Since the ban on the Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden, Thurman has maintained a deliberately offensive stance towards Shugden practitioners, comparing them to the Taliban, and accusing them of being Chinese spies against the Tibetans.

In 2008, the Western Shugden Society wrote a letter to Robert Thurman urging him to produce proof to support his statement that Shugden people are sectarian, like the Buddhist Taliban and “working for the Chinese.” The full letter is reproduced below:

10th September 2008

An Open Letter
To Robert Thurman,

We the Western Shugden Society are writing this letter regarding your previous public statement that Shugden people are sectarian, naming them “the Buddhist Taliban”; and your recent public statement that the Western Shugden Society protestors are “working for the Chinese”.

As you know, Shugden people want to practice the Gelug tradition purely, without mixing with the Nyingma tradition. Because of this the Dalai Lama has said to Shugden people that they are sectarian. In truth, the Nyingmapa also want to practice their Nyingma tradition purely without mixing with the Gelug tradition; and it is the same for the Sakyapa and Kagyupa. So according to the Dalai Lama’s view, the Nyingmapa, Sakyapa and Kagyupa are also sectarian, but he only says that Shugden people are sectarian. In reality he is lying.

If you, Robert Thurman, are not yourself lying, then you must show your evidence to prove your public statements: that Shugden people are sectarian, “the Buddhist Taliban” as you named them; and that the Western Shugden Society is working for the Chinese. You should show your evidence publicly through the internet before 25th October 2008. If your evidence does not appear by this date then we will conclude that you have lied publicly and are misleading people.

Sincerely,
Western Shugden Society

By 25 October 2008, Thurman had not responded to the letter in any way. It wouldn’t be unfair therefore, to consider that he has indeed lied publicly and misled people by what he is saying.

Thurman is in an especially precarious situation as someone who has already garnered a reputation as a kind of authority in Buddhism. To make statements like this is not something to be taken lightly, especially when he has nothing to substantiate what he says.

Surely, as an academic, he should understand better than anybody else that when one conveys any statements as fact, the ability to produce supporting evidence is an indivisible part of the academic process. Above all else, as a respected academic, he can (and should) be held responsible for the accuracy and truth of whatever he communicates.

Thousands of people read his books, most likely with the view that it might help their understanding and practice of Buddhism. If he is reacting in such irresponsible and hurtful ways in relations to one of the most crucial issues of Tibetan Buddhism today, a shadow of doubt would surely be cast over the rest of his writings, talks and teachings too.

Further, as a Buddhist, he has a double responsibility to upholding the truth. He should be abiding by the most basic refuge vows of not lying and not using harsh speech by launching false accusations and defamatory comments at fellow practitioners. That is the least that can be expected of someone who was even a monk for two years and is considered a close friend of the Dalai Lama.

For all the unpleasant words he has issued against Shugden practitioners however, it is his silence in response to this open letter that has been most deafening. It proves, above all, the falsities of what he has been saying and a great disappointment that someone who is so highly respected in Buddhism could have such little empathy towards fellow Buddhists.

The information in the following article is extracted from the blogs http://robertthurman.wordpress.com, http://dorjeshugdentruth.wordpress.com and
http://www.westernshugdensociety.org. For more interesting reads on the subject, please visit the blogs directly.

The 14th Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman. Photo from www.thinkglobalarts.org

Everyone who knows the Dalai Lama is most likely to also know of Robert Thurman. Here is a man who has been inextricably linked to the Dalai Lama since the 1960s, when Tibetan Buddhism was just starting to grow in the world. Many well-known Buddhist texts today are attributed to Thurman, making him a leading scholar and authority in the Buddhist academic circles.

Thurman is also known to have been the very first Westerner to have taken ordination vows as a monk in 1964. He says, at the time, “All I wanted was to stay in the 2,500-year-old Buddhist community of seekers of enlightenment, to be embraced as a monk. My inner world was rich, full of insights and delightful visions, with a sense of luck and privilege at having access to such great teachers and teachings and the time to study and try to realize them.”

