Author Topic: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren  (Read 7742 times)

vajralight

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 147
Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« on: December 07, 2009, 11:02:48 PM »
http://shugdensociety.wordpress.com/
Below are some excerpts of a review of the book Buddha’s Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today, by Erik D. Curren. The review was written by Lama Karma Wangchuk.

History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and non-violent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counter-reformation than a neighborhood in Berkeley, California where synagogue, mosque, church and dharma center make cozy neighbors….For hundreds of years in Tibet, lay followers of each religious school clashed with each other for control of the government of central Tibet or rule over provincial areas. Lamas had to defend their monasteries and landholdings from supporters of the other schools as well as from the central government …

One of this book’s most valuable achievements is to show, for perhaps the first time in English, how the complex sectarian conflicts of Old Tibet followed the lamas when they fled into exile in 1959. At first, faced with the Chinese invasion in the fifties and early sixties, Tibetans experienced a period of unity and the Karmapa and Dalai Lama enjoyed a close friendship. But in exile, things changed. “Hundreds of years of habit would not die so easily,” Curren writes, “and after a few months in India, competition between the administrations of the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa resurfaced. The Dalai Lama and his ministers had just lost their country. In exile, they wanted to create a unified Tibetan community. To achieve this new unity, exile leaders in their new headquarters in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala began making plans to extend their control over the five religious schools of Tibet .”

Curren’s account of the United Party initiative will be shocking to many readers. The United Party was a plan run by the Dalai Lama’s brother Gyalo Thondup to unite all Tibetans, regardless of their region or religious affiliation, into a coherent group able to stand together against the Chinese. The most controversial part of the plan was a scheme to combine the four Buddhist schools and the Bon religion—governed separately for more than five hundred years back in Tibet —under a single administration led by the Dalai Lama. “When word of the United Party’s religious reform got out in 1964, the exiled government was unprepared for the angry opposition that leaders of the religious schools expressed. To them, this unification plan appeared as a thinly disguised scheme for the exile government to confiscate the monasteries that dozens of lamas had begun to re-establish in exile with funds they had raised themselves.”

The sixteenth Karmapa led the opposition to the United Party, serving as spiritual advisor to a group of refugees from thirteen resettlement camps in India and one in Nepal—the “Fourteen Settlements” group—thus earning the enmity of the Dalai Lama’s ministers in Dharamsala. Under the Karmapa’s leadership, the opposition group succeeded in stopping the religious consolidation plan, and in the mid-seventies, the United Party closed up shop. But apparently ministers in Dharamsala were looking to avenge their political defeat. In 1977, an assassin claiming to be working for the Tibetan exile administration shot and killed the political head of the Fourteen Settlements, Gungthang Tsultrim. As Curren writes, “When apprehended in Kathmandu, the murderer, Amdo Rekhang Tenzin, told the Royal Nepalese Police that the Tibetan exile government had paid him three hundred thousand rupees (about thirty-five thousand dollars) to assassinate Gungthang. Even more shocking, the hit man claimed that Dharamsala offered him a larger bounty to kill the sixteenth Karmapa.”


Zhalmed Pawo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 264
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2009, 10:38:22 AM »
All the previous DL-Karmakagyupa-books have not made a single dent in the Dalai's shining armour. They have only made the "protesters" to be even more hated, even more ostracized.

Same will, in all likelihood, happen with this DL-Shugden-book.

I said just this, before, here in another thread.

I say it again.

vajralight

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 147
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2009, 02:06:23 PM »
Dear ZP,

I am of the opinion that the demonstrations, interviews, youtube videos, websites of the WSS, Dorje Shugden Society etc.. have had a positive impact. Definitely more people are questioning the DLs actions. I do not believe these activities will only divide more and make the DS practitioners more hated/ostracised. If the courtcase gets more attention this too will be another "dent" in the image of the DL.

Please WSS, DS Society, etc continue your precious activities with a compassionate and strong mind. I have nothing but respect for all those who have put their reputation on the line in defending the lineage of Je Tsongkhapa and the religious freedom of the Ds practitioners around the world.

Vajra
 

emptymountains

  • Guest
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2009, 12:15:14 AM »
Quote
In the end, truth always triumphs. -- Michael Jackson

Ensapa

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4124
    • Email
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2012, 08:27:07 AM »
I noticed that this piece of information has an extremely disturbing news:

In 1977, an assassin claiming to be working for the Tibetan exile administration shot and killed the political head of the Fourteen Settlements, Gungthang Tsultrim. As Curren writes, “When apprehended in Kathmandu, the murderer, Amdo Rekhang Tenzin, told the Royal Nepalese Police that the Tibetan exile government had paid him three hundred thousand rupees (about thirty-five thousand dollars) to assassinate Gungthang. Even more shocking, the hit man claimed that Dharamsala offered him a larger bounty to kill the sixteenth Karmapa.”

