Schisms, murder, and hungry ghosts in Shangra-La

·期刊原文
Schisms, murder, and hungry ghosts in Shangra-La. (internal
conflicts in Tibetan Buddhist sect)
Mike Wilson
Cross Currents
Vol.49 No.1
Spring 1999
pp.25-

COPYRIGHT 1999 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life

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Millions of Buddhist monks have been killed, imprisoned, tortured,
or driven into exile by the Communist Chinese since the 1950s in a
deliberate, systematic destruction of a culture and a religion. The
pacifist Buddhist monks are about as innocent and noble as victims
can be; the Nobel Prize-winning Dalai Lama is perceived to be
equally wonderful, kind, and heroic. Few are unfamiliar with the
boy-king's narrow escape in 1959 from the Chinese into India, where
he still governs in exile and continues to preach nonviolence. He is
one of the most universally respected religious figures in the
second half of the twentieth century.
This peace-loving image of Tibetan Buddhism sometimes may not be
matched by reality, however. In fact, some observers suspect that
internal conflicts - called by some a feud - resulted in the recent
assassination of Tibetan leaders in India by Buddhists holding a
different point of view.(*) Understanding these conflicts and how
they might have led to assassination requires some history of
Tibetan Buddhism.
History behind the Conflict: Gods and Tantra
A fundamental Buddhist principle is that all phenomena, including
people, lack an inherent "self." We are possessive, greedy, hateful,
angry, worried, and frightened because we think we have a self with
needs, desires, and rights that must be honored and satisfied.
Buddhists say we are deluded about this self. Our clinging to the
idea is the cause of all of our problems and the reason we are
reincarnated to lives of suffering over and over again. When we stop
clinging to the notion of self, we can advance spiritually and
eventually attain nirvana, an extinction of all craving that affords
blissful release.
Such a principle should, it seems, preclude belief in any kind of
deity, since belief would imply that a deity has independent
existence and a self. As Buddhism came into contact with indigenous
religions, however, it found ways to incorporate local pantheons of
gods into, and subordinate to, Buddhism. This is especially true in
Tibet, where the form of Buddhism over which the Dalai Lama presides
draws heavily upon the customs and beliefs of Tibet's native
animistic and shamanistic Bon religion.
The Bon religion divides the world into three realms: Heaven,
consisting of gods and demigods; Earth, consisting of Humans and
Animals; and the Underworld, consisting of Hungry Ghosts and Demons.
Bon shamans invited possession by these spirits in order to access
their powers. Buddhism brought to Tibet from north India the
doctrines of tantricism. Buddhist tantric practices involve the
development of subtle powers of energy and mind to accelerate
spiritual development. These practices were as attractive to Bon
shamans as they were to Buddhists.
State-sponsored Buddhism began in the seventh century C.E., when
warlord and Tibetan King Srontsan Gampo married a Nepalese princess,
promising her father that he would become a Buddhist. He also
married a Buddhist Chinese princess. When an outbreak of smallpox
occurred, the Bon interpreted it as a sign from the gods that
Buddhism was bad for Tibet and forced the King to expel all Indian
teachers and many of their Tibetan followers from the country. In
the eighth century, an attempt was made to reintroduce Buddhism with
the aid of Shantirakshita, a great Indian teacher. Shantirakshita
came and taught at a palace on the Red Hill in Lhasa. When lightning
struck the palace during a violent storm, the Bon again declared the
Tibetan gods had been angered and demanded the expulsion of
Shantirakshita. Shantirakshita later was asked to come back but is
said to have replied that the forces of evil in Tibet were too
strong and had to be exorcized. He recommended that Tibet solicit
the services of a famous tantric monk Padmasabhava, known in Tibet
as Lopon Rinpoche (Norbu, 148-49).
Lopon Rinpoche traveled throughout Tibet for fifty years, exorcizing
demons and, it is said, forcing them to work for Tibet,
incorporating much of the native pantheon of gods and beliefs into a
Buddhist framework. Many of the deities were brought into the
Buddhist fold as different aspects of the same deity. Thus, the
Buddha or gods may manifest in a variety of forms, in a way roughly
similar to Christianity's god manifesting as Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.