Two years later, however, Thurman decided that the life as a monk was not what he wanted, so he returned his vows and focused his career instead in academia.

The New York Times magazine refers to him as “The Dalai Lama’s man in America”, he still holds the respected position of Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and is still highly regarded within the Buddhist academic community. Surely this is a person who knows everything there is to know about Tibetan Buddhist practices, philosophies, culture and traditions.

But there is another side to him, revealed through one of Tibetan Buddhism’s darkest hours.

In light of the Dalai Lama’s ban of the Protector Dorje Shugden, Robert Thurman has remained stoically quiet on the subject, refusing to comment nor to respond to any sincere letters written to him on the subject. Is this the behavior of someone who was once a monk and now a leading figure of Buddhism in the West?

Well, perhaps the very fact that he could hold his monk vows for only two years is testament enough to his fickleness. Little do most people know that he is also remembered within Buddhist circles for having begged high lamas for Dorje Shugden’s initiation and was denied, precisely because of his unstable nature.

Thurman is not Tibetan. It may be his personal decision not to continue his practice of Dorje Shugden and that is his prerogative. However, though he seems to be a reputed Western academic, he doesn’t engage in any dialogue or discussion on this with fellow Western practitioners.

Instead he is seen to openly insult Shugden practitioners using greatly offensive terms to speak about them – he has been documented calling Shugdenpas “the Buddhist taliban” and accusing them of being Chinese spies. He seems to be playing into Tibetan politics more than standing up for the modern Buddhist practice of his own people.

Is this the behavior of a former monk and a supposed expert in Buddhist studies? For someone who has made Buddhist teachings and philosophy such an integral part of his life for the last five decades, shouldn’t he at least have a little empathy for the plight and practice of fellow Buddhists – especially those of his own country and people?

For more stories about Robert Thurman, visit these comprehensive websites:

• http://robertthurman.wordpress.com
• http://dorjeshugdentruth.wordpress.com
• http://www.westernshugdensociety.org.

Photo from http://daylife.com

How a leading Dalai Lama supporter and Buddhist scholar begged for Dorje Shugden’s initiation.

Anyone interested in the subjects of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama will know of Robert Thurman, a self-professed “personal friend” of the Dalai Lama and prolific writer about the Dalai Lama and his teachings.

In light of the Dorje Shugden issue over the last decade or so, Robert Thurman has remained significantly quiet on the subject, refusing to answer any open letters to him nor engage in debate. He is even known to have launched accusations against Dorje Shugden practitioners, calling them Chinese spies. He seems to be very stoically on the side of the Dalai Lama, and not at all empathetic to the plight of Shugden practitioners suffering under the ban.

Now, we learn that in fact, Thurman was known to have “begged” very prominent high Lamas for Dorje Shugden initiation.

In his paper, “Dalai Lama Dorje Shugden”*, respected translator Helmut Gassner – who worked very closely with the Dalai Lama as his translator for many years – recalls,

For his part, Robert Thurman thought it appropriate to portray for Newsweek magazine a murderous Dorje Shugden cult describing it as “the Taliban of Buddhism.” Yet Robert Thurman, presumably before he begot Uma, had been one of the first Western monks with Buddhist vows and had tried twice to obtain Dorje Shugden initiation from revered masters well before the controversy began. Both masters, however, had refused on grounds of his fickle character. Thurman should know quite well what Dorje Shugden actually is about.

(It is interesting to note also that Robert Thurman was one of the first Westerners to have been ordained as a monk in the Tibetan tradition. However, he was also among the first to disrobe, returning his vows only 2 years after taking them. Fickle? It certainly seems so.)

