The Rokpa projects will be carried on!"
Meanwhile, the monastery is to start a Book of Remembrance as a tribute to Rinpoche's life.
After the murders, police in Chengdu suggested the stabbings may have been caused by a money dispute with other Tibetans. The Rinpoche family is ¬describing his killing as an "assassination".
The Dalai Lama and the Karmapa, head of one of the four branches of Tibetan Buddhism, were informed and were understood to be saying prayers for Rinpoche's soul.

Rinpoche left Tibet around the time the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, when China took over Tibet. He founded the Scots monastery, the first Buddhist monastery to be founded in Europe, in 1967.
He later developed good ¬relationships with the Chinese government, visiting the country regularly to promote his charity work.

[icy]

This is the latest news on the murder of Tarap Shetrup Akong Rinpoche and his 2 assistants. 

It's been confirmed that one of the men arrested for allegedly stabbing a Buddhist monk to death in China, had lived at a monastary in Dumfries and Galloway for five years

The victim, Akong Rimpoche, co-founded the Samye Ling Tibetan monastery in Eskdalemuir.

His brother, who is the current abbot there, has released a statement saying one of the three men arrested was resident there and used to make religious sculptures.

He also denied reports that the alleged murder was prompted by a dispute over money.

[icy]

This is another latest news but has more detail:

Choje Akong Rinpoche, the founder of Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Scotland, died during a confrontation over money in the Chinese city of Chengdu.
The abbot, his nephew and driver were killed and a man named by Chengdu police as Tu Dan Gu Sha, also known as Thubten Kunsal was arrested.

Relatives of the victim said he had previously spent more than five years in the UK, and returned to China two years ago.

"Whilst residing in the UK he made religious statues at our monastery in Scotland and our London centre. He left very happy and there was no question of any economic dispute," Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, the abbotts brother said. "According to an official microblog post by the Chengdu police force, the three suspects confronted my brother and the other two victims, with knives, at his home in Chengdu in what is being described as an “economic dispute”.

"We strongly refute any claims that Thubten Kunsal was owed money by Akong Rinpoche, the monastery or our London centre. When he was with us in the UK we supported his living expenses as agreed in writing, and there was never any dispute about that."
Related Articles

British monk 'assassinated' in Tibet amid protests 08 Oct 2013
Akong, 73, who had lived in Britain since 1963, founded co-Samye Ling in 1967 in a former nurses' home in Eskdalemuir, Dumfries and Galloway. It was the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West, and is home to a community of around 60 monks and lay-people.

Reports of his death by stabbing Tuesday were met with shock and sadness among Tibetans.
"He was kind and astute, and earned the respect of the community," said Tibetan writer and activist Tsering Woeser, who met the monk in 2003 in a western Chinese town where he was preparing for a charity school project.

The monk, a British citizen, was attacked by three Tibetans at his residence in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu on Tuesday and was killed along with his nephew and a driver, Chengdu police said.
Police said the attack occurred after negotiations over a financial dispute soured.
There are no indications so far that the murder was driven by sectarian or political factors, said Robbie Barnett, a Tibet expert at New York's Columbia University. "He was very judicious in political matters and was careful not to be assertive on such matters, so did not attract serious hostility from either side," Barnett said.
Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the death of a British citizen in Chengdu and said a consular team had traveled to the city to "liaise with Chinese authorities about this case."
The monk's philanthropic work in China won him respect and admiration among Tibetans, who referred to him using the honorary title of Rinpoche.

"Akong Rinpoche was very committed to the Tibetan community. He tried to come to China almost every year and helped build many schools for Tibetans," Woeser said.
Born in 1939, Tarap Shetrup Akong was groomed to become an abbot in a Tibetan monastery, but fled to India after the 1959 Communist takeover of Tibet. He settled in England in 1963 and later co-founded the Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland in 1967, the first Tibetan Buddhist center to be established in the West.

[Matibhadra]

The insistent claim that Samye Ling Monastery, founded in Scotland in 1967, is “the first Tibetan Buddhist center to be established in the West” seems to be rather misinformed. The Kalachakra Temple of Saint Petersburg was founded by Agvan Dorzhiev in 1915; a temple was founded by Kalmykian refugees in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1929; and the Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America was founded in Howell, New Jersey, US, by Geshe Ngawang Namgyal, in 1958. Samye Ling is probably the first Tibetan Buddhist center to be established in Scotland.

