dorjeshugden.com
About Dorje Shugden => General Discussion => Topic started by: LosangKhyentse on September 22, 2009, 10:03:26 PM
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Regarding the Letter by Gaden Tripa re Trijang Choktrul Rinpoche
Now if anyone says the Gaden Tripa is wrong in writing this letter, then they are saying he is not a g00d Gaden Tripa or not qualified. That would turn everything upside down.
Then the selection process of Gaden Tripa is wrong. So that would make us doubt all the previous Gaden Tripas and all future Gaden Tripas. That would be a very dangerous direction to go to.
So if the Gaden Tripas are wrong, who can we trust? Just only the Dalai Lamas??
Some of the previous 13 Dalai Lamas had root teachers who were the Gaden Tripas. So if they were wrong, then 'naturally' the previous Dalai Lamas can be wrong. Why? Wrong teachers breed wrong students.
Then everyone is wrong. We don't want to go down that road do we??
The current Dalai Lama can say his root tutor the previous Trijang Rinpoche Lobsang Yeshe was wrong to teach the practice of Dorje Shugden. A mistake. How about if we say the current Dalai Lama is wrong to say his guru is wrong. Or how about if we say, that the CURRENT Dalai Lama is wrong to say it is WRONG TO PRACTICE DORJE SHUGDEN. I mean, if Dalai Lama's guru can be wrong, can't the current Dalai Lama (Trijang Rinpoche's student) be wrong also??
I am not bombasting the Dalai Lama. It is just a debate I have in my head.
Anyone have any comments please?
SEE LETTER AT BELOW LINK:
http://dorjeshugden.com/wp/?p=241&cpage=1#comment-15
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Please delete this redundant thread. :)
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Why should he delete the post?
He is still having a debate in his head about the Dalai Lama.
Others are having it too.
Another person called a few days ago the DL a hidden Chenrezig in one post and in another post declared a desire to be entirely emancipated although gradually, from him.
So this is not a redundant subject.
It goes on and on.
Such pernicious actions as the ones motivating the existence of this website of course call for unending pondering and debating with oneself and others.
Ah, whatcha gonna do? :-\
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Another person called a few days ago the DL a hidden Chenrezig in one post and in another post declared a desire to be entirely emancipated although gradually, from him.
So this is not a redundant subject.
It goes on and on.
Such pernicious actions as the ones motivating the existence of this website of course call for unending pondering and debating with oneself and others.
Ah, whatcha gonna do? :-\
;D uh, that's for me, yes? But I really fear that you've mistaken my intention.
I think it's not that complicated. You can ask any victim who suffers from any crime: as long as one still reacts emotional to the actor while hearing positive things about him one is not free. Freedom comes if one is able to let the actor inwardly and outwardly go, by staying equanimous to all what one hears about him, positive, negative, whatsever. There are outer instances for justice, these steps are necessary to go for the well being of the society and for the protection of others. But for oneself it is most important to find inner peace again. As long as one still reacts in the way that one doesn't like to hear any positive word regarding the actor, the bonds are not cut. And every negative emotion which one develops against the actor is nothing more then a long life prayer to him. He just gains his power from your emotions and becomes even stronger.
So what's there to say HHDL being chenresig for some people, for others not? Since I am not able to recognize it, it might be in a hidden way. It's just a question of believe. And I will not feed any beast with my emotions ;)
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Why should he delete the post?
Because it was already posted in another thread (http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=495.msg3394#msg3394). It's good to keep things together.
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@Emptymountains: I went to the previous thread that you mention and I think TK used a small innocent trick in order to receive some answers. There he was left unanswered whereas here he got some fresh attention, so he was not so wrong in starting this new thread.
@Yedi: Only the two first lines of the quotation were referring to you.
I'm sorry that you feel or felt a victim and it's very commendable your desire of emancipation from the perpetrator. If you are referring to other victims other than you, you give them good advice, great.
I'm afraid there are other considerations about this subject.
@Tom: Oh dear friend, what are we going to do to help you heal from the abuse you received? Think of the saint and holy Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. Trijang Dorjechang. Our common Guru of all of us Gelugpas that remained faithful to the lineage: I think he received a million times more abuse than any of the other victims, nevertheless he never stopped loving the one who treated him so badly. When I say a million times it's just a symbolic number. We are talking about something immeasureable. When you are in charge of things so high and huge, the destiny of a salvific lineage more sublime than any human word can utter nor human mind imagine, and you see that everything you have been doing your entire life is being demolished ... nobody can imagine nor describe what you go through ... that's why I say that what was done to him is a million times, a zillion times worse than all the rest that has been done. And look, he never lost his divine smile. You should print a portrait of him, in order to be able to rest your mind just by looking at him. I'll see what's on this website. There is one picture where he is very old and he is sitting in a relaxed manner, semi reclined, a rosary in his hands, smiling ... I would like you to have this picture. Look at him and you will feel better. Pray to him, pray to this unsurpassable Buddha, Trijang Dorjechang, and he will help you heal your wounds. Best to you, always!
