Author Topic: The situation in Sera is desperate  (Read 15311 times)

a friend

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The situation in Sera is desperate
« on: April 28, 2008, 10:33:04 PM »
Friends,

I was told that unfortunately the situation of the monks in Sera is worsening by the hour.

The local authorities are not firm in their stand, sometimes they help one group, sometimes the other.

The monks inspired by the Dalai Lama are truly acting like enemies against their brothers. The Dalai Lama's desires are respected entirely, so the discrimination against the monks that practice the Protector has become inhumane.

Not only are the monks prohibited to go to the kitchens of the monastery, they cannot even buy locally something to eat.
They are forced to go very far away to buy food, so they have to go in a rickshaw, and several of them to be able to pay it. We are talking here of daily survival.

The situation is desperate. These monks don't know anything about Internet, they don't know anything about our talks, they think they are abandoned by everybody. And in a way they are. So they are starting to disband, some have gone to Nepal and many of them are going to be forced to go back to Tibet, to their families.

So all those men that abandoned everything they had in order to learn the Buddhadharma are forced back to a lay person's life without the hope of receiving any more teachings.

People have ideas about monasteries that might receive them here and there. But these monks are prisoners of their legal status, they cannot choose to go here or there.

If someone could actually go and help them there ... It has to be someone with organizational skills, and means, able to get lawyers to help them if necessary. This is the end, friends. The Dalai Lama has destroyed the Buddhadharma in the great monastery of Sera. Please let's do something to at least give a hand to those faithful brave monks that didn't yield to his cruel rule..

SOMEONE COULD PLEASE HELP THEM?

Alexis

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2008, 12:28:03 AM »
Instead of sponsoring useless street protests, the Western Shugden Society should quietly sponsor the monks.

a friend

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2008, 02:05:34 AM »
Alexis! I was worried by your silence, so good to hear your voice!

But Alexis, they are doing just that.
The problem is the militant enmity that the Dalai Lama forcefully established there. The monks following the Dalai Lama's rule are making the lives of the monks practicing the Protector an impossibility in practical terms. So even if you sponsor the monks, that does not give them the possibility of getting food. The kitchens and pantries of the monastery are forbidden territory for them and nearby they don't allow them to buy neither. Beyond being a complete shame for Dharma, this is an everyday emergency situation.

jeff Ryan

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2008, 02:18:36 AM »
sigh  :'( :'( :'(

I am now wondering if the demonstration contributed to the new trouble at Sera. I think it is reasonable to assume that IS the case. Therefore, I think we should do whatever we can from our respective countries to let the world know the atrocities being persecuted upon our brothers, WE SHOULD DEMONSTRATE LOUD AND SEND MORE LETTERS TO SUPPORT OUR BROTHERS AT SERA! WE NEED TO TURN UP THE HEAT NOT TURN DOWN THE HEAT!
I look forward to attending a demonstration. WRITE LETTERS ONE AND ALL! SEND COPIES OF THE LAW SUIT TO YOUR RESPECTIVE NEWSPAPERS! LET FREEDOM RING LOUD AND LONG UNTIL THE WORLD PRESS HEARS US AND THIER DISGUST WITH dalai lama shames him into submission.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2008, 03:15:07 AM by jeff Ryan »

Alexis

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2008, 05:29:16 AM »
We should start by realizing that the Ganden Lineage has no future at all within the exile Tibetan society and most of it's western satellites (fpmt). It is maintained alive artificially for now in the south with no tangible solution in sight. Everything we do is aimed only at the moment without a long term objective. This is not good and it's not clear what we can hope to accomplish with our present course of action. 'What's our exit strategy?' said Johnson to McNamara. 'We do not have one, Sir!' was the answer. 

Street protests are ill suited for our cause

Protests can look bad on TV and send the wrong message, they often do. For example, when Chi'a muslims protest on TV, most of us don't feel so interested in what they have to say, why? First, because we've already bought a story about them long time ago, we have our little preconcieved idea about them. Second, because in TV, content is secondary and appearance is everything. Protesting against the Dalai-Lama will look bad on TV whatever the issue, like Chi'a Muslims protests, and will backfire because 99% of those viewers we want to convince already have a favorable opinion about the DL and will not dig deeper for the truth. All you have on TV is 9-10 seconds max to make your case and we cannot make our case in this timeframe (Hell! We can barely explain our case to a new buddhist in half an hour, ours is a very complex problem indeed!). People do not change opinion and belief in a 9-10 seconds clip. People only understand what they want from a newsclip. Newsclips or short stories in newspapers only reinforce people's views and opinions about the world and this will obviously play in favor of the DL. Street protests are a bad idea...

Towards an ideas front

If all those street protesters spent the same amount of time on wikipedia, for example, to straighten the facts about our Dharmapala or establishing other truths, it would bear much greater results in changing views and minds about our lineage and practices in the medium and long term. TrinleyKelsang is fighting this wiki war pretty much on his own right now, we should produce a concerted effort to rewrite the article there. We also have a lot of work to do on the scholary front in refuting the Dalai-Lama's (and some scholars') arguments' about our lineage and protector. The 'volition' behind this website has already translated Trijang DorjeChang's work on Duldzin, this is excellent! More translations should be made available like Pabonkha's biography and collected works, etc, to straighten the facts and dispel doubts and slander. All these should be published, made available and sent to Dharma magazines & Librairies, scholars & Universities, etc.  With a little patience, these will reap much greater rewards in the medium and long term.

This is how, I think, we can best save our Lineage from the lies and deception of the DL, not by bluntly shouting and screaming! But rather by meditation, reflexion and composition. This is the example our fathers have set out for us to follow. This is our Lineage's practice and style.

