The lamas who give Tibetan Buddhism a bad name

[JKhedrup]

Thanks, Sheila!

[Konchog1]

"Distance yourself from Vajra Masters who are not keeping the three vows
who keep on with a root downfall, who are miserly with the Dharma,
and who engage in actions that should be forsaken.
Those who worship them go to hell and so on as a result."

-Manjushrikirti's Ornament for the Essence as quoted in Lord Tsongkhapa's Tantric Ethics pg 46

[heart]

Maybe the future of Japanese Buddhism WAS in Shoko's hands. Apparently he dropped the ball.

Yeah, indeed.

/magnus

[heart]

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Tibetan Buddhism has a bad name.

There are definite hazards. A sore posterior from listening to hours of great teaching on works of Atisha, sore fingers from weeding garlic mustard on the center grounds, and a sore belly from laughing at the humorous perplexities of life.

Yes, it certainly is miserable

/magnus

[Matylda]

With all due respect, I don't think showing human kindness to anyone is considered messing up, at least not in Buddhism.

His Holiness told Shoko Asahara, 'The future of Japanese Buddhism is in your hands' Doh! I'm not doubting that His Holiness' motivation was pure, as always, I'm simply saying that he seriously misjudged this chap. So I repeat, even the greatest Lamas can occasionally mess up.
R.

Yeah.. they do mess up. Actually AS brought a lot of money to HH. it was at least one million dollars according to the JTV so he received very nice and cordial reception. HH was telling AS many nice things, including a future of Japanese Buddhism. But AS was a serial killer, he killed at least 100 people and grilled them in a huge microwave machines.. anyway the stink was so bad that people from nearby village complained about it before the truth was discovered.

AS was a perfect idiot, his speeches were a total nonsense. Somehow some young people listened to him and followed. Some of them were good scientists so they helped him to produce sarin gas and other weapons.

As for the rich people if they did not give away voluntarily their money, he just killed and robbed them, sometimes the whole family. Same happened to his opponents and escapees from his camp. His men would just follow them give shot of sarin directly in the body, kidnap and grill them... he told his people he is doing phowa for those killed so killing was justified and ok.

They had their own prison.. for those who disobeyed. And also they tortured people, caused death from starvation etc. Police saved some of them who were imprisoned, so the siege of the compounds was a real liberation for them.. the view was so terrible, human skeletons like in Nazi camps. TERRIBLE.

By the way AS was selling very well Tibetan Buddhist practices.. Guru Yoga was for 15 thousand dollars... so other practices. This man was biggest shit I ever seen or heard about.. he was a real demon. Well HH said what he said.. then after sarin attack when the crew from JTV tried to talk to HH they were just kicked out by administration officers from the office of HH, and HH never showed up neither gave comment or apologized. This is sad I think.. and still he has opinions about Japanese Buddhism. It is ok for him.. well.

Unfortunately for HH DL Japanese police forces discovered some tapes at different locations in Tokyo about AS visit at HH place.. it was shown on the JTV and the situation for HH in Japan was grave... his image was on posters of most dangerous and deadly cults... it was at that time for Tibetan Buddhism unfortunate bad image.. it was really sad.

And members had very fancy ''buddhist'' names, like Maitreya etc.

Those were things I could see on tv.. nothing like gossip or so. It was open public info in the public media... I think there were more details, but now I do not remember all, it was almost 20 y. ago.

To say that he was a promise for japanese Buddhism or that he ''dropped the ball'', is at least completely insensitive. He killed hundreds [police found many human remains after grilling], poisoned thousands of people [they still suffer terribly from poisoning having several health problems related to the attack, from time to time you can see a program about those poisoned people on jtv], killed with cold blood even entire families including children (!), robbed innocent... well what to say? Is there any sensible comment to it?

Those people were not Buddhist, including AS himself, it was personal cult of a demon. A real demon, not just some faith.. they had no knowledge of Buddhism whatsoever, what was clear from AS ''teachings''.. just a demon.

