Prove it, Kelsang Khyenrab! Prove it!

Prove it, Kelsang Khyenrab, prove it! Prove that all your ‘successes’ are due to Shugden and all your ‘failures’ are due to His Holiness the Dalai Lama! How absurd!

I would argue that this mistaken and completely unprovable ‘thought’ is at the basis of every action you take against His Holiness! It is nothing but an invented ‘value’, a ‘maxim’, the ‘mantra’ you have taken to heart and believe at the core of your being to be true (or else you are truly a hypocrite!). Why do you think this way? I think you have a deep need to preserve your teacher and your ‘tradition’ as ‘perfect’ and ‘unmistaken’. However, as your teacher has given you the impossible ‘agenda’ of creating an New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) centre ‘in every city of the world’ you need to have something else to blame for the problem with this ‘agenda’ other than your teacher and his exaggerated expectations of you as one of his most ‘senior’ teachers.

What is the problem with your ‘agenda’?

I remember when I was an NKT nun and Kelsang Gyatso saying, live, that we should ‘be like Christian monks’ as they were very successful in ‘converting’ the whole world. He set these missionaries up as an example – that NKT monks and nuns should have that same ambition but in the ‘name’ of the Buddhist compassion of the NKT! What was he actually suggesting that you convert people ‘to’? Your ‘compassion’ means that you think people should be coming to your teachings and should pay for your further expansion – more ‘temple’ buying! – whilst your teachers fumble in their training for the impossible – to be ‘Dharma teachers’ in a very short period of time, so that they can go and ‘teach’ in these new temples and centres as soon as possible! There are already too many NKT centres for the number of people you try to train and the pressure to be ‘perfect Dharma teachers’ is too much for so many of these new teachers. Why? Anyone who knows Buddhism knows that becoming a ‘Dharma teacher’ in a few months or even years, is impossible – ‘Dharma’ means the inner realisations that take time to ripen, like the best wines and cheeses – but you are forced to create teachers far too quickly because of your challenging and ultimately absurd ‘agenda’ or ‘missionary cause’ of NKT expansion.

Instead of harassing His Holiness and those who respect him, why don’t you examine the basic premises of your ‘agenda’ to convert us all to the NKT world? (If we have the ‘good karma’ to be converted!) It is your basic expansionist ‘agenda’ that is at fault, and the demands this makes on you, not His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And where does this kind of ‘agenda’ come from? Not just from ‘your teacher’! His Holiness has pointed this out when addressing the issues surrounding Shugden – the ‘fault’ of Shugden lies in the ability that Shugden has to create ‘sectarian’ agendas. The Shugden ‘agenda’ is very similar to the missionary ‘agenda’. (Is Shugden to Tibetan Buddhism what Jehovah’s Witnesses are compared with, say, the Church of England?) Shugden is what your teacher loves and your teacher is the one making you travel so much, ‘expounding’ your NKT Dharma in every country you can, trying to convince others that your way – the ‘Modern Buddhist’ way – is the very best Buddhism. You are jealous of the Tibetan world – otherwise why take Tibetan teachings and make them into your own ‘Modern Buddhist’ teachings forgetting to credit the great Masters whose works – transmissions, commentaries and retreat manuals – your teacher has used as his own?

I think you are forgetting something, Kelsang Khyenrab … You are getting older; your bones will start to crave rest, your speed will diminish, you will become more forgetful of what you wish to ‘teach’ and your eyes are already weakening. This is not a curse, it is old age and it is in your NKT books too. What will you do when you can no longer ‘follow the agenda’ of your teacher? What will you do when you can no longer blame His Holiness for your problems? What are you doing now, in your heart of hearts, when you blame His Holiness the Dalai Lama for what I am sure you know is nothing to do with him at all – the failures of your own intensely unrealistic ‘agenda’?

NOTE: His Holiness the Dalai Lama does not even teach in Korea for political reasons. I wonder how he can be so immensely powerful and your teacher so weak in comparison? Is that the basic problem? You wish to compensate for your own teacher’s lack of ‘greatness’ by making a big fuss? Perhaps in Korea, a land with a long and rich history of home-grown Buddhism, the ‘Modern Buddhist’ packaging of NKT just isn’t appealing…

It’s time to stop blaming His Holiness the Dalai Lama for your own very real problems. If you hadn’t been asked to go to Korea in the first place, you wouldn’t have any ‘failures’ to blame on Him. It’s time to blame ‘Shugden’s agenda’ instead. And why, oh why, should everything you do be regarded as ‘perfect’? I have heard that this is one of Shugden’s problems too.

Guest post by Carol McQuire
Originally posted: PROVE IT, KELSANG KHYENRAB!