Another letter to Kelsang Rabten

The following is another letter by Carol McQuire to Kelsang Rabten in reply to his interview posted on YouTube and the dorjeshugden[.]com site.

Kelsang Rabten, in your first interview, you state that it was ‘outrageous’ for a boy to want to ‘smash an image’ on your public shrine. Your demos, Kelsang Rabten, are designed to ‘smash an image’ of much more than a statue (I don’t think you can ‘smash’ either a postcard or a metal statue so that choice of verb is of itself confusing). I would suggest that the ‘potent negativity’ you mention that boy had received from His Holiness, is actually what has been put into you by your teacher, quite the reverse of what you claim. What His Holiness the Dalai Lama does is empower and encourage each person he meets to see and know their own mind.

You do however, follow your own teacher in such ways, that if he says something, you consider it must be true. I have made the acquaintance of His Holiness and can say that at no level whatsoever am I expected or required to ‘believe what he says is true’ without investigation or analysis nor do anything by obligation or force. It would go against the path and be considered mistaken, confused and even repugnant if I felt I ought to do something that goes against my own sense of integrity, values or logic. However, when I was in the NKT I was expected to accept mistaken ideas that Kelsang Gyatso himself said from the throne as being the truth – statements such as ‘You will not get enlightened if you disrobe!’ You must know this cannot be true as it contradicts the basic philosophy of Buddhism which states that everyone has the potential to become a Buddha. This statement was the source of much confusing debate amongst the NKT sangha that year, after Sojong at Manjushri Centre, in 2005 or 2006. I would dare to say that what you see as ‘discrimination’ is actually a desire to protect people from this kind of confusion. In other words, it means using the ‘discrimination’ of correctly assessing the dangers of a situation.

You demean Tibetans by thinking them so cowardly that they would not protest or negotiate with His Holiness if there were problems such as those you proclaim. The monastic separation happened through the wishes of Tibetans – through voting and negotiation. You show great pretension to think that you can ‘sort out’ problems that belong to Tibetans, especially when they have already been sorted and in particular when you have so many ex NKT complaining about mistreatment when in NKT hands. I do not know of any ex NKT who have left a centre with some of the NKT’s profits in their pockets, quite unlike the monks in India who had rights to monastic funds. Other Tibetan refugees are impoverished, but not the Shugdenpa monks!

You should focus on your spiritual practice if that is your main life and your wish. These issues are not as important as you think, unless you are not telling us the real reason why you are doing these demonstrations. Why are you sitting in a café in a suit and tie when you would probably much prefer to be wearing your robes? Who tells you to do this? Where are these millions of Tibetans you are saving? You know in your heart that they do not exist. No one can find them. So who are you actually doing these demonstrations for?

The Tibetans who were watching you from the steps outside the venue in Basel must be the ones you do these demonstrations for, and for your own students and NKT followers. You want to be ‘seen’ by these people; you want to offend those Tibetans who love His Holiness for many justifiable reasons. You know you cannot convince them with your banners, shouts and slogans – you do it to ‘provoke’. I think you need a proper teacher.

When you say that His Holiness is ‘wiping out this precious tradition’ you actually express your fears for your own tradition, don’t you, not Je Tsongkhapa’s at all! Trijang Rinpoche did not start a ‘tradition’ nor did Pabongkha. They were teachers of a tradition, not a tradition in themselves. And Je Tsongkhapa never needed a’ Shugden’. Do you really think your Shugden is so weak that His Holiness saying that his students should not do this practice will ruin Shugden?  Or do you think that everything your ‘tradition’ has will be ruined and lost if Shugden is not practised by a few more people? Such dependence is extraordinary! So is such craving for His Holiness’s approval!

See also

• Dear Kelsang Rabten – Carol McQuire