[Sheila]

Well...we are responsible for our own karma. All the diplomats, world leaders, family members, and regular people who were kind to Jeffrey Dahmer (or other serial killers) on a daily basis--they're not responsible for his terrible acts.

If showing normal human kindness, or human fellowship, automatically makes us a bad person when other people in our lives then go on to do something awful, that would be a sad reality. The truth is, it only makes them an awful person--not us, and not all the other humans in their life.

The Dalai Lama who met Shoko Asahara, the world leaders who cordially met Hitler in the 1930s, the friends and acquaintances of Jeffrey Dahmer--none of these innocent people are clairvoyant, none of them have magical powers that can predict the future. They aren't able to forecast another's terrible actions. So, since we can't know ahead of time what anyone's actions will be, the only proper thing to do is show human kindness.

The Dalai Lama also met Mao Zedong, who went on to be responsible for countless millions of deaths. The Dalai Lama was friendly to him and showed him human kindness, because this is what he believes is important. If the Dalai Lama met a murderer tomorrow, he would show him human kindness.

It's easy to try to find wider blame for awful things, but in reality the ultimate blame lies within samsara and within each individual's choices in samsaric life.

[Matylda]

Well...we are responsible for our own karma. All the diplomats, world leaders, family members, and regular people who were kind to Jeffrey Dahmer (or other serial killers) on a daily basis--they're not responsible for his terrible acts.

If showing normal human kindness, or human fellowship, automatically makes us a bad person when other people in our lives then go on to do something awful, that would be a sad reality. The truth is, it only makes them an awful person--not us, and not all the other humans in their life.

The Dalai Lama who met Shoko Asahara, the world leaders who cordially met Hitler in the 1930s, the friends and acquaintances of Jeffrey Dahmer--none of these innocent people are clairvoyant, none of them have magical powers that can predict the future. They aren't able to forecast another's terrible actions. So, since we can't know ahead of time what anyone's actions will be, the only proper thing to do is show human kindness.

The Dalai Lama also met Mao Zedong, who went on to be responsible for countless millions of deaths. The Dalai Lama was friendly to him and showed him human kindness, because this is what he believes is important. If the Dalai Lama met a murderer tomorrow, he would show him human kindness.

It's easy to try to find wider blame for awful things, but in reality the ultimate blame lies within samsara and within each individual's choices in samsaric life.

Well, I think HH DL had to meet Mao, the biggest demon of the XX century.. nobody was biggest liar, murder and all worst one can imagine... HH had no way to refuse, Tibet was already in Chinese hands. But Asahara, he is a case of HHDL becoming victim of his own views about Japan and Japanese Buddhism. I heard him talk sometimes very strange things... what happened with HH and Asahara is no surprise in HH kept to such opinions about Japan.

We can compare politics of course, and how Hitler was in fact admired by many politicians in the 30. But politics is not a religion, am I right? One does not have to support Mr. Nobody, who comes out of the blue with money. It is my critic.. otherwise I love HHDL anyway he is very good teacher and to listen to him is very nice. as far as he talks about things he knows

Japan is still something else. Anyway he comes still quite often and meets people in Japan. Nobody said anything bad about HH 20 y ago after AS... there was silence, deep silence... guess what it means, but I am talkative ... Now is ok, Japan had reconciliation with HH

[Simon E.]

long

When Karma Thinley Rinpoche was asked to take sides in the Karmapa controversy he said ' Perhaps they are both the Karmapa.' . In this way he is one of the very few to have remained completely neutral. His student Jampa Thaye has however chosen to take sides. This has required him to make certain political alliances, which he might ordinarily have avoided. For the same reason, the other faction has had to make equally regrettable alliances. What a mess!
R.

I was hoping that someone else would address this, but as they haven't I feel honour bound to.
Lama Jampa Thaye has in fact made strenuous efforts to AVOID taking sides..that includes developing a relationship with both Karmapas...He has a long established relationship with Thrangu Rinpoche who he considers to be one of his main teachers.