Buddhism

by tenpelOctober 27, 201311:38 pm

Interview with the Dalai Lama about ethics in the teacher-student relationship & Two papers about mindfulness

Since 2002 I collect information about the teacher student relationship in the context of Tibetan Buddhism and try to get information about approaches if one has taken on a misleading guru, or a guru who abuses his or her students.

Recently we had a brief discussion about this topic in the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy in the context of our tantra studies. After this discussion a Bhikshuni sent two files to the students, one contained an interview with HH the Dalai Lama about this topic in 1993 and the other file contained an interview with Geshe Sönam Rinchen about “Guru devotion”. Both texts have not been available online by now.

I asked the Bhikshuni if I could post the interview with HH the Dalai Lama on my website, and she clarified the copyrights/editor permission and just some minutes ago I posted it. I think in this interview with HH the Dalai Lama, he gives clear, very good and straight forward advice what to do if Gurus misbehave or abuse their students:

… if someone is supposed to propagate the Dharma and their behavior is harmful, it is our responsibility to criticize this with a good motivation. This is constructive criticism, and you do not need to feel uncomfortable doing it. In “The Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattvas’ Vows,” it says that there is no fault in whatever action you engage in with pure motivation. Buddhist teachers who abuse sex, power, money, alcohol, or drugs, and who, when faced with legitimate complaints from their own students, do not correct their behavior, should be criticized openly and by name. This may embarrass them and cause them to regret and stop their abusive behavior. Exposing the negative allows space for the positive side to increase. When publicizing such misconduct, it should be made clear that such teachers have disregarded the Buddha’s advice. However, when making public the ethical misconduct of a Buddhist teacher, it is only fair to mention their good qualities as well.

For more read:

Ethics in the Teacher-Student Relationship: The Responsibilities of Teachers and Students by H.H. the XIV. Dalai Lama

We had also some discussion on the blog and in Italy during our study review of the Abhidharmakosha about mindfulness and its modern use e.g. within the context of MBSR (Jon Kabat-Zinn), Psychology etc. There are two excellent papers by Georges Dreyfus and Jay Garfield that discuss this topic in detail, showing that modern interpretations of mindfulness do not really touch its deeper meaning as meant in Buddhist practice – which doesn’t mean that modern interpretations of mindfulness and practice don’t have an impact on the practitioners or don’t have a value. However, there is a danger to water down the more profound and deeper meanings of mindfulness as it is meant within Buddhism and as it is crucial to really transform the mind and not just to find some relaxation in stressful times. If you are interested, enjoy to read these two papers:

Is Mindfulness Present-Centered and Nonjudgmental? – A Discussion of the Cognitive Dimensions of Mindfulness by Prof. Georges B. Dreyfus
Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection by Prof. Jay L. Garfield

15Comments

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1

Marc on January 28, 2014 at 6:08 am
Reply

As a kadampa practitionner, I don’t understand really well that, beyond our opinions on religion or politics, we cannot have good relationships. I red a couple of your posts, and if I can understand that you had a bad experience in the NKT, I don’t really undersant why you relate it (your bad experience) to the NKT alone. As you know, what we perceive is in depending relationship with our mind. Many will consider Gueshe Kelsang as a Buddha, many will consider him not to be a Buddha. The same apply to the Dalaï Lama. It is ike this, depending on our individual minds. What happened on the controversy case, is that Gueshe Kalsang blasted the Dalaï Lama for his position on the diabolization of Dorje Shugden, which is understandable because Dorje Shugden is very important to the NKT’s practionners. Hearing from the most popular and respected buddhist in the world (the Dalaï Lama) that Dorje Shugden is a demon, is likely to cause problems inside the minds of the people who worship Dorje Shugden. I hope that is easily understandable. Since it is quite understandable, I don’t understand very well the conflict it generates between followers of Gueshe Kelsang Gyatso and followers of the Dalaï Lama in the West. Personally, I support Gueshe Kelsang for his stance relating to Dorje Shugden, but I still have tremendous love and respect for those in the West that make the dharma flourish, in whatever style or tradition they follow. People need to find a way to bring more hapiness in their life, and the Dalaï Lama give good advices for that to happen. I have tremendous respect for Mathieu Ricard, the french translator of the Dalaï Lama, who is one of the persons that had great impact on me to follow a Buddhist path.

What I receive from the NKT tradition is how to bring more wisdom and compassion in my life. Through my efforts, I feel a lot better now that before I started into the NKT tradition. I feel I have more compassion and wisdom. I feel more happy. I still have a lot to learn indeed, but I also feel I have tremendous good fortune for having met a good buddhist tradition near where I live. I don’t feel threatened for anything nor I feel that I should stop reading other traditions/religions books. I understand though that some people prefer not to read other master’s book, because it may be confusing. It doesn’t work for me, because I like to see what others are saying. I am on your blog for that reason, I like to hear what people that don’t think like me consider. So far, that only led me to have more faith in Gueshe Kelsang Gyatso. But reading elsewhere may be more confusing for many people, so I understand that some better want to stick with Gueshe Kelsang’s book. I am not judging what they do, because we are all different. What is functionning for me is not certain to function for someone else. What we need to find is the thing that is going to work for us. I hope that you found what is the most beneficial for you. But I am pretty sure that you are not going to be of benefit to others by constantly bashing the NKT’s tradition. You have your own lenses through you judge the NKT’s tradition, and apparently these lenses are dark. I feel nowhere close to anything I red from you, and my experience are completely different from what I red here. What I would like to make you consider, is to respect people’s choice. I respect your choice of founding something else than the NKT worthwile. Your experience with the NKT didn’t went well, that’s ok. The NKT wasn’t for you. Your karma did not ripen for you to have a good experience with the NKT. What I can wish you is to have a better experience where you are now. I wish that you attain enlightenment one day, and if I can, by any mean, help you to attain that one day, I will. But for now, I have the feeling that your actions on this blog don’t bring any goods, because they are based on your anger with the NKT’S tradition. As I said before, you had the karma to have anger with the NKT’s tradition, but I and many others have a completely different experience. Why don’t we just respect each other’s experience and move on ? If you look for faults in someone’s teachings, you will surely find faults, even if the teacher is Buddha Shakyamouni itself. If I would start to look for faults in Gandhi, I would find faults and I could start a blog on Gandhi’s faults. This is how it is, it depends on our minds, it depends on our perceptions. So why struggling against each other for something that is just a perception in our minds ? If you believe the NKT as a whole is harmful, that is just your opinion and your perception.

ps: sorry for my english, I am not a native english speaker.
- 2
  
  tenpel on January 28, 2014 at 10:58 am
  Reply
  
  Hi Mark,
  thank you for your comment.
  
  If you write and argue “As a kadampa practitionner, I don’t understand really well that, beyond our opinions on religion or politics, we cannot have good relationships. I red a couple of your posts, and if I can understand that you had a bad experience in the NKT, I don’t really undersant why you relate it (your bad experience) to the NKT alone.” I don’t know to whom exactly you refer who relates bad experience to NKT alone.
  