[samayakeeper]

It is quite shocking to hear that this great master was assassinated for money and his alleged assassins are Tibetans. Buddhist teachers are highly revered among the Tibetan people and taking the life of one is just like killing a Buddha which all Tibetans know is one of the heinous crimes. Also to commit such a heinous act out of greed for money, money that was meant for the poor and needy. If this claim can be proven else it seems quite far fetched.

[WisdomBeing]

The insistent claim that Samye Ling Monastery, founded in Scotland in 1967, is “the first Tibetan Buddhist center to be established in the West” seems to be rather misinformed. The Kalachakra Temple of Saint Petersburg was founded by Agvan Dorzhiev in 1915; a temple was founded by Kalmykian refugees in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1929; and the Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America was founded in Howell, New Jersey, US, by Geshe Ngawang Namgyal, in 1958. Samye Ling is probably the first Tibetan Buddhist center to be established in Scotland.

Thanks for this information Jspitanga... appreciate your complementing this great forum with your knowledge. So much misinformation is spread willy nilly - not deliberately, i am sure, but just out of ignorance - and nobody bothering or thinking to even, investigate to see if the information is correct.

This is precisely the issue with Dorje Shugden - that so much information is taken at face-value, mostly because of the authority behind those presenting the issue at hand - to be more precise - it is difficult to even think of questioning the credibility of someone of HH the Dalai Lama's stature!

Anyway, i do hope that people will treat the Buddha's advice to question everything, even his own teachings, with more than lip service - especially with regard to Dorje Shugden.

[Matibhadra]

Hi Wisdom Being,
Thank you for you kind words.
Actually, the Dalai Lama's “stature” seems to be rather a delusive product of Tibet's theocratic feudalism coupled with Western political propaganda. Personally, I see this individual as a psycopath and a criminal with no stature whatsoever.

[Blueupali]

But the great 5th also recanted from his initial condemnation and attempted but futile destruction of Dorje Shugden and decided that he was a Buddha.

Funny enough, the “great” Fifth never recanted (at least as far as I am informed) neither from his initial banning of the reincarnation of his murdered rival Drakpa Gyalsen, nor from his initial confiscation of the latter's estate, all of which being agreable to the idea that the “great” Fifth did have a hand in such murdering -- an idea which, in turn, is not incongruous with the “death by decapitation of virtually all abbots from one thousand Karma Kagyu monasteries”, also included in the list of achievements ascribed to the “great” Fifth.

This brings us back to the original topic, related to the reported recent murdering of Tara Tulku, which is that Tibetans are themselves and for a long time adept and consummate in the art of murdering their own Buddhist teachers, or that there's nothing new under the sun.

By the way, a link just posted in another thread (http://truedalailama.com/) somehow confirms this assessment, specifically in relation to the current Dalai Lama.

Therefore if the 14th Dalai Lama was to truly follow his predecessor, he should follow through the end and also change his mind and recognize Dorje Shugden as a Buddha, n'est ce pas?

I think that it makes much more sense to change our own minds, and stop recognizing a criminal as a “Lama”, let alone as a “Dalai Lama” -- and forget about what this criminal recognizes or not.

[/color]

Right, I don't know why we all have to worry about one politician thinks, and try to wrap our minds around how to agree with him.  I actually agree with Obama much more than the Dalai Lama, but I don't put Obama on my shrine and I also email the democrats with suggestions from time to time.  No one writes back and tells me that Obama is a Buddha therefore I am not virtuous if I don't agree with his policies.
 @ Widsombeing, thank you for posting this article as I had seen a condolence letter on Karmapa's website, but couldn't work out what exactly had happened, despite googling.  Of course, who knows what really happened; whether it was Tibetans or not, etc., in every country they stage things from time to time of course.... I am very sorry about violence toward this Rinpoche and the other people involved.  Here is a link to what Karmapa wrote:
 http://www.karmapa.org/news/akong_condolence.pdf
 

[icy]

Chöje Akong Rinpoche obituary
Lama who played a key role in establishing Tibetan Buddhism outside his native country after he was forced to flee in 1959

theguardian.com, Sunday 20 October 2013 15.56 BST

The shimmering golden roof and prayer flags of Kagyu Samye Ling monastery and Tibetan centre are a seemingly incongruous sight in rural Dumfriesshire. Samye Ling's quiet but widely respected co-founder Chöje Akong Tulku Rinpoche has died in Chengdu, western China, aged 73, after being stabbed. As the head of a large network of Buddhist centres and social projects, Akong Rinpoche was one of the most significant figures in establishing Tibetan Buddhism outside his native country and a prominent figure in his original homeland.

