While Tibet fights the ongoing noble cause for independence, it looks like the Chinese have other plans.

Below is an article written by one of China’s leading newspapers about the Dorje Shugden issue, namely the ban instituted by the Dalai Lama against this Protector deity.

Although the article was written in the earlier days, before the height of the ban, it shows clearly that China has been closely watching the activity of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama and his exiled government (now the CTA). They know very well what is happening within the exiled Tibetan communities.

Also, note that the article is written with a tone which does not agree with the undemocratic and unjust methods used against Dorje Shugden practitioners; it is clear that the Chinese do not agree with the Dalai Lama’s policies on this and are on the side of the Shugden activists and practitioners.

Note what they write in the article: “China is in fact gaining greater international prestige, and Tibetans are leading a better life… people have lost confidence in the call for “Tibetan independence””.

You might think that Tibetan independence is a different issue from the Dorje Shugden issue. In fact, the two issues are very connected. From the point of view of the Chinese, they may use internal troubles within the Tibetan communities as “proof” that the Dalai Lama is disharmonious. They will use this information against the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama, saying that they are doing more harm than good for their people – so therefore, why should China give them independence?

Issues of disharmony like the Dorje Shugden ban creates more fuel for China to use against the exiled Tibetan people.
This might also potentially jeopardise the exiled Tibetans’ relations with their host country India. When India hears of these internal disharmonious issues in their own country, it can signal instability within India, which of course the government will not like.

It is important to note that although the ban against Shugden is continuing within Tibetan communities, the practice of Shugden is growing in China. The government gives a lot of support to the Buddhist monasteries in the Tibetan areas and especially to Dorje Shugden temples.

Please read this article. There are definitely many more articles like this circulating throughout China and which will spread to the world. Consider the long-term effects of the Shugden ban and how it affects the Tibetans’ internal and international relations. Is this the kind of future that the exiled Tibetans want?

Beijing Supports The Shugden Activists

http://www.friendsoftibet.org/databank/chinageneral/chinag6.html

China’s Tibet

January 1996

Just like his predecessors, the 14th Dalai Lama, who now lives in exile in India, once worshiped Gyaiqen Xudian (Gyalchen Shugden). In fact, a thangka painting of the Buddhist guardian once hung prominently on a wall in the residence of the Dalai Lama.

In 1978, however, the Dalai Lama ordered that the thangka painting of the Buddhist guardian be removed. Thereafter, he vowed that he would no longer worship the Buddhist guardian, and that “no Tibetan was allowed to do so,” the Dalai Lama ordered. “Anyone who dares to worship Gyaiqen Xudian will no longer be considered my disciple.”

Retribution

In recent years, the Dalai Lama, a self-styled believer in religious freedom, who allegedly stands in firm opposition to any suppression of religion, sought retribution against the innocent guardian of the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine. His staunch disavowal has, in fact, recently gained momentum.

Following years of silence, the Dalai Lama declared a virtual war against a holy spirit of the Gelug Sect in 1994. The Dalai Lama and his followers have repeatedly declared that Gyaiqen Xudian is a ‘Han Ghost’ who lacks favor with Nequn (Nechung), who is often seen as the main guardian of Buddhist doctrine.

In March 1996, the Dalai Lama forcefully disallowed the practice of the Dharma Protector Gyaiqen Xudian during lectures. The Dalai Lama issued a ridiculous accusation that this guardian of Tibetan Buddhism was in some way adversely affecting his government in exile.

Proceeding on the basis of the accusation, he instructed all monasteries and all Living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism to cease worship of Gyaiqen Xudian. The Dalai Lama stressed that anyone worshipping the guardian would be acting against the ‘common cause of Tibet’, and would quite simply be yearning for the Dalai Lama’s own early demise.

The audience attending his lecture on Buddhism was astonished at the remarks. The hysterical Dalai Lama yelled that anyone unwilling to obey his instructions should leave. Members of the Dalai Lama’s government in exile, a group at the beck and call of the Dalai Lama, are forcibly prohibited from worshipping Gyaiqen Xudian, the guardian of the Gelug Sect Buddhist doctrine.

Various related Tibetan departments adopted resolutions and issued statements banning the worship of Gyaiqen. The resolutions and statements, as well as the speeches of the Dalai Lama, were compiled into books and audio-video products for widespread circulation. This Dharma Protector has since been the target of attacks from the Dalai Lama and his followers.