'Abiding within the well trained quality of contentment with few desires,
Having much studied and heard the great tradition of the great path blazers,
And with the dialectic of subtle analysis
Emanating a hundred thousand expressions of scriptural sources and reasoning,
Having fulfilled the heart commitment of Dorje Shugden's five families
And fulfilled the heart commitment of the host of attendant entourage,
Accomplish the practitionner's aim as wished
And reduce enemies of Lozang's teaching to ashes'



« Last Edit: April 29, 2008, 02:40:20 PM by Alexis »

jeff Ryan

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2008, 01:47:56 PM »
Alexis,

The lineage is NOT lost in South India. Dhokang Khantsen founded a NEW monastery, elected an Abbott, Gigu, etc. The Lineage is preserved there. Pomra House is now under siege and we need to do what we can to help them so they can establish a new monastery just as they have at Ganden. I agree with much of what you stated above, but, at the same time I think there is merit in letter writing and demonstrating. Thank you for being here and letting your voice be heard.

Alexis

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2008, 02:35:30 PM »
Your right Jeff,

I should have been more precise. The Lineage is lost in the institutions that fall under the Ganden Podrang. This include the three great monasteries in the south. Our only hope there is to create new monasteries outside Ganden Podrang. We have no future inside Ganden Podrang! This will not change.

Letter writing can be good. Picket protests make us look like a detachment of Atilla's hordes...

I will see you in July...

prodorjeshugden

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2016, 02:33:21 PM »
It is really sad that the monks have to suffer just to survive. This isn't a case where the monks are marooned in the wilderness or trapped somewhere in a cave, these monks are in a monastery in a country!!! Yet they are struggling as if they are lost somewhere in no man's land, not because the place around  the monastery has no provisions or food, but because the CTA does not allow them to get what they need!! As a result of this monks have to spend money for transport to take them to some distant towns, why do they have to go to a distant town when the town nearby has everything? Because the CTA does not allow it and why does the CTA not allow it? Because those monks practice the so called evil spirit Dorje Shugden.
The CTA does not have any proof that Dorje Shugden is evil, but yet they can use it as an excuse to limit the monks freedoms and rights (which totally isn't humane).


To the CTA please end the cruelty to Shugdeners and restore peace and harmony to the community. 

Q

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2016, 08:23:44 PM »
8 years have passed and looks like the situation in Sera still have not changed or improved for Dorje Shugden practitioners. Just a few months ago, they implemented a badge system for the monks in Sera monastery to differentiate them from Shugden practitioners. It is such a ridiculous scheme that even many monks in Sera monastery refused to wear this badge. This was exactly  how discrimination is enforced, take for example how the Nazis tagged the Jewish people who were fitted into concentration camps during WW2. It is especially upsetting that such 'idea' came from a monastery... a spiritual place that should be teaching and producing Geshe who spread peace, love and compassion; instead of getting involved with a political ban on a protector deity.

VeronicaSmith

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #9 on: May 08, 2016, 03:55:53 AM »
They do not deserve this. They do not deserve to feel like they have been abandoned. They deserve to have more. They went after the BuddhaDharma and they were rewarded with cruelty. We need to stop this and take alternative ways to help them that are more direct. We need to get to them and help them. We need to tell them that they are not alone and help is coming.

Why has such a holy place been taken by hate and discrimination? This ban has gotten to be too big and it has to go down. This is very very bad.

Tenzin Malgyur

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2016, 07:55:04 AM »
This is so sad. The ban on Dorje Shugden practice have caused the monks to behave in such selfish manner towards their own dharma brothers. How are they going to benefit other sentient beings when they are denying food to their own kind?

The CTA have succeeded in breaking up the harmony and unity of its citizens and now it's starting to tear apart monasteries too. With many of the monks giving up on their monastic studies, there would be less geshes to spread the Buddha's teachings in the future. This seems to be the beginning of the end of Lama Tsongkhapa's lineage.

SabS

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2016, 06:58:29 PM »
Although it has been 8 years since that appeal was written, it still wrenches the heart to learn of monks being treated so terribly due to their religious practise. What are the followers of the Dalai Lama practicing? Certainly not compassion nor the love that the Dalai Lama preaches in almost every public events. Does that mean they have bad samaya with their Guru, the Dalai Lama? But then again, the Dalai Lama and CTA had encouraged their hostility towards Shugden monks, so does that mean their samaya is good then??? All I can say is what you give is what you reap and one day those monks will get karma coming back to bite.

grandmapele

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2016, 08:42:36 PM »
It's been many since this wa raised. Does anyone know of the status of the monks still in Sera? I know there is Serpom Monastery and Shar Gaden Monastery. So, is there anyone out there who is quietly coordinating the move or at least let the monks know of the alternative?

All that is just in addition to the raising of awareness of the dire situation of the Tibetans, not just monks. Human beings will always have a cruel streak in them. That's why we all need the dharma to temper that.

Hopefully admin can give an update of the situation in Sera?

VeronicaSmith

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Re: The situation in Sera is desperate
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2016, 04:42:31 PM »
These monks should not have to abandon their practice or have to endure the torment and suffering that they are experiencing in their very own monasteries by the hands of their brothers. This is so wrong. This is like a civil war with the driving dividing force being the ban and the wrong high platform for a ban like this to be promoted. This has created the terrible discrimination and the terrible suffering that these monks must endure just because they are loyal to their practice. How sad. They give up their pursuit of the practice and their pursuit of the dharma. How sad.