Dalai Lama – Buddhist King-Monk Wants Pilgrimage to Tibet

TND Guest Contributor:  Christof Lehmann  |

Tensyn Gyatso a.k.a the 14th Dalai Lama announced that he was negotiating with Chinese officials to discuss a pilgrimage to Tibet. The statement comes against the backdrop of increased US support of subversive elements in Hong Kong and China’s Xinjiang province. The Dalai Lama has been internationally criticized by Buddhists for supporting an armed insurgency. He is still considered as an outcast by the majority of Buddhists worldwide, for conducting politics, and for the violent oppression of “heretics” among Tibetan Buddhists while he is dressing in a monk’s robes.

The Chairman of China’s Communist Party in Tibet, Chen Quanguo commented on recent statements by Tensyn Gyatso, a.k.a. Dalai Lama, describing him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothes”. Quango warned that China would stamp out any separatist inclinations and punish those members of the party who harbor fantasies about Tibet’s so-called leader in exile.

A former emissary of the Dalai Lama admitted that “His Holiness” was aware of and supported the armed, CIA-supported insurgency in Tibet during the 1950s and 1960. The failed insurgency was not merely a separatist struggle with US support but an attempt to intimidate and if necessary assassinate leaders of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and senior monks who disagreed with the separatist insurgency and the King-Monk in exile. One of Tensyn Gyatso’s elder brothers was according to the former emissary directly involved in the campaign and acted as liaison to the Dalai Lama.

Buddhist scholars and leaders of Buddhist communities worldwide criticize the Dalai Lama for violating even the most fundamental tenets of Buddhism.

Holding the office of a politician or even a king is irreconcilable with the vows of a Buddhist monk. It should be needless to say that fueling an armed insurgency and murdering fellow monks for political reasons is irreconcilable with the vows of a monk too.

There is a Tibetan Buddhist proverb that goes “every now and then the supreme Buddha is sending a vicar instead of the incarnation of the Dalai Lama”. Many Mahayana, Hinayana, Theravada and other Buddhists would agree that this must be the case with Tensyn Gyatso.

The Dalai Lama is, according to Tibetan Buddhism’s Mahayana school the incarnation and the embodiment of Chenzerig or Avalokitesvaha as he would be called in Sanskrit.

Avalokitesvaha, has, according to Buddhist belief, a thousand eyes to see the suffering of the world; he has a thousand ears to hear the suffering of the world; and he has a thousand arms to alleviate all of that suffering out of pure compassion.

Compare that to CIA weapons drops and the murder of Buddhist monks and ask how likely it is that Mr Gyatso is one of those vicars which have been sent.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is a member of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, known for their yellow hats. It is a relatively new school of Buddhism as compared to the Nyingma or red hat school. The Tibetan exile government has been widely criticized for enforcing the widest possible “Gelugpaization” of Mahayana Buddhism.

The 14th Dalai Lama was initiated into the Dorje Shugden practice of Buddhism. Which translates into the worship of a Bodhisattva or Saint for protection. He initiated thousands of Buddhists into the Dorje Shugden practice which has particularly many followers in Tibet proper.

That fact, and the fact that the “government in exile” had difficulties at enforcing loyalty to the exile government among Dorje Shugden practitioners in Tibet and other Chinese provinces caused “His Excellency” to suddenly become enlightened about the fact that Dorje Shugden worship is spiritism and should be abolished and forbidden.

The decision was rigorously enforced. That is, monks were beaten, their families threatened, private homes of Dorje Shugden practitioners were ransacked and shrines trashed. Monks who once fled from Tibet had to flee once again, this time from their religio-feudal tyrant in monks robes.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace prize. That puts him into the same category as war criminals Henry Kissinger and Barack Hussein Obama, where he most likely is much better placed than among those with a thousand eyes to see the suffering of the world, a thousand ears to hear the suffering of the world, and a thousand arms to alleviate it.

One of the most vicious propaganda lies disseminated by the so-called Tibetan government in exile is that about the self-immolation of Buddhists in protest against brutal oppression of the religious freedom of Buddhists by the Chinese authorities. Seen from the perspective of the Dalai Lama being the embodiment of Chenzerig / Avalokitesvaha, his foremost duty would be to alleviate the suffering rather than to abuse it for propaganda reasons.

One example for the cynical abuse of a personal tragedy was the death of the 35-year-old mother named Rechok from the Chatuo village of Rangtang, Aba.

Rechock committed suicide by dowsing herself with petrol and setting herself ablaze after a violent fallout with a husband, Namsetong, who had been drinking. The 35-year-old mother died on the way to a hospital. Police concluded that the suicide was caused by a family feud and alcohol.

The so-called Tibetan exile government claimed her death was politically motivated and Western media followed suit by describing the tragedy as one more example of a growing dissent against China’s oppression of Tibetans and their culture.

Speaking about the Tibetan culture that was prevalent before His Holiness and his entourage fled Tibet. The amputation of hands, the gouging out of eyes, and the most brutal forms of physical punishment were commonplace in the theocratic, feudalistic ruled Tibet.

If the 14th Dalai Lama wishes to make a pilgrimage to Tibet, I would suggest that he visits one of the museums which exhibit the torture instruments which his feudal- monks and their henchmen used against their serfs.

Dr. Christof Lehmann an independent political consultant on conflict and conflict resolution and the founder and editor in chief of nsnbc, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

This article was published at the New Eastern Outlook and is reprinted with permission.