If CTA can and has hired assassins to kill their political enemies before, it also means that they can do it now and anytime and in any way they want. This leads to the question: Was Lobsang Gyatso, the monk that was killed back in 1997 killed by assassins of the CTA so that they can pin the blame on Dorje Shugden devotees for his death? Instead of a gun, they made it look like he was killed in a ritualistic manner. this shows that they had full intention to blame Dorje Shugden devotees on the killing from the start. After all, Lobsang Gyatso was famous for having a big mouth and he would have offended a lot of people, including CTA, irregardless of which side they are on. With his death, CTA can swat down a fly AND pin the blame on Dorje Shugden practitioners. How convenient. Unfortunately for the young monk attendants, they saw the killer and they could not be spared as it would give away CTA's dark side to the world as this case made it to international media.

CTA has a lot of dark histories in the past that they have enlisted the help of scholars like thurman to help cover up their past crimes. I am not surprised at all if and when it is true and evidence shows that CTA did hire an assassin to kill Lobsang Gyatso and pin the blame on the Dorje Shugden people, if before they could hire an assassin to kill the said figure who opposed their policies and stance. All these and CTA claims to be a Buddhist government. A government need not assassinate their political rivals, whats more, a Buddhist one.

yontenjamyang

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 733
    • Email
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2012, 09:18:20 AM »
Quote
In the end, truth always triumphs. -- Michael Jackson

No DS practitioner believe the HHDL is not a Buddha.That is a fact. But the fact is that the HHDL is not young and his objective of Tibetan autonomy from China is far from being achieved and he has a succession issue. This is all due to the world's collective karma. Being in the West (exiled from Tibet) has brought much benefit to the world because the pure Dharma has spread to the rest of the world (the West in particular has benefitted the most). I hope he lives long but inevitably this incarnation will pass on without autonomy and any new incarnation will be contested by China. Either as he has said, there will be not be any new incarnation or China will "own' the new Dalai Lama or there will be 2 Dalai Lama like the Panchen Lama and Karmapa, I see the Dalai Lama institution will be diluted. So what will happen after that?

That is when the truth will triumph.

Ensapa

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4124
    • Email
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2012, 05:15:57 AM »

No DS practitioner believe the HHDL is not a Buddha.That is a fact. But the fact is that the HHDL is not young and his objective of Tibetan autonomy from China is far from being achieved and he has a succession issue. This is all due to the world's collective karma. Being in the West (exiled from Tibet) has brought much benefit to the world because the pure Dharma has spread to the rest of the world (the West in particular has benefitted the most). I hope he lives long but inevitably this incarnation will pass on without autonomy and any new incarnation will be contested by China. Either as he has said, there will be not be any new incarnation or China will "own' the new Dalai Lama or there will be 2 Dalai Lama like the Panchen Lama and Karmapa, I see the Dalai Lama institution will be diluted. So what will happen after that?
there are some DS practitioners who do think that Dalai Lama is not a Buddha as they cannot believe that a Buddha will do things with this amount of hurt and impact. But on this forum we do believe that HHDL is a Buddha, unless of course Trijang Rinpoche is wrong. CTA is very far away from independence and even autonomy because of their own policies that pulls them away from what they want. Tibetans and the Dalai Lama have more exposure than ever and are more influential than ever, but i guess it is really not enough for the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama must live long until the rest of the world is firmly grounded in Dharma practice as if this is not done before his passing, the Dharma will not be firm. As what has happened to the Karmapa, the possibility of having 2 Dalai Lamas is very real if he passes at this moment, and this is perhaps CTA's biggest fear. CTA will be gone once HHDL passes, and they are very afraid now.

That is when the truth will triumph.

With the amount of lies that the CTA has told so far, it is not exactly a good thing once everyone finds out about it. Right now, they still can hide behind the Dalai Lama for now, because the world respects the Dalai Lama but once he is gone, CTA will have nothing and they will fall. They have to grow up and come clean before that happens....

Dondrup Shugden

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
Re: Buddha's not smiling - Erik D Curren
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2015, 11:16:31 AM »
Good book to read to understand the manner by which Tibetan authorities behave in controlling the people they govern. 

No chance of democracy, as such the Dalai Lama conflict with Dorje shugden can only be resolved from care and compassion and respect for religious freedom and stopping of the division caused the Ban and discrimination.