How is this behavior reconciled with the Buddhist doctrine that
nothing has an inherent self? Since the world as we experience it is
a product of our minds, under Buddhist theory, the gods and hungry
ghosts can be thought of in the same way - not having a self, but
existing as phenomena of mind. They are therefore no less real than
anything else we experience; and in the Buddhist framework, they are
subordinate to Buddha whatever their nature. Tibetan Buddhists to
the present day pray to gods and utilize oracles, just like the Bon,
and believe the unseen world is populated with all sorts of powers
and forces that must be reckoned with, even though they are
phenomena of mind without an inherent self. In a way, this view
could be compared with Christian belief in devils, angels,
intervention of saints, and god as a Trinity. This is the first fact
necessary to understand the background of the current conflict.
The second fact is that the practice of tantricism has been a
recurring issue in Tibetan Buddhism. As described above, it was
tantric monk Padmasabhava who exorcized Tibet of its demons and
paved the way for the establishment of Buddhism. The form of
Buddhism that took hold popularly was heavily influenced by tantra
and the native Tibetan deities. In the eleventh century C.E.,
another Indian teacher, Atisha, came to Tibet and taught Buddhist
doctrine free of tantric elements, reinterpreting tantra in a
symbolic and philosophical manner, and advising that only two of the
four tantric initiations be utilized. It is said by Thugmen Jigma
Norbu, a former Tibetan monk and brother of the current Dalai Lama,
that Atisha tried to strike a balance between Buddhist scripture and
popular tantric practices. The resulting resistance caused Tibetan
Buddhism to break into separate schools - the Kadampa, which
followed Atisha's views; the Kargyupa and Sakyapa, which wanted to
retain more of the traditional Tibetan deities; and the Nyingmapa,
or Old Sect, which did not care at all for Atisha's reforms and
followed tantric-influenced practices associated with Padmasabhava.
Norbu says that the Bon of today in Tibet consider themselves closer
to the Nyingmapa than to any other Buddhist sect.
In the fifteenth century, the monastic reformer, Tsongkhapa,
continued the reforms begun by Atisha - establishing the Gelugpa
school, founding the important monasteries of Ganden, Sera, and
Drepung, emphasizing pure Buddhist teachings and the practice of
virtue - but did not attempt to subvert or reform the older Tibetan
Buddhist sects, all of whom coexisted with the Gelugpa and the
native Bon.
The heads of the Gelugpa school were known as Dalai Lama and were
believed each to be the reincarnation of his predecessor. Upon the
death of a Dalai Lama, a search is made among children in Tibet for
his reincarnation. Oracles and prophecies suggest areas to search
and candidates to be tested and screened, often with reference to
their ability to recognize acquaintances or belongings of the
previous Dalai Lama. In this way, the head of the Gelugpa school
reincarnates repeatedly to serve as Dalai Lama. The present Dalai
Lama is the fourteenth in succession.
Gelugpa Ascendance and Death of the Great Fifth's Rival
Keeping the foregoing in mind, we turn our attention to events in
seventeenth-century Tibet. In 1642 C.E., the Dalai Lama, head of the
Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, acquired authority over a
politically divided Tibet. The "Great Fifth," as he is known in
Tibet, was shrewd in his dealings with the Chinese, the Mongols, and
with his Tibetans. He consolidated power through an alliance with
Mongol leader Gushri Khan, who defeated the strongest secular leader
in Tibet, King of Tsang, a member of the Nyingmapa order. At the
time the Great Fifth gained power there were both secular and
sectarian rivalries. In addition to various schools of Tibetan
Buddhism, the old Bon religion was reviving its bid for supremacy in
Tibet. Rather than use his power to crush the Nyingma sect, which he
easily could have done through his alliance with the Mongols, the
Great Fifth deliberately incorporated Nyingmapa teachings and
practices into his ecclesiastical court (Norbu, 248-49). Some
Gelugpa purists objected.
As the secular and spiritual leader of all of Tibet, a Dalai Lama
would have to maintain good relations with all sects. Yet, given
that the Nyingma sect was closer to the tantricism whose excessive
influence Gelugpa's founder thought was detrimental to Buddhism,
allegiance to Nyingma could have been a basis for legitimate concern
or a rallying point for political opponents of the Great Fifth.
Furthermore, his attraction to Nyingma may have been more than
political expediency, as it is said that Padmasabhava, the Indian
tantric who had exorcized the demons from Tibet, appeared to the
Great Fifth in dreams and visions (Batchelor, 62).