  Personally I don’t do that. I see the faults on my part which is a great amount of naivety and a total lack of knowledge about what Buddhism is all about and what traps there are on the spiritual path. There are other forces like a desire to become a monk and a search for a path. Now if you meet under such conditions a person who claims to be the inheritor of a great tradition, and claims to be a Buddhist master and all his followers and books claim the same, and if this is not true, you can be seriously harmed like in the case of having a sickness and you have a longing to be healed and you don’t have a clue how to discriminate qualified from less or even unqualified doctors. If a doctor treats you wrongly (like Andy Warhol who was killed by the medicine his doctor gave to him – when I remember correctly) you have de facto been damaged, haven’t you? And I think you can frankly say: that doctor treated be badly, and if you find out that many people have been treated badly or been harmed, you can say: this is a bad doctor. And why should you praise that doctor? You go to a distance and if possible you try to warn others to rely on that doctor because there is a high potential to be harmed.
  
  As you know, what we perceive is in depending relationship with our mind.
  
  What I write is perfectly that, dependent arising and who knows my comments since I started to comment on the NKT knows that I always stressed dependent arising and that I pointed out that it is Kelsang Gyatso who doesn’t follow that principle because it is HE who always blames a single person for things he doesn’t like and claims that he had done nothing wrong and even that NKT had done nothing wrong. (I have a lot of examples and quotes to prove this; I commented on this point already, in case you are interested I can provide these examples and quotes later)
  
  Many will consider Gueshe Kelsang as a Buddha, many will consider him not to be a Buddha. The same apply to the Dalaï Lama. It is ike this, depending on our individual minds.
  
  Many will consider a clever beguiler to be a genuine person, and a genuine person to be a beguiler. Of course it depends on the mind. However, the mind who perceives a clever beguiler to be a genuine person or a genuine person to be a beguiler is a distorted, deluded mind, it is a wrong mind because it perceives the apprehended object wrongly. The consequence of such a wrong mind will be damage. (BTW to see the teacher as a Buddha is only a training in a certain context for advanced practitioners!)
  
  What happened on the controversy case, is that Gueshe Kalsang blasted the Dalaï Lama for his position on the diabolization of Dorje Shugden, which is understandable because Dorje Shugden is very important to the NKT’s practionners.
  
  What happened is that Shugden is a means to establish Gelug supremacy and hostility towards other schools like Nyingmapa and Kagyuepa who btw fear that “deity”. Such sectarianism is detrimental to religious harmony. Moreover, there is a over stressing of a historical quite unimportant deity that came to late prominence only due to the pushing of Pabongkha who was rebuked for that and the violation of the refuge principle already by the 13th Dalai Lama. Pabongkha promised the 13th Dalai Lama to stop propagating Shugden but broke his promise when the 13th Dalai Lama died and spread Shugden after the dead of the 13th Dalai Lama even more diligently. More worse, Trijang Rinpoche involved the 14th Dalai Lama in that practice although his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama was a opponent of it, and gave clear reasons why.
  Although it was initially not the intention of the 14th Dalai Lama to put restrictions on the practice of Shugden, due to the strong sectarian and cultish setting, clinging and conflicts by many of Shugden adherents, the Dalai Lama felt he had no choice than to convince people to give up that practice, to stress its damaging effects, to speak against it, and finally to collaborate with the three Gelug main seats so that this practice is not practiced any more in the Gelug monasteries. There is a very long and complex story behind it which I think should be understood as good as possible before judging it. I have no problem if someone considers the decision of the Dalai Lama as being wrong. What I don’t like is people who judge it without having a sober knowledge.
  
  NKT practitioners can practice Shugden and also other practitioners can practice Shugden – outside the three Gelug main seats and as you might know, there are “Shugden Monasteries” in India, and there they can practice Shugden too. Though, of course, it is a bit more complex, because Shugden practitioners are indeed outsiders nowadays but I think they have themselves strongly contributed to this situation and the result of thinking you are supreme or better than others is a low status – karma.
  
  Hearing from the most popular and respected buddhist in the world (the Dalaï Lama) that Dorje Shugden is a demon, is likely to cause problems inside the minds of the people who worship Dorje Shugden. I hope that is easily understandable.
  
  Where do these problems come from? Are they created solely by the Dalai Lama as Kelsang Gyatso and NKT/Western Shugden Society claim so strongly? What about applying also here the understanding of dependent arising when it comes to meet hardships and it is time for practice? How can a trained non-clinging mind be harmed by what another person says? What about the inner causes that are the main causes to create such pain like ignorance, attachment and hostility? The ignorance is a lack of understanding of the controversial history of Shugden, and the harm many reported that goes along with that practice for oneself as well as for others, its sectarian setup etc … the attachment is: seeing this Shugden practice as important for once happiness but outer causes such as Shugden are only contributing factors to happiness … Happiness and enlightenment can be achieved without Shugden and by abiding by the teachings on Karma, emptiness, bodhichitta etc …, but attachment (not seeing this due to narrow mindedness) strongly clings to that practice and creates pain and distress when the object of attachment is denigrated (similar to a small boy, playing with a poisoned toy and the mother recommends not to use it any more because it is so harmful, the boy will cry due to his attachment and because of not understanding the dangers of the toy and that the mother is recommending this out of a caring attitude.) … (of course the harming toy is also dependent arising, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t function to create harm for certain individuals)
  
  Since it is quite understandable, I don’t understand very well the conflict it generates between followers of Gueshe Kelsang Gyatso and followers of the Dalaï Lama in the West.
  
  I would rather say that Kelsang Gyatsos and his followers have a conflict with the Dalai Lama. Did anybody organize international protest rallies against NKT or Kelsang Gyatso for altogether 4 years, calling Kelsang Gyatso a “cruel and evil dictator”, “liar” and “saffron robed Muslim”? While Kelsang Gyatso and his followers said a lot very bad and nasty things about the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama said never anything bad about Kelsang Gyatso and his followers. You would also find rare things by followers of the Dalai Lama who say bad things about Kelsang Gyatso and his followers. What many criticize is only an aspect: the Shugden practice and the hostility/aggression against the Dalai Lama. The great amount of criticism NKT receives is mainly and foremost coming from their own former followers who have a direct experience of NKT and who have been harmed by the NKT (of course as a dependent arising).
  
  I also didn’t understand the Shugden issue very well until I started to let go my bias and to investigate this topic in a more unbiased manner, understanding its different layers. My own approach is: if I don’t understand something, its my fault. If I increase my understanding by relying on facts, an unbiased mind, analysis and investigation as well as a good motivation, I am going to understand things that were previously not understandable.
  
  Personally, I support Gueshe Kelsang for his stance relating to Dorje Shugden, but I still have tremendous love and respect for those in the West that make the dharma flourish, in whatever style or tradition they follow. People need to find a way to bring more hapiness in their life, and the Dalaï Lama give good advices for that to happen. I have tremendous respect for Mathieu Ricard, the french translator of the Dalaï Lama, who is one of the persons that had great impact on me to follow a Buddhist path.
  
  It’s your choice, it’s your responsibility in whom you place your faith, and it will be your harvest.
  