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@Yedi: Only the two first lines of the quotation were referring to you.
I'm sorry that you feel or felt a victim and it's very commendable your desire of emancipation from the perpetrator. If you are referring to other victims other than you, you give them good advice, great.
I'm afraid there are other considerations about this subject.
Ah no, I definitely don't feel as a victim of HHDL. For my side I have no problems to think or speak friendly on him, even Dorje Shugden when evoked in the appearance of Dülzin does it. But I try to understand why it seems to be important for others to have some kind of verbal cuts. I suppose that we're just talking on different levels. For me even a piece of shit could be the emanation of chenresig if it helps a beautiful flower to grow. But if one speaks on the level of measurable ethical behaviour then I could imagine to get an insolvable knot in the mind.
Anyway I am very happy to find different considerations here, I don't like to be the member of a sect where everybody has to talk like brainwashed the same. Actually we come from very different groups and before this Dorje Shugden issue started there was even not much contact to each other. Just this crazy ban made us all of a sudden sitting in the same boat ;D
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I went to the previous thread that you mention and I think TK used a small innocent trick in order to receive some answers. There he was left unanswered whereas here he got some fresh attention, so he was not so wrong in starting this new thread.
He posted it there, then only 2 minutes later posted it here. If this one stays, then please just delete the other one.
I bring this up because in the past we had people posting the exact same post in, like, 5 different threads at once.
:)
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@Emptymountains,
If so little time elapsed you were right, I'm sorry. Now, if TK wishes we can go back to the previous and erase all of this. Or we can stay here and see how everyone continues their own monologue, what do you think? :-\
@TK: If you wish to talk about the issue you started twice, then would you please like to say something? You seem to think that the DL is wrong, you don't really sound doubtful, except rethorically. Of course he's wrong. But we knew that. Is there a reason for bringing this up right now?
@Tom: Well, you might be into something there, to forgive but not to forget. About time healing everything ... hmmm ... I don't think so, not without your help.
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What is the ADMIN saying with the Dixie Chicks?
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@Tom: I don't have any idea. I only talk to Admin. when there are external malicious messages like we had several times in this Forum in the past. I've got nothing to do with members' messages no matter their content. (This means that my comments here are just personal).
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You seem to think that the DL is wrong, you don't really sound doubtful, except rethorically. Of course he's wrong. But we knew that. Is there a reason for bringing this up right now?
@a friend,
I think that the point that TK is bringing here is different of the other thread refered to where the point was about not talking about HH Dalai Lama as an emanation of Chenrezig. Here, it seems to me that TK point is theorical. If the Ganden Tripa action is wrong, perhaps we can say that he is not a qualified Ganden Tripa. This can means that the selection process is also wrong. If the process is wrong, perhaps previous Ganden Tripa up to Dje Tsongkhapa could have been wrong. So, if the head of the gelug order can be wrong, any master of this tradition can be wrong. We can also say the same thing about Trijang Rinpoche. If he was wrong about the Dorje Shugden issue, perhaps he was also wrong about other aspect of his teaching.
Beside the fact that there is few persons qualified to make this kind of judgment, what do we have to gain from saying that this one is good, this one is bad? Nothing.
The problem is that in this extreme degenerated time there is no more criteria that let us make informed judgments because everything is melt down. I think that the tendancy to say that anything is worth of being studied or that everything must be look at as equal is extremely prejudicial.
So the question of TK is not there to talk against the Dalai Lama or anybody else but only to make us realise that we are on the dangereous path of losing the essence of the spiritual teaching.
Finally, I would say that I wouldn't follow anybody blindly because there not so much realized peoples out there. But, I can say that my faith in my beloved lama, Kyabdje Dagom Rinpoche, was and still is absolute and that we can say that there are people that are living examples of what gourou deva should be. I can also testify that my faith in Dorje Shugden is also absolute mainly because my lama told that he was a Buddha. So whatever people can say about Dorje Shugden, I don't care. Anyway, people say whatever they want, true or not, wise or not.
I hope my english is understandable.
Best Regards,
stibo
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Dear Stibo,
You have understand exactly my point that I am trying to gently make.
Thank you.