In any event, it is alleged that the conflict between the Great
Fifth and the Gelugpa purists led to the suicide or murder of the
Great Fifth's rival, Drakpa Gyaltsen. Gyaltsen had been one of the
candidates considered for selection as the Fifth Dalai Lama, so in a
sense this rivalry had existed since childhood. One story says that
Drakpa Gyaltsen defeated the Dalai Lama in debate and was found dead
the next day with a ceremonial scarf stuffed down his throat. The
spirit of Gyaltsen was said to have returned and brought with it
calamities upon the Tibetan state. After magicians and lamas failed
to exorcise the wrathful spirit, the leaders of the Gulag sect asked
the spirit to become a protector. It "agreed." Those who had opposed
the Dalai Lama's involvement with the Nyingma sect recognized the
spirit, called Dorje Shugden, as the reincarnation of Gyaltsen
(Lopez, 68).
One of Dorje Shugden's functions is said to be to protect the purity
of the Gelugpa teachings from pollution by Nyingma doctrines.
However, the following statement also is attributed to the Fifth
Dalai Lama: "The so-called Drakpa Gyaltsen pretends to be a sublime
being. But since this interfering spirit and creature of distorted
prayers is harming everything, both dharma and sentient beings, do
not support, protect or give him shelter, but grind him to dust."
The practice of propitiating Shugden and regarding him as a
manifestation of the bodhisattva Manjushri (i.e., a buddha)
continues among some Tibetan Buddhist monks and laypersons to the
present day. For some of these practitioners, Dorje Shugden is the
primary focus of their practice and, through the thirty-two deities
of his mandala (different manifestations of the same deity), is said
to embody various qualities and provide all kinds of help to those
who take refuge in him. According to information appearing on a
pro-Shugden website referenced at the end of this article, Dorje
Shugden manifests in many different aspects - peaceful, wrathful,
layperson, monk, even nonhuman. Dorje Shugden also is said to have
manifested prior to the seventeenth century dispute with the Fifth
Dalai Lama, incarnating in the person of certain great monks and
lamas extending all the way back to the time of Buddha. However,
Dorje Shugden first made his appearance in Tibet's history as the
reincarnated spirit of Drakpa Gyaltsen.
The Dorje Shugden practices have been the subject of controversy in
the past. At the beginning of this century, the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama had to forbid Pabongka Rinpoche, the most influential Gelugpa
lama of the time, to invoke the deity on the grounds that it was
destroying Buddhism (Batchelor, 63). The ban was ineffective and the
practice was passed on to Pabongka's disciples. Stephen Batchelor,
author of Buddhism without Beliefs (Tricycle/Riverhead), points out
that the Dorje Shugden dispute has erupted throughout Tibetan
history every time a politically effective Dalai Lama has held
office.
Dorje Shugden Returns
The conflict began to resurface this century when, in 1973, a lama
published an account of various illnesses, tortures, and deaths
allegedly inflicted as punishment by Dorje upon Gelugpas who
practiced Nyingma teachings. This account was alleged to have been
received orally from Trijan Rinpoche, one of the Dalai Lama's tutors
and a former disciple of Pabongka, the lama whom the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama had forbidden to propitiate Dorje Shugden (Batchelor,
63).
The present Dalai Lama, who himself has engaged in some Nyingma
practices, condemned the publication and in 1976, upon advice of the
Nechung oracle, began discouraging the practice of propitiating
Dorje - although he himself had, up to that point, been in the habit
of offering daily prayers to Dorje Shugden. Of the six categories of
beings in Tibetan Buddhism, the current Dalai Lama's brother,
Thubten Jigme Norbu, places Shugden in the "hungry ghost" category,
a status comparable to Western notions of evil spirits that haunt or
possess people. By 1996, the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying: "It
has become fairly clear that (Shugden) is a spirit of the dark
forces." He announced that he would give no tantric initiations to
those who had not renounced Shugden. It also is alleged by the
Shugden camp that supporters of the Dalai Lama's position destroyed
statues of individual Shugden worshipers.