  What I receive from the NKT tradition is how to bring more wisdom and compassion in my life. Through my efforts, I feel a lot better now that before I started into the NKT tradition. I feel I have more compassion and wisdom. I feel more happy. I still have a lot to learn indeed, but I also feel I have tremendous good fortune for having met a good buddhist tradition near where I live. I don’t feel threatened for anything nor I feel that I should stop reading other traditions/religions books. I understand though that some people prefer not to read other master’s book, because it may be confusing. It doesn’t work for me, because I like to see what others are saying. I am on your blog for that reason, I like to hear what people that don’t think like me consider. So far, that only led me to have more faith in Gueshe Kelsang Gyatso. But reading elsewhere may be more confusing for many people, so I understand that some better want to stick with Gueshe Kelsang’s book. I am not judging what they do, because we are all different. What is functionning for me is not certain to function for someone else. What we need to find is the thing that is going to work for us. I hope that you found what is the most beneficial for you. But I am pretty sure that you are not going to be of benefit to others by constantly bashing the NKT’s tradition. You have your own lenses through you judge the NKT’s tradition, and apparently these lenses are dark. I feel nowhere close to anything I red from you, and my experience are completely different from what I red here. What I would like to make you consider, is to respect people’s choice. I respect your choice of founding something else than the NKT worthwile. Your experience with the NKT didn’t went well, that’s ok. The NKT wasn’t for you. Your karma did not ripen for you to have a good experience with the NKT. What I can wish you is to have a better experience where you are now. I wish that you attain enlightenment one day, and if I can, by any mean, help you to attain that one day, I will. But for now, I have the feeling that your actions on this blog don’t bring any goods, because they are based on your anger with the NKT’S tradition. As I said before, you had the karma to have anger with the NKT’s tradition, but I and many others have a completely different experience. Why don’t we just respect each other’s experience and move on ? If you look for faults in someone’s teachings, you will surely find faults, even if the teacher is Buddha Shakyamouni itself. If I would start to look for faults in Gandhi, I would find faults and I could start a blog on Gandhi’s faults. This is how it is, it depends on our minds, it depends on our perceptions. So why struggling against each other for something that is just a perception in our minds ? If you believe the NKT as a whole is harmful, that is just your opinion and your perception.
  
  If you speak of me, I don’t have anger against KG or NKT. My worry is that people highly likely will be harmed by NKT/KG. I, as so many others, had made good experiences with NKT too as you do. You don’t stay on a place without good experiences. So almost all critics of NKT nowadays who were followers of KG/NKT started with very good experiences but after a while things turned to the worse and many did not understand why and were confused. It was for me quite similar to you: “What I receive from the NKT tradition is how to bring more wisdom and compassion in my life. Through my efforts, I feel a lot better now that before I started into the NKT tradition. I feel I have more compassion and wisdom. I feel more happy. I still have a lot to learn indeed, but I also feel I have tremendous good fortune for having met a good buddhist tradition near where I live.” BUT what I didn’t recognize was the underlying sectarianism, elite-thinking, pride, fear, hostility against other schools and the fanaticism or religious extremism going along with NKT/KG’s concepts of “purity” and “faith” “Geshe-la is a Buddha” etc., the undermining of my self-esteem and inner intuition, the set up that totally bound me to NKT and installed feelings of fear and guilt in me, and led me to blame everything wrong onto myself; a setup that totally isolated myself from the broad Buddhist world, the Sangha, the masters and that brought me finally to hate the Dalai Lama. It was like eating poisoned food: you have a positive effect because your hunger reduces and you feel better but you have a long term damaging effect that manifests only slowly and whose causes are difficult to pin point. Eating poisoned food is harming, it is based on the ripening of karma, but there is no inconsistency to understand that it is my karma to have met and eaten poisoned food and to warn others to avoid that because it is harmful.
  
  You appear to be in the beginner phase of NKT fellowship where everything appears to be rose red. Now you think those who don’t see it like you have dark glasses. Maybe you wait for a while and you continue to read other books and texts and you try to go to other Buddhist teachers. Later things might naturally sort out, and maybe than you find some useful things here on the blog or my websites too.
  
  Wishing you all the best, and thank you for your comment.
  - 3
    
    Marc on January 29, 2014 at 9:13 am
    Reply
    
    Thank you for your detailed answer. I will answer by quoting you (where are the options to quote like you did ?)
    
    You said:
    ”
    Hi Mark,
    thank you for your comment.
    If you write and argue “As a kadampa practitionner, I don’t understand really well that, beyond our opinions on religion or politics, we cannot have good relationships. I red a couple of your posts, and if I can understand that you had a bad experience in the NKT, I don’t really undersant why you relate it (your bad experience) to the NKT alone.” I don’t know to whom exactly you refer who relates bad experience to NKT alone.
    Personally I don’t do that. I see the faults on my part which is a great amount of naivety and a total lack of knowledge about what Buddhism is all about and what traps there are on the spiritual path. There are other forces like a desire to become a monk and a search for a path. Now if you meet under such conditions a person who claims to be the inheritor of a great tradition, and claims to be a Buddhist master and all his followers and books claim the same, and if this is not true, you can be seriously harmed
    ”
    
    My answer:
    That is true. Gueshe Kelsang himself says that. In that case, as you say later in your text, the Dalaï Lama himself said nothing bad about Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, he said in fact, that Gueshe Kelsang had a very good formation. Personnaly I came to believe, after listening to his teachings and experiencing some of it, that he is a buddhist master. It is not something that came instantly, I built my faith in him. I built it not by being pressurised to believe he is a buddha, but by trying to put his teachings into practice, and see if it is true or not by my own experience.
    
    You said:
    ”
    like in the case of having a sickness and you have a longing to be healed and you don’t have a clue how to discriminate qualified from less or even unqualified doctors. If a doctor treats you wrongly (like Andy Warhol who was killed by the medicine his doctor gave to him – when I remember correctly) you have de facto been damaged, haven’t you? And I think you can frankly say: that doctor treated be badly, and if you find out that many people have been treated badly or been harmed, you can say: this is a bad doctor. And why should you praise that doctor? You go to a distance and if possible you try to warn others to rely on that doctor because there is a high potential to be harmed.
    ”
    My answer:
    I understand your point. I did not accuse you to be of bad faith. I respect your opinion. It seems indeed that you are not the only one who had a bad experience with the NKT tradition. To me it is obvious that being in cold with the Dalaï Lama is something that many people in the NKT were not comfortable with. It may have led many people to leave the NKT. I understand that, and I respect that. However, at the same time, there are followers who did not leave the tradition, and today I can see them, many of them are great exemples of good buddhist practitionners that inspire me.
    
    What you could consider here is, that your experience is not necessarely a scientific experience. It has been reproduced with other people that also left the NKT tradition, but at the same time many did not leave and they have now great accomplishments. The conclusion is : the doctor is not giving poison, if he was giving poison, everyone would eventually leave the tradition knowing it is a poison. I could be wrong on the last conclusion, some people could still be continuing with the NKT not knowing that they are taking poison, but it happens that thousands of them stay and continue to believe in Gueshe Kelang after many years. So I must confirm the previous conclusion : if thousands of peaple are not having the same experience of thinking – after severel years of learning more about the NKT tradition – that they have been taking poison, the fact to considerate the tradition and his founder as giving poison must certainly have something to do with the persons that consider having received poison from this buddhist master.
    
    If you follow me, if many people receive benefits from developping their faith in that tradition and in that buddhist master, it would be damaging for them to get out of this tradition. It could be damaging for them to have their faith put in doubt, if it lead them to leave the tradition as you would like to do with NKT followers. As you know, faith is the fundation of all dharma realizations. Not blind faith, but a faith that is built after seriously scrutinized the value of the teachings. Since that kind of faith is the fundation of all dharma realizations, it could be very damaging for NKT followers to have that faith put in doubt.
    
