The Dalai Lama in Pennsylvania
Monday July 14, 2008
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is delivering a series of lectures this week at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Sunday he received an honorary doctorate from Lehigh, and you an read an eyewitness account in the Buddhism forums. There is also video online of his public lecture from Sunday.
There also have been protesters. A sect devoted to worship of a deity called Dorje Shugden dogs His Holiness's speaking tours, calling him a liar and hypocrite. This is not a simple controversy to understand, but I've published some links to background articles on the Dorje Shugden controversy as well as an opinion.
Comments
Dear Barbara,
Thank you for discussing the Dorje Shugden controversy on your pages. It is an issue that has caused much confusion and suffering.
I would respectfully ask you to research further before concluding that Dorje Shugden practice is “spirit worship”.
The Dalai Lama spent many years doing Dorje Shugden practice, as it was given to him by his root guru. He has a very difficult job to be both a political and spiritual leader. I wonder in which capacity he was acting when he created the ban that has caused so much confusion and suffering in the Buddhist community.
Also, I believe there was no evidence connecting the murders of HH Dalai Lama’s colleagues to Dojre Shugden practitioners, so I think it is not responsible to continue to propogate that rumour.
Thank you.
Heather — that Shugden devotion is “spirit worship” for current followers is obvious on its face. If they truly believed in the insubstantiality of Shugden they wouldn’t be making such a big deal of him. Any other tantric dharmapala figure could stand in for Shugden if tantra were properly understood.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is completely correct to discourage this sort of fetishism over an icon. It is his responsibility to protect Tibetan Buddhism, and Shugden worship is not Buddhism.
Dear Barbara,
With respect, if Shugden worship is not Buddhism, The Dalai Lama’s own Teachers have not been Buddhist for 400 years! What does that say about the Dalai Lama’s own qualifications as a Buddhist Teacher? I’m afraid his claims are nonsense.
http://www.wisdombuddhadorjeshugden.org
With respect, if Shugden worship is not Buddhism, The Dalai Lama’s own Teachers have not been Buddhist for 400 years! What does that say about the Dalai Lama’s own qualifications as a Buddhist Teacher? I’m afraid his claims are nonsense.
You are not grasping the distinction between “worship” and tantra. This confusion is at the heart of the problem. There are tantric elements in my own practice, and I regularly chant to evoke, for example, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in her Japanese form, Kanzeon. But who is Kanzeon? Who is Shugden? That’s what you’re missing. The Shugden devotees treat Shugden as a deity in the Western sense, not as a tantric icon.
Dear Barbara,
I hail from the Theravan school of Buddhism, yet not very much attached to regious beliefs of any sort.
Even if Dorje Shudgen is worshipped as a deity what harm does it cause to others so that it has to be ‘repressed’ as the supporters claim. After all , there are so many other gods or spirits worshipped in tghe Mahayana fold. So, let there be another. I suppose they don’t compel others to da the same against their will.
Nalinaksha, it’s an extremely complicated subject, and I urge you to read the articles I linked to before forming an opinion. In short, the Shugden cult is a divisive, purist and fundamentalist cult within the Gelugpa school going back about three centuries. Throughout much of its history the cult has actively tried to undermine the authority of the Dalai Lama and are possibly responsible for the assasinations of at least a oouple of Dalai Lamas. They are also very likely behind the murders of some high lamas in Dharamsala in the late 1990s. They are currently being supported and probably funded by the government of China as part of the effort to bring down the Dalai Lama. So, yes, they can do a lot of harm.
Also, their relationship to Shugden often is not as a tantric deity or yidam, but as an external god or spirit, which is one of the Dalai Lama’s objections. If you try to talk to Shugden devotees you basically get a recitation of what they’ve been taught to say, even when it doesn’t logically follow. A cult in every sense of the word.