The Dalai Lama’s cronies rushed to areas in India and Nepal inhabited by Tibetans. They forced Tibetans to obey the Dalai Lama’s order to abandon the worship of Gyaiqen Xudain, a figure worshipped by generations. The Dalai Lama’s men proceeded to visit monasteries and private houses, destroying statues of the guardian of the Buddhist doctrine.
Tibetans held differing views on the ban on the generations-old worship of this Dharma Protector. Mounting opposition invited suppression from the Dalai Lama and his men who proceeded to cancel support for students who opposed the Dalai Lama, and went so far as to dismiss government officials who refused to obey.
Faced with rising discontentment amongst Tibetans, the government in exile recently issued a statement to the effect that only “Government departments” were prohibited from worshipping this Dharma Protector, and that individuals were free to make their own decision.

The government in exile dared not admit the fact that various students who refused to obey had been ordered to leave monastic schools. The indisputable fact is that over a dozen Tibetan lamas were driven from Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in southern India.

Opposition

The Dalai Lama’s move has sparked widespread boycott and opposition in Tibetan-inhabited areas both in and outside Tibet. Many highly respected Living Buddhas, and indeed common people, have refused to affix their signature to documents the Dalai Lama and his men have drafted; documents which demand that they abandon worship of this Dharma Protector. They produced various posters and audio products for distribution in areas where there are Tibetans, describing the suffering the Dalai Lama and his men have inflicted on people continuing to worship the guardian of the Buddhist doctrine.

Tibetans living in various areas have been forced to hide their statues of the Dharma Protector.

Tibetan compatriots living in India and Nepal joined in a collective protest opposing the Dalai Lama’s decision and banded together to protect monasteries, lamas and nuns from continual hounding by the Dalai and his men. The protestors also issued statements pointing out the Dalai Lama’s move to violate human rights.

Background

The Dalai Lama has been leading a life in exile for the past 37 years. He has yearned for the day when the Communist Party of China would step down, and has worked hard to turn the tide in China. He predicted that 1990 would be a period ripe for Tibet to “win independence” and that the “Chinese Communist regime” would be toppled between 1995 and 1996. He travelled far and wide seeking support for the independence of Tibet, with his effort was supported by funds raised from Tibetans residing overseas. The group providing his funds, however, is becoming increasingly disappointed to see that the Dalai Lama has been reduced to a mouthpiece of international anti-China forces, and that his predictions are sheer nonsense.

China is in fact gaining greater international prestige, and Tibetans are leading a better life. Tibetan compatriots residing abroad express amazement at the freedom of religious belief enjoyed by their counterparts. Discontent for the Dalai Lama continues to grow, and people have lost confidence in the call for “Tibetan independence”.

Given the situation of spreading discontentment amongst Tibetans residing abroad, the Dalai Lama resorted to what is referred to as “killing a chicken as a warning to monkeys”. This is precisely the reason he flies into a rage when dealing with the guardian of the Buddhist doctrine.

The Dalai Lama, who turned 60 in 1995, predicted: “According to all signs I have gathered from dreams and elsewhere, I will live to an age between 100 to 120 years.” The Dalai Lama instigated a war against the spiritual image in the minds of Tibetans out of the fear that Gyaiqen Xudian, the guardian of the Buddhist doctrine, would somehow disrupt his yearning for longevity.

I am also a Tibetan and I respect you very much that you give a good name to the Tibetan people. You prove that Tibetans are also educated, worldly and capable.

I am very happy you are the prime minister of our Tibetan community in India. They need a good leader like you. However, I have an important question to ask you:

When you become Kalon Tripa, you took over the government when there is a ban on Dorje Shugden from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. But now the Dalai Lama is not the head of Tibetan governments, only the religious head. So Kalon Tripa, I wish to ask you: there are now millions of Dorje Shugden practitioners in India and all around the world. Like myself and my family. Are we Shugden-pas allowed to interact with you? Can we talk to you and meet you?

You are not our Guru. There is no Dharma samaya with you as the Kalon Tripa. So can the Shugden people meet you? Can we come to your events and talks? Can we be a part of the community and people that you are looking after? Actually, you are our leader for ALL Tibetans, yes? So all Tibetans must be allowed to be part of your government and your country.

If we are allowed to talk with you and be part of Tibetans, how can we do this? Can Shugden people go to your hospitals? Can we vote? Can Shugden-pas have yellow passport to travel? Can Shugden children go to the Tibetan schools? Can Shugden practitioners apply for a job in your government? This is very clear and easy to understand.

You are the democratic leader of Tibetan people. Does this mean you are the same like American President Obama or Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron? They look after all their people no matter what they choose for their religions and culture. Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron allow everybody from their country to meet them and they give all government benefits and welfare to all their people. Will you be same like them? Or you will be just a second Dalai Lama and create separation within your own people?

Please consider this. I request you to please think what leader you will be for the Tibetan people. Please be real leader for ALL PEOPLE. We are all Tibetan people also, like you.

My prayers and Tashi Deleg to you.
[YOUR NAME]

Buddhist monks and nuns of the Shugden Society
demonstrate against the Dalai Lama in front of
New York’s Radio City Music Hall
Thursday, July 17, 2008.

