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by
Stephen Batchelor
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 Fifth Dalai Lama
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 Geluk doctrine.
-- From “Praise to Dorje Shugden” quoted by Zemey Rinpoche
“A
wrathful deity,” announced the London Independent with barely concealed
irony on Monday 17 February, 1997 “is the main suspect for three murders
in Dharamsala, the Himalayan ‘capital’ of Tibet’s government-in-exile.”
Two weeks earlier Gen Lobsang Gyatso, the principal of the Buddhist School
of Dialectics, and two students had been stabbed to death. Eight months
later, despite exhaustive investigations by the Indian police, the case is
still unresolved. Although arrest warrants for two suspects have been
issued, the police believe they have gone to ground either in Nepal or
Tibet. Interpol has been called in to help find them.
On
Saturday 6 July, 1996, another British newspaper, the Guardian, had
carried a front-page story under the heading: “Smear campaign sparks
safety fears over Dalai Lama’s UK visit.” The article described
demonstrations on the streets of London where hundreds of British
Buddhists “chanted anti-Dalai Lama slogans and carried placards saying
‘Your smiles charm, your actions harm.’” The Nobel Peace Laureate was
accused by an organisation called the Shugden Supporters Community of
being “a ruthless dictator” and “an oppressor of religious freedom.”
These tragic and bewildering events have brought to the attention of the
world a long-standing, arcane feud within the Tibetan Buddhist community
that centers around the protector god Dorje Shugden. While feeding the
West’s seemingly insatiable fascination with all things Tibetan, the
murders and demonstrations have exposed a dark and troubling underside of
a tradition often seen as a beacon of wisdom and compassion in a
spiritually confused world. Even if it turns out that the killings were
part of a Chinese campaign to intensify discord in the Tibetan community
in exile, the fact remains that Beijing has been able to exploit a bitter
dispute that the Dalai Lama and his supporters such as Gen Lobsang Gyatso
have so far been powerless to resolve.
To
understand the complex origins of this dispute, it is necessary not only
to trace an outline of Tibetan history since the 17th century, but also to
grasp some of the doctrinal and philosophical issues that have divided
Tibetans since Buddhism was established in the 8th century.
***
On
the 28th day of the seventh lunar month of 1642, the Fifth Dalai Lama had
a dream of two Nyingma lamas giving him an initiation in a chapel of his
palace at Drepung Monastery. One of the lamas handed him a ritual dagger (phur
ba) and at that very moment he had the feeling of being spied on through a
window by monks of his own Geluk order. He reflected that if the Geluk
monks criticized him for receiving teachings from the Nyingma lamas, he
would stab them with the dagger. He rushed out to confront them, but they
already seemed subdued. He then woke up.
Earlier the same year, the twenty-six year old Dalai Lama had been
conferred with supreme authority over all Tibet by the Mongol Gushri Khan,
thus inaugurating the dynasty of the Dalai Lamas. This was achieved when
the armies of the Mongol Khan defeated the King of Tsang, the backer of
the Dalai Lama’s chief rival for power in Tibet: the Karmapa -- a senior
lama of the Kagyu order. While this military victory ended years of civil
conflict in Tibet and unified the country under the Geluk order, it also
exposed tensions among the Gelukpas themselves -- already hinted at in the
Dalai Lama’s dream three months later.
The
Geluk tradition had been founded more than two hundred years earlier by
the remarkable monk, scholar and yogin Tsongkhapa, who drew from all
Tibetan Buddhist traditions of his time to create a compelling new
synthesis of doctrine, ethics, philosophy and practice. The first Dalai
Lama was a leading disciple of Tsongkhapa, and as the influence of the
Gelukpas grew steadily over the next two centuries, the Dalai Lamas
emerged as important spiritual figures within the school. When the fifth
in the line became head of the Tibetan state, the institution of the Dalai
Lama suddenly assumed unprecedented political power.
Although the Fifth was a Geluk monk, as head of state he carried the
mantle not only of Tsongkhapa’s reformed Buddhist order but also that of a
thousand years of Tibetan history. This would have been particularly
poignant for him, since he was born into a family whose ancestral home
overlooked the tombs of the early Tibetan kings in the Chonggye Valley and
who were still associated with the Nyingma tradition. The Nyingmapas
(“Ancients”) had been instrumental in introducing Buddhism to Tibet at the
time of those early kings and in first defining the buddhocratic nature of
the state. Throughout his life the Dalai Lama maintained a strong
allegiance to the Nyingma school (particularly the practice of Dzogchen)
and a mystical rapport with its founder Padmasambhava, who appeared to him
in dreams and visions.