    Since your experience is not a scientific experience, your activism in bashing the NKT tradition may very well lead to bad results, as well as good results. But you don’t know if the result is going to be good or not. Therefore, I wonder how you can have a good motivation if you don’t know if you are going to help people or not.
    
    I know Samsara is a bitch. On day you think you find something great, that gives a meaning to your life, you engage in it with all your hopes and all your heart, but one day you wake up and you are disappointed at a point of leaving what you loved at first. It must be extremely difficult. It happened to me one time with what I considered as my true love. It really was hearbreaking, for many years. But it was mundane love, mixed with attachment. Finally, I don’t really understand your pain, it is nowhere close to what I have experienced. I imagine you have problem now developping faith in an other spiritual guide, which is sad, because many powerful persons can bring you to higher levels of accomplishments. I really hope you find what you need.
    
    But, if you don’t know if you are harming people or helping people, to me it is a nonsense to continue your attacks on the NKT. You may very well be developping bad karma.
    
    You said:
    ”
    Many will consider a clever beguiler to be a genuine person, and a genuine person to be a beguiler. Of course it depends on the mind. However, the mind who perceives a clever beguiler to be a genuine person or a genuine person to be a beguiler is a distorted, deluded mind, it is a wrong mind because it perceives the apprehended object wrongly.”
    
    My answer:
    You are right. But in that case, I believe that we are in front of two buddhist that are potentially a buddha. Anyway, who knows who is a buddha or not ? The only person I know for sure that he is not a buddha is myself.
    
    The followers of one side say that the other side is wrong into considerating his guide as a buddha. But in fact, the two have good buddhist advices for bringing happiness. Both had the same spiritual guide ! I know Gueshe Kelsang had hard words for the Dalaï Lama. The book, the Great Deception goes very far into blaming the Dalaï Lama. This is a clear obstacle for many practitionners for growing their faith in Gueshe Kelsang. It is hard for me too. I believed at first that all the buddhists were in harmony. It is tough to learn it is not the case. But this is Samsara, we will not arrange samsara. What we can work on, is our minds, and then we can become good examples for others. History show us that humans are not going to evolve inside samsara. I decided to support GKG and to concentrate on his teachings and leave away this controversy, which is a tiny part of the NKT’s actions,
    
    If we come back to what you said, we have to know buddhists that decide to follow DL and GKG. We have examples of people who developped faith in GKG and became wonderful persons. We also have examples of persons who developped faith into DL and became wonderful persons. This is wonderful that we have that opportunity, to developp faith into these persons and make our qualities grow. Why judging who is putting his faith in who ? If GKG was obviously a bad guide, I would understand you, but this is not the case. DL himself said GKG had a very good formation, from the same spiritual guide he has been educated with !
    
    You said:
    ”
    The consequence of such a wrong mind will be damage. (BTW to see the teacher as a Buddha is only a training in a certain context for advanced practitioners!)”
    
    My answer:
    I can tell you that having experienced considering someone as a Buddha and having considered as not a buddha are two completely different experiences. I receive much more benefits in the teaching from considering I receive it from a Buddha directly, regardless of the person teaching me. Therefore, I don’t believe that only advanced practitionners receive that kind of benefits.
    
    You said:
    ”
    What happened is that Shugden is a means to establish Gelug supremacy and hostility towards other schools like Nyingmapa and Kagyuepa who btw fear that “deity”.”
    
    My answer:
    I don’t know what led you to think like that. How do you know GKG’s intentions on that matter ? What I know about this, is that the spiritual guide of GKG himself, Tridjang Dorjechang Rinposhe was practicing Dorje Shugden. I just don’t know why GKG would have encouraged his students to stop doing the Shugden’s practice if it came directly from his spiritual guide. Tridjang Rinposhe was, as you know, also the spiritual guide of the DL for forty years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijang_Lobsang_Yeshe_Tenzin_Gyatso
    It is very doubtful then, that GKG decided to keep that practice « as a mean to establish Gelug supremacy ». I just can’t believe that.
    ”
    You said:
    ”
    Such sectarianism is detrimental to religious harmony. Moreover, there is a over stressing of a historical quite unimportant deity that came to late prominence only due to the pushing of Pabongkha who was rebuked for that and the violation of the refuge principle already by the 13th Dalai Lama. Pabongkha promised the 13th Dalai Lama to stop propagating Shugden but broke his promise when the 13th Dalai Lama died and spread Shugden after the dead of the 13th Dalai Lama even more diligently. More worse, Trijang Rinpoche involved the 14th Dalai Lama in that practice although his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama was a opponent of it, and gave clear reasons why.”
    
    My answer:
    You seem to not have a lot of respect for Trijang Rinposhe too. Your evidence that Dje Pabongkha did a mistake is quite weak. The opposition between him and the 13th Dalaï Lama seem similar the the actual controversy. First, why is the DL should always have the authority on religious matter ? He is a spiritual leader, but I believe more importantly, he is the political leader of Tibet. Since he has many things to worry about, else than his spiritual practice, I doubt that he is always the best person to decide whether a spiritual practive is good or not. In that case, you put heavy doubts on Tridjang Rinposhe, like he did a bad thing in continuing the Dorje Sugden practice. I quote from wikipedia that describes Tridjang Rinposhe’s accomplishments : « the FPMT describes him as “one of the foremost Tibetan Buddhist masters of our time.”[4] It is widely acknowledged that “Without his help the situation of Tibetan Buddhism in general and in particular of the tradition of Master Je Tsongkhapa would be in quite a different state.” A great number of present-day Tibetan Buddhist masters are his students and “whatever they have accomplished, they owe it directly or indirectly to the great kindness of this master, who stands out as one of the most unforgettable figures in the history of Tibet and its Buddhism.”[5]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijang_Lobsang_Yeshe_Tenzin_Gyatso
    
    To me, it is obvious that Tridjang Dorjechang was a living Buddha. I wonder then why we should put his judgment in doubt as the actual DL do. I believe the DL is doing a mistake.
    
    You said:
    ”
    Although it was initially not the intention of the 14th Dalai Lama to put restrictions on the practice of Shugden, due to the strong sectarian and cultish setting, clinging and conflicts by many of Shugden adherents, the Dalai Lama felt he had no choice than to convince people to give up that practice, to stress its damaging effects, to speak against it, and finally to collaborate with the three Gelug main seats so that this practice is not practiced any more in the Gelug monasteries. There is a very long and complex story behind it which I think should be understood as good as possible before judging it. I have no problem if someone considers the decision of the Dalai Lama as being wrong. What I don’t like is people who judge it without having a sober knowledge.
    NKT practitioners can practice Shugden and also other practitioners can practice Shugden – outside the three Gelug main seats and as you might know, there are “Shugden Monasteries” in India, and there they can practice Shugden too. Though, of course, it is a bit more complex, because Shugden practitioners are indeed outsiders nowadays but I think they have themselves strongly contributed to this situation and the result of thinking you are supreme or better than others is a low status – karma.”
    
    My answer:
    If it’s their karma, the person putting them into that situation could also generates bad karma for the future.
    
    What I consider for now, is that the DL did a mistake first by not following his spiritual guide’s teachings (not practicing Dorje Shugden). Second, it seems that there is a problem with the DL being a religious leader AND a political leader. I see no problems with having different schools of Tibetan buddhism. Why is there any need to unify it ? My intuition is that the DL would like to have more stranglehold on all different schools, so that they are unified for the political cause of Tibet against China. It is very obvious for me that considering Dorje Shugden as a demon is wrong. Dje Pabhonkapa and Tridjang Dorjetchang were Buddhas, it is impossible that they encouraged practitionners to receive help from a demon. Saying he’s a demon is simply not the truth. So, I am curious to learn more about the diferent schools rivalries and the real motivations that led the DL to say something false to it’s people.
    