This is a big deal because some Tibetans have entrusted their lives
to Dorje through initiation ceremonies, believing him to be a
bodhisattva, or manifestation of Buddha. Imagine the uproar in the
Catholic Church if the pope were to declare prayers to Mary a form
of Satanworship to have a sense of how disturbed some Tibetans might
be by these pronouncements. According to Shugden supporters, there
were protests by Tibetan monks in India following the Dalai Lama's
statements. In the West, the Dalai Lama was picketed in London in
1996 and accused of suppressing freedom of religion. A few days
later, a statement was issued by the Tibetan government-in-exile
strictly forbidding departments and monasteries under government
control from propitiating Shugden. In February of 1997, three
anti-Shugden Tibetan Buddhist monks, including the Dalai Lama's
close friend and confidant, seventy-year-old Lobsang Gyatso (the
principal of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics), were brutally
murdered in Dharamsala, India, the Tibetan capital in exile. It is
alleged that monks loyal to Dorje Shugden did the killing.
The Murder
The killing is said to have been ritualistic. Newsweek reported that
the three members of the Dalai Lama's inner circle were stabbed
fifteen to twenty times each in a bedroom just a few hundred yards
from the Dalai Lama's residence. Robbery was eliminated as a motive
because cash and gilded Buddhist statues had been left at the
blood-splattered scene. Robert Thurman, a Buddhist scholar and
author of Inner Revolution (Riverhead Books, 1998) and an old friend
of the Dalai Lama's, has been quoted as saying that he believes
Shugden activists are behind the murders. No one has been arrested
and the suspects are believed to be in Tibet.
Shugden organizations deny any involvement; however, a report
appearing in the Indian press claims that Indian police traced a
call the escaped killers made to a pro-Shugden organization in New
Delhi. Seven months prior to the killing, a threatening letter, the
full text of which can be viewed on the official web site of the
Tibetan government-in-exile, allegedly was sent under the seal of
the Dorje Shugden Charitable and Religious Society to "... the
morally degenerated Lobsang Gyatso, who is a disgrace to the
Institute of Buddhist Dialectics....[We] came to Dharamsala three
times. In which nunnery were you hiding then?... Instead of writing
warped compositions, you should come down to Delhi (the locale of
Shugden sect headquarters) with courage and meet us like the louse
meets the thumb nails. However, if your guilty conscience does not
afford you the courage to come down, give us a date and we will come
to you. Make your decisions" (The Official Web Site of the Tibetan
Government-in-exile: http://www.tibet.com/). Subsequent to the
killing, fourteen persons in the Dalai Lama's entourage also claim
to have received death threats.
The Shugden organization denies any involvement in the murders or
threats. They also claim that the letter quoted above does not
constitute a threat and that the phrase about lice and thumb nails
is a common Tibetan idiom for determining the truth or falsity of a
matter. On a pro-Shugden website it is alleged that threats have
been made against Shugden activists by anti-Shugden groups. They
also suggest that the murders could have been committed by people
within the Dharamsala compound, alleging reports that evidence was
tampered with and that a sack filled with several hundred thousand
dollars in cash was "missing." The detention of various Shugden
personnel for questioning and attempts to extradite the suspects
through Interpol indicate that the police have focused upon Shugden
activists.
Buddhist Fundamentalists?
The Shugden sect is popular with Tibetans obsessed with doctrinal
purity. Robert Thurman has compared them to the Taliban, Muslim
fighters in Afghanistan. The press in the West has seized upon the
occult, wrathful aspect of Dorje Shugden, describing the deity as a
sword-wielding god sometimes wearing necklaces of human heads. The
heads are supposed, however, to be symbols of conquered vices and
transgressions.
The deity is said to ride a snow lion, symbolizing the four
fearlessnesses of Buddha. The mongoose on his arm indicates his
power to grant wealth on those who rely upon him. He has a third eye
in his forehead, symbolizing omniscience, and his wrathfulness shows
his power to destroy ignorance and obstacles (Dorje Shugden
Coalition website).
The Shugden movement is organized around Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a
Gelugpa monk who founded The New Kadampa Tradition in 1991 and set
himself up as head of it in London. (As described earlier, Kadampa
was the order founded by eleventh-century reformer Atisha.)
Kelsang's uncle is the medium for Dorje Shugden. Kelsang describes
the NKT as "pure Gelugpas," and the organization appears to have
targeted Westerners for recruitment. The NKT (or one of its
associated organizations) led demonstrations against the Dalai Lama
in London and then later in New York. Kelsang is challenging the
Dalai Lama's moral authority on the international stage.
Spokespeople for the Dalai Lama say that the tradition of Shugden is
notoriously sectarian, disruptive of harmony in the Tibetan
community, and on many occasions during the past 360 years has
denigrated other authentic Tibetan traditions. "It has been an
active force of fundamentalist antagonism, intolerance and fear.