It was not an object lesson in Buddhist dispassion. On Thursday afternoon, following a teaching by the Dalai Lama at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, a group of 500 or more audience members screamed at and spat at a mixed group of about 100 people, both Tibetan and Western, who had been peacefully protesting the high lama. Police felt it prudent to move in fast, with horses, and herded the smaller group into buses for their own protection. The pro-Dalai Lama crowd had also flung money at their foes, an insult indicating that they had been bought (presumably by the high lama’s enemies in Beijing). Said one of the anti–Dalai Lama protesters, Kelsang Pema, who is British, has a Tibetan name and is the spokeswoman for the Western Shugden Society, “If this is what the Dalai Lama’s people do to us in America, can you imagine what they would have done somewhere else?” The combination of adrenaline, relief and the prospect of coverage left her sounding almost elated.

What had prompted the unnerving Buddhist-on-Buddhist confrontation was an intra-Tibetan problem that seems poised to go international. The protesters, devotees of a fierce “protector deity” called Dorje Shugden, claim that the spiritual leader of Tibet has curtailed their civil rights as part of a religious vendetta. For now, the allegations of the Shugdenpas (as they are known) are hard to prove or disprove. But even a brief investigation provides a vivid look into what experts call “the shadow side” of Tibetan Buddhism, contrasting the tolerance and rationalism that the Dalai Lama represents globally and the theological hardball over mystical principles that he seems to play on his home turf.

Dorje Shugden is one of hundreds of “protector deities” that distinguish Tibetan Buddhism from more purely philosophical varieties. Historically, the god is associated with maintaining, sometimes violently, the purity of Dalai Lama’s own lineage of teachers and gurus, called the Gelugpa. Indeed the high Lama himself prayed to Shugden for years; but the sect’s purist and exclusionary emphases contradicted his own outreach to other Tibetan lineages, and in 1996 he began demanding that monastic abbots renounce the deity.

Those who did not suffered consequences, although how dire is yet unclear. Shugdenpas have long claimed to have been shunned and harassed. A 1998 Amnesty International report, however, said Shugdenpa complaints fell outside its purview of “grave violations of fundamental human rights,” adding that “while recognizing that a spiritual debate can be contentious, [we] cannot become involved in debate on spiritual issues.” The sect suffered a public relations setback in 1997, when Indian police were quoted in the press saying that practitioners were suspects in the ritual slaughter of one of the Dalai Lama’s close associates. (The suspects have never been tracked down or tried, however, and the Shugdenpas claim they were never proven to be devotees.)

Shugden practitioners deny that they are fundamentalist, purist or violent, and have renewed their complaints in light of an intensifying crackdown by the Dalai Lama. He — or people acting in his perceived interests — has expanded the loyalty demand from abbots to monks and even laypeople as far afield as France. In a nod to the Tibetan Government in Exile’s self-definition as a democracy, each monastery has been taking a referendum on Shugden. When the “anti” faction inevitably wins, the monks pledge to renounce Shugden and deny spiritual or material aid to those who hold out. In transcripts that Shugdenpas allege record the Dalai Lama’s comments, he sounds atypically (to the Western ear) authoritarian. “Shugden devotees are growing in your monastery,” he is quoted as snapping at one abbot. “If you are this inept, you had better resign.”

What pushes the current allegations into a potential human rights matter is the contention that those who won’t take the oaths are denied monastery I.D. cards that the Tibetan Government in Exile allegedly requires to process visa requests through to the Indian government. (Most of the Tibetan diaspora lives in India.) “Families are being torn apart,” reads Shugden literature.

Tashi Wangdi, the Dalai Lama’s American representative, denied the allegations. “I have heard about the ,” he said. “But as far as official policy goes, there’s no discrimination.” Regarding the oath to give no assistance, he said, “I am sure that no Tibetan government administration office has asked anyone to sign this document.” However, he notes, “It is within the rights of individual organizations to have conditions that they stipulate for members.”

The problem is that in Tibet most people shun those whom they think the Dalai Lama wants them to shun. The protesters display photos of signs they say have gone up recently in Tibet urging shopkeepers not to do business with tainted monks. They could be written by anybody, but most people assume they know the ultimate author of the signs.

Experts seem to think that there is something to the Shugden allegations. “There is considerable anecdotal evidence to support what they say,” Stephen Batchelor, co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry, wrote in an email to TIME, although, he adds, “I have yet to see any hard evidence.” Wrote Donald Lopez of the University of Michigan, “Buddhist monks who apply for an Identity Certificates must also submit a letter form their abbot. I was told that there may have been cases in which, contrary to the policy of the Government-in-Exile, monks who worship Shugden have not been provided with such a letter.”