    You said: ((I put my own speech into brackets))
    ((Hearing from the most popular and respected buddhist in the world (the Dalaï Lama) that Dorje Shugden is a demon, is likely to cause problems inside the minds of the people who worship Dorje Shugden. I hope that is easily understandable.))
    Where do these problems come from? Are they created solely by the Dalai Lama as Kelsang Gyatso and NKT/Western Shugden Society claim so strongly? What about applying also here the understanding of dependent arising when it comes to meet hardships and it is time for practice? How can a trained non-clinging mind be harmed by what another person says?
    
    My answer:
    What I suggest is that himself is not harmed by it, but his followers can be harmed by it. As well as the Dorje Shugden’s practitionners in India.
    
    You said:”
    What about the inner causes that are the main causes to create such pain like ignorance, attachment and hostility? The ignorance is a lack of understanding of the controversial history of Shugden, and the harm many reported that goes along with that practice for oneself as well as for others, its sectarian setup etc … the attachment is: seeing this Shugden practice as important for once happiness but outer causes such as Shugden are only contributing factors to happiness … Happiness and enlightenment can be achieved without Shugden and by abiding by the teachings on Karma, emptiness, bodhichitta etc …, but attachment (not seeing this due to narrow mindedness) strongly clings to that practice and creates pain and distress when the object of attachment is denigrated (similar to a small boy, playing with a poisoned toy and the mother recommends not to use it any more because it is so harmful, the boy will cry due to his attachment and because of not understanding the dangers of the toy and that the mother is recommending this out of a caring attitude.) … (of course the harming toy is also dependent arising, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t function to create harm for certain individuals)”
    
    My answer:
    You use very disrespectful language to talk about GKG did, pretending he is keeping that practice out of attachment. He is following his spiritual guide’s teachings. When GKG spoke to Tridjang Dorjetchang Rinposhe about his new followers in the west, he said the people in the West would not accept Buddhism as it is practiced in India and Tibet. TDR replied that he had his permission to adapt the presentation for Westerners. The presentation is how to say things. But everything remain the same teachings. Why would he stop doing his spiritual guide’s practice ? Because the DL is the political leader of Tibet ? I don’t understand. Tridjang Dorjetchang didn’t give him the permission to change the practices themselves, but only the presentation of those practices. What GKG is presenting us is exacly that : the exact same teachings he received from his spiritual guide, with a new presentation.
    
    I believe it is possible to become a Buddha without Dorje Shugden. As I believe it is possible to become a Buddha with Dorje Shugden. I respect those who choose not to practice Dorje Shugden. The question is, why can’t you (you and others) respect those who continue to pratice Dorje Shugden ? This it is a matter of freedom of religion. Every school has their different practice, and we should respect each of them.
    
    You said: ”
    I also didn’t understand the Shugden issue very well until I started to let go my bias and to investigate this topic in a more unbiased manner, understanding its different layers. My own approach is: if I don’t understand something, its my fault. If I increase my understanding by relying on facts, an unbiased mind, analysis and investigation as well as a good motivation, I am going to understand things that were previously not understandable.”
    
    My answer:
    At first I was shocked by that conflict between DL and GKG. The more I know, the more I understand. But there are still some pieces that is missing in this puzzle, so I’m curious to know where you got your information and what do you know about DL’s motivations and GKG’s motivations. Because what you told me here is not enough for me to have a good idea of the reasons why you believe what you believe.
    
    You said: ”
    If you speak of me, I don’t have anger against KG or NKT. ”
    
    My answer:
    Pretending he is keeping the Dorje Shugden’s practice out of attachment, like a child who want to keep his dangerous toy, make me doubt of the absence of anger in your thoughts. I still believe you.
    
    You said in the arcticle of you blog, that everything done with a good motivation can never be a fault : “The Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattvas’ Vows,” it says that there is no fault in whatever action you engage in with pure motivation. »
    
    It is true but not completely. The good motivation is not enough, you also need wisdom. For example : a big fish fall from a fisher’s truck and a pedestrian see’s it on the ground, the fish is struggling for it’s life. The pedestrian takes the fish and bring it to the closest lake. He put it in the lake. Because that fish came from an other lake, it was not wise to put it in the other lake and the fish ate all the smaller fishes inside the other lake. The pedestrian had a good intention, a good motivation (to save the fish), but because he didn’t have enough wisdom, he caused the death of dozens of other fishes. This is how, even with a good motivation, but lacking wisdom, our actions may cause destruction. It is our responsability to increase our wisdom to make sure that our actions do not cause more suffering.
    
    You said: ”
    My worry is that people highly likely will be harmed by NKT/KG. I, as so many others, had made good experiences with NKT too as you do. You don’t stay on a place without good experiences. So almost all critics of NKT nowadays who were followers of KG/NKT started with very good experiences but after a while things turned to the worse and many did not understand why and were confused. It was for me quite similar to you: “What I receive from the NKT tradition is how to bring more wisdom and compassion in my life. Through my efforts, I feel a lot better now that before I started into the NKT tradition. I feel I have more compassion and wisdom. I feel more happy. I still have a lot to learn indeed, but I also feel I have tremendous good fortune for having met a good buddhist tradition near where I live.”
    
    BUT what I didn’t recognize was the underlying sectarianism, elite-thinking, pride, fear, hostility against other schools and the fanaticism or religious extremism going along with NKT/KG’s concepts of “purity” and “faith” “Geshe-la is a Buddha” etc., the undermining of my self-esteem and inner intuition, the set up that totally bound me to NKT and installed feelings of fear and guilt in me, and led me to blame everything wrong onto myself; a setup that totally isolated myself from the broad Buddhist world, the Sangha, the masters and that brought me finally to hate the Dalai Lama. It was like eating poisoned food: you have a positive effect because your hunger reduces and you feel better but you have a long term damaging effect that manifests only slowly and whose causes are difficult to pin point. Eating poisoned food is harming, it is based on the ripening of karma, but there is no inconsistency to understand that it is my karma to have met and eaten poisoned food and to warn others to avoid that because it is harmful.”
    
    My answer:
    I’m really feel sorry for you that you had such a bad experience. You may not have had the best teachers of the NKT. I do not ate the DL, I still have love for him. And as I said before, I have love for anyone helping dharma to flourish. People need dharma. If I felt sometimes I was pushed a little bit into believing something I would’t agreee with (or something I would push myself a little too much into), I would eventually remember that the buddhist path is a joyful path, we should not blame ourselves or have feeling of fear or guilt because of our practice. I know I should not include any practices or beliefs that is not in the range of my actual capacity. It is always how I walked on this path, and this is how GKG teaches us. « Don’t worry » is what GKG says. When we feel guilty about something we do wrong : « don’t worry, rely on a happy mind alone ». I’m really sorry that you couldn’t do that, but I really believe I can continue to do that. In fact, I feel it is more easy to do that now than when I started. It is part of my training. I understand that your sangha friend took their distances from you, because our friends influence us. They probably didn’t want you to influence them. Personally, I consider it important to have sangha friends who inflence me in a positive way. Sangha is one of the 3 jewels. By relying on Sangha, we can attain dharma realizations. But you know that already. The same would happen I think if you were to leave an other buddhist community. I wouldn’t say it is because of a sectarianism. I know it can look like sectarianism, but to me it really don’t feel like that is the case.
    