An online commentator and former supporter of the Dalai Lama who goes by the moniker “Thomas Canada” further confirms that these Lamas who denied Thurman the initiation were the renowned Dromo Geshe Rinpoche and Gelek Rinpoche. He writes,

Gelek told me [...] that Thurman even begged him, and it was no. For however that is decided. [Dr. Ursula Bernis] (personal attendant to Dromo Geshe Rinpoche) told me Dromo Geshe Rinpoche denied Bob several times. [She told me] that Bob used to push and connive for the Empowerment and he was always denied. Dromo Geshe said, Bob crawled across his floor begging and crying for it and he told him no way.

Interestingly, it wasn’t that these lamas had denied everyone the initiation. Thomas Canada himself reveals that he had received the initiation, along with other prominent personalities at the time, such as poet Alan Ginsberg. Also, these lamas did have close connections with Thurman; they were not just lamas that he met in passing.

For example. Dromo Geshe Rinpoche founded the New York and New Delhi Tibet House and Thurman is very much involved in running the New York branch. So their decision not to have given him the initiation cannot have been an arbitrary one, but one they made in full knowledge of how Thurman is or how he would maintain the practice.

Observing the way he now behaves towards Dorje Shugden practitioners, it is clear why the lamas had refused him the initiation “on grounds of his fickle character”. Would he have done even more harm if he had been given the initiation? Perhaps. And if he did, he would have damaged both his own spiritual path and the faith of the many thousands who read his books and follow his writings.

* Download the full paper by Helmut Gassner here

The information in this article was extracted from the blog http://robertthurman.wordpress.com For more interesting reads on the subject, please visit the blog directly.

I am writing to you with great concern over a very urgent matter. I request you to please pay attention to this, because it is affecting Tibetan people’s relationship with China and the potential problems that can arise.

For many years, the Tibetan government, people and the Dalai Lama himself have been trying to impose a ban on the Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden. The reasons given for this ban is that (1) Dorje Shugden harms the Dalai Lama’s life and (2) Dorje Shugden threatens the cause for Tibetan independence. (3) You also make accusations that Dorje Shugden practitioners are spies of the Chinese government.

We all know that these statements are untrue. It is not possible for Chenrezig Dalai Lama to be harmed by any being, especially not an enlightened Dharma Protector like Dorje Shugden. Also, you have never produced any solid proof that Shugden practitioners are really Chinese spies or being financially supported by the Chinese. The claims you have made are completely false. They become very negative and harmful rumors.

By openly making claims like this, you are giving China the tools and fuel to use against the Tibetans. This also creates instability in India and for the Indians who have been extremely kind to host the Tibetan community. Should any conflict arise between nations, YOU would be directly responsible for it, by making such negative comments against the Chinese.

This puts your own Tibetan people and your fellow Indian compatriots in a politically harmful situation, as you are directly creating cause for misunderstanding and confusion between people, nations and cultures.

When you speak like this about such unfounded things, it also reflects very badly on you, as a modern and democratic secular government. You show yourself to be very petty and that you have no integrity, because you are simply making up statements and accusations against your own people (Tibetans) and other powerful nations (China) without any proof.

I am writing to request you, with great concern, to put an immediate stop to spreading such rumors and making these kinds of statements. It will be very harmful for your own government and people, and international relations.

All of us around the world look forward to seeing that the CTA stop talking this damaging and insulting ways. Instead, I hope you will create more positive actions and speak in more correct and beneficial ways.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Dear Dr. Lobsang Sangay,

I am writing to congratulate you on your democratically elected position as the leader of the Central Tibetan Administration. With no disrespect to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I am happy to see that the Tibetan community worldwide finally has someone who is secular to lead them in secular goals, objectives and prospects. It has been over sixty years of exile for the Tibetans who have lost their families, their country and their land. And unfortunately, at this current stage, it does not seem that you will get Tibet back in any form, not even autonomy.

While I am not Tibetan, I have several Tibetan friends all over the world and they have all expressed to me the same sentiment with regard to their sadness and loss over their homeland and that there has been absolutely zero progress towards regaining Tibet’s independence. However, my Tibetan friends will never dare voice this within the Tibetan community for fear that they will be branded as Chinese spies, although they are not. From what I gather, there is no freedom of speech within the Tibetan exile community although it is openly declared that people can speak freely.

