Dalai Lama and Dorje Shugden

Recently I saw a documentary on some heavy religious discrimination in Tibet and the Tibetan community elsewhere. Of course this wouldn’t effect me if it was about any other religion; we know that all Abrahamic religions are very intolerant anyway. But Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism is widely pictured as the domains of peace and tolerance. I have reservations to this idea in many respects but here I’ll try to keep it simple and on the subject of Dorje Shugden.

Tibetan Buddhism is not very much a pure form of Buddhism. It is a mixture of Buddhism and many types of shamanic and cultural elements of the Tibetan culture. For example, one of primary confrontations of Buddha was against the idols, the deities and ritualism of Hinduism. But today when you go to a Tibetan Buddhist temple you’ll see many depiction of all sorts of deities and practice of very elaborate rituals. Of course this happens in other forms of Buddhism also but not as much as in Tibetan Buddhism, in my humble experience.

Dalai Lama writes about some of the cultural practices he himself follows, such as consulting oracles and contacting spirits of past Buddhas for guidance. Buddhism also doesn’t limit the person to a single practice. One can follow many teachings at the same time (which is what Dalai Lama says he also does).

But the last ten years Dalai Lama has banned the worship of a certain deity named Dorje Shugden on the basis that it is deity worship, threatens Tibetans and threatens his life! The followers of this deity has been forbidden to enter temples and monasteries and in many occasions have been wildly excommunicated from society. There are posters on the streets and ads in newspapers giving the names, addresses and photos of Dorje followers and telling others to find them and destroy them. This is a natural outcome of people trying to protect the threatened life of their Dalai Lama. On the process, many people have been beaten, many houses looted and destroyed, many people brutally forced to migrate to places where they live in daily fear of violence from other Tibetans.

This is religious intolerance in its ugliest face. And it is so chillingly ironic that this is coming from the religious monarch of a community who had to leave their homeland to shelter in India where they found religious tolerance. Dalai Lama writes great books, gives nice speeches but this ban that has been there for over ten years and caused so much suffering and violence shows very plainly that he’s not really the man of his words.

Please see the 3 part documentary made by Swiss TV on YouTube and visit some of these sites (Open letter to Dalai Lama, Dorje Shugden's site, a blog with some resources on the issue, Dalai Lama versus Dorje Shugden)

Decide for yourself and spread the word.