    You said: ”
    You appear to be in the beginner phase of NKT fellowship where everything appears to be rose red. Now you think those who don’t see it like you have dark glasses. Maybe you wait for a while and you continue to read other books and texts and you try to go to other Buddhist teachers. Later things might naturally sort out, and maybe than you find some useful things here on the blog or my websites too.
    
    Wishing you all the best, and thank you for your comment.
    ”
    
    My answer:
    I don’t believe that is what’s going to happen. You wish me the best at the end, but by reading you, I’m doubting a little if you wish that I will continue to be happy in the NKT, or if you wish that everything starts to go wrong and eventually leads me to leave the NKT, and that I start to be « really » happy somewhere else (because now I’m only feeding myself with poison !). As I said before, I only hope that you respect our choice to follow the NKT. Your experence with the NKT is not a scientific experience, it does not repeat itself always. Why not just respect each other’s experiences, and work together for a better world ? That is the motivation behind my answers on your blog.
    
    Ps : sorry again for my english, I am a french speaker mainly.
    - 4
      
      tenpel on January 29, 2014 at 9:04 pm
      Reply
      
      thank you, I hope I find time to reply in the next days.
    - 5
      
      dharmaanarchist on January 29, 2014 at 11:04 pm
      Reply
      
      “but it happens that thousands of them stay and continue to believe in Gueshe Kelang after many years. So I must confirm the previous conclusion : if thousands of peaple are not having the same experience of thinking – after severel years of learning more about the NKT tradition – that they have been taking poison,.”
      
      That is also true with Scientology, Jehova’s Witnesses and a gazillion of other cult groups out there that have long term members who are more or less psychologically, financially and/or spiritually harmed by the cult but still stay and apparently get something out of that group.
    - 6
      
      tenpel on January 30, 2014 at 10:58 pm
      Reply
      
      Thank you for your detailed answer. I will answer by quoting you (where are the options to quote like you did ?)
      
      use the blockquote command.
      
      That is true. Gueshe Kelsang himself says that. In that case, as you say later in your text, the Dalaï Lama himself said nothing bad about Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, he said in fact, that Gueshe Kelsang had a very good formation. Personnaly I came to believe, after listening to his teachings and experiencing some of it, that he is a buddhist master. It is not something that came instantly, I built my faith in him. I built it not by being pressurised to believe he is a buddha, but by trying to put his teachings into practice, and see if it is true or not by my own experience.
      
      You see him as a Buddhist master, your master, after you have investigated him, and I don’t want to interfere with your relationship. Since phenomena – which include persons – are impermanent, also Kelsang Gyatso and the Dalai Lama do change. Who changed for the worse or the better is something you have to investigate. I’ve done that, and for me it is pretty clear. So we see it differently. That’s how it is.
      
       I understand your point. I did not accuse you to be of bad faith. I respect your opinion. It seems indeed that you are not the only one who had a bad experience with the NKT tradition. To me it is obvious that being in cold with the Dalaï Lama is something that many people in the NKT were not comfortable with. It may have led many people to leave the NKT. I understand that, and I respect that.
      
      I was quite likely not so clear. If you are interested to understand why I left the NKT, the next passage will explain it. But be aware it might shake your picture of KG.
      
      The reason why I left KG was that I was a direct witness of a power trip of him, where he proved for me that he is not a Buddhist master, that he does not do what he preaches and that he didn’t understand even the basics of Buddhist practice and view. What he did was, in a situation of complex crisis, he accused another person to be the single cause of a problem, while he claimed at the same time, that he and everybody else in NKT had done nothing wrong. (I found later that this approach is a common pattern of him in situations of crisis, e.g. he did the same with Steven Wass his former successor, with the Dalai Lama and so many others …) During this meeting with him in 2000 he claimed also: „I, I am the NKT!“ and used this (pseudo-)argument to repress any further criticism against NKT. On top of it he performed wrong actions by playing god in the sense „the lord has given it, the lord takes it“ by „taking away“ the monastic ordination, bodhisattva and tantra vows of my former NKT teacher as if HE were the possessor of the vows–which is utterly wrong and against the principles of Buddhism and the Vinaya: nobody can take away your vows, you can only break them, and if they are broken has to be carefully analyzed and proven in a fair, balanced way according to the rites of the vows. In short I was the witness of a unjust, crazy spiritual execution, a violent power trip, and I myself and others were paralyzed by our fear to object this violence – Kelsang Nyima and some other NKT people enjoyed it. Many were shocked, shed in tears … but actually for me it was an eyeopener, because I realized: KG is an uncontrolled, fearful person, who is aggressive when he has no control, who has no patience in situations of crisis, and who doesn’t apply the Dharma in situations of crisis (like that the real fault is not a single person but delusions and that there is no single cause for a problem (or a single person to be blamed) but only dependent arising which has to be analyzed carefully). He later even threatened me in a personal letter that I would loose my ordination, and the BS+Tantra vows and have to face other consequences, if I follow that NKT teacher. What ever he did in that context and later with respect to this, had nothing to do with the Dharma or the Vinaya. It was a mere aggressive power trip; he performed a violent example that he is going to destroy every one who dares to not totally obey to him. The welfare of the student was not in any way in his mind, only to keep control and power.
      
      So, you see, this had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama but with KG’s own behavior, my own experiences with him, and how I evaluated the situation at that time, later and even now. The more my knowledge about the Dharma & Vinaya grew outside the NKT the more I realized how wrong he acted … Academic papers about the history of NKT, like that of David Kay, led me to the conclusion that KG had a type of personality change that was not good for him. So all of this has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama.
      
      However, at the same time, there are followers who did not leave the tradition, and today I can see them, many of them are great exemples of good buddhist practitionners that inspire me.
      
      Do you find it inspiring to shout over hours at the Dalai Lama’s teachings with mega phones „Liar, Liar, Liar!“? Or to denigrate the Dalai Lama based on hate as „an evil and cruel dictator“? Or do you find it inspiring that Gen Thubten+S. Wass – both the highly praised successors of KG, the ‘almost Buddhas’ – sexually abused others and broke their root vows and KG covered it up in order that they continue to attract new NKT followers while KG threatened the reporters of the abuse? I assume not, so you have other points you find inspiring but what about the whole picture?
      
      What you could consider here is, that your experience is not necessarely a scientific experience. It has been reproduced with other people that also left the NKT tradition, but at the same time many did not leave and they have now great accomplishments. The conclusion is : the doctor is not giving poison, if he was giving poison, everyone would eventually leave the tradition knowing it is a poison.
      