As a British citizen, I am taking this opportunity to write to you to share an objective point of view. The Tibetan identity and culture are slowly eroding. The culture in Tibet itself has been taken over by the Chinese government. If you just visited Tibet today, you would see that its whole spiritual history and heart is gone. The feelings of the Tibetans in the refugee camps are resigned, unhappy and angry. The monastic refugee community seems to be in a slightly better state although there is still division in certain monasteries due to the Dorje Shugden issue.

The Dorje Shugden issue is very representative of the focus and narrow-mindedness of some of the members of the CTA, formerly known as the Tibetan Government in Exile. Any government or organisation should never have religious intolerance in any shape, form or manner over the people under their rule. In fact, the CTA should strengthen connections with all the teachers, devotees and practitioners of the Dorje Shugden group as they are powerful, have global influence and connections and are well respected. You should bring them in to help speak on behalf of all Tibetans to bring success to your cause. The CTA should not segregate or ostracise them. It is not logical for any people who are living as refugees to cause further separation among yourselves and lessen your population by something as silly as religious discrimination. Instead, you should be gathering strength in numbers and power.

It is sad to see that this discrimination is coming from the person with the highest authority within your community – the Dalai Lama himself. As someone from a first world country, it is shocking for me to see that the spiritual leader of one of the largest religions in the world has content on his website that speaks out against religious groups and minorities (It can be seen here: dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden). This is neither accepting nor kind, which are the very qualities that define Buddhism! This is unheard of for any religious leader anywhere in the world – perhaps the only people who continue this kind of dated practice are the Taliban which we have heard terrible things about! I am sure the Dalai Lama is not like this, but please understand that publically posting material like this on his official website creates a very damaging and unkind reputation for His Holiness and for all the people who are his followers and supporters. It would be a great service and benefit to your people and your much respected spiritual leader if you can remove such detrimental content.

China is indirectly doing the Central Tibetan Administration a favour – they have been the target of protests by Tibetans everywhere, so that Tibetans have actually forgotten that up until NOW, the Tibetan government in exile has not done anything for them. At the most basic level of welfare, the Tibetan government has not even provided any good opportunities for their own people to grow and develop after their education. After all, how many successful, well-known Tibetan scientists, business leaders or entrepreneurs are there in the world?

Dr Lobsang Sangay, you are probably the most successful Tibetan on a secular level, having been the first Tibetan to earn an SJD from Harvard Law School. Now you have been elected as the Kalon Tripa, what plans do you have to motivate Tibetans, provide a platform for them to be proud of their culture and unite them? Indeed, I understand you have a lot on your plate but I do hope that under your leadership, your government will no longer have any religious intolerance in any form, as is practised in any other first world nation.

Since you are the political head of the CTA, I suggest that you can improve the situation for the Tibetans worldwide by focusing on the education and qualifications to make Tibetans more successful. I hope you are able to deliver your promise to produce 10,000 Tibetan professionals in 10 years regardless of their religious orientation. If you are able to do this, then when successful Tibetans speak up, the rest of the world will actually listen and do something to help the Tibetan cause. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a Tibetan Richard Gere?

I understand that it is an incredible challenge for you to take over the political leadership from the legendary figure of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama has made the Tibetan issue known to the world although there has still been NO improvement to the Tibetan situation. What will happen after His Holiness passes away? I hope it will not lead to a complete disintegration of the Tibetan identity. What will Tibetans be proud of? Which Tibetans are role models for the second and third generation Tibetans in exile? It is time to focus on the secular image of Tibet. It is time to unite all Tibetans regardless of their religious beliefs.

