Dalai Lama versus Dorje Shugden
Is His Holiness Practicing Religious Persecution?
The Western Shugden Society has alleged the Dalai Lama is enforcing a ban that puts spiritual freedom in jeopardy. Is His Holiness guilty of religious cleansing?
The Dalai Lama is the face of Buddhism. By extension, he is the face of inner peace and compassion. It is nearly impossible to separate the Dalai Lama from the ancient religion—perhaps as difficult as it is to imagine anyone opposing his views or calling him a liar. His charisma, charm and familiarity also make it hard to imagine why a group of people might stage protests against him.
But they are. And many would argue the peaceful protests that have been, and continue to be staged against the 14th Dalai Lama, are happening with good reason.
Protest at Colgate University
April 22, 2008 at Colgate University, New York was the first of what has been suggested might be many protests staged against the Dalai Lama as he travels in the West. As he spoke to an audience of over 5,000 people inside, hundreds gathered outside in a noisy but peaceful protest. Some of the protesters were representing the Chinese, but the bulk of the protestors, close to 500, represented what is known as the Western Shugden Society— a group of Buddhists reigning from all over the world who claim to have been “abandoned by the Dalai Lama,” and subjected to religious persecution through a ban of one of their practices.
Pure Lineage
The Western Shugden Society’s members practice what they call “the prayer of Dorje Shugden.” They say it is “a pure and harmless spiritual practice they have received from their Spiritual Guides,” and that Shugden practice is a centuries-old tradition, passed down to the Dalai Lama himself. To ban the practice, they say, is to destroy the pure lineage.
There is nothing new about the Dalai Lama opposing Shugden (or Dholgyal) practice. The 5th Dalai Lama and the 13th Dalai Lama took issue with it, and the current (14th) Dalai Lama has said it “degenerates the Buddhist practice into a form of spirit worship.” It seems, however, that recently things have been taken to a whole new level.
Is There Actually a Ban in Place?
During the protest in New York, one of the Dalai Lama’s representatives, Tashi Wangdi came out to speak to news cameras. He said, “I think there is a lot of misunderstanding. I was trying to explain that. There is no ban.”
As he walked away, Buddhist nun Kelsang Pema, one of the demonstration organizers told cameras, “There is absolutely no misunderstanding. There is a ban, there’s discrimination, there’s hypocrisy.” She went on to say she had been to India twice in the last month upon the request of Shugden practitioners to see first hand the devastation that was being caused. She witnessed families divided, children expelled from schools and people denied the ability to buy food if they are Shugden practitioners or if they associate with Shugdens.
And how does the grocery store clerk know who you do or do not pray to? He asks for your identity card.
According to the WSS website since January of this year the all Tibetans have been made to sign a declaration put in place by the Dalai Lama “forsaking the practice forever and promising not to associate in any way – spiritually, financially, socially or materially – with anyone who does not sign.” If you sign, you get an identity card proving it.
The WSS says the monks who refused to sign the declaration were “expelled from their monasteries and nunneries, forbidden to associate with other Tibetans, even to eat with or shop from them, and left to fend for themselves without any support.”
“I always believe since all different traditions have some potential to bring inner peace, inner value ... it is important to keep one's own tradition,” said the Dalai Lama to an Ann Arbor, MI, audience two days before the Colgate talk. “Urging the crowd to practice the religion they were raised in and not convert,” paraphrases his official website, “because all traditions, he said, have something to offer.”