The
Dalai Lama’s assumption of this long and complex historical identity would
not have sat easily with the ambitions of a Geluk hierarchy intent on
creating a buddhocratic state founded explicitly on the teachings of
Tsongkhapa. It seems that this conflict led to the death of the Fifth’s
rival Drakpa Gyaltsen, shortly after the Dalai Lama’s return from a state
visit to China (suggesting the possibility of a palace revolt during his
prolonged absence). Thereafter, Dorje Shugden was recognized by those
Gelukpas who opposed the Dalai Lama’s involvement with the Nyingma school
as the reincarnation of Drakpa Gyaltsen, who had assumed the form of a
wrathful protector of the purity of Tsongkhapa’s teachings. They also
regarded him as an emanation of the bodhisattva Manjushri.
After the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682, the controversy between
these factions of the Geluk school slips into the shadows and we hear only
occasional references to Dorje Shugden for the next two hundred years. The
Sixth Dalai Lama was unsuited to public office and was arrested and killed
by the Mongols. After the Seventh Dalai Lama was returned to Lhasa in 1720
by the Manchus, the government of Tibet passed into the hands of a regency
composed initially of powerful aristocrats and then, for 113 years, senior
Geluk lamas. Of the six Dalai Lamas who lived during this period of
regency, the last four died before the age of twenty-one, thus failing to
assume leadership of Tibet for more than a year or so.
The
Thirteenth Dalai Lama came to power at the age of nineteen in 1895. Having
survived an assassination attempt (his former regent concealed deadly
mantras in his boots), he found himself charged with the daunting task of
leading Tibet into a rapidly changing world. He proved an able leader, who
sought to introduce a modest program of reform only to be thwarted by
aristocrats and senior lamas. He was also a keen practitioner of Nyingma
teachings. He had several teachers from the Nyingma school, practiced with
them in the Potala Palace, and wrote commentaries to the Nyingma texts of
his predecessor the Fifth.
The
Thirteenth’s openness to the Nyingmapa was in marked contrast to that of
Pabongka Rinpoche, the most influential Geluk lama of the time, whose
authority rivalled that of the Dalai Lama. Pabongka inherited the practice
of Dorje Shugden from his mother’s family, and as a young man also
received transmissions from Nyingma lamas. After a serious illness he
became convinced that the disease was a sign from Shugden to stop
practicing Nyingma teachings, which he did. Although he promoted the
practice of Shugden, he was ordered by the Thirteenth to stop invoking the
deity on the grounds that it was destroying Buddhism. Pabongka then
promised “in the core of my heart” never to propitiate Shugden again. He
evidently changed his mind, though, and subsequently passed the practice
on to his disciples.
The
present Dalai Lama, born in 1935, was introduced to the practice of Dorje
Shugden by his junior tutor Trijang Rinpoche, a leading disciple of
Pabongka. This was a time of great political turmoil in Tibet. The
reliability of the State Oracle Nechung had been thrown into doubt and
some believed the government should switch its allegiance to the oracle
representing Dorje Shugden. The Regent, Reting Rinpoche, was forced to
resign, only to return to launch an unsuccessful coup in 1947. The Chinese
Communists arrived in Lhasa in 1952. The Dalai Lama, his tutors and
100,000 Tibetans fled to India in 1959, possibly on the advice of the
Shugden oracle.
In
1973 a senior Geluk lama called Zemey Rinpoche published an account of
Dorje Shugden he had received orally from his teacher Trijang Rinpoche.
This text recounts in detail the various calamities that have befallen
monks and laypeople of the Geluk tradition who have practiced Nyingma
teachings. Those mentioned include the last three Panchen Lamas, senior
officials of the Thirteenth’s government, Reting Rinpoche and even
Pabongka himself. In each case, the illness, torture or death incurred is
claimed to be the result of having displeased Dorje Shugden. The
publication of this material was condemned by the Dalai Lama, who was then
engaged in Nyingma practices himself under the guidance of Dilgo Khyentse
Rinpoche. His views about Dorje Shugden began to shift and led to his
first statements discouraging the practice in 1976.
Each
time a Dalai Lama has come to hold effective political office, a
controversy has erupted around Dorje Shugden. A similar pattern has
repeated itself during the rules of the Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Dalai Lamas. This conflict has inevitably been articulated in the vivid,
yet (to outsiders) bewildering language and imagery of Tibetan culture. It
reflects a struggle between two opposing visions of how best to lead
sentient beings to enlightenment, preserve the Buddha’s teaching, and
maintain the integrity of the Tibetan state. Representatives of both sides
have included wise, moral and saintly men, who have led exemplary Buddhist
lives. Some, such as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Trijang Rinpoche, admired
and respected each other. As with everything to do with Tibet, the line
between religion and politics is blurred. The dispute over Dorje Shugden
is neither an exclusively religious nor a fundamentally political one. It
is both.