His journey to the west began after the failed Tibetan revolt against Chinese occupation in 1959. Akong Rinpoche embarked, with 300 others, on a perilous journey to India. Many were captured, while others succumbed to exhaustion, starvation or Chinese bullets, and just 13 members of the original party struggled across the border 10 months after they had set off. For all the devastation visited on Tibet itself, the departure of Akong Rinpoche and other leading Tibetan Buddhists was an important beginning.

They brought with them vast experience of a highly developed religious tradition and the memory of a society devoted to supporting it. Once he was settled in the west, Akong Rinpoche devoted himself to re-establishing both Buddhist practice and its social expression in his new environment, as well as trying to salvage what remained in Tibet itself.

Akong Rinpoche's first years outside Tibet were difficult. After internment in a refugee camp in India, he joined forces with other exiled Tibetans and in 1963 he sailed to Britain with two of them, Chime Rinpoche and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who had a bursary to study at Oxford University. Akong Rinpoche worked as a hospital orderly for several years to support all three of them and he never forgot the hardship he experienced in these years.

Interest in Tibetan Buddhism was growing, especially in the counterculture of the era, and in 1967 Akong Rinpoche and Trungpa Rinpoche took over a retreat centre in the Scottish borders, which they renamed Samye Ling. While Trungpa was flamboyant, intellectually brilliant and willing to flout convention, Akong Rinpoche was steady, down to earth and more cautious about innovations in Buddhist teaching and practice. Matters came to a head when Trungpa Rinpoche married unexpectedly. Soon afterwards, he left for the US where he established his own Buddhist movement, then called Vajradhatu.

Akong Rinpoche stayed at Samye Ling and steadily developed it over several decades. A solidly built man with a stable, kindly presence, he was initially more at home with practical work than teaching. In the early days, one resident recalls, he would repair bed sheets and blankets with a hand-operated sewing machine, clear blocked drains and make sure nothing was wasted.

In the 1970s Akong Rinpoche invited many prominent lamas, now in exile, to teach at Samye Ling, including the Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Kagyu school. Students were inspired to undertake serious practice of the Kagyu system of meditation and study; some became monks or nuns and in 1984 a group commenced the traditional four-year retreat. Akong Rinpoche threw himself into the construction of the spectacular temple, mixing mortar and laying bricks, and when it opened in 1988 the building was a vivid sign that Tibetan Buddhism had arrived in Britain.

The same combination of practicality and commitment to revivifying what he had known in Tibet led Akong Rinpoche to initiate many projects in the following years. He placed these in three categories. First were spiritual activities focused on Samye Ling and a network of more than 30 Kagyu Samye Dzong Buddhist centres and groups worldwide. Second there was humanitarian work, mainly channelled through the charity ROKPA, which funds education, health and environmental projects in the Tibetan areas of China. Third, he was interested in healing and Tibetan medicine, writing books on the subject and initiating a range of psychotherapy and mindfulness projects that combine western and Buddhist approaches. Several projects also focused on preserving Tibetan culture and learning.

Born in the Chamdo area of Kham, Tibet, Akong Rinpoche was recognised as the Tulku, or "rebirth", of the previous Akong, abbot of a monastery of the Kagyu school in the Kham mountains when he was a small child. Taken from his family at the age of four, he received a traditional religious education at the monastery and specialised in Tibetan medicine before taking up his role as abbot and teacher.

Akong Rinpoche was not a monk in later life, and he married and had four children. In recent times he spent several months each year supervising ROKPA projects in Tibet, the country he had once fled. His collaborative relationship with the Chinese authorities led to criticism, but a non-political stance was an essential precondition for any philanthropic work there.

He was about to start one of these tours when three men, who were reportedly trying to force money from him, stabbed him, along with his nephew and attendant, in his house. He is survived by his wife and children and his brother Lama Yeshe, who is now the abbot of Samye Ling.

• Chöje Akong Tulku Rinpoche, lama, born 25 December 1939; died 8 October 2013