      As someone said, also Scientology are successful and people stay with them. A dog might continue to eat poisoned meat because he is hungry and doesn’t understand that the meat is poisoned and where his problems stem from … People have many needs like wanting to belong to a group, they might want to identify and grasp to something better/higher, they might have a weak self and NKT offers them a „pure“ basis of identification: if NKT is so pure, I am also somewhat pure because I belong to NKT. I am not that bad. I am moreover somewhat supreme because I have the incredible karma to have met the NKT! I am a great fortunate one, I belong to the Kelsang Family, oh how fortunate I am! And then, there is that great master, a Buddha, Geshe-la. How lucky I am!!! – Now, if you think like this and the identification with NKT reduces the distress of feeling low and worthless, you grasp to NKT, you cannot let go because the loss of your identification with something higher, supreme, threatens your weak self, and this fear blocks you to see and to go. (+ there are more psychological factors that keep you in a rather destructive group, I see this pattern currently in another context of a Vietnamese / Western community in Germany, grasping for security, money, attention, fear to be alone etc etc etc., once you are financially, spiritually or emotionally dependent, you are bound and you won’t leave. So not leaving a group or leaving it is neither a good nor a bad sign, it depends …)
      Also, people stay simply in NKT because they didn’t make a bad experience and because they are not interested to understand others who made bad experiences and relax with that, thinking: „its their karma, no need to mind about it.“
      
      If you follow me, if many people receive benefits from developping their faith in that tradition and in that buddhist master, it would be damaging for them to get out of this tradition. It could be damaging for them to have their faith put in doubt, if it lead them to leave the tradition as you would like to do with NKT followers.
      
      No, I don’t want to get anybody out of NKT. I want to offer critical information about NKT before people enter NKT so that they can make an informed decision. I checked the NKT before I entered it but at that time, 1995/96 there was no critical information available. I was even at the Berlin Senate’s cult information centre but they had no information about NKT. What they had was a list of 9 points to consider. They said, if any point meets the group you must be very careful. Out of 9, 8 points met the NKT. I confronted my NKT teacher: „This is a cult!“ She said: „No! Buddhism is not a cult but a world religion! If you want to follow a spiritual path, why do you believe mundane people who have no clue about spirituality?“
      
      As you know, faith is the fundation of all dharma realizations. Not blind faith, but a faith that is built after seriously scrutinized the value of the teachings. Since that kind of faith is the fundation of all dharma realizations, it could be very damaging for NKT followers to have that faith put in doubt.
      
      As Geshe-la puts it: „if you have doubts you lack wisdom. If you have doubts, increase your widsom.“ I totally agree with that. The function of wisdom is to overcome doubts and the discriminating intelligence that investigates thoroughly and unbiased phenomena leads to that wisdom.
      
      So if NKT followers have doubts, they should welcome it as a mirror that shows them that they lack wisdom/discriminating intelligence. Faith must be based on facts or really existing qualities and not mere wishful thinking or positive projections. If faith is based on facts it is unshakeable.
      
      Since your experience is not a scientific experience, your activism in bashing the NKT tradition may very well lead to bad results, as well as good results. But you don’t know if the result is going to be good or not. Therefore, I wonder how you can have a good motivation if you don’t know if you are going to help people or not.
      
      Since your experience is not a scientific experience, your activism in promoting the NKT tradition may very well lead to bad results, as well as good results. But you don’t know if the result is going to be good or not. Therefore, I wonder how you can have a good motivation if you don’t know if you are going to help people or not.
      
      I know Samsara is a bitch. On day you think you find something great, that gives a meaning to your life, you engage in it with all your hopes and all your heart, but one day you wake up and you are disappointed at a point of leaving what you loved at first. It must be extremely difficult.
      
      You might make this experience with NKT too. Maybe you just give yourself space and time and you observe the coming years. I am not here to argue with you. This blog is meant to counter the vast pro NKT propaganda and to give interested people another view on NKT – especially those who have not committed yet to NKT or find themselves in trouble with NKT and want to leave that organisation. You have to take responsibilities for your choices and I have to take responsibility for my choices. I am at peace in what I do.
      
      Finally, I don’t really understand your pain, it is nowhere close to what I have experienced. I imagine you have problem now developping faith in an other spiritual guide, which is sad, because many powerful persons can bring you to higher levels of accomplishments. I really hope you find what you need.
      
      You can understand my and others pain if you understand the abuse of power, the abuse of faith and emotionally, financial, spiritual and sexual abuse. As long as you don’t understand that you cannot understand the pain many people have or had with NKT. My pain is gone a long time ago. I am happy as things are. It was the greatest gift in my life to be able to leave NKT and Shugden lamas and to settle in the vast and profound dharma and to meet and to be able to rely in a healthy manner in great and genuine lamas with abundant and genuine qualities after I have left the NKT and Shugden lamas behind me. Things are very good for me. My concern is that others might have as much damage or even more than I received and that it might destroy their spiritual lives. Many have abandoned Buddhism and religion altogether after they left NKT and they find it difficult to trust anybody due to the different types of abuse within NKT. I don’t take their fate light. I feel responsible.
      
      But, if you don’t know if you are harming people or helping people, to me it is a nonsense to continue your attacks on the NKT. You may very well be developping bad karma.
      
      How do you know what I know? And how can you make a conclusion if you don’t know what I know like „to me it is a nonsense to continue your attacks on the NKT. You may very well be developping bad karma.“?
      
      What you want to say is: I am bad because I attack NKT, I have a bad motivation, I create bad karma. You are good, because you defend NKT, you have a good motivation, you create good karma.
      
      Your problem is IMO, that you can just not imagine that there is someone or there are some people who are seriously be concerned that people might be greatly harmed by NKT. This lack of imagination on your side, I think, is a reflection, that you are not OPEN to understand: your belief is the common NKT adherent’s belief: „NKT must be true, therefore its critics must be wrong. Because we have a good motivation and create good karma, those who object us must have a bad motivation and create bad karma.“
      
      Is the person who removes a hunter’s trap a bad person because he – out of concern for the welfare of the animal being harmed by the hunter – removes the trap or places a warning sign? From the perspective of the hunter he is bad, from the perspective of the animal he is good. The karma such a person accumulates depends mainly on the motivation.
      
      For today this should be enough from my side. I will answer the other points at a later time.
      - 7
        
        tenpel on January 31, 2014 at 10:59 am
        Reply
        
        Amendment: two papers of Kay that give in my opinion a really balanced and fair account on NKT and its controversial history / rewriting of history can be read here:
        
        The 1997 paper:
        
        Click to access The%20New%20Kadampa%20Tradition%20and%20the%20Continuity%20of%20Tibetan%20Buddhism%20in%20Transition%20-%20compressed.pdf
        
        The 2004 paper:
        
        Click to access Tibetan%20and%20Zen%20Buddhism%20in%20Britain%20Transplantation,%20Development%20and%20Adaptation.pdf
        
        8
        
        Marc on January 31, 2014 at 6:29 pm
        Reply
        
        I red your post, and I will wait for the next answer. I understand more now the purpose of your actions. It is quite difficult indeed to have the wisdom to know who is doing a good action or who is not. In the present case, I must admit I lack the wisdom to judge. I am curious to hear your points because, if I can’t stand what you have to say, it means my faith in Gueshe Kelsang is not strong enough. I must be able to take what you are saying. It may lead me to have bigger faith in this spiritual guide, or it may lead my faith to go down. So far, I am not convinced that you are right, I am still far from it. You seem to use western lenses to judge an old tibetan monk. We know some things about buddhism, but we lack knowledge about tibetan culture and it indeed have something to do with Gueshe Kelsang’s actions. I red more extensively the book of the Western Shugden Society this week, and it is very well documented. I’m actually an historian, a lot of things in the book are not easy to counter. But I’m ready to hear what people who pretend they have no biais have to say, so I’m gonna ready Kay later.
        