May you and all of us never be seperated from masters of the calibre of Kyabje Dagom Dorje Chang.
TK
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@TK: you say, "How about if we say the current Dalai Lama is wrong to say his guru is wrong. Or how about if we say, that the CURRENT Dalai Lama is wrong to say it is WRONG TO PRACTICE DORJE SHUGDEN. ... Anyone have any comments please?"
TK, I'm glad you feel undertood by Stibo, because I'm not sure that I understand what you are trying to say. I'm a little bit of a simpleton. My comment is: I completely agree with your words that I just quoted. It's no so complicated. Of course the DL is wrong. After so many years I'm still wondering how on earth he dared speak and act as he did not only against his Lama ... that's bad enough ... but against such obviously saint, holy, sublime being as Trijang Dorjechang? Our Guru, not only his. Our Guru, the Guru of our Lamas. Our Buddha. What else is there to say except that he's wrong?
@Stibo: You say "The problem is that in this extreme degenerated time there is no more criteria that let us make informed judgments because everything is melt down. I think that the tendancy to say that anything is worth of being studied or that everything must be look at as equal is extremely prejudicial."
I agree with you that this tendency to say that everything must be perceived as equal is not useful in this level, it's a wrong view no doubt. But let me tell you something more cheerful: I'm so extremely glad that you contradict your own words Stibo. You do have a criterium that is perfect: to absolutely follow your Lama and have faith in our Buddha Protector. You seem to me extremely well informed and making excellent judgements. These words of yours about Kyabje Dagom Rinpoche and Lord Dorje Shugden make my day, thank you. And best regards to you too.
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Let me try a different perspective on this.
In Tantra, one must see one's Guru as a Buddha. In Tantra, this is done as an internal or subjective practice. It is not to be done on external or objective basis. (In Gurupancasikha - 50 Verses on the Guru - it is even explicitly forbidden to prostrate to one's Guru on certain occasions due to this.)
So, whatever one might think about someone being a Buddha, it is to be done in secret. After all, Tantra is called the Vehicle of Secret Mantra.
If one practises like this, internally, in secret, there will not arise problems.
But the moment one takes that view into public, into the open, one will get lots of problems. For after all, my Guru is not your Guru, and therefore he who is a Buddha for me, is not a Buddha for you, and vice versa. And if the whole population happens to be Vajrayanists, as in Tibet, one will therefore have a nationful of conflicting "Buddha-claims" in the open.
And once the identity of someone with a certain Buddha becomes institutionalized, as it happened in Tibet, the problems just escalate. For if the institutional head of some organization is "given as" a Buddha, in a public social sphere, then even those who have no spiritual connection to the said person, are forced to accept him as if he would objectively be a Buddha, or else be automatically and by default be labeled as "political opponents" to the said 'Buddha'.
To rephrase: If the internal practices of Tantra are 'outed' into the public and political sphere, one is doing something else than Tantra; one is making a claim of supreme authority, that is, one is practicing mere power-politics.
If the institutional heads of TB would all just be like Ganden Tripa, a person elected to be the head of an institution, a heir to the seat of the founder, there would not be problems. All organizations need some sort of Head Person, and it should be left just as is. A monastery has an abbot, and a school has a head. But once someone is presented as a Buddha, in the public sphere, the Tantra gets flinged away and the Politics step in.
I feel that the Tibetans pretty much destroyed Vajrayana by taking internal personal practices and twisting them into external public policy.
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@Zhalmed Pawo, you say: I feel that the Tibetans pretty much destroyed Vajrayana by taking internal personal practices and twisting them into external public policy.
Are you a Tibetan? I hope you are, because I'm not and it's difficult to talk about a whole nation without being a member.
No matter what, first thing is, I don't think that Tibetans had the power to destroying Vajrayana, it would be horrible for the world if they'd had. After all, precisely because we are in the age of degeneration Lord Buddha came to our world and taught Tantra. So it comes with the territory. On one hand, we are in an age of degeneration and terrible things happen. On the other hand, because of being degenerate, this is a blessed age, the one where Lord Shakyamuni appeared and taught. And I doubt that anybody has yet the power to overcome the wishes of that great one who eons ago made the promise to come here in our age and teach Vajrayana. Even if prophecies of doom are right we still have more than two millennia for the holy teachings to last and prosper.
For the rest, you are absolutely right about the public sphere and the Mantra vehicle.