***
Who
are these invisible beings that appear to Tibetan lamas in dreams and
visions, speak through oracles, predict the future, inspire awe and
terror, bless those who worship them and incur misfortune on those who
don’t? The Tibetan term for such beings is lha. Lha means “deity” or
“god.” Such gods are both Indian and Tibetan in origin and constitute a
pantheon as complex and arcane as that of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet
with the advent of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, there appears an
altogether different kind of god. These are buddhas and bodhisattvas,
awakened beings who have vowed to work ceaselessly and in myriad ways for
the welfare of beings. While not mere gods -- who for all their powers are
just another class of unawakened sentient being -- they assume the form of
gods (lha’i rnam par shar ba) for the benefit of others.
Tibetan Buddhists regard these gods, whether of the unawakened or awakened
variety, as conscious, autonomous beings, every bit as real as you or I.
The Dalai Lama, who so successfully presents Buddhism in the Western media
as rational, pragmatic and compatible with modern psychology and science,
appears to believe in the power of these gods. In a statement issued in
English by the Tibetan government in exile in 1996, he is quoted from a
speech to an audience of Tibetans as saying: “It has become fairly clear
that Dolgyal (i.e. Shugden) is a spirit of the dark forces.”
The
Dalai Lama is not speaking here as a modern religious leader trying to
persuade some of his superstitious flock to relinquish an outdated world
view. He is engaged in an emotive debate about whether a particular god is
a powerful but deluded sentient being or a buddha who has assumed the form
of a god. Such is the perceived power of Dorje Shugden that both Gelukpas
who invoke him and Nyingmapas who fear him are told not even to let his
name pass their lips. This atmosphere of secrecy and implicit danger
serves to affirm for Tibetan Buddhists their view of an invisible
polytheistic reality intersecting with the human world.
Although this worldview may be unfamiliar, it is not intrinsically
stranger than that of Christians and other religious believers who lack
the exotic prestige Tibetan lamas have for Westerners. The main difference
between it and other religious worldviews is that Buddhists know all these
gods to be empty of any inherent reality. Everything, they would say, is
merely an appearance as ephemeral and insubstantial as a dream. Such
statements have led some in the West to assume that the gods of Tibetan
Buddhism are no more than archetypal symbols: they perform a psychological
function in the process of spiritual transformation, but only the naive
would say they represent beings independent of the practitioner’s own
mind. Yet however useful this kind of Jungian interpretation may be, it is
not how most Tibetan lamas understand the world they inhabit.
For
gods to be empty of inherent existence does not mean that they cannot be
autonomous beings capable of making choices and existing in their own
heavenly realms. In this sense they are no different from humans, who are
likewise empty but perfectly capable of making decisions and living their
own unique and fallible lives. The doctrine of emptiness only teaches us
to see ourselves and the world in a way that frees us from the reification
and egoism that generate anguish. To say the world is empty neither
affirms nor denies the claims of any cosmological theory, be it that of
ancient India or modern astrophysics.
To
establish an authentic Buddhist state on the basis of this vision,
however, requires ensuring that a correct view of emptiness be upheld by
those in power. Such responsibility would be a necessary outcome of the
bodhisattva’s compassionate resolve. For this reason, the Fifth Dalai
Lama’s government proscribed the teachings of the Jonangpa school, who
taught that emptiness implied a transcendent absolute reality which
inherently exists (gzhan stong). Texts of the school were confiscated and
its monasteries turned over to the Gelukpa. It seems other factions in the
Geluk order would have liked to have taken similar measures against the
Nyingma school.
In
order to honor the historical heritage of Tibet, to affirm unity among the
diverse communities of the Tibetan nation, even to be true to their own
spiritual intuitions, one can understand why the Dalai Lamas would
tolerate and even embrace Nyingma views. But however justified this might
be in personal or political terms, it should not obscure the real and
potentially divisive philosophical and doctrinal differences that exist
between the Nyingma and Geluk ideologies.
The
Nyingma teaching of Dzogchen regards awareness (rig pa) as the innate
self-cognizant foundation of both samsara and nirvana. Rig pa is the
intrinsic, uncontrived nature of mind, which a Dzogchen master is capable
of directly pointing out to his students. For the Nyingmapa Dzogchen
represents the very apogee of what the Buddha taught, whereas Tsongkhapa’s
view of emptiness as just a negation (med ‘gag) of inherent existence,
implying no transcendent reality, verges on nihilism.
For
the Gelukpas, though, Dzogchen succumbs to the opposite extreme: that of
delusively clinging to something permanent and self-existent as the basis
of reality. They see Dzogchen as a return to the Hindu ideas that
Buddhists resisted in India, and a residue of the Chan (Zen) doctrine of
Hvashang Mahayana, proscribed at the time of the early kings. Moreover,
some Kagyu and Nyingma teachers of the Rime (“Impartial”) revival movement
in Eastern Tibet in the 19th century even began to promote a synthesis
between the forbidden Jonangpa philosophy and the practice of Dzogchen.