Shugden advocates taught that any practitioner who engaged in
practices from other Buddhist traditions would face misfortune or
even death" [The Official Web Site of the Tibetan
Government-in-exile: http://www.tibet.com/). The Dalai Lama said on
the occasion of his sixtieth birthday that he was in a dangerous
period in his life. He reportedly declared that Dorje Shugden is a
threat to his own life and to the cause of Tibet. That he has made
statements that Shugden is aligned with dark forces and refused to
initiate Shugden followers into tantric practices suggests that the
Dalai Lama fears assassination as well as occult harm from the
Shugden sect.(*) Although the he has not said so, his followers
reportedly believe that, on an occult level, the hungry ghost Dorje
Shugden is seeking revenge for his own brutal murder back in the
seventeenth century (Max, 1997).
The NKT present themselves as attempting to exercise religious
freedom in the face of oppression by the Dalai Lama. People in the
West, especially America, are likely to be receptive to such claims,
whether true or not, because of Western values and history that
emphasize religious diversity. On the other hand, the followers of
the Dalai Lama would argue that he has a duty to discourage
spirit-worshiping practices contrary to the fundamentals of
Buddhism. In an interview in Tricycle, Kelsang has challenged the
Dalai Lama to state publicly what evidence he has that Dorje Shugden
is an evil spirit who is harming Tibetan independence and
threatening his life. He argues that what Shugden followers choose
to believe harms no one else. Kelsang even denies that Dorje Shugden
harms Nyingma practitioners and calls such beliefs superstitions
(Donald S. Lopez, Jr., "Two Sides of the Same God," Tricycle: The
Buddhist Review 7, no. 3 [Spring 1998]: 76). Nevertheless, a text
entitled "Praise to Dorje-Shugden" (quoted by the lama whose 1973
account of calamities and punishments befalling Nyingma
practitioners provoked condemnation from the Dalai Lama) suggests
some animus. "Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat
teachings, Who reduces to particles of dust Great beings, high
officials, and ordinary people Who pollute and corrupt the Gelugpa
doctrine" [excerpted from "Praise to Dorje Shugden," quoted by
Stephen Batchelor in "Letting Daylight into Magic: The Life and
Times of Dorje Shugden," Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 7, no. 3
[Spring 1998]: 60).
The Dalai Lama's people call NKT a "cult," and the British press has
described it as Britain's biggest, richest, and fastest growing
religious sect. Since 1991, it has grown to over two hundred centers
in England and about fifty in Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico,
the United States, and elsewhere in Europe. NKT's goal is to be the
biggest umbrella Buddhist organization in the West. There is said to
be a lot of pressure for members to give money. According to British
press reports, supporters are told that donations will "create
enormous merits" in future lives. Interest-free "loans" from members
are also being used to fund expansion. There appear to be associated
organizations, such as the Shugden Supporters Community and the
Dorje Shugden Coalition, controlled or peopled by NKT members,
through which many of the denunciations of the Dalai Lama are
issued.
Kelsang has a reputation as a brilliant teacher of Buddhism and had
built up a following prior to setting up NKT. Sixteen of his books
on Buddhism have been published in English, two of them bestsellers
in England. An article in the British press says that Kelsang tells
his followers he believes Buddhism in Tibet is dead because of the
Chinese occupation and that it has already died in India. If he is
right, that leaves the West as the future of Tibetan Buddhism.
Is Kelsang personally ambitious? The British press reports that some
of his former students who are disillusioned with NKT insist that he
is an honest, well-intentioned person of integrity. Some speculate
that his followers may be using him, or that he fails to appreciate
the geopolitical consequences of some of what he says and does.
Some former followers suggest that those around him create an
atmosphere that promotes Kelsang as "the Third Buddha," come to
establish Buddhism in the West, the first and second Buddhas having
been respectively Buddha himself and Tsongkhapa, founder of the
Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. A story in the British press
reports that followers are told that Kelsang is all-knowing and
all-powerful, answers prayers, does not need to sleep, eat, or go to
the bathroom, and has to put rocks in the pockets of his robe to
keep from levitating during meditation. Kelsang, in response to such
stories, describes himself as "nobody special." It is not uncommon
for Western devotees of eastern gurus to make extraordinary,
exaggerated claims with or without a nod and a wink from the
teacher.
Communist Chinese-Connection or Exploitation?