There is a fast, quick fix that the CTA can immediately implement to make the CTA more credible as a secular administration. Negative references to the Dorje Shugden issue must be removed. The CTA does not need the negative news with regard to the suppression of Shugden practitioners and denial of basic human rights, like travel papers, education, access to basic necessities etc. This issue makes the CTA look superstitious, unfair, backwards and illogical. It is very important NOW for the CTA to distance from the Dalai Lama’s spiritual edicts which were issued previously. I am not personally interested in the Dorje Shugden issue and I don’t understand any of the religious aspects of this issue but this is a something which can seriously damage the CTA’s reputation among Tibetans as well as around the world.

There are more people in the world who do not know about Dorje Shugden than people who do know about these religious issues. It would be much more beneficial for your government NOT to speak so publically about these kinds of issues as it would help to improve your government’s public image. Talking and focusing on these religious aspects makes the CTA look like you have religious intolerance and disrespect the freedom and rights of your own people. This creates a very negative reputation.

Tibetans need to step into the 21st century now and realise that the way forward is the separation of church and state. The Dalai Lama himself has acknowledged this. This is not the time of the Salem witch-hunts or the Spanish Inquisition. It is the time for creating progressiveness and unity among a disheartened, disparate people who desperately need it.

As the head of the CTA, you have the unique opportunity and position to bring the Tibetan people together and into modernity.

I sincerely hope you succeed.

With warmest wishes for your and Tibet’s maturity and progress,
YOUR NAME

Once a month, a joyful procession of Tibetan refugees – many of them disfigured by frostbite suffered while escaping their homeland over the Himalayas – files into the Dalai Lama’s exile palace at the Indian hill station of Dharamsala. For these visitors, His Holiness is an emanation of the Compassionate Buddha, and his blessing is their reward for having survived the icy Himalayan crossing.

During one audience this summer, a brawny young Tibetan showed a curious lack of enthusiasm about meeting the Dalai Lama. The youth’s attention was focused instead on security in the palace and the layout of the buildings inside. This Tibetan, named Chomphel, was a Chinese spy, Indian police say. His mission may have been to scope out security flaws for a possible attack on the Tibetan religious leader.

As the faithful were busily spinning prayer wheels, Chomphel was seen mapping out the open temple courtyard where the Dalai Lama often conducts ceremonies. The visitor timed the routine of monks who fill the altar butter lamps and sweep the temple, and he watched the movements of Indian police and soldiers around the town. Eventually, Indian undercover agents spotted him sketching details of the army garrison. He was trailed and then last week arrested. Inside a false bottom of his suitcase were maps and other documents relating to the Dalai Lama’s security.

Under questioning, Chomphel allegedly confessed that he was a member of a Chinese army intelligence unit. He’s no ordinary refugee, says police superintendent Kashmir Chand Sadyal. He’s very knowledgeable and quite an expert in several things, including cartography.

Tibetan security officials disclosed that during interrogation, Chomphel said that his superiors had sent him to India to gather intelligence for a further action against the Dalai Lama involving 10 to 15 Chinese agents later this year. Many of his drawings centered on the temple outside the Dalai Lama’s residence, leading some Tibetan security officials in Dharamsala to believe that the Chinese might have intended to blow up the house during one of the spiritual leader’s gatherings. Next month, film star Richard Gere and other Tibetan Buddhism devotees are expected to attend a Dalai Lama teaching session at this same temple.

Following the arrest of Chomphel and a suspected Tibetan accomplice, the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in a plot to kill the Tibetan leader. Spokesman Zhu Bangzao added that Beijing was willing to negotiate with the Dalai Lama once he stopped activities aimed at splitting the motherland. Nevertheless, Indian officials believe China closely monitors the exiled Tibetans and frequently tries to stir up trouble between Dharamsala’s Indians and Tibetan refugees.

Says a senior police officer: The Chinese are sending many spies across to Dharamsala. Some exiles also maintain that China, in its battle against the Tibetans’ god-king, sometimes mixes Marxism with a touch of black magic. They accuse Beijing of recruiting the followers of a wrathful Tibetan spirit known as Dorje Shugden.

