American Buddhist Net

I am writing to respond to some of the comments made in this blog posting.

1. First you say that the WSS is creating the impression that this happened overnight on the whim of the Dalai Lama. This is half-false, half-correct. We are not saying this happened overnight, rather there has been a systematic campaign over the last 30 years to completely destroy the practice of Dorje Shugden, with the Dalai Lama's own stated goal 'to erase even the name of Dorje Shugden from history'. Hitler said the same thing during the 'Night of Long Knives' in Poland. So this is not an overnight thing. But all of this is definitely on the whim of the Dalai Lama. There is no source of this dispute other than him. If he were not speaking out against the practice or using State power to enforce his opinion, then none of this would ever be. It is he who is basing government policy on dough-balls, strange dreams about somebody with a beard and the utterings of somebody in a trance. At the end of the day, the only argument the opponents of the practice have is 'the Dalai Lama says so'. Every other argument has been thoroughly refuted. If he stopped, this whole thing would stop.

2. You say that Shugden practitioners brought this situation onto themselves because they kept 'pushing the issue.' If you read the account from the person at Sera monastary, what his account essentially amounts to is the Shugden practitioners had the audacity to 'insist' on continuing to engage in their practice 'openly', and to even 'buy statues' despite the fact that they knew the Dalai Lama was against the practice and that it would aggravate the other monks in the monastary. They should have instead been good monks and just quietly did as they were told, not creating any trouble. Hmmmm, lets think about this. If you follow this logic, then Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks likewise are to be blamed for the white backlash against the civil rights movement in the U.S. They had the audacity to insist on being able to ride in that bus just like those white folks, and 'openly' want to be able to drink from the same water fountains, and, can you believe it, they even wanted to attend the same Churches!!! They did this despite the fact that they knew the good White-folks of the South would be most upset. How dare they! They should have just quietly led their segregated life and not complained. For that matter, what about that Ghandi guy? What was he thinking...

3. You say popular opinion was with the Dalai Lama. Well of course it was. After 30 years of relentless propaganda saying that Dorje Shugden is an evil spirit who is to blame for every Tibetan misfortune and that anybody who engages in the practice is a blood-thirsty murdering Chinese collaborator, what else is popular opinion supposed to think? The fact that these allegations are all false is of course besides the point... Popular opinion was with Goebbels after only a few years of propaganda against the Jews. The Dalai Lama has had 30 years and is revered as a 'God-King'. Popular opinion was also in favor of segregation in the South. I guess things should have just stayed that way...

4. You quote that 'fortunately' some people have explained the events that lead up to the current situation. If you read what these articles have to say, you will see the following: The 5th Dalai Lama (or his supporters) had Tulku Dragpa Gylatsen killed due to his opposition to the 5th Dalai Lama mixing religion and politics by using State power to enforce an ecumenical approach to Buddhism in an effort to consolidate his own political power. He then became paranoid that the spirit of Tulku Dragpa Gyaltsen had come back to haunt him. And now, 400 years later, the current Dalai Lama (who is supposedly the same mental continuum as the 5th) is still trying to silence any opposition by banning the practice of Dorje Shugden and thus severing the link between Tulku Dragpa Gyaltsen (now Dorje Shugden) and this world. In route, he persecutes innocent Dorje Shugden practitioners for crimes they never committed and seeks to villify the last major defender of Dorje Shugden, his own spiritual father Trijang Rinpoche. Or to use a more modern metaphor for this farsical, yet tragic, story: Darth Vader was a bit bummed that OB1 Kenobe came back more powerful than Darth could possibly imagine after he had killed him, and then Vader went about pursuing young Skywalker in a spiritually-oedipal effort to destroy any last influence of his spiritual father (OB1) from that galaxy far far away. The more you think about it, the parallels between the story of Darth Vader and the Dalai Lama are striking! Too bad the defenders of the Dalai Lama do not realize that they are on the wrong side of the force. Annakin told OB1 that 'from my perspective, the Jedi are evil'. To which OB1 replied, 'then you truly are lost...' (Sorry for the Star Wars digression, I found it amusing. But it should not distract from the essential substance that is being argued here and that affects real human lives suffering under this ban).

dspak08