An Indian newspaper published reports that the murderers immediately
crossed over to Tibet after the murders and were safely escorted to
their villages by the Chinese army. The Chinese, who destroyed so
many temples and killed so many monks, reportedly are restoring
Shugden temples in occupied Tibet. A report allegedly appearing in
the Chinese official journal, China's Tibet, no. 6, 1996, which can
be viewed at the website of the Tibetan government-in-exile,
repeatedly refers to Dorje Shugden as the holy spirit and guardian
of Tibetan Buddhism and denounces the Dalai Lama as a religious
hypocrite. Whether the Chinese Communists are behind the murders or
are simply taking advantage of a situation to undermine the Dalai
Lama is hard to say.
Shugden activists deny opponents' claims that they receive funds
from the Chinese government and claim they support an independent
Tibet. Nevertheless, NKT's apparently systematic campaign against
the Dalai Lama is considered by some to be an attempt to damage the
whole sustainability of the exile community. The Dorje Shugden
Coalition web site refers to a story, attributed to The Indian
Express in Chandigarh, reporting allegations that the Tibetan
government-in-exile hides the known previous records of many Tibetan
refugees and manipulates facts about Tibetan refugees involved in
crimes to conceal their guilt. Is the point of including the article
to show the murders could likely have been committed by one of these
"hidden" criminals, or simply to malign the Tibetan
government-in-exile? Similarly, included in the Shugden Coalition
website is a quote from an interview with the Dalai Lama which
appeared in Mother Jones, December 1997, stating that to save a
person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose hope of
keeping its Buddhist way of life, "it might be justified for one or
10 enemies to be eliminated." Presumably, this quote is to suggest
to the web site reader that the Dalai Lama, feeling himself
endangered, could justify ordering the murder of his enemies or at
least is not the pacifist we think he is. If one looks up the
article and reads the quote in context, the Dalai Lama is talking
about a hypothetical saving of the last person on earth having
knowledge of Buddhism - not himself - and asserts that he left Tibet
in 1959 so that Tibetans would not kill to protect him. Since
Tibetans in exile are guests of the Indian government, information
suggesting that they or Tibetan government-in-exile is potentially
dangerous or disruptive threatens that guest relationship. If the
Tibetan exile community were no longer welcome in India, Communist
China's interests would be well-served, but that does not prove that
the Shugden Coalition intends that result.
What's So Bad about Nyingma?
Since Dorje Shugden is supposed to prevent Nyingma teachings from
polluting the Gelugpa order, why is Nyingma so "bad"? Nyingma
represents the oldest Buddhist system in Tibet, tracing its origin
back to the Royal Dynastic Period (617-845 C.E.) and to
Padmasabhava, the legendary Indian tantric master who exorcized
Tibet's demons at the end of the eighth century. Padmasabhava is
said to have brought "Distant Lineage of the Transmitted Precepts" -
the doctrines, rituals, and meditative practices transmitted from
master to disciple since the eighth century - and the "Close Lineage
of the Treasures." The latter are supposed to be revelations buried
by Padmasabhava, either physically in the Tibetan earth or
psychically in the minds of his reincarnating disciples (Davidson,
102). As described previously, many of the major reforms in Tibetan
Buddhism, including those of the founder of the Gelugpa school,
attempted to redact or purify the tantric and animistic aspects of
early Tibetan Buddhism to make them more consistent with the
underlying principles of Buddhism. Nyingma remains closer to the
original, unreformed version of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to Stephen Batchelor, director of the New Sharpham College
in Devon, England, and author of Buddhism without Beliefs
(Tricycle/Riverhead), Nyingma teaches Dzogchen, the direct and
sudden pointing out by a realized teacher of the experience of the
natural or authentic state of mind beyond conceptions. This state of
mind is an innate, self-cognizant, self-existing awareness
underlying both samsara (illusion) and nirvana. The idea of a
self-existing awareness, of course, raises the thorny question of
"self."
Hindu Vedantists, similar to what is implied by Dzogchen, teach that
there is a real sell what Westerners might call God, that is
self-existing, though everything else, including our separate lives
until we attain self-realization, is illusory. Buddha broke from
Hindu thought by teaching that neither the gods nor any phenomena
have an inherent self. The Gelugpa purists' view (the purity of
which Dorje Shugden is bound to protect) considers Dzogchen a
delusive clinging to a type of self-existence and a backsliding to
Hindu ideas that Buddhism was supposed to refute. Nyingmas might
reply by characterizing Gelugpa purists as nihilists. Batchelor says
the dispute is not academic hair-splitting to those involved but the
struggle for truth in which the salvation of sentient beings hangs
in the balance. Thus, different views on esoteric philosophical
questions with important, they believe, practical consequences
fortify each side's position.