This deity has tens of thousands of Tibetan worshippers – plus a contingent of Western Buddhist fans. Described as having four fangs sharp like the ice of a glacier, three blood-red eyes and hair like flaming serpents, Dorje Shugden has become a supernatural enemy of the Dalai Lama. His fashion sense attests to his ugly mood: Dorje Shugden sports a necklace of 50 severed heads.

Repeatedly over the past decade, the Dalai Lama has warned that Dorje Shugden poses a threat to both Tibet’s struggle to regain independence from China and his own personal safety. What more could the Chinese want in a new, otherworldly friend?

Editor’s note: Dorje Shugden does NOT have severed heads in his iconography. Regarding Dorje Shugden as a threat to Tibet’s independence, HH the Dalai Lama has said for decades that he is NOT seeking Tibetan independence but only autonomy. How can Dorje Shugden be a threat to that then? HH the Dalai Lama has also said that Dorje Shugden threatens his life. HH the Dalai Lama is in his mid 70s which is a very respectable age! Dorje Shugden is also not “new” since he manifested around 350 years ago!

This combat between the Dalai Lama and the snarling deity has already crossed out of the realm of sorcery and into reality – with gruesome consequences. A respected Tibetan dialectics professor who publicly opposed Dorje Shugden worship was ritually slaughtered in February of last year along with two students. The academic, Lobsang Gyatso, 70, had been one of the Dalai Lama’s closest allies in the struggle with the deity.

Indian detectives discovered that the six suspected Tibetan assassins made several telephone calls to the Dorje Shugden Society headquarters in New Delhi en route to the slayings. Says former police superintendent Rajeev Kumar, who investigated the case: The link is clearly established between the murderers and the Dorje Shugden cult.

The killings were religiously motivated. The assassins fled through Nepal back to Tibet and have since vanished. Their border crossing was allegedly unhampered by Chinese authorities, even though returning Tibetans are often subjected to arrest and interrogation.

Editor’s note: There has been no concrete proof of the link between Dorje Shugden practitioners and the regretful murder. Even if the murder was perpetuated by Dorje Shugden practitioners, it does not mean that all Dorje Shugden practitioners are murderers, like not all Muslims are terrorists. This is a gross generalization and imputed wrong view.

Tibetan exiles and Indian investigators suspect Beijing is manipulating the feud between Shugden supporters and the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile. Across Tibet, the Chinese are giving funds to rebuild Shugden shrines and temples destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

Sonam Topgyal, a Dalai Lama cabinet minister, claims that government workers who professed to be devotees of the wrathful god were given special cash bonuses for the Tibetan New Year. The Chinese press gleefully prints accusations by Shugden supporters that the Dalai Lama is imposing religious dictatorship on his people. Indian authorities are investigating the possibility of a link between the two alleged Chinese spies and Shugden devotees. But according to Geshe Cheme Tsering, general secretary of the Dorje Shugden Society in New Delhi, “This is just police speculation. We don’t come into the picture at all.”

Still, those in charge of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s security are taking threats against his life seriously. Last January, police began receiving reports that the Dalai Lama might be in danger from disgruntled Shugden-ites. They urged him to cancel a trip to Tibetan refugee communities in southern India – a center of Shugden support – but he refused. “For us, the threat perception is very serious, and we’ve got to maintain round-the-clock surveillance,” says an official.

Besides the Dalai Lama’s personal security force of Tibetans, a contingent of 100 policemen now guards the Tibetan leader’s residence at Dharamsala. Some Indian officials doubt that the Chinese would want to kill off the Dalai Lama, especially so soon after U.S. President Bill Clinton, on his recent trip to Beijing, championed the exile leader.

A better strategy, say Indian experts on China, would be to wait for the Dalai Lama, who is now 63, simply to die. Then there would be nobody to defy Beijing’s rule in Tibet. But the Chinese may not have the patience to wait for him to pass away naturally. A secret 1994 Chinese government report, leaked to human rights groups, admonished that to kill a snake you must crush his head.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054287,00.html

Dalai Lama’s Demons Part 1

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Dalai Lama’s Demons Part 2

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By FRANCE 24 (Text) / Capucine Henry and Nicolas Haque (video)

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is revered as a hero by his people and respected world-wide for his peaceful philosophy. Today, however, there are cracks at the heart of his community.