        9
        
        tenpel on January 31, 2014 at 9:22 pm
        
        Dear Marc,
        thank you for your honest reply, this is a rare treasure I meet after all those years discussing with people who are in NKT. Don’t worry, take time. The spiritual path is not about NKT, KG or the Dalai Lama but it is a honest quest for the truth, to see things as they are. This is not necessarily comfortable or easy.
        
        I don’t want to convince you or anybody.
        I use my Dharma knowledge, my mind, my analysis and common sense and try to be honest (not being carried away by the three mind poisons/bias) in what I see, think, say and write. Also I use the way of investigation of how things have to be investigated: 1) is the conclusion damaged by direct valid cognition 2) is the conclusion damaged by a valid inferential cognizer or evidential inference 3) does the conlusion have internal contradictions 4) does the conclusion contradict the authentic scriptures or Buddhas words? So, I use a Dharma approach to investigate these things. As the lojong teachings recommend: “be liberated through analysis and investigation!”. They don’t say “be liberated through faith!”.
        Rational analysis is highly stressed in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. And rational analysis leads to understanding the facts. Faith is based or should be based on facts, in really existing things. (see for details about faith according to the scriptures here) To see KG through these lenses is what I, he or any serious follower of Tsongkhapa or a seeker of an authentic spiritual path should do. Just read Tsongkhapa’s Lam Rim Chen Mo or learn about debate within Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, than you understand that my approach is not a mere Western approach but in line with the teachings and the Dharma (not all what I say, claim and do of course but this type of thorough investigation and arguments is based on the teachings, and common sense should also be used according to the teachings). So it is not really correct and misleading, if you try to push me into a corner insinuating that my “Western view” on “an old Tibetan monk” might be the wrong approach to judge him and his actions.
        
        We know some things about buddhism, but we lack knowledge about tibetan culture and it indeed have something to do with Gueshe Kelsang’s actions. I red more extensively the book of the Western Shugden Society this week, and it is very well documented. I’m actually an historian, a lot of things in the book are not easy to counter. But I’m ready to hear what people who pretend they have no biais have to say, so I’m gonna ready Kay later.
        
        Please don’t speak of “we” including me as long as you don’t know me. I am not an old stupid guy who needs a nurse to tell me that “WE want to rest now” or “WE want to go to the bathroom”. It might be true for you and most of the NKT people that you don’t know Tibetan culture (and Buddhism) well. I think this is for sure one of the problems why what the Western Shugden Society writes is mainly deluded non-sense – at least if you have sober knowledge and can judge things based on facts. If you are a historian this is an excellent basis to understand why what the Western Shugden Society writes can not be taken seriously.* You might find some of the academic research articles on my website quite useful: http://www.info-buddhism.com – especially those from the book Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies (2001) like this one: http://info-buddhism.com/Tibet_Between_Shangri-la_and_Feudal_Oppression.html When you compare such a fair analysis with the Western Shugden Society site you might gradually be more and more shocked the more you understand because you realize how biased, one-sided and wrong the picture is the WSS want to depict.
        
        I had no clue about Tibetan culture or history before and while in NKT. Over the last 11 years I increased my knowledge about those topics which is a very useful thing to do. I also lived with Tibetans and for a brief time in a Tibetan monastery. My Buddhist knowledge is better than within NKT but compared with the really learned it is a joke. However, its not too bad.
        
        *Prof Barnett from US Columbia University:
        
        »I also made it clear that the Western Shugden group’s allegations are problematic: they are akin to attacking the Pope because some lay Catholics somewhere abuse non-believers or heretics. The Western Shugden Group is severely lacking in credibility, since its form of spirit-worship is heterodox, provocative and highly sectarian in Buddhist terms and so more than likely to be banned from mainstream monasteries – while its claimed concerns about cases of discrimination in India should be addressed by working within the Tibetan community instead of opportunistically attacking the Dalai Lama in order to provoke misinformed publicity for their sect.« see: here
        
        You can also see balanced and differentiated answers by a Tibetologist and Ethnologist to some of the WSS claims here on this subpage: http://info-buddhism.com/TibetanBuddhismQA/QA-Controversies-PartI.html You might find it already quite interesting to note and to think about the answer to the WSS claim that the Dalai Lama would try to unify the four Tibetan Buddhist schools to place himself as the head …
        
        With respect to David N. Kay’s research: please check yourself if he is biased or not. I found him very useful. There is one peer review of Kay’s 2004 research by Inken Prohl who is now Prof of Religious Study at the University of Heidelberg: http://www.globalbuddhism.org/7/prohl06.htm and there is one review by Dr. Feuerstein: http://www.traditionalyogastudies.com/2011/07/tibetan-and-zen-buddhism-in-britain-by-kay/
        
        10
        
        tenpel on January 31, 2014 at 9:35 pm
        
        PS: I will answer the open points around Sunday (hopefully).
        
        11
        
        Marc on February 4, 2014 at 4:50 am
        
        There is no need to rush. Obviously, I’m gonna take my time to read everything and I will obviously not consider everything you say for cash (as you probably saw already 😉 ). I just said I was going to listen and try to see, with my little wisdom, if you are right or wrong. This is something that could take months for me to elucidate, or to deliver a final judgment.
        
        12
        
        tenpel on February 4, 2014 at 10:03 am
        
        Thank you Marc for giving me space & time. Thank you also for your careful approach.
        
        It might be indeed good if you can read some of the academic stuff. The blog has a quite complete list of academic research on NKT/Shugden. If you read some of this research papers we might have a better basis for discussion and I don’t need to say too much about things which are addressed already there.
        
        I am happy if you can find time to investigate if I am right or wrong. This will also help me and others, and it creates a cause that I can correct myself where I am wrong.
        
        I wish you all the best and in case you find yourself in trouble maybe these nice Dharma thoughts by Bhikkhu Bodhi might inspire you to go through the inner battle (though a bit out of context of its origin, I found them helpful for myself to accept the hardships of questioning the spiritual route I had taken):
        
        The search for a spiritual path is born out of suffering. It does not start with lights and ecstasy, but with the hard tacks of pain, disappointment, and confusion. However, for suffering to give birth to a genuine spiritual search, it must amount to more than something passively received from without. It has to trigger an inner realization, a perception which pierces through the facile complacency of our usual encounter with the world to glimpse the insecurity perpetually gaping underfoot. When this insight dawns, even if only momentarily, it can precipitate a profound personal crisis. It overturns accustomed goals and values, mocks our routine preoccupations, leaves old enjoyments stubbornly unsatisfying.
        
        At first such changes generally are not welcome. We try to deny our vision and to smother our doubts; we struggle to drive away the discontent with new pursuits. But the flame of inquiry, once lit, continues to burn, and if we do not let ourselves be swept away by superficial readjustments or slouch back into a patched up version of our natural optimism, eventually the original glimmering of insight will again flare up, again confront us with our essential plight. It is precisely at that point, with all escape routes blocked, that we are ready to seek a way to bring our disquietude to an end. …
        
        I will definitely answer the other points in your comment but I do that (hopefully) in the next three weeks.
    - 13
      
      tenpel on May 28, 2014 at 11:02 pm
      Reply
      
      Hi Mark, I am still in dept to answer you and I am still willing to do that but have to balance my time. Are you still interested to get a response from me? Did you have a look into some reliable academic accounts? What is the current state of your knowledge/questions/doubts/objections?
14

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