For
the followers of Shugden this is not an obscure metaphysical disagreement,
but a life and death struggle for truth in which the destiny of all
sentient beings is at stake. The bodhisattva vow, taken by every Tibetan
Buddhist, is a commitment to lead all beings to the end of anguish and the
realization of buddhahood. Following Tsongkhapa, the Gelukpas maintain
that the only way to achieve this is to understand non-conceptually that
nothing whatsoever inherently exists. Any residue, however subtle, of an
attachment to inherent existence works against the bodhisattva’s aim and
perpetuates the very anguish he or she seeks to dispel.
Moreover, protectors such as Dorje Shugden exert an enormous power over
the minds of Tibetan Buddhists--be they erudite lamas, simple Bhutanese
peasants or educated Westerners. While lamas teach that the taking of
refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the only protection a Buddhist
requires, they invariably supplement this with initiations into and
practices of a range of protector gods. After all, the “Land of Snows”
could be a harsh and frightening place. Tibetans lived in an awesome,
sparsely inhabited landscape with a fierce climate, psychically populated
by numerous spirits, demons and gods. The very survival of communities
required a powerful sense of family, tribal and religious loyalty. In a
modern, psychological sense, Dorje Shugden could be seen as the
personification of a specific set of fears and loyalties in the form of a
god. But for Tibetan Buddhists he is not just a metaphor; he is a real,
living god/buddha whose displeasure can wreak havoc on human beings.
At a
certain point in their practice, those who rely on Dorje Shugden will
ritually “entrust their lives” (srog gtad) to him. This is not a step
taken lightly. When the present Dalai Lama (who chose not to take this
step himself) requests people to renounce Shugden, he both challenges a
deeply felt loyalty and raises the possibility of frightful retribution.
“Nothing will happen,” he has had to reassure Tibetans. “I will face the
challenge.... No harm will befall you.”
Although some Gelukpas have heeded his advice, others have not. For those
loyal to Dorje Shugden could well believe that the misfortunes to have
befallen the institution of the Dalai Lama, even the tragedy of Tibet in
the 20th century, are all due to a failure to heed the advice of their
protector who “reduces to particles of dust great beings, high officials
and ordinary people who pollute and corrupt the Geluk doctrine.” For the
Dalai Lama to denounce Dorje Shugden may confirm for them that he is
simply part of the problem.
***
Speaking of the British monarchy more than a hundred years ago, Walter
Bagehot warned of “letting daylight into magic.” This happens today as the
media peer into events that formerly only a handful of lamas and their
advisors would have been privy to. The arcane wrangling and intrigue
surrounding the reincarnations of the Karmapa and the Panchen Lama are
disseminated through newspapers, web sites, television and radio within
hours of having taken place, while grisly murders in Dharamsala lead to
Dorje Shugden being dissected on the pages of Newsweek. The Dalai Lama in
particular has used the media to great effect, but the fascination he has
both drawn upon and stimulated now threatens to turn the magic of Tibet
into mere spectacle.
If
we strip away the exotic veneer of this Tibetan Buddhist dispute, we are
confronted with questions which concern the very nature of the dharma and
its practice. In the West we are fond of portraying Buddhism as a
tolerant, rational, non-dogmatic and open-minded tradition. But how much
is this the result of liberal Western(ized) intellectuals seeking to
construct an image of Buddhism that simply confirms their own prejudices
and desires?
Historically, Buddhists everywhere have tended not to exhibit the
pluralist, postmodern values we might imagine them to possess. All
Buddhist traditions make claims to truth, and when those claims have
contradicted one another, then passionate, prolonged, even violent
disputes have ensued. All the more so is this the case in the polytheistic
buddhocracy of Tibet, where a very human dispute between different
doctrinal camps has also inevitably been a struggle among the gods. Each
side has invoked its own invisible beings for blessing and protection,
summoned its own oracles for guidance from them, and been convinced that
it was acting out of compassion for the welfare of all beings. Tibetan
lamas take their disputes seriously not merely because of short-term
political gain. Many of them act out of deep and sincere passion for what
they hold to be true.
Yet
history also teaches us that Buddhism possesses a remarkable capacity to
re-imagine itself in response to the challenges posed by new historical
and cultural situations. Its protean forms are testimony to the survival
of a way of life that has travelled throughout Asia and is now taking its
tentative first steps in America and Europe. If it is to survive, it will
have to find a way of preserving the heartfelt, single-minded commitment
at its core within multicultural societies that reject the totalizing and
potentially repressive demands of any single claim to truth.
First Published in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Vol. 7, no. 3. New York:
Spring 1998.
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