Precedent exists in otherwise heterodoxic Tibetan Buddhism for
suppressing wrong views regarding the existence of a self. The Fifth
Dalai Lama, after consolidating his power in the seventeenth
century, proscribed teachings of the Jonangpa school, which taught
that emptiness, an idea important to understanding that all
phenomena are without a self, implied the existence of a
transcendent absolute reality (Batchelor, 65). Jonangpa monasteries
were taken over by Gelugpa monks. If the Great Fifth had done the
same to the Nyingmas, perhaps the Dorje Shugden schism never would
have arisen.
Why Is Dorje Shugden So Important?
If Shugden purists object to Nyingma tendencies toward acknowledging
a self-existing reality, why do they cling so strongly to Dorje
Shugden? Does that change Buddhism to Shugdenism and make Shugden a
self-existing reality and those who take refuge in Shugden part of a
sectarian cult? As Buddhism syncretized with the native Bon
religion, an important distinction between Buddhists and Bon
practitioners was that Buddhists supposedly understood that the
gods, although real in the sense that anything is real, were just
mind, without inherent existence. To what degree can one become
attached to or take refuge in deity protectors without in fact
attributing to that deity an inherently existing self? Even worse,
in the view of the Dalai Lama, would be to take refuge in a "hungry
ghost."
How does any of this deity-worshiping, or the factors of emotion,
politics, and tradition underlying it, really square with the tenets
of Buddhism? The two sides would give different answers to those
questions. Both sides see Dorje Shugden as a "real" entity, whether
an aspect of the Buddha or a hungry ghost, and as real as any one of
us - not just a form of worship or technique of meditation.
* See David Van Biema, "Monks vs. Monks; Devotees of a Ferocious
Buddhist Deity Are Seeking to Put a Dent in the Dalai Lama's Aura of
Sainthood," Time, May 11, 1998, 70(1); The Christian Science
Monitor; John Zubrzycki, special to The Christian Science Monitor,
May 18, 1998. These articles, as well as a series appearing in the
spring 1998 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, describe what
Tricycle calls "Tibet's 'unmentionable' Feud."
* In a statement appearing on the Tibetan government-in-exile's
website, however, it is explained that the danger to His Holiness is
not that he will be attacked by an evil spirit but that the bond
between the Dalai Lama and his people will be broken.
Sources
Batchelor, Stephen. "Letting Daylight into Magic: The Life and Times
of Dorje Shugden." Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 7, no. 3 (Spring
1998).
Bunting, Madeleine. "Shadow Boxing on the Path to Nirvana." The
Guardian, London, July 6, 1996.
Clifton, Tony. "Did an Obscure Tibetan Sect Murder Three Monks Close
to the Dalai Lama?" Newsweek, April 28, 1997.
Dorje Shugden Coalition Website, URL
http://www.shugden.com/indxnofr.htm.
Lopez, Donald S., Jr. "Two Sides of the Same God." Tricycle: The
Buddhist Review 7, no. 3 (Spring 1998).
Max, Arthur. "Dalai Lama Fighting Ghost in Religious Dispute."
Seattle Times, August 21, 1997.
Norbu, Thubten Jigme, and Colin M. Turnbull. Tibet. London: Chatto &
Windus, 1969.
Davidson, Ronald M. Review of The Nyingma School of Tibetan
Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History. Parabola 18, no. 1 (Spring
1993): 102(3).
Official Website of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, URL
http://www.tibet.com/.
Simms, Laura. "Compassion's Flower: An Interview with Orgyen Kusum
Lingpa." Parabola 22, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 20(8).
"Two More Shugden Activists Identified as Murderers." The Tribune,
Indian English-language daily, Chandigarh edition, November 29,
1997.
Van Biema, David. "Monks vs. Monks; Devotees of a Ferocious Buddhist
Deity Are Seeking to Put a Dent in the Dalai Lama's Aura of
Sainthood." Time, May 11, 1998.
MIKE WILSON, a member of the Society for Utopian Studies, is a
lawyer and long-time student of religion and spiritual disciplines.