Pema, the Shugden spokesperson, observes correctly that even if the Dalai Lama is not behind the current Shugden woes, “if he wanted it to stop, all he’d have to do would be to snap his fingers.” Yet no one expects that. Most scholars e-mailed for this story were hesitant to line up behind the Shugdenpas, partly because of insufficient data, partly, perhaps, because of a feeling that this was a Tibetan issue (“these are monk wars,” said one), partly because many are themselves deeply invested in the Dalai Lama, and partly because of the whiff of fundamentalism and recklessness that clings to the sect. Shugden “is about vengeance,” says Robert Barnett of Columbia University. “I think that any talk of [its devotion to] compassion is misleading.” Barnett believes that the movement’s true goals must be “brought out into the open” — especially to innocent Westerners — before “the real social concerns that must exist” in Tibet can be addressed.

“People see hope in the Dalai Lama,” says Shelley Turner, another protester spokesperson, with some empathy. “Seeing these protests against him must make them feel hopeless.” She means, when they finally hear the harsh truth about him. Others surely believe the truth is on his side.

The original version of the story had the name of the Western Shugden Society spokesperson as Kelsang Norden. Her name is Kelsang Pema. The original version also misinterpreted the 1998 Amnesty International report, saying that the human rights group believed the claims of the Shugdenpas were exaggerated. Amnesty International’s more nuanced view is now quoted in the story.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1824531,00.html

Relics Expo organizer “Gelugpa Buddhist Association Singapore” not recognized by HH Dalai Lama

Singapore — The office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has expressed its concern about the so-named “The Buddha and His Principal Disciples’ Relics Grand Cultural World Exhibition”, from December 9 to 17, 2006 at the Singapore Expo, hosted by the “Gelugpa Buddhist Association Singapore”.

A statement from H.H.’s office also states that the organizing party of the expo – although branding itself as a Gelugpa centre, is not recognized as such by H.H. the Dalai Lama nor H.H. the Ganden Trisur Rinpoche (the Official Head Emeritus of the Gelugpa Tradition). Therefore, labelling itself as a “Gelugpa” centre is inaccurate and misleading.

The Dalai Lama’s office further clarifies that its position is clear and consistent with regard to the worship of “dolgyal-shugden” which it strongly considers as “worship of the unenlightened evil spirit”.

The statement further elaborates that students of the Dharma who continue to rely upon a worldly spirit such as dolgyal-shugden actually contradicts the Buddha’s own advice against taking refuge in samsaric spirits.

By participating in events related to the practice of this worldly spirit, one effectively “breaks” one’s Refuge Vows and will effectively become a Non-Buddhist, negating the source and root of all Dharmic practices, the statement continues.

In a separate announcement, the Charitable Assistance Society (CAS) of Thousand-Arm Chenrezig have, on behalf of the Tibetan Buddhist community in Singapore, urged all to adhere to the H.H. Dalai Lama’s office advisory.

The CAS statement further urged Tibetan Buddhist practitioners to ….inform all other unknowing Buddhists, that, according to the Buddha’s holy Teachings as preserved in every tradition and lineage as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice, taking refuge in worldly-spirit, in this context, this programme’s uncompromising stand of practising and taking refuge in dolgyal-shugden, effectively contravenes one’s Refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

The CAS also said the organizing party have failed to clarify or justify the authenticity of the source of their claimed “relics”, most of which were presented as plasticine-looking coloured balls. “The organization too claimed many of their “relics” as being originated from Lord Buddha’s blood, bones, saliva and other bodily parts,” the statement concluded.

The Dalai Lama is no Pope
by Visakha Kawasaki, Kandy, Sri Lanka, The Buddhist Channel, Dec 6, 2006

I write with regards to the article, “Dalai Lama’s office disapproves Singapore Expo on ‘Buddha Relics’”

Aside from the fact that the Dalai Lama seems to have some problems with discipline within his own sect, with the expo’s organizers claiming to be Gelugpa, it needs saying that the Dalai Lama is not in a position to declare that all Buddhists who revere relics of the Teacher or his chief Disciples are somehow worshipping “the unenlightened evil spirit!”

He is certainly mistaken too when he claims that by showing reverence for the relics of the Buddha and other Arhats, a Buddhist “effectively ‘breaks’ one’s Refuge Vows and will effectively become a Non-Buddhist, negating the source and root of all Dharmic practices.”

The Dalai Lama’s followers have been urged to ….inform all other unknowing Buddhists, that, according to the Buddha’s holy Teachings as preserved in every tradition and lineage as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice, taking refuge in worldly (sic) -spirit, in this context, this programme’s uncompromising stand of practising and taking refuge in dulgyal-shugden, effectively contravenes one’s Refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Although the Dalai Lama may deserve respect as the head of his sect, he is not a Buddhist Pope, and might do well to educate himself about other Buddhist traditions, and avoid pronouncements of such a “catholic” nature.