One optimistic note about this would be to think that what historians point out is true: that those titles as Chenrezig, Mañjushri and even Tara, awarded to the chiefs of state in Oriental countries, are not at all Vajrayana practices but mere courtesy hyperboles. Like the Emperor of Japan being the eternal grandson of the Goddess and every time an emperor is established he has to spend his first night as emperor making love with his august grandmother? I don't know, maybe he does. But I tend to think that mostly the explanation is in the hyperbole. It reminds me of Je Pabongka calling the DL the King of the Conquerors ... what else could this be if not a court thing, an hyperbolic title? Never in the world anybody could ever be seriously called the king or overlord of all the Buddhas. The Buddhas being of one mind, this is quite obvious. The problem is, I have the feeling that many Tibetans tend to take these things litterally, particularly in the special situation post 59, where it probably felt good to think that no matter what they could rally around a mythical father, Chenrezig himself ... powerful stuff, but psychological, not religious. In the West no doubt these things also became entirely self-existent, totally true, and the PR apparatus from Dharamsala together with Hollywood and the Western Academia didn't help to bring things into perspective, on the contrary. The God King was too tempting to grab at and made the stuff of our dreams so the religious part got confused, mixed up, and whatever.
It seems clear to me that the problem is in the institution itself of the DL. Lord Buddha received alms from and helped the kings of this world as a Teacher, but he renounced the position of political head of his kingdom, and his future as political Chakravartin or universal emperor. Lord Atisha practically spat on his political heritage and fled from his parents in order NOT to become a king. Lord Tsongkapa didn't even accept an invitation to visit the Chinese Emperor. So our Teachers made this quite clear. I know how Tibetans love nowadays their DL, so I always hesitate to say this, but there is something basically wrong in the mixing of religion and politics, as you point out with your own words. The tragedy we are witnessing in the Tibetan Sangha and the Tibetan community is the result of this mixing. The whole Tibetan system has experienced a meltdown. But this might not imply a meltdown of that sacred vehicle. Or so I hope, with all my heart. After all, our Teachers entrusted a group of us that is not mixed up in Tibetan politics with the teachings, and part of the Sangha of the big monasteries is hoping to entirely become free from their political fetters. So there is hope, I hope .....
This post is not in opposition to yours, I agree with your basic position. I just interpret the terrible things that are going on from a lighter point of view, in order to think that the heritage of Lord Buddha is going to prevail and last for a very long time, beyond the crazy things that we have done with it.
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So, whatever one might think about someone being a Buddha, it is to be done in secret. After all, Tantra is called the Vehicle of Secret Mantra.
@Zhalmed Pawo
I agree completely with your thoughts about the secrets of Tantra but relating to this sentence I would like to mention that 'think about someone being a Buddha' is not exclusively a topic inside of the Tantras. You will find such thoughts of a Buddha taking whatever appearance according to the need of the sentient beings already in the description of the Great Person, so f.e. in Je Tsongkhapa's Lam Rim Chenmo. There were examples like the Buddha performing himself as a bridge or pulling a carriage. This view is combined with the idea never to judge other sentient beings as we might be not able to recognize them what the really are due to our own delusions. These thoughts should help us to generate the way of the bodhisattva in treating friends and enemies equal while being free from hatred and attachment. So there is not much secret behind such thoughts since they belong to the Mahayana/Great Vehicle.
Of course one could argue that while following such a way we will start to see all uncritically as equal. But this would be a wrong understanding of the Mahayana path since it should help us to become more doubtful on the validity of our perception and stop us being blind followers of people who say "this person is a Buddha, this person is not, this person is right, this person is wrong, this person is a tulku, this not, this a follower of the right path, this not and so on." If one says with great self-confidence 'the Dalai Lama is wrong' it's exactly like this behaviour and nothing more then retaliating in the way: Dalai Lama and his followers have slagged our masters off, now we draggle the Dalai Lama. A Roland for an Oliver.
For me it is absolutely ok if somebody says 'I don't believe the Dalai Lama being chenresig' or 'this and that behaviour of the Dalai Lama seems to be wrong to me'. This is a personal opinion. But telling others Dalai Lama is like this and that while not accepting any other view is nothing more then trying to make others being blind believers of oneself.
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Within the Gelug Order there is no authority higher than the Ganden Tri. This is little more that can be said regarding his authority. This is one of those infamous "no-wiggle-room" situations. Just as HHDL has no real authority to stop the practice of Shugden, he has no authority to countermand any edict of the Ganden Tri.
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According to a recent edit made on Wikipedia, the new 102nd Ganden Tripa was named on October 26th 2009: Thubten Nyima Lungtok Tenzin Norbu (1937-, Tib. thub bstan nyi ma lung rtogs bstan 'dzin nor bu), aka Rizong Sras Rinpoche.