A minority of Tibetans exiled in India, including monks, no longer believe in his leadership, and are shunned by their peers. France 24 correspondents Capucine Henry and Nicolas Haque take a closer look into the widening rift that threatens to tear apart the Tibetan people.

In a hitherto peaceful village of Tibetan refugees in southern India, certain monks can no longer enter their monastery, and are banned from stores and public places, including hospitals. Their crime? Revering a god considered a demon by the Dalai Lama.

The controversial Buddhist deity of Dorje Shugden lies at the heart of the conflict. Considered by some as an enlightened tutelary deity and by others as a malevolent force, it was labeled a demon by the Dalai Lama himelf. He made this clear last January, in a speech imbued with rare violence at a Tibetan university in Southern India.

A Historic Speech

“I have meditated and considered (my decision to put aside the Shugden) at length in my soul and spirit before coming to the right decision”, he said.  People have killed, lied, fought each other and set things alight in the name of this deity. These monks must be expelled from all monasteries. If they are not happy, you can tell them that the Dalai Lama himself asked that this be done, and it is very urgent.”

The speech was a historic moment in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, and the beginning of a schism which could exclude the four million Tibetans followers of Shugden. A few weeks after the Dalai Lama’s speech, Shugden monks could no longer enter monasteries. They regroup themselves outside village walls and meditate on why the Dalai Lama has excluded him.

“Can the Dalai Lama really ban an entire religion?” asks one. “We are in the right, he’s the one who is being incoherent. On one hand, he’s always preaching freedom of religion and compassion, but on the other he’s forbidding us to worship the god we choose”, says another.

Apartheid in Buddhist Land

Photos of Shugden leaders are posted on city walls, branding them as traitors. Signs at the entrance of stores and hospitals forbid Shugden followers from entry. It’s apartheid, in Buddhist land.

Our reporters followed an ostracized Buddhist monk as he tried to affront the fellow villagers who have banned him. “We’re not violating Buddha’s teachings, and we’re excluded from everywhere just because of our religion” he complains.

“Aren’t you ashamed of betraying the Dalai Lama? You’re a monk! He is our only pillar, the only person we can count on,” he is asked.

In India, Shugden followers are forced to go into hiding. “I fled my house three days ago” says an old woman taken in by a family 300 kilometers away from her home. “I was the only Shugden in my village. Every day I grew more afraid of attacks.I had to block my door with stones for people not to break into my house”.

Pro-Chinese ‘traitors’

Behind this Shugden witch-hunt lies the fear of Chinese infiltration in the ranks of the Tibetan refugees. In the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government, Shugden followers, with their open Chinese sympathies are considered a political threat.

“The Shugden and the Chinese are obviously allies,” says the Tibetan Prime Minister, professor Samdhong Rinpoche. “Their cults all over the world are financed by the Chinese”.

He adds that “people are afraid of Shugden violence. They are like terrorists, they will stop at nothing, everyone knows this.” To prove his point, he shows our reporters the photo of the murder of a leading Buddhist monk and two of his disciples in 1997. Tibetans are certain the Shugden are behind the murder.

A leading Shugden figure, Mahalama Losbang Yechi, defends his links with the Chinese community: “I approve the Chinese presence in Tibet. What we are living with the Dalai Lama today shows how authoritarian his theocratic regime must have been in the past. It was much more violent than what Tibetans are living today under Chinese rule.”

Yechi has filed a lawsuit against the Dalai Lama in an Indian high court for religious persecution. He denies acting on the orders of Chinese authorities.

Shugden followers, willingly or not, have become the symbol of a schism that threatens the struggle for Tibetan autonomy. For that, thousands of refugees have begun to pay a price.